INTRODUCING THE

CRNDID WORLD OF

CHARLES M1NGUS ritiM \1 - CHARLES WE INSIST! MINGUS 'S - FREEDOMm HOW SUITE

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" PRESENTS "WE INSIST - , Cole "OTIS SPANN IS THE "- A CHARLES MINGUS-'-Forceful inter• man Hawkins, Olatunji. Jazz speaks great and pianist pretations of his own compositions. out for freedom in an original and authenticallycommurncates the truth A Jazz Classic! eloquent composition. of the blues. MONO 8005 STEREO 9005 MONO 8002 STEREO 9002 MONO 8001 STtREO 9001

NANCY HARROW-"WILD WOMEN RICHARD WILLIAMS —"NEW HORN "THE WORLD OF CECIL TAYLOR" DON'T HAVE THE BLUES." A swing• IN TOWN." A distinguished new horn — An adventurous experimenter who ing experience as a lusty new voice with sweeping lyricism and technical begins where others end. interprets superb standards. brilliance. MONO 8006 STEREO 9006 MONO 8008 STEREO 9008 MONO 8003 STEREO 9003 WILD WOMEN I RICHARD WILLIAM | DON'T HAVE S i HE WORLD OF THE BLUES IEW HORN IN TOWI CECIL TAYLOR - "Is, J "Jk I

Editors: Volume 4 / Number 1 / January 1961 Martin Williams Contributing Editor: Gunther Schuller 4 One More Time: The Travels of Count Basil Publisher: Hsio Wen Shih Nat Hentoff Art Director: Bob Cato 10 . A Biography in Interviews The Jazz Review is published monthly by The Jazz Review Inc.. 124 White St.. Bob Reisner N. Y. 13. N. Y. Entire contents copy• 12 Dizzy on Charlie Parker right 1960 by The Jazz Review Inc. Israel Young and Leonard Feldman were Felix Manskleid among the founders of the Jazz Review. Price per copy 50c. One year's subscription 14 Bndd Johnson, Part II $5.00. Two year's subscription $9.00. Unsolicited manuscripts and illustrations should be accompanied by a stamped, self- addressed envelope. Reasonable care will be RECORD REVIEWS taken with all manuscripts and illustrations, 19 by Jack Cooke but the Jazz Review can take no responsi• bility for unsolicited material. 21 by Michael James Tubby Hayes by Michael James 22 The Jazz Modes by Henry Woodfin by by Herb Pilhofer 23 by Harvey Pekar Furry Lewis by Dick Weisman 24 by Harvey Pekar Red Prysock-Sil Austin by Harvey Pekar 25 - by Martin Williams Max Roach by Henry Woodfin 26 by H. A. Woodfin by Harvey Pekar by Martin Williams 27 by H. A. Woodfin 28 and by Martin Williams Blind Lemon Jefferson and by J. S. Shipman 29 Newport All Stars by H. A. Woodfin 30 Saxes, Inc. by Herb Pilhofer The Rocking Fifties by LeRoi Jones 31 Shorter Reviews by I. W. Stone and Max Harrison

33 Jan In Print by Hsio Wen Shih

BOOK REVIEWS 35 The Book of Negro Folklore and The Idiom of the People by Mimi Clar 36 Martin Williams' King Joe Oliver by J. S. Shipman

37 Jazz on British Radio t Television by David Griffiths TRAVELS OF COUNT BAS IE

The jazz hero is an indigenous American phenomenon. There are European and even Asian counterparts, but they invariably fade into the admiring background when an American quasi-legend comes through on a concert tour. In America as well, the more renowned jazzmen also assume a myth-like aureole in the imaginations of many of their followers. Although more listeners past thirty are remaining interested in jazz, the majority of the jazz audience is still young and impressionable, in search of more venturesome gods than they find at home or in politics. Until recently, most of the writing about jazz has shown what a British critic has called a "sports page" penchant for romanticizing the music and its players. Even now, comparatively little explora• tion is being done on who the players actually are off the stand, why they have chosen the itinerant jazz life, and what kinds of interpersonal relationships are created in that crowded microcosm, bus. Partly because they have learned what their public role is supposed to be and partly because they protectively prefer to keep some of their feelings to themselves, several of the most established jazz performers are enigmas, even to their friends. , for example, wears so many masks that some of his intimates wonder if his own face has not all but disappeared. is not just the grinning clown he appears to be on television. Those who have heard his dressing room talk—which occasionally makes Long John Silver sound like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm—were not surprised when "Satchmo" attacked President Eisenhower so bitterly about Little Rock. Yet Armstrong too can be suddenly unpredictable and secretive, even to musicians who have known him a long time. No member of the jazz pantheon, however, smiles so much and says so little as .

Nat Hentoff

4

rolled into Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where they were due at a college dance that night. Some went into a restaurant, and others found a small tavern. In the tavern, the musicians were refused service. Basie walked up to the manager, looked at him icily, and said, "You want us to go out in the street and drink it? You want us to get arrested for breaking the law?" The manager was shaken but stubborn, and the musicians decided to at least leave a memory behind. The biggest men in the band, "The Killers"—Eddie Jones, Billy Mitchell, Henry Coker—began to roam around the tavern like lions deciding just which part of their prey they'd savor first. Basie watched the scene, made no move to stop it, and in fact, quite evidently enjoyed the morality play. In the past year, Basie has become more vocal about civil rights and this spring, for instance, publicly en• dorsed the sit-in movement of Southern Negro students as a "beautiful" development. Referring to the pres• sures on the students, he added: "They're trying to knock us down, but we get right up again." Basie is also an admirer of Martin Luther King: "Like the cats "Nobody knows Bill Basie really," says one musician would put it, he's saying something." who has been working with him for years. "He keeps There has also been a relaxation of caution in Basie's in most of what he feels, and the Basie he presents to handling of the band's rebellion against playing the the public is the one we usually see too. Once in a same night after night. He has yielded while he'll explode or do something else that isn't in to the sidemen's pressure and has begun to program keeping with the customary picture of him, but he more originals by , , . always quickly picks up his familiar role." Basie also occasionally allows men in the band to call Although the 1960 Basie unit has become heavy and a tune. Almost invariably, they'll call a new number. predictable with its increasing acceptance, musicians "But if we don't play it well," says a reedman, "it'll be of all ages and styles congregate wherever it plays for a long time before the guy who calls it will be asked the basic physical pleasure of being seized by the mass to again." of driving emotion the band unleashes. Basie's role in general as disciplinarian reflects the Nobody as bland as the public Basie could have been mixture of strength and reserve that characterize nearly responsible for such irrepressibly vigorous music. Al• everything he does. The "straw boss," the man who though they find Basie himself a puzzle, his sidemen handles the rehearsals and is in charge of minor disci• have no difficulty recognizing what he contributes to plinary problems, is reed section leader Marshall Royal. their playing. "The band doesn't feel good until he's Royal is an indifferent soloist, but he is personally up there," explains former Basie trombonist and ar• self-confident and efficient. Final decisions, however, ranger, Johnny Mandel. "He makes everybody play dif• are always made by Basie, and if Royal exceeds his ferently. And not just with his own band. I was working authority, Basie immediately steps in. with a bad band had in 1945. One night, It's the feeling of , Basie's drummer from 1936- Basie sat in, and suddenly we all came alive." 48, that a major influence on Basie's conception of Yet the irresistible strength Basie projects as a musi• leadership was the late midwestern band leader, Bennie cian and organizer clashes with the caution that has Moten. After an apprenticeship in where Basie also been pervasive in his life. Like the more sophis• was befriended by and influenced by the ticated and more mocking Ellington, Basie will engage reigning pianists—Lucky Roberts, James P. in no public controversies with critics, club owners or Johnson, Willie "The Lion" Smith, and Abba Labba— booking offices. He is exceedingly cautious in the ar• Basie toured for a time with vaudeville shows. Stranded rangements he will allow his band to play. If the in the midwest in 1927, when he was 23, Basie played musicians have difficulty in reading a new score the for silent movies in City, joined 's first or second time through, he is apt to reject it. He Blue Devils (the best of the territory bands there), and is a much fleeter pianist than he lets on, but he pre• moved over to the Bennie Moten band before the Page fers to sustain the image of himself as a functional unit was absorbed by Moten. band player, not a soloist. "Bennie" recalls Jo Jones, "was cool. He didn't brow• The caution is not without strain. Like all Negro musi• beat his men. Whenever Bennie wanted something cians, Basie is bitter about conditions — done, he'd call the band together, and he'd always filling station operators in New England as well as the speak softly enough so that you had to hear him. After midwest who lock the men's room as the bus ap• it was all over, he'd produce a gallon of whiskey." proaches; unpredictable restaurants; towns like Las Basie is also cool, until provoked beyond patience. Vegas, where only headlining Negros can stay in the Most of the time, however, even his rages are somewhat hotels where they play. Basie and his men rarely staged. "The cursing usually seems controlled," notes demonstrate when they run into prejudice. They go a sideman. "Sometimes, if we've been goofing at a somewhere else. rehearsal, he'll ask any women present to leave the But one afternoon about three years ago, the band room, and then he'll blow up. But always, after the

6 steam is out, he'll make some kind of funny crack so Herblock. Jones' campaign of passive contempt was in we'll know he's not still mad." protest at the fact that Basie never assigned him any Whenever possible, Basie tries to mask his anger in solos. play. During the last set one early morning at Birdland Jones was fired finally because, as a section mate says when only a few people were in the room, Eddie "Lock• with satisfaction, "he drank too much water." Jones jaw" Davis, the featured tenor soloist at the time, was was a clubhouse lawyer, and occasionally complained "catting" with a young lady at ringside, sending eye• to the musicians' union about overtime disputes. He brow signals for a later tryst. Basie became increasingly went one time too often. irritated and finally, with a smile, wadded up an ar• The jazz trade press is notoriously poor at reporting, rangement and conked Davis hard on the head. and so it has never been revealed in print that Jones A man who represses as much emotion as Basie does has not been in summoning Basie to the union. needs to let some of it out to avoid ulcers or hyper• Basie is quite close about money. He has to be pres• tension. One of Basie's indirect methods of expelling sured over a long period of time into a raise, and he aggression is to try to catch his men off-guard. "If a deals with each man in the band individually in a guy comes in juiced," says an aggrieved player divide-and-conquer technique that lessens the possibil• who has been the target of several Basie curves, "Basie ity of a mass mutiny about basic pay. Basie was not is likely to call a number on which that guy is featured." always so close a kin to Silas Marner, but he has been "If he's been having trouble with somebody," adds mulcted outrageously in his years as a leader. another employee, "he'll catch him by calling a num• John Hammond has written about Basie's first Decca ber with a tough solo before the guy has had a chance contract in 1936 which called for 24 sides and an ex• to warm up." clusive three year contract for a total payment of $750 Of all of his contemporaries, Basie is most in awe of without a cent of royalty. Hammond later complained Duke Ellington. He has held Duke's suave elegance to the union, and Basie was raised to scale, but he's as a model for himself, a model he knows he doesn't never received any royalties from his big early hits— have the temperament to emulate convincingly. But the One O'clock Jump, Swinging the Blues, etc. two leaders are alike in their extreme reluctance to It took Basie many years to learn financial caution. fire a musician. The discipline in Ellington's band has He had a series of rapacious personal managers. Rela• always been remarkably lax. Basie actually runs a tively unconcerned with bookkeeping details, Basie was tighter crew, but he too has to be driven to acute a "professional bailer" during the thirties and forties, irritation before applying the guillotine. hanging out with his men after hours and generally In recent years, the three most notable firings were of exploring the pleasures and challenges of hedonism. drummer Gus Johnson, reed player Bill Graham, and "When he woke up," says a friend, "he had no band, trumpeter Reunald Jones, Senior. No one—in or out no wardrobe, no money. The managers had swimming of the band—is clear as to exactly why Basie fired pools." Basie disbanded and toured with a small group Johnson, the best drummer he's had since Jo Jones. in 1950 and 1951, mainly to pay off his debts. So sus• The consensus is that Basie felt the band needed some picious was he in the first years of the new "flash" and accordingly, he fired Johnson to replace him that for a time he was the paymaster himself. with Sonny Payne, who is inclined to keep sending up Basie has held on to his recent profits, investing part rockets when the music calls for subtle illumination. of them in his informal Harlem night club, Count Basie's The men have long been disturbed at Payne's playing. at 132nd Street and Seventh Avenue. Some members of Although he will not admit it publicly, Basie realizes the band feel that while Basie is entitled to save for that he made a mistake. But Basie is not likely to retirement, so are they. In the spring of 1959, the band dismiss Payne unless Sonny becomes a disciplinary was flown down and back to an all-night dance and problem. Basie did look on approvingly during a period breakfast given by for visiting stu• when guitarist Freddie Greene, annoyed by Payne's dents of communications at the Miami Disc Jockeys' tendency to rush the beat, kept a long stick on stand Convention. The sidemen complained to the union that with which he poked the drummer when the beat began they were paid less than had been agreed. They won. to run away. "We always win," says the band's unofficial shop stew• ard. "It happens once or twice a year, but there's no Saxophonist Billy Graham, an extrovert and a prankster, strain afterwards. It's as if it never happened." "played himself out of the band," as one of his fellow There are sidemen who are embarrassed at the trips roisterers put it. "Billy was not only too playful, but to the union, and blame not Basie but his booking he used to get a little too familiar with Chief himself. office. "That Miami business," says Thad Jones, "wasn't He'd even heckle Basie on the bandstand. As usually Basie's fault. The office should have taken care of it happens when a guy goes, Billy got the news during a before we left." layoff. When we came back, he just wasn't there." The patrician Reunald Jones, Senior, was quite a differ• The band as a whole is more social and has less cliques ent case. For several years, Jones, who has the bearing than most big bands. Many of the men spend their of a British officer in pre-Gandhi India, was the most spare time together, and until fairly recently, Basie conspicuous member of the band. Seated at the ex• traveled in the bus with his sidemen all the time, as treme left end of the trumpet section, Jones was always he had in the thirties and forties. The present band one level higher than his colleagues. He played with is composed of tough professionals. They have team one hand, as if in derision of the simplicity of the pride, but as one says, "it takes quite a lot to really music. When the rest of the section would rise in excite us. We've been in the business a long time, unison, Jones invariably remained seated. His expres• mostly for a lot of glory and no money. We still want sion—no matter how much joking was going on among a certain amount of recognition, but we won't stand the men—was constantly like Richard Nixon reading on our heads for it. We're at our best under strain—on

7 an opening night or any night when important people home, I usually get up about 10:30, go downstairs, put are in the crowd." on the set, and fall asleep by it, because it is so Basie has picked his men carefully. He is concerned relaxing." He's up again by noon to start with the with a man's temperament as wefl as his musical ability, re-runs of Western movies. "I especially like playing and will not knowingly Kire a congenital complainer because the shows start earlier there, and nor anyone who is addicted to narcotics. The Basie that gives me an extra hour." band is the cleanest of all the big bands, a rather Basie is most drawn to Have Gun, Will Travel and difficult feat when, as one leader said recently, "I'd Wagon Train, both of which specialize in fast tough have trouble getting a full band together of first-rate action. musicians without at least a few having their problems." Another solitary pleasure for Basie is model trains. The Just as he has greater capacity as a pianist than he basement of his home contains an extensive train indicates, so Basie's organizing capacity is more network that might even impress Lucius Beebe. Upstairs impressive than is generally realized. "Think of what is a further avocation, a Hammond organ. His St. Albans, he was able to do in 1953," says Jo Jones. "He'd lost Long Island, house is ample but unostentatious. Basie, all of the band, and yet he was able to remember guys his wife, and their fifteen-year-old daughter, Diane have he'd heard that he'd liked, take some other suggestions, lived there for some fourteen years. Catherine Basie fuse them into a unit, and take over the whole band first met the pianist in Philadelphia during an Eastern business." tour of the Bennie Moten band, when Catherine was Basie as an organizer is also in evidence at rehearsals. one of the dancing Whitman Sisters. Sitting on the sidelines, he'll stop the band, make In contrast to her husband, Catherine Basie is a brisk, changes—usually cuts—and otherwise shape a score energetic clubwoman who hurls herself into an into the Basie vein. He does not read music easily and astonishingly full round of activities. She is on the prefers to absorb a new score by ear, but once he has boards of nearly a dozen organizations, works for the it down, it becomes inescapably his—and the band's. Urban League and the National Conference of Christians Age is beginning to tell on Basie, not so much in any and Jews, and is actively involved in local politics. diminution in his pleasure in playing, but in his after- Although Basie has now publicly supported the sit-ins, hours pursuits. "We used to go to sessions," remembers he avoids political stands. When a newsman asked him vocalist of the first Basie band, "or recently whom he'd support for president, Basie referred to people's homes, and drink and sing. Basie was a the question to his wife. pretty nice singer, a more or less baritone. We were Basie is beginning to talk rather vaguely about plans all like brothers." to drastically curtail his traveling and spend more Basie still socializes after hours with his men on oc• time at home, but his wife and friends doubt if he'll casion, but his avocations are increasingly solitary. ever leave the trail. "He's a gypsy," trombonist Benny While there are some good golfers in the band—Freddie Powell believes, "and besides, he has too many friends Green would be a match for most professionals— all around." Basie's own golf clubs are seldom used. His major "They'll carry him to his grave from a road trip," adds outdoor activity is attending and playing the races. trumpeter . "He's like Louis Armstrong He's also much involved with the fortunes of the New that way. On the road, he can forget himself." York Yankees. Aside from' going to the track and ball It is true that while Basie is apt to become rather games, Basie is seldom gregarious in his pleasures. fretful when he's been in too long he's the He came from a family that emphasized respectability prototype of stoicism while traveling. "It's strange to and accomplishment. His father, Harvey Lee Basie, watch him in a crisis," says . "He lets who died in April, 1960, at 88, had been a gardener, and everybody else panic. We'll be doing a one-nighter, his mother was a domestic. Basie grew up in the Negro and everything will be going wrong. The bus breaks section of Red Bank, New Jersey, and learned early down; there's no time for dinner; we get to work late; how much dissembling was then necessary to "get on" the promoter is angry. Basie couldn't be calmer, and with whites. Besides, he was a shy child, and the con• funnier." sciousness of being a Negro probably intensified the "Basie," says another band member, "likes to have a shyness. His wife, Catherine, has known him since his cushion of privacy between him and everybody else. mid-twenties and remembers him as always having It's easier to do that on the road." been reserved. Once in a great while, Basie's public facade slips. "One As Basie grew older, he found an outlet for some of night at the Newport Festival," recalls pianist Billy his emotions in a certain amount of self-gratification— Taylor, "I saw Bill, off to one side, listening intently to food, liquor, sex—although characteristically, he has a modern combo. He seemed to be listening wistfully. seldom lost control in any of those areas. He also used The group was quite adventurous, much more so than to read to some extent in the days before television. his current band. Somebody interrupted Bill, and sud• On the way to a job or at home, he'll still go through the denly he was Count Basie again—the smile, the de• papers, scan the trade press with the musician's usual tachment. I just don't think he's as happy musically as skepticism and absorb such magazines as Jet He has he mostly convinces himself he is. There was more he a particular affection for the more violent comic books. wanted to do; but some time back, he decided to "Basie was disappointed," one band member says, play it safe." "when they started to clean up the comics, because they got rid of a lot of the shockers he liked so much." Television is Basie's favorite release, and he most The above article is a part of Nat Hentoff's forthcoming prefers what he terms the "fast draws". "It's the most book, The Jazz Life, to be published next spring by the relaxing thing in the world," he observes. "When I'm Dial Press.

