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Home , Al Killian, Artie Shapiro, Barney Kessel, Bernard Addison, Bobby Hackett, Bobby Hammack

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8481 MELROSE PLACE 46, CALIFORNIA sion, his harmonic vision was more traditional qualities of swing, strongly related to the use of the earthiness and a tinged im• LETTERS upper partials of conventionally tri- provisatory base. As long as he adic based chords.) continues to develop in this direc• As far as the Thornhill orchestra is tion I don't see what more can be concerned, it is their inability to asked of him. grasp the rhythmic inflections of a —Don Heckman bop line that make some of the Evans charts sound so awkward. The (My remarks on , which I lines are there to be played, but intended to be quite cautious and even Chasing the Bird would sound tentative, seem to have produced a ridiculous if it were played with a lot of misunderstanding. First, I did ricky-tick dotted eighth note feeling. not say that Evans should have ap• Nor does it seem particularly fair prehended Parker's music; nor would to qualify Evans' brilliance as a jazz I, I hope, say anything so foolish; arranger- by his associa• nor was such a position the "basis" tion with . The alliance of my other remarks. Also, I did of Ellington with his orchestra is not intend to imply that Evans' also an important one, and in no talent (or even Thornhill's) functions way detracts from the specific jazz on the level of a , a Martin Williams' recent (The Jazz talent involved. If anything, it's al• Rosemary Clooney, or an Ahmad Review, July) criticism regarding most as if the Evans' facility as a Jamal—far from it.—M.W.; the significance of Gil Evans as jazz arranger has tended to obscure a jazz orchestrator seems to be his talents as a jazz composer, and based primarily upon Evans' com• this would be a really sad loss. OLD RAGS prehension of the 'bop revolution' Martin Williams states that 'in no The Jazz Review and Mr. Tom Davin and the music of . respect . . . rhythmically, linearly, are to be congratulated on 'Con• Isn't this a rather short sighted emotionally . . . does Evans appre• versations With James P. Johnson' criterion? No doubt it is true that hend Charlie Parker's music or the which appeared in JR, June 1959. the essenials of bop and the par• basic meaning of the bop revolution It's been a long dry spell since ticular rhythmic and harmonic ad• as such'. I can't help but feel that these eyes have seen information vances implied by it are not as this is begging the question. How of this type on the great James P. easily identifiable in Evans' music much of the basic meaning of the Johnson, and Davin's "oasis" is cer- as they are in that of bop revolution has been appre• atinly a welcome sight. Although or , but this is avoid• hended by ? Evans' much of the information was fresh ing the forest for the trees. art, like that of Charlie Parker would and straight-forward, one statement Evans satisfies a position in the de• be meaningless if it were limited by Davin about James P. does need velopment of jazz which is somewhat to this kind of awareness. Evans has clarification. On page 14, at the top analogous to that of Debussy and used whatever rhythmic, linear and of the 2nd column, appeared . . . Ravel in ''. At the emotional techniques of bop that he since he was the first Negro pianist time when Stravinsky was beginning found pertinent to the framework to cut his own rags.' This, we be• his massive attack on eighteenth of his own art. (Like most compe• lieve to be incorrect. Until other in• century derived harmonic and tent arranger-, he was well formation comes to hand, we would rhythmic concepts, the Impression• versed in the harmonic 'advances' record Scott Joplin as being the ists (possibly in a more subtle way) of the bop revolution long before first Negro pianist to cut his own were exploring the upper limits of that event took place, and by now rags. The following hand-played rolls triad-based harmony, venturing into has far exceeded it.) I do have a were cut by Joplin somewhere be• modality and bitonalities and widely slight inclination to wonder about tween 1910 and 1913 and released expanding the use of cross and con• his use of time, but when I listen ca. 1915-1917, if not earlier. to the wonderful rhythmic impetus flicting rhythms. Both approaches MAGNETIC RAG - Connorized (along with those of the Schoenberg of Gone on the "" album (even though poorly per• 10266 disciples) eventually resulted in the MAPLE LEAF RAG - Metro-Art contemporary music of today, the formed) my doubts soon dissipate. one method taking the form of a What it all comes down to is that 202704 violent iconoclasm while the other Evans is really a sort of prototype MAPLE LEAF RAG - Uni-Record explored the existing possibilities to of the totally sophisticated jazz 202704 such a degree, that there finally re• composer. He has borrowed freely MAPLE LEAF RAG - Connorized mained only new directions in which from whatever sources he finds con• 10265 to go. The analogy, therefore, is that venient, whether they be main• PLEASANT MOMENTS - Connoriz• of Evans remaining closer to the stream jazz, classical orchestration, ed (number unknown) developmental mainstream of jazz, or the rhythmic and harmonic teach• SOMETHING DOING - Connorized and less prone to the more violent ings of as avant-garde a composer 10278 excesses of the bop revolution. (I as Harry Partch. I think Evans is WEEPING WILLOW RAG - Con• think too that Bird was far less perhaps the only composer around norized 10277 of a harmonic revolutionary than is who has the ability and awareness I hope this clarifies matters. I will commonly considered, and that his to synthesize all of these elements be looking forward to further install• contributions were of much greater into a kind of greater whole which ments of the James P. Conversa• importance in the fields of melodic characterizes and reflects the tur• tions. improvisation and the destruction bulent elements active in jazz today, —Len Kunstadt, of the bar line. By his own admis• while at the same time retaining the Record Research Brooklyn, N. Y.

