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ARS GRATIA ARTIS IN OUR BACH DOOR REISSUES FROM ENGLAND I was very gratified and appreciative to SOMEDAY I read with interest the Rudi Blesh re• view of the booklet, Recorded Jazz: A read Ralph Berton's review of The Book The February issue of J.R. shows signs Critical Guide, by Messrs. Harris and Rust. of jazz in the April issue. The review did of improvement, but you've still a long what all record and book reviews should ways to go. The historical articles are Mr. Blesh rather overstressed the posi• do, though few ever manage to—it ex• worthwhile and certainly commendable. tion in saying that "the number of jazz amined what the book set out to do and The technical material means nothing to records available in England is small com• analyzed its successes and failures in terms me as I'm not a musician. (How many pared with our Lucullan repast." In fact, of that objective. J.R. subscribers can appreciate these arti• I imagine that the number of issues avail• able here of all types of jazz compares I understand from Ralph that some seri• cles? ) reasonably well with the position in your ous cuts were made in the original review, The record reviews are tiresome. The country. Certainly, we have managed to as a result of which many of the quotations sheer volume of text devoted to reviewing retain as representative a selection of early supporting the theory 1 advanced in the recordings which I may never hear, let recordings as is currently available in the book concerning the birthplace of jazz were alone purchase, is exhausting. home of jazz! deleted and a musical example was omitted, Hentoff's "Jazz in Print" rambles on and as a result of which one segment of the on. If he is trying to prove that he reads However, the point made by Rudi Blesh text became almost meaningless. It seems every word printed on the subject of jazz, that many records listed in the booklet unfortunate that whoever edited the review well man, I'm convinced. are only available in Britain might be evidently tended to edit it in terms of his Occasional attempts at humor (a $10 reasonably answered if you will grant us own preconceptions, since there were many offer for "Zulus' Ball") are the heavy- a slice of free publicity. passages in the review that could easily handed efforts of humorless individuals. Any of your readers interested in pur• have been cut without affecting Mr. Ber• No, my interest in jazz has not lessened. chasing discs listed in the Penguin book ton's main points. I spend more on records than ever before, can do so at best export prices by ordering and enjoy reading Down Beat as much to• Incidentally, I should like to go on from this company or, for that matter, any day as I did twenty years ago when 1 record concerning his theory in answer to other reputable mail order house. bought my first copy. The trouble here my own point about the blues scale. Ralph's seems to be that you fellows are not com• We will gladly supply details to inter• analysis is highly perceptive and I am in• municating very well. ested readers. clined to agree with him that the alphabet Ken Lindsay, manager, Agate analogy I made does not stand up in re• How does one go about successfully & Co. Ltd., 77 Charing Cross lation to the matter of musical intervals. communicating? Well, I've just finished Road, London W.C. 2, England In other words, he is right and 1 am wrong. rereading "The Hot Bach" by Richard 0. Boyer, the reprint of the 1944 Neiv Yorker P.S. Incidentally, we at Dobell's Jazz The minor errors in the book which series on Duke Ellington, which appears Record Shop, and this associated company, Ralph pointed out, such as the typograph• in the new volume. Duke Ellington, His consider your magazine a very welcome ical mistakes and the reversion of the facts Life and Music. Boyer is a good writer, addition to available jazz literature. concerning the E-Flat alto sax, were all and the articles are immensely enjoyable. corrected before the appearance of the (I suppose that some of the hippies in paperback edition. The latter was published your crowd object to anything being writ• TEMPS PERDU about the same time as Ralph's review of ten in a manner that all can comprehend.) This past week, I was at Lester Young's the book, though no mention was made of To close with a suggestion, I will stay funeral, and it is mainly about Lester that it in The Jazz Review. The publisher of with the subject of Ellington. I think the I write today. I didn't attempt to approach the paperback edition is Meridian Books. fine Coral album under the leadership of anyone at the chapel because I felt too Finally, I must point out that I dig son Mercer, may be something of an his• badly about Lester, and I wasn't sure that Ralph's .sense of humor and honesty in torical milestone. At any rate, the possi• anyone would understand the rather per• admitting something that is never admitted bilities are intriguing. May Duke continue sonal feeling I had for Lester (I can do by any critic who takes himself too seri• for another 15 years. But the fact that without the "Prez" bit), and to an outsider, ously, namely that any critic who credits Mercer may carry on in his father's foot• this interest can seem rather maudlin at another critic with "keen judgment" merely steps, is certainly gratifying. I wish you times. means that the latter's views agree with would interview him for some of his I first heard Lester in 1938, at a debu• his own. I don't think there is a critic thoughts on the Coral session. tante party at the Pelham Manor Country living (including all the musician-critics) I. L. Jacobs Club in Westchester (I crashed). It was of whom this is not true, hut Ralph is San Diego, California my first taste of Basie in person, although the only one I've ever known to admit it. I had heard him on the Make Believe Leonard Feather YOU CAN'T FORCE THE BEAT Ballroom. (What a wonderful show that New York, New York An item on page 49 of The Jazz Review used to be!) Not only was I completely reminds me of an incident on the history taken with the band and its wonderful INTELLECTUALIZING THE of jazz in Russia told in a book, Taming shouting quality, but when Lester stood up, cocked his horn up at an angle and began INTANGIBLES of the Arts, by J. Jelagin, a refugee who, 1 think, is playing in a symphony orchestra to blow those wonderfully loose, legato pas• Your magazine really does an excellent in Houston. He describes an attempt by sages (forgive any technically misused job! You've upheld certain ideals in this the Kremlin in 1938 to "fit jazz into its phrases) which were so out of place in art form plus doing something that's musical scheme and create a jazz band those days, when tenor men were so con• needed—verbalizing certain aspects of jazz which would be Soviet in spirit." The scious of the beat that they tried to blow that people in the past have passed over finest Russian composers, including Shos• a note for every one, 1 was completely won by saying, "Man, you've gotta feel it!" takovich were ordered to write music for over. From that point I followed the band Of course you do, but 1 love this magazine the band of 43 drafted musicians. If you to Roton Point, Conn., the New York Rose- because it intellectualizes intangibles with• haven't read his book, I know you would land and its Brooklyn counterpart, the out having them lose their emotional appeal. find it interesting. Apollo, the Savoy, and a hall in upper Manhattan where the Count and his men Miss Diane D. Peters Chicago Cora Worth Parsons (Continued on Page 42) P.S. I'm corny, hut sincere in love. Guilford College

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ALASKA and HAWAII: write for special membership plan 16 41 The records you want are mailed and billed at the CANADA: address 11-13 Soho Street, Toronto 2B COLUMBIA regular list price of $4.98 (Classical Selections, If you wish to have this membership credited to an estab• 18 42 lished Columbia or Epic record dealer, authorized to accept $5.98), plus a small mailing charge subscriptions, fill in below: 19 45 RECORD Here, indeed, is the most convenient method ever de• 20 49 CLUB vised to build a superb stereo library, at great sav• Deoler's Name ings — so mail the coupon today! 21 50 Terre Haute, Ind. Dealer's Address 288 F-85 > Columbia Records Sales Corp., 1959 "Epic," ^ Marcas Beg. CONTENTS: VOLUME 2, NUMBER 6, JULY 1959. Big T .... 6 by Jay D. Smith Jazz at Narco 8 by Rabbi Joseph R. Rosenbloom Conversations with James P. Johnson, Part II 10 by Tom Davin Under Separate Cover 14 by Robert C. Smith The Titans, Bill Russo's Symphony in C 16 by Hall Overton Editors: Nat Hentoff REVIEWS: RECORDINGS Martin Williams JULIAN ADDERLEY by Bill Crow 17 Publisher: Hsio Wen Shih LENNY BRUCE by Martin Williams ...... 18 Editorial Assistant: Margot Wolynski ORNETTE COLEMAN by Art Farmer 18 Production Manager: Lois Ehrenwerth MILES DAVIS by Bob Freedman ...... 19 Advertising Manager: Dick Joseph ART FARMER by Joe Goldberg ... 19 New Contributors ART FARMER by Bill Crow 20 Bob Freedman is a saxophonist and arranger who has con• tributed to the books of many bands. He has played with THE JONES BROTHERS by Ross Russell 20 the Herb Pomeroy band. JOHNNY GRIFFIN by Bill Crow 21 Hall Overton is a composer and pianist who works in both JELLY ROLL MORTON by Martin Williams ... 21 jazz and classical music. His most recent jazz work, orches• trations of several Thelonious Monk compositions, was BUDDY TATE by Frank Driggs ...... 22 presented at Town Hall last February. ARTIE SHAW by Mimi Clar ... 23 Dr. Joseph R. Rosenbloom is chaplain at the United States CLAUDE THORNHILL by Martin Williams 23 Public Health Service hospital at Lexington, Kentucky. Tom Scanlon writes regularly on jazz for the magazine, DICKIE WELLS by Frank Driggs 24 The Army Times. RANDY WESTON & LEM WINCHESTER by Ross Russell 24 Jay D. Smith is a long time jazz record collector who prob• LESTER YOUNG by Frank Driggs 25 ably has the most complete collection of Jack Teagarden BASIE REUNION by Frank Driggs ...... 25 records in existence. Robert C. Smith edits and writes on jazz for the Virginian THE GOLDEN ERA OF DIXIELAND by Bill Crow 26 Pilot of Norfolk and Portsmouth. His article on school BROWNIE McGHEE and SONNY TERRY, desegregation in Norfolk appeared in the March issue of and JOE TURNER by Mimi Clar .. 27 Commentary. Francis Thorne, pianist and director of the Great South Bay GOSPEL SINGERS by Mimi Clar .... 29 Jazz Festival, now makes his home in Italy. RECONSIDERATIONS 5 Israel Young and Leonard Feldman were among the found• LESTER YOUNG by H. A. Woodfin 30 ers of the Jazz Review. REVIEWS: BOOKS The Jazz Review is published by the Jazz Review, Inc., MONK'S MUSIC by Dick Wellstood 32 Box 128, Village Station, New York 14, New York. Entire JAZZ IN PRINT by Nat Hentoff 33 contents copyrighted 1959. Unsolicited manuscripts and illustrations should be accom• THE BLUES 36 panied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Contribu• NEWS AND VIEWS tions are handled with reasonable care, but The Jazz NEWPORT AND GREAT SOUTH BAY by Francis Thorne 37 Review -can take no responsibility for unsolicited manu• scripts or illustrations. WASHINGTON JAZZ JUBILEE by Tom Scanlon ...... 41

Crowding fifty-four, Jack Teagarden's black hair is his adolescent roots in the soil of the traditional jazz streaked with gray at the temples, the planes of his broad orchards, he is afforded a separate slot. Woe be to the face furrowed. He remains today as great an enigma critic who dares approach the maverick with branding as he was when he blew into New York in 1927 and in iron in hand. concert with Jimmy Harrison promptly liberated the The paradox of Teagarden's growing popularity is the trombone from its drab huff and puff, smear and swipe vigor with which he characteristically shuns it. His pub• role in jazz. licity is virtually non existent; television appearances are The mystery of Teagarden is not so much what he is infrequent, tours rarely take him into "name clubs." Yet but rather how he came to be so. Few erudite jazz writers the jazz polls in nearly every publication faithfully place have attempted a profound analysis of the trombonist, him in the company of such commercially successful men for he defies scrutiny. Otis Ferguson, who wrote of his as Armstrong and Goodman and his instrumental con• jazzmen in a brawling, earthy style captured and set temporaries J. J. Johnson and Bob Brookmeyer. With all their evils we must assume that the polls are at worst down a fleeting glimpse—so did Charles Edward Smith. a dim reflection of mass taste. But the tyro puts pen to paper in hollow tributes which In conjecture, this feat can be at least partially attrib• are largely benevolent. And not without reason . . . uted to a universal affection shared by his admirers. For Teagarden is an amalgam of contradictions. Teagarden unconsciously creates mass empathy, an elusive He sang, "I was born in Texas, raised in Tennessee, quality striven for by so many performers, attained by an' I ain't gonna let no one woman make a fatmouth so few. What he plays is genuinely what he feels, and the outa me . . ." The facts belie this statement. He was both reception, in spirit, is returned by his audiences. born and reared in the Lone Star State and except for An assessment of the Teagarden style would necessarily desultory thrusts into Mexico and California he gigged include such terms as lazy, brilliant, facile, effortless, through the southwest and was 'fat-mouthed' frequently. sentimental, and whimsical. Though less evident than the If there were any concrete influences during those early other qualities, whimsicality flows unobtrusively through years his delivery bore little trace. For even on his first much of his playing and singing. During the hours which recording (Willard Robison in the fall of 1927) he blew are his own he rarely indulges it. Only on occasion does a sinuous, biting solo which pleasantly confounded the it seep through his bland demeanor. likes of the Chicagoans (McPartland and company) and Like the night he was strolling around Manhattan Gothamites (Miff and Red). His intonation was provok- flanked by a pair of veteran jazz buffs. Jack was recalling ingly blue for a white man and was not sacrificed on the the old days—Plunkett's, the Okeh recording studio, the dreariest of material. Little Club. "And there's Birdland," he explained as Although his vocal fame came later (he never sang in though to bring the tour up to date. Texas), it too was blue-tinged and facile, as though an One of his companions wisecracked, "Guess you used extension of his horn. A recent acknowledgment is con• to play there with Pollack." tained in Marshall Stearns' The Story of Jazz (Oxford Jack's face was impassive. "Nope. It wasn't here then." University Press, Inc.). "When Jack Teagarden arrived ... Or the night a young man wandered over to the in New York City much later (1927), he was the only stand during a club intermission. The master was work• white musician who could sing the blues in an 'authentic' ing the kinks out of his horn. The lad noted that Jack manner." In compendium Professor Stearns might truth• was using a leading hair oil to lubricate his slide. fully have added that throughout three subsequent dec• "You mean you use that on your horn, Mr. Tea- ades no other white has seriously challenged that ability. garden?" His esteem among fellow musicians is a matter of Jack glanced up at him. "Yup—it gives me a fuzzy record. Though Jack's career has sometimes been alluded tone." to as one of indifferent success, this can be applied The years subsequent to the decline of Jack Teagarden accurately only to material rewards. First a musician, his as a big band leader were lean and hungry. His name was business acumen is notoriously deficient. During various mentioned only in retrospect. He was unhappy, broke, periods of a forty-year tenure in jazz he has coasted, convinced that he could never again regain a position but only when, as he puts it, "I didn't have any inspira• of esteem in jazz music. But he tried, at first as a single tion." Yet, distressing as he finds mediocrity, he has for attraction, and was soon a member of the Armstrong All years encouraged it. So sensitive is Jack to the feelings Stars. For a period of nearly five years he contributed of his fellow creatures that he will endure gross musical his horn and dignity to a group which at times was torture rather than admonish an offender. His own bands devoid of dignity. At the end of it, Jack broke out on his support this hypothesis. The first was a melange of own with a small group, his finances restored, able to technicians who lacked basic jazz orientation. Each suc• play for the most part in a cordial atmosphere, clinging ceeding organization (periodically mauled by the draft) to the music he loves, be it jazz or dreamy ballads. was merely a vehicle for its leader and eventually the It is doubtful that Big T will ever find the security and caravan ran out of gas. That Jack was capable of booting peace of mind in jazz for which he searches. He expects out a fair chorus during respites from mediocre musicians too much of himself and his audiences. Even now, with is evidenced by the superb V Disc sessions of the forties. the resurgence of his popularity, he is at times bewildered Though Teagarden—not without considerable effort— and moody. has methodically eluded the fruits of the money tree, he "I don't know," he says with sadness, "I try to play remains one of the sturdy oaks of jazz who bends to no what people like and sometimes I wonder if I'm getting one and cannot be disregarded by contemporaries. In through." this era of classification by "school" each jazzman of If Jack needs reassurance, all he has to do is shuffle stature (and more than a few without) has been sorted through his thousand-odd recorded sides, listen to them out like an IBM card and dropped into his confining and then to his contemporaries—the influence is there, slot. If Dixieland, Swing, Bop, or Modern pinched, there though the feeling is often absent. The puzzle may never were the convenient subdivisions of Kansas City, Chicago, be solved but we must ask ourselves if solving it truly New York. But not so Teagarden! Not having planted matters.

JULY 7 Among the many activities in the recreation program provided at the United States Public Health Service Hos• pital at Lexington, Kentucky, the musical program seems to be the most meaningful for the patients who participate in it. The most important part of the program is that it permits a patient to spend the greater part of his day with music and with other musicians. Within the time allowed in the program, he can study, practice his instrument, rehearse with other musicians, write, prepare shows for peformance within the hospital, and perform in the shows. He may spend five or six hours during the day working on music, either alone or with other musicians, and al• though some patients have nonmusical work assignments, these are often scheduled to permit him to devote the major part of the day to music. In addition, another hour and a half or two hours are available in the evenings for rehearsals. On the simplest level this program is therapeutically important because it gives the patient an interest in some• thing other than drugs; those involved in the musical program spend most of their time playing, talking about music, or listening to music. Most are very serious. They find stimulation in their fellow musicians and keep up on the developments of the musical world. One of them said, "One thing that I think we should clear up is that just because a person is here, whether it's for a few minutes or for years, the fact that he is locked up, so to speak, in a God-forsaken community in the middle of the state of Kentucky, doesn't mean that he is away from Jazz at Narco the music. We keep up through the arrival of musicians who have fresh information, and through the musicians here whose thinking remains ever fresh, plus our listening by Rabbi Joseph R. Rosenbloom to records and the radio." Other musician-patients feel that being in Narco can be a special creative opportunity, like the man who said, "I really feel it's no different here than it is on the out• side. A creative musician might decide, 'Well, I'm going to Waterville, Iowa, for two years to create.' I have come to Lexington for two years to create." During an average day there are all kinds of sessions going on, small groups and a big band. The band at Narco is especially interesting because almost all the members are good soloists as well as good ensemble musi• cians. For instance, the lead trumpet player is a musician who has spent most of his career in big bands, including those of Herman, Kenton, and Thornhill, and he now also writes arrangements for this band. The band has an ex• cellence that would be difficult to match on The Street; it needs to make no compromises.

Such freedom explains some of the enthusiasm of some musicians for the program at Narco. Here a player must spend no time playing requests, or playing the tunes from current records; a writer will find no difficulty in getting his scores performed. The writers among the patients feel that the hospital offers them a unique opportunity to hear their own music played. One patient said, "You can't go bugging a person on the street and say, 'Please play my music, man,' but here in the hospital you have an ideal opportunity to hear what you have arranged and created." The stimulus of hearing their work performed has re• awakened the joy of music for some of the patients. One

8 THE JAZZ REVIEW patient has said that working with the band, and hearing stimulated solely bv the influences here to write an ar• it play his own-music, he had been able to recapture rangement or two. Now I see a possible future for me some of the excitement he felt about music that he had since these arrangements have met with a fair amount lost for ten or twelve years. "It's like I was studying in of success." the music school again and had that old drive in me to Another patient describes the program in this way: write and try new things that many of us seem to lose "As for the therapeutic aspects of the program, it is after we get our first taste of professionalism. I don't chiefly in getting us back into the swing of things. Most know quite what it was." of us have gone through this at some time in the past. Even in small-ensemble playing, the same freedom to We have been in some kind of regulated program of experiment is a strong stimulus. Some of them feel that musical endeavor on the street. But because of the use writing for the small groups is more challenging than of drugs, we got away from this pattern, and before you big-band scoring—that getting a full sound and rich know it you are away from your instrument completely. harmonies from only five pieces is more interesting than Drugs takes all of your time; you are not really interested dealing with twelve or thirteen horns. But even those who in playing or creating. And yet when you are here, you prefer small-ensemble writing make a full contribution to find yourself thrown back into it. Either you sink or the big band. swim. You enter into the musical program or you don't. There are some special and unusual problems in keep• And you are soon weeded out either by others or by ing a big band going at Narco. Some of the patients are your own conscience. A person just doesn't stay in it at the hospital voluntarily, and they are free to come and floundering around doing nothing. If you're in it, you go. As a result, the turnover of personnel is unusually accomplish something. It's that overwhelming. And I high. But even this turnover can be an advantage to the think it is therapeutic from that point of view; it prepares musicians, for the writers have a chance to experiment us once again to meet, the kind of obligations we will face with different combinations of instruments and a variety on the street: the daily patterns of practice, writing, re• of voicings. The players in the band also learn to be hearsing, playing. One aspect of influence here is intan• flexible in their playing, to adapt themselves to good en• gible and yet most important. The very presence of some semble work in spite of constantly changing section extremely creative people around here tends to rub off on mates. some of us who are potentially creative but haven't come About three months ago, the band reached a high point to our full real fruition as yet. While some of the patients in the opinion of most of the musicians. One said, "As here have been recognized names in various musical for the sound of the band, I think at times we reached fields, there are many who have never been recognized, the excitement of the old Dizzy Gillespie band, and also but who are potentially equally creative." harmonically, it's just as interesting as anything around The shows produced by the patients are another source today, with X's scores anyway, and naturally all Y's of satisfaction and new experience for the musician- things are beautiful and swinging." X and Y are two patients. The experience of working with singers and of the most creative musicians in the hospital. dancers in preparing these shows and of writing music Although there has never been any formal musical for the shows moved one musician to say, "As far as I education in connection with the hospital's musical pro• am concerned, all of the experience I have had writing gram, there almost always have been several well-known for singers and dancers, working out their problems and and accomplished musicians here, who seem to stimulate our own problems, has been immeasurably good for me. other musicians by their personalities and creative ex• I feel confident now that I can write for anyone at any amples. These outstanding musicians who have become time. So in a sense, the important thing here is that we patients at the hospital generally like to help their fellow really prepare for a livelihood for music and to be sincere patients by passing on musical insights and discoveries, about our music." helping them to broaden their understanding of music In all these ways the musical recreation program re• and to improve their playing. inforces and aids the individual therapy provided by the Sometimes the influence of these musicians is stylistic, psychiatric staff and the twice-a-week group-therapy ses• as one patient noted in saying, "One of our boys is sions with a staff member and fellow musicians. The writing music which brings out an esoteric sound. He therapy helps them to develop insight into their own be• has an ability to run almost the entire harmonic gamut havior and into their relationships with those they live in everything he writes. That has influenced my writing with in the hospital and work with in their profession. and almost all the other arrangers, and I think through It helps them to understand themselves, to accept them• this we have achieved a different sound. I also want to selves, to realize their limitations, and come to grips with mention Y's influence, which all musicians are familiar their strengths. As one patient said, "The thing that I with from the days of the Dizzy Gillespie band and the appreciate so much about this is that on the street I Billy Eckstine band. We seem to be able to get both would never seem to have the time to sit down and think, these feelings going." or take a look at myself. Of course, I was always involved Another patient has felt their influence in a different in the narcotics business." While the therapy program way. "I consider myself a very good example of what helps them to rebuild, or in some cases to build for the the influences around here can do. I came here just being first time, a sense of individual integrity, the musical what you might call a sometime piano player, and have recreation program helps them to develop their creative been for the last ten or twelve years. I came here and abilities and professional skills, and to learn to appre• found myself surrounded by these overwhelmingly good ciate the satisfactions of creative effort—strong bulwarks influences. Never had I written a note of music, and was against a return to narcotic use and addiction.

