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Home , Albert Heath, At Newport 1958, Blue Mitchell, Bob Hammer, Bob Wilber, Brookmeyer

WRITING? I am one of Mr. Turley's "few people" who follow The New Yorker and are jazz lovers, and I find in Whitney Bal- liett's writing some of the sharpest and best jazz criticism in the field. He has not been duped with "" in its pseudo-gospel hard-boppish world, or- with the banal playing and writing of some of the "cool school" Californians. He does believe, and rightly so, that a fine jazz performance erases the bound• aries of jazz "movements" or fads. He seems to be able to spot insincerity in any phalanx of jazz musicians. And he has yet to be blinded by the name of a "great"; his recent column on Bil- lie Holiday is the most clear-headed analysis I have seen, free of the fan- magazine hero-worship which seems to have been the order of the day in the trade. It is true that a great singer has passed away, but it does the late Miss Holiday's reputation no good not to ad• LETTERS mit that some of her later efforts were (dare I say it?) not up to her earlier work in quality. But I digress. In Mr. Balliett's case, his ability as a critic is added to his admitted "skill with words" (Turley). He is making a sincere effort to write rather than play jazz; to improvise with words,, rather than notes. A jazz fan, in order to "" a given solo, unwittingly knows a little about the equipment: the tune being improvised to, the chord struc• ture, the mechanics of the instrument, etc. In Balliett's case, all one must know about is the English language. Just as a jazz musician wouldn't use legitimate tone, or the same notes each NO RED BADGE telligible, I suggest that there's less of time, the critic can be given liberty in Suggestion to readers with complaints: an inability to communicate than an the use of words to get to the reader, just buy an Oxford dictionary to use inability to listen on Lee's terms. Which jazz fan or non-jazz fan, what he ex• when reading Mimi Clar and everything is perfectly all right, except that it periences or hears in a given perform• will be okay. makes a statement like "his improvisa- ance. I personally find some of his I fail to see where she is courageous tions . . . have no emotional impact" attempts successful, and as communi• though, as one of your West Coast read• quite nonsensical in its absolutism. cative as a Miles solo, or a Mulligan ers states. Let's face it, Down Beat calls Max seems to be implying—intention• tune. It is certainly nearer to jazz writ• Peggy Lee a jazz singer—in fact the ally or not—that other listeners dis• ing and jazz expression away from in• only good white one; that takes cour• agree with him only against their bet• struments than some of the senseless age, not Mimi Clar telling the obvious ter judgment. Harvey Pekar's excellent "jazz poetry" of Kerouac and Company, truth about Chris and Dakota. Where appreciation of Lennie Tristano was and it has undoubtedly served to intro• Miss Clar is courageous is in her tirade long overdue, but it's a pity he didn't duce many a New Yorker reader to good against and about Lambert-Hendricks discuss the remarkable trio recording jazz. More power to him. & Ross singing Basie, etc. of I Can't Get Started (Keynote and Audrey Edwards Mercury)—very possibly Tristano's most Winslow S. Rogers Gloucester, Mass. successful. Orleans, Mass. I doubt if much courage was involved in Mimi Clar's contemptuous Shearing WHAT ARE PATTERNS FOR? review, as C. H. Garragues claims, and KD AND DRAGGED OUT Max Harrison's revealing analysis of most of it has been said before. How• After Ernie Edwards Jr. disputed (in recalls Robert Benchley's ever big a disappointment Shearing's the Letters column, May 1960) my claim famous "no-one has ever really SEEN failure to shape his career as a kind that it was who played Brooklyn Bridge—it's simply the action of didactic door-opener may be, (it is the solo on 's of light-waves on the retina". Of course a role he is probably still filling, per• recording of The Jitney Man, I took the Lee's solos are 'well-ordered patterns of haps less efficiently than Miss Clar trouble to check with Kenny himself. sounds' if you want to think of it that would want), I think the failure to He substantiated the evidence of my way. But the same kind of thing could maintain the genuine creative promise ears. Therefore, the personnel pub• be said about practically any music. If of some of his earlier work is an even lished in The Discophile, based on in• Max feels that the injection of a more bigger one. formation from Eckstine, was incorrect conventional kind of "swing" would Peter Turley make Lee's solos more melodically in• New York City

3 Volume 3 Number 8 September-October 1960 Editors: Nat Hentoff Martin Williams 6 , a Biography in Interviews Contributing Editor: Bob Reisner Publisher: Hsio Wen Shih Art Director: Bob Cato LU 16 , Revival and Re-creation The Jazz Review is published monthly Dick Had lock by The Jazz Review Inc., 124 White St., N. Y. 13. N. Y. Entire contents copy• right 1960 by The Jazz Review Inc. Israel Young and Leonard Feldman were RECORD REVIEWS among the founders of the Jazz Review. Price per copy 50c. One year's subscription $5.00. Two year's subscription $9.00. 20 by Peter Turley Unsolicited manuscripts and illustrations and by David Lahm should be accompanied by a stamped, self- addressed envelope. Reasonable care will be by Don Heckman taken with all manuscripts and illustrations, 21 and Jackie McLean by Michael James but the Jazz Review can take no responsi• bility for unsolicited material. 22 Johnny Carisi by Don Heckman by H. A. Woodfin Walter Davis Jr. by H. A. Woodfin 23 Wilbur DeParis by J. S. Shipman and Michael James 24 by H. A. Woodfin - by Stanley Dance by David Lahm 25 Bill Henderson by Joe Goldberg J. J. Johnson by Michael James 26 by Michael James - by Ronald Atkins 27 -Lee Morgan by H. A. Woodfin by Gunther Schuller 28 by Max Harrison 29 - by Joe Goldberg Roosevelt Sykes by , 30 Shorter Reviews by Harvey Pekar.i 111 and Larry Gushee 32 Jazz In Print by Hsio Wen Shih X 36 The Mambo in Mexico by Robert Farris Thompson JAZZ by the greatest jazz stars of all time!

1. ERROLL GARNER —Concert 15. - April in 22. - After 29. - Indi• by the Sea. Erroll plays I'll Paris. Sweety Cakes, Shiny Hours. Street of Dreams; gos. Solitude, Where or Remember April, Teach Me Stockings. Corner Pocket, You're Mine, You; Black When, , Prelude Tonight, Erroll's Theme, Mambo Inn, Midgets, 5 more Coffee; Deep Purple; 8 more to a Kiss, Willow Weep for Mambo Carmel, plus 7 others Me, Tenderly, plus 3 more 16. - The 23. - Lady 2. ERROLL GARNER - Solilo• Great Benny Goodman. Let's Day. Miss Brown to You; 30. DUKE ELLINGTON - At quy. You'd Be So Nice To Dance; King Porter Stomp; Billie's ; Me, Myself Newport. Blues to Be There, Come Home To; I Surrender, Avalon; Sing, Sing. Sing; etc. and I; Easy Living; 8 more Festival Junction, Newport Dear; If I Had You; etc. Up, Jeep's Blues, etc. 17. —Gersh• 24. - The 3. J. J. JOHNSON AND KAI win Song Book, Vol. I. But Bessie Smith Story, Vol. I. 31. THE JAZZ MESSENGERS - WINDING — Jay & Kai plus 6. Not For Me, Clap Yo' Hands, With . St. . With the Art Peanut Vendor. The Conti• Fascinatin' Rhythm, Love is Louis Blues, Jallhouse Blues, Blakey Percussion Ensemble nental, Rise n" Shine. Night Here to Stay, plus 8 more Down-Hearted Blues, 9 more Nica's Tempo, Cubano Chant, in Tunisia, 8 others. Just for Marty, etc. 4. QUARTET - 32. LOUIS ARMSTRONG —The Jazz from "Peter Gunn". A Louis Armstrong Story, Vol. Quiet Glass. Not from Dixie, COLUMBIA RECORD CLUB I. "Satchmo" and his Hot Brief and Breezy, 7 more Five play Muskrat Ramble, The Last Time, 10 more 5. QUARTET— invites you to accept At Newport, 1958. Jump for 33. LOUIS ARMSTRONG—Am• Joy, The Duke, C Jam Blues, bassador Satch. The All- Perdido, Flamingo, etc. Stars play Dardanella. All of Me, Tiger Rag, plus 7 others 6. DAVE BRUBECK QUARTET - , out 34. - Le- of Nowhere, Take the "A" grand Jazz. Jitterbug Waltz, Train, Balcony Rock, The In a Mist, Night in Tunisia, Song is You, Le Souk, etc. ANY 5 Wild Man Blues, 7 others 7. - "The 35. THE SOUND OF JAZZ. 8 President" Plays. With the of these high-fidelity 12 long-playing great numbers by , Trio. Ad Lib Billie Holiday. Count Basie, Blues, Tea for Two, 6 others JAZZ RECORDS Jimmy Guiffre and others 8. -The Roar• 36. THE JAZZ MAKERS. An ing Twenties. Eddie and the even dozen hits by 12 great All-Stars play China Boy. stars: Armstrong, Basie, Wolverine Blues, Apex Blues, Henderson, Ellington, Good• man, Prima, Gillespie, etc. Minor Drag, plus 8 others FOR $f97 9. TRIO. Love ONLY ••• 37. JOHNNY MATH IS. Johnny sings twelve top tunes: Easy for Sale, Perfidla, Rica Pul- fJl RETAIL VALUE to Love, Babalu, Star Eyes, pa. Donkey Serenade, Au• $19.90 Street of Dreams, etc. tumn Leaves, 5 others H I RETAIL VALUE 38. JOHNNY MATH IS - Open 10. —Gold• if you join the Club now — and agree to purchase en Vibes. My Prayer, My Fire, Two Guitars, with gui• Funny Valentine, But Beau• as few as 5 selections from the more than 200 tarists Al Caiola and Tony tiful, . 8 more Mottola. Embraceable You, to be offered during the coming 1 2 months An Open Fire, I'll Be Seeing 11. LIONEL HAMPTON-ApollO You, Tenderly, 8 more Hall Concert, 1954. "Hamp" plays , 39. — The Stardust, Lover Man, Mid• 18. ELLA FITZGERALD - At 25. MAHALIA JACKSON-New- Broadway Kick. 12 top show night Sun, 4 others the Opera House. Goody port 1958. I'm On My Way, tunes: Lost in the Stars, They Say It's Wonderful, The BILLIE HOLIDAY Goody, Wind, Moonlight Walk Over God's Heaven, 111 Girl That I Marry, etc. 12. & HIS in Vermont, 6 others Didn't It Rain, 9 others TRIO - "Gypsy" in Jazz. Everything's Coming Up 19. - Drummer 26. - Porgy and 40. THE HI-LO'S - And All Roses, Together Wherever We Man. Drum Boogie, Let Me Bess. It Ain't Necessarily So; That Jazz. Lady in Red. Fas• Go, Some People, 9 others Off Uptown, Slow Down Bess, You Is My Woman cinatin' Rhythm, Small Fry, Boogie Blues, 9 others Now; Summertime: 10 others Summer Sketch, 8 more 13. -When the Saints Go Marching In. Roil 20. GERRY MULLIGAN 0.UAR- 27. MILES DAVIS - 'Round 41. ART VAN DAMME QUINTET Jordan, Roll; Down in Jungle TET -- What is There to Say? About Midnight. All of You. — Manhattan Time. Stella by Town; Evolution Mama; etc. Just in Time, Blueport, As Bye Bye Blackbird, Dear Old Starlight. Temptation Rag, I Catch Can, 5 more Stockholm, Ah-Leu-Cha, etc. Saw Stars, plus 8 others 14. COUNT BASIE - One O'• clock Jump. Mutton-Leg, 21. TOMMY & 28. - The 42. ROY HAMILTON - You'll Beaver Junction, I'm Con- - Sentimental & Swinging. Bix Beiderbecke Story, Vol. I. Never Walk Alone. 1 Believe, fessin'. Patience and Forti• Ruby; Sweet Sue, Just You; ThouSwell. , Sorry, If I Loved You, Ebb Tide. tude, I Ain't Got Nobody, etc. Mambo; 9 more Goose Pimples, 8 more Unchained Melody, 8 more

JAZZ HAS COME OF AGE . . . from You may accept the monthly selec• [• —•! SEND NO MONEY — Mail coupon to receive 5 |an records for $1.97 to the Hollywood Bowl, tion for your Division . . . take any of jazz concerts vie in popularity with the wide variety of records offered in COLUMBIA RECORD CLUB, Dept. 229-2 CIRCLE 5 traditional performances of sym• all Divisions ... or take NO record in Terre Haufe, Indiana NUMBERS: phonies and concertos. Music lovers any particular month. I accept your offer and have circled at the right the numbers of the world over know that good jazz is Your only obligation as a member is the five records I wish to receive for $1.97, plus small mailing and 1 IS 29 great music . . . and deserves a place to purchase five selections from the handling charge. Enroll me in the following Division: 2 16 30 in every well-rounded record library. more than 200 Columbia, Epic and (check one box only) To introduce you to the money-saving to be offered in the com• • Jazz Q Listening and Dancing • Classical 3 17 31 music program of the Columbia Record ing 12 months. You may discontinue • Broadway, Movies, Television and Musical Comedies 4 18 32 Club, we now offer you ANY 5 of these membership at any time thereafter. I agree to purchase five selections from the more than 200 to be great jazz records for only $1.97! The records you want are mailed and offered during the coming 12 months, at regular list price plus 5 19 33 small mailing and handling charge. Thereafter, if I decide to TO RECEIVE 5 JAZZ RECORDS FOR ONLY billed to you at the regular list price, continue my membership, I am to receive a 12" Columbia, Epic 6 20 34 $1.97 — mail the coupon now. Be sure generally $3.98 (Classical $4.98), plus or Verve Bonus record of my choice FREE for every two additional to indicate which one of the Club's a small mailing and handling charge. selections I accept. 7 21 35 musical Divisions you wish to join: FREE BONUS RECORDS GIVEN REGU• 8 22 36 Jazz; Listening and Dancing; Broadway, LARLY. If you wish to continue as a Name Movies, Television and Musical Come• member after purchasing five records, (Please Print) 9 23 37 dies; Classical. you will receive a Columbia, Epic or Address 10 24 38 Verve Bonus record of your choice free HOW THE CLUB OPERATES: Each month City ZONE State 11 25 39 the Club's staff of music experts se• for every two selections you purchase - a 50% dividend. CANADA: prices slightly higher; nil Leslie St., Don Mills, Out. lects outstanding recordings for all If you want this membership credited to an established^ Columbia or 12 26 40 four Divisions. These selections are MAIL THE COUPON NOW to receive Epic record dealer, authorized to accept subscriptions, fill in below: described in the Club Magazine, which your 5 jazz records — up to a $19.90 13 27 41 you receive free each month. retail value — for only $1.97! Dealer's Name 14 28 42 Dealer's Address 273 55 -DH COLUMBIA RECORD CLUB TERRE HAUTE, INDIANA ©ColumbiaRecord Club, Inc., 1960 "Columbia,' ,' 'Epic,'' («•) Marcas Reg.

BIRD

In 1954, six months before Charlie Parker's death, Bob Reisner began gathering material for a Par• ker biography. At that time, he had no commit• ment from a publisher, and the project started solely because Reisner was convinced it should be done. He interviewed everyone he could find who had known Parker. His search took him to Kansas City, , and anywhere else that his information, his own funds and his time would allow. The gathering of material and work on the bio• graphy are still in progress. Meanwhile, Mr. Reisner has consented to publish the interviews in their original form as an interim biography of Charlie Parker, whose music inspired the work of so many who will speak in this unique series of interviews. w X z o s MRS. ADDIE PARKER < a. bJ ic Mrs. Addie Parker, Charlie Parker's mother, has lived for < twenty years at 1535 Olive Street in Kansas City, Mis- °- souri, in a two story house with a lawn and backyard Hi which she bought with money she earned herself as a 5- cleaning woman at a Western Union telegraph office. J She spent all of her life in the two Kansas Cities. In o her forties, she began to study to become a practical nurse, and she now works in a Kansas City Hospital. asked again, "Did you get his burial money?" Then I She still does all her own housework, which now in• answered. "I'm his mother, and my name is on that cludes caring for four boarders in the upstairs rooms death policy." which she had hoped would one day be a home for She said "I'm still his wife." And I'd never heard of her! Charlie and his family. Charles's father was from Memphis. He died when Charles was a fat baby and a fat child. At eleven Charles was seventeen. Some lady stabbed him during months he walked, and he began to speak good at two. a drunken quarrel. Charles Senior drunk terrible. I got He graduated Crispus Attucks Public School at eleven a hold of Charles and brought him home for the funeral. years old and always got fine grades. In Lincoln High His father and I had been separated eight years. He School he was the pride of his teachers, especially was on the railroads as a chef. He could cook any• Miss Bridey, who said "Your boy is going to amount to thing. He could dance; he was a good scholar; he could something." Only once she did send him home for play the ; but he was a drunkard. I tried so many fighting with another boy. Charles licked him for mak• times to get him to stop but all he would say was ing fun of his face, which was broken out with pimples. "Ten years from today I will stop drinking." School was too easy for him in a way; he could reel When Charles was sixteen he sold my electric iron and off his lessons without much effort. He quit in the got fifty cents for it. He needed a cab to get to an third year. School did one great thing for him; he was appointment, he said. He always loved cabs. Rebecca given a to play. I didn't go for that; was so heavy did not have any money around, so he grabbed the iron and funny coiled around him with just his head stick• and sold it to a furniture store. I went to the store and ing out, so I got him another instrument. He started got it back from the man without paying any more playing at thirteen. He was never interested in sports. than 50 cents because I told him what had happened. All he cared about was music and reading. I used to The electric iron prank was the only one I remember find loads of books in the cellar. him doing. He used to phone for money, and I always He was fifteen-and-a-half-years old when he married Re• had 150 to 200 dollars around the house for his emer• becca Ruffing, who was a few years older than he was. gencies. He always paid whatever it was back with He came to me one day and said, "Mama, I think I am interest. If he borrowed 100 I'd get back 150. When I in love, and I'm old enough to get married." He may graduated Nursing School in 1949 he sent me 300 dol• not have been old enough but he was big enough. I lars and told me it was for uniforms or whatever I told him when he felt he was sure, then it was alright. needed. A short while afterward, before their marriage, Re• I told Charles the best way to go on living, the way he becca's mother and six children moved in upstairs. was doing, he'd better get out of town. (These girls They were married two years, and tiien she got a legal were coming up to the house in cabs.) They give you a divorce. Rebecca has been married several times since book of matches with a name or a number on it. It then and now lives in California. would burn me up. One of those girls had a pocketfull John, who is two years older than Charles, is his half- of reefers. I imagine she's on narcotics now. brother. They have the same father but different As I say, Charles father died when he was seventeen, mothers. John never knew the difference because I I got ahold of Charles, who was in Chicago, and brought treated them both equally. John is a post office em• him home for the funeral. Charles could hardly recog• ployee and lives in Kansas City, Kansas. John has al• nize the body it was in such horrible shape from loss ways loved Charles. of blood. We had been separated for years. They collected eleven thousand dollars at the benefit "Mama what made him do it?" Charles asked. fund for Charles. Uncle Sam took a thousand. I never "He liked the lady, I guess." saw a penny of that benefit fund. They put her in jail till he was buried, then they let I can hardly talk about Charles, it hurts so much. If you her go. She drank herself to death a year later. break an arm or a leg you can fix it, but there's no I got him his instrument in 1936. Robert Simpson, his mending a broken heart. Whenever the band was play• friend who played the trombone who died of an opera• ing in Tootie's Mayfair Club they would take me out tion at nineteen, was his inseparable friend. They once in a car. I'd get out of my uniform, dress up, and the tried to make a job playing at the Orchid Room at 12th cats would call for me. I sometimes stayed up a whole and Vine but they came home a little sad and de• night to hear Charles. clared "They threw us out." Bird was the cutest and prettiest child I ever saw. "Charles if you get into trouble you've got to tell A month ago this girl comes up the stairs and told me mother." who she was. The girl arrived with a man who I remem• They sent me two plaques. I re-wrapped one and sent bered. He had grown this moustachious thing all it to his boy Leon in California. I raised Leon until he around his chin but I remembered him. was ten, and then his mother stole him away from me She had fiery red hair, so red, it looked about to catch and took him to Baltimore. fire. She came up the steps, and I said to her, "What is In a year or two from now I can take these things. It it, Girl?" hurts too much to look at them. "I want to talk to you." So she came in the house. She had on yellow moc• casins, bare legs, and a pink set of sweaters and a red skirt. "I got into this trouble because of Charlie," she said. He was born in 852 Freeman St., Kansas City, Kansas. "Charles didn't get you into any trouble." He was reared at a Catholic day school because I was "Did you get his burial money?" working all the time. The way they teach you, it stays First I talked on not heeding her question; then she with you. I was a baptist, but he'd say, "We don't do