3 RAECOX RECORDS, Hotel, and among the JAZZ BULLETIN under the direction of regulars are trumpeter Teddy McRae and Eddie IRA SULLIVAN, tenorist Wilcox, recorded a clari• , and the NEW YORK NEWS compiled SUN RA Arkestra (sic); the net trio record featuring from reports by Dan Mor- Jodie Christian trio, g;enstern. Frank Driggs, , HERBIE HALL, Richard Evans trio, Chris and others. and OMER SIMEON, with a Anderson and other The Upstairs at the Metro- rhythm section of Dick musicians frequently ap• pole, the Theresa Lounge Carey, Jimmy Raney, Al pear. Visiting musicians and the Arpeggio, all of Hall, and Jimmy Crawford. , Rolf Erick- which became jazz clubs Their plans include a son, , Les this summer, have been memorial lp Spann, Philly Joe and , joined by several new• with Webb's solos played and Tommy Flannigan all comers. The Show Place by , in Greenwich Village has sat in during recent and Cozy Cole and a band weeks. presented TONY SCOTT and of Webb alumni including Traditional and revivalist a LENNIE TRISTANO group , Taft with Lee Konitz and Warne groups based in around Jordan, , Marsh. BABS GONZALES Chicago include the Franz and others. Off Beat) at 126th and Jackson band and LIL ARM• STRONG'S quartet at the Broadway opened with NORTHERN CALIFORNIA NOTES Red Arrow, the Charleston ' quartet by C. M. Garrigues Chasers at the Lincoln featuring Ray Bryant. KJAZ, northern Califor• Lounge in Joliet. Little Shavers is one of the many nia's all-jazz FM station, Brother Montgomery is also swing-era players who caught on so well in its working, with a quartet, have found in the suc• first month that owners in Joliet. cess of JONAH JONES an Pat Henry and Dave Larsen Clarinetist ALBERT alternative to ersatz extended its programming NICHOLAS recorded two lps . Other recent for Delmar, one with a to 17 hours daily. The converts included VIC septet including FLOYD DICKENSON at the Arpeggio station now plays jazz O'BRIEN, and the other where he was followed by from 9 a.m. to 2 a.m. with the trio. , and REX seven days a week. Argo has signed the STEWART, who followed The Cellar, adopted a RICHARD EVANS trio. Vee• into the "name" policy. Altoist Art jay, moving into the jazz Embers. Pepper was the September field, signed , The growing list of Jazz guest artist, with Bill and tenor player WAYNE Festivals (definition: a Weisjahns on and SHORTER under a separate concert without a hall) Chuck Thompson on drums. contract, and recently recorded Walter Perkins has been augmented by a filled the big Fire Island Jazz Festival with his MJT+3. Tempus (capacity: 3600) new Long• recorded another Dave and a Festival at Wes• shoremen's Memorial Hall Remington lp, and Albert terly, . Dom for four days straight Nicholas recorded another Cerulli reports that the over Labor Day weekend. side for Audiophile with a Playboy Jazz Festival, It was the biggest jazz group including trumpeter planned for its public event in northern Doc Evans. relations value to the California history. ST. LOUIS REPORT by magazine, was exemplary in Frank Driggs making adequate provi• sions for the comfort and CHICAGO SCENE by AW. C. Handy Riverfront convenience of both audi• Bob Koester Musicale was held in Mid- ence and performers. The active jazz clubs in• August featuring trumpeter Sight-lines were good, clude the Blue Note, the BOBBIE DANZIE'S muted House and the amplification was reason• modern jazz group and the Sutherland Hotel Lounge, dixieland-swing group of ably good, and the in• all presenting touring ex-Basie-ite bassist terminable waits between groups, and the C&C Lounge SINGLETON PALMER. Night• groups was eliminated by with the NORMAN SIMMONS clubs currently featuring a handsomely decorated septet, the Bambu with jazz include Spider's revolving stage. Back• AL BELLETO, the French El Capitan Lounge at 5523 stage facilities included Poodle with the JOHN Easton (corner of Burd) dressing rooms and toilet YOUNG trio, and the Avenue with CHRIS WOODS band and facilities for performers, Lounge with the WALTER The Havana Club at 1176 photographers were in• PERKINS MJT+3. N. Kingshighway at Vernon structed to use only Joe Segal holds off-night with the CHICK FINNEY'S available light, and one sessions on Sunday eve• Tomorrow's All-Stars. vocal group was allowed nings at the French Trumpeter GEORGE HUDSON four hours of rehearsal Poodle, on Mondays at the still has the only big time with the fifteen Gate of Horn, and Tues• band that works regularly piece band. days at the Sutherland around St. Louis. Editors Nat Hentoff Martin Williams Publisher Hsio Wen Shih Art Director Bob Cato Advertising Manager Hank Leonardo Editorial Assistant Margot Hentoff

The Jazz Review Volume 2 Number 9 October 1959

6 The State of Dixeland by Dick Hadlock 16 The Style of by Zita Carno 22 The Blues 23 Ed Lewis' Story as told to Frank Driggs 26 Introducing by Nat Hentoff 29 A Letter from Lenox, Mass. by Martin Williams

RECORD REVIEWS 33 Early by Max Harrison 35 Eubie Blake by Guy Waterman 35 Bill Evans by Martin Williams 36 by Glenn Coulter 36 Ed Hall by Guy Waterman 37 John Lee Hooker and Sticks McGhee by Chris Strachwitz 38 by H. A. Woodfin 39 The Modern Jazz Quartet by Martin Williams 40 Sarah Vaughn Israel Young and Leonard Feldman were Max Harrison has been a longtime con• by Martin Williams among the founders of the Jazz Review. tributor to the British Jazz Monthly. His NEW CONTRIBUTORS study of the MJQ will appear in Martin Williams' forthcoming anthology The Art BOOK REVIEW Zita Carno is a young pianist who will of Jazz, and essays on Charlie Parker 42 Francis Newton's The Jazz give a recital at Town Hall in December. and boogie-woogie will appear in the She is a graduate of Manhattan School Hentoff-McCarthy anthology. Mr. Harri• Scene by Ernest Borneman of Music, and has recorded with John son has had extensive training as con• La Porta. cert pianist. THEATER REVIEW Hortense Geist has worked profession• Chris Strachwitz, who came to this ally in the theater in many capacities, country in 1947, is particularly inter• 45 Jack Gelber's The Connection and was co-owner of the Off-Broadway ested in the post-war blues singers on by Hortense Geist House, The Little Theater, producing whom he is preparing an extensive bio• plays and jazz concerts. graphical and discorgraphical series. 46 Jazz in Print by Nat Hentoff The Jazz Review is published monthly by The Jazz Review Inc., Village Station, Box 128, 48 on Records New York 14, N. Y. Entire contents copyright 1959 by The Jazz Review Inc. Price per copy 50c. One year's subscription $5.00. Two year's subscription $9.00. by Erwin Hersey Unsolicited manuscripts and illustrations should be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed 50 in Great Britain envelope. Reasonable care will be taken with all manuscripts and illustrations, but the Jazz Review can take no responsibility for unsolicited material. by Max Harrison ROBERT ANDREW PARKER by DICK HADLOCK

