JAZZ: A Regional Exploration Scott Yanow GREENWOOD PRESS JAZZ A Regional Exploration GREENWOOD GUIDES TO AMERICAN ROOTS MUSIC JAZZ A Regional Exploration Scott Yanow Norm Cohen Series Editor GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut • London Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Yanow, Scott. Jazz : a regional exploration / Scott Yanow. p. cm. – (Greenwood guides to American roots music, ISSN 1551-0271) Includes bibliographical references and index. Discography: p. ISBN 0-313-32871-4 (alk. paper) 1 . Jazz—History and criticism. I. Title. II. Series. ML3508.Y39 2005 781.65'0973—dc22 2004018158 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2005 by Scott Yanow All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2004018158 ISBN: 0-313-32871-4 ISSN: 1551-0271 First published in 2005 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.greenwood.com Printed in the United States of America The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Series Foreword vii Preface xi Chronology xiii Introduction xxiii 1. Sedalia and St. Louis: Ragtime 1 2. New Orleans Jazz 7 3. Chicago: Classic Jazz 15 4. New York: The Classic Jazz and Swing Eras 29 5. Kansas City Swing, the Territory Bands, and the San Francisco Revival 99 6. New York Bebop, Latin, and Cool Jazz 107 7. Los Angeles: West Coast Cool Jazz 149 8. New York: Hard Bop and Soul Jazz 169 9. New York: Free Jazz and the Avant-Garde 197 10. Chicago: The Avant-Garde 215 11. New Orleans: The Young Lions 219 12. Modern Jazz: Fusion and Beyond 223 Biographies of Jazz Leaders and Legends 247 Bibliography 277 Index 281 Series Foreword If present trends are any indication, soon anyone with access to the Internet will be able to tune in to music from any part of the world. When that happens, listeners may well find Kentucky bluegrass bands playing Tex-Mex music along with banjo tunes and gospel favorites, while musicians in India may intersperse elements of American rap music with their own native raga traditions. It’s difficult to predict right now, but even to understand the significance of this revolution requires an appreciation for the fact that until recently all musical genres, like every aspect of human activity, were associated with relatively compact geographic regions, bounded not only by national boundaries but also by the more limiting barriers of language, religion, geography, and cultural heritage. In the United States, regional boundaries might enclose an area as large as the vast Southwest or as small as the immediate environs of Galax, Virginia. This series of musical studies seeks to describe American musical traditions that are, or once were, associated with geographic regions smaller than the nation as a whole. These musical varieties include jazz, blues, country music, Hispanic American music, Irish American music, polka music, Franco-American music (including Cajun and Zydeco), Native American music, and traditional folk music. Jazz music originated in New Orleans and other cities along the lower Mississippi River in the early 1900s, but by midcentury it was equally at home in New York and San Francisco as in New Orleans or Memphis. Jazz was in turn viii Series Foreword heavily influenced by blues music, an African American creation born in the broader regions of the Deep South. Country music of recent decades is a merger of two regional Anglo-American musical traditions, one from the Appalachians and other southeastern states, and the other from the southwestern plains. Its earlier name of country-western music reflects more clearly that parentage. Irish American music, brought to these shores mainly in the 1840s and later by emigrants from the Ireland, flourished best in the big cities where the Irish made their new homes: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. Hispanic (Latino, Tex Mex) music migrated north from Mexico and other Latin American countries. In the early 1900s it could be heard only in Texas, New Mexico, and California; a century later, Spanish language radio stations reach almost everywhere in the lower forty-eight. Polka music was brought to the New World by musicians from Central Europe—Germany, Switzerland, and what used to be Czechoslovakia. It was fruitfully transplanted to the Midwestern states from Texas north to Nebraska and the Dakotas. The music of First Nations (Native Americans) was spread across the continent in varieties associated with particular groups of peoples, but as a result of ethnocentric federal policies that forced their relocation to “Indian Reservations,” was subsequently located in regions that were often at great distances from the original homelands. Traditional folk music, the product of evolved music of European American and African American immigrants, had developed distinct regional characteristics in the New World by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but as a result of internal, primarily western migrations, had changed considerably by the early twentieth century. Four of these musical styles—jazz, blues, country, and traditional folk—are treated in separate volumes; the other “ethnic” traditions (Hispanic, Cajun/ Zydeco, Polka, Irish, and Native American) are presented together in a fifth volume. American music continues to evolve. Readers of these volumes can doubtless think of changes in music that have taken place in their own lifetimes. The many musical heritages of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries laid the foundations for today’s music. The advent and growth of national media—radio, television, digital recordings, Internet—exert powerful forces on the nature of musical genres that were once regional. Ironically, national media permit two contradictory phenomena. At first, they introduce listeners to the regional musical forms that a wider audience otherwise might never have known about. Eventually, though, they provide the mechanism for the scrambling and cross- pollination of what were once distinct styles. This does not mean that American musical regionalism is gone forever, doomed to a homogeneous culture that is the same in Key West, Florida, as in the San Juan Islands of Washington. If the past is any guide, new regional styles will continually emerge, gradually to become part of the national mix. As long Series Foreword ix as immigration to these shores continues, the influx of new musical styles will contribute to and invigorate the old. It is an exciting prospect. Norm Cohen Portland Community College, Oregon Series Editor Preface Jazz enters people’s lives many different ways. A lot of new listeners have come from rock and fusion, perhaps excited by the guitar playing of John McLaughlin or Al Di Meola, and wondered about the roots of their styles. Some have discovered jazz because they enjoyed the singing of Diana Krall, or maybe they arrived at jazz after starting out with the Latin music of Tito Puente or the r&b- oriented rhythm and jazz of David Sanborn. Because jazz is to a large extent underground music, it is not played on many radio stations, nor are its stars featured on Entertainment Tonight; one often has to go out of one’s way to find it. Jazz is a very viable music, quite healthy artistically, constantly full of surprises, and well worth discovering, exploring, and savoring. I first became interested in jazz when I was fifteen in 1970. In the previous year I had been listening to the rock hits of the era, but I was ready for something else. I noticed in the Los Angeles Times that there was a Dixieland jazz radio program on KRHM from 5 to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and since Dixieland is a very happy style, I thought I would see what it was about. Benson Curtis, the deejay, did a very good job presenting the music in an open and informative manner. Soon I was hooked, taping songs from the radio with my little cheap tape recorder. After a few months I discovered the syndicated radio series Chuck Cecil’s Swinging Years, and I became interested in swing too. At college I was considered a bit of an oddity because of my love for Dixieland, 1920s jazz, and swing. I heard the names of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, xii Preface but knew nothing about their music except that it seemed quite radical compared to swing. One day in a used record store, I saw a Charlie Parker LP on sale for $1.99. I did not recognize most of the tunes (“Groovin’ High,” “A Night in Tunisia,” and “Cool Blues” among them) but did know one song, “White Christmas.” I listened to the album two or three times a day for a week, not caring for it much at first but determined to understand and appreciate it. About the fifth day, the doors opened, and I was able to enter the world of bebop. Within a short time I moved into all eras of jazz including the avant- garde (late period John Coltrane) and fusion such as Miles Davis’ Live/Evil album. Now I was considered odd among my fellow students because my music was too radical. I have not been bored since, except during the rare moments when I have been away from jazz. Jazz is a vast world, but one often missed by Americans. This book introduces the rich, democratic, and exciting music in all of its styles to open-minded listeners. One warning though: Jazz is very addictive! There are many eras and styles of jazz, and although it is often portrayed as an art form, listeners should never let that statement scare them away.