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Home , Al McKibbon, Black Lion Records, Bouncing with Bud, Ernie Henry, Glass Enclosure, Sam Dockery

-pianister i 50’erne, side 1

Monk, Thelonious (Sphere)

(b Rocky Mount, NC, 10 Oct 1917; d Englewood, NJ, 17 Feb 1982). American jazz pianist and composer. Although he remained long misunderstood and little known, both his playing and his compositions had a formative influence on modern jazz.

1. Life.

When Monk was four his family moved to . In the early 1940s he became house pianist at Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem, where he helped to formulate the emerging bop style. In 1944 he recorded with the Quartet, and in the same year his collaboration with Cootie Williams and lyricist Bernie Hanighen, the well-known tune ’Round Midnight (also known as Round about Midnight), was recorded by Williams (Hit). By this time Monk was playing at the Spotlite on 52nd Street with ’s orchestra. Between 1947 and 1952 he made recordings for Blue Note: Evidence, Criss Cross and a bizarre arrangement of Carolina Moon (1952, BN) are regarded as the first characteristic works of his output, along with the recordings he made as a sideman for in 1950, which included Bloomdido and My Melancholy Baby (both 1950, Mer./Clef). [not available online]

In 1952 Monk acquired a contract from Prestige Records, with which he remained associated for three years. Although this was perhaps the leanest period in his career in terms of live performances, in October 1954 he recorded an album with and, in a memorable session with the All Stars on Christmas Eve, he gave perhaps his finest solo performance on Bags’ Groove (1954, Prst.).

In 1955 Prestige sold his contract to , where Monk remained until 1961. An album with for Atlantic (1957) and three of his albums for Riverside (, 1956; , 1957; Monk’s Music, 1957) were masterpieces, and almost overnight Monk became one of the most acclaimed and controversial jazz improvisers of the late 1950s. In 1957 he began appearing regularly with Coltrane, and Shadow Wilson at the Five Spot in New York. During the next few years his group included such note-worthy musicians as , and , his lifelong associate. He began to tour the USA regularly and also to appear in Europe.

In 1962 Monk’s popularity was such that he was put under contract by Columbia. He was also made the subject of a cover story by Time (1964), an honour bestowed on only three other jazz musicians. He made several overseas tours, including visits to Mexico and Japan. Around 1970 he disbanded his group and in 1971–2 worked in together with Dizzy Gillespie, , , Al McKibbon and Art Blakey. In November 1971 he made solo and trio recordings for Black Lion Records in London, which some critics felt heralded a new era in his development, but shortly afterwards he suddenly retired from public view. He made three final performances with an orchestra at Carnegie Hall, and appeared with a quartet at the Newport Jazz Festival New York in 1975 and 1976, but otherwise spent his final years in seclusion in Weehawken, New Jersey, at the home of the Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, his lifelong friend and patron. His life was celebrated in the films Music in Monk Time (c1985), : Straight, No Chaser (c1989) and A Great Day in Harlem (1995).

2. Compositions.

Monk’s compositions fall into three periods: those recorded for Blue Note in the 1940s, his works in the 1950s, mainly for Riverside, and a few tunes written after 1960 for Columbia. Most critics consider those of his first two periods the most significant. Of the first-period works, Round about Midnight is his most popular, both with the public and with musicians. Evidence, Misterioso and particularly Criss Cross are considered his masterpieces in purely instrumental terms; quite different from each other, they are united by vigorous, angular melodies of a strongly pianistic character. The first eight bars of Criss Cross, for example, consist of two contrasting motifs and demonstrate Monk’s highly personal use of rhythmic displacement (ex.1). Each piece of this period reveals fresh facets of his thinking: Eronel demonstrates his affection for bop, and Hornin’ In his fascination with the whole-tone scale, which allowed him to suspend the work’s tonality for bars at a time (ex.2). Another aspect of Monk’s first-period pieces is his reworking of standard tunes, such as ‘’ (from , 1954, Prst.) and Carolina Moon, in which he dramatically alters and develops familiar material in an unorthodox and entirely characteristic fashion. In his second period Monk produced many carefree popular pieces such as Jackie-ing, but also substantial works, including Pannonica, the highly dissonant Crepuscule with Nellie and Gallop’s Gallop, a tour de force of ‘wrong’ notes Jazz-pianister i 50’erne, side 2

which unexpectedly interrupt the conventional harmonies. His most important composition of the 1950s, and perhaps the most unorthodox work of his career, was Brilliant Corners whose melody skirts the whole-tone, chromatic and Lydian scales and is furthest removed from his African American roots.