band and the jam session. , , , , , Jess Stacy, and the made real contributions to the development and enrichment of creative thought in jazz. Their restless search for fresh ways to broaden the jazz language is the chief characteristic STM that distinguishes the Commodore reis• sues from the routine Dixieland gener• The thirteen recent releases to be dis• ally offered—even by Condon—today. cussed—some of them reissues—repre• These men did not, like early "bop" ex• sent most of the ground, arid or perimenters, express their disillusion• bountiful, within the province of "Dixie• ment with the state of musical affairs land." Behind this ambiguous label can before World War II by breaking away be found a wide variety of musical from tradition (most of the key men attitudes and aims among scores of were a little too old to think in those musicians, most of them contending with terms anyway), nor could they condone the built-in limitations of collective im• retrogression of the kind that "revival• provisation, as well as more personal ists" were advocating. Rather, they at• problems of self-expression. tempted to expand within the tradi• The time-honored three or four horn tional framework of Dixieland that had "front line," with its logical delineation served them so well. While many worked of musical roles ( lead, out satisfactory solo styles, only a hand• bass, clarinet embroidering above) is, I ful were as successful in constructing believe, more a convenient format than new ensemble patterns more appropri• an art in itself. It requires little imagi• ate to 1938 than to 1918. nation to fashion a passable Dixieland Clarinetist Pee Wee Russell is the en• ensemble, although there are worth• semble musician par excellence. For• while challenges for those who care to saking the undulating lines of more bother with them. The opportunities for conventional Dixieland clarinetists, Rus• multi-linear collective improvisation are sell adds a cutting edge to the top of frequently ignored by old-timers and the ensemble sound with a powerful but young musicians alike. As Paul Desmond flexible rasping attack. His unusual replied when asked recently if he was sensitivity to ensemble harmony is a joy tempted to stay with Dixieland for its to trumpet players, for it permits them contrapuntal possibilities, "Nobody was to depart from the melody without fear doing any of it except me." Observing of crashing head-on into clarinet notes. the ground rules of ensemble playing Russell touches the traditional third is not a creative act, but merely prepares above the lead note often enough to the way for the artist. construct a "proper" clarinet part, but The group of musicians who, by his• more importantly he stretches the en- torical accident or commercial design, are associated with 's name have devoted considerable atten• tion to ensemble playing, as well as to the development of their individual Of musical characters as soloists. Nearly all of them worked successfully in top swing-era bands, but for most the crea• UDTVIlffl liTIW tive fire burned highest in the climate of relative freedom offered by the small

7 semble fabric with fourths, fifths (this EDDIE CONDON: ing out jazz ideas that were regarded "Condon a la Carte." Com• requires an alert trombonist, for the by many observers at the time as too modore FL 30,010. It's Right fifth is traditionally his territory), sixths, Here For You; Jelly Roll; Save "far out," ideas that probably came and ninths, while spinning elastic coun• Your Sorrow; Nobody Knows You; largely from , who was ter lines that are closer to second Tell 'Em About Me; Strut Miss practicing in 1927 what a few early trumpet parts than to the arpegio-domi- Lizzie; Ballin' The Jack; Pray For "bop" modernists (Charlie Parker in The Lights To Go Out; Georgia nated filigrees that one is accustomed particular) felt they were discovering Grind; You're Some Pretty Doll; to hearing in Dixieland and military Oh Sister!; Ain't That Hot; Dancin' some twelve years later. Parker himself bands. It is largely his skillful handling Fool. claimed to have stumbled onto the of his very personal ensemble role that Personnels include: Condon, idea, in 1939, of "using higher inter• gives these old Commodore recordings ; or Marty vals of a chord as a melody line and (Condon a la Carte and Jam Sessions) Marsala, trumpet; Pee Wee Rus• backing them with appropriately related sell, clarinet; George Brunis, changes."2 Which is exactly what Bix an exhilarating vigor undiminished by Brad Gowans, Benny Morton, or time. Lou McGarity, trombone; Fats Beiderbecke (and, to a lesser extent, The most satisfactory ensemble tissues Waller, Joe Bushkin, or Gene Frank Trumbauer) was up to, although captured on record by Commodore are Schroeder, piano; or most of his cohorts weren't always , bass; Tony Spargo, aware of it and invariably failed to those involving Russell, Max Kaminsky, Sid Catlett, or , furnish the "appropriately related and the late Brad Gowans. Kaminsky drums. provides a stocky lead that leaves space changes." (This helps us to understand for other instruments to editorialize, yet why Bix might have drawn as much in• he neither leans on rhythmic drive spiration from the harmonically sophis• , as Spanier does, nor confuses the ticated scores of Bill Challis et al as he proceedings by trying to play Pee Wee's did from loose "Dixieland" surround• harmonic games, as Hackett seems to ings). Here is a classic Beiderbecke do. Gowans achieves with his valve in• solo, recorded in 1929, that illustrates strument a third part that adds a kind his gift for melodic architecture in the of bass trumpet voice to Russell's and higher intervals of the chord and, in its Kaminsky's forthright upper lines. Like short sixteen bars, suggest much of Russell, Gowans possessed an extra• what was to come in the next decade or ordinary ear that told him exactly what two. Contrast Bix's chorus, with its con• notes best suited the ensemble texture. stant emphasis on sixths and ninths, to Bud Freeman, who contributed a fourth the tune as originally written.3 perceptive musical mind to the Russell- Kaminsky-Gowans alliance from time to Example I time, is heard briefly on Carnegie Jump, Carnegie Drag, and A Good Man Is Hard To Find. Freeman is unsurpassed as an ensemble tenorman, one who knows O" JP-t- Or V+ Gr Gr D+ how to add fourth harmony to a front line without walking all over clarinet and trombone parts. It is hoped that Commodore will reissue more Freeman sides from their extensive 78 rpm catalog. For all their concern with creating con• temporary ensemble techniques that would work as well as the discarded "Chicago" style, the Condonites re• mained devoted to the main business of jazz, which is (I believe) individual expression. In this area, the men dis• cussed so far stand considerably above most so-called Dixieland musicians.1 The creative rallying point for much of the solo work in and around Commo• dore's studios was again Pee Wee Rus• sell. In the 'twenties Russell was work- -my 8 This was part of the magic of Bix that "new" composition in which each solo continued to excite so many jazz musi• is part of a sympathetic whole, a rare cians, especially Condon and Company, instance of musical understanding that long after his death. His ability to build EDDIE CONDON: takes shape as each man opens his solo "Jam Sessions At Commodore." well-proportioned melodies in the up• on the ninth of the initial chord. This Commodore FL 30,006 Carnegie per harmonic strata of any given tune Drag; Carnegie Jump; Basin effective device is so simple that it is has seldom been equalled. Before Char• Street Blues; Oh, Katherina!; A at first unnoticeable, the listener being lie Parker, Pee Wee Russell was one of Good Man Is Hard To Find. only vaguely aware that something a very few jazzmen who comprehended Personnels include: Condon, special has happened to the tune.) guitar; Bobby Hackett, Max Bix and possessed the necessary musi• Kaminsky, or , Beiderbecke and Russell are held in cal equipment to explore similar paths. ; , alto; Bud esteem because they combined these Here is the way Pee Wee got into his Freeman, tenor; Pee Wee Russell, harmonic devices with personal, per• solo on in 1938." Joe Marsala, clarinets; George suasive jazz voices in ordered choruses, Brunis, Benny Morton, Brad Gow• Compare it to Parker's first bar of the laced with warm humor, that stand on ans, or Miff Mole, trombone; Jess 5 same tune almost a decade later: Stacy or Joe Bushkin, piano; Artie their own as good music. Except for Shapiro or Bob Casey, bass; , no one seemed to accom• Example II George Wettling or Sid Catlett, plish as much along these lines until drums. Parker ripened in the 'forties. Original Joe Marsala, who appears briefly on A Good Man Is Hard To Find, is a musi• cian who knows his "extensions" (sixths, ninths, elevenths, etc.) but uses them as passing tones or places them Russell on the weak pulse, losing much of the shock value and melodic potential of the device. Miff Mole, the man who liberated the trombone from the status of jazz clown, is not heard to good advantage on these Parker recordings. He shows but a small sample of his prodigious talent on A Good Man Is Hard To Find. Good Man, an extended performance originally spread over four 12-inch 78 rpm sides, suggested re• Although Russell moves down from the EDDIE CONDON: warding sessions to come with the sixth (suggested by the original melody "Confidentially . . . It's Con• advent of lp, but unhappily these musi• don." Design DLP 47. That's A note) to the ninth whereas Parker de• Plenty; Ballin' the Jack; Cherry; cians have been forced to move in the scends from the ninth to the sixth, the Sweet Georgia Brown; Wherever opposite direction instead, toward tele• rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic simi• There's Love; What's New? Ja scoping each performance until only larities are obvious. Da; It's Been So Long; Royal frantic little digests are left. (See below Garden Blues; Sugar, Back in So we find Gowans, Kaminsky, Hackett, re Condon's latest releases on Dot.) Your Own Back Yard; Indiana. Freeman, and even unadventurous play• Personnels include: Condon, gui• Russell was still in top form in 1943, ers like George Brunis falling under the tar; Bobby Hackett, Billy Butter- when Basin Street Blues was recorded, Beiderbecke-Russell spell. Other musi• field, or Max Kaminsky, trumpet; but the alliance was broken and the cians (, Fud Livingston, Pee Wee Russell, Ed Hall, pos• ensemble work is that of any group of sibly Joe Dixon or Johnny Mince, Adrian Rollini, Jimmy McPartland, etc.) clarinet; Lou McGarity, possibly good "mainstream" musicians thrown were exploring these avenues in the Benny Morton, trombone; Ernie together. Benny Morton, a skilled musi• 'twenties, but alongside the overwhelm• Caceres, baritone; Gene Schroed- cian, is sympathetic but lacks the al• ing communicative power of Louis Arm• er, possibly or Joe most mystic ensemble insight of strong and Coleman Hawkins, whose Bushkin, piano; or Gowans. Bob Casey, bass; Joe Grauso, direct styles were being widely admired Johnny Blowers, possibly George By 1944, individual attitudes had and imitated, the experimental clique Wettling or Dave Tough, drums. drifted still farther apart. Hackett had must have seemed almost effeminate to been studying his horn and, it seems, many jazzmen. (Hawkins, though, was as well. The results sensitive to what was going on; listen were electric, but much of the old humor to One Hour,6 recorded in 1929, as Haw• and fancy had gone. The new positive kins, Russell, and Glenn Miller forge a Hackett seemed content to play satis-