8 things that way," talking about his Catholicism. As a "There isn't anybody a big shot," I told him. "You spend child he had a gang of friends and just loved movies your money, and what do you get? A kick in the teeth." and ice cream sodas. He never was in the draft. The "Mama, if I saved my money, the wives would take it only work he ever done was going to Chicago blowing away from me." his horn. He was not spoiled through, because I think Chan once called me up and said, "If I didn't get him a spoiled child never leaves his parents. Charles would I think I would die." Once when Doris was sick, Charles go away weeks and weeks. He liked to see things told her to go home, stay awhile and then come back. and do things. He wanted more children. I think Kansas City is a little Southern. Charles would "Mama," he says, "after I'm gone the Parkers will still take his watch to the pawn shop, and the pawn broker, live." When Doris left, Chan moved in. I think the who was friendly, would say to me, "Tell Charlie Parker world of Doris. I run my telephone up to twenty-five to stay out of Kansas City; it's a stinkin' town. They dollars that time trying to get him to live right. "Mother don't want him to have a chance. Never." They paid wants you to treat Doris right." musicians very little, and there's no record companies. Bird had a white friend here in town named Charlie. After he went to Chicago he said, "Mama, it's different, He said to Bird, "When you get ready to go I'm gonna I want you to come here and I'll take care of you." fly you to New York." The Southern in him showed it• But I told him, "You go ahead and live your life." He self when he came to Charles home in New York. He lived like he wanted to. was greeted warmly by Doris, but when he saw that it If they saw you running around with white girls, they was a white woman he left quickly, and that was the would take you down town and kill you, and they did. end of their friendship. I told Charles, "You spoiled They take you to Swope Park and kill you. I was glad everything bringing him to your home." that he left. A girl in town here started Charles on reefer stuff. Charles never let anything go to his head. "You don't I found some in his pockets. "What is this have to 'mister' me," he'd say. He couldn't get along stinking stuff?" I said. with Rebecca; they were school sweethearts. He wanted Charles smiled and said "Don't destroy any of that, to remarry her after they were separated five years. She mama, it's too good." She had this long pretty brown went up to St. Louis with him. "She don't know how hair. She was a pretty girl, she's mixed. She was in that to act or talk; she just wants me to sit in a room all world around those night clubs. She lost her mind day, and I have to go out with the boys." You know how twice. I went and saw her in the isolation ward. She's the girls pull on a man. around here now, right in the neighborhood. She's fat He was the most affectionate child you ever saw. When now. I saw her once years ago when she came out of he was two he'd come to the door and say, "Mama, you this house. She had nothing on but her dress; my good• there?" And I'd say "Yes, I'm here," and he'd go on ness, that is just like that girl! She never worked. She playing. Since he could talk he'd say, "Mama, I love used to see things (crazy). She came into the house you." once and said, "Didn't you see anything?" Then she Chan called me and said, "Did you know that Charles said, "Don't tell him I'm here." had passed?" I answered, "Yes, I know," because Doris I would always have to give him twenty to twenty-five had called before and said, "Parky, sit down, because dollars to help him dress himself. I wanted him to this is a shocking thing. Are you alone?", and I said, study in the conservatory. I put away 500 dollars for "Oh no, Charles isn't dead?" the purpose, but the bank closed and I lost the money. He was stuck down in some white morgue. Doris asked He wanted to be a doctor. He paid alimony to Rebecca, them at this morgue, "Do you have a fellow going under five dollars a week. the name of John Parker?" and this attendant, "All I Did you read in Coronet "She Lived Nine Hours In want is my money for some work on the body I've done." Hell"? If you can't pay and you keep coming around He advised her to put him in a burlap bag—How could begging, they snuff you out with an overdose when you they put my child in a burlap bag? become a pest. There's a boy in the neighborhood who Doris had called me and said, "We found him; I've is an addict. I told him, "Why don't you quit that." taken care of everything." It was Dizzy and his wife "Oh, Mrs. Parker you feel so good when you take it." who was with her. She stayed out at Tommy Potter's They brought a boy into the hospital. They had to tie house. She called me every evening. I thought it wasn't him down. They put a thick strap across his chest. The nothing but an overdose of dope. I talked with them doctors didn't know what it was, but I knew what it (Charles and the baroness) three days before he died. was and wouldn't tell. I just told them it'll take three She said, "How are you? I hope to meet you some• days, and then he'll be all right. They asked me how times." I said to Charles, "If you're sick in any way let I knew but I wouldn't tell them. The doctors always me know." He said they wanted to give him an electric say that I have that "old fashioned mother wit." encephalogram. "Charles," I said, "don't take it. Come I told Charles, "Don't bring any company here; I have home to mother. I work in the finest hospital in Kansas my house filled up." Finally he found some chick here. City, and I will have it done if it is a necessity." All the roomers would ask me about it. "Where are you I worked night and day for two years. Nights in the going?" I asked him. Western Union, cleaning the office and days cleaning "I gotta take this chick home, she likes me." and taking care of babies. In the hospital you never The girl was white, red headed and good looking. She know what days you get off. I have to look at the bul• pushed dope, and he had met her through one of those letin board. numbers on a match cover people were always slipping In 1953 gave him a thousand dollars one him. She was driving a great big 1952 Cadillac. She night. I said, "Why do you have to spend it all?" kept coming to the house. I told him to go to a hotel "Mama, it's high living; it costs to go with the cats." with her.

9 "It don't look nice." for awhile and from there to New York. One night at 5 o'clock in the morning he knocks on You know he wanted to be a doctor and I was going to my bedroom door and says, "Wake up, this chick wants put up the money for his schooling. When Charles got to go to sleep with me." put here at Lincoln they didn't have good teachers, and "You'd better go to the hotel." he didn't care for school, and after a while he asked "NO!" he shouted. me to get him a horn and I did, and he forgot about "You tell her she's gotta go." being a doctor then. When he left here he put the horn Anyway, they went. When they came back I had his bags in pawn, but I finished paying for it, it was some 200 in the hall. She worked for the Italian. odd dollars, and that was in depression times. The first He was about seventeen and in New York when he horn I got him only cost me forty-five dollars at took those drugs. We had some terrible quarrels, and Mitchell's down on Main Street, but I had it over• I said, "One house isn't built for two nasty people. hauled, and it ran into money. But that other horn You know mother loves you, but you've got to obey was just beautiful, white gold with green keys. Just mother or else you've got to leave here." beautiful. He was all I had, and all I wanted to put money in. I don't think I'll ever get over it, but I do feel a little Twenty years I've had a telephone line, not a party line, better now. He was my heart, you know. I just lived for that boy to call me. He once asked for some money for Charles. I used to tell him when he'd come home for a parking fine which had him in jail. He had parked that he could have the upstairs, and I'd take the down• on the wrong side of the street when he was high. I told stairs, or we'd go down south somewhere and buy a him he would have it in an hour and a half, and I ran home. He was a dear child, just lovely. down to the telegraph office. Sunday was his day to call and he'd call me every He has always been a good boy. The most he cost me weekend. He called me just before he died. He called is when he went to New York. When I graduated in that Sunday and said he was fine. I had heard he was 1949 he sent me 300 dollars for a uniform and a cap supposed to go into a hospital and have an electro- and so forth. All that stuff was given to us. I went out cardiagram. I told him if he had to have that to come to the Medical Center in 1950 and I was hired. I was home, because I was in the hospital all the time and I just in two towns in all my life, the two Kansas Cities; could be near him. I never cared to go any place either. He did say that he wished Jay would come to New His father was musical, but I've never done anything York again. He liked Jay, and Jay always lifted up his of a musical kind. bands. When he met Dizzy, of course, things changed. I just cried when I saw what they had written, "Charlie He was an Eastern boy but he had been out here Parker was 53 years old." He was older than his mother! before. He didn't like Father Hines, because he was They finally straightened it out, because all you have older, and he didn't care for Duke Ellington. When to do was to look at his picture and you'd know he Norman Granz wanted to make those records using was a young man. oboes, flutes and those, he knew he was going to the He first started playing out at the old Gaiety Theatre top. He'd say, "Mama, I'm going to the top, my name's with Lawrence Keyes and all of them. I don't remember going to be in lights and you're going to be there to him playing with Harlan Leonard, but I remember the see it," and I just couldn't hold him. Norman used Gaiety Theatre, it was a white club and they all took to take such pains with him and talked to him for an interest in him. nearly two hours on the phone, and when they were Charlie was married when he was only sixteen. Rebecca finished I asked Charlie how was he going by train or was four years older than he was and wanted to be his by plane? He said he was going to fly. mother to him. He wouldn't stand for that and started All the people would be crazy about Charles' music, beating up on her, you know. I told him that wasn't but they wouldn't know what he was playing. I used to right and it would only cause a lot of trouble and the tell them "You'll just have to listen." best thing to do was leave, and he went to Chicago. One of the announcers on the radio would announce Jay McShann used to come over to our house and play just what Charles was going to play and I have a long on our piano, and those two used to have a time to• list of it somewhere. He announced that when Charles' gether. It was some other fellow's band at the Gaiety, birthday, the 28th came they'd have several hours of and he had Charlie and Lawrence in it with him. his records. All the boys used to call me and ask to be I didn't hear him play before he left Kansas City, but sure to call them if it went on. It never did because when he came back here in 1952 and was out at the the announcer was away on vacation when that time Mayfair, I went out there every night. Several people came. would call for me, and we'd all get dressed up and go Ernest Daniels, the drummer, got hurt with Charles out there and have the time of our lives. I was so dead when they first started out, you know. Charles got two the next day I didn't even want to get up. broken ribs, and Ernest got all his teeth knocked out. My nurse supervisor, Mrs. Driscoll went to New York The old man playing piano was killed. Ernest was driv• after Charles had passed and she said, "Oh, Mrs. ing on that ice, and the car got turned around. Parker, that Birdland is the prettiest place in New They didn't have very many bands around here after York." She used to go to all the colored dances when Bennie Moten died. The Clouds of Joy left, and then she was a student nurse, to hear Bennie Moten and Jay came along and fitted right in. Charles was still all of them, you know. In those days they didn't want in school when Count Basie left, and even then he colored and white people to mix, but it's not like that used to tell everyone he was nineteen. He was always now. a big boy. A lot of them didn't ask, and I didn't tell He always thought he could make it here, but after he them, and those that did ask, like Jay, I'd say to them, and wife disagreed he had to leave and went to Chicago "What difference did it make?" He wanted to play;

10 give him a chance. If he'd waited a couple of years and he said that was his business. He said if I paid the until he got older he might have been out of luck and fifteen he would go on home. I said, "Without a bill?" had to do something else. He would come around the next day and ask for more I never went to any of the dances until Charles had money. That peddler was the first one to meet Charles come back home. I heard all the other bands, Clouds at the airport when he came back to Kansas City. I of Joy, etc. Charles had some white friends who used told him I didn't want him around Charles because of to pick me up at the hospital and take me out to the what he had done. I always said that if someone was Mayfair. going to do something not to do it at home, and that was what Charles tried to do. He brought two pills around and said they'd cost Charles ten dollars and that I was to give them to him. Did you see that story in Playboy? Doris sent it to me. I was studying to be a nurse at that time, and I knew I was so hurt I couldn't even finish it, haven't read it what they were, and Charles never got them, because yet. They certainly told some big ones. Said he looked I put them in the fire. He should have known that I like a scarecrow and all that. Whenever he needed any• would know what they were, because I had a dictionary thing, all he had to do was to call, and it was there. that listed all the narcotic and drug names, and I knew That's what I worked for and what I lived for, that boy. what they were. I saw him on the street about three He called me all the time when he was in California. months ago, but I never want to speak to him again. He said, "Mama, our music doesn't go over so fine out And he was one of Charles' friends. here." I hate that fellow. He brought some of that stuff here. One day he called me out at the hospital, when his "When Charlie wakes up give this to him," he said, little girl Pree died. handing me some white squares of paper with some• Chan wrote me a letter after my boy passed. She thing wrapped up in it. I didn't know what it was at claimed her boy was Charles', and I know that wasn't the time. A friend of his was at the house, and he so because he was four or five months old when noticed how Charles had changed somewhat. My Charles met her. After he passed she wrote me that Charles was asleep and this boy said to me, "Look she meant that it wasn't Charles' but that he accepted how Parker is breathing; Charles is loaded with some• him. That's different. thing." His eyes were open at times, his breathing was I just loved Doris. I never saw Chan in my life, but heavy, and his tongue was lolling out of his mouth. In she's got little Bird, and the money is coming in, and Camarillo he bit a little side piece of his tongue off. I guess she doesn't mind. I told that fellow who sold dope as long as he's black I don't know where he got his nickname Bird from. not to put his foot on my porch again. "Why does your Another thing, in those books they wrote Charles Chris• mother hate me?" he used to ask Charles. I told topher Parker, Jr. I don't know anything about any Charles why I hated him. "He's the first one to meet Christopher; his daddy wasn't Christopher. Just plain you at the airport. I hate him cause of it—no good Charles Parker. He was Senior and Charles was Junior. junks who go everywhere you go." I got a subpoena when Chan wanted all of Charles' fur• Once he made away with a little more than his share niture. The question was whether they were married. and the Italian had him half whipped to death. I Charles' car, Charles' horn and all of Charles' clothes, used to get some of Charles' records in the mail from and his ring, the one he had when he was married to New York. They sent a bill for $25.00 for them. I just Doris. Chan said Charles hasn't been married to no one turned them over to my lawyer. I didn't even open the but Geraldine. I never heard of her. package because I didn't have anything to play them They almost buried him in Potter's Field. But I'd have on. Their lawyers used to write me, but I sent the had him dug up and brought here. Norman had the records back and had the receipt for them, insurance body sent to me and I didn't have to pay a penny; he and everything. I wrote him that I didn't want them, was swell. I can't understand why he didn't get his and that they had been sent back. I didn't hear from horn. I wanted his horn, and I'd love to have it. Norman them again. They tried again and had a school kid was in California and couldn't transact business the write me that they cut the price of records to $14.00, way he would if he was in New York. I'm sure he would and I wrote back and said I didn't care what the price have gotten it for me. was I didn't want them. I went to Mr. Zee's record store to get one of his records after he passed, but he didn't All my friends at the hospital, white and colored, said have it and told me to write to several different shops, they never saw anyone put away as nice as he was and and they'd probably send it to me free, but I never did do I really appreciate what Norman did for me. it. I guess I picked the wrong profession, because there's A lady wrote me and said she had some pictures of so much suffering. Every day when someone is hurt or Charlie Parker that she was going to send me. I didn't needs help it takes something out of you. They'd tell want to hurt her feelings but those things hurt me so you someone needed help, and you'd go to help them, that I was going to write her and tell her not to send and they'd be dead, and that's always a shock. them. I never did. Everytime I see a picture or a letter from him, it just hurts. They're all locked up in that trunk of his. I washed all the pictures and frames and wrapped them up and put them away. I can't look at them. I had an experience once. Some fellow came to the house in a cab and asked for Charlie Parker. Charles was asleep then and I asked what it was all about. He said Charles owed him a bill for $15.00. I asked what for

11 twenty-one Robert Simpson died, of what we were never EDWARD MAYFIELD JR. sure. A heart ailment was thought to be the cause. Charlie was a complete wreck after that. My band in school was called "Deans of Swing" and we were pretty damned good. Besides me on piano Edward Mayfield, Jr. was one of Charlie Parker's school• and Bird there was Freddie Culliver, tenor mates. A musician in his teens, Mayfield is now the (who is now dead), James Ross, trumpet; Franz Bruce, owner of a candy store in Kansas City. alto; Vernon Walker, alto; and Walter Brown doing He was kind of a bully. He was kind of a mean boy. He vocals. pushed you aside and got his horn first out of the If he had been as conscientious about his school work music closet in school. If you didn't like it . . . you as he was about music he would have become a pro• liked it anyway. He was larger than we were. He didn't fessor, but he was a terrible truant. It was a surprise stand any kind of pushing around. He didn't pick on if he came a whole week. He was doomed to be a per• you, but he would pop you in a minute. He was not a petual freshman. regular attender, maybe one day out of three. He was He quit and joined McShann, and soon the Deans of a good reader both words and the dots. He managed Swing were playing against McShann and Bird in those to make his music classes pretty regular. He was that band cutting contests which were so popular. We were type of four-flusher. He mostly associated with older growing up and apart. Bird had a new and shiny horn fellows. He was smoking and that sort of thing, and which made me recall the sessions at my house with we didn't smoke. He was just an older type guy. He his first one which was as raggedy as a pet monkey, knew me pretty well, and I would say he liked me. rusty and patched up with rubber bands. I had an encounter with him when he was in Mc- Over the years we would see each other when we played Shann's group when I was at Lincoln University. He clubs in the same town. In K.C. he might be playing spent the night with me in the dormitory. We spoke of Green Leaf Gardens while I'd be at the Spinning Wheel music all through the night. He played a baritone horn Club. In New York he was playing at the Three Deuces in High School. I played a woodwind. I asked him, and I was at the Onyx Club, and he was a constant "When did you start playing alto?" visitor. He'd come in and sit near me, and if some• "I just picked it up," he answered. one came over to tell him he had to get back to his I always have a few of his records on the jukebox in own bandstand he said, "In a little while; I want to my candy store. hear my home town play." I have always been tagged with a nickname 88, a name I've never been too fond of. But 88 Keyes identified me in the business, so I let it be on signs. Bird with his innate sense of propriety always called me Law• rence instead of 88 or Keyes. I was the first one who started him out in music. We LAWRENCE KEYES met sometime before his death at an Uptown club and he asked me where I had been keeping myself all these years. I told him that I was out in Long Island in a place called the Club Carousel and had been Pianist Lawrence Keyes was Charlie Parker's first leader there for the past eight years. He was impressed with —in a band formed when both were still in high school. this. He said that this was because I was a moderate As his narrative indicates, Keyes is still very much man. I'll never forget the words he said to me, "You're active in music; at this writing he is house pianist at doing the best thing, staying cool and clean. Don't the Polka Dot bar on 45th street in New York. you ever change. Anytime a man can play that long Bird went to Crispus Attucks public school and then in one club and play what he wants to play, he is a to the old Lincoln High School. We had a school band great man." I felt so good that I forgot to ask him of which I was the leader. Alonzo Lewis was our music for fifteen dollars which he owed me from the old K.C. teacher, and it's to his credit that he saw the promise days, when we were getting a dollar and a half a night— in Charlie's playing and said so. Bird played baritone and that was good pay. horn in the band, but off the stand he was fascinated with the piano, and he used to bother me to show him chords. I was three years older than him. I was a sophomore and he was a freshman. We became good friends. It was a triumvirate because there was an• other guy whom Charlie admired tremendously, and the three of us would hang out in each other's houses prac• ERNEST DANIELS ticing and talking music day and night. We never spoke about dates or girls. We never went on double dates together, only music. We each had a girl of our own but that was separate. Bird's girl was named Ernest Daniels, who lives down the street from Mrs. Rebecca. We had our love life but it was very private. Parker, is a drummer and vibraphonist who played with The name of the third fellow was Robert Simpson and Parker during the early days in Kansas City. he played trombone remarkably. To say that Charlie I was some years older than Charlie but that doesn't admired him is perhaps too mild, Charlie worshipped make any difference with musicians. We became good him and was in his company a great deal. Suddenly at friends and played together in Lawrence Keyes' band