8 a prejudiced club; , , Bird, Dizzy. The man told us all to come in through the back door that night, and these damn fools, they got to• gether and they came in the front door. The guy is wigged. They all come in the front door havin' a ball. He said, "I don't want you to fraternize with the cus• tomers." When Charlie got to the intermission, they all sat at the tables and the guy was about to wig. He told someone, "You gotta get this band the hell outta here." The guys were carrying on something fierce despite the fact that gangsters were walking around with big guns up on their hips. They didn't scare Bird or anyone. was drinking a glass of water. Out of one of the beautiful glasses they had to serve the cus• BIRD tomers. Bird walked over to him saying, "Did you drink out of this. Tadd?" Tadd says "Yeah." A Biography In Interviews by Bob Reisner Bam! He smashes it. "It's contaminated. Did you drink out of this one?" "Yeah," Tadd says. Bam. "It's contaminated." He broke about two dozen glasses. A guy was glaring at Bird; he just looked back coolly. "What do you want? Am I bothering you?" Bird asks "Are you crazy?" the guy asks. "Well, if you want to call me crazy." Then once again he turns to Tadd. "Did you drink out of this glass?" Bam. "Its contaminated." They put us out and put Jeeter-Pillows in our place at the Plantation and sent us to the Riviera, which was a colored club. There the band got started, and we went from there to and that's when I realized how great the man was. The Man stopped the show in Chicago. It was on a Art Blakey was a pianist until some under• Saturday night in 1944. Sarah was singing You Are My world characters decided that Errol Garner was going First Love. That man came out and took sixteen bars to replace him as pianist in a local nightclub. Art and stopped the show. The house was packed. People switched to drums, and in the years since, has become applauded so loud we couldn't go on. We had to do it one of the best and best known drummers in modern all over again. jazz. He was also with the Billy Eckstine band in 1943- He always was one for fun. The fellows were always 4, has visited Africa to broaden his knowledge of up to pranks. They'd ride up and down the hotel halls drumming, and since his return to the U.S., has led on broomsticks or have mock fights with swords — several small groups, all called the Jazz Messengers. him and Dizzy loved to do that. It's lonely in some There was a guy in 's band who towns, especially down South. Nobody understands you. said, "Man, you ought to hear this guy Charlie Parker." So we get together and have fun ourselves — spill "Man, he can't outplay Willie Smith?" water on each other, anything that boys (for that's "He can." what we were) would do just to keep things interesting. I got mad at this guy. He was a good guy. He gave a lot. In 1950-51 I was on A little while later we met Parker. I turned to my friend relief. In 1951 after my wife died, Bird, who had come and said, "Is this the bum you mean?" He wasn't in from the Coast, lent me $2000 just to help me out. dapper like a musician. He was wearing a pair of He was distressed by some of the idiots in the music slacks, a sweater and a beret. He looked too relaxed. business. You build all your life, and then you see it After that we'd meet in train stations while we were destroyed by fakers. going in different directions. He's so great he was easy A symbol to the Negro people? No. They don't even to meet. know him. They never heard of him and care less. A I left Fletcher Henderson's band in and I symbol to the musicians, yes. formed my own group, that became the house band There was no rivalry between the Baroness, Bird, at The Tic Toe Club. and myself. Nica is just a wonderful woman. A woman Billy Eckstine was forming his band and Dizzy said to first and a Baroness second. She wants to be witty. him, "There's a guy in Boston; this guy can play." Poor thing, she ain't so witty. We are very good friends, Billy said he knew me and that I was from his home but I stopped seeing her when stories got back to my town, but he had not heard me play. But he sent for daughters, and they sounded on me. me, and I came down to St. Louis, and there I met Bird died trying to kick his habit. He tried to kick it Bird, Billy, Sarah, Dizzy, the rest. We were playing in the wrong way, by drinking whiskey. The whiskey is the 3 7 V

9 thing that killed him. The heroin was preserving him — Okamulgee, Oklahoma, one of thirteen children of the heroin did not kill him. He tried to do what people Harry 'Doc' Pettiford, who led one of the most success• asked him to do, that's why he's not here today. After ful territory bands in the Southwest, a band in which a man shoots dope for fourteen years, how you gonna most of his talented children started playing. Pettiford stop him? His system cries for it. If he uses it, the worked with Charlie Barnet's band, and in 1943 he and heroin will preserve him, it won't destroy him. I know led a bop group, the first on 52nd he died trying to do what society asked him to do, Street, with , and Max which is impossible. Our society has to find out that Roach. Pettiford has worked with Duke Ellington, and the people who are using dope are not crazy or crimi• led his own groups, large and small. nal, they are sick people. This man had been sick for I got started at six, when I used to dance with my fourteen years and nobody would help him because father's band. When I was seventeen, I had a bit role they didn't know. They didn't know he was sick. They with Olson and Johnson in Minneapolis. Before I don't understand heroin. settled on bass, I played , trombone, and trumpet You do not play better with heroin but you do hear (which hurt my jaws), and I studied tailoring in case better. Bird said that he wanted to kick the habit so the music business ever got tough. that he could tell people what he heard. It is some• When I first met Parker he was with the Jay McShann thing like a neurotic. While he is suffering, he cannot band, and they came out to Minneapolis where I was produce; but reflecting about his pain, he can create. playing in my father's band; that was around 1940-41. Musicians who have been junkies and then rid them• I was around sixteen years old. Everyone, Jay and the selves of the habit, have sometimes really then come band, respected and loved Charlie Parker; he wasn't into their own musically. called Yardbird or Bird then. Everyone dug his play• ing; he had a happy sound. I saw him again in Earl Hines' band in 1943; they were in Chicago, and Diz was in the band too. I got word that time that I could be in a with Bird and Diz, and I walked two miles carrying my bass with• out gloves in ten below zero weather to the Ritz Hotel. It was a fine session. I remember a fellow named Red Cross taped the session. He works for Billy Eckstine; maybe he still has it. In 1943 I met Bird again. I was with the Charlie Barnet band, and we were playing at the Capitol Theatre. Bird was with the Earl Hines band playing at the Apollo Theatre. We were both registered at the Braddock Hotel on 126th Street and 8th Avenue. This was a hotei where a lot of musicians stayed in town. Bird and I did a lot of jamming at the hotel. He was writing a lot of things then. Dizzy Gillespie and I went looking up and down for work in 1943. We turned down $75 a week apiece offered by Kelly's Stables. I had worked at the Onyx club before, and I was good friends with the owner, Mike Westerman, so I asked him if I could be re-engaged. I was welcomed back gladly. I said "Make it a Diz group." And Diz said "Make it your group be• cause you got the job." So we made it the Gillespie- Pettiford group. We wanted Bird to come in the group, but he didn't have a union card. He never seemed to have a card. He didn't stay in town long enough. There's a local 802 regulation that says a musician must wait in town six months for his card. For the first three months he may be able to work at a steady job with union approval as long as he is in town. Bird was always broke, and he would have to work jobs out of town to make quick money. He continually bor• rowed. Dizzy always allotted part of his pay to him. Nobody ever expected it back — never got it. Nobody ever did. One musician said laughing, "To know Bird you got to pay your dues." I never knew Bird to lend money to anyone. Anyone. Once when I was flat, I asked for some of the money that Bird owed me. I never got it. He was so likeable that you didn't mind being gen• erous with him. The late Oscar Pettiford was a pioneer in modern jazz At this time Billy Eckstine and Dizzy Gillespie were and is unquestionably one of the great bassists in jazz Bird's closest friends. Bird dug Eckstine's singing very history. He was born on an Indian reservation at much.

10 Well, I think — I'm not saying this as absolutely sure — I think that his particular style, by the time he got to New York, had developed so rapidly that it didn't have much to do with what he was playing then. They told me he was mad with the older musicians who Felix Manskleid wouldn't let him play, so he was determined to upset everything, and he went in the woodshed, you know. When he got to New York was the next time I saw him. If I'd known you wanted to talk about Bird, I'd have brought Teddy Stewart, who knows all about what happened in the band there; he could tell you the real story about Charlie Parker at that time. I met Charlie Parker for the first time in 1939, when I How long was that, between the time you met him in was with . We were introduced by a Kansas Kansas City, and the time when he came to New York? City trumpet player, Buddy Anderson, one of the trum• It was 1939 or 40 in Kansas City. Then Oscar Pettiford pet players of that time who was trying to do something and I in 1942, early 1942, we sent him a telegram in new. I dug Buddy immediately. Kansas City to go into the Onyx Club with us. No, wait He tried to play chords that were making preparations a minute; in 1942, Charlie was playing tenor with Earl for going into another chord. He made up his own Hines' band. He came here before that in Jay Mc- variations on another chord. He was with the Jay Mc- Shann's band. Then he used to play in Monroe's Up• Shann band that time, you know, when they came to town, an after hours place. They had a terrific little New York. band there; they didn't have any music or anything, Was that so unusual then? Using these different but that was where I really started playing with him. chords? After that, I went with Earl Hines, '41 and '42. We needed Trumpet players at that time, they just didn't think like a tenor player, so we bought Yard a tenor, and he came players, like and people like into Earl's band to play tenor, and he played tenor all that. I mean, I didn't know any. There were trumpet through Earl Hines' band until we went with Billy players then who were doin' that maybe, but they Eckstine's band. weren't making recordings, and it wasn't so easy for Between 1939 and 1942, did people know what he was people to emulate their styles. trying to do? Does that mean you weren't so surprised to hear that Oh, he was getting a lot of publicity from musicians; kind of things from saxophone players? like Ben Webster sayin' "I can't believe it." Ben Web• Well, yeah. Saxophone players generally knew more ster was a big Charlie Parker fan. music than trumpet players. As a matter of fact, I When you became friendly with Charlie Parker, what didn't know any trumpet players at that time who were the human and musical ties between you? What played the piano. Many saxophone players could play did you talk about? the piano — in fact, there was Ben Webster, there was Well, he was full of ebullience; he had an extreme Don Byas, and , and Benny Carter; amount of energy, which all of us know, because he all those guys played piano too, you know. could stand off being sick and things like that. He was Would it have surprised you if a piano player played sturdy, very sturdy. He reminded me of a leaf, on a those chords? stream that's floating, but he had a definite, definite, No. Because in the , I think the piano has a purpose; knew exactly where he was goin'. He was little bit of an advantage for jazz, because you can dynamic — a very dynamic personality. just lay your hands on the keyboard of the piano, and Did he talk a lot about music? play a whole series of chords, just like that, but on a No, he wasn't a big conversationalist about music. trumpet you can't visualize it; it's very hard. But you could tell that he had that definiteness from Were there other trumpet players who used these the music he played. chords? But he would talk. Oh, he was a great talker — about There was a guy up in Toronto. He's become famous any subject you'd want to talk about. Like philosophy, since then, but not as a trumpet player — as a com• or if you wanted to talk about art he'd talk with you. poser, and arranger and conductor. His name is Robert Or if you wanted to talk about History — European His• Farnon. He was doing — I'm not surprised at him, I tory, African History, or Middle Ages or Stone Age knew there was going to be great things for him — but History. Oh, he knew about current events and things he was playing at this time, when I was with like that. Cab Calloway. , Choo Berry, , He was a profound thinker, you see. Sometimes he most of those fellows, would go over to this guy's would get into a room, he'd be off in the woodshed, house in 1939, way before he went overseas; funny wouldn't see anybody; I guess that was meditation. thing, I've been hearing about this Robert Farnon, but Do you believe that it is possible to determine in the I never connected him with Bob Farnon, the cornet musical history of jazz the exact role played by Dizzy player I knew. Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Clarke and Monk and others? When you met Parker through Buddy Anderson, what Each one of us knows the exact role that each one, were you doing at the time? the individual, has played. But all you can do is hope I was staying at the Booker T. Hotel in Kansas City that history — but you see, you can't. You see, history when I met him one afternoon. is a history of newspapers and things like that, and Was he playing the same way then, as he did when you know you have to take newspapers with a grain he came to New York? of salt. i 7 y

11

But I don't think it was that way with us; I think it was piano. Some guy came up and slipped me a quarter, more a question of embellishing one another. Yes, and asked me to play something, but I didn't pay him embellishing one another. And the knowledge was com• any mind; just went on foolin' with the piano. After ing that way. Because many times, I've sat with Charlie the job, I met this same guy, and he had a bottle, and Parker, and I'd play something, and he'd say, "What he hit me with this bottle. I had to have six stitches was that?" And I'd say, "Well, I do this because I want put into the back of my head. Charlie Parker saw me to do this." And same thing; I'd say to him, "Well, why with all this blood coming out of me, and he walk up is that?", and he'd say; and I'd say, "Oh." And you get to this guy, and he yelled "You have taken advantage knowledge like that. And Monk the same way. of my friend — you cur!" You see, I had no formal musical training. There were How would you describe the evolution of Charlie Park• many musicians — many musicians — who knew har• er's playing? monically more than I did. Like ; I I wouldn't attempt to. I'm not a scholar — not a lingual played with him in Philadelphia. I've known Charlie scholar. If I spent my time trying to figure out why, to Shavers longer than I've known Charlie Parker. I played wonder about why, I wouldn't have any time to play with Charlie Shavers in 1935, way before I even came music. to New York. How would you describe the evolution of jazz from the Did Charlie Parker have formal musical training? time when you started out, and Charlie Parker started I don't know; they tell me no. I don't think he had any out, until the time you had arrived and actually were either. But he had that background. You don't get known, and you had created something? things out of the air. Take Charlie Parker; you say You don't have any set time or place where any one "Charlie, play the blues." He'd play the blues Just like thing happened in music. It's such a big picture — you a blind man. He could play the blues with that emo• got to take it in terms of alto sax, in terms of tenor tion, that blue feeling. sax, in terms of trumpet . . . How can you say what Some of us have that and some of us don't. You see, started what or ? he uses notes that aren't there. That's all. They are You should get a bunch of guys who were with us at not there. You try to find them, you can't find them. the time and ask them to remember what happened. I'm going to look into that myself, because you get so It's very hard to remember. You might be putting your• much emotion in a cry. I mean if somebody sometime self on. All the original guys know exactly who con• just cry. And then in a moan there's emotion; there's tributed what. One guy who has been sadly neglected a clipped, clipped accent — there's emotion — fiery. in the history of mpdern music, I think, is Oscar You sit down long enough, you do everything, run the Pettiford. gamut of emotion. Charlie Parker and I, we started out of the same kind But you must have that kind of background. If you're of music, but our styles are different. going to be in jazz, you got to know the history of it. One thing that is different now, most soloists now Did you have opportunity to play frequently with Char• know how to play piano — most of the best ones. It's lie Parker? very important because it is the basic instrument of Oh, yes. Oh yes, of course we made records together; Western music, the piano gives you the key. When you and we played together in Earl Hines' band; we played know that, you can branch out to other instruments. with Eckstine; we played on 52nd Street together; we It gives you a wonderful perspective. played in California together; and then after 1946, we But you can't say it was a new thing. We all were just played spasmodically together. You know that's working on the same chords, the same notes that something, we haven't played together, Charlie Parker everybody worked on from before. It was just a different and I, I mean we haven't worked together since 1946. approach. It takes lots of little things that when they I'll tell you one time, during wartime, we had a record are added up, many, many, many, many of them, they date. There was Charlie Parker, Don Byas, Trummy add up to a great abundance. Young; let's see who was the rhythm section — Clyde When was the last time you saw Charlie Parker? Hart, I think Oscar Pettiford; I don't remember who the The last time I saw him was at Basin Street, just be• drummer was, and Rubber Legs Williams on vocals. We fore he died, about two or three weeks before. were doing some blues things with Rubber Legs. This Would you say that his style or his energy or his was the big thing; Teddy Reig set that up. So we got creativity was deteriorated in the last years? there; we were playin'; so finally, everybody had been No. Oh, no. No. I don't see how creativity can deterio• up all night or something like that. At that time, the rate. Physically, if Charlie Parker, or Tatum, or any• kick was, you know those Benzedrine inhalers? You body, walk out on the stage under the influence of take one and break it up, you get some coffee or some• anything, drunk or anything, they're not going to do thing and let it dissolve a little bit, and you drink it up. their best. I don't care who it is; you need a sober You can stay up two, three days. And Rubber Legs, he mind and you need physical prowess. But deteriorate! didn't smoke or drink — he was completely without You just sober up and there it is. With Charlie Parker, vices. Charlie dropped that thing in his coffee, and as great a genius as he was, you speak in terms of Rubber Legs drank that coffee, and boy, after that, he Charlie Parker, you can't speak in terms of somebody was singing and cryin' and moanin'. Hah! And Rubber else. He's unpredictable—you can't speak of him as Legs didn't know what was wrong with himself. you would an ordinary musician. Another time when we were in Pine Bluffs, Arkansas, He was very, very special, and you have to treat him in with Earl Hines, and I remember, during intermission, a very, very special way. you couldn't go out in the audience where people were He wasn't declining, not to me, not when I heard him dancing; you were with the band, supposed to stay on play. Last time I heard him play, he wasn't declining, stage. I was just sittin' at the piano, fooling with the not to me. Not to me, man. :i s i

13 PART II

As time went on, I kept close to Earl's band and got to be very close with several of the guys, including Cecil Irwin, a tenor man and one of the great arrangers of that time. A very unfortunate thing happened; Cecil was killed in an automobile Occident, and Earl called for me. I'll never forget that. I joined the band on May 10, 1935 at tne Orpheum Theatre in St. Paul. I was thrilled and sad at the same time, because I'd thought Cecil was such a wonderful guy. When I got in the band it didn't always seem to click to me, and they were out of tune. Earl wasn't too well liked around Chicago then because of his attitude. The guys used to say, "Who does he think he is?" and he wouldn't always be able to get the best new guys. After a while he left all the hiring and the firing to me, but I had come and gone once by that time. In 1937 I came to New York as the chief arranger for Gus Arnheim's band. was playing piano with Gus then, and he had a nice band. They played at the Hotel New Yorker for the Ice Frolics. I didn't do any playing with the band, but made all his arrangements. He was rec• ording a whole bunch of Alec Wilder tunes then and a bunch of pops. When I came back in 1938, Ed Fox, who was the manager of the Grand Terrace, was pressuring Earl. Walter Fuller, and some of the others quit. Fuller later took them and formed his own band. Fox had power of attorney and he came over to the Grand Terrace to impound the music. We memorized the whole book and had them locked up in a vault. When Fox and the police arrived to grab our books, they got the surprise of their lives, because there wasn't any music in sight. We really had to go out on