9 fying arpeggios rather than to roam with EDDIE C0N00N: land, anyway. His work with Pollack, Russell through uncharted territory. "Dixieland Dance Party." Dot Nichols, Whiteman, Goodman, Freeman, There has always been a place of honor DLP 3141. Copenhagen; Riverboat Condon, and his own stood out Shuffle; Sugar Foot Stomp; Fid• at the Condon table, though, for well- gety Feet; Little White Lies; because space was set aside to display grounded musicians like Hackett with Louisiana; Dinah; Indiana; Origi• Teagarden the soloist. a flair for the elegant. The 1944 trans- nal Dixieland One Step; I've Like the Condonites, Tea loves to in• scriptions issued on Design reveal some Found A New Baby; China Boy; dulge in tunes that have the harmonic of the old gang running through en• South Rampart Street Parade; and melodic twists of Russell and Beid• At the Jazz Band Ball; That's semble passages almost numbly in erbecke built into them. His smoky sing• A Plenty; Now That You're Gone; order to get to the solos, which they Willow Weep For Me; Blue Again; ing and playing on Weary River and render as convincingly as ever. Only Sugar; Liza; There'll Be Some Someday You'll Be Sorry are warm and Russell, and sometimes baritonist Ca- Changes Made; Nobody's Sweet• delightful. Much of the joy of listening ceres, show much concern about who heart; Clarinet Marmalade; High to Jack Teagarden stems from his flaw• Society. plays what in the collective openings less execution, perfect intonation and Personnel: Condon, guitar; Rex and endings. The tempos are a little too Stewart, , or his very relaxed manner rather than fast, perhaps the first sign that the men , trumpet; Herb Hall from unusually imaginative lines or who used to get together for fun were or , clarinet; Bud carefully-wrought melodic structures. now peddling the same product as Freeman, tenor; , He seems to form ideas flatly in terms "concert" music. Facing an audience trombone; Gene Schroeder, piano; of the trombone, leaving more gossamer Leonard Gaskin, bass; George sitting on its hands in a concert hall, Wettling, drums. musical realms, unlinked to the me• performers are frequently tempted to do chanics of any one horn, to the likes something dazzling, or at least to de• of Russell and Gowans. liver the old goods at a more frenzied The "revivalists" must have made in• pace. Still, there is a cheerful spon• roads on some front-rank jazzmen at taneity about the Design hodge-podge, last, for now we find Teagarden includ• especially in the solos of Russell and ing Doctor Jazz and Tishomingo Blues Hackett. in his repertoire. Perhaps former Bunk JACK TEAGARDEN: Johnson pianist Don Ewell had some• After some fifteen years of methodically "Big "T" 's Dixieland Band." thing to do with it. Today Ewell has converting his friends' music to a com• Capitol T 1095. Wolverine Blues; Weary River; Rippa-Tutti; Tisho• "progressed" to , but his mercial formula, Condon, represented mingo Blues; Doctor Jazz; attempts to find the Waller touch fail by his new Dot release, has turned to Blues; China Boy; Casanova's because he does not produce the crisp mass production methods, stringing Lament; Walleritis; Mobile Blues; vitality, the buoyant swing, or the musi• tunes together like hot sausages. The Someday You'll Be Sorry. cal authority that were prominent in all musical outcome is about as digestible. Personnel: Teagarden, trombone; Jerry Fuller, clarinet; Dick Oak• of Fats' work. His players blow what customers expect ley, trumpet; Don Ewell, piano; them to, flooding the record with "get- Stan Puis, bass; Ronnie Greb, A more decisive tactical victory for the hot" mannerisms. Herb Hall sounds like drums. "revivalists" is 's new brother Ed. Peanuts Hucko lifts from United Artists release, which offers four Goodman, and even ap• compositions along pears to be trying to wear 's with miscellaneous vintage rags and shoes. Only Bud Freeman, particularly stomps. Clarinetist Kenny Davern, who on China Boy, remains a firm individual has toyed with every jazz era off and voice struggling to salvage a few musi• on, jumps casually from imitations of cal moments from the blustering carni• George Lewis and renderings of Morton val around him. PEE WEE ERWIN: parts a la Omer Simeon to busy eclectic "Oh, Play That Thing!" United Jack Teagarden's eloquent trombone Artists UAL 4010. Kansas City counter-lines delivered somewhat in the always seemed to me to be at home Stomps; The Chant; Yaaka Hula manner of Irving Fazola. Davern's idea with Condon's retinue, as well as with Hicky Dula; Temptation Rag; of ensemble playing is to punctuate Armstrong, where the soloists were near Black Bottom Stomp; Dipper each trumpet phrase with a soaring glis- Mouth Blues; Grandpa's Spells; sando that fills the empty space and his level; on his new Capitol lp, Jack Dill Pickles; Sensation Rag; Big has strapped himself to a small band Pond Rag; Jazz Frappe Rag; spills into the next lead statement. of quietly undistinguished musicians Georgia Swing. While this procedure conforms roughly who reduce Dixieland jazz to a spine• Personnel: Erwin, trumpet; Kenny to the bylaws of ensemble counterpoint, less recital of ensemble and solo Davern, clarinet; Lou McGarity, repeated use of the device induces trombone; , piano; cliches. I don't believe Teagarden has monotony. Worse still, Davern misses Tony Gattuso, banjo and guitar; ever been particularly suited to Dixie- Jack Lesberg, bass; Harvey Phil• several important harmonic changes, lips, ; , drums.