Criss Cross (1951, BN) Ex.1

Hornin’ In (1952, BN) Ex.2

3. Piano style.

It is as a performer that Monk was most misunderstood. He did not always exhibit the customary right-hand dexterity of most jazz pianists and, more importantly, his fellow jazz musicians quite often disagreed with his choice of notes. But his style, based on the Harlem stride tradition, had many strengths: a highly distinctive timbre, an ability to provide uncanny rhythmic surprises, and a wide variety of articulation. Some of his performances, such as I Should Care (from Thelonious Himself, 1957, Riv.), show a fresh use of rubato quite different from that of other jazz or lounge pianists. Monk also favoured ‘crushed’ notes and clusters which ‘evaporated’ to leave a few key pitches. But his most important contribution as a pianist was his remarkable ability to improvise a coherent musical argument with a logic and structure comparable with the best of his notated compositions. Monk invented and developed ideas rather than merely embroidering chord changes. Brilliant examples can be found in his solos and accompaniments on the recordings of Misterioso (1948) and especially Bags’ Groove, both with Milt Jackson. The album Thelonious Monk (1954, Swing) offers great insight into the audacity of Monk’s music, his solo version of Eronel in particular being outstanding for its considerable pianistic demands. Although many young musicians have borrowed and reinterpreted Monk’s melodies for their own improvisations, most jazz pianists seem incapable or unwilling to pursue the introverted, quirky, yet meticulous thought processes that inspired Monk’s greatest solos. Jazz-pianister i 50’erne, side 3

Bobby Timmons b. Robert Henry Timmons, 19 December 1935, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, d. 1 March 1974, , New York, USA. Timmons studied with an uncle who was a musician, and then attended the Philadelphia Academy for a year. After playing piano around his home-town he joined ’s Jazz Prophets in February 1956. He next played with Chet Baker (April 1956 to January 1957), Sonny Stitt (February to August 1957), Maynard Ferguson (August 1957 to March 1958) and Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers (July 1958 to September 1959). Although this last stint was no longer than the others, it was with the Messengers that he made his name. He replaced Sam Dockery to become part of a classic line-up, with on tenor and on trumpet, and recorded Like Someone In Love. His composition ‘Moanin’’ became a signature for the Messengers, and has remained a definitive example of gospel-inflected ever since. In October 1959 he joined Cannonball Adderley, for whom he wrote two more classics ‘This Here’ and ‘Dat Dere’.

He rejoined Blakey briefly in 1961, touring Japan in January (a broadcast was subsequently released as A Day With Art Blakey by Eastwind) and recording on some of Roots & Herbs. From the early 60s Timmons led his own trios and appeared regularly in Washington, DC. In Spring 1966 he had a residency at the Village Gate in New York and played throughout Greenwich Village in the early 70s. He died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1974. Timmons was a seminal figure in the soul jazz movement, which did so much to instil jazz with the vitality of gospel. Although best known as a pianist and composer, he also played vibes during the last years of his life.

Powell, Bud [Earl]

(b New York, 27 Sept 1924; d New York, 1 Aug 1966). American jazz pianist. Following classical piano studies, from 1940 he took part in informal jam sessions at Minton’s Playhouse, New York. There he came under the tutelage and protection of Thelonious Monk and contributed to the emerging black American bop style. By 1942–5, when he played in the band of his guardian Cootie Williams, he had already developed his individual style in most of its essentials. After sustaining a head injury during a racial incident in 1945, he suffered the first of many nervous collapses which were to confine him to sanatoriums for much of his adult life. Thereafter, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, he appeared intermittently in New York clubs with leading bop musicians or in his own trio. From the mid-1950s, as his mental health and musical powers deteriorated, he gradually restricted his public appearances. He moved in 1959 to Paris, where he led a trio (1959–62) with Kenny Clarke, the third member of which was usually bassist Pierre Michelot, and enjoyed a certain celebrity status. In August 1964 he returned to the USA and made a disastrous appearance at Carnegie Hall (1965); he was soon obliged to abandon music altogether.