12 for a year and a half. When we first got to know each dope addicts. I wouldn't want to be around anyone who other he used to come by my window at twelve or one was. There are always exceptional people in the world. in the morning, throw a pebble against the window, You don't know why they are. He was happy-go-lucky. and we'd go to jam sessions and play. I'm not positive about the years, but I'd say it was around 1934-35 that we were with Keyes. They were tough depression days. The band was not union but managed because it was very popular and filled halls at a quarter per person, of which the band got a percentage. Local bands had much more support in those days. All of those men TOMMY DOUGLAS of Kansas City could have made it in other places around the , but most of them stayed because they could make livings on their local repu• tations. Today, with so few big Negro bands, what can About clarinetist and alto saxophonist Tommy Douglas, a musician look forward to? said, "He was and still is one of the most pro• It was on a Thanksgiving day in 1936. There was three ficient sax players alive today. Several jazz musicians of us in a car; myself and George Wilkerson, a bass came up around him, and I think Parker brushed with player, and Charlie sitting in the back with the drums him somewhere along the line. Like or and bass. I was driving and we were going one hundred Don Redman were regarded in the East, Douglas was in and fifty miles into the Ozarks. We were eight miles Kansas City." from our destination when it happened. We were in a Charlie Parker was playing with me when I cut the Chevrolet following this Buick driven by our boss Mr. band down to seven pieces. He was on alto. He was Musser. Our speed was seventy or seventy-five miles an about fifteen then, and he was high then. I told him hour when we came to a sheet of ice in the road, the he was in for trouble, and I used to have to go and car swerved and turned over several times. I was give a taxi driver ten and fifteen dollars to get his horn thrown sixty feet from the car, hospitalized for thirty out of hock because he was high on that stuff. Finally days for multiple bruises and a punctured lung, "bird he lost the horn and I got mad and wouldn't get it for broke a couple of ribs but was doctored at the spot him. The taxi driver soaked his horn and wouldn't tell and didn't need hospitalization. George Wilkerson died him where he had it. that night. The instruments were all tore up. Mr. Mus• When I was blowing, he'd be sitting there smiling and ser paid all the bills, bought me a new set of drums tapping his foot, and I figured he was just high off that and an overcoat. I consider it a turning point in Bird's jive, but he was digging. I took a Boehm-system clari• life because he got a little money out of a law suit net (I played both Boehm and Albert) over to him one we had against Mr. Musser, who made no objection to day and he came back the next and played all the this suit, feeling his liability coverage would help us parts, he was that brilliant. It wasn't any time before (he was a big man, reputed to practically own the town he was playing all the execution, and it was that clari• of Eldon, Missouri). With this money Charlie bought a net that started him soloing. (I started on Boehm be• new Selmer, whose action I hear is a little faster than cause I was a classic musician and it took the other kinds of altos—It gave him a lift. me nine years to learn the Albert system, the one all One Halloween night, George E. Lee fronted Lawrence the guys used. I had to learn because the Keyes' band; Lee was a singer. This was at Paseo Hall other didn't swing—too much execution.) on 15th and Paseo Street. Lee paid the down payment I was playing almost the same way, way out. What on our initiation fees and we went union. When you caused me to do that was studying theory and har• were making ten or twelve dollars a night, that was big mony. I made all passing tones and added chords, what money and that was non-union, but we were drawing we call intricate chords today. I was doing all that big crowds. After we went union we didn't make that then in 1935, and in order to get all that in, it called much. for a whole lot of execution. Naturally I couldn't just Charlie had a very nice disposition, kind of happy-go- run notes and, I had to figure out a style, but nobody lucky. During the time they had the comic strip Popeye, understood it. Charlie used to imitate Popeye's deep toned voice, and One night I was working with three of my guys at a he used to make that deep tone on his horn. They used little place run by the guy who runs the American to have jam sessions every night. Professor Buster Cab Company now, and an old drunk asked if we could Smith was one of his great inspirations. play Stardust. Well that was one of my pet tunes, and In 's band I hear Charlie walked off with that I had a whole lot of chords I could work on. The piano job. In two weeks he was playing the whole repertory player made the four bar introduction, and I made all and taking solos. kinds of intricate chords, parallels, everything. When I Some people get recognition, and they buy clothes pot through the old drunk guy comes up and says, and put on airs, get a big head, but, he was still Charlie. "Here's a dollar. Now play Stardust." That woke me up. It didn't change him at all. Some people think, "I am Maybe I should play the melodies. So when somebody fast now. I travel by plane; everything is fast now." He asks me to play Stardust, although maybe I bend it a was just the opposite. He was a guy that never did little, I always let them know what I'm playing. grow up. This has always been a blues town, in fact the terri• Playing music, there are always temptations. You meet tory has always been a blues territory. a lot of people. There is always women that follow Parker gave up tone for execution. I try to keep as musicians. Musicians are friendly people. I have never much tone as possible, but you have to cheat a little used any type of dope. I haven't been around too many if you want to make it swing.

13 Johnson, drums, Buddy Anderson and Orville Minor, and Bob Mabane, saxophone. Bird said he wanted to blow with us. He told me he was all straight. "I've stopped goofing, I want to blow with you cats." He didn't start blowing with us till late 1939 or 1940. The way we rehearsed, one guy handled the reeds, and one guy rehearsed the brass, and then we put the whole band together. I could always depend on Bird to handle the reed section because he had straight• ened up. He'd get mad if anyone was late. He was also doing some writing at the time. He had some numbers in the book. He had . There were twelve pieces in the band; we added a guy whenever we found JAY McSHANN what we wanted. We had a little fellow in the brass section, Buddy An• derson. Diz would pick this particular fellow out when we met, and they would go to a room together and Jay McShann was the leader of the band with which practice. Anderson had what Diz wanted. He played in Parker made his record debut in 1942. His band, fea• the same style as Bird only on the trumpet. Diz was turing his own blues piano, included musicians like playing like at this time. They would go up Parker, Gus Johnson and Gene Ramey, and was con• to the hotel and blow. He didn't have it with the lip, but sidered the best in Kansas City in the years after Basie he had it here, in his head. He went as far as his lip and left for the East. would take him. He and Diz got real tight. He's in Okla• Bird first played with me in the year of 1938. I came to homa City now. He quit playing the trumpet. He took Kansas City in 1937 from Oklahoma. When I first came sick and switched to piano. He's making it in Okla• here, the guys around K.C, they didn't want to play homa City. He was a modernistic player. Bird always with him. Bird didn't have his coordination together; admired the guy. Bird had a soul, that he played like they didn't know what he was trying to do. They would he had been hurt. To me Anderson's soul didn't hurt get up and walk off the stand. One time a leader said like Bird's. Bird had a crying soul. to him, "Man, you just hold your horn." That must Bird introduced this nutmeg to the guys. It was a have hurt, but he didn't show it. He was a pretty cool cheap and legal high. You can take it in milk or Coca cat. He didn't show no outward reaction. But that was Cola. The grocer across the street came over to the a challenge. Made him determined. He said he would club owner and said, "I know you do all this baking go into the woodshed. He went with Prof. Buster Smith because I sell from 8 to 10 nutmegs a day." And the and George E, Lee to the Ozarks. It was his first gig owner came back and looked at the bandstand and with older fellows; it was there that he woodshedded. there was a whole pile of nutmeg boxes. After Bird came back—it was less than a year—well, We always had this cat who acted a little feminish. no one said that to him again. Bird was the man. There were two horns that always had to be gotten It's a fact that Bird used to like Prof., who was work• out of hock. Bird's was one, and Bird got this Harold ing at a place called Lucille's. We used to listen Bruce to hock his too. I guess Bruce was expecting to them broadcast. Prof and the lady had an argument, something to happen. One night, some pretty girls and they had to get someone to replace him because were in the house, some fine chicks; all these cats he didn't show up one night. It was Bird. Prof, was one were getting them a chick. Harold Bruce and Bird had of his strongest influences. Bird also used to talk about a room together; Bruce couldn't stand it when he seen Jimmy Dorsey and Frankie Trumbauer, and Lester him take the chick to their room, especially because Young. he had no place to go to sleep. He hit Bird in the head with a bottle, and Bird conked him with a bottle. He liked to jam. He'd go to different places to jam. When I saw them on the bandstand that night they Bird opened up with me in 1938 in the Plaza in Kansas both were playing with towels wrapped around their City. I had six pieces at the time. We worked there heads like swamis. "Look at you looking like mummies." for about three or four months and that is when I re• I gave them the devil about it. But you couldn't make alized that he was on this wild kick, because he was Bird mad about nothing. always late showing up for the job. So we had to let him go. He was very straight at this time—saved his money He left for New York. He stopped off in Chicago and and everything. He was eating a lot of food then. sat in with the King Kolax band. They helped him Once he told me "I won't be able to be here for re• along to New York. He loved New York. He just looked hearsal but I'll tell you what, I'm going to the wood• at the different places and the different places amazed shed. This cat (John Jackson) is makin' a fool outta him. me. If I miss a note at the performance you got the Bird came back and he started up, and started playing privilege of fining me." He didn't make any mistakes. a horn in Harlan Leonard's band in the last of 1938. We threw the book at him but he cut it. During that time was writing for the We made some records in Wichita, Kansas, at a radio group. Harlan's quit the business now. He's in Los station there. I think we used Buddy Anderson, Little Angeles, California, working as a mailman. In a sense Joe Taswell, Charlie, Bob Mabane, Orville Minor and he's still carrying the message. the rhythm. Fred Higginson liked the band, and he There were two big bands, Harlan's and mine. I went asked us if we wanted to make some acetates at the up from six pieces: myself, Gene Ramey, bass, Gus station. We made five or six numbers; I remember I

14 Jay McShann Orchestra, Savoy Ballroom, 1942. Courtesy Duncan Schiedt Jay McShann, piano; Leonard Enois, guitar; Gene Ramey, bass; Gus Johnson, drums; We started to do a lot of college dates. Bird got his Bob Mabane, Charlie Parker, John Jackson, name when we were going to Lincoln, Nebraska. When• Freddy Culliver, saxes; Buddy Anderson, Bob ever he saw some chicken on the menu, he'd say Merrill, Lawrence Anderson, trumpets; "Give me some of the yardbird over there." Orville Minor, Little Joe Taswell, trombones. We were in two cars and the car he was in drove over a chicken, and Bird put his hands on his head and said, "No, stop! Go back and pickup that yardbird." He insisted on it and we went back and Bird got out of the car and carefully wrapped up the chicken and took it with him to the hotel where we were staying and made the cook there cook it for us. He told him we had to have this yardbird. We were on the stage in the theatre one time, and I see a guy that I know is a pusher—I could tell it. I Found a New Baby, stuff like that. Everybody went for don't know it, but I could recognize him. I gave orders them. to the backstage doorman that no one was to see any• It wasn't too long afterward when we went to Texas to one in the band. I did everything I could to prevent his make our first recording for Decca. We were playing buying stuff because Bird had proved himself pro• a lot of stuff like Yardbird Suite, which Bird called it ficient many times, the way he rehearsed the group later on. We had another name for it then, but we were, and always came up with new ideas. playing all sorts of numbers like that. Dave Kapp, who Bird left the band the last of 1942. We had to go to was in charge of the session, didn't want it. We played . He had a little too much that day and we had fifteen or twenty numbers before we got him to accept to carry him off the bandstand and lay him on a table. something. I think we made Hootie Blues. (The fellows We couldn't feel no pulse. He had an overdose. This used to kid me about the bottle, and call me Hootie. happened at the Paradise Theatre. We left him there all I used to like the bottle a lot. Anything to drink was night. We were afraid to call the doctor because we hootch then, and anytime we'd see somebody who were afraid he might be, you know . . . When he came looked a little full, we'd say "Look out! He's hootie.") to, I told him, "Bird, you done got back on your kick And we made Confessin the Blues, Vine Street Boogie, again, and so I've got to let you go." Andy Kirk gave Swingmatism. him a lift to New York.

15 E©E WILEER8 REVIVAL AMP CREATION

Dick Hadlock

Like many musicians of his generation, Bob Wilber has, in effect, lived and worked his way through the history of jazz in public during the past fifteen years. And the course of his career has been well documented on rec• ords. His work in the mid-forties, when he was in his teens, has had its indirect effect on New York revivalist bands, including even the Wilbur DeParis group still playing at Jimmy Ryan's. His career can also provide comment on the theories of certain jazz commentators Bob Wilber's artistic struggles are worth following not of the forties who wrote that jazz needed to go back only for the light it sheds on his current work, but also as a means of understanding the problems of a gen• and re-learn its past before it could go forward with eration of young jazzmen who draw heavily and con• any artistic assurance. sciously from the past while remaining a part of the contemporary scene. These musicians are frequently Dick Hadlock's point of departure for his review of subjected to pressures of stylistic conformity exerted Wilber's career is a recent series of recordings on Clas• by the listening public, by other musicians and by critics. When the Scarsdale Jazz Band recorded pri• sic Editions and Music Minus One. vately in the Spring of 1946 (eventually the session was issued on Riverside RLP 2501), Bob was eighteen, and most of his colleagues (Johnny Glasel, Eddie Hub• ble, Dick Wellstood, Eddie Phyfe, and Charlie Traeger among others) were even younger. Wilber's soprano One of the many delights of jazz is the endless variety saxophone solos were copied directly from the recorded of ways by which musicians seek expression. The jazz work of , and although he had not yet family, a fair psychological cross-section of our society, begun his studies with his New Orleans master, we takes in radicals and conservatives, reactionaries and can assume that Wilber, from his beginning, wanted to innovators, classicists as well as experimenters. As play as much like Bechet as possible, and that Bechet's each musician copes with the problems of playing jazz, time-tested music appealed to him more than, say, the his personal beliefs and standards of judgment nudge new music of Charlie Parker. The young men were im• him toward a mode of expression that suits his own mediately successful on records; wrote temperament. in the June, 1947 Jazz Record, "The records are sen• All this seams obvious enough, but musicians them• sational . . . The ensembles will remind you of those selves often may forget that their own chosen way is wonderful Ladnier-Bechet records of years ago—and but one of many valid ways of playing jazz. The avid that's a pretty marvelous sound ... the total effect is little band of players known as 'revivalists,' for exam• the biggest shot in the arm yet recorded for the future ple, has received in recent years a good deal of scorn of jazz." from other musicians and critics, many of whom are Surrounded by glowing reviews, enthusiastic predic• quite willing to condemn all revivalists, creative or not. tions, acceptance by older musicians, and the excite• My comments here are part of an effort to understand ment of new musical discoveries, Bob and his friends a serious musician who has been striving to establish must have had little doubt that their course was the his own identity, both within and outside revivalism, right one. It looked like the Austin High School Gang for almost two decades. all over again.

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The youngsters were growing musically, too, as their "Bobby's gone be-bop," sighed the old man, with both recordings of 1947-8 on Rampart revealed. By this time, concern and resignation. the group had added the Bunk Johnson-like cornet of There is little recorded evidence of the difficulties that Jerry Blumberg and the conservative trombone of Bob Wilber must have struggled with in shedding his Mielke to the front line. The derivative nature of the Bechet-like vibrato and the mental file of musical pat• music they played and the borrowed styles of the terns that he could draw on in improvising. (One players were offset by youthful vigor and highly imagin• glimpse of this process can be found on an otherwise ative use of traditional material. Their Frog-I-More Rag, dull 1951 jam session in which Bob played, issued on for example, retained some of Morton's original flavor, Riverside RLP 12-125.) He was in a sense, racing captured a bit of King Oliver's ensemble spirit, and through the history of jazz as fast as his mind and reflected the growing interest of the group in New York fingers could take him. musicians like James P. Johnson, but still preserved In the early fifties, he studied with Lee Konitz, and he the individual sound of the Bob Wilber Wildcats. Un• seemed to find in Lennie Tristano's ideas a musical like the boisterous Oliver-cum-Ragtime that philosophy to fill the void left by his rejection of was concocting on the West Coast, the Wildcats' ar• Bechet's example. "There is plenty of emotional im• rangements were smooth amalgams of New Orleans pact to be gotten from Parker, Tristano, etc., if the lis• counterpoint, swing phrasing derived from Armstrong tener will allow himself to become as familiar with and Bechet, and the small band cohesion of numerous the techniques employed as he is with the techniques New York recording groups like those directed by Clar• of Dixieland." he told Nat Hen toff in 1952. ence Williams. But even before this decisive change in his career— During this period, the Wildcats also recorded with which has the sound of a Hollywood success story, Bechet (Columbia CL-836), but the dominant presence capped by the courageous decision of the artist, who of the older man, while stimulating, reduced the Wild• had begun to feel cramped in the musical box he cats, including Wilber himself, to musical pawns. But had built for himself—his development and work sug• Wilber himself, under Bechet's tutoring, had become a gested a couple of rather sticky questions. Why hadn't very skillful replica of Bechet. In fact, when the Wild• Wilber's voice come through the Bechet camouflage cats disbanded in 1948, Bob travelled to Europe to join earlier? Most serious jazzmen develop a sound that is Mezz Messrow as a substitute for Bechet himself. recognizably individual almost from the beginning, how• Meanwhile, Wilber's musical horizons were gradually ever strongly they are influenced by older musicians. expanding. Advanced mainstream musicians like Bud And why were Wilber's most attractive solos based on Freeman, , Peanuts Hucko and Kenny Kersey, someone else's ideas? (For example, Bigard's on The who recognized the musicianship and potential of this Mooche, but usually Bechet's.) The answers, I believe, young reedman, sympathized with his aims and helped can be found in Wilber's later 'post-emancipation' re• him to develop toward a less restricted style. When cordings. Wilber returned from Europe in 1948, he formed a band It was becoming increasingly clear that Bob Wilber that was closer in idiom to early New York swing. The functioned at his creative best when he operated group featured the intense, jagged and highly skilled within musical situations defined and structured by playing of trumpeter and trombonist someone else's rules. It is unlikely that he would have . Only Dick Wellstood remained from the recognized this fact at the time, for most young jazz Wildcats, but he had played in a style close to the musicians—particularly those trying to free themselves Harlem piano of James P. Johnson and Willie 'the from the overwhelming influence of former idols—are Lion' Smith all along. By 1949, this well-knit little swing convinced that musical dependence on others pre• band had become the darling of the Boston traditional• cludes artistic integrity. ists and had been tagged by several critics as one of After expanding his writing talents and playing abilities the best small jazz bands of all time. Its repertoire in• (most noticeably on tenor) in army dance bands, Bob cluded the inevitable Bechet specialties and early El• returned to small group work in 1954 with a superb co• lington, but also and original treat• operative unit called The Six. Former associates Johnny ments of dixieland warhorses. (Some examples of their Glasel, Eddie Hubble, and Eddie Phyfe, who also had work can be heard on Circle L-406, and the same band grown from New Orleans jazz to contemporary music, accompanied Bechet on Riverside RLP 12-216.) Bob joined Bob in an attempt to mix modern and tradi• Wilber had taken his kind of revivalism as far as he tional concepts. Musical compartmentalism in the could without entering the more 'modern' worlds of minds of club owners and customers led to commer• , Count Basie, and Lester Young. cial failure for this crisp little band, but not before Charlie Parker and still seemed a long Wilber and Glasel demonstrated what could be done distance away. with an earnest group capable of drawing upon the en• In 1950, apparently discontent with the basic dixieland tire history of jazz for its raw materials. Bob had found formula, he broke up the successful band and went on his way into the right medium for his special gifts—an alone. For the next few years, he was to work on the electric, swinging, interpretive montage of jazz styles, broadening of his musical sympathies and the develop• past and present. The initial recording of The Six (Nor- ment of a style more independent of Bechet. At least gran MGN 25), which includes delightful examples of once, in late 1951, Wilber and Bechet traded ideas at a latter-day dixieland, touches of , a public jam session in New York. Bechet, who seemed bow to Count Basie, and a fling at contemporary voic• to be trying to show his ex-pupil that the old way was ing, contains some of Wilber's best work on record and still the best, was not pleased with Bob's efforts to is a fairly good representation of the biting trumpet bring his style up to date. work of Glasel, who seldom records as well as he plays