Frank Driggs our own then, because after that, Earl split with Fox music. and we had to get together and do some thinking. I left Earl on December 22, 1942 and Bird took my I told Earl, "Look, Ed Fox was okeh, but he wasn't place on tenor. Most of the guys were going in the building Earl Hines all this time. Now you know these service then, so Dizzy and Bird were in. Billy Eckstine guys too, so why don't we write them for some engage• was the cause of them coming in the band, because ments." Earl did that while I rehearsed the band. We he used to talk about them all the time. I came home couldn't get very much because Fox had always gotten then because my son was born. After that, I joined Al a small guarantee and a large percentage, so we'd get Sears for a USO tour. We had three tenors with Lester around $200. Pretty soon, Earl was able to get some and he used to get burned up because Al got so much money aside, and we got a bus and new uniforms and applause when he played. Then I joined Dizzy on 52nd things like that and went out on some one-nighters. Street. Things worked out pretty well after that, because he This is how I got that job: Ben Webster left Duke when left me in charge of the band and set up officers, just they were going into the old Hurricane Club. Don Byas like a business. That was the beginning of his greatest who had the job with Dizzy was supposed to take Ben's band, because we had , Robert "Little place and he told me to take the job with Dizzy. I Sax" Crowder, Willie Randall, Streamline Ewing, Ed rehearsed that night and took the job. It turned out Sims, and George Dixon on trumpet, alto and baritone. that Don didn't get the job with Duke, did. Dixon was the key man in the band, because he could Dizzy and the other guys liked me so I stayed. play almost every instrument well. Whenever I'd come to New York with Earl we used to A little before that, King Kolax had the greatest combo go around to all the spots. I ran into Monk and he had in Chicago, playing at 55th and . He and Goon all these tunes of his that he was playing. A little, Gardner on alto were great, and he had Kansas Fields short trumpet player named Vic Coulsen was with him on drums. He was a terrific trumpet player himself, and all the guys were scuffling trying to play them at sort of on the Charlie Shavers model. It was about Monroe's. Only a few guys could play this music. I 1939. A bunch of us were all standing at the bar drink• had a fair technique and a good command of my horn ing early one morning and in comes this raggedy bum. and I used to scuffle trying to play their stuff. No one You know the type of guy they used to draw in the else could then. papers to represent the Dodgers? Well, that's When I was on 52nd Street with Dizzy we were playing the way this guy looked. He walked up to Goon and those unison-line things that became so famous on asked if he could play his horn. In those days any way records later on. Oscar Pettiford and I told him to the guys could get off the stand to kibitz with the girls write them down, but we had to do it ourselves. They was fine, so Goon said, sure, come on. This guy started were the basis of the style then. I'd always kept up on playing alto and you never heard anything like it in all the reeds and rehearsing with them for that job your life. He was making everything and we stood there made me work very hard. That was true of Earl's band flabbergasted. It was Charlie Parker and he'd just too, because he let me pretty much alone in choosing hoboed into town and didn't have anything. When the the guys, because he wanted to stay with whatever was set was over Goon ran over to him and said, "Man, happening in music. In fact, the only time I ever saw where've you been, playing that way?" Bird told him him thrown was once when Art Tatum was playing. he'd just got into town. Goon have him the horn that But he needn't have been because great as Art was, night, because he had another one. I didn't know Bird Earl had his own thing and it was just as good. in Kansas City, because he was just a little kid way Uwas doing a lot of writing for Boyd Raeburn and Billy back then. Eckstine around 1945 and I joined Billy after Dizzy in Earl's new band, Pee Wee Jackson was the top left to form his own band. I went with them to the trumpet man-for sdos. Each guy had a different thing coast when they played the Plantation Club. I made to do. was in and out of the band for one or two records with them on National and made a couple of years, and he used to do all the sweet and arrangements on Rhythm In a Riff and I'm In the Mood pretty things when he was there. He couldn't play too For Love and one on Airmail Special which was for a fast and he didn't have the range that Pee Wee did, transcription agency. That was really a wild bunch, and but he played modern — it was different, but it wasn't they were very disorganized. I had to work very . He had such a big, beautiful sound and a wonder• on them to get them to stay in line. I only stayed with ful interpretation so he never had to play in any speci• the band about six months and spent about the same fic style. He didn't really come into his own until after amount of time with Cab Calloway playing alto. Sam he left Earl. Taylor was playing tenor. I went back to Earl for about Shorty McConnell was quite a man. We got him from a month in 1947 just before he broke up his big band. Buffalo, which was Tommy Enoch's home town. I'd I was making a whole lot of records then, some com• known him from Chicago before that and he was play• mercial ones for Victor, and a lot of jazz dates. I made ing some beautiful stuff. I'd call a rehearsal and call some sides for Victor with Hawk, and the beat off and Shorty would still be looking at his J. J. Johnson and played some alto on them. part. He couldn't read so I wondered what I was going Snub Mosley and I went to Europe in 1952 for some to do. I wasn't worried about teaching him how to read USO tours and we went over very well. He is a great because I knew he had the ability and all he had to entertainer and performer in addition to being one of do was to get some short cut methods. He had a terrific the all-time best trombonists. I remember when we ear because he had to rely on it so much. He was very were in England and he couldn't count their money to religious, and very sincere, and we used to kid him all save his life. He'd shake his head and hold out his the time. He couldn't take it, and he eventually left money, and boy, they'd rob him blind!

16 I was with in 1956 and went to Europe 24257) his solo utilizes space in much the same manner with Quincy's band last year. We did very well in that was later noted for and shows his Europe. I was surprised at the reception we got and ability to swing using the simplest of statements. I they all seemed to like my playing. I did a lot of believe he arrived at his own style at about the same soprano over there and we cut two albums which show time as Lester and independently. On Dusky Stevedore the band better than the ones made before they left. (Victor 24320) his solo owes more to Coleman Hawkins and I made a blues album with Bill than any other he was to play in years to come. Coleman for Polydor which was nice. I'll probably go Budd joined Earl Hines in the spring of 1935 right after back because I got some nice offers and I could really the death of tenor saxophonist-arranger Cecil Irwin, play what I wanted to over there. They appreciate you the director of the band. The group was not at its best more. Here I'm doing more writing than playing, which then, even with and , is all right, but I really like to play. I went into Bird- vocalist , and regular soloists Walter Fuller land with Jacquet this year a couple of times and Omer Simeon. When Vocalion signed Hines early and we really had a ball. He's a good friend of mine in 1937, Budd was contributing arrangements along with and we had tenor battles all night long. Mundy, and the band was beginning to swing more. I'm going to do an album later on this year for a nev> On Budd's interesting and driving of Piano- label. It's going to be a modern date and I'm going to logy (Vocalion 3501, Epic LN 3223) his solo follows play every reed instrument and do all the writing. It's Hines' and is marked by short riffs, swooping phrases something I've wanted to do for a long time now. and long lines — again parallelling Lester's work, but not imitating it. He is also heard to good advantage on the quartet version of Honeysuckle Rose (Vocalion 3586, Epic LN 3223) both in solo and interplay with Omer Simeon. The Hines band had a number of internal difficulties at this time, so Budd left to join Gus Arnheim as chief arranger for the rest of the year. He returned to Hines in 1938. Hines had pretty much given him carte blanche to hire and fire as he pleased, and, by the end of the year, he'd brought in drummer (whose associations went back to Walter Page's Blue Devils) and tenor man Robert "Little Sax" Crowder. In 1939 the band switched to a Bluebird contract, their most successful recording affiliation. Budd was contributing more and more arrangements to the book; by 1942 when the record ban set in, he'd written the arrangements for half the band's records. Nearly every man in the Hines band could take a satis• factory solo, and by 1941 Budd had added Harry "Pee Wee" Jackson and Maurice "Shorty" McConnell on , John "Streamline" Ewing, trombone; Gerald Valentine, trombone and arranger; Scoops Carry (that is the correct spelling) on alto; and Franz Jackson, tenor and arranger. But even with the tremendous popularity of its singer Billy Eckstine, the Hines band was never a big popular success. Budd's own fortunes seemed to parallel that of the band he was associated with for so long. Though he SELECTED BUDD JOHNSON DISCOGRAPHY went on to play an important part in building a modern band for Hines in the one which eventually became the Frank Driggs legendary 1943 band with Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker (Bird took Budd's chair on tenor in December, 1942) and , and later wrote down, with Budd made his first records with George Lee's Kansas Oscar Pettiford, the unison lines Oscar and Dizzy were City band late in 1929, when he was only nineteen. playing on 52nd Street in 1944. He seemed to slip into Paseo Street (Brunswick 7132), written and arranged obscurity while , and by , has an eight bar solo by Budd which other younger tenor players became popular. shows him to have been a tenor player of fluent techni• Budd's style was formed by the middle thirties but his que and an unusually light tone for that time. His ability enabled him to make the change to modern jazz style already seemed personal and original, and he during the forties. He wrote arrangements for Boyd seemed to owe little to Coleman Hawkins, Prince Robin• Raeburn and Eckstine during this period, as well as son, or other established tenor soloists of the time. playing with and directing the Eckstine band. On two Budd left Kansas City in 1932 to join his trombonist rare transcriptions the Eckstine band made at the brother Keg in Chicago. In 1933 they both joined Louis Plantation Club in Hollywood in 1945, Budd and Gene Armstrong's orchestra and recorded several times with Ammons take the choruses on Blowin' the Blues Away the band that spring. On Some Sweet Day (Victor (Budd won) and on a fantastic arrangement of Airmail

17 Special. He has an alto solo on Jumpin' For Jane with Tantalizing a Cuban*, Bluebird 10792; New York, June 1940. Coleman Hawkins (Victor LJM 1017), and he wrote and Same personnel except replaces Milton Fletcher. arranged with the late Clyde Hart Bu-Dee-Daht that Jelly, Jelly*, Bluebird 11065; Hollywood, December 1940. Hawkins recorded for Apollo on the first modern jazz Harry Jackson, Rostelle Reese, Leroy White, trumpets; Ed Fant, Joe McLewis, John Ewing, trombones; George Dixon, trumpet, alto, baritone; in 1944. Leroy Harris, Scoops Carry, Willie Randall, Franz Jackson, Budd John• Perhaps it was because Budd was able to move easily son, reeds; Hines, piano; Hurley Ramey, guitar; , bass; in and out of every school of jazz that he was never Alvin Burroughs, drums. identified with any one group in jazz or has been Windy City Jive, Bluebird 11329; Hollywood, August 1941. passed off as derivative — which is a mistake one Yellow Fire, Bluebird 11308; same date. could not make if his records are listened to carefully. Harry Jackson, Tommy Enoch, Freddy Webster, trumpets; George Hunt, Budd's tone today is the lean tone associated with trombone replaces John Ewing; Buddy Taylor, drums replaces Bur• Prez, but during his years with Earl Hines, and earlier roughs; all other personnel same. with Armstrong and George E. Lee, it was fuller, al• Second Balcony Jump, Bluebird 11567; New York, March 1942. though not nearly enough to place him as a follower Harry Jackson, Shorty McConnell, Jesse Miller, trumpets; George Hunt, of Hawk. In his solos, his devices parallel those of Gerald Valentine, Joe McLewis, trombones; replaces Ramey; all other personnel same. Lester rather than Hawk's; he tended to play long and flowing lines, utilizing rests and combinations of short EARL HINES QUARTET: and long phrases much in the manner Lester did. Honeysuckle Rose, Epic LN 3223; New York, February 1937. Lester and Budd came from a similar background — Budd Johnson, tenor; Omer Simeon, clarinet; Hines, piano; Wallace the fine territory bands and rapidly developing musi• Bishop drums. cianship in the Southwest which was later to produce , and Charlie Parker; ORCHESTRA: it had already produced , Lester and Budd. Rock Hill Special, Camden 517; Chicago, October 1938. When Lester made his great impact on musicians and Walter Fuller, trumpet; Omer Simeon, George Oldham, Robert Crowder, the public in 1937-38, Basie's band was recording more Budd Johnson, reeds; Lionel Hampton, Spencer Adams, piano; Jesse Simpkins, bass; Alvin Burroughs, drums. sides than Hines. Lester also made thirty-eight sides with Teddy Wilson and Billie Holiday, and other sides COLEMAN HAWKINS ORCHESTRA: with Benny Goodman and with the Kansas City Six on Bu-Dee-Daht*, Apollo 752; New York, February 1944. Commodore. Budd's only recordings away from the Ed Vanderveer, Vic Coulson, Dizzy Gillespie, trumpets; Budd Johnson, Hines band were three titles with Lionel Hampton late Leonard Lowry, Coleman Hawkins, Ray Abrams, Don Byas, Leo Parker, in 1938. This comparison is not intended to demean reeds; Clyde Hart, piano; Oscar Pettiford, bass; Max Roach, drums. Lester, nor to place Budd ahead of him — that can't be done — but I hope we will make some room for BILLY ECKSTINE ORCHESTRA: Budd Johnson's achievements during those important Rhythm in a Riff*, National 9014; New York, March 1945. years. Gail Brockman, Marion Hazel, Shorty McConnell, Fats Navarro, trum• pets; Howard Scott, Taswell Baird, Alfred Outcalt, Gerald Valentine, trombones; John Jackson, , Dexter Gordon, Budd Johnson, GEORGE E. LEE ORCHESTRA: Leo Parker, reeds; John Malachi, piano; Connie Wainright, guitar; Paseo Street, Brunswick Br 7132. Kansas City, Nov. 1929. , bass; Art Blakey, drums. Billy Eckstine, vocals and Sam Utterbuck, Harold Knox, trumpets; , trombone; valve trombone. Clarence Taylor, Herman Walder, Budd Johnson, reeds; , Blowin' the Blues Away, transcription; Hollywood, summer piano; Charles Rousseau, guitar, banjo,- Clint Weaver, tuba; Pete 1945. Woods, drums; Jesse Stone, arranger. Airmail Special*, transcription; same date. Gene Ammons replaces Dexter Gordon; all other personnel the same. LOUIS ARMSTRONG ORCHESTRA: Some Sweet Day, Victor 24257. Chicago, April 1933. COLEMAN HAWKINS ORCHESTRA: Louis Armstrong, Elmer Whitlock, Zilner Randolph, trumpets; Keg John• Jumpin' for Jane, Victor LJM 1017; New York, December 1947. son, trombone; Scoville Brown, George Oldham, Budd Johnson, reeds; Fats Navarro, trumpet; J. J. Johnson, trombone; Budd Johnson, alto; Teddy Wilson, piano; Mike McKendrick, banjo; Bill Oldham, bass; Yank Coleman Hawkins, tenor; Marion DiVeta, baritone; , piano; Porter, drums. , guitar; Jack Lesburg, bass; Max Roach, drums. Dusky Stevedore, Victor 24320. Same personnel except , piano; Bob Yasquirre, bass; Harry ORCHESTRA: Dial, drums. La vie en rose, Jubilee; New York, August 1950. Benny Green, trombone; Budd Johnson, tenor; Jimmy Jones, piano; EARL HINES ORCHESTRA: John Collins, guitar; Tommy Potter, bass; , drums. Pianology*, Epic LN 3223; New York, February 1937. Wilton Fletcher, Charlie Allen, Walter Fuller, trumpets; Lewis Taylor, BUDD JOHNSON ORCHESTRA: Trummy Young, Kenneth Stuart, trombones; Omer Simeon, Darnell A la Mode*, Felsted FAJ 7007; New York, February 1958. Howard, Budd Johnson, reeds; Earl Hines, piano: Lawrence Dixon, Charlie Shavers, trumpet; Budd Johnson, tenor; , piano; Joe guitar; , bass; , drums. Benjamin, bass; Jo Jones, drums. Grand Terrace Shuffle*. Bluebird 10351; New York, July 1939. Leave Room in your Heart for Me*, Felsted FAJ 7007; same Father Steps In*, Bluebird 10377; same date. date. Milton Fletcher, Ed Sims, Walter Fuller, trumpets; George Dixon, Add , trombone; Al Sears, baritone; Burt Keyes, piano, trumpet, alto; Ed Burke, Joe McLewis, John Ewing, trombones; Omer organ, replaces Ray Bryant. Simeon, Leroy Harris, Budd Johnson, Robert Crowder, reeds; Hines, piano; Claude Roberts, guitar; Quinn Wilson, bass; Alvin Burroughs, drums. 'Arrangements by Budd Johnson.

18 RECORD REVIEWS

MILES DAVIS: "Sketches of Spain." which also has its roots in a folk scores to realize how little Davis's Columbia CL 1480. tune. Not unnaturally, as a result, tone owes to jazz tradition, and how Miles Davis, trumpet and ffugelhorn with the album is almost entirely removed well suited it is to the musical orchestra conducted by . from jazz as such. To be sure, one wilderness which Evans has chosen Concierto de Aranjuez; Will o' the Wisp; hears a steady beat from time to to inhabit. The complement of The Pan Piper; Saeta; Solea. time; some jazz musicians are used trumpet and orchestra is perfectly in the orchestra; and much of Davis's demonstrated in the first part of part is pure improvisation, yet all the Concierto, a slow and stately This is the third Ip Davis has recorded these elements can be found in other discursion in which the sound hangs in collaboration with Gil Evans, and musics, and the use of any one or like that well-known "cloud" which anyone whose enthusiasm was aroused all of them does not necessarily Evans has discussed in connection by the first two will find no quarrel make jazz. with the Claude Thornhill orchestra. with this release. Yet, although The first track, and the longest Castenets introduce the second "Sketches of Spain" is undoubtedly piece in the album is Concierto de section which finds Davis in mute; the best in the series so far, it Aranjuez, which is actually Evans' pizzicato bass states the rhythm nonetheless suggests some pertinent extension and rewriting of the second and furnishes some link with the questions about the range, depth movement from the work of the world of jazz, while the castanets and artistic validity of the Davis-Evans same name for guitar and orchestra and other percussion, though exten• collaborations as a whole. Evans by Rodrigo. This performance contains sively used in this section, are used is unquestionably an extremely skilled all the faults and virtues to be largely for their tonal value rather orchestrator, and in this direction found in the work of Davis and Evans. than as rhythmic instruments. he has produced his best work on The opening statement is typical The first theme is restated by full this occasion; the sounds he obtains of Evans, a subtle many-faceted orchestra, and is a quite remarkable from this orchestra are complex crescendo; adorned by castanets piece of scoring, full of tiny jewelled and subtle, and one can have little it introduces Davis's theme statement faces, and very similar in effect to doubt that they are precisely the over the orchestra. Evans uses an the work of Frederick Delius; in fact, the sounds he means to get. But orchestra composed almost entirely this final section has much of the underlying this meticulous writing of brass and woodwinds to establish ' atmosphere of Walk to the Paradise is the fact that there is really no a sonority somewhere between the Garden, and is much nearer to such original material used in the a I bum- jazz band and the symphony music than to jazz. that Evans is not composing. His ensemble. This striking timbre Will o' the Wisp is a single statement work, though it abounds in crafts• represents Evans' only real achieve• by Davis, with an added rhythmic manship and formal elegance, does ment, an achievement no less real figure by the orchestra, of Cancion not have the direction or emotional for being set in a no man's land del Fuego Fatuo, from De Fa I la's conviction of the compositions of between the European concert platform El Amor Brujo, followed by a roaming a Monk or a Mingus. and the American jazz performance. and dissonant coda built around "Miles Ahead," the first album Evans Here Evans is not a composer then; the orchestral figure which plainly and Davis recorded together after he is purely a creator of sound. shows Evans' real lack of any com• the 1948 Capitol sessions, utilized In this half-lit world, the playing positional powers. a melange of popular songs, light of Miles Davis is perfectly in context, concert material and a solitary The second side of the Ip consists matching the sound of the orchestra of three folk melodies which Evans Evans original. The second album with an equally personal, and was entirely based upon Gershwin's has reorchestrated to form a remark• equally esoteric, tone which, removed able and satisfying suite, much somewhat shaky "folk-opera," and from jazz surroundings of his own the present recording draws upon of which has more connection with small group, ceases to have any jazz the jazz world than the first side. the Guitar Concerto of Joaquin Rodrigo significance and becomes merely a for the major section of this album, On Pan Piper, Davis opens muted unique noise. One has only to and out of tempo against a background and for the rest, reworks three folk imagine Louis Armstrong or Charlie melodies and a piece by De Falla of flutes; the rhythm is introduced Parker playing against one of Evans' once again on bass, and woodwind

19 A smash follow-up to their first album! and are at their superlative best as they lead their romping, polished group through such varied moods as Blues On Down and My Funny Valentine to Con Alma and The Cool One. Modern jazz at its very best. Argo LP 672

A

fFIMDED

RAMSEY LEWIS Recorded in live performance for the first time, this is the Trio in its real element. Surging and heady stuff, this, and all marked by the distinctive individual contri• butions of Ramsey at the piano, , bass, and Red Holt, drums. The only album ever recorded at The Blue Note. Argo LP 671

MILT BUCKNER Milt's second Argo album is another buoyant exhi• bition of his bubbling humor, sure skill, and unerring ear for a fetching melodic line. This is how an organ is supposed to be played. Argo LP 670