JULY 9 • • 1912-14

James how did et Conversations with James P. Johnson Q. P, you g launched as a profes- sional pianist ?

A. I told you before how I was impressed by my older brothers' friends. They were real ticklers—cabaret and sporting-house players. They were my heroes and led what I felt was a glamorous life—welcome everywhere because of their talent.

In the years before World War I, there was a piano in almost every home, colored or white. The piano makers had a slogan: "What Is Home Without A Piano?" It was like having a radio or a TV today. Phonographs were feeble and scratchy.

Most people who had pianos couldn't play them, so a piano player was important socially. There were so many of them visiting and socializing that some people would have their pianos going day and night all week long.

If you could play piano good, you went from one party to another and everybody made a fuss about you and fed you ice cream, cake, food and drinks. In fact, soine of the biggest men in the profession were known as the biggest eaters we had. At an all-night party, you started at 1:00 A.M., had another meal at 4:00 a.m. and sat down again at 6:00 a.m. Many of us suffered later because of eating and drinking habits started in our younger socializing days.

But that was the life for me when I was seventeen, by Tom Davin In the summer of 1912, during high-school vacation,

10 THE JAZZ REVIEW I went out to Far Rockaway, a beach resort near Coney own that they wanted to publish at Gotham & Attucks, a Island, and got a chance to play at a place run by a fellow Negro music publishing firm whose offices were at 37th named Charlie Ett. It was just a couple of rooms knocked Street, off Broadway. 1 couldn't write them down and I together to make a cabaret. They had beer and liquor, didn't know anybody who would do them for me. and out in the back yard there was a crib house for fast Cecil Mack was president of Gotham & Attucks. All the turnover. great colored musicians had gathered around the firm— It was a rough place, but I got nine dollars and tips, Bert Williams, George Walker, Scott Joplin, Will Marion or about eighteen dollars a week over all. That was so Cook, Joe Jordan, Tim Brymm. much money that I didn't want to go back to high school. They had a lot of hit songs . . . Just a Word Of Con• I never got but quarters when I played before. solation . . . Red, Red Rose . . . Down Among the Sugar Cane . . . Good Morning, Carrie. Gussie L. Davis, who Q. Oh, you did play professionally before? wrote white-style ballads for them, was the composer of A. Yes, but it didn't count. When I was about eight The Baggage Coach Ahead, the greatest tear-jerker of in Jersey City, I was walking down the block, and a wo• the time. man came out of a doorway and asked me if I wanted to Q. Were you long at Dan Williams' place? make a quarter. She knew I could play a little, from neighbors, so she took me into her parlor where there A. No, only a couple of months. I had a number of were about three or four couples drinking beer, set me jobs in the winter of 1912-13. One was playing movie down on the piano stool and said: "Go ahead and play piano at the Nickelette at 8th Avenue and 37th Street. and don't turn your head." They had movies and short acts for short money. Many I played my Little Brown Jug tune and a couple of vaudeville acts broke in there. Florence Mills first sang other hymns and nursery-rhyme arrangements for a there I recall. couple of hours. I never looked around. In the spring of 1913, I really got started up in The She gave me a quarter, and I went on my way. I guess Jungles. This was the Negro section of Hell's Kitchen and she was running some kind of sporting house. They were ran from 60th to 63rd Street, west of 9th Avenue. It was all around the neighborhood. the toughest part of New York. There were two to three killings a night. Fights broke out over love affairs, gam• Q. Excuse my interruption. Tell me more about Far bling, or arguments in general. There were race fights Rockaway. with the white gangs on 66th and 67th Street. It was just as tough in the white section of Hell's Kitchen. A. There was another place there called "The Cool Off," located down near the station. Some Clef Club mem• Q. Where did you play there? bers played there, and they used to come over after hours to hear me play dirty. Kid Sneeze was among them, and A. In 1910 and 1911, I used to drop in at Jim Allan's Dude Finley, a pianist who played a rag in D minor that place at 61st Street and 10th Avenue, where I'd wear my had the same trio that was later used in Shake It, Break knickers long so they wouldn't notice that I was a short- It, Throw It Out The Window; Catch It Before It Falls. pants punk. After they heard me play, they would let me come when I wanted. That fall, instead of going back to school, I went to So, in the spring of 1913, I went uptown and got a job Jersey City and got a job in a cabaret run by Freddie playing at Jim Allan's. It was a remodeled cellar, and Doyle. He gave me a two-dollar raise. since it operated after hours, it had an iron-plated door— In a couple of months, Doyle's folded up, and I came like the speak-easies had later. There was a bar upstairs, back to Manhattan and played in a sporting house on 27th but downstairs there was a rathskeller, and in the back Street between 8th and 9th Avenues, which was the Ten• of the cellar there was a gambling joint. derloin then. It was run by a fellow named Dan Williams, When the cops raided us now and then, they always and he had two girl entertainers that I used to accompany. had to go back to the station house for axes and sledge Q. What type of music were you playing in 1912? hammers, so we usually made a clean getaway. My "New York Jazz" album [on Asch] tried to show A. Oh, generally popular stuff. I played That Barber• some types of music played in The Jungles at that time shop Chord . . . Lazy Moon . . . Berlin's Alexander's . . . Joplin's Euphonic Sounds . . . The Dream . . . Handy's Ragtime Band. Some rags, too, my own and others . . . Hesitation Blues. Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag (everybody knew that by then) One night a week, I played piano for Drake's Dancing . . . his Sunflower Slow Drag . . . Maori, by Will Thiers Class on 62nd Street, which we called "The Jungles . . . The Peculiar Rag and The Dream, by Jack the Bear. Casino." It was officially a dancing school, since it was Then there were "instrumentals"; piano arrangements very hard for Negroes to get a dance-hall license. But of medleys of Herbert and Friml, popular novelties and you could get a license to open a dancing school very music-hall hits—many by Negro composers. cheap. Indian songs were popular then, and the girls at Dan The Jungles Casino was just a cellar, too, without Williams' used to sing Hiawatha . . . Red Wing . . . Big fixings. The furnace, coal, and ashes were still there Chief Battleaxe . . . Come With Me To My Big Teepee behind a partition. The coal bin was handy for guests . . . Pony Boy—all popular in the music halls then. to stash their liquor in case the cops dropped in. Blues had not come into popularity at that time—they There were dancing classes all right, but there were no weren't known or sung by New York entertainers. teachers. The "pupils" danced sets, two-steps, waltzes, schottisches, and "The Metropolitan Glide," a new step. Q. Had you done any composing by that time? I played for these regulation dances, but instead of A. No, but I was working out a number of rags of my playing straight, I'd break into a rag in certain places.

JULY n The older ones didn't care too much for this, but the This was my first "Chitterlin' Strut" or parlor social, younger ones would scream when I got good to them but later in the depression I became famous at "Gumbo with a bit of rag in the dance music now and then. Suppers," "Fish Fries," "Fgg Nog Parties," and "Rent The floor of the dancing class was plain cement like Parties." I loved them all. You met people. any cellar, and it was hard on the dancers' shoes. I saw When I was at Allan's. I met Luckey Roberts at a party. many actually wear right through a pair of shoes in one Q. What was Luckey like in those days of his prime? night. They danced hard. When it rained, the water would run down the walls A. Luckey Roberts was the outstanding pianist in from the street so we all had to stop and mop up the New York in 1913—and for years before and after. He floor. had composed The Elks March . . . Spanish Venus . . . The people who came to The Jungles Casino were mostly Palm Beach Rag . . . The Junkman's Rag. from around Charleston. South Carolina, and other places Luckey had massive hands that could stretch a four• in the South. Most of them worked for the Ward Line teenth on the keyboard, and he played tenths as easy as as longshoremen or on ships that called at southern coast others played octaves. His tremolo was terrific, and he ports. There were even some Gullahs among them. could drum on one note with two or three fingers in They picked their partners with care to show off their either hand. His style in making breaks was like a drum• best steps and put sets, cotillions and cakewalks that mer's: he'd flail his hands in and out, lifting them high. would give them a chance to get off. A very spectacular pianist. The Charleston, which became a popular dance step He was playing at Barron Wilkins' place in Harlem on its own, was just a regulation cotillion step without a then, and when I could get away I went uptown and name. It had many variations—all danced to the rhythm studied him (I was working at Allan's from 9:00 P.M. to that everybody knows now. One regular at the Casino, 7:00 a.m.). Later we became good friends, and he invited named Dan White, was the best dancer in the crowd and me to his home. Afterwards, I played at Barron Wilkins', he introduced the Charleston step as we know it. But there too, as did my friend Ernest Green, who first introduced were dozens of others steps used, too. me to Luckey. Ernest was a good classic pianist. Luckey It was while playing for these southern dancers that I used to ask him to play the William Tell Overture and the composed a number of Charlestons—eight in all—all with White Cavalry Overture. These were considered tops in the same rhythm. One of these later became my famous "classical" music amongst us. Charleston when it hit Broadway. Ernest Green's mother was studying then with a piano My Carolina Shout was another type of ragtime ar• and singing teacher named Bruto Gianinni. She did house rangement of a set dance of this period. In fact, a lot of cleaning in return for lessons—several Negro singers got famous jazz compositions grew out of cotillion music— their training that way. Mrs. Green told me: "James, you such as The Wildcat Blues. Jelly Roll Morton told me that have too much talent to remain ignorant of musical his King Porter Stomp and High Society were taken from principles." She inspired me to study seriously. So I cotillion music. began to take lessons from Gianinni, but I got tired of the The dances they did at The Jungles Casino were wild Bob Gordon, the March King, who was a fine classical pianist, I would learn concert effects played at Allan's before me. He wrote Oh, You Drummer! and build them into blues and rags. which was popular because it had a lot of breaks for Sometimes I would play basses a little lighter than the drums. melody and change harmonies. When playing a heavy Then there was Freddie Singleton who used to relieve stomp, I'd soften it right down—then, I'd make an abrupt me at The Jungles Casino now and then. When I would change like I heard Beethoven do in a sonata. lay off at Allan's, I would play at Georgie Lee's near by, Some people thought it was cheap, but it was effective which was laid out the same as Allan's, except that it and dramatic. With a solid bass like a metronome, I'd use had a cabaret in the back room, instead of gambling. chords with half and quarter changes. Once I used Liszt's About this time, I played my first "Pigfoot Hop" at Rigoletto Concert Paraphrase as an introduction to a Phil Watkin's place on 61st Street. He was a very clever stomp. Another time, I'd use pianissimo effects in the entertainer and he paid me $1.50 for a night's playing groove and let the dancers' feet be heard scraping on the with all the gin and chitterlings that I could get down. floor. It was used by dance bands later.

12 THE JAZZ REVIEW In practicing technique, I would play in the dark to get While in New Jersey that summer, I won a piano con• completely familiar with the keyboard. To develop clear test in Egg Harbor, playing my Twilight Rag (which had touch and the feel of the piano, I'd put a bed sheet over a chimes effect in syncopation), Steeplechase Rag, and the keyboard and play difficult pieces through it. Nighttime in Dixieland. I had gotten power and was building a serious orches• There was a pianist there who played quadrilles, sets, tral piano. I did rag variations on William Tell Overture, rags, etc. From him, I first heard the walking Texas or Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite and even a Russian Rag based on boogiewoogie bass. The boogiewoogie was a cotillion step Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C Sharp Minor, which was for which a lot of music was composed. I never got his just getting popular then. name, but he played the Kitchen Tom Rag which was In my Imitators' Rag the last strain had Dixie in the the signal for a "Jazz" dance. right hand and The Star Spangled Banner in the left. When I came back to New York, I met the famous (It wasn't the national anthem then.) Another version Abba Labba in the Chelsea district. To this day, I can't had Home, Sweet Home in the left hand and Dixie in remember his right name, either. He was a friend and the right. pupil of Luckey Roberts'. When President Wilson's "Preparedness" campaign Abba Labba was the working girls' Jelly Roll. His came on, I wrote a march fantasia called Liberty. specialty was to play a lot of piano for girls who were From 1914 to 1916, I played at Allan's, Lee's, The laundresses and cooks. They would supply him with Jungles Casino, occasionally uptown at Barron Wilkins', stylish clothes from their customers' laundry and make Leroy's and Wood's (run then by Edmund Johnson). I him elaborate rosettes for his sleeve guards. The cooks went around copping piano prize contests and I was con• furnished him with wonderful meals, since they had fine sidered one of the best in New York—if not the best. cold kina (keena) then. Cold kina was leftover food from I was slim and dapper, and they called me "Jimmie" a white family's dinner that the cook was entitled to. then. This was an old southern cooks' custom: they fed their own family with these leftovers and they were sure to Q. Had you done any composing yet? see that there was plenty of good food left. That's why A. I had started to compose my first rag about this old southern home cooking was so famous—the cook time (1914), but nothing was done with it, and I threw shared it. it away. I also wrote and threw away a number of songs, Most of the full-time hustlers used to cultivate a work• although some people seemed to like them. ing girl like that, so they could have good meals and Entertainers used to sing blues to me, homemade blues, fancy laundry. and I'd arrange them for piano, either to accompany Abba Labba had a beautiful left hand and did wonderful them or play as solos. One of these homemade blues, bass work. He played with half-tone arid quarter-tone All Night Long, was made into a song by Shelton Brooks, changes that were new ideas then. He would run octaves who also wrote The Darktown Strutters' Ball. in chords, and one of his tricks was to play Good Night, Then I met Will Farrell, a Negro song writer, and he Beloved, Good Night in schottische, waltz and ragtime. showed me how to set my pieces down in writing. He I fell on his style and copied a lot of it. also wrote lyrics for them. With him, I set down my first Q. Were there other pianists you learned tricks from composition to be published, Mamma's and Pappa's Blues. at this time? There had been a piece around at the time called Left Her On The Railroad Track or Baby, Get That Towel A. Oh. yes. I was getting around town and hearing Wet. All pianists knew it and could play variations on it. everybody. If they had anything I didn't have, I listened It was a sporting-house favorite. I took one opening and stole it. strain and did a paraphrase from this and used it in Sam Gordon played at The Elks Cafe at 137th and Mamma's and Pappa's Blues. It was also developed later 138th Streets and Lenox Avenue. He was a great tech• into Crazy Blues, by Perry Bradford. nician who played an arabesque style that Art Tatum I had composed Carolina Shout before that. It wasn't made famous later. He played swift runs in sixths and written down, but was picked up by other pianists. My thirds, broken chords, one-note tremolandos and had a Steeplechase Rag and Daintiness Rag had spread all over good left hand. He had been a classical pianist and had the country, too, although they hadn't been published. studied in Germany. He picked up syncopation here. With Farrell, I also wrote Slop It, Joe! at this time. Fred Bryant from Brooklyn was a good all-around I sold it, along with Mamma's and Pappa's Blues for pianist. He played classical music and had a velvet touch. twenty-five dollars apiece to get enough money for a de• The piano keys seemed to be extensions of his fingers. posit on a grand piano. Incidentally, as far as I know, he invented the backward In the summer of 1914, I went for a visit to Atlantic tenth. I used it and passed it on to Fats Waller later. City and heard Eubie Blake (who composed Shuffle It was the keynote of our style. Along later), one of the foremost pianists of all time. Down in Chelsea, there was a player named Fats He was playing at The Belmont, and Charles Johnson Harris, who looked like Waller did later. He had a rag was playing at The Boat House, both all-night joints. in D called Fats Harris's Rag, a great stomp tune. Eubie was a marvelous song player. He also had a Then in the fall of 1914, I went over to Newark, New couple of rags. One, Troublesome Ivories, was very good. Jersey, and first met Willie (The Lion) Smith and Dickie I caught it. Huff who were playing on "The Coast," a tough section I saw how Eubie, like Willie Smith and Luckey Roberts, around Arlington and Augusta Streets. I played at Kinney could play songs in all keys, so as to be ready for any Hall and Lewis', which was located in an old church. singer—or if one of them started on a wrong note. So Both were great players. I don't have to tell you about I practiced that, too. I also prepared symphonic vamps— Willie, he's still playing great. He's the last of the real gutty, but not very full. old-time ticklers—along with Luckey.

JULY 13 UNDER SEPARATE COVER

Jack's Jazz Shop Jack's Jazz Shop Hollywood, Cal. Hollywood, Cal. November 10 November 21

Dear Sirs: Dear Jack: Kindly send me a copy of Playboys I hate it, having to bring it up and like in Downbeat Magazine. I think all, but the Playboys wasn't in what STEREO it's on a Victor or something. Kindly I'd call cool condition. I guess you care how you pack it. mean by that O.K., don't you? Well, Sincerely, it wasn't. The cover was bent at one Jason Beasley IV corner and there was a wrinkle run• Jason Beasley IV ning all over the girl. Casmir Falls. Kansas I haven't seen pictures of those November 1 7 others you mentioned, but I'm buying some more of those Downbeat mag• Deal' Mr. Beasley: azines. You might send along Double Your copy of World Pacific (PJ Play on whatever label it is puts it 1234) featuring Chet Baker and Art out. Kindly be careful. Pepper has been forwarded under Sincerely, We at Jack's enjoy in others the separate cover. We here at Jack's Jason Beasley IV perfectionism we try to practice our• trust that it has arrived in cool con• selves. Even though the cover damage dition. you spoke of didn't spoil a note of As you may know, we try to main• Chet's fine, bell-like horn and Art's tain personal correspondence with PLAYBOYS airy, floating alto (not to mention our many mail-order jazz customers the brilliant bass work of Curtis here at Jack's (and quite a heroic Counce; we hope you dug the fine task it is, too). Since you apparently Curtis), still a marred album is a bug. dig the mellifluous improvisations of CHET We gather (here at Jack's) that the Baker-Pepper sextet I and who BAKER your tastes are West Coast (this kind doesn't, we may ask?), let us suggest & of flips me, 'cause mine are too). the following albums for vour next Since you like Art (and Russ and order: ART Andre), let us make a couple of new diet Baker in !\ew York (River• PEPPER suggestions for your JACK'S COL• side 12-281) LECTION PROGRAM. As you doubt• The Return oj Art Pepper (Jazz less know, Art's clean lines derive West JWXP-10) to some extent (without being in the From what we know of you al• least imitative, dig) from Lee Konitz ready, and let us say that your first Jason Beasley IV who, while not really West Coast, did older was a knowledgeable one. we Casmir Falls, Kansas a lot for the school, no? How about: think that these two sets will Hip you November 28 for real. They would be excellent ad• Lee Konitz with Tristano, Marsh, ditions to your collection, a fine way Dear Mr. Beasley: and Bauer (Prestige LP 7004) to continue \our JACK'S COLLEC• A replacement copy of World Shelly Manne and his Friends play TION PROGRAM. Pacific (PJ 1234) has been sent to "Lil Abner' (Contemporary C3533). Sincerely, you along with a copy of Contempo• Sincerely, Jack rary (C 3537), which you ordered. Jack

14 THE JAZZ REVIEW by Robert C. Smith

Jack's Jazz Shop Jack's Jazz Shop Hollywood, Cal. Hollywood, Cal. December 11 January 6

Dear Jack: Dear JACK'S COLLECTION It took me a while to get through PROGRAM: your letter. You really do go on about Don't bother to send any more this stuff, don't you? I looked up in letters. Half the time I don't know the magazine Downbeat about this what you're talking about anyway. girl Lee, but I didn't see any picture. This girl Shelly looks pretty good The stuff arrived all right, but it way off in the distance only there's wasn't in cool shape again, like you a guy playing a tambourine in her said the first time—whatever that is. way. I don't know why. Looks to me sort of like I'll have to Look I'm trying to get up a col• go to Griswald, Kansas, which has lection for a Christmas party. Maybe a very big record shop, next time I you can get up "Pretty Wild," "The look at Downbeat, the picture mag• Swing's to TV," and "Phil Sunkel's azine. Leastways, the covers won't Jazz Band" for me, huh? And please be bent. be careful about that packing. Since See. the trouble is when you mail you asked me to remind you about Jason Beasley IV them, no matter what you do, the this sort of thing, the "Double Play" Casmir Falls, Kansas corners get bent. I framed the pic• had a kind of embarrassing crease December 14 tures and hung them in the living in it, kind of under the girl's face. room and all the boys whistled and I don't know what you mean about Dear Mr. Beasley: the girls giggled like I figured they bugs. I didn't find any. All of the swinging sets you would. But I had to make two of the Sincerely, ordered are on their way to you. We frames bigger than the others to Jason Beasley IV here at Jack's must say that while cover up the bent parts. Covered up you may have been collecting just a little of one of the girls, too. So all a short while and perhaps don't un• in all, I felt pretty bad about it. derstand jazz argot or all about I figger it would be okay if the derivation yet, you've certainly got records inside were square, but the wonderful musical tastes. It's a pleas• way they are (round) the corners ure nowadays to correspond with a get bent. So maybe I better not buy collector whose tastes are Catholic. by mail. Also, I can't GIVE the Like you dig Davison Pretty Wild, records away. All the boys that've got Columbia (CL 871) just as much as record players say they can't hear you do Coop and Bud The Swing's your melodies. to TV (World Pacific WPM 411). We will drop you a line about So that's all for now. By the way, may you be gassed too, if that's your your JACK'S COLLECTION PRO• idea of a thing to say around Christ• GRAM for the new year after the mas. holidays. We hope the party is a good one. May you be gassed. Sincerely, Sincerely, Jason Beasley IV Jack P.S. I'm a Protestant.