10 even in the simple Yaka Hula Hickey his playing on this 1942 session re• Oula and Big Pond Rag (actually Over flects, in spite of the bothersome din The Waves). behind him, a sense of melodic develop• Erwin is a good player, but he has sel• ment through harmonic alterations that dom advanced anything distinctly his even "younger" men like Keppard and own. Probably his chief claim to jazz Oliver never revealed on records. In his fame is his recorded work with Tommy own way, Bunk was flirting with the use Dorsey's orchestra, most of which con• of upper harmonic intervals as melody sists of facile copies of 's notes that we have found to be an im• style. portant element in the work of Beider• Perhaps Erwin's lack of individuality becke and Russell. Here is a typical and Davern's inability to settle in any Bunk Johnson blues phrase:7 one groove are clues to the appeal of Example III antiquarianism. Like a professor who c escapes the perplexities of today's world C by living in history, the musician who Jt n »-T-"T * f k "7 77 / y *#fm p'^

11 brilliant compared to the mechanical GEORGE LEWIS: Lewis' recordings, bands attempting to two-note grunts of trombonist Albert "Concert!" Blue Note 1208. Ice capture the rough excitement of his Cream; Red Wing; Mama Don't Warner. Allow It; Burgundy Street Blues; crew have broken out After Johnson's death, Lewis became Bill Bailey; Over The Waves; Just everywhere, notably in and the darling of that curious segment of A Closer Walk With Thee; Canal Australia. the jazz audience that collects "folk" Street Blues; Walking With The Chris Barber imported the Lewis pattern King; Gettysburg March. artists. Blue Note, who also recorded Personnel; Lewis, clarinet; Kia into England, using it to interpolate vari• Lewis with Johnson, has just issued a Howard, trumpet; Jim Robinson, ous early jazz styles, mostly gathered 1954 concert that caught Lewis and his trombone; Alton Purnell, piano; from records cut in the 'twenties. His New Orleans Stompers in relatively fine Lawrence Marrero, banjo; Alcide new Atlantic lp displays a band that is Pavageau, bass; Joe Watkins, form. The almost uncontrolled degree of probably superior to any of its American drums. enthusiasm in the rhythm section seems counterparts, and in some ways even to ignite Robinson and Lewis, whose better than Lewis' own. Barber is a contributions, if measured by energy skilled, if unoriginal, ensemble trom• units' rather than musical criteria, are bonist; clarinetist Sunshine (that's really exciting indeed. The nondescript vocals his name) catches some of the winsome by Kid Howard and Joe Watkins add ingenuousness of his hero without going CHRIS BARBER: nothing more than playing time to the "Here Is Chris Barber." Atlantic out of tune (as Lewis frequently does), record, however. 1292. Hush-a-Bye; Everybody and all members seem to enjoy what Lewis has gained a bit of poise and Loves My Baby; Tishomingo Blues; they play immensely. Applying the same You Don't Understand; Magnolia's harmonic know-how since his first con• basic ensemble formula to each tune, Wedding Day; Doin' The Crazy the band stays on safe, though fre• fused dates with Johnson, but he is still Walk; Diga Diga Doo; Bill Bailey; a remarkably naive musician who has Willie The Weeper; Trombone quently barren, musical ground. In this, learned barely enough of the jazz lan• Cholly; Papa De-Da-Da; Tuxedo as in most revival jazz bands, the tune guage to express his modest musical Rag. and the , as symbols of Varying personnels include: Bar• thoughts. Because he seems to have no other men in other times, are all-im• ber, trombone; Pat Halcox, Ben portant and the performance is the al• need for going beyond that—and prob• Cohen, cornets; Monty Sunshine, ably could not if he would—Lewis de• clarinet; Lonnie Donegan or Ed• most mechanical means of preserving serves the respect due an untutored but die Smith, banjo; Jim Bray or them. Most revivalists are, in short, honest man. He is effective when he Micky Ashman, bass; Ron Bowden musical curators who hope to keep the pulls all the stops because total involve• or Graham Burbidge, drums. properties of early jazz alive for others ment does not alter the identity of his to enjoy. A harmless pastime, to be sure, music, as it does that of his imitators but not one that produces much music (Kenny Davern is one), who have to hold to be admired, for itself. back their minds and fingers to restrict Barber's men, incidentally, seem to be their melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic more conscious of complementary har• tool to the rustic style of Lewis. This mony than were the Lewis or Johnson artless music, valid for Lewis because bands. The New Orleans groups seldom there is no suppression of musical produced three-dimensional ensemble knowledge, usually ends in inhibited jazz, holding instead to a pattern of and self-conscious failure for the im• simultaneous, occasionally clashing, itator. variations on the original melody; Bar• ber, Sunshine, and trumpeter Halcox Kid Howard's playing style is rather like attempt to relate to each others' parts 's, sometimes even sounding vertically as well as linearly. Only Hal• closer to a primitive Roy Eldridge when cox, however, demonstrates any capacity he uses scale-like runs sprinkled with for logical and symmetrical melodies of minor thirds and fourths. Howard is his own. apparently unconcerned about his in• strument's role in the ensemble, for he Persistent rhythmic emphasis on the repeatedly smothers Lewis and Robin• first and third pulse, a chronic symptom son in tutti passages. The most chari• of revival bands (although oddly, it was table way to dismiss Robinson is to Johnson and Lewis who led many tradi• point out that he is an improvement on tionalists away from the drop-forge two- Albert Warner. beat of Watters and friends), is caused With the widespread distribution of by the inability of Barber's rhythm sec-