ROLAND KIRK Said Down Beat: "He has all the wild, untutored quality of a street musician coupled with the subtlety of a modern jazz man." Predicts Argo: "He'll be 2120 S. Michigan Ave. the most talked about new-star jazzman of 1961." Argo LP 669 Chicago 16, HI. Available in stereo, of course, at no extra charge. and trumpet take up a repetitive failing at anything deeper than figure, against which Davis develops technical interest. Beyond the elegance bLOesviLLe an adequate solo. An astonishing and the dazzling haze of sound, THE PRESTIGE/BLUESVILLE LABEL piece follows, the Saeta. There, bassoon nothing remains. IS DEDICATED, AS THE NAME IM• introduces a passage by snare drum Jack Cooke PLIES, TO BLUES. ON THIS LABEL, and tambourine which is, in turn, WE WILL BE PRESENTING SOME enlarged by a trumpet call, cleverly OF THE GREAT OLD TIME BLUES varied to introduce different lines "PETE FOUNTAIN Salutes the Great for each man in the section. Davis Clarinetists." Coral CRL 57333. SINGERS AS WELL AS SOME OF then takes over and delivers his Pete Fountain, clarinet; with orchestra THE NEW BLUES SINGERS THAT solo against a background of sub• directed by Charles Bud Dant. WE BELIEVE WILL SOME DAY dued and sustained chords from Woodchoppers' Ball; Petite Fleur, Some• CARRY ON THE GREAT BLUES the woodwind punctuated by the times I'm Happy; Frenesi; When my Baby TRADITION AND BECOME THE percussion. At the end of his solo Smiles at Me- March of the Bob Cats; BLUES LEADERS OF TOMORROW. the percussion returns and strikes Begin the Beguine; Me and My Shadow; THE BLUESVILLE LABEL WAS up its march beat once more, and to Green Eyes; Let's Dance; My Inspiration; ESTABLISHED FOR the sounds of trumpets the percussion Amapola. BLUES FANS AND FOLK FANS, moves along its way. This is, I think, In other contexts Fountain has the most successful track on the HOWEVER, IT IS ALSO BEING EN• shown himse/f to be a more than JOYED BY LOVERS OF OTHER album, and certainly contains the capable improviser, but here he most spectacular moments. And if turns in a series of extremely dreary GOOD MUSIC. he had done nothing else, Evans performances, rarely deviating from The following is a list of all Blues- here managed to capture something the melodies as written. The scores ville releases to date: of the Spanish character. are conceived primarily as a backdrop, 1001— HEAR MY BLUES-AL SMITH The final selection, Solea, comes are played in a dull and mechanical nearer than anything else to being way, and in their utter lack of 1002— DOWN HOME BLUES jazz. It uses a steady rhythm laid enterprise confirm that the production BROWNIE McGHEE and down by bass and percussion, and of the record was solely a commercial SONNY TERRY essays the most elaborate solo of the undertaking. syncopated phrasing and implied Michael James 1003— WILLIE'S BLUES double-time from the melody WILLIE DIXON, vocals — instruments which one might expect MEMPHIS SLIM, piano from a jazz performance. Davis here TUBBY HAYES: "Tubby's Groove" says the most elaborate solo of the Tempo TAP 29. 1004— PERSON TO PERSON Ip, attempting some of the effects Tubby Hayes, vibes, tenor sax; Terry Shannon, MILDRED ANDERSON (Vocal) obtained by the Andalusian singers; piano,- , bass; , drums. 1005— BLUES & FOLK — BROWNIE however his comparatively straight Tin Tin Daeo; Embers; Like Someone in tone, with its absence of Love; The Surrey with the Fringe on Top; McGHEE and SONNY TERRY and lack of vocalisation, which had Sunny Monday; Blue Hayes. 1006— THE RETURN OF stood him in such good stead Tubby is a twenty-five-year-old ROOSEVELT SYKES throughout the album, leaves him Londoner previously heard on Dizzy rather helpless in his quest for such Reece's "Blues in Trinity" Ip. "Tubby's 1007— BLUES by LONNIE JOHNSON overt emotion. The work of men Groove" represents a striking advance 1008— GOOD TIMES—SHAKY JAKE like , Jackie McLean, in his thinking, and is a moving and 1009— VOL. 1 — and to some extent vital statement by any criterion. and the forgotten Clarence Shaw, An intelligent and sensitive performer, , JOHN immediately suggests a comparison he is fast welding elements from COLTRANE JACKIE McLEAN, on the same emotional level with Johnny Griffin and Sonny Rollins , FRANK these singers. With Davis, I hear only into a personal style. His magnificent straining after mere imitation. technique enables him to interpret FOSTER and others The impression which "Sketches of the most involved phrases with 1010— SOUL JAZZ VOL. 2 — Spain" gives is on the whole confidence. His tone, bold and GENE AMMONS, EDDIE satisfying. The music is at least one caressing by turns, is invariably step removed from the jazz idiom, well-suited to his melodic substance. "LOCKJAW" DAVIS, SHIRLEY and for much of the time considerably The emotional compass of his music SCOTT, WILLIS JACKSON, further away from its parent style. is a good deal wider than is general JACK McDUFF.BILL JENNINGS That the "sketches" grew out of with jazzmen of his generation, jazz seems incontrovertible; that it ranging from the romantic air of 1012—TAST Y BLUES by LITTLE has moved away without yet becoming Someone through the brooding comparable to European art music BROTHER MONTGOMERY Sunny Monday (a delightful tune 1013— MIDNIGHT SPECIAL by seems equally obvious. Clearly the by Chicago musician John Hines, genre is incomplete, for in any style with the main eights in 3/4) to the AL SMITH the work of the orchestrator is swashbuckling exuberance of Tin incomplete, without the essential 1014—TH E HONEY DRIPPER — Tin Oaeo and Surrey; the latter ROOSEVELT SYKES compositional basis, and the com• incidentally, is not a mere pastiche poser has not yet arrived in the of the Rollins version. Blue Hayes 1015—TH E HARLEM STREET SINGER field in which Gil Evans works. is an ultra-slow twelve-bar blues with - BLIND REV. GARY DAVIS The role of the soloist is considerably stop-time passages on which the , 1016— SLIM'S SHOUT — lessened. The soloist here is largely whole group plays with commendable an interpreter and only occasionally involvement. Hayes' one weakness SUNNYLAND SLIM a creator. The work of Evans, is an occasional repetitiveness in therefore, will perhaps become a \2' Hirli FitHitv Albums double-time, but especially in view SEND FOR FRLt CATALOGUE minor curiosity, attractive and repaying of his youth there is every likelihood study up to a point, yet in the end that he will overcome this failing. INC. 203 So W

Budd Johnson, tenor; Don Stovall, alto; On the band tracks Lips is a Johnson, piano; Shirley, guitar; Abe Bolar, tower of strength, leading the "THE JAZZ MODES." Atlantic 1306. bass; Jack 'the Bear' Parker, drums. ensembles, setting the riffs and , ; , Atomic Boogie; Back Room Blues; 1280 playing a few fierce growl choruses tenor; Gildo Mahones, piano; Martin Rivera, Stomp. Add , vocals; I May Be here and there. Lips' growl-and-plunger bass; Ron Jefferson, drums; Chino Pozo, Wonderful; Man Wanted. style bears little resemblance to the bongos; Eileen Gilbert, vocal on all but This Ip was culled from the defunct Miley-Williams kind, being more Knittin'. National label. It is not very earthy and violent. (The tender side Blue Flame; Knittin'; Glad That I Found important or even especially good, of Lips is not in evidence on this You; Princess. but it does represent a kind of album, nor is his wonderful singing). Add Sahib Shehab, baritone saxophone; rugged unpretentious jazz which Pete's boogie woogie on Atomic is Jimmy Wormworth replaces Jefferson; always has been and always will be the streamlined kind; the riffs keep Pozo out. around in one guise or another. things moving. The lugubrious The Oblong; 1-2-34-0 in Syncopation; Its mainstay is the blues and only introduction on Man Wanted is Mood in Motion; This 'N That. two tracks here are not blues. tongue-in-cheek and it gets to jump, No one can deny that all of the The best things are Lips Page's with a good chorus by Lips. participants here work hard and trumpet (not enough, but we must This one gives an interesting glimpse tastefully, and there seems to have be grateful, I suppose, for what of one kind of jazz of 1946, and some been a strong effort to mold a little we get of him on Ip); Pete's small indication of the prowess of unified group which would play real piano, not at its very best, but good; a great jazz trumpeter. Savoy would compositions. However, the result Nicholas' clarinet, another rarity on do well to reissue the good Lips is merely a rather sophisticated microgroove; Shirley's bluesy guitar sides with Big Sid and Byas and blowing session. and Parker's drumming. Ben is not Clyde Hart and the later ones with Neither of the two main soloists comfortable and growls too much. Bostic and . was then of sufficient caliber to Higginbotham is content to play Dan Morgenstern sustain interest. This Ip was made cliches with verve. Budd has too before Charlie Rouse joined Morfk, little solo space, but what he has and Rouse is today a better soloist again proves him to be a neglected LEE KONITZ: "You and Lee". Verve than he was here. He plays well in man with his own style. Stovall's MGV-8362. angular lines that are rather strictly alto is in a Hodges-Tab Smith groove Lee Konitz, alto; , guitar or bound to the beat, and rather slight with plenty of swing and nice sound. , piano; Sonny Dallas, bass; melodically. His work on Knittin' On Back Room Blues he plays an Roy Haynes, drums; brass section personnel is an effort that deserves commenda• interesting chorus with intimations not listed; all arrangements by tion, but as an improvisation it has of things to come. The rhythm is Jimmy Giuffre. thin melodic content. Watkins displays good throughout, but J. C. gets a Everything I've Got Belongs to You; little heavy here and there. There an overall mastery of his instrument You Don't Know What Love Is; are two sessions here, one an a&r and at least on Knittin' his work You're Driving Me Crazy; I Didn't Know man's concoction, with the add-an- has unity and point. About You, You're Clear Out of This World; instrument gimmick and the cute The scores and arrangements are The More I See You; You Are Too Beautiful; titles, the other a business date done with care, but the effort seems I'm Over You. wasted on material as basically wih an eye on the r-and-b market of the day. Etta Jones sings in a There seem to be two possi• trite as most of these numbers are. bilities-, this might be an attempt Princess and Mood in Motion (early, or Evil Girl Dinah) manner; nothing profound to integrate Jimmy Giuffre's pen are exempt from such criticism but and Lee Konitz's sax in a joint effort; their development does not do but with a nice beat and disarming manner. on the other hand, Verve may have justice to the possibilities. been thinking primarily of a way of Miss Gilbert's vocal contributions Man Wanted, is previously unreleased. presenting Konitz in a different are wordless. Outside of one or two The second date was better organized, setting. Either way it just doesn't possibile successes in the Ellington but solo spots, except for Pete, come off convincingly. The combination canon, I do not feel that this are short. of Giuffre's writing and Konitz's sort of thing has been done to any On his duet with J. C. Heard, Pete playing results in real musical real point other than a sort of proves the injustice of dubbing conflict. Their inherently different bland artiness. him a boogie woogie pianist; his musical conceptions gives this album It is not alone in the vocals that the roots are in Hines and James P. a kind of split personality, something Ellington style comes to mind. as well as in Kansas City Blues. like two different artists, each with Throughout the set there are traces Shirley's guitar blends interestingly his own brush and ideas, painting on and touches of Ellington that never with the piano and bass; his the same canvas at the same time. coalesce into a definite image. "humming" effect is personal and I have long been a fan of both these H. A. Woodfin distinctive. Al Hall is one of the musicians, but I don't think this most musical and reliable of bassists. joint effort measures up to anything Nicholas' singing tone has a nice they have done individually. I PETE JOHNSON: "Pete's Blues". edge, and his fluidity reminds me at hesitate to use comparison as a Savoy MG 14018. times of Bigard, although he is a means of criticism, but one can't Pete Johnson, piano; Pete's Lonesome Blues. less mannered player. Housewarming help noticing in this case how much

22 more homogeneous and integrated work; his solo on Billie Holiday's the Miles Davis-Gil Evans collabor• Don't Explain is full of passion. Land ations are—just to name one instance. writes well too. Ursula is a lovely Granted the Davis-Evans Ip's are theme and should become a part of more ambitious projects in many the jazz musician's repertoire. All respects (for instance, instrumentation his compositions have stimulating and form), still, their relative chord progressions. success stems mainly from the fact generally isn't up to that the two men are able to Land's standard here. His lyrical apprehend each other musically. solo in Ursula stands out, and he Giuffre supplies a kind of setting is calm and orderly on Terrain; that is rhythmically and melodically elsewhere, however, his melodic lines so far removed from Konitz's concept lack continuity. that it seems to straitjacket his also plays his best playing. An improviser in the truest solo in Ursula, which, you can gather, sense of the word, Lee is without is a wonderful track. Montgomery a doubt at his best in a simple, is a solid and thoughtful musician, uninvolved environment; that is, but on the basis of his work here, working with just a rhythm section I wouldn't say that Charlie Christian where his ability to weave and has been threatened. Perhaps he develop a line, with all the subtle doesn't get enough space. Here he complexities of his style, has the does note use the Django-like octave freedom it needs. technique which has won him praise. So many of the background figures is, for me, the star of Giuffre uses in his scoring (at times this set. His touch has grown fuller almost Basie-like) sound a trifle and more attractive; he is playing "square", edgy, and generally un• with more strength than ever,- his related to Lee's playing. His back• melodic sense remains wonderful grounds—even though at times and all his solos are excellent. He well-tinted with dissonance—are also picks out some lovely accompany• unamplified guitar ing chords on Terrain. Few pianists actually somewhat conventional, and Charlie Byrd has emerged as the most often in a "folkfunk" idiom out of can come close to him as a section exciting jazz artist of the past year. place here. man. His bursting-with-ideas spot on He is not a flash from nowhere who Giuffre's insistence on using muted Klacto is reminiscent of , suddenly exploded across the jazz hor- brass throughout makes for a although Harris is not as forceful and ison, but a well-trained, well-grounded sameness of color that wears thin, percussive as Powell. guitarist with the influences of both and there are no solos for the brass. ' playing here is more Segovia and Django Reinhardt. His sta• ture has grown steadily and solidly with However, one bright moment is a tasty and economical than his work with Cannonball. And each of his limited appearances away short, unaccompanied piano solo by from home base, Washington's Show• Bill Evans on You Don't Know What is Mr. Strongman as usual; his time boat Lounge. He was the sleeper of the Love Is. Guitarist Jim Hall and is perfect, his tone big and round. , and his recent pianist Evans—both sensitive and This Ip is one of the best things debut has earned him experienced accompanists—alternately to come out of California in years. an early re-booking. work with the excellent rhythm section Harvey Pekar Offbeat Records and its parent label, of Haynes and Dallas. Generally Washington Records, have prided them• speaking, Everything I've Got, Clear selves on finding music and artists of Out of This World, and portions unusual interest. Mr. Byrd with his un• of I'm Getting Sentimental Over You "FURRY LEWIS". Folkways FA 3823 A. amplified guitar has been a winner on are the best tracks, and then there is One could review this record either both counts. As Charles Byrd he re• You Are Too Beautiful as a musical production or as a corded 16th Century Guitar Music, Herb Pilhofer piece of folklore—the work of a man WR-411, and Roncalli Suites, WR-429. who grew up with the blues, but who, Starting with our first Byrd release according to the notes, has not sung superlatives flowed from the pens of almost every major jazz reviewer. HAROLD LAND: "West Coast Blues!" or played much in the last twenty Playboy calls Byrd "heir to Charlie Jazzland JLP20. years. Musically Lewis' abilities Christian's jazz throne." Joe Gordon, trumpet; Harold Land, tenor; vary. He has a fascinating style, JAZZ AT THE SHOWBOAT, OJ-3001 Wes Montgomery, guitar; Barry Harris, or variety of styles, on guitar, but his voice has a dry and montonous Chosen for basic piano; Sam Jones, bass; Louis Hayes, drums. jazz library. Ursula; Oon't Explain; Klactoveedsedsteen; quality, as though he were talking West Coast Blues; Terrain; Compulsion. rather than singing. His guitar BYRD IN THE WIND, OJ-3005 Harold Land, who leads this pickup technique in this album is rusty; Rates five stars in Downbeat. group, was raised in L.A., but had mistakes and fuzzy lines crop up to go East to find recognition— repeatedly. On two tracks the guitar JUST RELEASED! is out of tune; there can be no something that is true of many good CHARLIE BYRD TRIO, OJ-3006 Negro musicians born or raised in excuse for releasing East St. Louis Blues commercially. "One of the best jazz guitar LPs made California. Land plays with great by anyone." High Fidelity Magazine. vigor and sensitivity. His style is The poetry of Furry Lewis' songs is unusual by current blues standards, "Remarkable guitarist," Downbeat. "Jazz strongly influenced by Parker and pick of the Month," Hi-Fi and Stereo Rollins although he occasionally and is perhaps the most attractive Review. stretches on a chord like Coltrane. feature of the album. The version No tempo, fast or slow, bothers him. of Casey Jones that Lewis sings has He has the equipment: fast technique, marvelous lyrics and a beautiful available at better record stores or great drive and fairly good melodic guitar accompaniment. The right ideas. In recent years his tone has hand picking technique which OffiiAT RECORDS softened and that helps his ballad Lewis uses seems the predecessor a division of Washington Records