JULY 15 The Second Symphony in C by William Russo, sub• The Titans titled Titans, is the work of a young man whose musical experience has been chiefly in the area of big-band jazz. Bill Russo's Second Symphony in C In the field of "modern classical" composition he is, I Reviewed by Hall Overton believe, largely self-taught. These two facts account for most of the strengths and weaknesses of the present work, which is in four movements marked Allegro, Theme and Variations, Scherzo, and Finale. The first movement begins well with a slow introduc• tion — polychords on a C pedal in strings and percussion, over which a solo clarinet states modal melodic figures utilized later in the movement. A couple of Kentonish brass grunts serve as a bridge into the Allegro. Here the strings take over with a strong melodic line, although hampered by a squarish rhythmic feeling which seems to afflict some jazz-oriented composers when they venture away from the familiar. This same defect shows up in an almost embarrassing form later during one of the varia• tions in the second movement. A chordal section in the brass is followed by the most appealing idea in the move• ment, a light, dance-like theme which unfortunately ends too soon. From here the movement becomes lost in a sequence of short-winded developmental sections that obscure a clear sense of return in the recapitulation. The second movement begins with a slow chordal theme in the brass with a solo oboe added after eight measures. The variations which follow suffer generally from the same student-like short-windedness noted before. Elements of Afro-Cuban jazz are supposed to flavor the third movement, marked Scherzo. They are there in rhythmic figures assigned to the bassoons, low strings, and percussion, but are hopelessly lost under the melodic writing which is heavy and serious sounding, completely out of character with the feeling of a scherzo. This move• ment, more than any of the others, felt much too short and undeveloped. In the Finale, which follows the Scherzo without pause, trumpeter Maynard Ferguson joined the orchestra as fea• tured soloist. Again a slow introduction with solo trumpet climbing rapidly into orbit. The Allegro is in rondo form incorporating material from previous movements. Fer• guson is required to stay pretty consistently in the upper register right up to the coda where he goes onward and upward to even greater heights, leaving no doubt that his is truly an amazing kind of upper-registry artistry. How• ever, I can't resist conveying my impression during the coda of witnessing a musical weight-lifting act with each new record-breaking "lift" being supported by a chord and a drum roll from the pit band. The harmonic idiom is completely safe, "conventional modern," a bland mixture of modal, pan-diatonic and polychordal devices. And if this symphony fails to com• municate—a condition which greatly concerns Russo and which he feels more dissonant music does not do, to judge from his statements during a radio interview — it will not be due to any personal or original harmonic quali• ties in the piece. The orchestration leans heavily on the brass writing. Not so with the strings and winds, which are used fragmentarily throughout the general orchestral fabric. This work, with its many attractive ideas, indicates that Russo is a composer of talent, but the lack of formal con• trol and the immaturity of style strongly suggest that he isn't ready to be writing symphonies yet.

16 THE JAZZ REVIEW REVIEWS: JULIAN ADDERLEY: Portrait of sequins and colored lights. He is RECORDINGS Cannonball. Riverside 12-269. Billy Rose, Olsen and Johnson, P.T. Julian Adderley, alto; Blue Mitchell, Bridgeport, the Great Ziegfield—the trumpet; Bill Evans, piano; Sam Jones, Man Who Is Shot From the Cannon bass; Philly Joe Jones, drums. and lands in your lap with an evil Minority, Straight Life, Blue Funk, A Little Taste, People Will Say We're In wink and a vulgar gesture. Just as he Love, Nardis. stands, he's a powerful musician. If Whatever else this music does, it he ever finds himself able to expose certainly swings. Both the rhythm his beauty without its thin, protective section and the horns are very free coating of evilness, he may become in this sense, and the whole date is a musical colossus. charged with strong energy. Julian Blue Mitchell's debut here is a wel• is an enigma to me. He plays with come one. He has a pleasing sound form, vigor, and a great deal of and a well-proportioned conception, originality, his grasp of both instru• plays with straightforward serious• ment and idiom is excellent, yet he ness, and knows his instrument. I produces a sound that seems calcu• wonder if he's using a good horn on lated to irritate. Why he will put such this date? It seems as though he often a shrieking edge on his tone, why he has difficulty getting it to sound. It will so frequently use that burlesque isn't the same sort of tone a player vibrato, why he will exaggerate occa• gets who has no chops—this defi• sional phrases to the point of insult, nitely sounds like a recalcitrant in• is beyond my understanding. He strument in the hands of a very good seems unable to tap his own strong player. creativity without simultaneously The rhythm section is a strong one. sticking out his tongue at it. He is a Riverside has a fine collection of ex• big-souled, intelligent, perceptive, ar• cellent rhythm players. Philly Joe and ticulate musician, but he disfigures Sam lay down a roadbed six lanes his good work with this sort of affec• wide and straight ahead, and Bill tation. It may be true that such Evans contributes sensitive accom• sneering and jeering is the result of paniment and several intelligent, everyone putting him up alongside beautiful solos. Philly's solo work on Bird for comparison, but if this is so, People Will Say is good, but I wish then the artist has allowed himself they hadn't recorded it with so much to be distracted from his work. echo. The fast passages are muddied The Cannonball we hear on this because the echo of each beat intrudes album is at various moments fanciful, on the one that follows it. full of fanciness, fancy-free, fantasti• The tunes are well chosen. I especi• cal, fraught with fanfaronade! He is ally like Miles Davis' Nardis, a lovely the Master of Sleight-Of-Hand, the minor thing that elicits some fine Center-Ring Performer, Fire-Eater, choruses. High-Diver, Lion-Tamer, a dazzle of —Bill Crow

JULY 17 L LENNY BRUCE: The Sick Humor There are six "sketches" here— is inevitable. His comedy is at least of Lenny Bruce. Fantasy 7003. "conversations" among Ike, Sherm, the obvious successor to the long line and Nixon; among Billy Graham, of nihilistic, "throw away" comedians I could rationalize my reasons for Oral Roberts, Rabbi Wise, and Pope which most of us first came to know reviewing this record in this mag• John; among ad men and AMA with Henry Morgan, an earlier Jack azine by some talk about Bruce's hip doctors; among Hitler and two agents Paar, Ernie Kovacs, Steve Allen, Bob jargon, his associations with jazzmen from MCA, etc. Essentially, they are and Ray, Sahl, and the rest. One and presence in jazz clubs, but why based on the kind of "inside" humor might say of the rest of them what bother? The man's talent fascinates that theater people indulge in at The New Yorker writer said of Mad me, and I have played the record parties; they are strewn with hip talk magazine, that it "expresses . . . many times since the first time, in (having Ike say, "Well, Sherm, you cynicism about the world of mass much the way that we all used to goofed, baby") is obviously verbal low media that fits] elders have created play a favorite jazz record over and comedy of the best—and worst—sort; . . . as . . . a Romanized Barbarian over when we were in high school. Bruce plays all the parts with little might have rebelled against the de• cadence of Rome. Bruce will inevitably be called a effort to differentiate among them in satirist, and someone will undoubted• voice, speech pattern, or basic atti• I have placed Bruce in the best ly come up with a catch phrase like tude; and almost everyone involved tradition of burlesque. It is true that "the hard bop Mort Sahl." Neither is recast in the role of a hipper his attitudes do not, like those of so will be accurate, for Bruce's humor version of the Los Angeles actors' many others, have the essential pur• is much too broad to be satire. What agent, equipped with office, intercom, pose of making an intelligent but he does is intelligent lampoon or, secretary, and an inside track. Satire, conformist middle class a little more in the best sense, burlesque, and since of course, demands far subtler and sensible. It would take either high he does, he hardly has the essentially more pointed comment than that. comedy or his kind of low comedy to avoid that trap. But there is a kind middle-brow, middle-class attitudes of But not necessarily more comedy of rootless desperation in his work the ingenious Mort Sahl. Only a than that, and Bruce's only failures that a Bert Lahr, a Billy Hogan, bourgeois (and there is a bourgeois at good burlesque—of course I don't even a Groucho Marx or a Sid Caesar in each of us) will describe what he mean slapstick—come at moments probably would not understand at all. does as "sick," but, for several rea• when an implicit disgust and spite sons, his kind of outspoken audacity becomes too overt for any kind of As I say, he could only happen could probably only happen in South• comic. in Southern California. ern California. Perhaps Lennie Bruce's appearance —Martin Williams

ORNETTE COLEMAN: Something way and he makes combinations of what I'm used to. It's going to take Else!!!!, Contemporary 03551. notes I haven't heard. time for me to evaluate him. He does He does sound like he's out of tune. have an immense amount of feeling Invisible; The Blessing; Jayne; Chippie; But I've heard guys play out of tune in his playing. The Disguise; Angel Voice; Alpha; When on purpose. Maybe that's what he's Will The Blues Leave?; The Sphinx. The tunes are very nice ones. They doing. It's going to take me a while Personnel: Ornelte Coleman, alto; Don have quality. In some I felt Monk though to get a valid sense of what Cherry, trumpet; Walter Norris, piano; and George Russell. The rest of the Don Payne, bass; Billy Higgins, drums. he's doing, whether it has anything to players seem to be sympathetic to it or not. what he was trying to do — especially You know, for the sake of sound, Don Cherry — and they were pretty Ornette Coleman writes some very you can deliberately play notes that successful in playing with him, and nice tunes, but after he plays the tune, are out of tune in relation to the that seems to be quite a challenge! I can't find too much of a link be• background notes which are in tune. tween his solo and the tune itself. I can't help going back to why he That way you get things you wouldn't From what I've heard though that's doesn't stay with the chords of his get from being in tune. Sort of like the way he looks at it. He apparently original lines. They seem to be good quarter-tones. This is not new in jazz, feels there shouldn't be too much chords, and I see no reason to just but Coleman does it more than any• concern about the tune and chord throw them away. I'd like to hear one else I've heard. I'd guess, all in structure—they're prisons to him. He him play a solo constituted around the all. that he may be deliberately out just goes on and plays what he feels chords of the tune and then I'd like to of tune when he is. from the tune. hear him play another melody on His whole attitude is different from those same chords. When he goes into There's Bird in spots in the timbre his chorus, in short, he should con• of his tone. Bird, however, wouldn't tinue to construct melodies based on throw that particular timbre at you those original chords. all night long. It's a real cry, a real Subscribe tc shriek, a squawk. He's different than the others on the scene, and when people come It doesn't seem valid to me some• along like that, you have to be able how — to get back to what he does JAZZ-HOT to evaluate them as being different. If after he states the line — for a man to The famous French review you can't, it's hard to say whether disregard his own tunes. It's a lack of 1 year (11 issues) : $5.00 they're good or bad. Like when I respect. Maybe hell eventually get to first started to listen to Monk, I have more respect for his tunes. couldn't appreciate him until I could Coleman doesn't know his instru• Write to: Jazz Review, Box 128 separate him from someone like ment in the ordinary sense, but then, Village Station, New York 14, N. Y. Powell or Tatum. Maybe that's what most of the alto players I know don't we have to do with Coleman. know their instruments in the way he recent bade issues available now does. He certainly plays in a different —Art Farmer

18 THE JAZZ REVIEW MILES DAVIS: Porgy and Bess. excellent rhythm playing by Paul Miles himself was recorded very ably, Columbia CL 1274. Chambers and Philly Joe Jones) the deficiency will probably bother when you'll think that the phonograph only the arrangers and composers Gil Evans has taken Gershwin's is going to walk right out of the who will listen to the record. And melodies and has made them his own. room! there are enough highs and lows on The arrangements in this album give Miles seems to have reached the the disk to keep the hi-fi-ers from as much meaning to such arias as point where nearly every note that worrying about the fidelity of their My Man's Gone Now, as did the he plays seems to be the absolute best rigs. original score. Evans' ability to pro• note that could have happened in the But the music. There are so many ject powerful emotion in amazingly place he put it, and his talent also wonderful moments of beauty and sensitive ways is beautifully matched encompasses the treasured ability to swing, so many ingenious turns of by Miles, whose solos approach being play each written note with the feel• phrase; there is so much that is good magnificent. Davis is the first instru• ing and interpretation that the writer in this lp, that it would take thou• mentalist I've heard play a recitative imagined when he wrote it. And sands of words to describe it fully. that is convincing and completely Davis' horn is an instrument which This one is worth your time. Listen devoid of burlesque. Evans has learned to play very well. to it; and if they ever ask you, you And then comes the swing. There's Technically, the album could have can say that you've heard some of the a thing which Evans calls Gone, been engineered much better. Wheth• finest music, jazz or otherwise, that's which should have been the original er the fault lies in the actual record• happened since Sammy Oog and his mold when that word was first re- ing or in the mastering, I can't say; Neanderthal Six collectively com• coined for music. There is a time but there is an occasional washed-out posed the first blues. during Miles's solo (accompanied by sound to the orchestra. Inasmuch as —Bob Freedman

There can be no doubt that Farmer gets his tone and general approach from Miles Davis, but he has gone about that with the greatest honesty, adding one element: a melodic gift * that is superior to Miles's. He is capable of improvising original melo• dies that are complete thirty-two-bar compositions in themselves. They have neither the audacity nor occa• sional piercing emotional quality of Davis, but they have a structure of a type that Davis does not employ. At the moment, Farmer is the best of the young trumpet players, and ART FARMER: Modem Art. United If a musician is not original, he is one can predict that he will get con• Artists UAL-4007. then not a first-ranking musician—at sistently better. It is quite legitimate to assume, the moment. If he is imitating, he Golson also is subject to influences, when reading certain modern poets, will never be. If he is, to fall back but rather than employing them from that their main interest lies in sup• on jargon, "assimilating" an "influ• within, as Farmer does, he grabs at plying someone with a topic for a ence," he may well become a first- them from without, to suit the needs master's thesis. I doubt that any jazz rank musician, depending on what he of the particular piece. He can be, has been recorded so that someone does with that influence. A great deal by turns, Hawkins, Lucky Thompson, may indulge himself in speculation of the development of a talent de• Webster, and now most notably Col- into the murkier areas of criteria, pends on the astuteness with which trane. but Art Farmer's United Artists re• he chooses his models. Miles Davis At one time or another, Martin cording does raise such questions, and once imitated Dizzy Gillespie. Williams and I have wished in print answers a few of them. I choose Miles Davis as an ex• that Coltrane had more "discipline." The author of The Encyclopedia ample because his influence is felt, Well, here is Benny Golson to an• of Jazz has said at various times that both directly, and indirectly, through• swer that wish perfectly. Unfor• originality is not a criterion. This has out this lp. Farmer is under his in• tunately, the result is supremely always seemed to me ridiculous on the fluence, Golson is under Coltrane's effective—and nothing else. His com• face of it, because if one imitates influence, Miles's rhythm concepts are positions have the stamp of Broadway another's style in as hybrid a medium used, and so is his pianist (of the on them, and, in a peculiar way, so as jazz, one crosses the slippery time), Bill Evans. All of these ele• do his solos. They have all the show• boundary between creative and in• ments combine on one number, I manship, startling effectiveness and terpretive art. The matter then be• Love You, to produce a virtual car• lack of true emotion of a play di• comes one of simply judging how well bon copy of a Davis performance. rected by Elia Kazan. the imitation is accomplished. Some• This record should be heard for Because and in spite of this in• times, as with human anthologies several reasons, not the least of which fluence, the lp is one of the most such as Andre Previn, it is like is that the first time around, Golson satisfying and exciting in several Doctor Johnson's dog walking on its will startle you, but after five or six months. For the same reasons, it is hind legs, and the only reaction is hearings, Farmer will command your one of amazement that the feat can one of the most disquieting. My entire attention. That is, after all, be accomplished at all. points can best be made by discussing the supreme test. Anyway, some tentative criteria: Farmer and Golson individually. —Joe Goldberg

JULY 19 ART FARMER: Portrait of Art Far• well with his associates here, he jazz/hi-fi notes mer. Contemporary C3554. seems to stay slightly aloof in a way that prevents a more perfect blend of from CONTEMPORARY RECORDS, INC Farmer, trumpet; Addison Farmer, bass. Hank Jones, piano; Roy Haynes, drums. conception. His accompaniments are Back In The Cage, Stablemates, The provocative but do not always relate roducers of CONTEMPORARY RECORDS Very Thought of You, "And Now . . .", well to what the soloist is doing. GOOD TIME JAZZ Nita, By Myself, Too Late Now, Earth. CR COMPOSERS SERIES Addison's straight-ahead lines and CALIFORNIA RECORDS Having heard Art in so many situ• warm tone effectively tie the piano p SFM (Society for Forgotten Music) • STEREO RECORDS ations where much of his concentra• and drums together and give the tion is devoted, to blending his own group sound a healthy foundation. Barney Kessel has an exciting conception with that of other strong Art's treatment of melody, espe• new album —music from "SOME soloists or arrangers, I find the simple cially on the ballads, is simple and LIKE IT HOT"-Prohibition Era structure of this group a satisfactory tunes featured in Billy Wilder's sensitive, and his subtle alterations fulfillment of the desire to hear him smash film starring Marilyn of the original lines are richly im• Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack stretch out on his own. As this album aginative. It is a pleasure to hear Lemmon. indicates, he is quite capable of de• such purposeful and unpretentious The stars of Barney's album veloping a full treatment of a tune use of dissonance; he is one of a are Shelly Manne, Art Pepper — assisted only by a rhythm section. handful of horn players who find CR's newest exclusive recording He has chosen his tunes well, al• superimposed dissonant scales a artist on alto, tenor and clarinet; lowing himself the freedom of blues source of beautiful melody rather the sensational young trumpeter changes on three originals, and find• Joe Gordon, who just joined Shelly than weird affectation. Also a rarity Manne & His Men; pianist Jim- ing strong stimulus for improvisa• among musicians his age is the depth mie Rowles and bassist Monty tion in three tunes from musicals and of expression that comes through his Budwig. Tunes are a delight in two by contemporary jazz composers sound alone. Rather than placing all modern jazz. (George Russell's Nita and Benny of his concentration on the relation• We're proud of Andre Previn and Golson's Stablemates). ship of combinations of notes, he his winning an Academy Award Addison, Hank, and Roy compli• often finds as much beauty in ten• Oscar for scoring GIGI. Andre's derly sustaining an almost vocal tone jazz version merits some sort of ment Art tastefully. Hank is especially an award too for being one of the in rapport with Art's feeling for each quality on a single pitch. Whatever happiest in the "Broadway Goes tune. He chooses accompanying his approach at a given moment, his to Jazz" series on Contemporary. chords that both stimulate the soloist playing is consistently affirmative, Most everyone has the jazz MY and properly display the solo, and affluent, animate. FAIR LADY album played by on his own choruses manages to cre• I could go through each tune, at• Andre and Shelly Manne —it's ate some delightful moments without tempting to describe how satisfyingly been on best-seller charts for over Arthur spins his song, but it seems two years! Their versions of losing the thread of what has gone LI'L ABNER and PAL JOEY are before. Roy helps create a lively, easy pointless to do so when the music necessary to round out your col• quality that is the strength of this itself is more delightful than any de• lection of these Pievin/Manne rhythm section, and he plays some scription of it could be. collaborations. interesting fours. Though he plays —Bill Crow Speaking of Shelty-his PETER GUNN album on Contemporary, another best-seller, received 5 THE JONES BROTHERS: Keepin Perhaps Thad could cook up a few stars in Down Beat. Moreover, Up With The Joneses. Metrojazz originals for the affair? As things many thousands of our friends E1003. turned out, he was able to do just who bought the album consider it Thad Jones, trumpet and flugelhorn; that. After they ran out of Thad's one of the very best in their collec• Hank Jones, piano and organ; Elvin Jones, tunes, research revealed that Isham tions. Shelly's other new album is drums; Eddie Jones, bass. Jones, that ancient veteran of the THE GAMBIT—and like GUNN Nice and Nasty; Keepin Up with the dance-band business had composed it has had great reviews. Joneses; Three and One; Sput 'n' Jeff; a few pleasing ditties in his day, like So much is going on at CR It Had to be You; On the Alamo; There there's not space enough to write is no Greater Love. It Had to Be You, No Greater Love, of it here in detail. Drop us a That veteran of the jazz wars, and On the Alamo (a Red Nichols card, or letter; and we'll senfl you Leonard Feather, is back again, this fave, remember?). So between Thad our bi-monthly GTJ & CR NEWS, time as a & r man for Metrojazz, the and Isham the date was filled out. plus catalogs —all free. You'll dis• hot wing of MGM records. Evidently In other words, Jones playing Jones cover a number of wonderful the Feather policy will be to con• in what will unquestionably'constitute albums you'll want to own. centrate on the more palatable mod• a definitive performance. The sound on all but certain of erns and strive for novelty by way of our historic catalog items —re• Finally, on the cover, there's a corded before the advent of hi-fi, clever packaging. Kodachrome color shot, archly can• is absolutely sensational! And all The packaging job on Keepin Up did, and taken through a picture recent records are to be had in With the Joneses must have delighted frame, showing the Jones boys sitting stereo to boot. the big brass at MGM. The idea here in the Jones kitchen, where perform• Our records are available at is to keep everything, but everything er-composer Thad is reading the New record stores everywhere. Nation• within the broad confines of the Jones York Daily News. ally advertised manufacturer's list family. Three of the four musicians Nothing exciting here, but it's all prices are $4.98 for all our 12" are brothers, Hank being the best long-playing albums, and $5.98 for pleasant enough music, in good taste, all our stereo albums. known. Thad (Basie trumpet section) and comes off. And of course it's and Elvin, drums, assist Hank. Eddie always good to hear Hank, one of is no blood relation, but he makes the finer pianists around for the past Editor, GTJ & CR NEWS the date because he has the right ten years. PUBLISHED BY CONTEMPORARY RECORDS, INC. surname and plays good bass. —Ross Russell 8481 Melrose Place, los Angeles 46, California