18 outside the studio. must hang on something more than his own creations. In 1955, The Six now including trombonist Sonny Truitt The compositions of Bechet are ideal, solidly built and pianist recorded nine tracks of mod• vehicles to rescue Wilber from modern cliches and the ern jazz, with only slight overtones of earlier jazz styles lethargy of contemporary dixieland, both of which (Bethlehem BCP-28). The result, though clean and rea• threaten, on most of his recordings, to make him a sonably spirited, sounds rather like an uninspired Al faceless "professional" rather than the valuable con• Cohn date for Victor from the same period—slick and tributor to jazz that he can and should be. uneventful. Wilber failed in his bid for consideration as The Bechet tunes, which include Georgia Cabin, Ghost a modern jazzman, and only proved interesting on his of the Blues, When the Sun Sets Down South, Where straightforward versions of slower lyrical pieces. Am I? and Spreadin' Joy, are performed in a low-key My suspicion that Wilber works best within a pre-de• but timeless "mainstream" manner. They are most en• fined framework is further confirmed by his arrange• gaging melodies that deserve the fond attention given ment of When You're Smiling for (Bethlehem them by Sidney's former protege. A couple of Bechet's BCP-1032), which revives Lester Young's original tenor matchless structures—Blue Horizon is one—are left in• saxophone solo on this tune, fully scored for five saxo• tact and played note-for-note by Wilber without imita• phones. It is, thanks to Young's highly organized crea• tion and without loss of freshness or character. The tive mind and Wilber's ability to synthesize what went pianist, incidentally, is once again Dick Wellstood, who before with what he wished to do, the most attractive also has struggled to reconcile the language of modern written passage in the eight arrangements Wilber con• jazz with an essentially traditional outlook. tributed to this . (trumpet and alto horn) and (trombone) bring appropriate historical insight and broad musical In the late fifties, probably because of economic neces• perspective to this session. Bob plays , tenor, sity, Bob turned to dixieland again—this time as a and bass clarinet with finesse, warmth, and more en• member of the rather dreary house band at Eddie Con• thusiasm than he ordinarily reveals. don's. His recordings during this period once more re• With the musical success of this album, it remains to veal a highly skilled musician who fails to be totally be seen if Bob Wilber can match or surpass these ef• convincing in an environment of pure improvization. On forts on his next try. If he works from inner-directed Wild 's "With Strings Attached" (Columbia urges, as he appears to have done on the Bechet set, CL-983), Wilber's single featured solo is a carefully we can expect first-rate jazz. Should he again attempt turned restatement of the late Irving Fazola's specialty, to join the ranks of top modern blowing reedmen, he My Inspiration. One is reminded of the 18-year-old Wil• may defeat himself. It's a strange diagnosis to hand ber painstakingly reconstructing Sidney Bechet's solo down for a thirty-two-year-old musician, but Bob Wilber on China Boy back in 1946. appears to be in the psychological situation of Bud In his most recent recordings, all for Classic Editions, Freeman, Vic Dickenson, and scores of other older men Wilber takes another fling at modern jazz improvization whose orientation is traditional but who have no de• and writing; he participates in a couple of Music Minus sire to anchor their musical achievement in the past One "dixieland" sessions (MMO 1009 and 1010) and alone. An important difference, however, is that Free• turns up with one record that is his best since The Six man, Dickenson, etc. have powerful voices of their cut its first album for Norgran. own, while Wilber's work usually carries maximum im• Working with drummer ("Skin Tight," Clas• pact when it reflects or is combined with someone sic Jazz CJ 7), Bob wrote several routine scores for a else's mode of expression. In short, his own style, un• septet including , , , supported, is not as impressive as, say, the Bechet , and Jimmy Nottingham. His bland tenor, style he once played so well. sounding curiously like Eddie Miller, seems bloodless next to the derivative but urgent alto of Woods and the Does this mean that Bob Wilber—and other jazzmen full-bodied trombone of Green, although neither Woods who may share his kind of predicament—must choose nor Green are at their best on this date. Chapin's drums between first class imitation and second class origi• are prominent throughout, with unfortunate effects upon nality? Perhaps not, if the two approaches can be ef• the cohesion and balance of the band. For his do-it- fectively combined, as they are in this new album of yourself dixieland sets, Wilber chose a more compati• Bechet tunes. Wilber is, after all, a remarkably mature ble group of men, including Buck Clayton, Bud Free• musician for his years in many ways, and a most in• man, and Vic Dickenson, but the purpose of the album ventive one in any of several prescribed areas of jazz —to provide accompaniment to living room instrumen• expression. That he is a classicist and outside the main talists—defeats any attempts by these superior per• arena of jazz competition is certainly no disgrace. formers to contribute more than a few fragmentary There is a place for enlightened revivalism when it is ideas. handled by a sensitive craftsman such as Wilber. The A final album, "The Music of Sidney Bechet" (Classic Bob Crosby band of the thirties, for example, combined Jazz CJ 5), could be significant, a milestone in the un• elements of New Orleans jazz and contemporary swing dulating career of jazzman Bob Wilber. First, it marks with considerable success, largely because the musi• a mature acknowledgment in musical terms by Wilber cians and arrangers in the band recognized their of the important role of Bechet in determining the di• unique potential and knew what to do about it. mensions of his improvising abilities. It also demon• Bob Wilber's latest recording suggests that he, too, has strates that he has grown away from his former teacher assessed his strengths and weaknesses with honest ac• far enough to risk returning to Bechet's music on Wil• curacy. If so, there should be more excellent, if not ber's terms. Further, it may show that Wilber is finally precedent-shattering, jazz to come from this remarkable confronting the realization that his own artistic worth young man.

19 another nice arrangement and sanctified intentions of Dat Dere effortless Ernestine, complete with (which has enough of a handicap in RECORD key-change. Golson and Jimmy its 4 4 time signature); it turns out to Cleveland shout each other down be more a march than anything else. grappling for the tiny solo spot. The main interest is in the hornmen Despite someone's unfortunate who play with consistent buoyancy. REVIEWS decision to tinker with the melody, Morgan's humorous and sometimes making merely cute what had had daring fancies clearly show that functional beauty, Fascinating Rhythm original ideas can stand on their own is another successful track. It's a merits without originality of style. His minor tour de force for Ernestine, and attempts at "building" a solo are not 's beautifully poised always successful—too often exploring trumpet must have achieved exactly variations of an idea rather than its what the arranger had in mind. Beale implications—but there is an energy Street, apart from one attractive and drive that says "he came to play." orchestrated line, has an old-timey 's work is newer to most arrangement that sounds as though of us than Morgan's. Having heard somebody's heart wasn't in it, and a two passionate but unproductive sets disturbing faltering rhythm section. at Birdland recently, I was (how to Songs as good as Nobody's Heart say this without sounding superior?) are potent and should be marked especially pleased with his showing 'approach with caution or leave alone'. on this Ip. On Dat Dere and especially Ernestine's assault leaves it pretty at the beginning of his own Chess limp. The title-phrase, for example, Players he plays hand-to-mouth, each occurs four times, but is sung note chosen for its relationship to correctly only once. I can't imagine the preceding one and not for mere why. None of Ernestine's variations coloration of a passage. The ideas seem to me improvements on what was grow organically when he plays like written and none of them say anything this and the notes paint the whole as jazz. The closing line (". . . belongs picture rather than filling colors to me today") is a glorious inspiration, in an already existing outline—like has the last six syllables held using a child's coloring book. to one note, is sung that way the first The material on the record varies. Chess Players and Politely are old ERNESTINE ANDERSON: "The time, but the second (and final) time it isn't. A mediocre vocal chorus is stories (the latter is 's Fascinating Ernestine." introduced part way through to add heist of Silver's ) but Lester Mercury MG 20492. a touch of "production." Left Town and Sakeena's Vision are Just a Sittin' and a Rockin'; A New Town After all these years it must be difficult definitely original melodically and is a Blue Town; Stompin' at the Savoy; to decide just what to do with I Got Vision even has changes that are ; Fascinating Rhythm; My Heart Rhythm. Ernestine takes a medium somewhat off the beaten track. In the Belongs to Daddy; I Wish I Was Back tempo over one of those hysterical Messengers' style, solos are on chords in My Baby's Arms; Harlem Nocturne; Beale neo-Basie arrangements. On the second alone and the chords are not Street Blues,- Nobody's Heart; I Got Rhythm. "yes, I got starlight", she starts to extraordinary. It would be unrealistic get a real blues feel, but she dissipates to expect a drastic change on these Although there are definite traces of it in the next line. This track is a two tracks. We don't cavil; we settle some of her contemporaries in her bigger disappointment than some of for modes and dig Wayne's writing. work, Miss Anderson seems to have the others because it could obviously On Paper Moon Lee Morgan's melody avoided the worst excesses of most have been so much better. statements and solo are both good. of them, and the most serious defect The first four bars of Shorter's here is the usual—almost mandatory Peter Turley second chorus stand out glaringly —tendency to alter melodic line for from the rest of his solo and illustrate no good reason. She does have a big his "organic" style perfectly. voice, and at times shows remarkable ART BLAKEY and THE JAZZ restraint, especially when one MESSENGERS: "The Big Beat". David Lahm considers what the competition is Blue Note 4029. doing. Lee Morgan, trumpet; Wayne Shorter, tenor; On Just a Sittin' and a Rockin' she , piano; , bass; CLIFFORD BROWN: "Jazz Immortal". raises the opening phrase and levels Art Blakey, drums. Pacific Jazz PJ-3-837. it out a bit, otherwise the tune The Chess Players; Sakeena's Vision; Politely; Clifford Brown, trumpet; , tenor;

remains more or less intact; once you Dat Dere; Lester Left Town; It's Only A Bob Gordon, baritone; , get used to it it sounds good this Paper Moon. valve trombone; Russ Freeman, piano; Carson way. In many ways this is the most Smith or Joe Mondragon, bass; Shelly successful track, with a good If this new Ip is representative, the Manne, drums. arrangement (, I imagine, present Messengers are much more Tiny Capers; Gone With The Wind; Finders although the notes don't say who a soloist's band than those Blakey has Keepers; Blueberry Hill; ; Bones For arranged what), paying led in the past. Zita Carno noted Jones; Bones For Zoot; Dahoud. brief but pleasantly direct homage to the need for cooperation among .Ben Webster, and a bright, jaunty members of the rhythm section in Clifford Brown's performance on this rhythm section. Pacheco's conga drum, achieving the rhythmic excitement 1954 recording shows little of the which gets in the way elsewhere, that has been the group trademark, high-spirited elan that was to contributes agreeably. but pianist and drummer are not characterize his work with . Ernestine does very well by A New conspirators here. Timmons is Within the framework of some rather Town, a good song with difficult extremely subdued (in contrast to his shallow arrangements by Jack intervals, but her approach on Nature voluble solo work) while Blakey Montrose, Brownie plays a competent Boy is too heavy for the song. generally keeps time, sometimes but lacklustre date. Zoot Sims is Stompin' at the Savoy, which lasts inserting a heavy back beat. Such his dependable, effervescent self, all of a hundred and ten seconds, has uhm-chck-ing is devasting to the but with a thinner tone than one

20 might desire. It's easy to see now, with his improved technique. Some of r in retrospect, how much his playing his runs recall the breathless flow blue note has improved and developed in recent of Navarro's, though they never vibrate THE FINEST IN JAZZ years. Bob Gordon's baritone is quite with the same elegaic spell; Byrd has L SINCE 1939 , good in places (especially Gone now a buoyant rashness we would With The Wind) but his talent seems never have expected. His delicacy on to have been restricted by his Blue Doll and It's You or No One surroundings, stuffed into the routine hardly foreshadows the exuberant, of the slick California export that forcing attack on "." inundated the record markets in Expansion rather than change has been the middle fifties. his purpose; the first two choruses Dahoud and Joy Spring are much on Greasy are restrained in his better in later versions, the former earlier manner, but at the third he on Brownie's Birdland date with Lou leaps boldly into the top register Donaldson and the latter on EmArcy and then holds the tension. The with Max Roach. Bones For Zoot, familiar cascading lines are still as might be expected, is a head blues. prominent, but slurred notes and short, Tiny Capers, Finders Keepers, Bones stabbing riffs have begun to play an For Jones, and Blueberry Hill are important role in his melodies. There over-arranged in what used to be is not a hint of the blandness technical referred to quaintly as the confidence will sometimes bring. 'contrapuntal' style of writing. McLean too has matured. He has HORACE-SCOPE Brownie's solo on Finders Keepers, always been at home in the lower THE QUINTET with its Navarro-out-of-Sonny reaches of the horn, and now his with , , Gene Berman overtones, gives some sound is richer than ever. Hip Strut, Taylor, . indication of his early obligations. the blues with choruses alternating (Strollin', Where You At, Without You, The short, sequential phrases that he between straight and stop time, shows Horace-Scope, Yeah, Me And My Baby, uses in the opening bars of Finders how he can set these long low notes Nica's Dream) BLUE NOTE 4042 Keepers and in the release of one against the other for an Blueberry Hill were also to become atmosphere of intense brooding. recognizable trademarks of his The same sustained notes have their later recordings. place at up-tempo too, as Minor Apprehension, a re-titling of Minor For some unapparent reason the March, shows. His disdain for rhythm section plods along like a symmetrical phrasing is as evident as team of old nags. The recorded on the earlier record, but his style sound of the bass is hardly there, is sparer. Inessentials have been and the expected inter-relationship clipped away, but the pruning has never comes off. Like much of the been done carefully. He never sounds Coast music of this period, the inhibited; one feels that respect for mechanical efficiency is overwhelming, economy has been his servant rather and the musical spirit of minor than his master. And if McLean is interest. now a more personal musician than Only the presence of Clifford Brown in 1955 it is not only because he and Zoot Sims gives this record discarded derivative phrases; many of SOUNDIN' OFF its significance. As an episode in his own phrases have also gone. DIZZY REECE QUARTET Brown's short history—for that reason The progress Byrd and McLean have with Walter Bishop, Jr., , alone—it is valuable. made is self-evident; but the earlier . Don Heckman record does have qualities that are (A Ghost Of A Chance, Once In A While, Ed Pob, Yesterdays, Our Love is not to be found on the Blue Note set. Here To Stay, Blue Streak) Loverman, Little Melonae and Blue BLUE NOTE 4033 DONALD BYRD and JACKIE McLEAN: Doll offer a slender, shuddering "Jackie McLean Quintet". fragility whose charm outweighs the Jubilee VJLP 1064. immaturity in construction and control. Donald Byrd, trumpet (except on track 1); Listen to McLean's lead in to Blue Doll Jackie McLean, alto; Mai Waldron, piano; and you will see what I mean. And Doug Watkins, bass; Ronald Tucker, drums. there are times on this record when Loverman; It's You or No One; The Way all three soloists surprise and delight You Look Tonight; Blue Doll; Little us with of a mood. Melonae; Mood Malody. "New Soil" is the superior album, and JACKIE McLEAN. "New Soil." its greater compactness does not rest Blue Note BLP 4013. on the power and assurance of the Donald Byrd, trumpet; Jackie McLean, alto; hornmen alone. La Rocca, a drummer Walter Davis Jr., piano; , as audacious as though bass; Pete La Rocca, drums. not quite so confident, sees to it Hip Strut; Minor Apprehension; Greasy; Sweet that the most exciting aspect of jazz Cakes; Davis Cup. development over the past decade— rhythmic and melodic tension within These two records show the progress the group—figures as largely here as HANK MOBLEY QUARTET young musicians can make over a on any contemporary recording. with , Paul Chambers, Art period of four years. Practice and Such is the profusion of accents Blakey. experience have been repaid to the and cross-rhythms that the basic meter (Remember, This I Dig Of You, Dig Dis, full. On the Byrd is no often seems to flow through a Split Feelin's, Soul Station, If I Should longer the stiff-jointed acrobat; his vacuum; but each performance swings Lose You) BLUE NOTE 4031 tone sings loud and clear throughout hard. Complete Catalog on Request the range of the horn, and his invention has more than kept pace While there are no awkward , INC. 43 West 61st Street, New York 23, N. Y. 21 transitions from theme to solo Nobody. 's best work On I'm Old Fashioned his chorus, each tune has a character is on I Might Fall Back On You, embellishments are deceptively of its own. McLean wrote Hip Strut a gutsy 01' Man River and Can't Help simple. Attention discloses that they and Minor Apprehension, Walter Davis, Lovin' That Man. The choir works highlight the rhythmic subtlety with as deliberate a composer as pianist, exceptionally well as a unit on which he recasts the line. the rest. Fastidious listeners will Make Believe and I Might Fall Back Only in Lady Bird does he disappoint: regret the ersatz boogie bass on On You. Life Upon the Wicked Stage the effect is of a routine running of Greasy, the only real lapse of thematic most accurately captures the spirit the changes. decorum; others will be amused by of the original material, something Much of the Atlantic recording, it its breezy vulgarity. that seems neglected in the other seems to me, is a different proposition. Michael James charts. The elan and the aura of wonderful Carisi gives evidence here that he outrage have been partially dissipated. deserves consideration as a good, A great deal of his playing seems JOHN CARISI: "The New Jazz Sound commercial jazz orchestrator. rhythmically dull and disconcerting; of Show Boat". Columbia CL 1419. Certainly he handles this assignment the radical flights away from the beat , , guitars; Bob as well as, or better than, the names are mostly absent and in their place Brookmeyer, trombone; Phil Woods, alto sax; in the field. This may be the outlet is a tameness. Also, the feeling of John Carisi, trumpet; other personnel he has needed all along. freedom with the chords has unlisted. Don Heckman vanished and he seems more bound Arranged and conducted by John Carisi, by the changes. except Can't Help Lovin' That Man His solo on particularly arranged by Brookmeyer. JOHN COLTRANE: "Blue Train". shows a rhythmic stiffness and melodic Make Believe; Nobody Else But Me; I Might Blue Note 1577. tameness. He does not construct any Fall Back On You; I Have The Room Above John Coltrane, tenor; Lee Morgan, trumpet; real line with the arpeggios. The

Her; Bill; Can't Help Lovin' That Man; , trombone; , same is true of Countdown which Life Upon The Wicked Stage; 01' Man River; piano; Paul Chambers, bass; , seems to be only a very sophisticated Why Do I Love You?; I Still Suits Me. drums. exercise on the chords. Mr. P. C. It has been some eleven years since Blue Train; Moment's Notice; Locomotion; and Spiral have similar flaws. Johnny Carisi's Israel was recorded I'm Old Fashioned; . Cousin Mary and Syeeda's Song Flute by the Miles Davis Nonet. For a "Giant Steps". Atlantic 1311. show his real talent. Cousin Mary composition that consisted of an John Coltrane, tenor; , piano; features definite rhythmic flow and introduction, seven Paul Chambers, bass; Art Taylor, drums. almost gets a consistent line going. choruses and an ending, it received Giant Steps; Cousin Mary; Countdown; Spiral; Syeeda's Song Flute has some really a remarkable amount of attention. Syeeda's Song Flute-, Mr. P. C. fine moments rhythmically and he Andre Hodeir has said of its melodic Wynton Kelly for Flanagan and establishes some of his old feeling of language and orchestration, "the for Taylor . authority with the chords, but he most remarkable side [of the The older Blue Note lp is from seems, finally, to lack definition and compositions recorded for Capitol] the period when Coltrane first brought direction. is probably Israel, which offers all the elements of his style together. On the lovely Naima he succeeds a rather astonishing renewal of the His playing throughout is exceptionally completely in developing a coherent, blues." Despite this sort of critical stimulating and alive, and the listener balanced solo; everything is right superlative, Carisi's activities as a jazz can witness a celebration of vital enough to deserve all praise and composer in the years that followed musicianship and delight in the act homage. The delicacy and skill with were poorly documented to say the of playing. which he works on the splendid least. It even became fashionable The style which emerges is, of course, thematic material, the nuances of to blame this on a & r men, to based on arpeggios and in his accent and tone ^o knowingly applied, deride their apparent refusal to give explorations of chords; while he is are the product of an original and give Carisi a hearing. bound by the changes, he nevertheless important talent. It seems to me neither logical nor produces an often startling impression Basically most of his work on the realistic to consider Carisi an of freedom. He is also gifted with a Atlantic lp seems to show a important innovator on the basis of sense of time which permits cautiousness that is alien to his art. one work, four choruses of which sometimes unrelenting sixteen note It shows especially in his tone which consist mostly of solos. Carisi's real patterns that sound precisely right, seems almost flat and colorless skills seem much more apparent on often floating quite freely compared to the sound he had this new Columbia release. His forte is without ever seeming to force the previously made his own. harmonic ingenuity, finely-crafted tempo. Philly Joe Jones blends Tommy Flanagan plays crisply and orchestration and, most important, easily and deftly with him by placing well, but it is Wynton Kelly's brilliant melodic variation that does not lose his accents to set Coltrane in relief. work on Naima that captures the piano the thread of the original theme. Blue Train is rewarding Coltrane. honors for the record. Phil Chambers I am not particularly sympathetic to The tenor solo constantly surprises the is a model of rectitude and his decision to use the guitar choir listener with its variegated texture discretion. I think that Art Taylor's in sax section voicings. The blandness and is heightened by the twists and unbending accompaniments may have of tone quality is one of the major turns of rhythm by Coltrane and Jones. contributed to the general rhythmic faults of the record. If guitars are And his line achieves a cumulative tameness. not going to be used for all their expressiveness. The forcefulness of H. A. Woodfin own attributes, then why not use saxes? his tone (where did people get the The one track that does depart idea that he has an angry sound?) from block voicing, I Still Suits Me, is entirely appropriate to his melodic WALTER DAVIS, JR.: "Davis Cup". sounds dangerously close to rock and rhythmic ideas. 'n roll . . . clanging low string Blue Note 4018. The same sort of vitality is evident Donald Byrd, trumpet; Jackie McLean, alto; triplets sound pretty bad on guitar, in most of his playing on that record. no matter who plays them. Walter Davis, Jr., piano; Sam Jone, bass; Art Locomotion and Moment's Notice Taylor, drums. Nobody Else But Me and Bill are nearly equally distinguished, are good, low-keyed renditions, 'Smake It; Loodle-Lot; Sweetness; Rhumba and on them what may seem anarchic Nhumba; Minor Mind; Millie's Delight. outstanding for Carisi's trumpet, or even chaotic at first soon especially his fine muted solo on The spirit of Horace Silver is to be exhibits an almost crafty care. found everywhere on this set,