;s 9 L 1340 Conn. Aye. N. W., Washington 6, 0. C. at $4.98 each, postage paid. Fret catalog. 23 of the current white country guitar life story. RED PRYSOCK-SIL AUSTIN: "Battle styles of Merle Travis and Chet Atkins. Dick Weisman Royal". Mercury 20434. The thumb keeps a steady bass beat or rock 'n roll while the first and second fingers "SHELLY MANNE Quintet at the has been a whipping boy for almost pick out the melody or improvise Blackhawk, Volume I." Contemporary. as long as it has enjoyed popular around it on the treble strings. The Joe Gordon, trumpet; , tenor; success. Irate parents cite it as a effect is as though two guitars are , piano; , bass; cause for juvenile delinquency, some playing simultaneously. Shelly Manne, drums. music critics deny that it is even On four selections Lewis uses a Summertime; Our Delight; Poinciana; Blue music. People connected with jazz bottleneck worn on his little finger Daniel. generally divide into two camps. The to chord the guitar. After each sung The missionaries—Harold Land, first says that rock 'n' roll is valuable phrase the guitar repeats the melody, Dexter Gordon, and Carl Perkins- because it has a "beat" and may be and since the singing is often close have had a belated influence on the a stepping stone to jazz for listeners. to talking anyway, the effect is like West Coast Soft School. Shelly The second will have absolutely a two way conversation. Furry's Manne's group, for instance, is nothing to do with it. Poor ol' Dick guitar playing is imaginative; a nice almost where Clifford Brown-Max Clark used to be accused of being bass line appears on I'm Goin To Roach were several years a Pied Piper leading adolescents into Brownsville and a Lead belly-like bass ago. a sordid world of chewing gum figure on East St Louis Blues. Spoken Summertime is fine—the best and and backbeats. reminiscences on two tracks tell of most consistent track on the album. Granted that rock 'n' roll may Furry's experiences playing guitar Joe Gordon states the melody and stimulate a comparative handful of for a patent medicine salesman, takes the lead-off solo. His playing people to investigate jazz, but the working four hours a night for the is simple and moving; he must have vast majority will not get past it impressive sum of two dollars. He been thinking of Miles' conception because music is not as important tells of his first recording date in of the tune. Kamuca makes it too. to them as it is to some of the jazz Chicago, and the usual gallon of He has been listening to the East critics (who will not rest until whiskey. Although for the most part Coast tenors, and his phrasing is Miles and Monk make the hit parade) the interview is intelligent and tighter now and more on top of the and because contemporary jazz is effective, at one point Charters asks, beat. But his tone is still big and harder to understand than the music apparently in all seriousness, what thick and soft. He can play melodically of a swing band. To most people kind of bottle Lewis used for his well-organized solos if the tempo modern jazz is incoherent. They bottleneck playing, and Furry replies doesn't rush him. cannot understand the relationship that he used Royal Crown Cola Feldman's solo style draws on several between the original theme and the bottles. Shades of market seemingly contradictory sources but, variations. I think jazz is the most research! unlike Andre Previn or Pete Jolly, exciting thing happening in music I think that there were several he manages to convey real emotion. today, but what does a steelworker unfortunate mistakes in producing On Summertime he plays a two-chord coming home from an eight hour shift this record. For one thing the entire accompaniment reminiscent of Bill care about Rollins—or Shakespeare recording was made in just two Evan's ethereal approach. Then he or Stravinsky? visits, and almost entirely on the switches to a Red Garland approach, Rock 'n' roll is music for dancing. second visit. During the six month going into the upper reaches of the It gives kids a big fast beat, it has interval Lewis should have been keyboard. But Feldman's personality virility, and sometimes humor. It given access to a guitar so that he manages to assert itself through serves a healthy purpose. could practice. I also believe that the eclecticism. Perhaps it is Red Prysock and Si I Austin are two the cream of a singer's repertoire, because he really understands the outstanding exponents of the rock especially a sixty-year-old man who men he's chosen as models and and roll tenor. I'm not familiar with hasn't really played or sung in isn't afraid to take chances. On the their biographies but both sound twenty years, cannot be glimpsed in fast tunes—Poinciana and Our Delight as if they had a thorough jazz a single afternoon. More time should —he plays fairly commonplace ideas grounding. It sounds paradoxical but have been spent with the artist, but swings with great vigor, I think Lester Young may have had then perhaps a single record from and his left hand is very quite a bit of influence on this style. the repertoire of a lifetime would propulsive. It was he who discovered that tension make more sense. Joe Gordon begins Our Delight very could be buiit up by holding a note What we have in this recording is nicely with restrained, well-shaped through several chord changes— one beautiful track (Casey Jones), lines,-but he explodes too soon, one of the rockers' favorite devices. a number of adequate ones, and and repeats himself during the rest They start each number playing several that should not have been of the solo. Here Feldman, raining more or less straight jazz, then revert included for obvious musical reasons chords thick, hard, and fast, doesn't to squealing and honking. The rhythm (out-of-tune guitar, strained voice). help. His touch is almost brutal, section (which includes Kenny Was it really necessary to include and I don't think he is a very Burrell and ) gradually the rather commonplace version of sympathetic accompanist. Kamuca increases in volume until the tenors John Henry, probably the twentieth gets too much space here and on are almost drowned out. (Can't you or thirtieth such recording in the Poinciana. He swings, but doesn't see yourself on that dance floor with last ten years? Undoubtedly Charters sustain beyond two choruses. Blue your hair disheveled, swinging your was working with limited resources Daniel is a pretty waltz by Frank chick in a very hip fashion while of money and time, but perhaps the Rosolino. Gordon plays with small the crowd is stamping their feet and job is better postponed than but attractive tone and intense hollering, "Shake that thing"?) completed this way. We are left with attack. Prysock particularly impressed me in his opening chorus on Take the A a portrait of Furry Lewis that implies Manne plays extremely well Train. He has nice ideas and a sound rather than states his abilities. A throughout. What a wonderful similar to . Both men potentially fine musical experience is technician! Always inventive and play very infectiously. Maybe they're reduced to a dusty piece of folklore. always listening to the not serious when they start to squeal Charter's notes are more atmospheric soloist. than informative, in telling us Lewis' and honk but they're having fun. Harvey Pekar

24 Dave Francis uses a two, four rimshot I don't suppose that any hornman a lot like the one Ellington likes his who came along between Armstrong drummers to use. It's used more as and Lester Young showed as much an accent than a backbeat. rhythmic flexibility and variety as Frankly, I'd just as soon this music Red Allen did and does. When he was popular as some of the more puts all this in order, he is a insipid . beautiful improvisor, and his solo Harvey Pekar here on Tuxedo Junction shows it. Even when he darts and dances in one rhythmic, dynamic, harmonic or KID ORY-RED ALLEN: "We've Got melodic direction after another, there Rhythm". Verve MG V-1020. is a joy of surprise that makes one Kid Ory, trombone; Red Allen, trumpet; believe (for a while anyway) that Bob McCracken, clarinet; Cedric Heywood, symmetry and order are not the only piano; Frank Haggerty, guitar; Monty Corb, deeper pleasures. This running in bass; Alton Redd, drums; vocals on tracks several directions (Lazy River here 2 and 7. is an example) has been called Christopher Columbus; Some of These Days; evidence of a "lack of taste". I might I Got Rhythm; Come Back Sweet Papa; argue only with that choice of words, but I would rather save any such San; Tuxedo Junction; Lazy River. In California during the mid-forties description for his up-tempo Kid Ory had a jazz band mostly grandstanders (there are none here) composed of what were then called which seem to me just genial and " veterans". They made exuberant hollering. Even then—in beautiful and moving music, and I fact all the time—he is always and don't suppose I have ever heard only himself, with no apologies. A a more unified ensemble—a group rare quality. of men with such sureness and grace Most of Ory's solos are restatements in doing what they wanted to do— of the melodies (Sweet Papa, San, or a group with a more specific Some of These Day) with slight ability to project feeling artistically. changes which I don't think are And, although I have heard other effective one way or the other (as kinds of feeling and wider range of Armstrong or 's slight feeling in other instrumental jazz, changes definitely are). On I Got I don't suppose I have heard any Rhythm he tries for an invention but deeper feeling. It was feeling not has no ideas. Still, there are Tuxedo only exposed, but truely and Junction and Christopher Columbus. artistically transformed and ordered On Tuxedo, he takes a phrase which into musical expression. I expect is really a perceptive simplification that such disciplined group playing of the line and makes a solo of it. in that style is almost a lost art On Columbus, he takes a single now, and a very great loss it is. It simple invention on the chords and has been preserved on records, but spins it out into a one-chorus not on many of Ory's records, for in melody. Both are examples of how the studio the band seldom played to do something very lovely and very its singing, easy style but usually a valid with the simplest of materials. rather nervous . (There is I also think that in them we hear a Girls All Crazy on Decca that I a man facing what abilities he does think did capture the kind of have and what he can do, admitting ensemble feeling they could project what he can't, and proceeding to in person.) make music. Kid Ory is 74 and still Since then, Ory has led several kinds singing such lovely melodies as of groups, of course. those two! The differences between Red Allen's They've got rhythm indeed. Cedric style and Kid Ory's are much greater Heywood plays a kind of Southwestern than the difference between Red piano that also fits in very well with Allen's and Lester Young's. Red Allen this string-of-solos conception- is a soloist, not an ensemble better than an earlier piano style might improvisor; his lines are too active have, in fact. And, to contradict to be leads for this kind of polyphony, myself, the opening ensemble on and I doubt that Red Allen should Some of These Days is ever play in New Orleans ensembles lovely. (at least not very seriously). He can Alton Redd has a couple of vocals also find challenge in tunes with more that seem to me raucously mannered complicated structures than these. and forced. Why Redd? Red Allen I think that a program of Red Allen was there. improvising on medium and slow pop Martin Williams tunes with a good rhythm section could be one of the great delights in all of jazz. MAX ROACH: "Quiet As It's Kept". Red Allen could also give lessons to Mercury MG 20491. almost anyone in the use of dynamics Tommy Turrentine, trumpet; Stanley and of the range of the trumpet. Turrentine, tenor; , trombone; And in phrasing and rhythmic ease. Robert Boswell, bass; Max Roach, drums. General Manager: Pat Henry ;s 9 .!

25 Quiet as It's Kept; To Lady; Lotus Blossom; "The Happy Jazz of REX STEWART". been original since he first started As Long as You're Living; The More I See Prestige/Swingville 2006. recording thirty years ago. Modern You; Juliano. Rex Stewart, cornet, kazoo, vocals; John jazz has taught and Why has a musician as well endowed Dengler, bass saxophone, washboard, kazoo; Coleman Hawkins but could teach and as intelligent as Max Roach Wilbert Kirk, harmonica, tambourine; Tatum nothing—he had everything in never been able to form a group Jerome Darr, amplified guitar; Chauncey 1940. Yet most of his records are which would provide an adequate Westbrook, guitar; Charles Lampkin, drums. interesting only technically. outlet for his talents? A question as Red Ribbons; If I Could Me With You; Rasputin; I think that Tatum's conception of irksome as it is perplexing. None of Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone; jazz has more to do with Paul the various Roach groups has shown Four or Five Times; You Can Depend On Me; Whiteman than with Miles Davis. He a guiding conception which would San; I Would Do Most Anything for You; shifts voicing and tempo too often. make it anything more than a Tell Me; Nagaski. Granted he has a great left hand, loose, often uneven, collection of Duke Ellingteon was able to frame but the way he uses it detracts soloists in which the leader's skill and set off Stewart in a way that from his right. Teddy Wilson and was largely wasted. And while one drew the best from him, often with Nat Cole may use stride figures, but cannot deny historical importance to settings which required little more they do so more discreetly. Hines, the Roach-Brown unit, the than a simple directness of him. But, James P. Johnson, and Fats Waller unsatisfactory quality of most of its like , , played more right hand chords— recordings is now, I think, fairly and Lawrence Brown, whom Ellington their style was balanced. evident. Even with more mature also, in a sense, created, the limita• The interest of most pianists who soloists like Rollins and Dorham, tions of Stewart's style have become plays long single-note lines is there was still little of real, group apparent since he left Ellington. His horizontal. Tatum rarely plays a real achievement The succeeding groups forceful attack (which owes a great melodic line when he employs a have been even more diffuse and deal to the Armstrong of the Hot single-note style but plays scales unstable. Five period) has often had to and . He never lays out; compensate for conceptual failings he fills every rest, and he doesn't Unfortunately, this present quintet care about pace. The sad part is was not the hoped for exception, or a simple lack of ideas. This recording seems an attempt to that Tatum had melodic and the individual performers are not ability. yet skilled enough to maintain a* recreate the skifflish sounds of The consistently satisfactory level. Stanley Mound City Blues Blowers and I'd like to cite Tatum's solo on Turrentine is the strongest soloist similar groups; the result is rather I'm in the Mood for Love on Verve on this recording, but his work perversely archaic. Stewart shows up MG V8059 for comparison. The theme displays a vacillation among Parker, as a strong and crude soloist; his is stated simply. The second-chorus Hawkins, and Rollins—an instability contributions are forceful but do is pretty close to the melody. Tatum natural to a growing talent, of not, I think, repay close examination. takes off on the third chorus, piling course. Tommy Turrentine is still at However, John Dengler is exceptionally tension on tension, double timing to an almost formless stage in style, interesting on the bass saxophone. a final climax, then casually releasing and, while he seems to be a Miles He is amazingly agile on this clumsy the tension to a statement of the Davis follower, he does not articulate instrument, and if his ideas are melody. In the process he stretches his ideas with clarity. Julian Priester somewhat sketchy, they are expressed out on several chords like the most is disappointing throughout as he with great rhythmic ease and grace, modern musician. He shifts accents emulates the speed—and blandness— particularly on Tell Me and You Can brilliantly, now sitting right on the of the current J. J. Johnson without Depend On Me. beat, now anticipating it. He does attention to what it is he is being so I regret that his work seems the only it so off-handed ly that it leaves you fast and so bland about. positive feature on the record. The breathless. Roach is a further and surprising guitar passages from Darr and There is nothing on this set that disappointment. The usual subtlety Westbrook seem to me dull, while approaches that mastery. of his work is conspicuously absent, Lampkin's drumming is very back-beat Harvey Pekar and there is a quality of obvious conscious. Wilbert Kirk's harmonica pushing rather reminiscent of on If I Could Be With You does not Buddy Rich. belong on a jazz date, but it would JACK TEAGARDEN. "Jazz Maverick". However, in Robert Boswell this be fine on the soundtrack of a Jean Roulette R25119. group has a strong asset. He works Gabin film. Then there are kazoo Jack Teagarden, trombone and vocals; Don with a percussive and sharply defined solos. Goldie, trumpet and vocal on track 2; attack which provides an usually H. A. Woodfin , clarinet; , piano; full and deep background for the Stan Puis, bass; Ronnie Greb, drums. horns. Especially on To Lady and Ever Lovin' Baby; Aunt Hager's Country Home; Lotus Blossom this ability is ART TATUM: "Still More of the High Society-, Blue Dawn; -, impressive. Greatest Piano of Them All". Roundtable Romp; Ain't Cha Glad? While the failure of this recording Verve 8360. A Hundred Years from Today; Tin Roof Blues. is only too apparent, there is definite Art Tatum, solo piano. Like Armstrong, like Hines, like potential here besides Boswell's. I Won't Dance; I Can't Give You Anything Hawkins, Jack Teagarden survives indicates on The But Love; Lullaby in Rhythm; Out of Nowhere; from the mid-twenties into the sixties More I See and Quiet As It's Kept So Beats My Heart for You,- Moonglow; as a major jazzman, retaining a that he is finding his way; Julian I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues; It's Only vitality and integrity in his own style. Priester can do much more than he A Paper Moon; Sunny Side of the Street; But like so many jazzmen of all does here, and Tommy Turrentine Do Nothing till You Hear from Me. styles and all ages, he is not really has a still inchoate but growing Art Tatum illustrates the ambiguity a leader with a comprehensive group feeling for melody. of a word like "maturity" when conception, but a soloist; even more But none of this could replace the it is applied to anything but the than most he has suffered from lack of conception and overall group natural sciences. Tatum has a that fact, whether he was leading a purpose which still appears to plague luminous touch and the greatest "swing band" or a neo-dixieland group Roach himself. technique and harmonic imagination like this one. H. A. Woodfin of any jazz pianist, and his style has Jack Teagarden is a leader almost

26 solely because he is a major jazz in a few bars, he is building a improvisor. I think he should be melodic improvisation of original, r limited only by whatever material he cohesive line and calmly articulated blue note likes to play and sing—and sings feeling that sounds like wisdom THE FINEST IN JAZZ itself. and plays well—a proposition which k SINCE 1939 , can make it tough for him as a Martin Williams leader, and tough on the other members of his groups, even when they are, like several of these men, BEN WEBSTER: "Ben Webster Meets good musicians and flexible craftsmen ." Verve MG V-8349. to begin with. And his recent Ben Webster, tenor; Oscar Peterson, piano; recordings have paradoxically not , bass; Ed Thigpen, drums. reflected the great trombonist and The Touch of Your Lips; When Your Lover singer the way one would like to Has Gone; Bye Bye Blackbird; How Deep hear him. I don't know why this is so, is the Ocean; In the Wee Small Hours of the exactly, but repertoire and a kind Morning; Sunday; This Can't Be Love. of strange imbalance in assigning To many artists there comes, with age, solo space in instrumental a ripening of style which enables vehicles and a lack of appropriateness them to achieve statements of in his vocals seem to figure admirable succinctness and precision. in it. All they have to say seems to find its There are four vocals here, and all complete expression. One thinks of them sound rather uncomfortable of the late Yeats, the Bartok of the to me. Ever Lovin' Baby (her real Fourth Quartet, the Schoenberg of ART BLAKEY name -is Topsy), the name-dropping the String Trio; they found in age AND THE JAZZ MESSENGERS jazz novelty Aunt Hager's, Ain't Cha the power to order their conceptions in AT "THE JAZZ CORNER OF THE Glad, and especially A Hundred marvellously illuminating ways. But WORLD" Years from Today all seem taken a this ripeness is not found only in With , , Bobby little too slow for the pieces the work of the major creators, Timmons, Jymie Merritt. involved. and in the art of jazz Ben Webster BLUE NOTE 4016, Vol. 2 is an astonishing trumpet has certainly become one of these player. A friend says he plays "like masters for whom, in Edwin Muir's Phil Napoleon imitating Clifford phrase, "all effort is to ease refined". Brown", and it's a phrase I am~ Certain elements of his style represent willing to appropriate. All that a personal adaptation of Hawkins' technique and undisciplined methods. His rhythmic devices are exuberance are just the qualities the result of a deft molding of that will lead many to call him Hawkins' essentially rigid time "not really a jazz player"; on the patterns. His playing is not the other hand, I wish I knew of ten constant flow of arpeggios we have symphony men that sure of their time. come to expect from Hawkins, but He has a break on Riverboat Shuffle we can note the influence in certain that could only have been played by fast or medium tempo numbers one who understands jazz. (That where Webster does open up the piece is almost foolproof if you take chords in somewhat the same way. it at the pace But in the important things he has assigned to it. They do.) gone his own way, and his total If we are going to talk about the conception is the property of no HORACE-SCOPE possibilities of an interpretive jazz, one else. THE QUINTET With , Junior Cook, Gene then that remarkable pianist Don He possesses a sharp melodic sense, Ewell will be one of the first men Taylor, Roy Brooks. enhanced by his vibrato—a delicate BLUE NOTE 4042* to consider. He is now going back and expressive instrument in itself to some of his earlier models which punctuates and diminishes (Hines and Stacey) to fit into this or intensifies the force of the line. group. His introduction and solo on Each phrase of a solo is rhythmically Tin Roof are fine examples of a lifted and joined to the preceding player's discreet use of his own and succeeding parts by a subtle feelings to fit them to a given piece and discreet propulsion which moves and given group. away from and then back to the And it is a discreet use of feeling beat with an amazing suppleness that is probably the essence of and deceptive ease. The phrases Teagarden himself. On his solo in are wonderfully flexible, and lengths Ain't Cha Glad he shows again what are determined by the shape of the really florid sentiments and florid developing line. They are often lines he can handle as jazz, without broken by rests, which he uses to schmaltz, sentimentality, or mere lend greater impetus to his next decorativeness. There is also a phrase. At their best, his efforts wonderful series of events on High have an organic quality and a Society: Goldie has an engaging completeness that frustrates FUEGO solo based on the clarinet choruses description. And his deep devotion to DONALD BYRD in which he seems to say his art is immediately apparent in With Jackie McLean, Duke Pearson, "Gosharootie, looks like I can do every bar. Doug Watkins, . anything!" Then Teagarden re-enters For Webster this is a fine recording. BLUE NOTE 4026* with a fragment of the trio melody; The Touch of Your Lips has a *also available in Stereo a 9 Complete Catalog on Request , INC. 43 West 61st Street, New York' 23, N. Y. 27 splendidly paced and developed that magic melodic invention, that musical ideas and excitement. improvisation, and When Your Lover original and surprising way of phrasing, Rosetta is almost the leaping bravura Has Gone has a wonderfully airy that are Teddy Wilson. But what does Hines; Tea for Two has some real second chorus which did not pall matter is that that variation, and ideas behind the conventional and for me on persistent replaying. He so much of the rest of this Ip, flashy facade; so does Stealin' Apples is no less impressive on the other seems, not really perfunctory, but despite the rather rushed air. numbers, all of which contain lacking the joy and life of improvisation Willow is a well-proportioned set beautifully consistent solos. and discovery that Teddy Wilson's of musical and emotional variations. However, Verve has again chosen playing once had so uniquely. (Do Some things happen on The Song is Oscar Peterson to back him. His you know his solo on Body and Soul Ended too. Earl Hines is still a accompaniments are obvious, and with the Goodman trio, and his major jazzman. they miss the point of Webster's solo version?) It seems to me Martin Williams. playing. (Why not Jimmy Rowles or especially ironic that this could be Al Haig on Webster's dates?) In solo, said of Wilson, because one would Peterson plays nothing we have not think that there would be no tempta• heard from him before, often. tion for him to tone down his music "BLIND LEMON JEFFERSON Volume 2" Ray Brown, however, is a delight. to reach a new audience. For some Riverside RLP 12-136 When Peterson lays out on parts of time now he has been no longer The Black Snake Moan-, Stocking Feet Blues; Bye Bye Blackbird and leaves Brown hip with the youngsters. And I Chock House Blues; Broke and Hungry; alone behind Webster, a fine, edifying think it was apparent long ago, Chinch Bug Blues, Deceitful Brownskin Blues; coalescence of skills takes place. because of his unique gentle ways of Lonesome House Blues; Balky Mule Blues; Brown's solo work on The Touch of expressing himself, that he can Blind Lemon's Penitentiary Blues; That Black Your Lips and This Can't Be Love function before a rather chic club Moan #2; Long Distance Moan; Bakershop is equally exemplary. and record-buying audience just as Blues. I cannot see that Ed Thigpen does he is, playing his best. "MA RAINEY, Volume 2." any more than keep time. A few years ago, on the "Jazz Giants Riverside RLP 12-137. H. A. Woodfin of '56" Ip and on Blues For The Broken Hearted Blues. Oldest Profession, it seemed the Accompanied by 's Blues danger of Wilson's becoming a glib Serenaders; Tommy Ladnier, cornet; Jimmy TEDDY WILSON: "And Then They or mechanical performer was past. O'Bryant, clarinet; Lovie Austin, piano. Wrote..." Columbia CL1442. Here, it seems to me, only If I Could Ma Rainey's Mystery Record; Lawd Send Me Teddy Wilson, piano; , bass; Be With You, , A Man; Southern Blues; Bert Dahl, drums. and Wilson's own Sunny Morning are (add ?? Harris, tenor.) King Porter Stomp; If I Could Be With You played with the feeling and taste Honey Where You Been So Long, Lucky Rock for One Hour Tonight; Honeysuckle Rose; of Teddy Wilson, and, the first Blues, Those Dogs of Mine. Sophisticated Lady; Rosetta; One O'Ciock especially, with real variational ideas. With the Georgia Band; ?? Fuller, trumpet; Jump; Sunny Morning; 'Round Midnight; Among them we can hear those Al Wynn, trombone,- unknown saxophonist; Artistry in Rhythm; Lullaby of Birdland; lessons of phrasing, voicing, variety Thomas Dorsey, piano-, Cedric Odom, drums. Misty; The Duke. of mood and tempo, continuity, and Broken Hearted Blues; Jealousy Blues; individuality that he can teach so Seeking Blues. EARL HINES: "Earl's Pearls". well—without having to go back to MGM E3832. the Wilson of ten, twenty or thirty Accompanied by Jimmy Blythe, piano. Earl Hines, piano; William English, drums; years ago to hear them. Mountain Jack Blues; Don't Fish in My Sea; , bass; , guitar. Then Hines in 1959. He was Wilson's Accompanied by Cow-Cow Davenport, piano-, Boogie Woogie on St. Louis Blues; Tea for master, of course, an advanced B. T. Wingfield, cornet; unknown clarinetist. Two; Stealin' Apples; Willow Weep for Me; guard jazzman in the twenties and So Soon This Morning. I Can't Believe That You're in Love with Me; a major soloist in the thirties and Unlike country blues singers who Rosetta; Like When the Saints; ; forties. He played the Embers last sing a melodic line with forward Manhattan; You Can Depend on Me; Love year with a group like the one on momentum over a steady guitar beat, Me or Leave Me; The Song is Ended. this Ip. How does Hines play for Blind Lemon Jefferson achieves a The Teddy Wilson set is based on such an audience? On this record recitative style in many of the a gimmick (the performances aren't there is certainly nothing of the numbers on his Ip. On Black Snake really tributes, and I doubt if the daring, leaping Hines of I Ain't Got Moan, a good example, he declares pieces are Wilson's private choices), Nobody of 1929 (now on Epic 3295) each of the three lines which make but that doesn't really matter. He nor is there anything like the powerful up a verse, after striking a forceful plays Henderson's version of King improvisational tour de force of preparatory chord, either over a soft Porter Stomp rather than Morton's, his solos on Brussels' Hustle of 1958 guitar tremolo or unaccompanied. ' version of One O'Ciock, (on Felsted 7002). There are a The pauses between the vocal Tines a grossly simplified 'Round Midnight, couple of vocals, apparently intended are often filled in with descending the banal Misty and the jazz version of to be Nat Cole-ish. There is The guitar runs (which turn up on other Hollywood bombast in Stan Kenton's Saints. There are several choruses numbers), with chords that emphasize Artistry in Rhythm, but that's not of trilling on St. Louis Blues— the natural harmonic pattern of the really important either. He plays and just in case that isn't killing all blues. Brubeck's The Duke in a way that the people, he gets some other This declamatory style is not the only has nothing to do with Duke, and so things going (some musical, some way Lemon delivered a song. Stocking fast that he makes that good piece humorous) to keep the other people Feet Blues—the master from the sound downright flippant. And certainly happy. recording date is adjacent to . he has recorded better versions of Black Snake Moan, is sung over a Honeysuckle and Rosetta before, but There is a rather cohesive group, steady beat—but the recitative style that sort of thing is bound to happen and lots of space goes to guitar and is his most effective way. Besides to anyone. But one reason that the bass solos which you may feel that being suited to his voice, it is by earlier versions were better is you've heard before. But most nature dramatic and it is just this, important. important, Earl Hines plays with I think, that is responsible for the On the second chorus of Lullaby of the life and conviction of Hines intensity of the best of Lemon's Birdland, for sixteen bars we hear most of the time, and sometimes, records and puts him above most