12 tion to get off the ground. They act as "thirties and has recently adopted a a straightjacket on the horn players, who more hard-hitting tone. It is still a warm are forced to place their accents at the sound, though, especially on Darkness most conspicuous points. on the Delta. (Miller shares the Condon

Southland's "Dixieland Down South" is JOE CAPRARO: coterie's penchant for unhackneyed a collection of faded trivia featuring "Dixieland Down South." South• ballads too.) This man deserves a good some of New Orleans' current store of land SLP 220. Sidewalks of New rhythm section. second-rate jazzmen, most of whom York; A Good Man Is Hard To Bob Scobey has worked his way from Find; The World Is Waiting For have little to offer other than a limp second trumpeter with Lu Watters to The Sunrise; Nobody's Sweetheart rehash of stock "Dixieland" gimmicks. Now; Pagan Love Song; The acceptance in Hollywood ex- Most interesting performer on the date Bucket Has A Hole In It; You studio circles as a capable jazzman who is trombonist Bob Havens from Illinois, Tell Me Your Dreams; Rose Room. wants to, and occasionally does, swing. who arrived in New Orleans while play• Personnel: Capraro, guitar; Charlie However, the records that Good Time Cardilla or Ray Burke, clarinet; ing with Ralph Flanagan's band. He Jazz has just repackaged were recorded Mike Lala, trumpet; Bob Havens, phrases more like Jack Teagarden than trombone; Jeff Riddick, piano; in 1950-51 immediately after the break any imitator I have heard. Aside from Sherwood Mangiapane, bass; Paul with Watters, when Scobey was still Havens, there is no one on this record Edwards, drums. wielding the trumpet like a sledge ham• with much feeling for blues, ensemble mer. There are a few peppy tracks fea• playing, melodic invention, or rhythmic turing Darnell Howard or Albert Nicholas drive. The rhythm section, which is con• on clarinet, but Scobey was still ago• siderably below stand• nizingly musclebound at that time. ards, suffers from the most lethargic ARMAND HUG/EDDIE MILLER. Howard, an accomplished jazz clarinet• pianist I have heard since Sunday Southland SLP-221. Easy Goin* ist in some respects, is not a particularly Blues; Mr. Jelly Lord; A Dixie School days. sensitive ensemble player, deliberately Jam Session; Mad; Buzzard's Pianist Armand Hug, leading essentially Parade; Butter and Egg Man; breathing in unison with the trumpet the same group on one side of another When Irish Eyes Are Smiling; and skittering all over the horns in the Southland release, at least demon• Darkness On The Delta. course of each phrase. Al Nicholas, on Personnel, side 1: Hug, piano; the other hand, is a level-headed musi• strates that one moderately good pianist Mike Lala, trumpet; Harry Shields, can improve a drooping band. The music clarinet; Bob Havens, trombone; cian who seldom blows a note out of brightens, but the same limitations pre• Ray Burke, harmonica; Joe Ca• place. His sensuous tone, together with clude our measuring this music by any praro, banjo; Emile Christian, his unhurried respect for order, com• bass and trombone; Johnny Cas- other than amateur standards. Side 2, pensate for his limited imagination taing, drums. Personnel, side 2: (Nicholas' solos are almost always built though, moves closer to a professional Miller, tenor; Armand Hug, level with the addition of drummer piano; Joe Capraro, guitar; Chink on arpeggios that take in only the most Monk Hazel and tenorman Eddie Miller. Martin, bass; Monk Hazel, drums. expected intervals), and for the stylized Miller is a first-rate jazzman under ideal embellishments that constitute his ap• circumstances, which these are not. He proach to collective improvisation. is basically a soloist, but this endeavor Scobey, according to annotator Ertegun, to showcase his rollicking solo style is was seeking simplicity and rhythm in his impeded by a clanging rhythm section— BOB SCOBEY: new musical environment. He found most of the trouble seems to come from "The Scobey Story, Volume I." both, but neglected to refine them with Hazel's nagging after-beat—that fails to Good Time Jazz L 12032. Pretty syncopation or dynamics. Listening to stimulate Miller or even to give him Baby; St. Louis Blues; Coney the old Watters-dominated Scobey is like Island Washboard; Some of These holding one's head under the hood of fair odds. Still Miller tears into Butter Days; Beale Street Mama; Dip- and Egg Man with gusto and grit. His permouth Blues; South; Sailing a Model T at full throttle, but he has distinctive use of sixths and ninths, Down Chesapeake Bay; Wolverine improved since these recordings were though less imaginative than Russell's Blues; Chicago; Melancholy; made. That's A Plenty. and generally restricted to passing Clancy Hayes, who sings like a man with Varying personnels include: Sco• tones, lends a contemporary quality to bey, trumpet; Darnell Howard, Al• sinus trouble, parades his tarnished his solos. Only his rhythmic accents bert Nicholas, or George Probert, hokum and gaslight humor in and out (usually placed on the "strong" beats) clarinet; Jack Buck, trombone; of the music with the swaggering au• keep Miller in an "old time" category, Burt Bales or Wally Rose, piano; dacity of a burlesque headliner. and even that seems to be undergoing Clancy Hayes, banjo, guitar, and vocals; Squire Girsback or Dick Going Hayes one better, pianist Johnny change. He has discarded many of the Lammi, bass; Gordon Edwards or Maddox, on a new Dot release, attempts cliches that marred his work in the Fred Higuera, drums. to drag a band of upstanding musicians