22 and both instrumentally and in facility and that fine, edgy Creole tone. composition, Davis is an apt pupil. Simeon joined Wilbur DeParis around 1952. Naturally as the great figure His playing often has the frenetic 206—WALT GIFFORD'S NEW YORKERS quality, although his solos are slightly in the band Simeon was featured; on with JOHNNY WINDHURST, tpt; Ed better constructed. Nevertheless, the present Ip, which presents the Hubble, tbn; Bob Mitchell, clt; Dick the lack of original material in mixture as before (if you've heard Cary, p; Walt, d. and others: his playing is apparent; and the charts one DeParis Ip you've heard them Louisiana - I Can't Believe That You're have a pale derivative cast. all), he has in addition to all the In Love With Me - Fidgety Feet - At Jackie McLean continues to show ensemble spots, plenty of solos, not The Jazz Band Ball - California, Here a rhythmic rigidity (he sometimes one of them less than competent, but I Come - Girl Of My Dreams - That's A Plenty - Struttin' With Some Bar• appears to be trying to go Coltrane's not one of them noteworthy, possibly because he no longer gave a damn. becue - It All Depends On You. way), and, for me, his tone has an "Johnny Windhurst, who adds sugges• unrelieved stridency. The DeParis band can be fun to listen tions of Wild Bill Davison's swagger to Donald Byrd's solo work here is plagued to in concert (except for their a base of Beiderbeckian lyricism. He still by lack of a definite conception. infamous 'M Island' series of tunes, is capably supported..." John S. Wil• Rhythmically his playing demonstrates suitable for the soundtrack for the son, HIGH FIDELITY-8/60. a commendable flexibility and glorious technicolor short, Enchanted List $4.98 — Our Price $3.98, postpaid. command even at very fast tempos. M, A Tourist's Paradise); Colonel SOUTHLAND RECORDS — $2.98 each, postpaid. But this cannot compensate for his Bogey's March is a good example of Excellent catalog of New Orleans — Dixieland failures in melodic invention. the kind of entertainment they can LP's featuring top jazz artists: 200—JOHNNY WIGGS New Orleans Kings — Tom This is one of Art Taylor's happier furnish. In person they had a kind Brown, Harry Shields, Stan Mendelson sessions. An extremely uneven of presence that makes even Sidney's 205— SHARKEY'S KINGS OF DIXIELAND with Jack Delaney, Mendelson, Abbie Brunies, etc. performer, Taylor is in complete growl horn exciting. On record, 206— PAPA CELESTIN'S NEW ORLEANS MUSIC with command here and displays both tact however, the gimmicky arrangements Ed Pierson, etc. 207— MARDI GRAS MUSIC FROM NEW ORLEANS— and taste. I think his support of which manage to make even 8 great bands: Hirt, Sharkey, Almerico, Fountain, Byrd on Millie's Delight is a good substantial material like Beale Street Wi££s Pccors etc 208— GEORGE LEWIS N.0. RHYTHM BOYS—Marrero, enough example of his skill to convince Blues trivial, trashy 'originals' like Watkins, Drag, Robinson, Howard, etc. anyone. Bouquets, and the terribly cute 209— RAYMOND BURKE — Jazz' most under-rated routines are something else again. I clarinet with A. Alcorn, Mendelson, Brunies, Thos. H. A. Woodfin Jefferson, Jack Delaney, etc. have long suspected, although how 210— NEW ORLEANS JAZZ — GEORGE BRUNIS, one could prove it I don't know, that OCTAVE CROSBY, LEON PRIMA bands with Pecora, Matty Matlock, Ted Buckner, Albert Burbank, the band is at least half phoney. Bouchon, Hazel, etc. WILBUR DePARIS: "Something Old, When I have Wilbur's disarming 211— 'S NEW ORLEANS JAZZ BAND with New, Gay, Blue." Atlantic 1300. Harry Shields, Bob Havens, etc. comments I don't mind being put on; 212— JOHNNY ST. CYR HOT 5/PAUL BARBARIN Wilbur DeParis, trombone; Sidney DeParis, listening to a record I do mind their J.B. with Jim Robinson, Joe Avery, Thos. Jeffer• cornet; Doc Chetham, trumpet; Omer son, Willie Humphrey, Marrero, etc. thumbing their noses at the tradition, 213— SANTO PECORA AND HIS NEW ORLEANS Simeon, clarinet; Sonny White, piano; Lee simply because while they can't get RHYTHM KINGS with Thos. Jefferson, Harry Shields, Blair, John Smith, banjo; Hayes Alvis, bass; etc. inside the repertory they play, 214— DIXIELAND — WAY DOWN YONDER IN NEW Wilbert Kirk, drums and harmonica. they refuse to chance anything else. ORLEANS with Lee Collins, , Ray• Rag; Beale Street Blues; Madeira; mond Burke, Mendelson, J. Delaney, etc. In such a context, I never did expect 215— PETE FOUNTAIN — NEW ORLEANS TO LOS Bouquets; Banjolie; Muskrat Ramble; Colonel anything much from Omer Simeon. ANGELES with Eddie Miller, Al Hirt, Bauduc, Abe Bogey's March; High Society. Lincoln, Stan Wrightsman, etc., etc. But any critical comments on my part 216— NEW ORLEANS DIXIELAND — SHARKEY, When I began listening to Omer are supererogatory: Wilbur DeParis SANTO, GIRARD with Burke, Shields, Hug, Mend., Simeon on records, conventional has written his own liner notes in 217— MONK HAZEL AND HIS NEW ORLEANS KINGS wisdom had it that he was, along with which, in addition to speaking about with Al Hirt, Pete Fountain, Monk Hazel, and Dodds, Noone and Bechet, one of many others "jazz . . . the most potent weapon 218— THREE MORE NEW ORLEANS GREAT BANDS- the great New Orleans clarinetists, America has in these troubled DOC S0UCH0N/J0HNNY WIGGS/ARMAND HUG with that his best recorded work was with Ray Burke, St. Cyr, , Paul Barbarin, times", he rates the album.himself. Lester Bouchon, etc. Jelly Roll Morton ('Jelly's favorite "I hereby give it four stars", he says; 219— TOM BROWN AND HIS JAZZ BAND with Ray clarinetist'), and that as a result of I assume he means out of a Burke, Mike Lala, Mangiapane, etc., etc., etc. 220— JOE CAPRARO — DIXIELAND DOWN SOUTH— his many years with Earl Hines possible ten. Chas. Cordilla, Bob Havens, Ray Burke, etc. (not to mention Henderson and 221— ARMAND HUG/EDDIE MILLER — with Havens, Lunceford) his clarinet playing no J. S. Shipman Lala, Harry Shields, Chink, Monk, etc. 222— SHARKEY AND HIS KINGS OF DIXIELAND— longer was as great as it had been in with Hug, Shields. Havens, Capraro, etc. the twenties, either because a big 223— EMILE CHRISTIAN N.0. JAZZ BAND — Hug, Havens, Shields, Hazel, Lala, Capraro, etc., etc. band was no place to preserve, let Perhaps the most surprising aspect 224— ARMAND HUG — DIXIELAND FROM NEW alone develop, the kind of playing New ORLEANS — Harry Shields, Havens, Emile X, etc. of this Ip is Omer Simeon's ability to 225— PAPA CELESTIN with Picou, Matthews, etc. Orleans ensemble demands, or improvise a shapely melodic line because too much however banal the context: the JUST A FEW HARD-TO-GET TRADITIONAL JAZZ LP'S playing had spoiled his clarinet style. at $3.98 postpaid: clarinet solo on Colonel Bogey's Stephany 4002—DANNY ALVIN with Floyd O'Brien, Conventional wisdom has taken March, set between the unbelievable etc. (STEREO 50c extra) quite a beating in the last few Stephany 4011—MIFF MOLE — with Signorelli, theme statement and a ludicrous Castle, Lytell, etc. years, and I'm not sure how well any harmonica showed Simeon's flair for Replica 1006—NO SAINTS — FRANZ JACKSON of these ideas stand up today. band with Bob Schoffttner, Albert Wynn, Bill detachment. Wilbur de Paris' band, Oldham, L. Dixon, etc. For one thing, it turned out that to judge from this record, gave him Omega 1056—GEORGE LEWIS — special price, Simeon wasn't a New Orleans only $2.98 postpaid. ample opportunity to exercise his Sorry, as of this writing, we are out of most clarinetist at all—at least in the gift. of the $1.98 specials advertised last month, way we had thought—having gotten and very low on Tone's PRIMITIVE PIANO LP, These performances show no real but can still supply: his musical education in Chicago. And Folk Lyric — Stinson — Louisiana Folklore yet, I still go along with conventional artistic conception. It is a truism Society — Carnival Commodore — Paramount that New Orleans style depends on 10" ($3.85 ppd.) — and all the major and minor wisdom—to a certain extent; I think jazz and folk labels at 20% OFF. (Labels speci• that Simeon was a great clarinet unity, a quality that this group lacks. fied here will be shipped postpaid, all other, Instead we have a collection of please add 50c postage and handling fee PER player in the twenties, particularly SHIPMENT (not per LP) with Morton, and I also think that unrelated parts glued together AMERICA'S JAZZ CENTER somewhere along the line he lost arbitrarily and disconcertingly. AMERICA'S JAZZ CENTER what had made him great, The scope of the band's repertoire is although he certainly kept all of his not to be denied; but this has nothing SEYMOUR'S RECORD MART to do with expressive range. Even 439 S. Wabash, Chicago 5, III. 23 if we pass over the saccharine force to make it a thing of singing through a veil of sophistication. melodies of Madeira and Bouquets, beauty. Desmond is a very subtle His "break" at the beginning of the Lee Blair's absurd tour de force, cooker on I Get a Kick Out of You second chorus on the up-tempo and the use of harmonica in a setting where his variations are memorable. Come With Me is a break through an altogether foreign to the instrument's However, the record is not Desmond's outward serenity. Apart from this, character, there remains a more alone. The rhythm team of Heath the solo is a good example of the way serious weakness: the unbending and Kay is a perfect partnership. They lyricism and violence are stiffness of the rhythm. In Panama understand each other, the tunes, married in Buck's flowing conceptions. Rag Sonny White's piano solo shows and Desmond. Kay's support is With this and 's Raecox more than a little imagination, but is consistently right, and he shades, record, should begin spoiled by the thudding monotony of accents, and seems to stimulate to acquire more of the attention the beat. But though Sidney de Desmond's thought. His 3/4 work on he deserves. He has a big, powerful Paris' solo on the same tune is Greensleeves is splendidly subtle. tone, plenty of vitality, and a good spirited, he is only a mediocre Heath shows again his relaxed feeling for the beat. He shows ensemble player. His thin tone in the but driving fluidity. acts as considerable familiarity with modern upper register and eccentric placing foil for Kay and Heath; he interacts changes and adopts a suitable tone of notes prevent the texture from with them to make a rhythmic ground when phrasing in the contemporary being as rich as it should be. on which Desmond stands. His efforts manner, but whatever he blows Compared with his brother, though, here as a soloist are executed with comes out swinging. On the ballad the cornetist stands out as a aplomb, but they seem to me to Charmaine, he exhibits a lusher, more consistently inspired musician. As a lack a basic conception—a small sentimental approach. purveyor of the obvious Wilbur de flaw in an indispensable recording. 's bass, a great source Paris might have made a brilliant H. A. Woodfin of strength throughout, provides a career in modern journalism. simple figure in the release of Makin' Technically sure as he may be, his Whoopee that accomplishes a highly artistic effect. plays solo work shows an appetite for the "HARRY EDISON Swings BUCK with his customary finesse. If Charlie commonplace that does much to CLAYTON and Vice Versa". Persip's phrasing is not always in explain the vulgarity of this record as Verve MG V-8293. a whole. keeping with that of the horns, he Harry Edison, Buck Clayton, trumpets; Jimmy usually supplies drive nevertheless. Michael James Forrest, tenor; Jimmy Jones, piano; , guitar; Joe Benjamin, bass; Stanley Dance , drums. PAUL DESMOND: " Again". Memories For the Count; Come With Me,- Warner Brothers W 1356. Critic's Delight; Oh, How I Hate To Get Up In RED GARLAND: "Red Alone." Paul Desmond, alto; Jim Hall, Guitar; Percy the Morning; It All Depends On You; Prestige/Moodsville, Volume 3. Heath, bass; , drums. Charmaine; How Long Has This Been Going ; These Foolish 1 Get a Kick Out of You; For All We Know; On; Makin' Whoopee. Things; My Last Affair; You Are Too Beautiful; 2 Degrees East, 3 Degrees West; As John Hammond says in the notes, I've Got It Bad; ; Greensleeves; You Go to My Head; East of "It is wonderful to know that Nancy With The Laughing Face; When I

the Sun; Time After Time. twenty years later both musicians Fall In Love. Paul Desmond has had no end of are still at the height of their powers." This lp might be reviewed with a recognition from poll voters, but The changes in jazz during the last Mickey Spillane paragraph. "She was one often feels that the real nature two decades make the difference curled up on the couch in a wispy of his talent has lacked appreciation. between them seem less striking nightgown. The fi was on softly; This record with Desmond away than it once seemed, but it Red Garland. The mood was right. from the somewhat oppressive is still there. I crossed to where she waited." atmosphere of the Brubeck quartet, Sweets plays the more aggressive But Prestige enjoins us to accept should, in any but the worst of style, with a harder, tighter sound: Garland's playing as "a welcome possible worlds, earn him enough Remembering his turbulent departure from mood music" and informed praise to compensate. At any outpourings on the first Sent For You "honest jazz performances of ballads." rate, he establishes himself here Yesterday, it seems to me that Apparently, Prestige either wants to definitely as one of the voices on his his style has become more relaxed. market a mood series (in which case, instrument. A calming with maturity, perhaps, as it is obviously better to have jazz The most obvious characteristics with Roy? Aware of today's artistic musicians play mood music than of his style are the gentle tone with climate (compound of concert hall mood musicians) or they want to do a deftly controlled and managed snobism and rock 'n' roll some guys a favor and let them vibrato, and the long lyrical lines. But vulgarity) in which he must work, "just relax and play the tunes they the way these qualities are Sweets has developed a few like." Jazz, especially as it grows used is most impressive, for his identifying tricks, notably that of the less functional, would appear to have lines are not long just from fashion repeated note. The crying kind occurs aims that include challenging and the tone is not gentle from a in his solo Memories For the Count, an audience. Mood music, on the other lack of vigor. The lines are long paraphrased immediately by sturdy hand, is supposed to provide "nice" because the content requires them to rolls from Charlie Persip. On sounds while the listener's mind turns be long, and his sound is amazingly Critic's Delight we hear the to more important things. expressive and tough in its own way. remorseless, pushing kind, followed The annotator finds some relevance I think his work on 2 Degrees East, by a quote from Five O'Clock Whistle. in the fact that "some of jazz' 3 Degrees West is a good place to Sweets and Jimmy Forrest have tossed moments of purest musical truth lare start with; the real strength of the these gags around at Birdland to achieved] when good jazz musicians man is quite apparent, .and determine, a regular habitue suggests, [play] tunes at slow and medium his startling and gratifying whether the other is listening. tempos. It is perhaps no accident transformation of the line in his third Buck's style is more pliant, his vibrato that Coleman Hawkins' most famous chorus is quite convincing. For a more poignant. One might say that recording is his Body and Soul, no remarkable example of loving, there was more "soul" in his playing, accident that Miles Davis rose extended lyricism, For All We Know that Sweets' was the "hotter". But to the great popularity he now enjoys is nearly flawless. His line has it is almost as though the same deeply through his lyrical performances of gentleness and the sheer melodic felt emotions were glimpsed ballads." Miles communicates through

24 intensity. At any tempo. It is the lyricist's story originally, but There is very little improvisation on then it must become the singer's, "Red Alone." A few linear passages, and he must make it the story of the a run here or there, and a few tracks audience. (Freud once said something which start in wah-wah octaves to the effect that genius consisted and culminate in bombast make up in how closely your private problems the record. come in currency with the mass.) To keep up the beat, Garland tries Take, for example, a very good swing bass on When Your Lover Has melody with a fairly banal lyric: Gone and I Got It Bad; the effect "Was I gay, till today? Now is worse than monotonous. His she's gone and we're through, Am hands act independently with no sign I blue?" That is stated simply enough, of using the left hand to enhance and is a common situation, the lead line. This applies to most except for the "today". But Billie of his other recordings too, but on Holiday and , whose them he used block chords for color. reservoir of pain is an ever-present On "Red Alone", Garland introduces thing, are able to give the song them occasionally but abandons the immediacy of "today," and not them, perhaps because he doesn't too many other singers can. And since always seem to find it easy to swing most lyrics are on that level, solo. excepting those of such men as Hart David Lahm and Porter, it becomes the task of the singer to bring a poignant immediacy to an otherwise banal BILL HENDERSON. Vee Jay LP1015. situation. It could be called rising Joey; You Make Me Feel So Young; Love above material, or personality, Locked Out; Moanin'; Sweet Pumpkin; Free or even artistry. And it cannot— Spirits; Bye Bye Blackbird; It Never Entered note Bobby Darin—be faked. My Mind; Bad Luck; The Song Is You; My Everything else—technique, vocal Funny Valentine; This Little Girl of Mine. quality, swing (Mabel Mercer does Accompanied by an unlisted jazz quintet. not swing), and the jazz feel, are incidental. In this critic-dominated era of jazz, Which brings me to Bill Henderson. when things that people once He sings beautifully, has impressive discussed casually, if at all, have technique, a jazz feel that is perhaps a become "problems", there has been little too heavily laid on, and an little discussion of the "problem" of enviable choice of material, but the the jazz singer. Perhaps it is just current that passes from the depths as well; I have a suspicion that of the singer's heart to the no one knows what a jazz singer is. depths of his listener's—that ability, One comes no closer to a definition by the way, is perhaps the than a list of names—Bessie vocal ability that Ray Charles has—is Smith, of course, and Billie Holiday, lacking. It is worth everything else and Louis Armstrong (if he isn't in the book, and it cannot be learned. singing jazz, then what is he doing up It may not—and what will this do to there?). Sarah Vaughan, Dinah the theorists?—come from blindness, , and Billy Eckstine, or unfortunate love affairs. apparently, are jazz singers at some But they may help. times and not at others—this, Joe Goldberg apparently, is more a matter of material and accompaniment than of the singing itself. Also, there is Frank J. J. JOHNSON: "First Place". Sinatra, who is generally called a Columbia CL 1030. semi-jazz singer, which, if we follow J. J. Johnson, trombone; Tommy Flanagan, any kind of standard vocabulary, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Max Roach, would place him in the same general drums. category as the It's Only a Paper Moon; Paul's Pal; Quartet or even Rhapsody For Heaven's Sake; That Tired Routine in Blue. That doesn't seem to Called Love; Be My Love; Cry Me a River; be right. So, what is a jazz singer? Nickels and Dimes; Commutation; Harvey's I am no closer to the answer than House. anyone else, but it might be good to set down a few basics which are so "There is no element of outward simple that they might be overlooked. display in Johnson's music and the FM at 92.7 There is still a question as to the extreme facility of movement is balance between the creative and the always utilized for an interpretive in jazz, but the singer, expressive purpose". These words by by the nature of what he does, Max Harrison sum up the work of is more interpreter and less creator the trombonist admirably. than another musician. He is Here are all the qualities one expects: singing lyrics—in other words, he is the personal tone, the wealth of interpreting another person's story. ideas, the complex rhythmic But the question must eventually control, all presented with an boil down to one of individual assurance that gives these loosely identity—soul, perhaps, whatever organized solo sequences an unusual that is, but personality certainly. General Manager: Pat Henry sense of completeness. Premeditated