28 country blues singers of his time. Hearted Blues, it is bad in a way It is possible to trace a gradual a country blues singer simply couldn't change in Lemon's use of the be bad. And in between it could fall recitative through the numbers on back on riffs (in 1923!) as—again— the Ip, which are arranged more or on Lucky Rock Blues, or to be SUBSCRIBE less chronologically. Perhaps Black merely competent when played in Snake Moan, recorded in 1926 can good style with the right intonation, be said to be a pure example; as the trumpet solo on Seeking Blues. the 1929 Black Snake Moan #2 finds The point is that for all its impure him using the same pattern of influence it was jazz that had it in TO guitar fill-ins, but delivering the itself to be great art, and not vocal lines in a less dramatic and the country blues, which could so less striking manner, blurring achieve only sincerity. THE their once strong outlines with his Ma Rainey's preeminence among guitar accompaniment. The last three the blues singers of the twenties— songs, all recorded in 1929, have a the quality that makes her better rather lazy quality which is a let-down than, say, —seems to be JAZZ after the compelling earlier ones. primarily the vibrant timbre of her Lemon's verses are, as a rule, less voice; phrasing and the shadings remarkable than the way he delivers she could give that voice seem to be them. The choruses are rather of only secondary importance. And REVIEW loosely strung together, few of them it may be, although it is hard to tell memorable for their imagery, and on acoustical recordings, that she it is only rarely that a single idea varied the voice production to effect is developed through succeeding a kind of registration, although she 12 ISSUES choruses (Long Distance Moan). never used anything as obvious as The most interesting metaphor, the falsetto of certain blues singers. which occurs in other blues with On Mountain Jack Blues the melodic other singers too, is the black snake; line is virtually on the same note, FOR I'm not quite sure what it means, and since she does not vary her but I have an idea. As far I can treatment of it from chorus to tell the bakershop in Bakershop Blues chorus, the overall effect is dull. seems to be a whorehouse. But given the lovely melody of $5.00 While four of the selections on the Don't Fish in My Sea, she gives us Blind Lemon Jefferson Ip (The Black great singing, in spite of Jimmy Snake Moan, Stocking Feet Blues, Blythe's accompaniment, which is Chinch Bug Blues, Deceitful Brownskin too much in the vein of the Harlem Blues) were previously unreissued— stride pianists. Just fill out the coupon mirabile dictu! (the rest come from Although it is possible for contemporary out of print Riverside LPs 1014 players to reproduce the great and send it with your and 1053)—the Ma Rainey Ip is instrumental performances of the made up entirely of material from past, as the revivalists have shown, check or money order to: the 10" Ip series (1016, 1032, 1044). the great vocal performances are The country blues as exemplified by preserved only on records. Riverside THE JAZZ REVIEW Blind Lemon was, even as late as has done a service by making 1929, a remarkably pure, but limited, available again the Ma Rainey sides 124 White Street, music. In contrast, Ma Rainey's which have been out of print as music is much less homogeneous, reissues for a few years—not to N. Y. 13, N. Y. not only in material which included, speak of the original issues. But as early as 1923, thirty-two bar songs there are still plenty more where these Please add $1.00 (of the type on which Mezzrow based came from. his Comin' On With The Come On), the sixteen bar vaudeville tunes that J. S. Shipman for foreign postage. were so popular among jazzmen then, as well as classic blues; but also in the complex instrumental " accompaniment found on many of ALL STARS." Atlantic 1331. Please send me the Jazz her records. This accompaniment is , trumpet; Vic Dicktnson, of course instrumental jazz which trombone; , clarinet; Bud Review for 1 year. resulted, in my opinion, not as Freeman, tenor; , piano; Champ a development out of the country Jones, bass; , drums. blues (since they could develop Royal Garden Blues; Sunday; Dinah; Deed only into Rhythm and Blues), but I Do; Pee Wee Russell's Unique Sound; from an application of an already You Took Advantage of Me; Rose Room. NAME existing playing style to blues This recording is often exasperating. material. Jake Hanna blatantly rushes tempos and George Wein displays his lack At its best, as in Tommy Ladnier's of talent. Every number is treated ADDRESS 'solos' on Lucky Rock Blues, in the "dixieland" style now Southern Blues, and particularly Ma identified with the Condon groups. Rainey's Mystery Record, jazz of Buck Clayton seems particularly this kind has more sheer musical discountenanced by it and his solos CITY interest and a vastly greater potential show an unease and lack of ideas than any country blues. At its worst, as he takes on the role of Max as in the saxophone on Broken- Kaminsky. Vic Dickenson comes off :\ it v ZONE STATE

29 little better; his contributions to recording companies spend more Chuck Willis (1958) What Am I Living For; the ensemble are pedestrian, and time than others racking their brains (1959) What'd I Say; The only on Rose Room does he construct to find something new—free beer Drifters (1959) There Goes My Baby. a solo really worthy of his skill. mugs, scenic Bardot jackets, odd As Americans (or Armoricans) we On the other hand, instrumentations, and so forth.) ought to know that absurdity is our seems quite at home and plays the Warner Brothers' angle on "Saxes, Inc." middle name—from the very beginning, same things he has played on many is a combination of 13—count them— with the noble ideals and idealists records. 13 saxes, plus rhythm section. The that made our "absurd revolution". However, Pee Wee Russell's playing liner notes justify this massing as But as absurd as that was (and as is ample compensation. Seldom a tribute to the saxophone itself and beautiful), we fall off after the during his career has Russell worked to its players. Most of the tunes were civil war (the triumph of finance) till with groups which have given him the either written by, or associated with, we find ourselves restored to absurdity kind of setting he really needs. famous saxophonists, and arranger- via a full circle. But it certainly is What Russell has made of his style conductor Prince has assembled a not ideals or idealists that bring has long since transcended the first-rate bunch of reedmen. this on again but the cessation of extremely limited goals of what used Prince has also done an excellent them. We are now a nation of to be called "Chicago jazz". He has and skillful job with this instrumenta• anti-christs. never formed a unit which would tion, despite its obvious limitations. O.K., this has got to do with the accord with his own style and aims. He did just about the only thing record "The Rocking Fifties" in this Perhaps he couldn't or perhaps he one can do with this setup. Using way. (And this is a limited analogy is essentially a maverick who has sometimes 10 (Sometimes I'm Happy, because the fifties themselves were accustomed himself to working in Four Brothers and Early Autumn), already a lost cause. The forties one of the backwaters of jazz. It is sometimes 13 , divided were our last virgin days. There therefore all the more remarkable into two or three sections, he gets is too much neon in the fifties, too that his achievements have been what is in reality an all-saxophone many soaps.) 's Tear Drops such strong and valid ones. big band sound: three tenors and From My Eyes, The Clovers' One Mint His solos are frequently melodic baritone for the saxes; soprano and Julep, Clyde McPhatter's Money Honey delights, and his lines usually three altos as quasi-trumpets-, and, still do relate to something genuine, structured with care. They twist and two tenors, baritone and bass sax as to other less organized days (or turn rhythmically and they are formed trombones. On some tracks this musically, because they still intimate of undulating segments, and that subdivision is less obvious than the existance of a superior music, is exactly the point. The rhythm, on others, and on Gypsy and Sweet blues, shouts .hollers, etc.), whereas harmony, and melody are densely and and Lovely the band merely provides only Ray Charles (for obvious pointedly interrelated. And his a simple, sustained background for reasons) on the second side of vibrato and contrasting timbres are soloists Coleman Hawkins and the Ip, which is largely "", integral parts of his melodic creations. Georgie Auld, respectively. relates to any pure feeling. The On Pee Wee Russell's Unique Sound, Prince has the knack of adapting last half of the fifties. Charles still a conventional blues, he develops his writing to the particular tune has something to do with, say, some a magnificent solo which misses and to the soloist. His arrangements emotional idea outside of, "perform• perfection only infinitesimally, if are unpretentious and clear, but ance"; outside of, say, commerce. at all. The melody is carefully woven. certainly enhanced by touchs of I mean The Bobbettes, Chuck Willis, Even his move from low to upper individuality. The tongue-in-cheek (and with them lump register in the fifth chorus is a introduction to Early Autumn—a in the Ricky Nelsons, Fabians, structural necessity and not an miniature "tone poem"—the polytonal Jerry Lee Lewises, etc.) are almost obvious device. He also does well on harmonization of parts of Symphony completely commercial; at their the other tracks; Rose Room and Sid, and his own Axmobile, are good purest they go back to a semi- Deed I Do, in particular, have work examples of this personal touch. commercial tradition, rhythm and blues. of high quality. My only criticism would be that the It really was possible in the forties Four Brothers sound is by now (with r&b) to maintain a semi- It is too bad that no one made an perhaps slightly overdone or almost commercial tradition that was opposite effort to fit the talents trite. Would it be heresy to record still emotionally sound. (It was the of Clayton and Dickenson to Russell's,- Autumn or Four Brothers with a Negro in the big city, still edging it could be done—and has been different treatment or voicing? Also, toward St. Albans. They've made it done—with ease. for variety's sake, Prince might have now!) At least r&b went back to H. A. Woodfin experimented with a somewhat thinner feeling rather than an idea about texture at times. The solo work is feeling. (Feeling for money.) But uniformly good, with all the soloists what's called rock and roll and the "Saxes, Inc." Warner Brothers W 1336. living up to their reputations. One abortion, , is 99 and Coleman Hawkins, , , Georgie of the most exciting tracks is 44/100% money making. It's only Auld, , Morty Lewis, tenor; Night in Tunisia, featuring real roots are, as I said, the Herb Seller, Phil Woods, , alto; and Gene Quill. semi-commercial r&b of the Hal McKusick, soprano; Sol Schlinger, Gene For a one-shot affair, fun. forties. R & r suffers from a loss of Allen, Al Epstein, baritone; Shelly Gold, bass; freedom, the freedom to please a , piano; , bass; Herb Pilhofer minority. Only Negros bought , drums. Arrangements and rhythm and blues; everybody's gotta conducting, Bob Prince. "THE ROCKING FIFTIES". buy rock and roll. Fugue for Tinhorns; Broadway; The Gypsy; Atlantic 8037. But the record is really a continuum. Night in Tunisia; Four Brothers; Sometimes Ruth Brown (1950) Teardrops From My Eyes; It is also an example of the I'm Happy; Tickle-Toe; Sweet and Lovely; Joe Turner (1951) Chains of Love; The Clovers macrocosm of American life. It Jumpin' with Symphony Sid; Early Autumn; (1952) One Mint Julip; Clyde McPhatter would be even better to have a big Axmobile. (1953) Money Honey; Joe Turner (1954) three Ip album going back further Nowadays, it seems that in order to Shake, Rattle & Roll; La Vern Baker (1955) with the blues (more contrast is compete the over-saturated record Tweedlee Dee; Ray Charles (1955) I've Got what's needed) to really scare us. market, a new disc has to have some A Woman; Ivory Joe Hunter (1956) Since I sort of gimmick. (Apparently some Met You Baby; The Bobbettes (1957) Mr lee, LeRoi Jones