20 THE JAZZ REVIEW JOHNNY GRIFFIN: Johnny Griffin qualities from a number of schools Sextet. Riverside 12-264. of piano playing and utilizes them Griffin, tenor; Donald Byrd, trumpet; cleanly and intelligently in his own Pepper Adams, baritone; Kenny Drew, way. He produces a beautiful sound piano; Wilbur Ware, bass; Philly Joe Jones, drums. on his instrument and plays that Stix' Trix, What's New, Woody'n You, good, sweet time that revives us Johnny G.G., Catharsis. again. He finds a fresh approach on each tune instead of couching them THE MODEM This is essentially a blowing date, all in the same terms. The piano is JAZZ QUARTET each soloist having plenty of room to a versatile instrument in his hands, develop whatever he likes with the and jazz a fun-lover's paradise. rhythm section. The writing is limited Griffin plays his best where the to the opening and closing choruses. tempo moves him right along. When Consequently, the strength of each he sustains notes, his tone thins out, track lies in the rhythm section itself and his attempt to give it more body and the improvisational abilities of the by using an exaggerated vibrato only individual horn men. It's one hell of a adds to the impression of strain and rhythm section—Kenny, Wilbur, and rigidity. Some of his best choruses Philly Joe are all strong, warm, sen• are those with only Wilbur playing sitive swingers. Wilbur has a magic time behind him; he gets a much touch, setting up such a rolling, less hard-jawed sound and lets the naively profound quality on his solos notes roll out more freely. Woody'n and generating such a good feeling You is played without the assistance on his line that it would be quibbling of the other two horns and sustains over rivulets and ignoring the sea to very well. complain about his occasional crude Donald Byrd sounds better every attack, stumbling time, sloppy intona• time I hear him. His choruses here THE MOST tion. His enthusiasm for the simplest are strong and straight, played with lines makes them fresh and wonder• a good, full trumpet sound, well in IMPORTANT ful, and he plays with the swing in a tune and thoughtfully constructed. delightfully simple, original manner. Pepper Adams' stiff reed often Philly Joe plays with his usual ex• cheats him out of the bottom half JAZZ RELEASE cellent rhythmic sense plus a taste of the available resonance of his in• and balance that suggests that his strument but allows him fast response OF THE YEAR overbearing volume with Miles's and subsequent clean articulation. He group had more to do with the de• puts together well-ordered lines, often mands of the leader than with the running each change of a series with taste of the drummer. He gives each the same pattern, sometimes sound- soloist here full support without ing as though he were about to fall The Modern Jazz Quartet drowning them and plays some ex• asleep, but turning in a generally At Music Inn Volume 2 cellent solos of his own. commendable performance. ATLANTIC 1299 Kenny Drew has absorbed rich —Bill Crow GUEST ARTIST: Sonny Rollins

Side One 1. Medley: Stardust I Can't Get Started JELLY ROLL MORTON: The In• orchestral series is now out (RCA Lover Man comparable. Riverside 12-128. 2. Yardbird Suite Victor LPM 1649) but since it will 3. Midsommer Muddy Water Blues, High Society, Fish• soon be reviewed in these pages by Side Two 1. Festival Sketch tail Blues, Mr. Jelly Lord (Gennett), My Larry Gushee, I will confine myself Gal (quartet) Wolverine Blues (duet), 2. Bags' Groove 3. Night In Tunisia Mamamita (solo), 35th Street Blues (solo), to one warning: some decidedly in• Weary Blues, Tiger Rag, Big Fat Ham, ferior takes have been used on that Mr. Jelly Lord (Paramount, trio). set, and that is true of Dead Man Blues which may otherwise be Mor• i Heres the quartet's first LP in about Morton's reputation depends on ton's masterpiece of orchestration and '"• ' >'«"• - recorded live" a, the Musjc two groups of recordings: the gen• performance. Inn at Lenox, Mass., last vear. Present erally excellent series of piano solos Before the Victor series, Morton at that session was innovator Sonnv he made for the early Midwestern made orchestral records, and some of Roll™ on the tenor sax. Our micro. jazz labels (Gennett, Paramount, them are so bad that at the time they Phones caught him as he appeared as Rialto, etc.) which can be supple• must have seemed to indicate that his guest artist with the Modern JaZ7 Quartet on Night I„ Tunisia a„d mented by at least some of the per• talent had spent itself with a handful Bags Groove. An exciting record that formances on Commodore 3001, and of compositional piano solos. But in vou II want to hear again and again by the brilliant series of orchestral retrospect we can at least notice this: records made for Victor in 1926-8. on them he attempted everything that Riverside owns the piano solos and he later brought off so brilliantly on has a collection on RLP12-111, but the Victors. Write for complete free LP catalogue failed to include such performances Except as indicated above, this set and stereo ditc listing. as Frog-i-More, The Pearls, and Lon• collects some (but not all) of the early orchestral records, and it in• don Blues (Shoe Shiners Drag), and T L A N T I C these are among the best. cludes the one unquestionable success A collection drawn from the Victor among them. Like several Riverside RECORDING CORP. 157 West 57th St., N. Y. 19 JULY reissues, it is absurdly programmed: tripping over the polyphony and often on the other hand, is a good composi• no effort at any kind of order, chron• forcing the clarinet into a harmonic tion, played with some ingenious ological or otherwise, used, and part, and the playing has constant polyrhythms in its tango section and tracks by the same group are even rhythmic and melodic disunity. one really striking chorus of melodic placed on opposite sides of the The Gennett version of Mr. Jelly variation. record. Riverside knows perfectly well Lord (1926) is interesting, aside from There are two real successes: who is going to buy such records and some good piano, for a three-man Muddy Water and Big Fat Ham. The what kind of programming such cus• reed section that plays with respect• group that played them had rare tomers have reason to expect. able discipline and swing—and if you unity and swing and played with con• There are some rare items: this know your histories of jazz, you know fidence and verve. Here again an alto take of the Paramount Mr. Jelly Lord it didn't happen quite that early. is present, but he swings more and is new to me. Piano, sax, and a kazoo doesn't muddy a four-part polyphony, The duet Wolverine Blues might be make a pretty dreadful record, but either. The firm, Keppard-like trum• dismissed as an early effort at the Morton was playing that day, and pet leads with authority, and Jasper Victor clarinet trios, if it were not does some ingenious and effective Taylor's fine (if overrecorded) drum• for Volly de Faut. He could swing (albeit technically simple) things on ming shows both a splendid com• more, to be sure, and his intonation this take. prehension of Morton's rhythmic might be better, but he does do some In absolutely atrocious dubs (of conception and a very infectious wit. good improvising on a comparatively dubs of worn dubs, I would imagine), Ham (a very good composition, by difficult part. On My Gal, that duet the Autograph band date is completed the way) orchestrates unison, har• is made a trio by the presence of with the rare Weary Blues and Tiger mony, and polyphony in a constantly another bloody kazoo. (Oliver's hav• Rag, and on the former, incidentally, shifting yet finally unified texture ing Louis play kazoo is bad enough, an unexpected, Louis-like second trum• surpassed only by some of the Vic• but such raucousness in Morton's pet suddenly appears behind Natty tors. And the clarinet and particularly music is really incongruous.) And, to Dominique's wa-wa to very good trumpet solos on Water might instruct deal with the other failure, the effect. These two tracks do not change even the dullest head about the blues. pseudo-blues 35th Street is a dull the picture that the more familiar Again I find myself wishing that song whose rhythmic monotony is Fishtail Blues (an early sketch for Riverside's selecting and program• relieved only by a couple of Morton's Sidewalk Blues) and High Society ming for its reissues showed half the bass cliches. by the same group have made: it was care that its cover designs do. a poor band, with a schmaltzy alto The solo Mainamita (Mama Anita), —Martin Williams

BUDDY TATE AND HIS ORCHES• individuals, his bandsmen are no rhythm and solo of Lord Westbrook TRA: Swinging like . . . Tate. Felsted more than average soloists, capable of on the reverse side. Joe Benjamin 12" LP FAJ 7004. good work, but as a unit they func• does some nice things behind Buddy Pat Jenkins, trumpet; Eli Robinson, trom• tion quite well together and play with on Walk that Walk, which is also bone; Ben Richardson, clarinet & alto sax; verve, the sort of verve that keeps Buddy's best work on the first side. Buddy Tate, tenor sax; Skip Hall, piano; them in constant demand at the Celeb• Everett Barksdale, guitar; Joe Benjamin, The B side indicates the producers rity Club and most of the big ball• bass; Ilerbie Lovelle, drums. wanted to play it safe and go with rooms and clubs in New York. Ben Bottle It, Walk that Walk, Miss Sadie better established names, and the re• Brown. Richardson's warm clarinet comes sults in many ways tend to justify Buck Clayton, trumpet; Dickie Wells, off best in Walk that Walk; Eli solos this. Buck and Earl Warren have trombone; Earl Warren, alto and baritone on Bottle It, and Pat Jenkins has a sax; Buddy Tate, tenor sax; Skip Hall, good solos on all three titles, and good solo, after a stock Pop Goes the piano; Lord Westbrook, guitar; Aaron Dickie comes on well in the last, a Weasel intro on Sadie Brown. All of Bell, bass; Jo Jones, drums. Tate title based on I got Rhythm. Moon Eves, Rockin Steve, Rompin with these are numbers that Buddy does Buck. when the crowds get heavy, so in Especially interesting is the chug- order to enjoy the music, imagine chug quality the rhythm section im• yourself seated at a table with lots parts on Rockin Steve, Buck's tune of talk and laughter all around and and arrangement, reminding one of This is the first time Buddy Tate several hundred couples dancing like the successful rhythm Don Redman's has had an album out under his mad, filling up the dance floor, and band used to use. This is the best name, and it's about time. He has been the music will communicate. There title on the lp, with excitement build• a major figure in the Harlem scene isn't anything here that will go down ing under Buck, Earl, and Buddy. for years now, with a first-class band in history, but it is enjoyable. and arrangements, and now that the The last track is good until the last Savoy is closed, he is the number-one I would have liked to hear Buddy's half of Buddy's otherwise excellent band leader. good clarinet work, and some ballads, solo, when Jo Jones shot the works and destroyed Buddy's line. The first three titles are with mem• such as You Don l Know What Love bers of his own band and are ar• Is on which he does such a fine job. For those who haven't heard Buddy ranged and written by Skip Hall (his Everett Barksdale should have been or his band in person, this lp will former pianist), Dickie Wells, and allowed to play the fender bass with help; for those who know his work Eli Robinson. They are all blues and which he works in Buddy's band, somewhat better, they might wish for all effective in their own right. Buddy rather than the guitar, which in his a second crack, one that will display has improved his tone and his tech• case seems at odds with Buddy's all the facets of a constantly improv• nique over the years and can always drive. His solo on Bottle It has a curi• ing and quite often rewarding jazz• be counted on to give impetus to any ous Django quality, with a thin, tight man. record date on which he appears. As sound, which is in contrast to the —Frank Driggs

22 THE JAZZ REVIEW ARTIE SHAW: The Great Artie Bues in the Night with Hot Lips Page, today, most of which are blandly uni• vocal and. trumpet. Shaw. RCA Camden CAL-465. form, we realize how much we owe Roy Eldridge, George Schwartz, Bernie Glow, Stan Fishelson, trumpets; Bob Swift, to the boppers who re-evaluated jazz, Ollie if Wilson, Harry Rogers, Augostino who sensitized us to whole new musi• Chuck Peterson, John Best, Bernie Ischia, trombones; Artie Shaw, clarinet; cal concepts, and who reintroduced Privin, trumpets; George Arus, Les Jen• Rudy Tanza. Chuck Gentry, Ralph Rosen- to jazz the quality of suspense and kins, Harry Rogers, trombones; Artie Shaw, lund, Jon Walton, Louis Prisby, saxes; clarinet; Les Robinson, Hank Freeman, Dodo Marmarosa, piano; Barney Kessel, a concern with the processes by which Tony Pastor, Georgie Auld. saxes; Bob guitar; Morris Rayman, bass; Lou Fromm, music is made. Kitsis, piano; Al Avola, guitar; Sid Weiss, drums. bass; George Wettling, drums. Historically, these are interesting A Foggy Day, I Can't Get Started. My Heart Stood Still; Rosalie (Tony sides, if not for the various musicians Pastor, vocal) ; The Man I Love. A Room In listening to this collection of the involved such as Roy Eldridge, Hot With a View: Buddy Rich, drums, replaces various Artie Shaw organizations, one Lips Page, Buddy Rich, George Wett• Wettling, Helen Forrest, vocal. can easily see why swing was a type ling, Dodo Marmarosa, Barney Kes• The Gramerey Five- -Billy Butterfield, of jazz that appealed to the general sel, Georgie Auld, and a reminder of trumpet; Artie Shaw, clarinet; Johnny public. In historical retrospect, one Guarnieri. harpsichord; Jud DeNaut, bass; a single phase of jazz, then for a Nick Fatool, drums. can see, too, why Dizzy and Bird and better perspective of the jazz scene Smoke Gels in Your Eyes. the others felt that there must be today. The smoother sides—Room The Gramercy Five— Roy Eldridge, trum• something more to do with jazz than With a View (Helen Forrest vocal), pet; Artie Shaw, clarinet; Dodo Marma- this. rosa, piano; Barney Kessel, guitar; Morris Man I Love, I Can't Gel Started, Rayman, bass; Lou Fromni, drums. Swing succeeded commercially, and Foggy Day—still lend themselves Scuttlebutt. why not? There wasn't anything readily to dancing, probably more so George Wendt, Jimmy Catheart, Billy musically speaking to challenge the than some of our current dance Butterfield, trumpets; Jack Jenney, Vernon ear; the style was danceable; nothing music. The Gramercy Five sides— Brown, trombones; Artie Shaw, clarinet: I.es Robinson, Neely Plumb, Buss Bassey, unexpected occurred to disturb the Scuttlebutt and Smoke Gels in Your Jerry Jerome, saxes; nine strings; Johnny complacent or to lend any dynamic Eyes—have a sparkle and freshness Guarnieri, piano; Al Hendrickson, guitar; quality to established formulas, unless of sound even now. Jud DeNaut, bass; Nick Fatool, drums. a soloist suddenly "took off" or "got What Is There to Say? A good buy for ardent Artie Shaw Unknown personnel (7 brass, 5 saxes. hot" in the midst of the stylizations. followers at Camden's price of $1.98. 15 strings, 4 rhythm). On hearing these sides by Shaw —Mimi Clar

CLAUDE THORNHILL AND HIS Wanna Be Kissed on "Miles Ahead" One thing I do know, something ORCHESTRA : The Thorn hill Sound. strike me as cute and fatuous. 1 do which the Davis Capitols, one track Harmony HL7088. not think he is the "successor to on Evans' recent "New Wine" lp, and Snowfall, Anthropology, Polka Dots and Ellington" as the great orchestrator Anthropology, Donna Lee and Yard- Moonbeams, Donna Lee, Lover Man, Rob- in jazz. bird Suite here I think affirm: in no bin's Nest, Yardbird Suite, LaPaloma, Sorta Kinda, Arab Dance. Because in American "popular" respect—rhythmically, linearly, emo• Now is exactly the lime for these music there is hardly any comment tionally— does Evans apprehend reissues to appear and be heard and whatever except from followers of Charlie Parker's music or the basic thought about. All of the arrange• jazz, it is often left to them to dis• meaning of the bop revolution as ments save one were made by Gil cover the superior talents in all pop• such; indeed, Ellington has at times Evans, and that exception makes a ular music, but that does not mean shown that he may have assimilated point. Snowfall is Thornhill's, and that Evans' is basically a "jazz" more of its real nature than Evans stylistically it is the source of all the talent any more than Ahmad Jamal's has. others; the album is well titled. is or Rosemary Clooney's is—or than In fact, nobody involved here does: What Thornhill wanted, of course, Mott Sahl's is. The alliance of Miles a tenor solo attempts Flip Phillips, was a "sound" for his band. The fact Davis and Evans is a brilliant one a trombone Bill Harris, and, com• that he made this sound more musi• for both, but so is the alliance of pared to what he was to do a few cally interesting than Glenn Miller's Jamal and Israel Crosby, Ellis Lar- years later, Lee Konitz runs exer• clarinet lead or Lombardo's loggy kins with Ella Fitzgerald, and several cises. Thornhill apparently thought saxes is to his credit, of course, and West Coast pop singers with Harry the style had to do only with harmony that it was one which could be even Edison or Red Mitchell. and cute interpolated licks. The drum• further developed, more so. What I am saying, I suppose, is mer knows it has to do with rhythms, It is in this general conception that although I think Evans is a god• but he doesn't get much past tossing that Thornhill formulated that Evans send to American music, even a god• in snare and bass explosions here and worked then, expanded, and has send to certain jazzmen, whether or there—anywhere apparently. worked in since. not it is a specifically jazz talent in Then there is the composing Evans Evans is a superb orchestrator, the sense that Henderson's was, El• did of secondary themes such as the perhaps he is one of the best orches- lington's is, even that Sy Oliver's is, excellent one on Anthropology or the trators alive working in any music. or that (despite those wild oats in good one on Donna Lee; they are At any rate, his talent is obviously Germany) John Lewis' is, I do not good enough to make almost every• vastly superior to his being a hack know. thing I've said about him fly out the for even the best dance band or TV Hear this record: Lover Man and window. sound track. the Arab Dance could make anybody I honestly don't know. But it sure But what kind of talent is it? I marvel. But Polka Dots and Moon• needs discussion. Evans' talent is for think it is probably most of the beams and La Paloma are apt only Evans. And for Miles. But for jazz things that it has been recently called, to make one long for his prom days beyond that? Where might it lead? i.e., "exceptional," "brilliant," except of sentimental fox-trotting with his And for whom? that I admit that things like / Don't best girl. —Martin Williams

JULY 23 DICKIE WELLS: Bones for the King. nature, while Bennie comes on very which remind one of Django again. Felsted 12" LP FAJ 7006. intense and strong. Dickie uses his Come and Get It is a slower blues George Matthews, Berime Morton, Vic one and only mute, the one that im• with Barksdale's solo this time com• Dickenson, Dickie Wells, Trombones; Skip parts that fuzzy sound, and plays a ing closer to Tampa Red, and thereby Hall, organ; Major Holley, bass; Jo Jones, bottom blues, with the legato phrasing drums. more in keeping with the proceed• Bones for the King, Sweet Daddy Spo- he has been noted for in the past ings. Interesting here is the use of de-o, You took my Heart. decade. Vic, throughout the lp, is the stop-time chords against Dickie's Buck Clayton, turmpet; Dickie Wells, most facile soloist, and perhaps the muted solo, which contains some of trombone; Rudy Rutherford, clarinet-bari• most forceful, although Dickie dis• his oblique "what-for?" phrases. Ma• tone sax; Buddy Tate, tenor-baritone sax; Skip Hall, piano; Everett Barksdale, plays more technique on Skip Hall's jor Holley has a short but pertinent guitar; Major Holley, bass; Jo Jones, fine tune, You Took My Heart. Skip bass solo, and this title is the most drums. plays great organ throughout, and listenable of the three on this side. Hello Smack, Come and Get it, Stan's rhythm is steady. Stans Dance closes the lp and Dance. The most fun is Sweet Daddy, a again imparts a bounce feeling more The trombone quartets are really rocking medium-tempo blues with than a flow, this again due to Barks- enjoyable and full of the fun that comedy repartee between Vic and dale's two-four guitar. Rudy Ruther• Dickie loves to have with jazz. The Dickie, with some fine organ and some ford has a spot here as he does on first is a slow blues dedicated to really gutty bowing bass-vocal mo• Hello Smack, none really long enough Tommy Dorsey and begins with ments from Major Holley. Although to develop an idea, although he has mournful mutes, quite Dukeish in this has been Slam Stewart's vehicle a good, clear tone and easy facility effect, and has good solos from each for many years, in some ways Major with his instrument, in this case clari• man: Matthews, Morton, Dickie and has more soul, if that term can be used net. Buddy's solo here is the best. Vic in that order, and very good in describing a solo of that nature. Felsted and Stanley Dance can take organ by Skip Hall, who knows how The B side reverts to an ordinary a bow for the trombone quartets and to handle the instrument without combination with less successful re• in general for the over-all policy that abusing it. George Matthews hasn't sults, although some of the solo work led to recording these too-often neg• been in a studio for nearly a decade, is interesting, especially Skip Hall's lected musicians, all of whom have since his Basie days, and it would be piano. They don't come together as plenty to say. In general, their policy nice to hear more from him at an• a group, and the tunes are relatively is somewhat too cautious; it reverts other sitting. The contrast between casual. The rhythm in the first, to the standard lineup, which tends his solo and Bennie Morton's which Buddy's tune and arrangements are to make the listener feel that the B follows is quite interesting, since Mat• in the Fletcher tradition circa 1936. half is just another session. thews' is somewhat of a more hesitant Barksdale has some guitar solos here —Frank Driggs