25 touches there are, of course: some to regard Morgan's current style as had got far beyond mere imitation. clever introductions and careful mature, but records show that he Besides being an interesting progress allocation of choruses and chase is coming to grips with important report the album contains some passages. Nor does each problems. His solo on Bongo Bop on impressive passages. rendition follow the same pattern; Curtis Fuller's recent United Artists Michael James sometimes Flanagan will solo first, an release UAL 4041, is distinguished not apt arrangement with this kind of only by graceful design but also quartet. The performances, moreover, by an apparently artless musical "GERRY MULLIGAN meets BEN vary considerably in length. All balance. Its structure actually seems WEBSTER". Verve MG V-8343. these things are a part pf the album's to grow out of the tension between Ben Webster, tenor; Gerry Mulligan, baritone; attractiveness, though none, needless note and phrase, the personal sense Jimmy Rowles, piano; , bass; to say, would be of any effect without of swing, and the bold inflections. In Mel Lewis, drums. each man's improvising skill. short, there is no separating formal Chelsea Bridge; ; Sunday; Who's Johnson's is naturally the major devices from emotional content. Got Rhythm; Tell Me When; Go Home. voice. The extra polish he has While the arrangements and themes on acquired in recent years the present album show a little more A friendly record; no track exceeds a has been accompanied by a gradual imagination than is usual with brisk trot; no one tries to raise the change in the emotional character of sessions of this kind, the record temperature, and everything is nice his work. There are times here when stands or falls by the leader's and relaxed. Clearly a suitable he comes out with staccato witticisms, playing, and although it was mood for the principals. Webster and quirks of phrase that are made nearly three years ago he Mulligan rely on tone and their ability significantly absent from the records performs with great assurance. to bend or twist notes, and pay little made earlier. He is still capable of Even when he plays very fast legato heed to the normal concepts of linear projecting sombre moods, as his phrases his notes are cleanly defined invention. Webster, in particular, lovely reading of For Heaven's and his tone clear. At rapid rarely plays anything that Sake shows, but the evolution in tempo he revels in long, singing could be called a "run," and his content will be apparent to all those phrases that hang back momentarily solos, at least on the faster numbers, familiar with his previous recordings. from the beat only to uncoil can be judged almost exclusively in This trend has meant no slackening ferociously, heightening their effect terms of tonal variation. Lack of of musical discipline at any with sustained notes that waver melodic development and climax robs tempo, his ideas are just as firmly appealingly. He uses riffs to push up his playing of much of its impact related as before. Johnson never the tension, deploys his pet runs at these tempos, and even his offered the urgency of a , intelligently, and is capable of exquisite time fails to alter the but by the same token his work occasional melodic invention in the impression given of aimless jogging is relatively free of the vagaries most exact sense. All together, these from one phrase to the next on Sunday to which the passionate features transmit a feeling, most and Who's Got Rhythm; on the other artist is prone. Harvey's House, evident on the first three tracks, of titles he is superb. Tell Me dramatic in atmosphere and strict in irrepressible enthusiasm. When, a ballad by Mulligan, features control, is more typical of this On New-ma his inflections are more Webster floating over the rhythm album than it might seem at first. audacious, his phrases less section and embellishing Johnson's style always calls for a consistently effervescent, even terse the theme so gently that one is good rhythm section, for he bears at times. The sour undertones here hint hardly aware he is embellishing. down on the beat less frequently at the evolution that has come There is about as much superfluous even than Dickie Wells; it would be since. Conversely Lover Man is elaboration in this solo as there hard to think of a more suitable unashamedly lyrical and displays his is in the best of Louis Armstrong. complement to his work than the trio limpid tone to particularly good On Go home, a slowish blues, he which supports him here. Chambers' advantage. builds surely, his tone coarsening excursions with the bow show To say that Chambers and Jones work slightly but always under commendable enterprise, but lack well together is gross understatement. control. On one passage on Chelsea strength and precision. No such The bassist's plucked solo on Bridge, having played beautifully, criticism could be made of his New-ma is excellent. Jones shows he indulges in one of his excessive playing behind the soloists. Flanagan uncanny anticipation in accenting the breath-vibratos that I personally is not the man to trespass on improvised line and the texture of cannot take. Johnson's purlieu, but in his own his work is a delight in choruses emerges as an Mulligan is less unorthodox. He hasn't itself. His breaks are splendid extremely fluent stylist. His chief got Webster's rhythmic ease or such a examples of controlled polyrhythm and influence seems to be , but pliable sound. His tone is alternately also stress his concern with varying dexterity, a delightful touch, gruff and hollow, and he uses this densities of sound. Timmons is an and an individual sense of dynamics contrast with great skill, in much the able and energetic accompanist but show that he is no mere copy. same way as Webster does with his his solo ideas are commonplace As for Roach, everything he does is more varied tonal resources. Both and rather clash with the group exactly,right, the result of men are excellent on Go Home, conception. He has grown an exquisite sensibility and many on the loping Cat Walk and on Chelsea in confidence since the record was years' hard work. Bridge, where Mulligan passes made. Adams has drive and a big what must be the supreme test—a Michael James harsh tone, but his muddy articulation solo chorus sandwiched between two inhibits the swing of his work; his of Webster's. He is the more ability to hold notes is insecure, and discursive improvisor, sometimes LEE MORGAN: "". Blue he is best at medium tempo. prone to cliches but often striking Note 1578. Morgan's delight in his technical unhackneyed melodic ideas with real Lee Morgan, trumpet; , ability leads him into the snare of imagination. baritone; Bobby Timmons, piano; Paul undue repetition, but there is no Rowles, Vinnegar and Lewis are Chambers, bass; Philly Joe Jones, drums. escaping either the vigor or the firm, dependable accompanists. ; Heavy Dipper; Just One surprising individuality he shows. Rowles has a few rather skittish solos of Those Things; Lover Man; New-ma. Clifford Brown, Navarro and that are nevertheless pleasant and Gillespie suggest themselves as his quite unpredictable, while Vinnegar It would almost certainly be unfair models, but by September 1957 he is heard and felt throughout. One

26 could describe him as the Ben WES MONTGOMERY: "The Incredible Webster of the bass: what he ." Riverside RLP 12-320. JAZZ LINES BY does, he does remarkably. Wes Montgomery, guitar; Tommy Flanagan, LENNIE TRISTANO, No. 1 $2.00

A friendly record, but honest, piano; , bass; , LEE KONITZ, No. 1 1.50 purposeful and full of conviction. drums. Cork'N'Bib & Cary's Trance (Konitz) each .25 Ronald Atkins Airegin; D-Natural Blues; Four On Six; In 317 E. 32nd & Lennie Bird (Tristano) each .25 Your Own Sweet Way; Mister Walker; Gone GUITAR SOLOS BY BILLY BAUER With The Wind; West Coast Blues. HANK MOBLEY-L.EE MORGAN: Blue Mist & Purple Haze each 1.00 "Peckin' Time." Blue Note 1574. : "Work Song." BASIC GUITAR STUDIES Lee Morgan, trumpet; Hank Mobley, tenor; Riverside RLP 12-318. Wynton Kelly, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Nat Adderly, cornet; Wes Montgomery, guitar; Text I (Scale Fingerings) 2.00 Charlie Persip, drums. Bobby Timmons, piano; and Text II (Four Sounds of the Triad) 3.00 High and Flighty; Speak Low; Peckin' Time; , cello and bass; Percy Heath, Wm. H. Bauer Inc. • Albertson, L.I., N.Y. Stretchin' Out; Git-Go Blues. bass; Louis Hayes, drums. Work Song; Pretty Memory; I've Got A This is one of those apparently hastily Crush on You; Mean To Me; Fallout; Sack put together blowing sessions which of Woe; My Heart Stood Still; Violets Subscribe to Jj\2 HOT have become the standard product For Your Furs; Scrambled Eggs. of jazz record companies. Hank famous French review Mobley plays throughout with his Less than a year ago, I wrote an For information write to: customary air of accomplishment and article concerning several fine jazz ability, but his solos run the changes musicians living and working in The Jazz Review, with a dull rhythmic sense, and comparative isolation in the 124 White Street, N.Y. 13. N.Y. the result is a series of fragments area. One of these was all very much on one level. David Baker, whose remarkable big Lee Morgan is something else again. band, barely surviving at this writing, Now a correspondence course Of the young' trumpeters since Clifford remains "undiscovered" by any of Brown, I think Morgan is the the recording companies, despite the most able. He has all the technique fact that everyone who hears the band, GEORGE RUSSELL'S he can possibly use and a feel for live or on tape, readily succumbs rhythmic nuance and melodic to language couched almost LYDIAN CHROMATIC construction. He is not just another entirely in superlatives. cooking musician who knows the The other musician I wrote about with CONCEPT FOR JAZZ changes. His most obvious influence considerable enthusiasm was the after Brown is Gillespie, guitarist Wes Montgomery. I IMPROVISATION but he has long since passed the subsequently discovered that no less stage when he could be considered an authority than "The first important theoretical inno• a disciple; he has taken what shared my enthusiasm. As a result of vation to come from jazz."—, he needed from Gillespie in these and other favorable comments, musical director of the Modern Jazz high-speed agility and sonority. Wes was soon signed to a recording Quartet. Morgan knows his own skill and is contract and has since then "Important for every serious jazz mu• trying to work with forms and melodic produced two records as a leader sician."—. constructions of some scope and and one as a side man for Riverside. extension. At present his sense of When the first record appeared, Taught at the School of Jazz, Lenox, construction here is still the word immediately spread in the Mass. somewhat cursory, but this fault trade that it was a big disappointment For information write to: seems to be passing. His work on this and certainly did not live up to date is uneven. On three of the the "raves" one had heard. Concept Publishing Company tracks he just makes the changes. I must confess that my own reaction 121 Bank Street, N. Y. 14, N. Y. However, Speak Low is an excellent to Wes' first Riverside lp was almost example of extended melodic in the nature of a shock. And having construction where each part of his written in The Jazz Review solo fits neatly with the preceding that Wes was "an extraordinarily parts, obviously the result of spectacular guitarist", his playing was considerable effort and thought. On "unbearably exciting", that he JAZZ PHOTOGRAPHS Git-Go Blues his flow "combines the perfect choice of notes Send stamp for free detailed list of ideas sometimes flags, but the with technical prowess" and other intent is there, and this track such choice morsels, I felt slightly of hundreds of photos of jazzmen, sets off Morgan's rhythmic style very foolish when that first record bands old and new, obscure blues well. He pushes hard and sets up appeared. artists, sweet bands and vocalists. a tension between his rhythm and that Of course, discrepancies between Traditional and modern musicians of the section, hitting slightly ahead "ear witness" reports and what finally of the beat and bending back represented. Photos of bands add appears on a record are as old into it. as jazz itself. And it is an easy thing to the enjoyment of your record• In the rhythm section Wynton to sit back and assume that the ings. Kelly is disappointing; his solos are report of a live performance must Examples: Oliver, Morton, Bechet, oddly disjointed, and Kelly is certainly be exaggerated, and that a far too talented a musician to work recording never lies. Undoubtedly, Lester Young, Basie, Moten, E. into a cul-de-sac of that sort. Wes' playing that night in Lang, Bix w. Whitman, Waller, Earl Paul Chambers is his usual Indianapolis—or the night Cannonball Hines 1943, Benny Goodman, unassuming self and carries on heard him—was special, and perhaps with another day's work. Charlie not to be captured on record Dizzy with Bird, , Persip sounds like Charlie grooves any time of day. It is well early St. Louis and K. C. bands. Persip imitating Art Taylor imitating known that musicians often feel New price schedule now in effect. Art Blakey. spurred on by the knowledge that Duncan P. Schiedt H. A. Woodfin someone out there in the audience 2534 E. 68th St., Indianapolis, Ind. 27 (usually fellow musicians) is really choruses), Wes' own D-natural Blues, shame. understanding and appreciating their or in the driving solo on Four On Six. Gunther Schuller music. It tends to make them play Throughout the Ip Wes demonstrates over their heads. While I did not his marvelous warmth and sense DIZZY REECE: "Star Bright". expect to hear that kind of feverish of tonal color,—a tonal color varied Blue Note 4023. excitement on the first Ip, I feel and fitted according to the character Dizzy Reece, trumpet; Hank Mobley, tenor,- it was not necessary to strike at of the phrase. Notice for Wynton Kelly, piano; Paul Chambers, such an ordinary, complacent level. instance, the light transparent sound bass; Art Taylor, drums. It is certainly not a secret that a cold in the theme statement of D-natural The Rake; I'll Close my Eyes,- Groovesville; acoustically "controlled" studio Blues, or in Four on Six the tonal The Rebound; I Wished on the Moon; A is worlds away from a barn-like overly and rhythmic variety of Wes' Variation on Monk. resonant after-hours joint. It is no fragmented comments behind Percy's Although Reece should go on secret which of the two will make walking solo. Aside from these tonal developing for some time, we can a musician "open up". Nor shadings, I find Wes' basic guitar already distinguish what are likely to is it a secret that, given a trio sound continually arresting because it be some of his mature qualities. which is a well integrated ensemble, is warm, rich and earthy, unlike One is a concern with melodic and it is sheer folly to pick out the certain practitioners who strive rhythmic variety. In his enterprising leader of the group and spotlight him for the cold, steely "electronic" Groovesville solo, for example, to the virtual exclusion of the sound. This personal warmth is heard the most striking feature is a diversity other two players. (On the record to advantage on Brubeck's ballad of phrase and of rhythmic pattern Rhyne's bass lines on the organ—in In Your Own Sweet Way, which uncommon in this type of performance. other words the whole harmonic Wes sings out in both However, he is not yet always able foundation—are just barely this side chordal and linear solos, and which both to maintain this variety of audibility). It is also no secret is spoiled only by Flanagan's out and produce a solo of overall unity. that for musicians who thrive on of place oh-so-Garnerish solo. Even so, an intelligent use of playing long, competitive, The last two tracks, Mister Walker dynamic contrasts, plus the fact that intensity-building solos, it is foolish and Gone With The Wind are each phrase is firmly related to to box them in by limiting everyone's unhappily disappointing. The first Taylor's propulsive beat, does give solos to one or two short choruses. because it becomes embedded in its a cohesiveness to this In fact, in view of Wes' habit of own inherent latin cliches, improvisation. building.solos in a three part the second because Wes' long solo His liking for wide intervals, which single-line-to-octave-to-block-chord never takes off. It just continues accounts for some of the boldness pattern, three choruses are almost unswervingly, emotionally disengaged, of his melodies, and for sustained an absolute minimum. and is perhaps considerably notes, are two more characteristics. In view of the extreme confinements hampered by Albert Heath's overly The long notes are used in a number thus imposed upon Wes by Riverside, polite drumming (only on this of ways, sometimes as points of or perhaps by himself, it is amazing track, as Albert acquits himself climax or of equipoise midway that any of the dynamism of this excellently in the other through a phrase, as in The Rake, man's music survived. The utter swinging numbers). sometimes as high starting points naturalness of Wes' playing and For me the most successful track, before a descending string of rapid musicianship are evident throughout. however, is Wes' own West Coast Blues. notes, as on Rebound. Reece's ideas It is a naturalness—though different It comes closer to achieving the are often either predominantly and perhaps on a different level—that excitement I heard in person long- or short-noted, and this clearly makes me think of , in Indianapolis. The tune itself is aids him in his search for contrast Dizzy Gillespie, Wes' colleague Jim very catchy, a funky twelve-bar blues and variety while being partly Hall or Wes' major influence cast in a 6/4 pattern. Wes' solo is long the result of it. Yet more forceful Charlie Christian. Such natural gifts (nine choruses) and well constructed. melody would probably result if, will not be entirely smothered by It is a well-nigh flawless solo instead of simply being played off even the deadest studio or most because every note seems thoroughly against each others, these confining recording methods. felt and fully resolved within the two patterns were more closely But alas, the halo of excitement, context. And it is climaxed by several interwoven. In his most successful unreserved joy, and revelry in his own intense choruses of triumphant, moments Reece can already do this, instrumental prowess, with which mere exultant block chords, in as The Rebound shows. His solo, which natural gift can be further enhanced a way which is quite unique with Wes. contains his best offering on the and brightened, are not to be By comparison, the Nat Adderley disc, comes closest to holding the found on the disc. Wes is that rare date is on a much lower artistic level. balance between variety and being, primarily a session, not a The record is mildly interesting coherence, between melodic freedom studio, player. because of the various cello solos of Sam Jones and Keter Betts, and rhythmic strength. All the same, Fortunately the second Ip made but the marvelous sonorous at present much of the character under Wes' leadership fared somewhat of guitar, cello and bass of Reece's work derives from the better, although still not up to the have really not been realized at all. way he organizes his material— totality of musical experience possible. And the cliche context of most the use of contrast, of dynamics, the Riverside decided to "let him wail" of the tracks obviously took its toll varied placing of long notes, etc.—and a little more, and the resultant on the various musical imaginations, less from a really independent music thrives on the freer atmosphere. including Wes Montgomery's. Nat linear invention. Stylistic maturity If anyone should still doubt Adderley's search for a style, for him may come with a regular Wes' various abilities, I suggest they floundering between imitations of integration among the facets of his listen to this record. They will Miles Davis (almost everywhere) music, and this, together with the find first of all that, unlike hundreds and Lee Morgan (Work Song, Fall Out), more personal melodic ideas of highly touted musicians (not not daring to break out of the he should produce in time, will result to mention guitarists), Wes is not a official "soul" mannerisms, lowers a in more forcefully expressive work. scale and arpeggio player. stifling blanket over the His music for the British film His solos always have interesting proceedings. Considering that Nowhere To Go showed considerable contours and an unexpected choice most of the musicians involved are compositional talent. The Rake, the of notes, as for example in Rollins' good musicians, this is indeed a most interesting theme on this Ip, is Airegin (Wes' second and third from that score. The Rebound