30 Blue Mitchell still seems to be roam• The Camden Division of RCA Victor ing the Clifford Brown estates in his has issued a short anthology (only SHORTER search for identity; however, there ten tracks, just like Harmony) of the are several occasions on this record works of BENNY GOODMAN called where he does seem to have found "Swing Swing Swing" (CAL-624). If it. Walter Bishop seems to be this were an earlier era we would REVIEWS having doubts—possibly about say something like, "So swing consolidating today's funk with his already!" and have done with it. own well wrought, urbane out of Aside from the last choruses of Bud Powell manner. He does make Make Believe, where the makeshift two strong, cogent, funkless rhythm section includes the Messrs. statements on 204 and Upptankt, , Freddy Green, Walter Page nonetheless. A well-conceived blowing and Lionel Hampton, this statement session with a far higher average would have been quite pertinent. level of consistency than all but the Some attractive, graceful solos by very best ones. Harry James and Benny, certainly; So some Capitol a&r people found a certain accurate aggressive rhythmic CHARLIE BARNET playing with three momentum, yes. But swing? Not rhythm in a Palm Beach lounge and really, from this vantage point. were so smitten that they recorded However, Who? and Handful of Keys it live practically instantaneously. are among the most successful trio At least so reads the press release and quartet records Benny made, on the reverse side of Capitol T-1403, and they feature excellent playing "Jazz Oasis—The Charlie Barnet by Goodman, Teddy Wilson, and Quartet recorded live at Palm Springs". Hampton. Mr. Barnet plays his three saxes In the interests of dramatic unity serially; blurps, bleeps, casts covert and/or brevity, "The glances at Hodges (with some Story", a Sam Goldwyn production, accuracy) and Hawkins (most made no mention of Red's 1939 myopically), adds the "saddest" big-little swing band—nor for that orchestral touches as well as some matter do the Red Nichols buffs. overtures toward rock 'n' roll and However, up at RCA they have issued brings a non-descript piano soloist an Ip called "Parade of the Pennies" who is a welcome relief. It would be (Victor LPM 145g) which contains 14 ridiculous to argue with Capitol's a&r (of 16) old sides by this unremembered department en economic grounds and totally unremarkable group. It is (like if someone told you about not difficult to imagine how this and shuffle rhythm) but particular package came into being: otherwise there ain't nothing at all (1) potential tie-in sales with the happening. motion picture and (2) the fi being WILBUR de PARIS—his own liner higher in 1939 than theretofore, note writer and (presumably) so we use the 1939 masters. There is conscience on Atlantic-1338, "The a sort of dated charm in this mish• Wild "—claims that this is mash of obvious borrowings from a top-drawer album (as are all of his such diverse sources as , Atlantic albums) and further says Duke Ellington, Jimmy Lunceford that he hopes he will never have to and —among use the middle or lower drawers. I others. suspect that this would be solely, "Charlie Digs Dixie—CHARLIE a function of the depth of the top SHAVERS". At least, that is what it drawer. While the de Paris product says on the front cover of MGM E3809. is well-made, this album has, aside On the back Leonard Hoffman, from 's consistently Hollywood Reporter, attempts to superb playing, very little authenticity, illuminate this, at best, questionable or emotional honesty, or for that declaratioj^and reveals in the In the notes for Contemporary C-3551, matter any sort of genuine musical process a deep-seated know-nothing Nat Hentoff tells us that "if a musician value. Cheatham functions almost attitude toward New Orleans music. is 'taking care of business' he is unbelievably well among the husks. Actually, except for three or four playing very well." On the back of Brother Sidney makes an occasional of the twelve tunes, the material is "Takin' Care of Business" (Jazzland emotional statement amidst his own as representative of a 19), explains that the corn. Also there are repertory as it is of the standard expression should be reserved "for (the of his day) Dixieland repertory. And aside from those no-nonsense occasions on which playing aggressively, some poor occasional moments of overdramatic, everything comes out just right and Louis Armstrong type vocalizing by Louis Armstrong-style playing, the job at hand is done unusually , the leader's trombone Charlie reacts accordingly, rampaging and excitingly well." As a description alternating between the maudlin/ in his usual brilliant, technique-filled, of the music that CHARLIE ROUSE'S sentimental and his own brand of eccentrically-inventive manner. pickup quintet plays on Jazzland 19 circus jive, and a rhythm section Someone at the date had the Ray Mr. Hentoff's words are a shade the clanging and chugging along. Wilbur's Bryant trio, Shavers' accompani• more accurate. Charlie Rouse mines two originals Minorca and Blues Ingee ment, play shuffle rhythm on three with considerable taste, maturity, seem to have more to do with the of the tracks. On the others, the conviction and efficiency a field music of the twenties than anything support is less obviously which I should have imagined was else in the album—and more than he appropriate. might care to realize. in the province of Sonny Rollins. I. W. Stone 3 9 H 31 The best element in "Dance with Blues and Drop That Sack. no jazz. It is regrettable Stewart Kid Ory or Just Listen" (Verve It is unfair to link two artists of and Wells should want to, or be MG V-1022) is the intelligent and such different statures as SONNY encouraged to, misuse their unique satisfying ensemble clarinet of ROLLINS and on talents. As a display of eccentric . He must be one one record because comparisons brass technique this disc is of the few men left who is able to become involuntary and are much remarkable but as music it is boring meet the especial demands of this to the lesser man's disadvantage. and silly. style, and who knows" just what to Yet that is what has been done on "" (Riverside do in every musical situation "Sonny Rollins at Music Inn, Teddy RLP 12-262) is a record of what New Orleans-based three-part Edwards at Falcon's Lair" MONK and his group sounded like improvisation produces. Howard (Metrojazz E 1011). The two one night at the Five Spot in New also takes several fair solos. The Edwards tracks are swinging and York. Monk's compositions—most of best solos, however, come, rather well integrated, but, although the them at least—are difficult to surprisingly, from , rhythm section plays well, they fail perform and the number of musicians who plays with considerable spirit to hold one's interest. Edwards was, who can improvise on them con• on all six tracks. Ory is by now I think, somewhat more original vincingly is small—even all these entirely predictable in all he does, when he first appeared in the years after the original Misterioso but is nonetheless a quite extraordin• forties, but during the intervening and Evidence recordings, ary performer for his age. The sober years seems to have picked up is still the best after Monk himself. virtues of his ensemble playing are many cliches and there is now a In this connecetion the present Ip evident as usual, and Marsala lack of any real substance to his is disappointing because of Johnny responds with a firm lead music. The four Rollins items are Griffin's part in it. He had earlier part . . . very uneven and his accompanists, given promise of becoming a good Not all the melodies on LOUIS the M. J. Q. rhythm trio, are performer of Monk's music and on, ARMSTRONG'S "Satchmo plays King unsuitable for him. You Are Too for example, Atlantic 1278, (Blakey's Oliver" (Audio Fidelity AFLP 1930) Beautiful is a most unfortunate Jazz Messengers with Monk), he were associated with Oliver, and affair in which there is little rapport had responded rather well. In this only two were composed by him. between soloist and under-recorded set, alas, his solos, far from being Nearly all of them, however, are accompaniment, virtually no swing, explorations of the compositions good, some extremely good. It is and a tenor line that is understand• in terms of melody, rhythm, natural that Armstrong should ably disjointed. Rollins sounds harmony and mood, are lines merely respond more positively to doleful on this. I'll Follow My Secret imposed on them, often with challenging and comparatively Heart is a little better, and Doxy surprising arbitrariness. He played unfamiliar material like this than to considerably so. The rhythm section an intelligent improvisation on the his perpetual one-night stand is much more positive here, and Atlantic recording of Rhythm-a-ning, warhorses, and this is his best Ip Rollins has some very impressive but here cheap excitement and for some time, perhaps the best moments. Best by far is a swift sheer duration are the most prominent overall since the Handy Limehouse Blues which is an features. Griffin's insensitivity is collection. especially clear example of Rollins' most aptly demonstrated by the lucid musical thinking and his absurd folk song quotations in, of The rhythm section is adequate— method of breaking a theme down all things. Evidence. Danny Barcelona doesn't provide as into small sections and building a Such stringent comments should not, much lift as this kind of trumpet solo of long and very mobile lines however, be taken as a dismissal playing needs—and the other horns, from them. This improvisation, which of Griffin, for he plays more Hucko and Trummy Young, if depend• employs a notable variety of convincingly on several other discs. able, appear subdued in the ensembles rhythmic and melodic constructions, It may be that his work here is a and are undistinguished in their is poised yet forceful, and is harking back to the tawdry sen• 6otos—e.g., Panama or I Ain't Gonna played with a remarkably large, sationalism of the Hampton band Give Nobody None of This Jelly Roll. consistent and warmly vocalized in which he once served. Perhaps he Yet one suspects that Young's tone. only reacted so unfavorably in this support counts for more with case in face of the great difficulty Armstrong than is apparent to the Especially on the records he made of Monk's pieces. , listener. Armstrong himself plays in Paris during 1937, DICKIE WELLS Monk's reaction to fVie situation is wonderfully almost throughout, often sounded like the best trombonist intelligent and practical. While sometimes majestically, and in about, and REX STEWART'S extensive everything he does is as certain of the final ensembles sounds contributions to the Ellington band characteristically expressive, his half his age. Indeed, control, over a period of years are also well playing is more conservative in several range, power and fulness of tone known. In view of these achievements respects. He is not quite so all seem better than on many "Chatter Jazz" (RCA Victor LPM- adventurous harmonically, and we records made in the past few 2024) is a depressing record. hear less of his extraordinary years. Most moving is the grave, Besides secure and extensive virtuoso use of space (rests), accent beautiful St. James Infirmary conventional techniques both and meter. This helps to make the theme-statement, and there are Stewart and Wells have a surprising group a little more cohesive, and he fine, but usually too short solos on variety of smears, glissandi and is still able to produce several fine most of the twelve tracks, particularly eccentric effects. Used with taste solos, particularly on Blue Monk and on Dr. Jazz, I Ain't Gonna Give and and discretion these devices can have Evidence. In the latter the progressive Jelly Roll Blues. The regrettable a positive value as a kind of and beautifully graduated shortness of the trumpet solos can, embellishment to a melodic line. simplification of his solo leading to in part, be blamed on too many Here they are used continuously a restatement of the theme is titles being crowded on to the disc. and exclusively—albeit with notable masterly. Coming on the Hudson and If items like Frankie and Johnnie control—in performances of almost Light Blue are both new compositions (with jangling piano accompaniment) unbelievably self-conscious cuteness. of which one hopes to hear and Old Home had been The rhythm section swings in a shallow more. omitted we could have had more though consistent fashion, but the choruses of Armstrong on Chimes horns do not improvise and there is Max Harrison

32 JAZZ IN PRINT symbol of male sophistication? in reviewing the George Russell That seems reasonable on one sextet in live performance at level. Jazz is not associated the Five Spot, gave the relevant with either teenagers or old background information about ladies ; it is a part of night• the band but did not commit life, and in fact is one of themselves about the music the few kinds of nightclub one way or the other. Playboy entertainment that avoids both also reviewed jazz records by the sniggering gaucherie of Charlie Byrd and Brubeck- the smoker and the pale Bernstein along with several elegance of the gay supperolub. pop vocal and party records. (Another kind of nightclub So few records are reviewed entertainment that fits these in Playboy each month that specifications is the humor of the effect of each review is a Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl and their plug, since the review itself school ; they are notable suggests that the record must be popular with these magazines of more than routine interest. too.) The same point would apply Or should we go further to say, to Hentoff's column, of course, with the "hip" novelists, except that the records that jazz is essentially mentioned in a signed column orgiastic and therefore innately are more obviously personal sexual, or that jazz and its choices, and forwarn the reader milieu are the modern city to look out for personal equivalent of Huck Finn's quirks. Territory, "the wild frontier Since so few records are of American nightlife," as reviewed each month, one might Clellan Holmes called it? expect a careful choice of I could go on for hours, but the records to be reviewed. HSIO WEN SHIH perhaps this is not the In this respect I have no place. argument with Playboy this In any case, most of the slick month. Charlie Byrd is by way urban male magazines and some of becoming a phenomenon in jazz, This month we're going to look of the pulps, whether or not and any collaboration between at jazz in the "urban male" they review books, (the slicks two such different and, let's magazines. These uneasy all do) do give considerable say, characteristic figures as mixtures of flesh and fantasy space to jazz. The magazines Brubeck and Bernstein can be are primarily substitutes for with a regular department called an occasion that deserves normal sex life, and therefore about jazz or about notice. Other magazines like descend from girlie magazines records in general usually Scamp and Rogue (isn't there like The Police Gazette. place them up front, sandwiched something a little too cute But the audience is no longer between descriptions of Italian about all these titles? How the gang in the barbershop shoes and descriptions of about a new one called simply or the backroom. The barbershop authentic little bistros in CoJones, or as the musicians boys were Sports, and their St. Paul. Esquire, the pioneer would have it, Work?) review interests, outside of women, in this kind of magazine, a few jazz records in about ran to symbols of masculinity- has now abandoned the pictures the same way, and they chose prize fighters, ballplayers, of girls and become a rather them much less responsibly. sensational criminals and fuzzy Good Design New Yorker, Rogue for example, reviewed heroic oops. Today the odor but their coverage still Ella's "Mack the Knife" and of cigars and Bay Rum has been includes jazz. Their column 's "One for Fun'; replaced by Dunhills special is written by our Nat Hentoff. neither are "Important" or even mixture and English Leather. In November, Nat took his particularly good. Scamp chose The backroom boy has joined indignation for a few more laps some good and some bad: a a fraternity and become a good around Freebody Park before Firehouse Five record, the new living snob. He yearns for the getting around to a review , 's sports oar, fancy mixed drinks, of Been Here and Gone, Fred "The Thumper,* and Bill Evans' party foods, hip vacation Ramsey's recent book documenting "'. All resorts, Italian tailorinrg - his musical collecting trips of these records are, in all the castemarks of good in the South, and to short effect, recommended. One would consumership. notices of some recent blues not expect any record to be How does jazz fit into this? records. The book review Is reviewed without being recom• Most of these magazines seem sprinkled with quotes from the mended in these guides to to consider jazz a legitimate book, mostly old-timers talking good living. But why not pick interest for the urban male about old times, but one of better records? as rock k roll and classical the bits of Negro folk poetry It's all very well for Rogue music are not. is straight out of Psalms 98:8. to say, "Here are some fine Why? Apparently The Bible is the sounds for a Saturday afternoon Is jazz an accessory for only book Nat does not have time or the early evening first- sophisticated seduction like to read. martini time", but I do object the sports car, the Italian Playboy, the current success to the quality of the reviaws tailoring and the mixed drinks? of the field, doesn't have in Playboy. Playboy not only That seems unlikely considering a regular jazz column, but only lists as how few women are interested talks about jazz in their Jazz editor but also has former in jazz. Playboy After Hours department. Down Beat editor Don Gold Is jazz a pure non-functional In the November issue Playboy. on its staff. I find it 4 0 1 33 difficult to believe that Frank West, trumpeter Dizzy lives of all jazzmusicians, either would write of Howard Reese (Pee Wee's crazy brother?) addicts or no. Examples Brubeck's 'Dialogues for Jazz and trombonist Jimmy Nepper. include the police card system Combo and Orchestra* that "All I always suspected that in New York and harrassment of it is enticing." This may• Kerouac played the language of jazz musicians by police be written for a wider audience, by ear, but spelling? officers in Philadelphia and- but does that mean that one need Proper Names? . There is also the not be discriminating? And how And not just spelling. Quincy first mention I've ever seen about factual inaccuracies Jones becomes a bass player, in print of the frightening like calling the Charlie Byrd Art Farmer is a "West Coast informer system the New York his first trio recording? or Soft Groove trumpet" and City Police Department uses as Perhaps the best solution to Red Garland is "a strange an aid in narcotics control, a short jazz column is the one thinker, actually." which apparently not only adopted by Nugget, another My favorite sentence runs, protects addicts and pushers, of the slicks. In the December "Behind these giants a whole who are willing to inform on issue, their Music column was bunch of newcomers are playing other addicts, from arrest, but an unsigned essay about with that heartbreaking grope even supplies them with "progress" in jazz during the that jazzlovers love." narcotics to keep them on the last year and how "progress" Heartbreaking grope seems the street. has affected some musicians perfect phrase. Unfortunately, there was very and jazz fans. "One of the There wasn't much in the way little agreement among the best things that ever happened of feature articles about panelists about programs for to was the jazzmen in any of the improvements in the situation. discovery of magazines this month. The entire The musicians tended to make by the jazz avant garde. . . issue of Rogue was devoted to light of a strictly medical Coltrane. . .has been able to the hip comedians though. cure. "A guy tells me," said continue his search for his The most interesting feature of Dizzy Gillespie, "that when own musical personality without the month was a long panel they're in Lexington, all the onus of having everything discussion, I'm told it was they're thinking about is - he does, mis-steps and all, done in bits and pieces, when I get out of Lexington, hailed as evidence of genius." about Narcotics and boy, I'm gonna get so And about jazz audiences, the Jazz Musician in Playboy. HIGH !" ". . .an audience that is only The panelists included musicians Nat Hentoff favored more work interested in the newest, the Cannonball and , on medical control of addiction, latest, is a fickle audience Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, including more basic research and essentially a dangerous Jimmy Giuffre, Stan Kenton, and the adoption of the and misleading audience," for Shelly Manne, and Billy Taylor; English system of supplying "While all this attention is Dr. Charles Winnick, a psychol• addicts with decreasing being directed toward those ogist who directs The Musicians' amounts of narcotics legally who are advancing jazz on its Clinic in New York and serves administered by physicians. outer fringes, those who are on the Advisory Council on Dr. Winnick emphasized the moving jazz ahead from within Narcotics, attorney Maxwell T. importance of a wider social are being largely ignored." Cohen, and Nat Hentoff. (And and psychological rehabilitation These are sound points, and Crater says he doesn't get program. Mr Cohen emphasized the records that are mentioned around?) legal control to discourage in the column are only used as The panelists seemed to agree importation and distribution illustrations of the points. that though narcotics are not of narcotics. But in spite of I was so pleasantly surprised necessarily an occupational the lack of agreement about with this column that I made hazard for the jazz musician, program, I must say that the attempts to find out who had his milieu makes narcotics easy publication of the panel written it. Nugget says that is a valuable service in to get, and the pressure of his informing a wider public about the author is Burt Korall, life may make him more but Burt says he didn't write the nature of the susceptible to addiction problem. it. Bravo, who ever you than people in many other are. professions ; that though While I was flipping through An attempt at something similar considerable numbers of Playboy. I saw four^ letters by prosodist , musicians are addicts, fewer about an article in the appeared in the December of the youngest generation of August issue on Miles Davis, issue of Escapade, which Ira jazzmen are addicts compared all praising the article and Gitler sent to me. The head to the bop generation; that its author, one Stanley reads, "There's a great jazz some musicians play very well Goldstein. I was so impressed era ahead. Here are the signs." when they are stoned while with the praise in the letters Then comes Kerouac on the new others do not, though the use that I went to a back-issue jazz, ". . .sign of a great jazz of narcotics does not enable store and bought a copy. The resurgence is the presence of anyone to play better; that the article was long, very informa• hundreds of great soloists to public image of the jazzman tive, perhaps the best single implement the new phrase and identifies him with narcotics thing I've ever read about harmony. Here are only a few more than the facts would Miles, but I came away with a names, the parade of great warrant, and that this image strong feeling that Stanley wallers who will make the New is reinforced by inaccurate Goldstein was not really the Wave Jazz pop." The few names reporting that identifies every best of the new jazz writers, include pianists Winton Kelly musician arrested for any crime only one of the best of the and Junior Manz, drummers Ocie old ones - in fact, a man who a jazz musician. There was an has often complained about the Johnson and Al Hairwood, informative discussion of the altoist Al Macusik, tenor use of pseudonyms in these legal controls on addicts and pages. players Charlie Rause and how these controls affect the