New Faces at Newport: The RANDY from catching fire has been dispelled. chester has a fine melodic gift and a WESTON Trio; The LEM WIN• He is in great form here, sure of hand wonderful, supple, swinging beat, two CHESTER Quartet. Metrojazz E1005. and bubbling with inspiration. qualities that in themselves can take Randy Weston, piano; George Joyner, Hi-Fly has been well chosen and is a man a long ways in jazz. His vibe bass; G. T. Hogan, drums. typical of the Randy Weston style. sound is pleasantly blurred. Lem Winchester, vibes; Ray Santisi, Perhaps there is some odd quality piano; John Neves, bass; Jimmy Zitano, A construction on fifths, it suggests drums. the analytical approach of Monk to about the vibraharp instrument in Hi-Fly; Bantu Suite (excerpt) ; Beef jazz piano. But once under way, itself which lends itself to sustained Blues Stew; Machine Blues. Randy does not subject his material performance. For one thing, there are Now's The Time; Polka Dots and Moon• to the searching analysis that makes few technical problems—embouchure, beams; Take the "A" Train. Monk's music at once brilliant and wind, digital technique. Most vibe Among the innovations at the last difficult. Randy is more concerned players manage to mesmerize them• Newport festival was an afternoon with performance in terms of linear selves as they bend over the instru• presentation of newly discovered tal• constructions, melody and free swing. ment with its dazzling display of ents. Of these, two whose perform• Lem Winchester is a genuine dis• metal bars arranged in their chroma• ances were well received by those covery, for which Leonard Feather tic framework. A bemused and my• fortunate and discerning enough to receives credit. Winchester has been opic stare, oblivious of everything attend the daylight session, are pre• a patrolman on the Wilmington, Dela• around, has long been the hallmark sented here. ware, police force for the last ten of the jazz vibraphonist. Possibly the It is not correct to call Randy Wes• years, and an amateur vibraharp bland sound of the instrument, hyp• ton an undiscovered talent; he won player on the side. He made the giant notic after the fashion of the Balinese the Down Beat new pianist poll in step to professionalism at Newport gong, has something to do with the 1955. But he has remained a neg• without too much trouble. His is a effect, not only on the performer but lected one, sharing this fate with genuine jazz talent. his audience. Thelonious Monk from whose style The notes tell us that Winchester's Winchester's harmonic palette is his own largely derives. Weston is in• "three favorite vibe men are 'Milt not extensive, nor are his ideas often troduced by Allan Morrison, New Jackson, Milt Jackson and Milt Jack• startling, but, once under way, he can York editor of Ebony, also among the son.' " Actually he's far much more certainly keep going. And it's pleasant, neglected when the literate and in• in the free-wheeling tradition of swingy music. Apparently Winchester formed writers about jazz are men• Lionel Hampton, with perhaps a gen• is not faced with mulling the decision tioned. erous helping of mad little Terry to turn in badge and strike out on his The Newport tape makes up what Gibbs. Winchester is a consonant own in jazz. It's a tough grind, is Randy's best record, therefore rather than a dissonant musician. And brother, but he should have no trouble much overdue. The sense of confine• like Hamp and Terry, once under making it. ment which kept his studio sessions way, he can really keep going. Win- —Ross Russell

24 THE JAZZ REVIEW LESTER YOUNG: The King Cole ing from the majority of his postwar Trio with Lester Young and Red Cal• work. ender. Score SLP 4019. Jumpin at Messner's has good sen• Personnel: Lester Young, King Cole, Red sitive drumming by Henry Tucker, Callender (A titles, 1st title on B), July who was aware of what was necessary 15, 1942. Vic Dickenson, trombone; Lester Young, behind each soloist, and has some tenor sax; Dodo Marmarosa, piano; Fred• interesting near-stride piano by Dodo die Greene, guitar; Red Callender, bass; Marmarosa. Prez's solo here has near- Henry Tucker, drums. cohesiveness. Vic Dickenson takes a Jumpin at Messner's, 1945. Maurice "Shorty" McConnell, trumpet; fast turn on what is the most even Lester Young, tenor sax; Argonne (Sadik group performance on B side. Hakim) Thornton, piano; Fred Lacey, S. M. Blues does not have particu• guitar; Rodney Richardson, bass; Lyndell larly good Prez, and only a short Marshall, drums. solo by trumpeter McConnell who was S. M. Blues, 1947. Howard McGhee, trumpet; Willie Smith, a brilliant find of the 1942-43 Hines alto sax; Lester Young, tenor sax; Wesley band. Jones, piano; Curtis Counce, bass; Johnny Jammin with Lester is a simple Otis, drums. riff blues, with Prez taking a very Jammin' with Lester, 1946. short and cohesive solo right at the Score, a West Coast label, pegged beginning. Howard McGhee plays un- at bargain price of $1.98 has reissued boppish here and Willie Smith pulls some excellent Lester Young sides, out all the stops on his solo, which which with his death become even is the longest. It would appear that more valuable. The masters here are Prez hadn't wanted to make this side, taken from Philo and Aladdin, from although it probably was credited to 1942 through 1947. him. The most interesting are these four No composer credits are given for 1942 sides with King Cole and Red the tunes, nor are there any liner Callender accompanying. These have notes. Just the usual publicity blurb been out of print for some time now, and an oddly composed cover consist• and although good as Cole is, he is ing of solarized negative prints. Re• not the ideal accompanist for Prez. gardless of the firm's taste, the lp is He is most often too busy in the back• worth having, particularly for the ground, not giving Prez the firm 1942 trio sides. Those who might chords that propelled him into the have purchased an lp of reissues on heights he reached during his Basie Intro (same outfit) entitled "Swing• years. Yet there is still much excellent ing Lester Young" which came out Prez on their four titles. Prez still had over a year ago, will find three combo the flow that was so noticeably lack- titles repeated. —Frank Driggs

very uneven, not at all like he did on the first "For Basie" lp that he direct• Basic Reunion. Prestige LP 7147. ed. It's a shame, because the trumpet Buck Clayton, Shad Collins, trumpets; Jack Washington, baritone sax; Paul Quini- work is of high order and the tunes chette, tenor sax; Nat Pierce, piano; Fred• among the best in Basie's prewar die Greene, guitar; Eddie Jones, bass; Jo repertoire. Jones, drums. Nat Pierce would be far better off John's Idea, Baby Don't Tell on Me, Blues I Like to Hear, Love Jumped Out, Roseland playing Nat Pierce than imitating Shuffle. Basie. He plays all the notes but with• This lp is a wonderful idea; the out the crispness that Basie has, and choice of musicians and tunes shows Eddie Jones, good as he is, isn't intelligence on the producer's part. Walter Page. The settled beat which But the session is unsuccessful. The Page had made the presence of the reeds are to blame, and the sound is rhythm felt but not obvious, the way awful, at least on my copy. It sounds Basie's current section does. like this session was done in a dry- I'd like to hear another session like dock or a gymnasium. this, with perhaps some other Basie It was an ill-advised gesture to al• alumni who, as soloists have not been low Jack Washington baritone solos given their due: Ed Lewis, Dan Minor,

when, as the notes state, his baritone Eddie Durham (whose guitar and Records shipped anywhere work was a bit rusty and his recent trombone and arranging talents are playing confined to alto. Baritone is readily available, C. Q. Price, Tab modern music - Dept. j a difficult instrument to get in shape Smith (it would be nice to hear him 627 N. KINGSHIGHWAY for, and Prestige must take the blame out of the R & B field again), and ST. LOUIS 8. MO.. U.S.A. here. Jack Washington was also a others. Bring Jack Washington back ALL RECORDS REVIEWED IN JAZZ REVIEW notable soloist on alto and he should again, but give him a month or so to AVAILABLE THRU US—OUR SERVICE IS FAST All records shipped are factory fresh. Send for have used it here. woodshed on baritone, please. Don't details on bonus offer of FREE JAZZ LPs. Paul Quinichette, who can usually forget Buster Smith, either. Foreign Orders Welcome. MAMMOTH LP SALE—FREE CATALOGUES sound so warm, sounds harsh and —Frank Driggs $1.00 Deposit On CODs—No CODs Overseas

JULY 25 The Golden Era of Dixieland Jazz— that is known to pervade late-hour a place or two, downright satire. 1887 - 1937, Volumes I and II, Design record dates (he invests the phrase It may be the attitude toward bass DLP 38 and DLP 91. "4 a.m." with an air of delicious players typified in Mr. Lutz's remarks Pee Wee Erwin, trumpet; Buster Bailey, depravity) that I found myself fever• about Milt Hinton that caused the clarinet; Vic Dickenson, trombone; Claude ishly clawing open the envelopes and slap-bass solo to go out of style. It's Hopkins, piano; George Wettling, drums; rushing the records to my turntable. discouraging to have a musical en• Milt Hinton, bass. I wanted to revel in the "sheer de• Vol. I: When The Saints Go Marching deavor mistaken for some sort of In, Basin St. Blues, Struttin' With Some light" of ". . . basic dixieland, easy sideshow hula-hoopery. Milt demon• Barbecue, Royal Garden Blues, Muskrat to understand, easy to listen to, and strates on several tracks that he is Ramble, Tin Roof Blues, I Would Do Any• primarily music that was indicative still a master of this difficult tech• thing For You, Birth of the Blues. of the golden era of this great stand• nique, delicately balancing the clog- Vol. II: High Society, Relaxation Blues, ard bearer of American Music the South Rampart Street Parade, Ja Da, Jazz dance patterns of the slapped sound Me Blues, Yellow Dog Blues, Weary Blues, years between the heyday of Story- with the central pizzicato line. Beau• Late Date. ville in old New Orleans and the tiful, musical fun. Goodman era." George Wettling plays stimulating Someone named Abbot Lutz has The actual music on the records, time all the way, and a couple of his written a brace of liner notes de• and a few cold towels, restored my solos are marvelous. (Did you ever scribing how he conceived the idea equilibrium rapidly, and I realized notice how similar Frank Isola's con• for this series: his chance meeting that I had been had. This is music ception of time is to George's?) with Claude Hopkins and their com• of 1958, not 1887-1937. You can hear Buster, Vic, Pee Wee, Marty, and pilation of a "lulu of a list" of Dixie• it any evening at the Metropole, or Arvell have made their peace with this land sidemen for a record date. He Nicks, or Condon's, being served up form and repertoire long ago, and describes the musicians and their by basically the same musicians in function musically within it, adding music in good old Broadway lingo. the same sort of package. The tunes a few modern fixtures, but generally Though the impact of the essays is seldom change because the customers producing what is expected of them stronger if they are read in their have learned that it is de rigueur to by the dixieland buyer. Claude is not entirety, the following excerpts may ask for the traditional repertoire, and the improviser-composer that some of serve to indicate Mr. Lutz's pithy the musicians have learned that ad• his associates are; his playing sounds style. herence to this tradition eliminates a little more old-fashioned because of "On trombone . . . glum, sad faced the necessity of writing, rehearsing, the absence of inspiration. There are or memorizing new music. Their play• Vic Dickerson [sic]. Vic gets that old moments when Rex reminds one of ing within these confines, however, fashioned slush bucket sound and no his early playing, but he has a terrible is contemporary music with roots in man alive today can gargle a vibrato tendency to pander to the tasteless the so-called Golden Era. into his instrument with any more element of his audience, mixing a raucus [sic] virility." The original melody of each tune great deal of hogwash with sporadic "Listen to him [Milt Hinton] get is given a much more perfunctory efforts to play well. The dreadfully pretty music and a firm slapping treatment than the individual solos. contrived shouts and grunts of en• sound when he takes off in Saints. Everyone knows how tunes like The couragement behind the various solos You've got to jump. . . . You'll have Saints are supposed to go, but no on Relaxation Blues are downright to smile . . . and if you can picture one sounds very enthusiastic about embarrassing. I don't recognize the Milt slapping away with a cigar playing them. Here and there I detect voice, but the hoke is familiar. drooped from the corner of his mouth, a note of weariness, irony, and in —Bill Crow a big happy grin on his face and all the music in the world coming out of that doghouse fiddle, you'll have a picture of a true dixieland scene." "It all started real great . . . Marty Napoleon forgot all about the session and had to be called at home. . . . He raced in 1/2 late [sic]. The first time this has ever happened to him. He forgot to put on a shirt, although he had a tie around his neck." "George Wettling . . . the only man on the date that didn't undo his collar and tie. . . . The only time a cigarette left his mouth was to take a drink." [Thirsty fibers?] "Vic Dickenson didn't want to talk, just wanted to play trombone. He's a musician's musician, if there ever was one." "Everyone brought their own brand plus an extra bottle for a friend. . . . That squeak in Relaxation Blues is a cork being pulled out of a bottle." Mr. Lutz's writing is so evocative of the atmosphere of exotic abandon

26 THE JAZZ REVIEW BROWNIE McGHEE, SONNY EXAMPLE A TERRY: Back Country Blues. Savoy MG 14019. 1. McGHEE-TERRY: Tell Me Baby. TURNER: Thai's When It Really JOE TURNER: Careless Love. Savoy Tell me, baby, Hurts. MG 14016. Where did you stay last night? Tell me, pretty baby, JOE TURNER: And the Blues'll (Lawd, lawd, lawd) Where'd you stay last night? Make You Happy Too. Savoy MG Your shoes ain't buttoned, Well, your hair's all nappy, 14012. Your clothes don't fit you right. Your clothes ain't on you right. Ostensibly, there doesn't seem to be 2. McGHEE-TERRY: Tell Me Baby. TURNER: Ooh Wee Baby. any reason to lump these three al• Tell me, baby, Ooh wee, baby, bums into a single discussion. After Who can your lover be? You sho' looks good to me. all, Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry (Lawd, lawd, lawd) Well, tell me pretty mama, are country, Joe Turner typifies city. Well, the reason I ask. Who may your great lover be? And though "blues is blues," each You sho' look good to me. artist portrays the regional outlook, 3. Mc G H E E - T E R R Y : Dissatisfied TURNER: Johnson and Turner Blues. social customs and circumstances of Blues. I cried last night his own environment. The more so• When you see, see me laughin' And I cried the night before. phisticated Turner blues jump from Laughin' to keep from cryin' I'm gonna change my way of livin wine to women to song and back to Gonna change my ways of livin, So I won't have to cry no more. women, while the McGhee blues ex• Sure want to change my mind. plore more thoroughly the subject 4. McGHEE-TERRY: Bottom Blues. TURNER: Lucille. matter of life as a whole. Well, meet me in the bottom, When I first met Lucille, However, the one thing that strikes Bring me my boots and shoes. I had money and clothes too. me about these records and the thing You can tell by that Now she's gone and left me that links them is the interchange of I ain't got no time to lose. Oh Lord, I'm wearin' a boot certain stanzas and motifs from one and a shoe. song to another—what students of folk music designate as "floating" lines or verses. In the true sense of folk music, the blues is not just the EXAMPLE B singer's property, but that of the en• tire folk; a man's "composition" con• 1. McGHEE: Tell Me Baby. See See Rider1: tains enough of his personality as an Tell me, baby, See See Rider, individual human being but also re• Where did you slay last night? Where did you stay last night? flects the mind and heart of the peo• (Lawd, lawd, lawd) Lord, Lord, Lord! ple as a whole. As authors of their Your shoes ain't buttoned, Your shoes ain't buttoned, own blues songs, McGhee and Turner Your clothes don't fit you right. Clothes don't fit you right. qualify as exponents of the sticking You didn't come home theory, the term ballad scholars em• Till the sun was shinin' bright. ploy to classify a song stitched to• 2. TURNER: Milk and Butter Blues. J. RUSHING: Evil Blues. gether out of existing ballads, and If you see my baby If you see my baby, which applies in the case of blues as Tell her I said, "Hurry home." Tell her to hurry home. well. Indeed, various blues stanzas I ain't had no milk and butter I ain't had no lovin' have floated through the blues of pre• Since my gal's been gone. recording times (which we know of Since my baby's been gone. through oral tradition or written col• 3. TURNER: Hollywood Bed. J. RUSHING: Evil Blues. lectanea) to Ma Rainey to Joe Tur• She's got great big legs, She's little and low, ner to Ray Charles and rock and roll And she's built up from the ground. She's built up from the ground. —blues from the country to the city She's a tailor-made woman. But that's my baby; which speak of the same ideas in the She ain't none of those hand- She makes my love come down. same language. Texts contain the me-downs. same verbal elements and change in 4. TURNER: Playboy Blues. Mamie Desdume's Blues." the manner of a kaleidoscopic pat• I walk the streets all night long Stood on the corner tern as each singer improvises them Till my feel are soakin wet, With her feels soakin wet, into his own design. I ain't seen nobody Beggin' each an' every For example, a quick check of the Look like my baby yet. Man that she met— McGhee-Terry record against the two 5. TURNER: Last Goodbye Blues. WILLIE MABON: I'm Mad. Turner sides yields the following Well, I asked my baby Ax my baby parallels (in italics) : EXAMPLE A Could she stand to see me cry. Could she stand to see me cry. Other Turner and McGhee lines She said, "Yes, doggone you big She say, "Yes, I could stand to and stanzas call to mind sister texts boy, see you on other records, or have appeared I could stand to see you die." Buried alive." so often as to become standard in the 6. McGHEE: Dissatisfied Blues. Good Morning Blues* idiom: EXAMPLE B I woke up this mornin' I laid down last night 1 Langston Hughes & Arna Bontemps, Rollin' from side to side Turning from side to side The Book oj Negro Folklore (New I was not sick Yes, I was turning from side to York: Dodd, Mead, 1958), p. 390. But I was just dissatisfied. side, - Ibid, p. 394, I was not sick, : Ibid. p. 38!!. I was just dissatisfied.

JULY 27 STANDARD LINES AND VERSES Now I'm goin' home and make love ( "Careless Love" ) ; Pete Johnson, Don 1. McGHEE: The Way I Feel. to my wife. Byas, Frankie Newton; Leonard Ware, Don't believe I'm sinkin, Joe draws a beautiful image when he guitar; Al Hall, bass; Hal West, Just look what a hole I'm in. concludes in Howlin' Winds (". . . drums; Charles Gray, trumpet; Ells• 2. McGHEE: Dissatisfied Blues. Happy Too"): worth Perkins, guitar; Riley Hamp• I can read your letters but I I know I love you ton, alto; Otis Finch, tenor; Ells• Sure can't read your mind. 'Cause the rain wrote it on my win- worth Liggett, piano; Robert Moore, 3. McGHEE: Dissatisfied Blues. dowpane. bass; James Adams, drums (". . . When a woman gets dissatisfied McGhee's Diamond Ring offers a Happy Too"). The tone of the tenor She hangs her head and cries; paradox in its narration of the rough men somehow epitomizes the "city" When a man gets dissatisfied, goings-on in a jewelry-store robbery sound, in which much more heat (in He flags a train and rides. and the thief's subsequent jailing, de• the sense of passion) is generated, in livered innocently to a sweet, ballad• contrast to the bucolic feeling of the 4. TURNER: Last Goodbye Blues. like tune. Brownie tags some of his country guitar and harmonica. The sun's gonna shine in my back verses with spoken asides to Sonny Musically, both Turner albums are door someday. Terry as the latter begins his solo: of equally high caliber. "Careless 5. McGHEE: Diamond Ring. Gone Baby Gone: Love" contains an extra-good Rocks I got myself a pistol, "Play me some blues." in My Bed in which Joe really empha• It was a forty-four. Bottom Blues: sizes those rocks; also the Johnson and 6. TURNER: Mad Blues. "Walk awhile!" Turner Blues with its very nice John• I woke up this mornin' and found When It's Love Time: son and Turner antiphony and Joe's my baby gone. "Oh yes, Sonny boy!" "Please, Mr. Johnson, don't play the 7. TURNER: Rocks in My Bed. And I love McGhee's dolefully re• blues so sad." In " . . . Happy Too", I If there two people in the world I signed "Trouble, trouble, trouble," liked Hollywood Bed, Howlin Winds, just can't stand, spoken at the end of So Much Milk and Butler Blues and Ooh Wee That's a two-faced woman, yes and Trouble. Baby. a lyin' man. Turner, too, talks to Pete Johnson The Brownie - McGhee — Sonny- By reason of the floating stanzas, on Johnson and Turner Blues ("Care• Terry album (which has a terrific the circulation of the material by ear, less Love") : "Yeah, look out gate!" cover of railroad tracks and telephone as well as the participation in the when the piano starts to walk. Joe poles curving off into the country• idiom of many individuals with a makes use of his speaking voice like side) is musically stimulating yet at common type of language and social a swinging instrument by rhythmical• the same time very restful. Perhaps status, the blues of the country, of the ly stating comments after vocal lines: this restfulness pervades (in spite of city, even rhythm and blues rotate on "That's the stuff you got to watch!" Sonny's rhythmic combustion and the one universal axis of tradition, de• (Watch That Jive from "Careless solid rock of the band tracks) because spite surface country-city-juke-box Love" and "What's the matter now?" of the immediate contact and intimacy dissimilarities that show up under (S. K. Blues in "Careless"). Joe also between the listener and McGhee, close scrutiny. Thus the connection rides over the instrumental portion whose personal observances and reac• between Back Country Blues, Careless of Whistle Stop Blues with a sweet- tions are somehow universal; in lis• Love, and And the Blues'll Make You talking entreaty that any girl would tening to McGhee, one sort of trades Happy Too. find hard to resist. human experiences with him. Now for an individual examination Album's best tracks—Gone Baby of each lp. Since I've been preoccu• It's a relief to hear Turner in an Gone, Tell Me Baby, Sunn Pretty, pied so far with texts, I may as well authentic blues context rather than Bottom Blues—feature Terry's accom• remain with them a little longer. the manufactured rock-and-roll set• paniment to McGhee's voice and gui• Turner's opening lines in Whistle tings in which he so often gets in• tar. Whether Sonny's harmonica du• Stop Blues and Ooh Wee Baby volved nowadays. Though Joe can plicates McGhee's lines, furnishes (". . . Happy Too" album) starkly brighten and enliven even rock and polyphonic backgrounds as in Tell captivate by immediately establishing roll, he naturally comes out ahead Me Baby, or simply supplies chordal the time, setting, and mood that is to with superior working material. Ac• or boogie rhythms which burst into follow: companying musicians in different uninhibited breaks as in Bottom Whistle Slop Blues: combinations on the various tracks Blues and Sittin Pretty, he delights There goes the twelve o'clock are Pete Johnson, piano; Frankie because he sounds so "uneducated." whistle: Newton, trumpet; Don By as, tenor; Brownie performs well by himself, Dinnertime for everyone but me. Teddy Bunn, guitar; Russell Jacquet with Terry, or fronting a small band Ooh Wee Baby: (which here includes Mickey Baker, It was early one Monday morning guitar; Leonard Gaskin, bass; Ernest And I was on my way to school. Hayes, piano; Eugene Brooks, drums, Turner's Sunday Morning, from in addition to Terry). Band tracks, "Careless Love," amusingly juxta• which don't exactly sound "back coun• poses sacred and profane ideas in a try," consist of When It's Love Time, single stanza: Vd Love to Love You, Love's a Dis• I been blue every Saturday; ease, My Fault. This Sunday morning I feel all Certainly Brownie McGhee, Sonny right. Terry, and Joe Turner each take ad• I been blue every Saturday; vantage of and put to best use the This Sunday morning I feel all characteristics of their particular right. styles. I made peace with my maker, —Mimi Clar