Powell was the most important pianist in the early bop style, and his innovations transformed the jazz pianism of his time. A prodigious technician, he was able at will to reproduce the demanding styles of and , echoes of which can sometimes be heard in his ballad performances. At fast and medium tempos, however, he preferred the spare manner that he devised in the early 1940s: rapid melodic lines in the right hand punctuated by irregularly spaced, dissonant chords in the left. This almost anti-pianistic style (which was adopted by most bop pianists of the time) left him free to pursue linear melody in the manner of bop wind players, and it was as a melodist that Powell stood apart from his many imitators. At its best, Powell’s playing was sustained by a free unfolding of rapid and unpredictable melodic invention, to which he brought a brittle, precise touch and great creative intensity. Except in his later years, when his virtuosity flagged and he self-consciously adopted a primitivism resembling Monk’s, Powell never altered this basic approach, but worked ceaselessly within it to devise new melodic ideas, harmonies and ways of coupling the hands. He greatly extended the range of jazz harmony by reducing his chordal underpinning to compounds of 2nds and 7ths, and achieved an extraordinary variety in his phrase lengths, which range from brief flurries to seemingly inexhaustible lines that ignore the structure of the original.

Although most at ease in a trio setting, Powell was stimulated to his best work in competition with other leading bop soloists such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, J.J. Johnson, Sonny Stitt and especially . He also composed a number of excellent jazz tunes, among them Hallucinations (recorded by Miles Davis as Budo), Dance of the Infidels (1949, BN), Tempus Fugue-it (1949, Clef), (1949, BN) and (1951, BN), as well as the remarkable The (1953, BN), a musical impression of his experiences in mental asylums, which points to a talent for composition that was unfortunately left undeveloped. Jazz-pianister i 50’erne, side 4

Kelly, Wynton

(b Jamaica, 2 Dec 1931; d Toronto, 12 April 1971). American pianist. His family moved to the USA when he was four years old and settled in Brooklyn, New York, where as a youth he played professionally with , Ernie Henry, Ahmed Abdul-Malik, and Ray and Lee Abrams; at the age of 15 he toured the Caribbean with Ray Abrams’s group. He joined Hot Lips Page and then played rhythm-and-blues with Hal Singer (briefly in 1948), Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson (1949), Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis (1950), and Dinah Washington (1950–52). Kelly first gained attention as a soloist while performing with Lester Young (spring 1952) and Dizzy Gillespie (summer 1952). After serving in the military (c autumn 1952 – summer 1954) he alternated between the bands of Gillespie and Washington over the following three years while also holding brief engagements with in Las Vegas (1955) and on tour (late 1956). In December 1957 he established his own trio. He was most widely known as a member of Miles Davis’s sextets and quintets from February 1959, and that year appeared with Davis in the television show “Theater for a Story.” Late in 1962 Davis’s rhythm section – Kelly, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb – quit to work independently as a trio under Kelly’s leadership; from 1964 to 1965 they also performed and recorded with Wes Montgomery, having already, while still with Davis, served as the rhythm section for an earlier Montgomery recording including Johnny Griffin (1962). At the end of his career Kelly was a soloist in New York and a member of ’s quartet. He suffered from epilepsy, and his early death was due to a heart attack following a seizure.

A consistent and sometimes brilliant improviser, Kelly had exceptional skill as an accompanist, and this often overshadowed his rhythmically infectious solo style. By fusing earthy blues elements with those of the bop style as exemplified by , he developed a highly accessible and personal approach to jazz piano playing which influenced many later performers; this influence is clearly evident in the early work of , Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, and other young pianists of the 1960s.

Silver, Horace

(b Norwalk, CT, 2 Sept 1928). American jazz pianist, bandleader and composer. As a child he was exposed to Cape Verdean folk music performed by his father, who was of Portuguese descent. He began studying the saxophone and the piano in high school, when his influences were blues singers such as Memphis Slim and boogie-woogie and bop pianists, especially Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk. In 1950 Stan Getz made a guest appearance in Hartford, Connecticut, with Silver’s trio, and subsequently engaged the group to tour regularly with him. Silver remained with Getz for a year, during which time three of his compositions, Penny, Potter’s Luck (written for ) and Split Kick, were recorded by the band for the Roost label.

By 1951 Silver had developed sufficient confidence to move to New York, where he performed with such established professionals as Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, and Art Blakey. In 1952 he was engaged by Lou Donaldson for a recording session with Blue Note; this led to his own first recordings as a leader and to an exclusive relationship with Blue Note for the next 28 years. From 1953 to 1955 he played in a cooperative band called which he led with Blakey. By 1956, however, he was performing and recording solely as the leader of his own quintet, while Blakey continued as leader of the Jazz Messengers.