34 Scarcely ever see you passin' the broadest "everything is folklore" by. approach. BOOK Fare thee well, 0 Honey, fare Scholarly persnickitiness aside, the thee well. book is very warmly entertaining, subtly Now my apron's up to my chin, revealing in some spots, outright funny REVIEWS You pass my door and you in others. It serves as a good introduc• won't come in. tion to Negro lore that will encourage THE BOOK OF NEGRO FOLKLORE by Fare thee well, 0 Honey, fare further exploration, especially because, and Arna Bontemps. thee well. so far as I know, this is the first and Dodd, Mead, and Co., New York. The ballad The Sailor Cut Down in His only attempt at such an anthology. But THE IDIOM OF THE PEOPLE by James Prime, known variously as The Unfor• to get a complete picture of Negro folklore one must go to sources which Reeves. Macmillan Co., New York. tunate Rake (as early as 1790 in Ire• land), Cowboy's Lament (or The Streets deal with only one or two aspects: Guy Folklore may be loosely defined as the of Laredo), forms the basis for the B. Johnson for discussions of John study of oral tradition, of material mov• lyrics of St. James Infirmary. Henry; N. N. Puckett for superstitions; ing in time and space, handed down The jazz heritage includes European "lies", beliefs, ways of life, hoodoo; from generation to generation, wher• folk influence, too. Zora N. Hurston for tales incorporating ever there exists a homogeneous group. A book like Reeves's can also provide Botkin's Lay My Burden Down for slave Folklore may -also be interpreted guides for scholars of jazz: a method narratives; Richard M. Dorson for cur• broadly enough to include studies of of approach, study, analysis and pre• rent tales from Michigan; and music barroom humor and flying saucer ru• sentation of material. references in writers such as Newman mors, or narrowly enough to exclude Hughes' and Bontemps' material covers I. White, Howard W. Odum, John W. anything not directly from the mouths a wide range. There are ballads, spir• Work and the Lomaxes. of uneducated, backwood men who ituals and gospel songs, blues, work Reeves's material follows a more nar• make "panther sweat" in hidden stills. songs, street cries, pJay songs and row course. From the manuscripts of There is the folklore of jazz itself: jive games, roustabout tales and songs; a Cecil Sharp, fourteen volumes of tran• talk; the improvisation through which section on jazz with standard quotes scribed English songs and ballads, the runs a continuity of tradition—much from Jelly, Bunk, Armstrong, King author selected 115 songs, about forty as old ballads and sayings change Oliver, and Billie Holiday, and a.sec• of them printed for the first time, and when passed on by word of mouth yet tion on Harlem jive with vocabulary other texts for the first time as taken cling to their original sources; the lists and "bopster" stories. There are doWn, without cuts or censorship. ethnic material coursing through the animal tales with traditional trickster Sharp, an English folk song collector, idiom. Also there is the folklore in the "Brer Rabbit"—narratives written in who also collected songs in America— backgrounds and roots of jazz. African dialect which for me comes across and instigated a revival of morris danc• music and culture, Afro-American mu• better aurally than visually; slavery ing—helped get folk songs into the sic and environment, music concurrent tales, sermon texts, superstitions, prov• schools in England. Sharp had stressed with Afro-American beginnings—Eng• erbs; God-versus-the-Devil tales. Other the music of the songs. His attitude lish-Scottish ballads, Creole, French, tales of preachers (they're human, too), toward the lyrics was patronizing and Latin material. The study of jazz there• ghosts, witches, black magic and hoo• when he published them he censored by becdmes a study of its makers, their doo frequently illustrate the Negro's them accordingly. backgrounds, culture, traditions, and ability to laugh at himself, his short• In his preface, Reeves considers how folkways. The superstitions, proverbs, comings and his troubles. The collec• folk song became transformed into art tales, work, and play of a people often tion concludes with "Songs in the Folk song, then restored to its original state; provide illuminating psychological in• Manner". Represented are Slim Gail- considers different versions of a single sights not readily revealed elsewhere. lard, , James A. Bland, song to show its variety and multipli• Langston Hughes's and Arna Bon- "standards" such as There'll Be Some city; and discusses various versions of temps's The Book of Negro Folklore has Changes Made whose "folk" status is Foggy Dew to discover its original an obvious connection with jazz. The open to question, and a moving, poig• meaning. The body of the book pre• Negro roots in jazz are the most virile nant I Ain't Gonna Be No Topsy. "Prose sents the song texts, mostly love, mar• and prominent; the connection of Ne• in the Folk Manner" has the social ob• riage, and courting songs, but some gro folklore with jazz is the most direct. servation of Hughes's Simple stories, humorous (Our Goodman), criminal James Reeves's The Idiom of the personal opinions and experiences, ads (Jack Hall), riddling (Pery Mery Winkle People has a less immediate and ob• for house rent parties. And "Poetry in Domine), and supernatural (Wife of vious relationship to jazz. It deals with the Folk Manner": Paul Laurence Dun• Usher's Well) ballads included. collections of English and Scottish bar, Sterling Brown, and Hughes. Reeves's work is fully annotated. Ob• ballads, which on the surface differ Bontemps and Hughes have written a scure words are defined and dated, from things hip. However, such ballads, few essays for The Book of Negro Folk• stanzas and lines are explained and transplanted, are in the background of lore, but most of the material has been traced historically, many cross refer• blues and Negro folk songs. A verse collected from standard sources which ences for the songs are cited. (And Mr. in the ballad A Brisk Young Lover goes have been around for some time, and Reeves assures us of his editorial scru• When I wore my apron low it will be more rewarding for the really pulousness throughout.) The book con• My love followed me through interested reader to turn to the sources tains material new to scholars as well themselves for a more complete pic• as to the general reader. frost and snow ture of each subject. The annotation is When I wore it up to my chin Hughes and Bontemps will capture the scanty. Sources are listed at the begin• reader who may have no previous in• My love passed by and never ning in small print, making references looked in. terest in jazz or Negro folklore. Idiom difficult to look up. Approximate dates of the People is not a beginning bal• Similar verses are found in many Ne• and places of origin, scope and cur• gro songs. One is the piece which the lad book; it presupposes a familiarity rency of circulation, or explanation of with broader collections and previous Lomaxes called Dink's Song: certain local terminology ("01' Hannah" When I wore my aprons low, studies, and the jazz lover must hunt in the work song refers only to "the for relevant items. For the jazz lover Couldn't keep you from my do'. sun", for example) are not given. The Fare thee well, 0 Honey, fare its value is more in grasping the study inclusion of certain items as folklore of music of, by, and from the people. thee well. is open to question unless one takes Now I wears my aprons high, Mimi Clar 4 0 .{ 35 KING JOE OLIVER (Kings of Jazz 8) by easy sentimentality many writers who his hands up in disgust. His final ver Martin Williams. Cassell, London. glanced at Paul Barnes' notebooks diet on the Dixie Syncopators' seem: (1934-35) might fall into. to be that it was damned inconsisten The second, and longer, part of the of.them to swing on fast numbers (Toi The "Kings of Jazz" series is an at• book is concerned with Oliver's records, Bad, Wa Wa Wa) where one would ex tempt by the English publisher Cassell for as Martin rightly says "the Oliver pect trouble and yet fail to swing or to make available to the lay public that exists for most of us exists a slow number like Snag It #2 at i brief but authoritative books on some through recordings. We are interested tempo which would give an untutorec outstanding jazz figures. Martin Wil• in his music . . . because some of it folk musician no trouble at all. liams' is the eighth in this survives today as valid and meaningful By the time he got to the Victoi series of inexpensive books, which has music art." The point of view from records, the strain of listening to sc included earlier volumes on Duke El• which he appraises the records is the many records in such a short period lington, Dizzy Gillespie, Bessie Smith one from which most of the contribu• of time (my own guess as to how the (by Paul Oliver), , Louis tors to this magazine operate, namely, book was written: it doesn't seem to Armstrong (by Albert' J. McCarthy), "art is a matter of how one handles me that Martin has 'lived' with any but Charlie Parker (by Max Harrison), and one's conventions no matter what those the Creole Band records) was begin• Fats Waller. Martin sent a copy of his conventions are." Criticism then be• ning to tell: the chapter begins to read book to me as a personal gesture and comes a matter, first of defining the like a list of titles, and in fact Martin not, I'm 'sure, with the idea I would conventions (the style) of an art form, is reduced to saying 'for some of the review it. But a review seems a good and then of determining how success• others, one can only hear and report.' way to call attention to a series which, ful the work is within those conven• On the whole he finds more polish ir judging from King.Oliver, is fulfilling tions. Such a critical stance seems to the Victor groups and more important a worthwhile objective rather well. me a very comfortable one, for it en• a change in conception (another one!) Martin begins, quite properly, by ac• ables the critic to go along with every• Too Late, What Do You Want Me To Dc knowledging his debt to Walter C. thing, rather than to fight frustrating and Sweet Like This are singled out as Allen and Brian Rust's King Joe Oliver battles against unhealthy trends, for being particularly good for the period. and to Frederic Ramsey Jr.'s article in there are no unhealthy trends. It is The problem of Oliver's fantastic in• Jazzmen, and then proceeds (as is his just this stance which enables Martin consistency during the period—from a custom recently) to knock the old to discuss the Victor records with as date with no solo to one with a fine critics for making a crude and senti• much sympathy as those by the Creole solo and then to one with a poor solo- mental myth out of Oliver's life. He Jazz Band: the trouble with most of the has him baffled completely. complains that such myths do not take Victors is simply failure, for a number Martin considers that Oliver plays the into account the facts of the world in of reasons, to exploit the conventions first (open) solo—theme statement—on which the artists functioned, but Mar• properly. Sweet Like This and Dave Nelson the tin himself seems insensitive to the muted variation (but the first solo is 12 realities of the (jazz) world in which Martin leaves it to Larry Gushee (The Jazz Review November 1958) to effuse bars, the second 16), contrary to Allen the early critics worked. After tracing and Rust. But then it is hard to see Oliver's life from his birth in 1885 to over the Creole Jazz Band, and confines himself to a close analysis of the three how the cornet on Jet Black Blues, tc 1918, when Joe left New Orleans for the which he devotes the final close analy• Royal Garden Cafe in Chicago, Martin versions of Mabel's Dream. Here he is following King Joe Oliver; personally I sis, a good one, could be Oliver. I think interpolates a chapter on New Orleans it's , but even if it's not music. He comes up with the theory, think there are better records artistic• ally, and possibly more important sty• Oliver, 'the playing represents much ol based on remarks of Garvin Bushel I in what he stood for.' And that is 'without the January 1959 number of this maga• listically, by the Creole Jazz Band, but even if there are not, I am not sure Joseph Oliver . . . jazz could not have zine (there are any number of refer• happened as we know it.' ences to The Jazz Review in the book), Martin has caught all of the essential details of the two Paramount Mabel's King Oliver shows some evidence ol that the innovation New Orleans music being hastily written, or at least hastily offered was not in style, in variations, Dreams. His close analysis of Sippie Wallace's Morning Dove Blues (a proof-read, but then it might be only or in improvisation, but in the soul in the perils of writing in America for the music which comes from the blues record Walt Allen turned many of us on) with fine Oliver accompaniment is, publication in England. Honore (Du- (does this make it 'funk'?). Martin's trey) comes out Home fairly consis• choice of A. J. Piron's Columbia on the other hand, in every way ad• mirable, perhaps the best stretch of tently in the text (but not in the records, as against his Victors, to il• captions to the photographs), (Zue] lustrate early jazz with the soul of the criticism in the book. When he comes to the Dixie Syncopa- Robertson comes out Robinson, Lawr• blues is not altogether convincing ence Duhe becomes Duke, and Bobby since Ghost of the Blues is a Colum• tors period, Martin relates the music to the changes in the rhythms of jazz Holmes becomes Charlie Holmes (p, bia. He seems to contradict himself at 80). On p. 86 Oliver solos on the Dixie the end of the chapter by finding a (under Armstrong's influence) at the time (1926-28) and to the problems of Syncopators' Speakeasy Blues, but ac• remarkable common characteristic of cording to p: 68 Oliver does not solo! style in variation among at least some big band jazz, about which he has quite a bit to say. He finds Too Bad, The important thing about King Olivei early New Orleans musicians—Bunk, is that Martin communicates the re• Freddy Keppard, Noone, Jelly. Snag It, and Wa Wa Wa to be among the band's successes and Dead Man's spect and affection he has for the besl The remaining chapters in the first that Oliver represented. I know he senl part of the book continue Oliver's life Blues, Willie the Weeper and bad. He denies (again quite me back to the records with renewed from 1918 to his death in Savannah in interest and that, they keep telling us, 1938 with accounts of the bands he rightly, in my opinion) that the ' Tin Roof Blues is the highest calling of a critic. From had, their impact on other musicians, the microgroove discography at the the important recording contracts, his comes from Oliver's Jazzin' Babies Blues, but fails to note that Ohver's end of the book it appears that most early successes, later failures and of King Oliver's EPs and LPs have beer eventual decline. Martin succeeds Tin Roof is note-for-note (hyperbolically speaking) from the NORK's. While he deleted from the English catalogues, nicely in making his version of Oliver's Maybe Martin's book will help bring story something more than a dreary list is patient with the earlier Dixie Syn- copators' records, by the time he gets them back, along with some of the de• of band personnels and job dates while serving sides which haven't been re• at the same time avoiding the trap of to Sticks Elliot's clarinet chorus on West End Blues (1928) Martin throws issued at all. J. S. Shipman

36 JAZZ ON BRITISH RADIO & TELEVISION

Some time ago I heard a BBC radio jazz to twitching youngsters at the doses because it is good for people. It interview with Benny Goodman, who Royal Festival Hall. does not matter how few people listen. was on a visit to London. The inter• The above examples have stuck in my Jazz would be heard more often but, viewer quickly got to his main ques• mind but there are plenty more like alas, it is not popular. It matters very tion: which gives Goodman greater them. The BBC operates under charter much if only a few people listen. satisfaction—playing classics or jazz? from the government. The first was Inside the BBC there have been jazz Goodman replied that he enjoyed both granted in 1926, a new one was granted enthusiasts who have done their dedi• equally. Each was a different kind of in 1937 and has been renewed a couple cated bests to get more airtime for challenge. of times since. The present charter their kind of music. Brian Rust, who Some uninspired chatter followed be• expires in 1962. The charter requires works in the BBC's vast record library fore the interviewer got to his second the British Broadcasting Corporation (co-author of a book on King Oliver and attempt: "Which do you find more re• to "inform, educate and entertain." The of a paperback Recorded Jazz: A Cri• warding?" (I should explain that when man most responsible for carrying out tical Guide, a biased and unrecom- a BBC interviewer asks about rewards this aim was John Reith (Knighted mended work), pops up with a record he is almost invariably concerned with 1927, made Baron Reith of Stonehaven show from time to time. July 7th was spiritual values.) 1940) who was appointed the BBC's the 10th anniversary of 's Goodman rephrased his previous an• general manager in 1922 and was its death, and Rust contributed a short swer. At which the interviewer aban• first director-general from 1927 to 1938. tribute, complete with a snatch of doned his attempt to wring from A dour Scot, Reith was a man of high Tishomingo Blues, to that morning's Goodman the confession that he played principle who insisted on a high intel• news program, "Today". Occasionally, jazz for money and classical music for lectual and moral content in BBC's jazz gets an unexpected plug; a couple beauty. programmes. He gave people not what of years ago the members of the TV I may be slightly unfair to the inter• they wanted but what he thought they "Brains Trust" (a very intellectual and viewer concerned, but I doubt it. There ought to have. They could like it, or thoroughly worthy Sunday afternoon has been for many years (probably switch off, for the BBC was, and is, a program), instead of damning jazz, and since the BBC's monopoly charter was monopoly. rock and roll, as a submitted question clearly invited them to do, praised the granted) systematic denigration of jazz Under the Reith regime, intellectual music's vitality and hailed it as one on the BBC. As a teenager, around programs, so long as they were so un- really worthwhile popular art form. 1948, I bought a book of Best Broad• controversial as to be inoffensive to However, I should say that the chair• cast Stories. One was about a jazz "right-thinking" people, flourished, and man on this occasion was a Canadian musician who was weary of the "phony the air was filled with classical music. comedian-actor, Bernard Braden (who racket" he was in. The punch ending Devotees of the classics (who, inci• spoke of being moved by Sarah consisted of the musician stepping up dentally, are no more numerous in Brit• Vaughan, I think at Birdland, and the on the stand in front of the public he ain than they are in other European man who did most of the talking was had been defrauding and blowing his countries, despite Reith's educational an American, Dwight MacDonald, a brains out (literally, I mean). About efforts) were naturally delighted. Dance New Yorker writer who was spending three years ago BBC television pre• music fans were reasonably satisfied a year on the superb British monthly sented a play (strongly praised by the (Benny Carter worked in London in the Encounter—so the "Brains Trust" was London Times) in which a young con• mid-thirties as an arranger for the BBC somewhat trans-Atlantic on this oc• cert pianist, frustrated at his inability Dance Orchestra). But very, very little casion. to make headway in "good" music, jazz was heard. reached the depths of degradation: he With modifications (for the BBC is now So little time is allotted to jazz record turned to jazz and became very rich much more anxious to please) such programs that there is practically no and unhappy. This play, incidentally, programming has remained the rule. opportunity for disc jockeys to present was not making the common mistake BBC spokesmen apply an odd double- consistent and well-developed points of equating jazz with Tin Pan Alley; the standard to music. It works this way: of view. Anyway, there is no great rush pianist was s?en and heard playing Classical music is presented in large of talent anxious to earn money from •i 0 37 the BBC. In 1955 I did one broadcast— vertising—especially ludicrous since liked jazz managed to feature Briti a half-hour on Count Basie—for the 1955 when commercial television began jazz groups on several shows, in pa - Saturday evening "World Of Jazz" in Britain. ticular Downbeat, a two-band session series. For the narration, the script and Luxembourg is much used by record which usually featured a top jazz dance the acquisition of some of the records companies to push sales of pop discs. orchestra, such as 's, with a (borrowed from Mike Nevard, then on Recorded jazz usually gets a weekly top jazz group, such as Humphrey the Melody Maker staff, who had been half-hour, glibly presented. Lyttelton's. But in its early days com• given discs not then available in Brit• Other European radio stations can be mercial television lost a great deal of ain by ), I was paid 10 quite easily picked up in Britain. money and had to go all out to get a guineas—roughly, 31 dollars. French radio has a few, but good jazz large audience as soon as possible. These days the Saturday jazz program disc shows (the Panassie axe-grinders Such shows as Downbeat were jetti• rotates three or four jockeys who can be interesting). German radio has soned, and the director went into the mostly confine themselves to briefly in• some lengthy ones. I can't understand sales department of his TV company. troducing new record releases. In my much German so I can't vouch for the These days, commercial TV is making opinion, there is only one outstanding value of the disc-jockeys' comments gigantic profits. The companies spend disc jockey—pianist and bandleader but they often seem very ponderous some money and time putting on cul• Steve Race, who has also conducted and verbose. tural shows to try to demonstrate to some fascinating interviews with visit• The , broad• commercial television's critics that the ing American jazzmen. casting from Germany, only occasion• companies are worthy contract-holders. Those programs are heard over the ally features jazz, and never does it But of course, serious jazz is not Light Program, the most trivial of the seriously. counted as culture. The former Down• three domestic services provided by But the Voice of America presents The beat TV director has returned to direct• the BBC. The others are the Home Jazz Hour nightly. Despite rather poor ing—on a quiz show. Service, a more serious channel on reception (it's relayed from Tangier), BBC's radio programs that present live which hardly ever this program has a big following, I jazz by British musicians usually, but intrudes, and the ultra-intellectual understand, and at least one London not always, have good sound balance. Third Program which has a minute jazz record show—Dobell's—experi• I was once told how Ted Heath had listening figure and which has very ences a run on an album after it has carefully rehearsed his band through a occasionally flirted with serious jazz been featured in The Jazz Hour. steadily building increase in volume programs. Alan Lomax did an admirable Willis Conover is the regular Voice of over something like 16 bars; on the series on , for ex• America jazz disc jockey. He must have broadcast, a girl sound controller kept ample. But on the whole, I feel, jazz is by far the world's largest jazz audience. her hand on the volume control and best left alone by the Third Program A couple of years ago, a friend of mine as the band's volume went up, she because the program planners naturally attended a jazz concert given in Rus• conscientiously turned the knob down, have no means of knowing whether or sia—, I think—by British jazz• ensuring a nice, even sound. In the not a contributor is being sensible. I men. He said there was a huge roar studio, Heath was very pleased with recall with a shudder a program on of approval from the crowd when the the orchestra's performance through Louis Armstrong that put forward some band started on Take The 'A' Train. this tricky passage. However, the radio fatuous theory that Armstrong's talent Conover uses Duke's recording as the sound men, generally speaking, know had been steadily corrupted by ava• signature of The Jazz Hour. their job. On television, both BBC and ricious commercial interests. The Conover is a deep-voiced, slow-speaking commercial, the sound is frequently speaker, obviously a Marxist, had been announcer who concentrates on giving appalling because proper placing of given the broadcast because he had a factual information about the records mikes and musicians is sacrificed for "classy" job—history lecturer at a Uni• he plays. Some of his programs show the sake of "visual appeal", which is versity. Incidentally, this man has much loving care in preparation. He usually merely gimmicks. There are emerged, some five years later under also conducts occasional interviews exceptions. BBC producer Christian another name, as one of the most with musicians and critics and some• Simpson occasionally puts on short stimulating and perceptive jazz writers times he has turned the microphone jazz programs with plenty of arty anywhere. Perhaps events in Hungary, over to guest musicians (such as Count camerawork, lighting and props, but he among other things, helped to loosen Basie) who have run The Jazz Hour usually manages to let the group sound his Marxist straightjacket. for him. all right. And the commercial Granada For an hour and a half before the Third Television's Chelsea At Nine—into Program goes on the air, the same So, the British jazz fan with a very which booker Joe Glaser seems to have wavelength is used as Network Three, efficient radio set can, by judicious got his hand; his singers often appear which is devoted to special interests: station-hopping, hear a reasonable on it—usually can be relied upon to hobbies, religion, language studies. amount of jazz. present musicians with fair fidelity. Network Three offers a weekly jazz Television, by nature of the medium, Granada TV also deserves credit for a record review program at 6 pm. I have is unable to offer any American jazz. good and fairly popular series starring rarely heard it but I think it is well Records, obviously, have no visual ap• the Lyttelton band. And I believe the conducted. peal—though once in a long while TWW, which operates from Cardiff, dancers "interpret" a jazz record with Wales, has featured the Dankworth There are few record programs of any the usual ugly gestures. The AFM-MU orchestra in a series. kind on BBC radio because of an agreement forbids American bands to There is so little jazz on TV in Britain agreement with the Musicians' Union appear live on British TV. This has that it is not easy to generalize about which restricts the hours devoted to been- circumvented several times by the quality of the performances. I won't canned music—although this agree• the use of the Eurovision link, a system try. But I would say that British jazz ment apparently does not apply to tapes whereby European TV stations link up fans would dearly love to see such pro• —and occasional use is made of tapes with British TV companies for special grams, now departed, as the Timex Jazz supplied by the Voice of America. No events. Louis Armstrong was seen Jive Shows, Stars of Jazz, and Art Ford's such agreement exists with Radio from Italy last May, and there have . They may have upset the Luxembourg, a commercial radio sta• been, if I remember rightly, telecasts American commentators, but the feel• tion which tapes most of its programs from Belgium by Lionel Hampton and ing in Britain is, they must be a great in London, sends them to Luxembourg, Benny Goodman. deal better than practically nothing. where they are transmitted to Britain When commercial television began in —a situation which exists because of 1955, breaking the BBC's monopoly, a the BBC's radio monopoly with no ad• number of directors and producers who

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