13 with him into the arena of musical dis• JOHNNY MADDOX: "Dixieland Blues." Dot DIP 3131. honor. Neither humorous enough for Bluin' The Blues; Strut Miss slapstick nor subtle enough for satire, Lizzie; Beale Street Blues; Wol• these caricatures of traditional jazz are verine Blues; Memphis Blues; what millions of otherwise intelligent Royal Garden Blues; St. Louis people accept as "real" Dixieland— Blues; Friday Night Blues; Bow prepared piano, banjo and tuba (Red Wow Blues; Jelly Roll; Basin Street Blues; Tishomingo Blues; Callender!), three horns alternating be• Yellow Dog Blues. tween barnyard effects and staccato Personnel: Maddox, piano; Matty jokes. It is embarassing to read the Matlock, clarinet; Mannie Klein, names of the talented participants: Mat• trumpet; Moe Schneider, trom• ty Matlock, , Moe Schnei• bone; , banjo; Bobby Hammack, piano; Red Cal• der.. . lender, tuba; Nick Fatool, drums. The thirteen records just examined, all of which will be tossed in retailers' bins marked "Dixieland," cover a range of music broad enough to render the label useless. Behind the parade wagons and striped blazers, beyond the booze and musical backslapping, one may find serious artists, gifted amateurs, buf• foons, innovators, imitators, charlatans, hustlers, pioneers, novices, geniuses, has-beens, or craftsmen. I suppose coun• terparts can be found in any art that must operate as entertainment in order to stay alive. FOOTNOTES 1. This statement excludes those musicians who were These records reveal how Eddie Condon caught in the post-World War II middleground between "Bop" and traUitional jazz and turned took brilliant jazzmen in need of jam somewhat reluctantly to Dixieland to make session therapy and turned them into money^men like Joe Thomas, , a high-priced, act that "creates" on cue. Red Allen, Louis Armstrong, , Roy Eldridge, and others. Obviously, had such artists They show us the faltering musicians been truly fascinated by Dixieland, they would who were left behind in New Orleans have done something along those lines before it became economically prudent to do so. when the money went north. And they 2. Keepnews, Orrin. "Charlie Parker." The Jazz demonstrate what became of the un• Makers. Edited by Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff. Grove Press, 1957. Page 209. dated players—men like Al Nicholas, 3. Copyright 1922, Leo Feist, Inc. From Bix Beider• Jack Teagarden, Benny Morton, Ernie becke Trumpet Transcriptions. Edited by Jay Arnold. Robbins Music Corp., 1944. Caceres, . Billy Butterfield, 4. Transcribed from Commodore FL 20,016, Horn Eddie Miller, and Darnell Howard— A-Plenty; Bobby Hackett and his orchestra. 5. Transcribed from Dial 203, Charlie Parker; Charlie who were forced by the economics of Parker Sextet. The same opening statement post-war jazz to become "Dixielanders." occurs again in Quasimado, which is based on the chord structure of Embraceable You. Most of all, these records give us some 6. Included on Camden CAL 339. idea of the conceptual diversity and 7. Bunk's Blues, included in Great Trumpet Styles, edited by Billy Butterfield. Capitol Songs, Inc., musical latitude encompassed by a 1945. single term as meaningless as some of 8. Sr<2? it included in Louis Armstrong 50 Hot Choruses for Cornet. Melrose Brothers. the music it designates—"Dixieland." 9. Included on Columbia GL 520, Bunk Johnson.

14

The Style of Coltrane by Zita Carno Part I The only thing you can, and should, expect from John Col• trane is the unexpected; that is what makes listening to his tenor style hard for people who for the familiar and the conven• tional, for cliches. They are puzzled when they fail to find such things. They are thrown off by his frequently a-rhythmic phrasing. His unusual harmonic concept baffles them. They are * forced to listen with both ears and an alert mind. Many are not accustomed to having to do this, and they give up. I have been asked, goodness knows how many times, how I would compare Coltrane to , the other leader on the hard blowing school. My answer has always been that you cannot compare Coltrane with anyone else. He has a completely personal style. Even the least informed in the ways of the "hard cookers" could fail to notice the influence he has

17 exerted upon many other musicians. , on Bass Blues. Example lb. Notice how he alters and to a lesser extent, and Junior the phrasing. You will find the same sort of thing Cook, have been most strongly affected. Especially in tracks like Straight No Chaser and Soft Lights interesting is Golson because until recently he And Sweet Music. sounded like a cross between Lucky Thompson and Another phrase that recurs frequently in his playing Coleman Hawkins, with other elements thrown in. is this one, which undergoes even more alterations: Such a complete switch as this is as clear an in• example 2a gives it in a portion of his solo on Blue dication as any of Coltrane's influence. Cannonball Train. Example 2b shows what happens to that same Adderley is by now cjassic proof that you can't play phrase at the beginning of his second chorus on with Coltrane without being influenced by him. Even Bakai. Miles Davis and have picked up a few Before I go any further, I would like to discuss a things from him and have been working around most controversial aspect of Coltrane's playing: his with them. technique. It is an excellent one—one of the finest. Just what is it he's doing that has such an effect? His command of the instrument is almost un• A lot of people may be moved to think of Charlie believable. Tempos don't faze him in the least; his Parker as the widespread influence. Everyone tried control enables him to handle a very slow ballad to imitate him as much as possible, to sound as without having to resort to the double-timing so nearly a carbon copy of him as they could—which common among hard blowers, and for him there is was only natural when you consider that he revolu• no such thing as too fast a tempo. His playing is tionized jazz. very clean and accurate, and he almost never misses But what Coltrane has been doing is to get the a note. ones he has influenced into the "hard" groove and His range is something to marvel at: a full three then stimulate them to think for themselves, to octaves upward from note obtainable on work out ideas of their own within the framework the horn (concert A-flat). Now, there are a good of this style. For one there's , a tenor many tenor players who have an extensive range, man from New Jersey whose style is as close to but what sets Coltrane apart from the rest of them Coltrane's as any, yet doesn't sound like his. is the equality of strength in all registers which he Coltrane's style is many-faceted. There are many has been able to obtain through long, hard practice. things to watch for in his playing, and the fact that His sound is just as clear, full and unforced in the he is constantly experimenting, always working out topmost notes as it is down at the bottom. something new—on and off the stand—leads to the That tone of his, by the way has been, and doubtless conclusion that no matter how well you may think will continue to be, a subject of debate. A result of you know what he's doing, he will always surprise the particular combination of mouthpiece and reed you. he uses plus an extremely tight embouchure, it is To begin my discussion of the various aspects of an incredibly powerful, resonant and sharpiy pene• Coltrane's playing, I would like to elaborate a bit trating sound with a spine-chilling quality. There on the remarks I made above concerning the failure are many who argue that it is not a "good" saxo• of listeners to find anything "familiar"—any cliches phone sound. Exactly what is a good —in his solos. sound? Are we to go along with those who hold that He does have a few pet phrases that tie will use the only really good sound is of the Lester Young in his solos. But you could hardly refer to them as or of the Coleman Hawkins variety and therefore cliches. They are his own, and he never even plays assume that none of the younger "hard" tenor play• them exactly the same way twice. True, I have heard ers has a "good" sound? Lester Young's sound other instrumentalists—tenor men, trumpeters— suited Lester Young, and Coleman Hawkins' sound pick them up and try to play them, but there is a is great for Coleman Hawkins. A sound is good if it certain inflection in the way he plays these phrases suits the player's style and conception. So it is with that no one could ever hope to duplicate. Coltrane. Perhaps the most familiar of these phrases is the A word about his intonation. Those listeners who one shown in Example la. say that he doesn't play in tune have been deceived But very often he will employ it sequentially in the by that sharp edge in his sound. Of course, I don't course of building up a solo (or reaching the climax mean to imply that his horn is immune to weather of one), and he is ah expert in the subtle use of changes—no instrument is. And there are days sequences for this purpose. Notice what he does when he has some intonation difficulties. But he with that same phrase towards the end of his solo plays in tune.