28 THE JAZZ REVIEW THE WARD SINGERS, THE cast ) ; gospel music is gradually be• off into a nice melange of gospel DRINKARD SINGERS, JEFF AND ing revealed to a wider audience than music. CHARLES BANKS: Newport Spirit• ever before. Se\eral items captured my atten• ual Stars, Savoy MG 14013. The Newport Spiritual Stars—the tion on individual numbers. The Famous Ward Singers, the Drinkard Ward Singers' guitar player obtains Singers, and Jeff and Charles Banks a country, almost hill-billy sound and I directors of the Back Home Choir) on Our God Is Real I in which the —have recorded for Savoy a number Lords Prayer swings) the guitar part It is significant, I think, that the of select performances. The liner repeats refrains over behind solo and past couple of Newport Jazz Festivals stresses that the session did not take chorus like an extra vocalist. The have included gospel music in their place as the artists sang in a church Banks line out phrases to each other programs. It is somewhat symbolic of in Newport the last Sunday of the and manage to combine antiphony the growing concern and awareness festival; rather the date was made in and duet to the extent of sounding of jazzmen, critics and listeners of the studio as a result of the enthusi• like more than two performers; they the backgrounds and traditions of astic response of the critics and the get a real wig-wag going in Happy jazz, not merely as esoterically inter• audience. in My Glory. The Drinkards produce esting lore of the past, but as an Each of the groups has four tracks: some delightfully abandoned shouts immediate reality, vitally intertwined the Ward Singers do Talk About in When Jesus Shall Come and the and bound up with the present. Rain, Our God Is Real, I'm So Glad. chorus on the same tune cuts off its Thanks to the Newport Jazz Festival: and In His Arms; the Drinkard words with the crispness of abbre• the recording companies who are in• Singers, a female group, do When I viated drum beats. The tambourine creasing their output of gospel LP's: Rise in the Morning, A Sinner Like rhythms on When I Rise in the Morn• and the rare lapses into sanity on the Me, When Jesus Shall Come, and I ing ripple out like a ride cymbal. part of television powers (Mahalia Can't Turn Around; Jeff and Charles Excellent notes by H. Alan Stein Jackson most frequently visits us via Banks do Happy in Glory, Show' Me give a short history of spiritual music video but Clara Ward recently the Way, I've Got the Witness, and and point up its relation to jazz. brightened up a Steve Allen broad• For My Sake. The package sections —Mimi Clar

THE ROBERTA MARTIN SINGERS, harmonic. and melodic patterns mically, the sum total sound being Savoy MG 14008. threaded in and out of the song fab• less rough than groups like the Davis THE FAMOUS WARD SINGERS: rics I to mention but a few ). Sisters or the Original Gospel Har- Packing Up, Savoy MG 14020. The Roberta Martin Singers would monettes, but more keenly agitated be an excellent group with which to in a uniquely female way than either "initiate the listener unacquainted of the aforementioned or the Roberta with the field of gospel music. The Martin Singers. The recurring so• group is not as striking, captivating, prano cries of ecstacy help propagate To one newly exposed to gospel or spectacular as some organizations, the Ward Sisters' excitability. singing, certain aspects of it may re• but for the newcomer, it will seem Packing Up, with the Ward quire a bit of acclimatization and ex• more restful, even at the heights of Singers under the direction of Clara planation. For example, the fresh pair its singing, than groups like the Ward Ward and her Mother Mrs. Gertrude of ears may become exasperated at Singers. There is a sweetness about Ward, stars, in addition to the leaders. trying to catch the words of the up• the Roberta Martin Singers, not in Marian Williams, Kitty Parham. tempo songs, and fail to realize that the sugary sense, but more as a result Frances Steadman, and Willa Ward. enunciation is sacrificed in such cases of their sincerity and faith. Make no Miss Steadman's resonant alto voice for the sake of rhythmic propulsion. mistake, though, the group has vital• solos in I've Opened My Mouth to The new listener may wonder also ity and generates a finger-snapping the Lord, Climbing Jacob's Ladder, at the shouted interjections and hol• beat. and We're Gonna Have a Time. Miss lered climactic phrases of the singers, Numbers like Sinner Man swing Williams' soprano leads on Good until he recognizes the emotional quietly; those like Walk in Jerusalem News, That's For Me, and Packing and spiritual impetus that leads to gradually build up in intensity of Up. Kitty Parham takes charge on "yelling." feeling; those like When He Set Me We Shall Be Changed and Clara Later, too, he will become aware Free rock with a cradle-like gentle• Ward steps forward in I'm Holding that the almost whistling soprano ness; and those like God Is So Good On and she dubs in all parts herself cries of the women with their counter• to Me possess an almost angelic pur• in What a Friend We Have in Jesus. part in the falsetto voices of the men ity. On Nothing But God, Every Now While the chorus often trades an- issue from the same emotional stream. and Then, When He Set Me Free, tiphonal comments with the soloists, Pretty soon, the newcomer might It's Amazing, and Dark Hours, the a number of the tunes substitute in• come to identify the standard musical vocal timbres of the one male singer strumental responses for the vocal formulae that have crystallized into present among the four women con• fill-ins as the Ward Singers harmonize landmarks of the gospel performance: trast nicely with the all-feminine the lines in a vertical, more chorally the inevitable ritard at the end of sound. conventional manner. Since they even the fastest of songs; the omni• The Ward Singers, on the other sound like standard glee-club arrange• present leader-chorus call and re• hand, represent a more instantly ments, I don't find the latter songs sponse patterns or vocal-instrumental startling gospel group than the Ro• as attention-sustaining or musically antiphony; the innocently-deceiving berta Martin Singers, in terms of the rewarding as the swingers or melis- slow verses that set the stage for a past experience of the new listener. matically meandering slow tunes. romping shout; the stock rhythmic. The group as a whole vibrates rhyth• —Mimi Clar

JULY 29 These Foolish Things by Lester Young to the present day, there is the approach which Gunther Schuller has —1st version 1945—Aladdin 601 evidence of a decline in spirit; described as "in the strictest sense no These Foolish Things by Lester Young his playing style, once so radi- variation at all, since it does not pro• —2nd version early 1950's—Norgran al and full of fresh ideas, has ceed from the basis of varying a given MGN 1005 c become more of a routine, and thematic material but simply reflects the majority of his record dates a player's ruminations on an un• The career of the late Lester Young seem to be treated with the "just varying [Schuller's italics] chord pro• is rather oddly chronicled in jazz criti• another job" attitude. In this gression." Secondly, both exhibit the cism and history. While he is nearly last phase of his career Lester phenomenal rhythmic flexibility of unanimously credited as being one of has been financially successful Young at his best, which is most ap• the seminal creators in the history of while replaying the various parent in his up-tempo works but the art, nevertheless his greatest phrases and devices which were which is equally present in slower works are seldom commented upon. once so revolutionary; frequent- tempi as well. This flexibility makes Sometimes one has the impression ly he has given to sensationalist the constant 4/4 rhythm act as a that the greatest weight is given to audiences exactly what they wish place to which Young can return from the works produced in conjunction to hear (namely, honking noises time to time, only to begin a fresh with Basie, such as The World is Mad and other vulgar mannerisms). rhythmic flight, as well as a stable and Taxi War Dance. Certainly, per• s a result he has become the element from which his own rhyth• formances such as these are well de• A victim of an increasing ennui, mic ideas rebound. Indeed, in up• serving of the honors granted them, he tiredness of his appearance tempo works this freedom almost but they are not creations of Lester t overflowing and spreading its draws the attention away from his Young. Rather their greatness lies way into the once so inventive great melodic gifts. Thirdly, these precisely in their totality, which is mind. Nowadays Lester is sel- works are in an AABABA form, each made up not alone of Young's con• dom jogged out of his state of lasting forty-eight bars. tributions, as interesting as they are, lethargy. From the opening bars of the first but of those of Basie and the band I submit that such a judgment as version we are aware Young has be• with the other soloists such as Wells, the above is quite false and that a gun to construct a melodic study of Clayton, and Edison as well. simple examination of Young's re• great originality. Constantly floating A thesis worth considering is that corded work from the mid-forties on in and around the beat, Young con• Young's finest works were made after will amply verify my contention. As tinues a steadily developing rumina• he left Basie and that they extend evidence, I propose that we consider tion (to use Schuller's term) until in from Afternoon of a Basie-ite in 1943 two of Young's purest masterpieces, the last bars of the first bridge he to This Year's Kisses in 1956. Now, his two versions of These Foolish briefly states a fragment of the origi• this is somewhat of a heterodox opin• Things, one dating from the mid- nal melody, only to abandon it almost ion. The by now usual approach is forties, the other from the early immediately to surge on to the last summed up in the following citation fifties. eight bars of the first chorus and from Raymond Horricks' Count Basie Only three factors are constant in from there to the half chorus follow• and his Orchestra; both improvisations. First, they are ing. There are no further citations of . .. running from the mid-1940's both examples of the free variation the original.

30 THE JAZZ REVIEW EVERGREEN REVIEW Considering this work in the line Issue #8 just out, featuring works by: of Young's development, certain Save $2.00 by things are striking. His sonority be- jack kerouac came slightly heavier and thicker, al• subscribing now though he still continued to eschew boris pasternak the use of a vibrato, thus maintaining to the lively magazine an airiness of sound made possible by e. e. cummings this lack of vibrato combined with the rhythmic interplay of Young's with the biggest names| William saroyan rhythm with the rhythm section. This anthony c. west provided a strange contrast taken to• in modern literature gether with heavier sonority which alien ginsberg Young began to utilize. Yet it must be emphasized that the essential great• Horace gregory ness of the work lies not in these ele• ments alone, but only taken in con• arthur adamov junction with the melodic beauty of paul goodman Young's line.

There is the similarity in formal and others, plus outline mentioned above between the The Evergreen Gallery, a new illustrated sec• tion on contemporary art. Edited by Barney two versions, and it is very probable Rosset and Donald Allen. $1 per copy. that Young had the earlier version well in mind when he produced the EVERGREEN REVIEW, Dept. JR, M Univiriity PI., N.Y. 3 second. Young begins the second ver• Please enter my subscription beginning with the cur• rent volume No. 8 (Send no money; you will be sion with a brief quotation of the billed later.) original in the opening bars to which • EIGHT ISSUES, $6 • FOUR ISSUES, $3.50 (You save $2} (You save 50c) he does not again recur. Once more (Canadian and Foreign subscriptions: Eight Issues, $7; Four issues, $4) the most striking feature of the work is the melodic development, which is Name. surely equal to the first version in beauty, and which in the last eight Address. bars of the first chorus rises to a City .Zone.... State. peak that is clearly superior to any• thing in the first version and that, to my knowledge, is not surpassed by anything else in Young's recorded work. But again it is not just the melodic elements in isolation which make the greatness of this performance, We find still that the rhythmic contrast between Young and the rhythm sec• tion is of great importance, plus the beauty of his sonority. And a word must be said of this factor. Young's sound has in this record, and in others of the same period, become even thicker and heavier, and there is a slightly more perceptible use of vibrato. Indeed, in some works of this period, although for brief moments only, Young almost sounds like Ben in August What is a Jazz Singer? by Nesuhi Ertegun. Webster. Yet there is still the funda• mental airiness of sound which is a An article on Blind Lemon Jefferson by constant characteristic of Young's work. Paul Oliver, Ralph Berton's story on the Nor should it be thought that these Half Note, and more Conversations with works are untypical of Young's pro• James P. Johnson by Tom Davin. Records duction in the latter part of his ca• reviewed include Gene Ammons, Buster reer. One could cite such equally effec• tive recordings as the splendid Slow Bailey, Chet Baker, Budd Johnson, Gerry Motion Blues and Stardust. It is most Mulligan, Blue Mitchell, Sonny Stiff, and unfair to ignore such fine items as these simply for the lack of spade- Zoot Sims. RECONSIDERATIONS of early work on the part of critics who are Louis Armstrong recordings. Review books, content to accept critical errors and THE BLUES, and Nat Hentoff's JAZZ IN cliches without investigation. —H. A. Woodfin PRINT.

JULY 31 REVIEWS: BOOKS

MONK'S MUSIC: Thelonius Monk's in two hearings on the score of Func• The quality of the transcription is Piano Originals, revealing instincts of tional are therefore not really inac• very uneven. Some of Monk's most The Genius of Jazz. AS RECORDED curacies. They are the result of mis• difficult passages (such as in the up• ON RIVERSIDE RECORDS. Con• guided editing and carelessness. Do tempo section of Brilliant Corners) tents: Ba-lue Bolivar Ba-lues-are; you know about the student who came seem to be notated perfectly, whereas Brilliant Corners; Functional. Charles to Harold Bauer with a carefully pre• simple quarter notes in a quiet sec• Colin, 1958. pared rendition of the Moonlight tion of Functional are left out, and Sonata on the white keys only? He mysterious bass figures appear, per• Monk was one of the few modern was going to add the black keys later, haps left over from Play Popular pianists who managed to reach me because somebody had told him the Piano by Walter Stuart or East Coast as I wandered facelessly through the black keys were for expression. Jazz Scene by Jazzbo Collins. The dismal swamp of 'The Great New Brilliant Corners and Ba-lue Boli• transcriber explained to me that he Orleans Revival some ten or fifteen var Ba-lues-are have an opening and wasn't trying to be completely ac• years ago. I remember that Bill closing statement of the "tune,'' with curate, and this striving for imper• Grauer presented a radio shot over Monk's solo sandwiched in between. fection is so well realized that it WNYC in 1946 or 1917 with Bob No indication is given of the presence would be impossible to list every error Wilber's Wildcats (of whom, or which, of any other instruments on the rec• (such as the eleven mistaken D-flats I was one) and a group headed by ord, and any rare bird who owns the in the third bar of the twelfth chorus Monk. In the course of the broadcast music but not the record would think of Functional). Geminat peccatum Grauer asked Monk what he thought that he had a book reproducing three quem delicti non pudet, as I mur• of the Wildcats. "Well," said Monk, piano solos, which is not the case. mured to myself at the time. over the air, "at least we're musi• Functional is the only piano solo per• It's perhaps not worth mentioning, cians." His remark shook me up, formed. The printed melody of Bril• but the cover picture of Monk is hid• thank God. and I owe to it the incred• liant Corners is a misspelled version eous. Whoever retouched it gave him ible splendor which I possess today of the alto and tenor lead, given a one eye and thought his beard was a —and vice versa. rudimentary bass in order to make double chin. His name is misspelled I have included this autobiographi• it a piano piece. In this form it ap• on the title page. The cover says that cal material to show that Monk's pears nowhere on the record. Ba-lue the source record is Riverside RLP music is not new and strange to me. Bolivar Ba-lues-are finds the unison 12-242 ( "Monk's Music") ; the source I own a lot of his records, have often lead run into the piano fills, so that records are correctly listed in the text heard him in person, and have worked one would think them to be one con• as RLP 12-226 and RLP 12-235. with quite a few musicians who have tinuous melodic line. And the second Charles Colin publishes a great worked with him. So, when I saw this chorus of the music is a repeat of this deal of valuable material for young volume of Monk's Music in the music shapeless artifact, whereas on the musicians, rather than for musicolo• shop, I snatched it up and ran home second chorus of the record Monk gists. One therefore shouldn't expect to play it. But I couldn't. It didn't plays some consecutive sixths and such volumes to have strict accuracy, make any sense. I decided I lacked the hardly any fill-ins at all. I would have and I wasn't looking for it when I flat, horizontal hand position which preferred to sec three staves, one with collated this music with the record• Gunther Schuller said Monk uses, and the melody, and the other two with ings. But I can't help feeling disap• I was just getting ready to stomp my Monk's actual accompaniment. Func• pointed that the music of Monk, who hand when Martin Williams called tional comes off best, except for the is so influential at the present time, up and asked me to review the book. seventy-one inaccuracies already men• could not have been more carefully Well sir, I found out that the tioned, and except for the last chorus, prepared. Mr. Colin has also pub• printed score didn't agree with what which seems to be an attempt at con• lished Sonny Rollins' Freedom Suite I heard on the record, so I went up to densation of two of the recorded and has a Bud Powell album in the the publisher's office to confront the choruses. The final cadence, which works. I hope Bud gets a better pres• transcriber. dissolves slowly upward, is largely entation than Monk did. Maybe they He said he knew, man. but Monk omitted. I guess nobody wanted to ought to put out a book of Red Gar• is, like, so far out, that he had to— waste paper on a lot of tied whole land solos; Garland used to be a you know—make some corrections. notes, and besides, the pagination of boxer, and could see that justice was And there you have it. The seventy- the book has to come out even, done. one inaccuracies which I could notate doesn't it? —Dick Wellstood

32 THE JAZZ REVIEW JAZZ IN PRINT by Nat Hentoff

Ralph Gleason in The San Fran• Now that Pete Rugolo is writing and shade and reflection and cross- cisco Chronicle, in a piece titled the "jazz" background for Richard reflection, the whole cubistic pile-up "Down Beat Having Another Shake- Diamond, following Henry Mancini's takes on a fascinating aerial quality. Up: "Despite its importance, which work for Peter Gunn, John Cassavetes Moreover, as in modern jazz, and in grew upon it almost by accident, will star as Johnny Staccato, another some kinds of modern painting, the there has seldom been any evidence private eye series. Of course, there'll process seems to go on and on being that the magazine itself was edited be a jazz background. The Candoli 'made up as it goes along,' and there or published with any sense of re• Brothers would be good for that one. is no such thing as a definite, strong• sponsibility commensurate with the ly willed final shape, but simply an effect that its stories and reviews have The Traditional Jazz Club of Mont• endless play with a set of themes. . ." had on jazz musicians. . . . Radio real issues a club bulletin. Peter Evans Like many experts in other arts stations are licensed by the FCC to is Chairman of the Club, P.O. Box who try to transassociate. Mr. Has• operate in the public interest. Mag• 1422, Place d'Armes, Montreal, P.Q. kell is out of his depth. Works the azines like Down Beat, which have a Bulletin No. 27 quotes from Joe Bat• other way round too, often, when sometimes vital role in the lives and ten's Story of Sound Recording (pub• writers on jazz use terms from paint• careers of important American artists, lisher? ) : "At this time Ma Rainey, ing, classical music, literature, etc. have at least the moral responsibility the first of the great blues singers to The knowledge of other arts can al• to operate in the public interest. One record and achieve general popular• ways help an expert in his own, but can only hope that the incoming re• ity, made her first record for an one should always be sure of his terms. gime has the desire—and will be American company. It was advertised It's too bad S. I. Hayakawa is so allowed—to do this." as electrically recorded; this led to limited in his jazz tastes. A Language protests on the part of purchasers, in Action supplement for jazz criti• Time, March 9, has a story on whereupon it then transpired that the cism could be valuable. Anybody like Ralph Gleason in its press section. justification for these words on the to start submitting a series on seman• First time, to my knowledge, a jazz label was that when Ma Rainey had tics in jazz criticism? I don't mean critic has received that kind of at• sung into the old recording horn an only parody, which is easy enough, tention. electric light had been turned on in but ideas on how some common the studio." ground in re terminology can be The February Jazz ( 36, rue George, reached between writers, musicians, Marseille) has an interesting inter• The February 8 San Francisco Sun• and audience. If one reads The Score, view with Andre Hodeir and a piece day Chronicle had another special for example, it's usually possible to on Boris Vian. "C'est Basie" says Record and High Fidelity section, understand the classical critic's terms, Hodeir, "qui a tue la mode du cool." equaled in the newspaper field only whether one agrees with him or not, by The New York Times supplements. but most of jazz magazine writing, The March, 1959, Goodchilds Jazz Reprinted is Bob Conley's excellent whatever else it is and isn't, is vague, Bulletin (172/4 Arkwright Street, article on the stereo pioneers, origi• and often so fuzzy as to be worthless. Nottingham, England) notes among nally in the Times. new lp albums: George Lewis Plays A record shop near Lenox Avenue Herbie Mann. Win Holland submits this quote and 125th Street advertised The Ala• Same issue has a valuable listing from an article by Douglas Haskell bama Concerto (Riverside) by John (with critical commentary) of most in the February Architectural Forum. Benson Brooks and featuring Cannon- of the jazz magazines in England Haskell is walking down Broadway: ball Adderley as "Cannonball Plays with addresses, price, etc. "Under the bewildering play of light Classical Music," notes Howard Hart.