Silver’s music was a major force in modern jazz on at least four counts. He was the first important pioneer of the style known as hard bop, which combined elements of rhythm-and-blues and gospel music with jazz, influencing pianists such as , Les McCann and Ramsey Lewis. Second, the instrumentation of his quintet (trumpet, tenor saxophone, piano, and drums) served as a model for small jazz groups from the mid-1950s until the late 1960s. Further, Silver’s ensembles provided an important training ground for young players, many of whom (such as , Art Farmer, Blue Mitchell, , and Joe Henderson) later led similar groups of their own. Finally, Silver refined the art of composing and arranging for his chosen instrumentation to a level of craftsmanship as yet unsurpassed in jazz. He is a prolific composer, and one of very few jazz musicians to record almost exclusively original material; his work consistently combines simplicity and profundity in a rhythmically infectious style which, despite its sophistication, sounds completely natural. Several of his compositions have become jazz standards. Jazz-pianister i 50’erne, side 5

From the mid-1960s Silver wrote lyrics as well as music for a series of three quintet recordings, The United States of Mind, and recorded a number of albums featuring the quintet with ensembles of brass, woodwind, percussion, voices and strings. His quintet continued to tour regularly in the 1980s, performing a wide range of material from his impressive and influential library of original works.

Shearing, George (Albert)

(b London, 13 Aug 1919). American jazz pianist of English birth. He was born blind and began playing the piano at the age of three. His only formal training in music was at the Linden Lodge School for the Blind, which he attended from the age of 12 to 16. By 1936 he was listening to recordings of , Fats Waller, Teddy Wilson, Meade Lux Lewis and Art Tatum. He absorbed the musical vocabulary of jazz so quickly and convincingly that the Melody Maker poll voted him the top British pianist for seven consecutive years. In 1947 he emigrated to the USA and settled in New York, where he was strongly influenced by the bop style – particularly the aggressive rhythmic playing of Bud Powell.

The historic ‘Shearing sound’ originated in recordings for Discovery in 1949, notably Sorry, Wrong Rhumba, made with a quintet of piano, vibraphone, guitar, double bass and drums. Using the piano as the leading instrument, Shearing played in the block chord style known as ‘locked hands’, which he developed from ’s earlier model and from the chordal playing of Glenn Miller’s saxophone section. In this style, each note of the melody is harmonized with a three-note chord in the right hand, the left hand doubling the melody an octave below. In Shearing’s quintet the upper melody note was then doubled by the vibraphone, and the lower one by the guitar (see ex.1). By popularizing this particular ensemble sound Shearing achieved commercial success on a scale rarely known in the jazz world. Among the sidemen who played in his quintet are , Gary Burton, Toots Thielemans and Joe Pass. Shearing also played the accordion.

from Sorry, Wrong Rhumba (1949, Dis.); transcr. B. Ex.1 Dobbins

During the late 1950s Shearing began performing classical concertos with symphony orchestras in concerts which sometimes included orchestral arrangements featuring his quintet. From 1967 he performed as a soloist and in duos, notably with Mel Tormé (from 1976), which best display the full range of his abilities as a pianist and improviser. His best-known composition, Lullaby of Birdland (1952, MGM), was written as a theme for the legendary jazz club and its radio shows. A volume of transcriptions, The Genius of , was published in 1984. Jazz-pianister i 50’erne, side 6

Dave Brubeck

b. David Warren Brubeck, 6 December 1920, Concord, California, USA. Initially taught piano by his mother, Brubeck showed an immediate flair for the instrument, and was performing with local professional jazz groups throughout northern California at the age of 15 while still at high school. Enrolling at the College of the Pacific in Stockton, California, as a veterinary major, he transferred to the music conservatory at the suggestion of his college advisor. His involvement in jazz continued by establishing a 12-piece band, but most of his time was spent in the study of theory and composition. After he graduated from Pacific, Brubeck decided to continue his formal classical training. His studying was interrupted by military service in World War II. Returning from Europe in 1946, he went to Mills College as a graduate student under the tutorship of Darius Milhaud, and at about this time he formed his first serious jazz group - the Jazz Workshop Ensemble, an eight-piece unit that recorded some sessions, the results of which were issued three years later on Fantasy Records as the Dave Brubeck Octet.