28 is simple despite its thirteen-bar sardonic humor, peculiar swing— bastard art, all mixed up with rock length, yet ingeniously justifies make his part of the album hang and roll, song-pluggers, its title. together completely and satisfyingly. show biz, and what-not, that it Some of the most satisfying music It is almost as if he did not need is really useless to criticize it for being comes from Wynton Kelly. When to startle any more. In these terms, that way. If you like whining his ideas run short, he tends to Limehouse Blues (that and Secret guitars behind voices singing about fall back on the standard cliches of Heart are without piano) mules, don't come here because you funky piano playing—as in I'll is the finest performance, partly won't find it. This sort of music Close my Eyes—but in the introduction because it has the advantage of adding is made by professional entertainers to A Variation on Monk and especially another perfect tune to Rollins' who are earning a more-or-less his two Groovesville solos he displays unusual repertoire. Beautiful is a living, and Roosevelt Sykes is probably a fresh melodic invention which, masterly piece of saxophone playing being just as influenced on Long, although clearly related to the basic per se. John Lewis solos only once, Lonesome Night by Avery Parrish style, already contains a number on a composition credited to as Parrish was by the likes of Sykes in of personal elements and could well him on some labels as John's Other After Hours. In other words, Parrish develop unusually Theme, corrected on later labels as worked blues as played by Sykes and individual. He is almost as good on Rollins' Doxy. It is a characteristically others into a solo which became so Rebound. His touch is well well-ordered solo, containing several popular (deservedly so) that controlled; he produces a piano tone references to Pyramid, which must Sykes and the others started to play which has just the degree of have been on Lewis' mind at the time. like it. Records make things percussiveness, of hardness, this type Teddy Edwards' two pieces are a turn into themselves. of ensemble needs, but is still revelation. His is straightforward Sykes' piano playing is first-rate. sufficiently singing to flatter his tenor playing, with the kind of head-on He seems to use his voice better for melodic ideas. Kelly's work here is swing typical of late forties bop that the happy shouting pieces and does better than anything I have heard can topple over into a Jack McVea better on the piano on the slower and from him before. style if the musician is not too more introspective numbers. Long, Mobley has recorded so many careful. But Edwards eases around Lonesome Night is perfect vocalized undistinguished performances in the that pitfall with no trouble at all, piano playing, and yet a good part last year or two that one has wondered playing melodies of simple, of it is low and somber, quite unlike if he would ever again play as well abrupt charm, closely allied to Sykes' singing, which uses few deep as he had on Creepin' In and The good harmonic ideas. tones. Preacher. There are a number of These remarks all apply to Billie's Sykes plays fairly old-timey piano, choruses here in which he plays Bounce, and listening to Foggy Day like Romeo Nelson or Cripple Clarence with much greater melodic purpose immediately afterwards is startling. or some of those from the twenties, than of late, and with more Just as he found the proper approach only more Southwestern (I don't positively shaped phrases. He is most to the first tune, Edwards does care where he's from) and more effective on A Variation on Monk— the same for the second, employing up-to-date. But the accompaniment on which Taylor is also outstanding a light, airy delicacy that would seem has a large dose of folded —and almost as good in I Wished to be outside the realm of the man into it. Now, rock and roll can be on the Moon. In Groovesville his who played the first solo, except that wonderful music when it's done well ideas are certainly melodic, but, the swing and guts are still there. (listen to Ooh Poo Pah Doo by Jesse compared with Reece Obviously, Edwards is a man who, with Hill on Minit records) but he does not relate his phrases to his other virtues, can apply himself it will turn an unimaginative blues the beat decisively at all. to a specific tune, giving it exactly player into a fountain of unyielding The improvement is nonetheless what it needs. An impressive cliches. For example, there is an very welcome. recording that demands another. excruciating track on House Of Max Harrison Joe Goldberg The Blues by Hooker (Chess LP 1438) when a rock and roll type guitar player keeps a compulsive "SONNY ROLLINS at Music Inn— "The Return of ROOSEVELT SYKES". twelve-bar walking bass going TEDDY EDWARDS at Falcon's Lair." Prestige/Bluesville 1006. smack-dab in the face of Hooker's Metrojazz E1011. Roosevelt Sykes, piano and vocals; Clarence thirteen- or fourteen-bar choruses. Sonny Rollins, tenor; John Lewis, piano-, Perry Jr., tenor-, Frank Ingalls, guitar-, Floyd Ladedehumptedorebebob. Percy Heath, bass; Connie Kay, drums. Ball, guitar; Armond "Jump" Jackson, drums. Well anyway, there is nothing here John's Other Theme; Limehouse Blues; I'll Drivin' Wheel; Long, Lonesome Night; Set that is that bad. There are two Follow My Secret Heart; You Are Too The Meat Outdoors; Comin' Home; Stompin' guitars, one of which plays lines Beautiful. The Boogie; Number Nine; Calcutta; Selfish like an electric bass. Teddy Edwards, tenor; Joe Castro, piano; Woman; Hangover; Night Time Is The Right The other one plays well part of the time but is too satisfied with Leroy Vinnegar, bass; , drums. Time; Runnin' The Boogie; Hey Big Momma. his little bag of tricks. The tenor Billie's Bounce; A Foggy Day. Roosevelt Sykes is not a major blues player tries to play ignorant tenor, singer (whatever that is) but he which is a fine way to The specifics of Sonny Rollins' is a thoroughly enjoyable one. He play when it comes off, but here it playing have been discussed often uses a pleasing variety of vocal doesn't. But luckily the album is mostly enough. But, in terms of his style, timbres with the authority Sykes, and the infrequent appearances he has brought off, in this part of of the thirty-year man that he is. His of the others merely provide happy an in:person concert recorded in lyrics are weaker than his delivery the summer of 1958 (the rest is on contrast. The drummer sounds good but the lyrics in this sort of (you never can tell about a drummer Atlantic 1299), an achievement of an let-the-good-times-roll blues are unusual sort. There are no startling until you play with him) and in fact not that important anyway, and who the backgrounds are fine—the sidemen moments, no individual turns of phrase can blame Sykes for trying to make that strike one as sharply as on are weak only on their solos. Don't let some money? Even though he me scare you away from this some other Rollins records—many of does it with: I got a sweet little baby, the phrases are pets of his that have album. If you like good blues Sweet as apple butter, singing and wonderful blues piano been heard often before—and yet, She's a long-gone chick, his total conception—tone, use of playing this record is recommended. Just dropped in from Calcutta. Attention, jocks! Dick Wellstood harmony, inflected notes, This kind of city blues is such a

29 On the second album, recorded a switches to his favorite block chords. year later, Moody heads his septet. The other cuts are fairly dull; SHORTER The arrangements, by trombonist Garland sticks pretty close to Tom Mcintosh, sound a lot like stuff the melody. Eddie Davis is present on Gigi Gryce was doing a year a ago. three numbers, sounding like an A smooth middle-register trumpet aggressive Ben Webster. Art Taylor and REVIEWS lead over unison ensemble, with the Sam Jones are a fine strong alto and trombone playing an team. Taylor is getting more occasional counter-figure voiced economical everytime I hear him; independently. No one except Moody it looks as if is having and John Coles is more than com• a belated influence. petent as a soloist. Moody's solos Harvey Pekar on the first side are repetitive, un• imaginative and poorly structured. On the second side they are more On "Hot Cargo" (Mercury MG 20345), forceful and tightly knit. In the year Miss ERNESTINE ANDERSON shows a since the first IP Moody absorbed a big contralto voice, sings with a little from Rollins and Coltrane. superb diction and warmth, and has Coles, around the horn, can get chosen twelve tunes of the highest good taste and a fine melodic quality, both show tunes (Little sense, but I wish he'd vary his up Girl Blue, Autumn in New York, tempo work more by slurring and Experiment) and more conventional playing more long notes. He also uses pop tunes (That Old Feeling, Weep that cocked valve stuff to the point Your Troubles in Dreams). But of affection. (I've heard him since the good lyrics demand more this album was made and he has attention to the sense and character improved.) The liner notes on both of the words than she gives. are maudlin. Experiment is most disappointing If you're a middle-aged executive in this respect. On the other hand plays flute, who sort of likes jazz and you like she floats deftly over Love tenor and baritone on New Jazz 8226 to show your friends how hip you are, for Sale, a tune which not not very originally (his tenor work GENE KRUPA's Verve 8300 is for you. infrequently is unconvincingly sung. is now very strongly influenced by It's for you because it contains 's backings vary in Coltrane) but with some feeling. lots of loud drumming, and because effectiveness. Those for band, with Candied Sweets is probably his most a lot of nice nostalgic ballads are or without strings, are conventional, if imaginative solo on the album. given fairly straight readings. No one not pedestrian. The others, for Richard Wyand seems to draw most will ask, "Goddammit, where's the piano and rhythm, range from of his rather eclectic inspiration melody?" truly excellent (Little Girl Blue) on from Red Garland and Ahmad Jamal. is the featured horn man. down. Wrap Your Troubles is marred On Up At Teddy's Hill he sometimes He plays tenor most of the time in by four bars of musical chaos sounds like Bud Powell. However, a style reminiscent of Getz and Sims. following an excessively obscure he plays with strength and directness His tone is fairly attractive, but his modulation from F sharp to D at the and really understands his ideas are a lot of other guys. On end of the piano chorus. Everyone, predecessors. On Poinciana, he was a the up tempo numbers he displays including the listener, gets really first rate solo. Charlie Persip good technique, but runs out of gas thoroughly lost here. Although Miss is one of the best drummers around. and frequently repeats himself. He Anderson swings very nicely on several He's very clean. Although he's a isn't helped by Krupa, who plays with tunes, this facet of her talent powerhouse drummer, I'd challenge a lot of drive but much too loud is veiled by what seems to anyone to say he isn't sympathetic and choppy. Lester's sons play the me overuse of slow tempos. In fact, to the soloist. most legato tenor style and Krupa's four of the first six tunes have In the forties JAMES MOODY was tenor conception is exactly wrong for them. the same sleepy beat in common. soloist in Dizzy's and The ballads are more successful. Nevertheless, she is one of the best cut his own records on Prestige; Argo When Shu plays clarinet the group of those younger singers who walk the 637 and 648 represent a comeback. On tries to recreate Benny Goodman. line between jazz and more strictly the first Moody is accompanied McKenna imitates Teddy Wilson and commercial music. by a big band with almost anonymous Hines. Krupa's solo's shows no Yes to CHARLIE BYRD's band on "Jazz arrangements by Johnny Pate that attempt at construction or subtlety. at the Showboat" (Offbeat OJ 3001), get in the way. It might have been "RED GARLAND Trio plus Eddie and to his own effortless and better to hear Moody in front of Lockjaw Davis" (Prestige-Moodsville 1) imaginative guitar playing. This group a rhythm section. He is a mature may sell, but it is far from Garland has the virtues of a band that soloist. His tenor tone is at his best. For one thing, it has worked together (in Washington, vibratoless, masculine and "pretty." lacks variety. All eight tracks are D.C.) for some time: intelligent Technique has always been one of his taken very slow; six are standards. and varied control of dynamics, solid strong points. In the forties he Garland is a good but not consistently and relaxed time, and the kind of sometimes used to play too many stimulating ballad player. His playing that shows that the musicians notes, but now he has that tendency approach is fundamentally an listen to each other (particularly under control. He has the same exciting rather than a lyrical one, and apparent in Bartell Knox's drumming). essential lyrical approach on alto too. his drive and wonderfully varied Byrd, quoted in the liner notes, (On the flute, I now admit, I'm voicings are better displayed in blues says, "I don't see where jazz prejudiced; I think the instrument is and at medium to fast tempos. today is better than 20 years ago, too limited for jazz improvisation. Red Blues, where Garland plays except that there are more people is the only flautist that mainly in chords, is the best track. playing good now. . ." and accordingly seems to be to be saying anything.) Worider Why has a lilting quality there is no effort to be either Pate's compositions, however, are because of the intelligent use of avant-garde or traditional. Instead, very good. Why Don't You is one-three accents. He begins there the qualities of this record depend a particularly good ballad and should by playing single note lines, but soon on solid, musicianly playing and be played again.

30 intelligent choice of tunes (Duke's t Satin Doll, Blue Turning Grey Over You, TLANTIC DISCOVERY*I Don't Explain) and vigorous, uncluttered originals by Bobb Felder, and especially seven different instrumental combinations for eleven tunes. Byrd's wife, Ginny, sings very nicely on two pieces, and I would EASTERN EXPOSURE be pleased to hear more from her. Perhaps her uniform and studied , A*1 > LP 1335 vibrato at the ends of phrases is A very talented pianist-composer whom critics a little monotonous. Of the sidemen, are hailing as a "major find"! His style com• one should single out Bartell bines exotic rhythms and melodies of the Near Knox (again), the drummer on most 1 East with modern jazz. Don't miss Fred Kaz! of the tunes, and Buck Hill, tenor. I do hope, however, that the surfaces in general are better than on my review t t copy (particularly at six bucks a •THER EXCITING NEW TLANTIC JAZZ ALBUMS •! throw). Although there are some flaws in balance in the recording itself, they are compensated for by good, live sound. NEWPORT JjQ THE I Pathe 1012, now being imported here FESTIVAL from France, contains ten selections by , mostly ALL STARS m recorded between 1939 and 1940 but Buck Clayton MODES one as late as 1945. They give JAZZ Vic Dickenson the impression of being from five to Wilbur de Paris ten years out of phase with plays music of and others American jazz of the time: three of the Twenties the four arrangements for big band LP 1336 LP 1331 are atrocious and reminiscent of the LP T306 heavy-handed approach of All available stereo $5.98 Casa Loma or the studio bands of and monaural $4.98 the early thirties. The combo Write for comp/efe LP catalogue performances fall, I think, in the and tftrao diic fisting. TLANTIC RECORDS tradition of the chamber jazz which 157 WEST 57th STREET • NEW YORK 19, N.Y. developed in this country during the late twenties (for instance: Clarence Williams, , Venuti-Lang), and are the best framework for Reinhardt's work, if any framework need be used at all. Only a few tunes here can stand on their own merits as jazz, without our nostalgic attraction to the refined and careful style typified by the Quintet of the Hot Club; but then •some such statement could be made about much American jazz of the same period. Hubert Rostaing and Alex Combelle, the two clarinetists featured, play nicely in this chamber style, and Pierre Fouad, the drummer on Dark Eyes rather surprises one with the firmness of his drumming. Swing 41 is interesting for its traces of Goodmanesque riffing, and Swing 42 maintains a unity of mood lacking on most of the bands. Django, of course, is sui generis, but regrettably this is not his best work. I would recommend instead RCA LPM-1100, which has a bonus: two fine choruses by Coleman Hawkins on Avalon. I think the quotation Louis ARMSTRONG, currently touring Europe, takes two NORELCO 'Continental' from Django which heads the liner recorders wherever he goes. Says Louis, "I tape phono records and airshots all the notes is an admirable reflection of time and if I'm in the room talking with friends, my NORELCO'S keep right on the superior qualities of his copying with the volume turned down." Louis also finds the choice of three speeds own playing: "Jazz captivates convenient, using the slowest, V/i ips for interviews and speech recording, the 33A me because I find in it a perfection speed for some music, and the 7V2 speed for live recording. He says, "I've tried lots of form and an instrumental accuracy of tape machines since I got my first one in 191,8, but NORELCO is the one for me." which I admire in great music Recently he picked up two NORELCO 'Continentals' in . Set to run on but find lacking in popular the European power frequency of 50 cycles, they will be reset for 60 cycles when he musics." returns to the United States. Like all NORELCO recorders they can be set in a few minutes for any power voltage requirement anywhere in the world; from 110 to 250 Larry Gushee volts. The NORELCO 'Continental' is a product of North American Philips Co., Inc., High Fidelity Products Division, Dept. 1EE5, 230 Duffy Ave., Hicksville, L. I., N. Y.

31 15,000 jazz fans, the that the Saturday night JAZZ IN PRINT rioters had been dispelled performance continued by Newport City Police, without disruption, and HSIO WEN SHIH State Troopers, National that most listeners were Guards men, and units of hardly aware of the rioting U.S. Marines, and the outside. He reported that streets were being the City Council vote, I was in a car, driving patrolled Sunday morning on cancelling the NJF toward Newport -on Sunday, by Rhode Island National license, was 4-3, and that July 3rd, when I heard Guardsmen ; Governor Del not all City executive of• about the rioting at the Sesto had declared a state ficials had agreed with the Jazz Festival. I had of emergency and closed the decision; that NJF offi• almost decided to miss city of Newport to incoming cials had at first been pes• Newport this year, traffic. simistic about the future because I didn't expect Newport was news again. of the festival in coming any extraordinary music, The news of the rioting years, but had quickly re• but my curiosity was didn't make most Sunday covered and prepared to aroused by press releases papers ; the Providence counterpunch by filing a and news reports about Journal had a thorough story $4,000,000 suit against the the other festival a few and of course Newport and City to compensate for blocks away from Freebody Boston papers. The New "damages and losses from Park. York Times had a short the cancellation of three events". His statistical From what I saw in the report that said, "The summary was impressive: New York newspapers, the Newport Festival erupted 182 arrested (plus 27 ad• NJF was no longer news, into riot tonight as ditional arrests the fol• but,the rival festival hundred of youthful toughs, lowing day), 50 persons was — a clean, straight unable to get seats, turned treated at the Newport news story about on music enthusiasts . . . Hospital for injuries, competition in the open Youths, said to number though none was seriously market, with just the 3,000 . . . spilled into the hurt, and 14 fined for slightest hints about downtown area, attacking their parts in the riots. divorce, law suits, and policemen, kicking in store The list of rioters fined very disgruntled windows and manhandling showed that they mostly musicians. But the N. Y. residents of the resort came from well-to-do Post of June 30 quoted community." The report suburban communities. Mrs. Lorillard, "We're mentioned that the riot was A follow-up story in the not trying to compete. the culmination of "a day Times the next day reported We're trying to do what of growing friction" that that the major losses were the festival set out saw "15 other youths . . . suffered by Newport mer• originally to do." locked up on charges of chants, but that the NJF Co-founder Charlie Mingus gang fighting ..." had still to settle with was blunter, "I played during the day. musicians whose perfor• cheap for years because The next day, the story mances had been cancelled, they said they had to get was on the front page of and had also lost some get on their feet. Now newspapers across the $60,000 in income from re• they're on their feet but country. The Herald Tribune cording contracts that they want to give me only carried both the AP and could not be fulfilled, and $100 more, and I gotta the UP accounts, which were of course had to refund throw in ." presumably run by most for advance ticket Charlie Mingus, Max Roach, papers across the country sales. and Mrs. Lorillard seemed under locally written such an ill-assorted trio heads. These reports were An article in the Newport that I hardly knew what fairly accurate, but Daily News on July 5 gave to expect. ambiguous enough to per• Elaine Lorillard's reac• mit some pretty sensational tion to the cancelling of •We were in Connecticut heads. Neither was as com• the NJF. "I feel terri• when a news report from plete or as explicit as ble about it, because the a radio station gave a the Times report, under original idea was such summary of Saturday night John S. Wilson's byline, a wonderful one". She in Newport: the Newport headed "Newport Jazz Fes• blamed the trouble on the City Council had cancelled tival Closed Because of decision to admit standees the license of the NJF as Rioting". Wilson reported a result of rioting by to the NJF, "They weren't

32 AHMAD JJBMAL ilnpUERSHIT&G I • H^B^^. U I I IAMSEY LEWIS TRIO sfwrcHiNoAogr El HOT

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ARGO RECORDS 2120 S. Michigan Ave. Chicago 16, jazz lovers, and they only story a week late. Life a case of getting back to disturbed those who had a page of photos show• jazz truth." he, too, were ... If they'd an• ing the rioters in a strag• blamed the rioting on col• nounced no beer would be gling disspirited clump lege students, "the sold at the festival, that on a Newport street and, young hooligan herrenvolk would have kept the teen• the next day, at Easton of the Eastern Seaboard", agers away." The article Beach. Time reported the and reported that on Fri• described the quiet con• aftermath of the riot in day night, after the tinuation of the rival their July 18 issue under concert, "they pulled out festival, and quoted com• the Music department the firehose (at the Viking ments from Coleman Hawkins, rather than under Show Hotel), turned on all the Roach and Mingus about the Business, which seemed to faucets, and banged on end of the NJF (And also me rather eccentric. Sand• all the doors. It mentioned Mingus' threat, wiched between two chor• was the beginning of on the previous Thursday, uses of rather pallid the end." to throw acid in the face Langston Hughes blues, the Editorial comment of NJF president Louis article described the in New York newspapers Lorillard). disturbances as "drunken varied from the accurate and mature assessment of Most weeklies had missed rioting with 12,000 college The Herald Tribune to the the deadline for the next students finally tamed by courageous denunciation issue, but the riot was the state police, Na• of jazz in The Mirror, but timed perfectly for Vari• tional Guard and the U.S. defenders of jazz were ety, which managed to Marine . . .", without quick off the mark. A let• scoop the trades with Dave mentioning that the riot• ter appeared in both Bitten's story in their ing had taken place outside The Herald Tribune and July 6th issue. The story, the festival grounds. The The Post, written by Bill called, appropriately longest paragraph was de• Coss, objecting to the use enough, "Rioting on a Sum• voted to the 'competing of the phrase "jazz fans" mer's Day . . .", went over festival', which was in connection with the all the ground covered by called the brightest rioters. "Enforcement the dailies, but also had note. agencies did not battle some comments about the Whitney Balliett, in The with 'Thousands of Jazz festival itself. Bitten New Yorker, apparently Buffs'." reported that "... the agreed. His article hardly festival seemed headed for mentioned the riot, but On July 11, Billboard, its biggest musical and centered on that other fes• business-like as usual, re• artistic success until the tival, which he described ported a change in the astonishing antics stopped as David to the NJF's feeling of many Newport the music" because the Goliath. He spoke of their merchants (who hadn't suf• directors had listened to juxtaposition as "irony fered much property damage criticism (presumably from as dense as butter". How after all), and thought the trade press) of the was that again?) He that there might be a 1961 appearances of Pat Suzuki had a great deal good to NJF after all. The direc• and the Kingston Trio the say about the music he tors of the NJF apparently year before, and had heard at the other fes• had recovered fully; "they "scheduled legitimate tival, and was much taken claim that the beer can jazz attractions for the by the relaxed and un• hurlers were kids who 1960 bill." (Apparently, if official atmosphere ; he came to town to raise cain, your record is bad enough, spoke of a "catching bon• never wanted to attend just booking jazz attrac• homie between all the concert, and didn't tions for a jazz festival present." care if the concert alone, without the King• Robert Reisner in The Vil• was held or not." ston Trio or Chuck Berry, lage Voice (July 7) was The first attempt at a can seem an artistic reminded of the Salon des thorough survey of the triumph.) Bitten's report Refuse of 1863. He thought effect of the debacle included a short paragraph that Mingus, Max & Co. on jazz appeared in about the rival festival, had done a "rash, mad, in• the August 18th issue of which mistakenly re• sulting thing in playing Down Beat. Gene Lees summed ported that "The rebel within earshot of the big- up the situation by saying festival . . . was also shots.", and spoke of self- "In the weird battle be• scuttled by the City Coun• destruction. But he also tween the big and little cil edict ..." felt that "what they Newport Festivals, it Other weeklies covered the did was beautiful. It was was impossible to say who