JULY 33 Horizon Press announced that The The March Jazz monthly has Bruce Composer Ulysses Kay on music NEW Encyclopedia of Jazz by King's "A Reassessment of New education in Russia, as reported by Leonard Feather will be published in Orleans Jazz on American Music- Aaron Einfrank in the March 22 late 1959. This will be the biggest Records" and "Johnny Hodges" by San Francisco Sunday Chronicle: one yet. Oxford University Press ex• Burnett James. Also good to see "He said that the nucleus of Russia's pects to publish Albert McCarthy's Albert McCarthy's page, Discographi- vast music program was the seven- Who's Who, a comprehensive jazz cal Forum. He announces that Cassell year school which musically inclined biographical dictionary, in 1960. will publish his Jazz Discography children enter at the age of seven. 1958, a listing of all new jazz record• They attend the regular elementary Paul Nossiter is giving a course on ings issued in 1958. McCarthy would school as well, going to the music jazz at the Boston Center for Adult "welcome data from collectors in school for eight hours a week. There Education. And as part of the Uni• Australia, the Argentine, Brazil, Hol• is no charge for tuition, and Mr. Kay versity of Chicago Fine Arts Pro• land, Japan and Norway concerning noted that the school which the gram, pianist Eddie Baker is giving any jazz items issued in those coun• American composers visited had an an eight-week lecture and discussion tries during 1958. . . . Collectors who enrollment of 900 under the super• series on jazz until May 21. In a can send information should include vision of a faculty of 216. He added column on the intercollegiate com• personnels, recording dates and with a little awe that 'in Moscow petition for scholarships to the 1959 master numbers whenever possible." alone there are 40 of these schools. summer session of The School of Jazz You can write McCarthy at Jazz . . .' He said that in the United States in Lenox (a competition made pos• monthly, St. Austell, Cornwall, the early training of a musician is sible by a grant from the Schaefer England. usually haphazard, depending on the Brewing Company), John McLellan quality of private teachers. But in writes: "In its unobtrusive way, the British novelist and critic Phillip Russia the parents merely take their School of Jazz at Lenox has been Toynbee writes in The Sunday Ob• child to a school for an aptitude test; quietly doing what Newport has been server, February 22, of hearing a jazz if the youngster proves promising he noisily promising for a long time." group at a party given by The Mu• is given a priceless, well-grounded seum of the City of New York: ". . . background in music commencing at And at the end the great Pee-wee In a recent Jazz in Print, I won• the age of seven or eight while his Russell, now nearing seventy . . ." dered at some of the hyperbole in American counterpart is busy tap• What reference book does Townbee Bruce Cook's Django Reinhardt arti• ping simple rhythms on wooden use, or doesn't he bother with one cle in HiFi Review. Says Cook: it blocks. After the seven-year school, when he writes about jazz? was the editing. The title (he also competitive exams weed out the lesser writes), "Man He Was the Greatest," talents who either go to work or fol• Tom Davin, this magazine's expert was not his. low some other course of study. Those on ticklers I ragtime pianists), writes: who pass these tough exams attend "I see by the papers that the old The March Jazz-Hot has pieces on a musical high school for four years. pimps and ticklers' styles of full-back, Buck Clayton and the Horace Silver Only the most gifted continue their flared-skirt clothes are coming back. Quintet, among other articles. And studies at one of Russia's 22 major The Men's Fashion Council in Lon• one Hop Frog has revived Revue de conservatories." During his last year don had a showing that exhibited Presse. I'm glad to see it happen, but at the Moscow Conservatory, "the flared-skirt coats (in red!) with lin• I still miss Boris Vian. We do appre• student must write a major work and ings of red, too, with patterns of foxes ciate all that space for Jazz Review have it successfully performed at and hounds all over. This would be and the "plus vives felicitations." the Conservatory or he does not considered undignified by any stylish graduate." city pimp 40 years ago." "Jazz Over Tokyo," by Richard Gehman in the March 14 Saturday How about a ticklers' fashion festi• The February Musical America, Review: "Imitation is still widely val at Newport? In the afternoon, of the large annual omnibus issue (cover practiced; it's the main characteristic course, for the scholars. picture is of Zino Francescatti), has of Japanese jazz. We even had one an important piece by Gunther Schul- singer who called herself Ella John McLellan in the Boston ler concerning the history "of cross- Vaughan. Her real name was Kiyoko Traveler on Ellington: ". . . Duke . . . fertilization on a compositional as Maruyama . . ." About a rock-a-billy running through new themes at an well as a performer level between the group: ". . . they succeed only in upright in his suite. Telling a few worlds of classical music and jazz." emphasizing the latent homosexuality friend? about the mocking bird he Title (not Schuller's choice) is "Is that is evident in the unconscious heard from his car window. And in• Jazz Coming of Age?" An expanded parodies of genuine folk music on corporating this aural fragment of and revised version of the article will which the States rock'n'roll stars have sound into a new song. Or seeing a appear in a future issue of The Jazz built their reputations." Any com• cloud of fireflies on a summer night. Review. Dig the Modern Jazz Quar• ment on that one? Same issue has And combining this visual image with tet ad on page 167 of the same issue. H. A. Woodfin on Fats Navarro, and the sound of bullfrogs in a swamp Maurice Faulkner on Lukas Foss's for another new sound." From Jet: "The Coordinating "Non-Jazz Group Improvisation," a Council for Negro performers is subject referred to in a previous A question from Paul Sampson launching a probe into the employ• Jazz in Print. apparently reflects some doubt among ment policies of major booking agen• other readers concerning the page cies, General Artists. MCA and Wil• According to The New York Times, with two Steve Allen album covers in liam Morris, who earn thousands in Dr. Barry Ulanov has been pro• the February Jazz Review. That page commissions from top Negro stars, moted to associate professor at was an ad from Steve Allen, and we yet employ no sepia secretarial help Barnard College. appreciate his support. in their offices."

34 THE JAZZ REVIEW Jazz 2, second issue of Ralph Glea- For anyone interested in folk this son's Quarterly of American Music, is music, an extremely important book advertisement worth getting. First two articles are has been published by the Princeton directed expendable. Duke Ellington's "A University Press — The Traditional to the Royal View of Jazz" is as weightlessly Tunes of the Child Ballads, Vol. 1 Discographer-Historian- charming as his platform manner, (502 pp., $25), by Bertrand Harris Collector and Henry Pleasants' "Jazz and Clas• Bronson. Alfred Frankenstein has a sical" is as usual spectacularly con• double-page review of the book in Subscribe fused. Among the most solid pieces the February 15 San Francisco Sun• to . . . in the book are Robert Crowley's day Chronicle that is also a superb RECORD "Black, Brown and Beige after 16 introduction for the layman to the Years"; and Dick Hadlock's review nature and problems of folk collect• RESEARCH of the Jelly Roll Morton Library of ing. He also explains and criticizes A bi-monthly journalistic endeavor, now in its 4th year, devoted to sound, Congress Riverside reissues. Of much the degeneration of the Child tradi• accurate and interesting research into value but somewhat disappointing are tion to the point of making folk-song all phases of Musical Americana (Jazz, Wendell Otey's examination of Andre scholarship synonymous with the Vaudevillian, Personality, Folk, Popu• Hodeir as composer, and Louis Gott• study of antiquarian texts, with the lar . . . and the largest record auction in the world, in every issue.) lieb's review of the Brandeis Festival result that "the history of the ballad" Album. Otey's review of the Hodeir gets to be regarded as a "closed albums is far and away the most lucid book." Bronson, by finding and Record Research and detailed exposition yet printed in selecting the tunes that go with the 131 Hart Street Brooklyn 6, N. Y. this country of Hodeir's approach to ballads, has done much to re-prove jazz composition. It is, however, ex• that "the ballad is a thing of eternally Please start my subscription at once. position mainly, and fails to indicate living and proliferating tradition . . ." Here is $3.00 for your introductory offer several debatable aspects of some of and that "a song is song and not a of 12 issues. Hodeir's work. Similarly, Gottlieb on poem." In short, he has re-emphasized Name Brandeis is illuminating but he, too, the musical significance of this field, fails to cope with the fact that not which had—in the academies—be• Address all of the pieces were successful, and come almost entirely a literary study. a couple could well be called failures. The book is handsomely printed; the City State Exposition isn't enough. Superior musical examples are clear; and as BONUS DIVIDEND!!! photographs by Jerry Stoll of the Frankenstein writes, the volume "is a periodic record bulletin to all sub• Monterey scene are also a feature essentially a study in the morphology scribers, in addition to regular sub• of Jazz 2. of the Anglo-American ballad tune, scription. but he builds no procrustean beds . . . There is now a new topographical This book is not only a masterpiece approach to jazz "criticism"—from a of scholarship to be placed on equal February 25 Variety review of the footing with Child; it is also a mas• ORDER NOW Cecil Taylor United Artists album, terpiece of disinterested publishing to Hard-Driving Jazz: ". . . the style which the world of folk lore owes an JAKE TRUSSELL'S is more smooth sailing on cool waters incalculable debt." than hard-driving over rocking "After Hours Poetry" roads." Francis Newton in the March 12 New Statesman on Lambert-Hend- ***** Jazz Musicale at White House, said ricks-Ross: "They make a superb Jazz and night life from the March 6 Washington Post. It was cabaret act, a joy to the musicians a musicale following the President's who catch all their allusions, but Mexico to New York City. state dinner for the President of El basically light entertainment." . . . ***** Salvador. Paul Whiteman was com• Good reporting: Russ Wilson's March pere, and Buddy Weed played some 15 Oakland Tribune piece on where Ask the jazz fan who's Gershwin. Also, "Victor Herbert's Little Pony comes from. It started as bought a copy. music will be sung by Earl Wrightson a riff blown by San Francisco altoist +++++ and Helena Scott. Included in their Pony Poindexter that Harry Edison repertoire will be songs from The heard and later told Neal Hefti Written by a jazz disc Red Mill, Eileen, Dream Girl, Sweet• about. . . . hearts and The Fortune Teller." jockey and former band An abridged version of Alan P. leader who knows what When are they going to have a Merriam's Characteristics of African show-tune musicale at the White Music is one of many fascinating he's writing about. House? articles in Volume XI, 1959, of the +++++ Journal of the International Folk Olivier Keller has an article on Music Council. For information oh Send $1.00 to blues guitarist-singer Roy Gaines in how to subscribe, write the Secretary, the January Bulletin du Hot Club de IFMC, 35, Princess Court, Queens- JAKE TRUSSELL France. ... A long biographical way, London W. 2. Box 951 article on Bix Beiderbecke by Jean- Marie Godin in the February Jazz We are interested in analytical Kingsville, Texas (Paris). Also a reproduction of that pieces on Bill Evans and Art Farmer. Price Includes Mailing two-page Esquire picture of 57 jazz• Any volunteers? Also on Roy Eld• men. With permission? ridge.

JULY 35 St. Louis Cyclone Blues I was sittin' in my kitchen lookin' out across the sky, Sittin' in my kitchen lookin' out across the sky, I thought the world was endin', I started in to cry. The wind was howlin' the buildings began to fall, The wind was howlin' the buildings began to fall, I seen that mean old hoister comin' just like a cannon-ball. The world was black as midnight, I never heard such a noise before, The world was black as midnight, I never heard such a noise before, Like a million lions, when turned loose they all roar. The people was screamin', runnin' every which-a-way, The people was screamin', runnin' every which-a-way, I fell down on my knees an' began to pray. The shack where we was livin' reeled an' rocked but never fell. The shack where we was livin' reeled an' rocked but never fell, How the cyclone started nobody but the Lord can tell. How the cyclone started nobody but the Lord can tell. (By Elzadie Robinson. Paramount 12573. the Blues Transcribed by Max Harrison.)

Better Day Went up on the mountain, looked down in the sea, Thinkin' 'bout the woman, the one we couldn't agree, But that's all right, I don't worry, oh, there will be a better day. Oh look-a here, people, I need a break, Good things will come to those who wait, An' that's all right, I don't worry, oh, there will be a better day. When I had money, I had plenty friends, Now I don't have a dime, like a road without an end, An' that's all right, I don't worry, oh, there will be a better day. My burden's so heavy, I can't hardly see, Seems like everybody is down on me, An' that's all right, I don't worry, oh, there will be a better day. 'Sung by Brownie McGhee, acc. by Sonny Terry, on Folkways FA 2327. Transcribed by Irwin Hersey)

Fore Day Creep When you lose your money, don't lose your mind, When you lose your money, don't lose your mind, When you lose your good man, please don't mess with mine. I'm gonna buy me a bulldog to watch my man while I sleep, I'm gonna buy me a bulldog to watch my man while I sleep; Men are so doggone crooked, afraid he might make a 'fore day creep. Girls, I'm gonna tell you this, ain't gonna tell you nothing else, Girls, I'm gonna tell you this, ain't gonna tell you nothing else,- Any woman's o fool to think she's got a whole man to herself. But if you've got a good man and don't want him taken away from you, Girls, if you've got a good man and don't want him taken away from you, Don't ever tell your friend woman what your man can do. Lord, Lord, I'm gettin' up in years, Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, I'm gettin' up in years, But mama ain't too old to shift her gears. I'm a big fat mama, got the meat shakin' on my bones, I'm a big fat mama, got the meat shakin' on my bones, And every time I shake some skinny gal loses her home. (Written and sung by Ida Cox. On Vocalion 05298. Transcribed by Eric Townley.)

36 THE JAZZ REVIEW News and Views

Newport and Great South Bay by Francis Thorne The great boom in high fidelity, stereo• scenes at both, and they are rather different each other. The Newport organization was phonic sound, Ips and tapes in America in in their approach to the problem of pre• actually very helpful to the Great South the last decade has not kept the average senting a festival. They are distinctly Bay people when they were organizing, jazz listener from having a strong desire similar, however, in one vitally important and many mistakes were avoided because to hear live performances, with the at• way: their charters are almost identical. of this friendliness. Of course, since many tendant wonders of on-tlie-spot improvisa• They are organized as nonprofit corpora• of the things that Newport does were tions and, often enough, less than perfect tions dedicated to the benefit of jazz and not deemed right by the South Bay crowd, sound conditions. Since the essence of this jazz musicians. Proceeds such as are ac• it was inevitable that the two became quite extraordinary music is to he found in the cumulated are to be used for such things different. lively art itself, it is not surprising that the as music scholarships, commissioning new Take size and atmosphere, for example. festivals thai arc devoted exclusively to jazz works from jazz composers, helping in• The large conception and the consequent are springing up all over the country. digent old-timers, and various special demand at the Newport box office has re• George Wein, the Newport director, will projects that will further the understand• sulted in the fact that Newport has always direct al least three more festivals next ing and enjoyment of jazz. Both charters set up its bandstand in the open air. summer. Crowds of well over twenty thou• particularly emphasize that the founders Although the sound problems had been sand come swarming to hear marathon believe that jazz is the only truly original largely solved by 1958, there is still a programs of music, demanding more and native art form to have been produced in vastness and an impersonal quality (when more until the small flours of the morning. America. fifteen thousand people gather together in In the following paragraphs we shall go Programwise, there is a marked con• front of an orchestra) that seems to me somewhat behind the scenes of several trast between the two festivals. Newport, to be utterly foreign to most of jazz, and festivals and also make a short attempt to as the first, biggest and only really national certainly an inaccurate context for all but analyze just what is happening and what festival of jazz, has become an all-star perhaps the noisier big bands of such as I his development has mean! to the world panorama of jazz, with a program of eight Basie, Kenton, and Ellington. When one of jazz. or nine bands and soloists and singers be• is part of this sea of humanity, there is a One of the strangest aspects of this enor• ing a normal concert. Great South Bay, on feeling that one is sitting far away with mous increase in the jazz audiences through the other hand, because of its smaller con• the music behind a glass wall and with the addition of the festival media is the ception and also because the directors have the sound electrically transcribed out into fact that it seems to be occurring when the preferred it in theory, has never had more the audience without much personal com• art itself is in a sort of doldrums. There than two or three basic groups on any munication. This was the biggest problem is plenty of critical writing, thousands of given program, preferring to allow the that Great South Bay tried to cope with, records, tons of publicity and more and groups a reasonable amount of time to even though it was obvious that the crowds more concerts, but the amount of genuinely show what they have to say. In fact, the would be infinitely smaller. creative and stimulating performance, in directors have always asked the band lead• It was decided to try Great South Bay other words, the amount of really original ers how much time they wish to play and with a large circus tent that had a maxi• music one hears, is very small. Obviously then have honored this request within mum sealing capacity of two thousand there is plenty of good jazz being made, reason. people. Fortunately, it worked very well in but somehow it doesn't seem to get re• It is obvious that the Newport Festival many respects. First of all, with the band• corded or get played in jazz festivals. of today gives a jazz fan an anthology of stand in the middle of the long side of a Perhaps the recording studio and the live the music with critics' panels in the morn• 180- x 60-foot rectangle, there was not a concert before a huge audience in ihe open ings, and there is simply no other place seat that was more than seventy-five feet air are not indigenous to the music itself. where a person can go and hear such a from the music. This meant that the sound At any rale, these festivals are in fact comprehensive survey of the jazz scene, carried to all corners of the tent without mushrooming, and the quantity of blown past and present. Great South Bay could the benefit of amplification, except for jazz continues to increase steadily. That never hope to do this, but instead tries soloists, singers, and such soft groups as they exist al all testifies to the powerful at- to select enough representative groups from the Modern Jazz Quartet (which played traction of even adequately performed jazz. all kinds of jazz so that there is a maximum uninterruptedly through a savage thunder• For the rest of this article I shall limit of contrast and coverage with a minimum storm). There is a feeling of intimate rap• my comments to Newport and Great South of bands. There are no panels or extra• port between audience and musicians in Bay, not only because that happens to be curricular activities, just the music itself. the tent setting, which gives a most warm the limit of my experience as a spectator, 1 believe that there is a place for both and intimate feeling. I felt this spirit par• but also because I have been behind the types of festivals, as they really complement ticularly during the above-mentioned storm,

JULY 37 friday, Saturday, Sunday

great performances

CHICAGO URBAN LEAGUE Saturday Afternoon BENEFIT PERFORMANCE 2 P.M.

Miles Davis Sextet Duke Ellington Band Count Basie Band Jimmy Rushing Joe Williams Oscar Peterson Trio Dizzy Gillespie Quintet Dukes of Dixieland Dave Brubeck Quartet Jimmy Giuffre 3 Kai Winding Septet Bobby Darin Dakota Staton Mort Sahl, Emcee Mort Sahl, Emcee k MAGNIFICENTLY STAGED IN THE AIR

Sunday Afternoon 2 P.M.