Brubeck began a more consistent professional involvement in the jazz scene in 1949, with the creation of his first trio, with Cal Tjader and Ron Crotty. It was with the addition of alto saxophonist Paul Desmond in 1951 that Brubeck’s group achieved major critical acclaim, even though the trio had won the Best Small Combo award in DownBeat. Replacing Tjader and Crotty with Gene Wright (in 1958) and Joe Morello (in 1956) towards the end of the 50s, Brubeck led this celebrated and prolific quartet as a unit until 1967, when he disbanded the group. Brubeck toured as the Dave Brubeck Trio with , together with Alan Dawson (drums) and Jack Six (bass) for seven years to widespread critical acclaim. He began using a new group in 1972 involving his three sons, touring as the Darius Brubeck Ensemble and the Dave Brubeck Trio, with either Mulligan or Desmond as guest soloists, until 1976. From 1977-79 the New Brubeck Quartet comprised four Brubecks, Dave, Darius, Chris and Dan. Apart from a brief classic quartet reunion in 1976, most of his now rare concert appearances have since been in this setting, with the addition at various times of Randy Jones (drums), Jack Six, Bill Smith (clarinet) and Bobby Militello (alto saxophone).

Brubeck’s musical relationship with Desmond was central to his success. The group’s 1959 classic ‘Take Five’ was composed by Desmond, and it was the saxophonist’s extraordinary gift for melodic improvisation that gave the group much of its musical strength. Always seeing himself primarily as a composer rather than a pianist, Brubeck, in his own solos, tended to rely too much on his ability to work in complex time-signatures (often two at once). His work in the field of composition has produced over 300 pieces, including several jazz standards such as the magnificent ‘Blue Rondo A La Turk’, as well as ‘In Your Own Sweet Way’ and ‘The Duke’. Additionally, he has composed two ballets, a musical, a mass, works for television and film, an oratorio and two cantatas. However, Brubeck will always be primarily associated with his pivotal quartet recordings with Paul Desmond, and with Desmond’s ‘Take Five’, in particular (the first jazz instrumental to sell over one million copies).

Throughout the 60s, when jazz was able to cross over into other territories, it was primarily Miles Davis, and Brubeck that were quoted, cited and applauded. His band was a central attraction at almost all the major international jazz festivals, and during the 50s and 60s, he frequently won both DownBeat and Metronome polls. As early as 1954, Brubeck appeared on the cover of Time magazine, and 10 years later was invited to play at the White House (which he repeated on numerous occasions, including the 1988 Gorbachev Summit in Moscow). He later received the National Medal of the Arts from President Clinton. Brubeck remains a household name in modern jazz, and was still working on projects during the 90s and new millennium. His family of talented musicians presently touring with him are Darius Brubeck (piano), Dan Brubeck (drums), Matthew Brubeck (cello) and Chris Brubeck (bass, bass trombone). His resurgence continued in 1995 with his 75th birthday and the release of Young Lions & Old Tigers, featuring Jon Hendricks, Gerry Mulligan, Joshua Redman, George Shearing, Joe Lovano and Michael Brecker.

By making pop charts all over the world, Dave Brubeck has brought jazz to unsuspecting ears. He has done much to popularize jazz to the masses and is both a legend and jazz icon. In later years his work will surely be added to classical music reference books, notably his mass To Hope! A Celebration, his cantata La Fiesta De La Posada and his Bach-influenced Chromatic Fantasy Sonata. Haig, Al(an)

(b Newark, NJ, 19/22 July 1922; d New York, 16 Nov 1982). American jazz pianist. Haig’s year of birth has appeared incorrectly as 1924 in all known reference sources. He studied classical piano at Oberlin College, Jazz-pianister i 50’erne, side 7

Ohio, from 1940, but left in 1942 to serve in the Coast Guard. Stationed in the New York area, he was able to pursue his blossoming interest in jazz. After working with Tiny Grimes in 1944, he joined the quintet of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, contributing outstanding solos to what are widely regarded as the first full-blown bop recordings, including Salt Peanuts (1945, Guild). After joining Charlie Barnet’s big band, he worked with Gillespie in Los Angeles and made further important recordings with the trumpeter in New York (1946). He toured with Jimmy Dorsey and continued recording bop as a freelance pianist before joining Parker’s quintet (1948–50), which performed in Paris in 1949; Parker’s rhythm section also worked as accompanists to Stan Getz, with whom Haig continued in 1951. His career then quickly declined. He worked in obscurity in Puerto Rico, Miami and the greater New York area until he was rediscovered; he then toured widely and recorded as an unaccompanied soloist and the leader of a trio during the 1970s and early 80s. Haig’s early bop recordings are remarkable for his ability to improvise single-note lines with clarity at blistering tempos. During his second, revived career, he sometimes played in a more rhapsodic and contrapuntal manner, but without any loss of his characteristic dexterity.