34 won. But it was easy to say sentment to a great extent, rewards to producers who lost: jazz. There and that resentment is not without requiring sus• was nothing much for any• the best basis for any tained long-term effort. If one to be proud of at kind of creative activity. the riot at Newport should Newport 1960. Those who But I find it difficult discourage presentations claimed to love the lady to believe that the boring of this kind, I think that jazz had violently abused repetitive festival that festivals more concerned her — exploited her, raped he heard was the same with music, like the her, shamed her. How one that Balliett and one at Monterey, will sur• many people hung their Reisner had found so ex• vive. I for one will not heads in shame afterward is citing. miss the monstrous, three unknown. But almost every• He summarized the rioting day, out-door package show. body should have: the col• and its aftermath as "... a It is true that the widely lege kids who are major public relations publicized riot may create America's hope ; Newport disaster that had seen jazz a temporary hostility to Festival officials now make headlines from coast jazz in some circles, but paying for the sins of the to coast ... in a context I suspect that those who past no matter how genu• that suggested to laymen will take this kind of pub• inely repentent ; those who that the music is inflam• licity seriously are people fomented the dissension; matory and inextricably who really disliked jazz the Lorillards ; Charlie linked with drunkenness, anyway, and are only happy Mingus with his wild licentiousness, and vio• to find supporting charges at all and sundry; lence — the very impres• evidence. the City Council ; the po• sion that artists and I was sorry to see the idea lice department that failed lovers of the art have been of concerts presented by to make adequate prepara• trying to eradicate for a cooperative of jazz tions for the crowds ; years." artists started in such those reporters who wrote Since the rioting at New• dubious circumstances, for distorted stories of the port, I have seen clippings such questionable motives ; riots ; headline writers who sent in by readers that but the idea itself may, compounded the inaccuracy; indicate that other jazz in the future, transcend and the idiot who wrote festivals are imitating its origins. Already, a the editorial for the New Newport too slavishly. group called the Jazz York Mirror." There have been riots at Artists Guild has grown It seems to me that Mr. the Beaulieu Jazz Festival out of the Newport splinter Lees was a little unfair in in England and at a festival group, and has presented describing the situation in Windsor, Ontario. And concerts in New York. as a "battle between the festival producers from I hope that the organizers big and little Newport Fes• Monterey to Detroit are will give the project the tivals". After all, it was assuring their communities kind of careful staff work those kids who started the that disturbances like it will need to survive, riot, not Mingus, Max or those at Newport "could not and that they will achieve Elaine Lorillard ; and happen here." enough success to overcome it was the riot that got all As for the effect of all their past bitterness. the national publicity, the bad publicity on jazz, I was pleased to see that not the wild charges by I cannot be so concerned. people who — like myself Mingus, which were quoted It is true that in a few — love jazz, closed ranks only in local newspaper years, jazz festivals have to protect the art against reports. become an important source the possibility of He devoted about a third of of work for musicians, and public misunderstanding, his article to the other perhaps they do introduce but I still wonder if we festival. "Some like Wilbur new fans to jazz, though I aren't also mistakenly pro• Ware were there 'just have doubts about that. tecting the men ultimately to play'. Others were men But the gigantic jazz fes• responsible for the dis• frustrated and furious be• tival planned for enormous order — producers more cause they know they are audiences, programmed on concerned with non-profits fine musicians and impor• the basis of NAMES rather from beer concessions than tant artists but have not than music has never seemed with a quiet attentive been able to make the to me a good form of pres• audience, more concerned magic break through to the entation for jazz. Their with promoting an EVENT big money." I must say that main attraction was that than presenting the music I agree that the rival they seemed to offer which they, too, profess festival was based on re• the promise of considerable to love.

35 sing a Ion taxi dri afternoon Perez Prado sat down at the piano and played for him. Excited and apparently carried away, Prado ran one composition into another, non-stop, in a brilliant, rhythmic stream of con• sciousness. Rivera had to force Prado to halt, concentrate on just one num• ber, and play it from beginning to end. A fruitful association had begun. Prado a quarterly of comment & criticism learned to discipline his work into old and simple patterns like the three-part form. In his hands this form, intro- bridge-coda, became a frame in which brass screamed without loss of taste PAUL BOWLES or proportion. Still, Prado was unawed MARTIN WILLIAMS by the polish his works were acquiring and enjoyed nothing more, according to the report of a recording engineer, ALLEN GINSBERG ERICK HAWKINS than "pounding the hell out of the studio piano". (The day actually came when Prado broke four strings on the DONALD PHELPS CHARLES OLSON instrument. When they were replaced extra flannel was added to reinforce the piano for the impact of all-out mambo.) While an abandon informed the mam• bo as dance music, there was at the single copies: 75c. RECDRD CENTRE STORES same time a growing satiric quality to the lyrics. In 1949, when President Tru• 655 Lexington Ave.. Cor. 55th St. Greenwich Village - 41 West 8th St. man had announced that an atomic explosion had been detected in the Subscribe—$2.50 yearly Soviet Union, the world stirred un• easily, but Prado wrote a tune called At6micas on which the vocalist seemed 299 W. 12th Street, N.Y. 14, N.Y. stimulated, almost thrilled by the mul• tiple threats of the cold war. Mexican mambo was catching on. Prado's recordings were beginning to move on the market. But if Prado felt SPECIAL OFFER the approach of success he did not stop looking for commercial gimmicks. He developed a vocal prank of his TO READERS OF Havana days into the trademark of mambo. A strange blend of grunt, yell, and snarl, this trademark may be THE JAZZ REVIEW termed the dilo (idiomatic Spanish for "say it!") out of respect for the legend that this mambo noise is actually a word. With this sign the layman could A 12 MONTH SUBSCRIPTION easily recognize mambo, untroubled by considerations of rhythm. It was a trick and it worked. FOR $3.50 Prado also pared the words down to short phrases about mambo itself, and Just fill out the coupon and send it with your check or so started the narcissism of early money order to: THE JAZZ REVIEW 124 White Street, mambo lyrics, a tendency reborn in cha-cha-cha five years later. In 1959 N. Y. 13, N. Y. Please add $1.00 for foreign postage. mambos and cha-chas still described themselves as sabroso, (tasty), rico (de• licious), and buenos para gozar (great for having a ball). Please send me the Jazz Review for 1 year. On December 2, 1949 Perez Prado re• corded Que Rico El Mambo (How De• NAME . licious The Mambo Is). The form was the symmetric three-part, with two identical polyphonic designs balanced ADDRESS on either side of a narcissistic vocal. Its release was timed to catch Mexico CITY ZONE. STATE in the midst of las posadas, the time of intense festive pre-Christmas par• ties. Dance music was in demand. Que Rico El Mambo was an immediate This offer is available to new subscribers only.

37 smash; the success included not only sounds of a specific job, and gave it a Shirt was a climax of Mexican mambo record sales, but also radio, sheet sense of lightness in boisterous, ex• but young Mexicans passed up the pre• music, television, live night club per• troverted scoring. Sometimes a trade occupations of the text for the beat, formances. was gently satirized. The Taxidriver and the separation of the spirit of Que Rico El Mambo (Victor 23-1546) Mambo opened with wail of auto horns mambo as song and as dance was outlasted the posadas to make Mexico and a cry all Mexico City Knows: libre! never more clear. The lyrics criticized; mambo-minded in 1950. The nation took libre! (taxi! taxi!) After a long wait an the music swung. patriotic pride, in the predominantly anonymous mamboist finally succeeds In 1951-52 the dancers were doing Mexican orchestra although no one in hailing a cab and steps inside to mambo at the Salon Mexico and Los could say just what the musicians were find the driver in a talkative mood. The Angeles dancehalls while acting out playing. The public impression was that driver introduces himself with a rhyth• the motions of various jobs. At the the mambo had sprung up by spon• mic chant and entertains the listener debut of the Telephone Operator Mam• taneous generation; it took most of the with Afro-Cuban double-talk. The non• bo, for example, they danced a small country by surprise. Prado immediately sense words were a sort of West In• box step with knee dips, spins, and began to exploit this new market. He dian counterpart to bop scatting and half-turns. Suddenly a couple would composed scores of mambos and his apparently parodied the complaints and begin the pantomime: a girl worked works of this period, 1949 to 1953, have confidences captive passengers listen an imaginary switchboard on her part• come to be prized as 'classic' mambos. to in taxis the world over. ner's chest. Another couple would act Many of them—Mambo No. 5, Bongo- Another series covered the educational out phone negotiations for a date: the Bongo, Malaguena, La Chula Linda- scene: The Normal School Mambo, The boy would hand up in anger, call back reflect the joys of artistic discovery. Mexico University Mambo, The Poly- to ask forgiveness, etc. The pantomime Somewhere along the line pedantic technical Mambo. (In 1955 Perez Prado episodes were executed primarily from terms arose to distinguish the moods was an international figure, and the the waist up; from the waist down the of the compositions. A mambo kaen Yale Daily News was alerting readers movement was basically Afro-Cuban, was a slow or medium mambo, while to the threat of mamboization of Boola- the feet and pelvis responded to the the fastest tempos were batiri. Later Boola.) These so-called "cheerleader percussion and the repeated saxophone the terms dropped out of use. mambos" were loved by the schools figures; above-the-waist mime se• In March 1950 I saw a mambo fete at involved but some of them were clearly quences used the simultaneous melo• the Del Prado Hotel in Mexico City poking fun at collegiate corn. Through• dic lines of the brass section. After which threatened to wreck the build• out 1950 mambos were systematically the ballrooms had exhausted the work• ing. No one was an expert but the new dedicated to Mexican women, profes• ing-class mambos, young men and music shrieked insistently. The dancers sional soccer, and other legitimate in• women played with air-drawn yoyos, made up their mind that anyone could terests of the Mexican male. walked dogs, tugged ropes and climbed mambo. Some tried to fox trot. Others In June 1950 North Korean Communists ladders, imitated chicken hawks, laughingly attempted samba. A tall, suddenly invaded the Republic of Ko• mocked tourists by clicking phantom beautiful woman commented, "Seri• rea. Mexican mambo covered the Ko• cameras in 4/4 time, patted tortillas, ously, darling, the beat is quite rean war, first in Ramon Marquez' sank to their knees and rolled dice, strange." Even unconditioned ears Korea Mambo, a pleasant mixture of rose and went through the tercios of a could feel the new rhythmic complex• 'oriental' melody and Afro-Cuban per• bullfight. Whatever the inspiration they ity. Some dancers were inexplicably cussion; later, Prado dedicated a mam• always managed to make a real dance slowed down; others could barely bo to the Puerto Ricans in the 65th In• movement out of it dance fast enough. The multi-metered fantry Regiment in Korea. This one In 1953, at the height of his Mexican music—most closely allied to West mimicked machine gun fire with bongo vogue, Perez Prado departed for Los Africa—was too much for those accus• touches that are deliberately harsh. Angeles. Instantly the mainspring of tomed to dances with a set beat. The The Mambo of the 65th (Victor 23- Mexican mambo was broken. Other or• trick was picking out one rhythm and 5468) was the peak of the dedicatory chestras tried to pick up the pieces sticking to it. Not every person heard phase of mambo. but unlike New York's rugged competi• the same beat, apparently, and hence When Justi Barreto wrote the News• tive 'Latin' music world, where several the variation. Whether dancers gyrated paper Shirt mambo in 1950 he suc• bands of quality are always on hand with or against the , brass ceeded in capturing what it felt like to to keep mambo and cha-cha cooking section, or cowbell, the off-beats were live in the fifties. The scene is Mexico at the Palladium on Broadway, there a magnet which pulled their samba City in June 1950. A Negro man has was no replacement in Mexico for and foxtrot steps into the shape of a fashioned himself a shirt out of news• Prado. The sensation evaporated. In rudimentary new dance. By four in paper. He studies the material of his 1954 I found mime sequences surviv• the morning, everyone was 'mamboing' shirt, and the cloth of scare headlines ing in the parlor games of the rich, a with authority. It was, as one writer frankly worries him. His shirt tells him terrible fate for the dance of a whole put it later, "The Triumph of Perez war is raging in Korea, and he sum• generation of young Mexicans. Prado's Prado over the Muses". marizes this news with onomatopoeia: place was not filled until the summer As the toast of Mexico City, Prado BEEM! BOMB! BOME! BOOM! Perez of 1958, when Chico O'Farrill formed an could afford to dispense with some of Prado undercuts his anxiety with a Afro-Cuban jazz band in Mexico City. his gimmicks. A sensitive indication piano solo which tinkles with insou• Some elements of Mexican mambo are of his growing ease was the fact that ciance. Air raid sirens sound. In the still with us. The tricks of delivery, par• the lyrics to his mambos expanded in heart of the crisis, the mambo builds ticularly on saxophone, have passed in• subject matter. To group after group, up and, to a cowbell-stressed rhythm, tact into certain styles of cha-cha-cha. rich and poor, illiterate and collegiate, blasts out its most affirmative sounds. Tequila and Margarita, jukebox hits of Prado ingratiatingly dedicated special The man chants praise of his shirt, 1958 and 1959, combined rock and roll mambos. One series included: The Fire• a chorus answers in call-and-response and hillbilly themes with a mambo- man Mambo, The Filling Station At• fashion, and the mambo ends. A cap• like saxophones. And although Prado tendant Mambo, The Shoeshine Boy sule allegory; the man does not recoil himself has changed his style and con• Mambo, The Newspaper Boy Mambo. in fear though he is sensibly alarmed. quered new audiences since coming to There was no social message nor cru• "Look," he says, "life is delicious and the United States, he occasionally goes sade. The mambo would stylize the to be savored in spite of doom." back to pure mambo.

38 YOUR GUIDE TO 140 HOURS OF THE BEST JAZZ ENTERTAINMENT IN A |\ r D I O A • Nat Hentoff • Dom Cerulli • George HI VI LIX I \jr\ Crater • Martin Williams • Ira Gitler • Sid McCoy Is the sound of jazz on Riverside getting bigger all the time?

The answer to the above question, on its ear at New York's Randalls ing items on the current jazz market of couse, is a resounding YES. This Island Jazz Festival; Jimmy's new and both prime examples of how is of course what is known as a lead• album is likely to stand the whole jazz large-scale and room-filling the sound ing question — meaning that we public on its ear.) The name of his of a superb small group can be. And wouldn't have asked it in the first new LP is REALLY BIG2 — and that's there is also Cannonball's exciting place (especially right up there at just about the size of it! Heath's con• new personal project — his activities the top of the page, for all to see) cept here is "a big-band sound with as a producer of Riverside albums unless we firmly intended to answer small-band feeling" and he achieves that either spotlight brand-new in the affirmative. it with the aid of a truly all-star cast. talent or present under-appreciated To be candid, all we were looking Included are Jimmy's brothers (bass artists in effective settings. The new for was an attention-getting way of star Percy Heath and drummer releases in the "Cannonball Adderley launching the latest in this series of AlbertHeath), marking the first time Presentation" series are DICK informal essays on the general sub• all three members of this famous MORGAN AT THE SHOWBOAT,6 intro• ject of . And, Philadelphia jazz family have ducing a remarkable new piano having gotten your attention by men• worked together on record, plus such stylist; and THE TEXAS TWISTER,7 tioning bigness, allow us to justify other notable friends and colleagues featuring tenorman DON the gimmick by making note of some as Cannonball and Nat Adderley, WILKERSON in a very blues-y LP of the several different ways in , Tommy Flanagan, etc. that includes Nat Adderley and that which the Riverside jazz sound is It's big, swinging, unusual, zestful- divides the bass-playing spot between getting bigger and bigger: First of the musicians who played the date two of the most highly regarded all, arid most obvious, there is the have been talking it up ever since it young bassists of the day: easterner fact that we seem to be falling in love was recorded, and we suspect they'll Sam Jones and westerner Leroy with the big sound made by big soon have lots of company in their Vinnegar. bands. Now we're not simply talking enthusiasm. This rapidly expanding (or must about putting more and more musi• Another set of big sounds is still we say "rapidly getter bigger") por• cians into a recording studio: big in the planning stage, but since this tion of Cannonball's schedule also jazz is not achieved by mere addition. is at least partly an inside-informa• includes some extremely intriguing It is, rather, a matter of multiplica• tion page, we invite you all to note in-preparation items. We'll sign off tion: when you take writers and that is now an for this issue by whetting your ap• players who have something to say exclusive Riverside recording artist, petite with brief mention of three of that insists on a larger setting and. and that top-secret work is now in them: an album introducing an greater depth and breadth of sound progress designed to create a com• incredibly mature group of upstate- than the "normal" small-band lineup pletely new and really • different New York youngsters led by 19-year- can give; and when you make sure Herman Herd. old and his 21-year- that their ideas are carried out by Just to show you how far-ranging old brother, Gap Mangione; a set superior musicians — then you're apt the word "big" can be, let us now featuring no less than four highly to come up with much bigger, more turn our attention to a second aspect promising young altoists; and an exciting and more stimulating jazz. of bigness that involves a one-man album arranged by veteran tenorman For one example of this, there's a record! That one man, of course, that combines Budd new album that more and more lis• could only be GEORGE CRATER, as with an unprecedented trumpet sec• teners are latching on to: the start• portrayed by Ed Sherman on the tion (Harry Edison, , Nat ling and burstingly large sound of album inevitably titled OUT OF MY Adderley, Clark Terry). THE BIG SOUL-BAND,1 led by JOHNNY HEAD.3 Whether or not Crater is the Footnote Department: Here's a concise summary of GRIFFIN and featuring arrangements biggest mind of our times is probab• those albums mentioned and footnoted above which by NORMAN SIMMONS that combine ly a subject for full-dress debate, not you can run right out and buy at your local record earthy new tunes and old spirituals store today: for this modest advertisement. But 1. : THE BIG SOUL-BAND into the first big-band "" there's no question about his being (RLP 331 and Stereo 1179) album. the brashest; and there's no doubt 2. ORCHESTRA: REALLY BIG (RLP 333 and Stereo 1188) For another, different, and equally at all that lots of folks are getting 3. GEORGE CRATER: OUT OF MY HEAD (RLP stimulating example, there's the just- big (and nasty) laughs out of his 841 — Mono only) 4. CANNONBALL ADDERLEY QUINTET IN SAN released first large-group effort by comments on the jazz world and FRANCISCO (RLP 311 and Stereo 1154) an artist we're certain is going to other vital subjects. 3. CANNONBALL ADDERLEY QUINTET: (RLP 322 and Stereo 1170) be a major triple-threat man of the Then there's the case of CANNON- 6. DICK MORGAN AT THE SHOWBOAT (RLP 328 1960s: a formidable "blowing" tenor BALL ADDERLEY, who is rapidly be• and Stereo 1183) 7. DON WILKERSON: THE TEXAS TWISTER sax man, talented jazz composer, and coming one of the very biggest forces (RLP* 332 and Stereo 1186) skilled and richly individual arranger in jazz today. There are the two sen• named JIMMY HEATH. (Jimmy's big- sational albums by his quintet — IN band arrangement of Bobby Tim• SAN FRANCISCO4 and THEM DIRTY mons' "This Here" stood the crowd BLUES5 — just about the biggest sell• IRIVERSIDE