Count Basie Band Stan Kenton Band Louis Armstrong AH Stars Joe Williams Four Freshmen Red Nichols Lambert, Hendricks & Ross June Christy and His 5 Pennies Ahmad Jamal Trio Sonny Rollins Trio Stan Kenton Band Jack Teagarden All Stars Nina Simone Chris Connor Don Elliott Austin High Gang J. J. Johnson Quintet Earl Bostic Sextet David Allen Coleman Hawkins Mort Sahl, Emcee Mort Sahl, Emcee Mort Sahl, Emcee

Programs Subject To Change when everyone in the tent seemed to be cert fee. A long-negotiated and -promised Rex decided that a repetition of the first drawn together. I will never forget a roll and only the promise of the lowest con- year would be a mistake, but the festival of thunder which coincided precisely with recording in I lie first year failed to ma• directors felt that the band should re-form Connie Kays drum roll in the MJQ's per- terialize because ol an engineers' strike. because of the fact that there was no re• lormance on the above evening of John Musicians would get other jobs and fail to cording of the first reunion for commercial Lewis' Cortege. It is not unusual tor a appear at rehearsals, personnel was always release. True, there had been a Voice of performer to chat with a member of the changing. Don Redman was originally sup• America tape, but the Musicians Union audience between numbers, or even ex• posed to direct the band, but he never responded negatively after months and change a word or two while the music showed up at all before the concert (neither months of effort on the part of myself is in progress (something that the venerable did Coleman Hawkins and Buster Bailey). and Rex to get them to allow a recording reedman Garvin Bushell was moved to do Accordingly, some substitutes had to be company to release a couple of lps. in the middle of a solo with Hex Stewart's rung in. A few men such as Garvin Bushell. Accordingly, Rex got to work and dug South Bay Seven). Great South Ba> crowds Paul Webster. I he trumpeter, and Benny up some more Henderson arrangements are not so much different trom those a! Morion, the trombonist, were in regular like the I) Natural Blues. More important, Newport, excepl lhat there seems to he a attendance, and so there was a nucleus. he wrote a new suite called Georgia higher percentage of people who come Kven toward I he end rehearsals were ter• Sketches which Dick Gary orchestrated, simply lo hear the music, while a typical rible, and we all despaired of ever hearing and titled in memory of the birth state of Newport crowd is lar too big lo be any- a good performance. A new piece written the late leader. Rehearsals were just as lliiiig but a cufiglomoral ion ol all l\pes. ior the occasion by Teo Macero was a inadequately attended this year, and a few One Ben Webster; Dickie leeling thai one had heard much of il be- Somehow Rex persisted, and got the Wells was init of town for several weeks lore. Il becomes something ol a ""routine" Henderson arrangements into some sem• before the concert (but made the concert when each year such Associated Booking blance of order. Perhaps (he most tragic ilsell); Jimmie Crawford had another job, Corporation artists as Louis Armstrong, aspect was the tact that old-l lenderson- and Mousie Alexander rilled in adequately, Dave Brubeck. Gerry Mulligan, Klla Filz- drummer Waller Johnson didn't drive I he bul was not another Jimmy. Somehow. Rex gerald, Billie Holiday ami Knoll Garner hand (he was one of those who can no pulled it together, and considering all I he are hack in the already overcrowded pro• longer make a living in music, although handicaps that he had to cope with (the grams. As I have said before, many of [he he is slill a good drummer). Rex had to festival was still operating on a shoestring), big names write special material for the call in Jimmie Crawford of Lu nee ford fame, a hearing of the Cnited Artists' lp Hender• occasion, but al Ilie opening conceit in who changed the sound a bit with Ids whip• son Homecoming, whieh was taped at the 1 '>fw I heard Klla Kit/gerald sing exacli) lash afterbeats (which I love with Jimmy I, concert, will verify at least some of the wonder of the performance. It is also com• I lie same program that I had heard the and the band did take on a new lease on mendable that the repeat appearance came previous week in a night club in New life. Things got more gloomy when the bus off as well as it did ami was not an anti• N oik. and Louis Armstrong devoted most didn't show up lor the baud in New York. climax after llie sensation of the previous o| his a I lolled lime to his High Society In lad. until they arrived at the lent some year. Unfortunately, with the band not be• him music (d I he previous year, and other two hours late, we all had no idea whether ginning until so late, there were many older eheslnuls. Just as annoying to me was they would appear at all. Buck Clay Ion unusable things, including most of the lo sit ihrough the first Great South Bay and Jimmy Rushing did an extra set which bea uI i f u I first sect ion o f t he Georgia concert three weeks later and bear the was excellent. Finally, the hand arrived Sketches, bul the rough vitality of this Horace Silver Quintet play the same "rou• l the bus had arrived at the rendezvous just performance is there, and \ believe that tine I hat 1 hey had done at New port. tol - as the men were beginning lo scatter), and there is plenty ol real value in the record. lowed by the same from the Jimmy Ciuffre alter a long intermission for getting set up. It's possible thai the first year is better .'•>. Nevertheless, in the Ciuffre case the Rex was ready lo kick off. I shall never left to legend, as scrutinizing an lp can dillerent quality ol the setting made the forget the opening sounds. They came on often remove some of the astonishment of music sound fresh. In the cosy tent atmos• like an explosion. They were preceeded by the "real thing.' phere, with very effective blueisb lighting an eloquently moving introduction by com• on the group, the audience sat in rapl mentator Nat llentoff which, with the Hen• Jazz festivals seem to be here to slay. silence and attention, and the group deh- derson theme quietly in the background, Some will fall by the wayside. They will brought some very legitimate tears to many II it«• I\ came across strongly. contribute only in so far as they try to eye--. The musicians themselves were ob• This cosy feeling has made possible in• have an intelligent point of view in staging. viously moved. What followed was one of dividual solo appearances ol extraordinary People have a way of tiring of getting the llie most exciting musical demonstrations power. Charlie Mingus played, all alone, a same dish over and over. Let us hope thai that I have ever heard or witnessed, both po weii id ly moving m inor blues ca I led Newport does u-e its unique position ot on and off the stand. Some of the perform• Haitian Fight Song, which was, lo me. strength to continue the many special kinds ances were, as expected, a bit ragged. more compelling than quintet performances of projects that they have made the bare Chaos was an utter madhouse, even in its of llie same thing lhat I have heard. The beginnings on. Great South Bay has a very simplified version. Yet the band played a alonal pianist Cecil Taylor communicated cloudy future because of being heavily in light U rapping it lp and King Porter with strongly playing by him^elt before he debt. I hiless a new source of funds can wonderful solos by Coleman Hawkins, who brought on his rhythm section. This kind carry it forward until il can operate on was the individual star of the festival. As ot presentation helps lo give wonderful its own, it appears to be doomed. For those the evening progressed, the band did "what collirasts lo a program, particularly if a thai do continue, and perhaps there will il used lo do years ago. thai is. develop big band is included It is my understand• be some that we have not heard of as yet, riffs and make up arrangement on the spot. ing that the Krench Lick Festival solved they should last so long as the primary The up-tempo one done on Nagasaki was I he a I mosphere-commun ica I ion problem by objectives is the music itself. Where the unbelievable. erecting a tent over a portion of the audi• driving incentive is money, or the ego of ence area. I believe that Newport could a promoter or "prestige for jazz." 1 can Gerry Mulligan was so excited as he improve their presentation immeasurably hardly visualize a healthy future. Where stood off stage thai, after about ten minutes were they to do this. Certainly, the smaller the appearance of such groups as the Farm- el building tension, he came on stage and and more subtle groups would come across ingdale High School Band and the South blew some tremendous choruses. As the heller, and the audience that was inside Huntington I ligh School Band can be performance became almost unbearable, it the tent would certainly be less restless. effected, jazz will be st i inula led. Where suddenly ended, and the enlire audience, new works will be commissioned and old The South Bay problem of restlessness as one person, rose to its feet (literally bauds are re-formed, there will be life and stems from (he bar that has been set up jumped) with a roar of a volcano. 1 realize vitality. Where new artists can make them• near the rear of the tent. This was done thai I have resorted to the most purple selves properly heard, and forgotten men for reasons of financial reward, and is un• prose to describe this scene. I find that can find that they are still appreciated, likely to be repeated. it is the only way that I can manage to the music will have the ring of truth. The thing that has been most closely write about it. Rex wisely came back after identified with Creat South Bay is the this with a couple of Henderson standards, Let us hope lhat the jazz festivals in Fletcher Henderson Heunion Band under and llie concert came full circle as the America gain a further awareness of the Hex Stewart's direction. Tin-- task involved tribute to Henderson that it was meant to circumstances under which jazz can best fantastic difficulties, and the persistence be. There were two other wonderfully lake form. Let it not be lorgotlen that and the coinage of Mr. Stewart in this ven• nostalgic events, both beautifully played. much of this music is simple and heartfelt, ture is worthy of the greatest admiration. Busier Bailey did his old specialty Memphis and that an artist is a sensitive soul, not (Hues with his wonderful quavers and trills, As the festival was and has always been to be sold in the market place. Jazz has and Don Redman sang his perennial Gee, operated on a "shoestring." il was neces• found a new medium; let us hope that it Bab), Ain't I Good To You. sary to have many rehearsals without pay. has also found a friend.

40 THE JAZZ REVIEW Washington Jazz Jubilee by Tom Scanlon

An unusual charity show, called Wash• Armstrong, the Wolverines, Duke Ellington, But this is hindsight. ington Jazz Jubilee, was held in the na• accompanied by musical illustrations of the A big band of all-stars (mostly swing-era tion's capital on March 16. Some of the jazz text. Then came the man who really put veterans but including modern altoist Phil was excellent; some was pedestrian; some this Jazz Jubilee on the road, Willie (The Woods) led by Dick Cary, musical director worse than that, in any event, the music Lion) Smith. The Lion charmed the people for the Jubilee, played several Cary ar• wasn't the real story of this black-tie affair into rapt attention; he gassed the seemingly rangements capably, but its music was only originated by an energetic jazz enthusiast ungassable. occasionally exciting. who also happens to be a congressman's The Lion was introduced by Conover, The Newport Youth Band (ages fourteen- wife. The thing that made this jazz concert now on stage, this way: "Duke Ellington seventeen), led by a prancing Marshall atypical was that it was attended, in the always will admire a pretty girl; his music Brown, played well, considering their lack main, by people who not only didn't like so testifies. But the only time I ever saw of experience, though perhaps with too jazz but didn't even think they did. Duke Ellington's face light up with any• little concern for dynamics (everything was But the obvious, a wisecrask-type report thing like adoration was once at Carnegie LOUD). The Youth Band also gave the of the Jubilee, would be unfair and in• Hall in New York. 1 was standing back• show one of its finest moments, a trumpet accurate. As jazz concerts go, it wasn't bad. stage in the wings. The orchestra had solo by Alan Reuben, sixteen, on She's and the very fact that such a show could be played a number, and Ellington was pre• Funny That Way. Reuben displayed a arranged in the first place is in itself a paring to introduce another when suddenly BraflTike fat tone and received a well- tribute to all who worked so hard to make his eye caught a movement in the wings. deserved very large hand. The Youth Band the thing a success. He looked past me, his expression changed also featured two "let's see how many Of course the socialites mumbled while to, well, to a little boy's expression at first notes we can play per second" alto sax there was exciting music to be heard. Of facing Santa Clans. He walked off the stage players in a duet which would probably course there was a woman at the next table and grasped the hand of the man he'd impress all easily impressed hippies. Both who had never, never seen anything like seen: Willie (The Lion) Smith." Explain• youngsters did what they did well, but 1 Pee Wee Russell's countenance as it is ing how Willie The Lion had been a major question whether it was worth doing. They knotted up when he plays the clarinet. Of figure at Harlem rent parties "where sounded very much alike, as is perhaps course there was a man at another nex! youngsters like F"ats and Duke would listen discouragingly typical of so many young table complaining, "But jazz is art and this starry-eyed and leave inspired to become musicians in this "golden age" of jazz. big men, too.'' Conover introduced Willie is only a show!'' Ernestine Anderson sang well and re• The Lion as one who "addresses the piano A packed bouse of more than 1,500 peo• ceived the crowd's attention. She came over with all the grandeur befitting the bearer ple attended. The Jubilee was a smashing best when she was not sounding like Sarah of the name W'illiam Henry Joseph Berthol financial success, netting over $10,000 for Vaughan, I thought. Her Honeysuckle Rose Bonaparte Bertholoff." the charity, which was Friendship House, a brought a grin to the face of hard-working settlement house in the Capitol Hill area Then Willie proceeded to wow 'em. In pianist Ray Bryant and easily cut her of Washington. Tickets cost ten dollars.. red vest, derby, and munching a fat cigar, Sarahesque Time After Time. The show opened impressively. A blue he told the fascinated audience that the Phil Woods and Frank Rehak teamed up spot caught Buck Clayton, on a balcony "idol of Ellington's youth" idea was all for a lengthy "modern" set that pleased a playing the blues unaccompanied as onh wrong and that lie and Duke were the same tiny minority and sent innumerable social• an expert can. Vic Dickenson joined in. a age, which is Irue enough (Willie is sixty. ites scrambling for the exit. It also failed to few moments later, on the opposite balcony Duke is fifty-nine), and that "anyway, I excite at least one member of the press. This was good stuff, designed to capture the always say that men are as young as they The entire show was recorded by Mer• attention of the chattering crowd. But most Icel and according to what kind of wife or cury in stereo, and this undoubtedly ham• of the people couldn't care less. They didn't lady friend they have." Then with the pered the music somewhat. The rhythm know Buck Clayton or Vic Dickenson from crowd in his hand, The Lion praised Wash• section was far apart and a good distance Moe and Joe, and they didn't listen. Pee ington as "a most inspiring city." praised from the rest of the band. The rhythm Wee Russell and others continued the blues the "ladies running the program." and section seldom functioned as a unit (I don't on stage. praised drummer Jo Jones who was waiting think the men in the section could hear one Then a voice, familiar to JNewport Jazz to accompany Willie. Following a pause, another well enough). During the program Festival spectators, came on from some• and timed perfectly, he then barked "So Conover announced that "Mercury is donat• where: '"Jazz is so young, only fifty or sixty lei's let the piano talk!" And talk it did. ing performers' royalties to Friendship years old. that we lack perspective yet. We as The Lion wrapped up his lilting Echoes House [the charity] and perhaps we should know the blues were an essential jazz ele• oj Spring in inimitable fashion. This re• applaud them and also buy an album when ment, and the music of the church was ceived respectful silence and a thunderous it conies out." This is puzzling logic, some• part of it. But when did the elements first ovation. After a few other jovial remarks. how, but no matter. Willie followed with Contrary Motion, dem• come together to produce the first music we The most boring part of the show, to onstrating on the first chorus that Erroll can agree to call jazz?'' this viewer, was the seemingly interminable Garner wasn't the first to employ a four- Thus began a basic jazz-history lesson b\ set by Toshiko Akiyoshi. Her piano playing beat rhythm, guitar-like left hand, and Willis Conover, Voice of America jazz com• was imitative and routine at best. then proving, perhaps even to the handful mentator, which was designed to tie the The most exciting music of the night, in of hippies in the audience, that stride piano show together into something educational many ways, was the final selection, a blues is far from dead. Grinning Jo Jones as well as something entertaining. The at medium tempo by Cary's all-star pickup chipped in with a solo, demonstrating—as Jubilee had been subtitled, somewhat pre• band. Ray Bryant got the thing romping he has so many limes—that a drum solo tentiously and inaccurately. "A History of in fine style, demonstrating an excellent need not be noisy and dull. Jazz from Congo Square to Carnegie Hall." left hand, and everyone soloed well. It was (Why must jazz feel so proud of making After that, the jazz-history lesson was left called Jazz for Friendship and it was excel• Carnegie Hall?) pretty much in midstream (not in main• lent jazz music. Buddy Tate's staccato but Willis, offstage, introduced Paul Bar- stream because there was no Kansas City intensely swinging and flowing tenor saxo• barin, the fifty-eight-year-old drummer who jazz, no swing era mentioned). Introduc• phone solo was superb. played with King Oliver, Sidney Bechet, tions were shorter, and this was just as After the show, a party was held honor• and Louis Armstrong when jazz was young well because it was getting late and there ing Congressman and Mrs. Richard Boiling and happily unpretentious. were a good many performers to get on. by Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Marks. Mrs. Boi• And so, with no mention of Congo Perhaps the whole thing might have gone ling originated the idea of the Jazz Jubilee Square as indicated by the title, the jazz- over better if there had been no attempt and was the general chairman. Mrs. Marks history lesson continued with comments on to cram even a tiny basic jazz-history was her assistant chairman. Mrs. Boiling the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. Louis lesson down the throats of the uninitiated. says she'll do it again next year.

JULY 41 The SPRING issue LETTERS Well, if you've stuck with me this long, you're probably saying, "What the hell is (Continued iron: Page 3) of DISSENT features: the point of all this?" There isn't any destroyed another favorite of mine in those really, except that it is my incontrovertible days, Will Hudson & Eddie DeLange's De- A Discussion on conviction that Lester Young would be Witt ('linton High band from which only alive today if it weren't for the fact that The American School: Gus Bivona survives as an active player. his own tong put him down. Lester, with As neither a musician nor critic, it is his complete lack of guile, his failure to Education for a Democratic Culture difficult for me to describe the effect that understand why his community of profes• by MICHAEL WALZER Lester's music had on me. 1 can only say sion with other musicians did not protect that his arrival with a I ISO troupe at an him against their petty jealousies, which Issues and Goals in the Debate on Air Force base in Sheppard Field, Texas, were even vicious enough to label (or Education while I was there was probably the high libel) him a homosexual because his fey of the war for me, and that contemplates sense of the humorous led him down some by MELVIN TUMIN both armistices. Lester was working with a rather devious paths, was completely un• Hue group of Negro musicians, including equipped to face a world which denied a/so, Al Sears, who has since defected to the him the opportunity to do the thing he B & R camp, and when he stepped out in did belter than anyone else, blow a tenor The Second Industrial Revolution and front with his pork-pie hat and dark glasses sax. In the context of Lester's personality, the Western World (no USO monkey suit for him), he blew his almost childlike lack of defenses led the crackers, the hayseeds, and even we him to the most obvious solution of his by FRITZ STERNBERG studiedly casual easterners right out of our problems gin. seat. It was only on*1 of many memorable 30 Years of Soviet Industrialization Even one so blinded as f by my love nights that Lester gave me, but it is one of Lester's music and my affection for a by GREGORY GROSSMAN I remember best. man I knew on an extremely limited basis and, What I am trying to communicate with (a few extended barside conversations) will all this is that 1 (apart from so many fans, admit that Lester had his own inherent A Controversy over C. Wright Mills' critics and even musicians who so proudly shortcomings and that his fate in essence point to their Minton lineage) made it with was one of his own creation, since all men Book on War Lester troin the time I heard his first solo. have free will. To me, this is an over- by IRVING HOWE and A. J. MUSTE I might have tumbled''sooner had not his simplication of the story of Lester Young. pungent lone been so well hidden in the Sure he sinned, bul so did we, so did the Earl Warren, llersohel Evans, Buddy Tate world, by letting this talent slip away. Reviews — Letters — Miscellany sax sections so that 1 didn't pick it up It is perhaps unfortunate that we expect on records until I'd heard him blow on the so much more from our idols than they are Special: Bertold Brecht's Last Poem scene. As I learned later from Lester him• in most cases capable of delivering, fn self when I met him (much too late), 750 a copy $3.00 per year Lester's case, all he had to contribute was criticism of his delicate tone and his predi• his music. Evidently this was not enough. lection for honks, which to him were a To me, Lester's fate represents the terribly DISSENT Dept. 0-41 normal part of his improvisational pattern, cannibalistic posture of jazz today. The were the first chinks in the pitiful armor musicians with whom I have discussed 509 Fifth Avenue, New York City 17 that lliis sensitive man attempted to ereel Lester during the past year have taken a around himself. universally hands-off attitude. Whatever at• tempts were made to reunite him and his JAZZ PHOTOGRAPHS When I came out of service early in 1946, I was caught up in the desperation family and return him to some semblance of the times, the problems of a new family of normal living were made by people who From an extensive and unique and its responsibilities, and music and were not musicians. Although it may be a records seemed somehow remote and un• manifestation of a negative tribute to his private collection, featuring pix important. Around 1949 I began to nose memory, during the three evenings I have around again. Much to my surprise and listened to live jazz performed since his delight, I found that I could tune the death last Sunday, not once have 1 heard of the famous and obscure in radio dial and pick up Lester everywhere his name mentioned in a dedication, al• I turned, only he now had adopted the though I have heard many of his numbers played and most of his trade-marks used jazz history. An interesting addi• name of Stan Getz, or Paul Quinichetto. or even at times, Illinois Jacquet. I would in improvisations. hear trumpet players using his phrasing, The most tragi-comic aspect of the whole tion to any record collection, the indescribably imaginative attack that thing is that a number of "memorial" al• was Lester's alone. 1 said to myself, this bums are in the works which will no doubt trad, or modern. Sweet band man must be a titan indeed. Everyone is enrich their producers and, we hope, keep using his stuff. He must be so wealthy that Lester's family, particularly his fine young he probably employs a small boy just to son, in eating money for a while. pix too. answer his agent's phone calls. I was While awaiting the start of the funeral, shocked, of course, to learn that Lester with the sidewalk filled with milling citi• wasn't working too much. Oh, of course, Examples: Dink Johnson, Chas. zens (the whole street should have been good old Norman put him on tour with his filled) 1 was approached by a solid-looking circus every now and then, but Lester gentlemen who asked me about the gather• didn't have any steady work, he just Creath, BG 1938, Waller, Bunny ing and the presence of cameramen. I told wasn't in demand. him, "Lester Young is dead." with TD, several Oliver bands, Here was irony condensed to its bitterest "Who's he?" the guy said. element. The man that all musicians of the The story of Lester's life. C. Christian, early Basie and time were borrowing from was the only Al Fisher, Wantagh, N. Y. one who was not making out. From then on, T dug Lester whenever 1 could reach Moten, Oliver Cobb (100s more). him. ft was obvious that much was wrong. First off, congrais for a magazine that The, horn was down, no longer cocked up caters to more than the modern-only fans. at -that proud angle. The eyes were dull, I am using a minor error in your Jazz Old customers: greatly enlarged the demeanor beaten. The fabulous musi• Quiz in the Feb. issue as a springboard. . . cianship showed only in flashes, and there In your Chu-Berry—Count-Basic answer list now available. Send stamp was even an occasional reed-click which in you perpetuate a mistake in Delaunay. the opinion of the old Lester and his un• Oh Lady Be Good was also done by the flagging control of his horn, would have big band and should not be grouped with for free list to been unforgivable, ft was then, finally, that You Can Depend on Me. The former has 1 learned he was trying to drink all the gin solos by both Chu (at the top of his form) Duncan P. Schiedt available and had options on some of the and Lester (not at his peak). . . 2534 E. 68th St. juniper berries that hadn't yet been Bob Tharalson, The Record Center Indianapolis, Indiana squashed. Billings, Montana

42 THE JAZZ REVIEW Coming Issues of the Jazz Review Feature

Ellington's Black Brown and Beige by Gunth- er Schuller

Quincy Jones: Building a big band.

ArtTatum by Dick Katz

Chet Baker by Roy Eldridge

Jazz Books in America by Sheldon Meyer

The State of Dixieland by Dick Hadlock

Ella Fitzgerald by Bill Russo

Billie Holiday by H. A. Woodfin

Woodie Herman by Max Harrison

Inner and Outer Jazz by Sidney Finkelstein

The Jazz Dance by Roger Pryor Dodge

The Mouldy Academicians by Charles Alva Hoyt

Wilbur Ware by Bill Crow

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A wonderfully warm, happy Things Are Getting Better: and witty LP featuring the CANNONBALL ADDERLEY remarkable blend of Terry's With Milt Jackson, Blokey, trumpet (& fieugelhorn) with etc. A truly soul-stirring Butterfield's swinging tuba. album — as more and (RLP 12-295; more jazz fans are also Stereo LP 1137) learning every day. (RLP 12-286; also Stereo LP Pi 28)

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