18

Example 4. RUSSIAN LULLABY

imrri

I— M ll

v.rmiwA I mention all these things because they have a An excellent insight into these harmonic devices of direct connection with a good many things that his can be found in that weird phenomenon which Coltrane does. A technique like his seems essential has been variously referred to as "sheets of sound," to his approach, as we shall see. "ribbons of sound," "a gosh-awful lot of notes" and There is far more to Coltrane's style than "hard other things. These are very long phrases played at drive." Hard drive is only one aspect of it, and even such an extremely rapid tempo that the notes he then it is an entirely different kind from that of, plays cease to be mere notes and fuse into a con• say, Sonny Rollins. Coltrane seems to have the tinuous flow of pure sound. Sometimes they do not power to pull listeners right out of their chairs. I come off the way he wants them to, and that is have noticed this terrific impact on the various when the cry of "just scales" arises. That may be, rhythm sections he has played with; he pulls them but I dare anyone to play scales like this, with that right along with him and makes them cook too. An irregular, often a-rhythmic phrasing, those variations interesting phenomenon is what happens to rhythm of dynamics, and that fantastic sense of timing. sections when Coltrane takes over from another But more often they work out the way he wants soloist. Say Miles Davis is the first soloist. Notice them to, and then one hears things. There is an un• that the rhythm section doesn't push. They are re• believable emotional impact to them, plus a fantas• laxed behind him. Now Coltrane takes over, and tic residual harmonic effect which often is so immediately something happens to the group: the pronounced that in many instances the piano rhythm section tightens up and plays harder. The wouldn't be missed if it weren't playing. A perfect bass becomes stronger and more forceful, as does example of this occurs halfway through Coltrane's the ride-cymbal beat; even the pianist comps dif• solo on Gold Coast. (Example 3) ferently. They can't help it—Coltrane is driving The piano plays the changes behind this, but it them ahead. This is most noticeable on medium seems that just drums and bass would be sufficient, and up tempos where he is most likely to cut loose. because in this section the changes are right there, (It would be most interesting to see what would as you can see. happen to a typical West Coast rhythm section An example of implied changes occurs in the unac• should they find themselves having to play behind companied run he plays in the tag of Russian Lul• him.) laby. (Example 4) Look at the transcription care• Coltrane's kind of "funk" drives, rather than swings. fully, and you will be able to pick out a definite And it is less obvious. Listen carefully to his solos chord progression. It is probably the one Coltrane on such tracks as Blue Train and Bass Blues and had in mind. you will hear some excellent examples. But listen Some fantastic things happen when he plays on carefully, because it won't be as easy to spot as blues changes, the most basic ones. Example 5 is Horace Silver's kind. That solo on Blue Train is such his first two choruses on Straight No Chaser. The a revealing example of so many facets of his style changes are regular blues in F. Keeping that in and conception that I will transcribe it in its entirety, mind, notice the way Coltrane subtly plays all those with accompanying explanatory notes. extensions and alternations of the chords. It does Coltrane's harmonic conception is perhaps the most seem at first as if he were "blowing out of the puzzling aspect of his style, inasmuch as it is so changes". Actually he is not. That is a very im• advanced. For one thing, he really knows what to portant part of Coltrane's harmonic concept: his do with the changes of he tunes he plays. This is awareness of the changes and what to do with them. apparent not only in his playing, but also—as we The same sort of thing occurs with telling effect in shall see—in his writing. He knows when to stick the middle of his solo on Blue Train as we will see. with the basic changes and when to employ those You will also notice it in certain portions of his solo unusual extensions and alterations that a lot of on Bass Blues if you listen carefully. people refer to as "blowing out of the changes" be• Coltrane's sense of form is another source of won• cause they don't quite hear just what he is doing. derment. He has very few equals at building up a He is very subtle, often deceptive—but he's always solo, especially on a blues—and building up a good right there. solo on a blues is not easy.

(This is the first of two articles on John Coltrane. The second will appear in the November issue of the Jazz Review.)

21 SPIDER MAN BLUES Early in the morning, when it's dark and dirty outdoors, Spider man makes a web, and hides while you sleeps and snores. Never falls asleep; mean eyes watching day and night. Gets every fly as fast as she can light. That black man of mine sure has his spider ways, Been crawling after me all of my natural days. I'm like a poor fly; spider man, please let me go— You've got me locked up in your house, and I can't break down your door. Somebody please kill me, and throw me in the sea; This spider man of mine is going to be the death of poor me. (Sung by Bessie Smith on Columbia 14324-D. Transcribed by J. S. Shipman.)

I LEFT MY BABY I left my baby Standin' in the back dor cryin'. Yes, 1 left my baby Standin' in the back door cryin'. She said baby, you got a home, Just as long as I got mine. When I leave you baby, Count the days I'm gone. When I leave you baby, Count the days I'm gone. Where there ain't no love, There ain't no getting along. (Credited to . Sung by Jimmy Rushing with Count Basie on Epic LN3168)

DARK MUDDY BOTTOM I walked down so many turn roads, THE BLUES I can see them all in my sleep. I walked down so many turn roads, I can see them all in my sleep. Share croppin' down here in this dark muddy bottom With nothing but hardtack and sourgums to eat. At four-thirty I'm out in the barnyard, Tryin' to hook up my poor beat-up raggedy team. At four-thirty I'm out in the barnyard, Tryin' to hook up my poor beat-up raggedy team. My stock is dyin' of starvation And my boss is so doggone mean. There's got to be a change made around here people, I'm not jivin' that's a natural fact. There's got to be a change made around here people, I'm not jivin' that's a natural fact. I'm gonna jump up on one of these old poor mules and start ridin' And I don't give a dum where stop at. (Sung by Mercy Dee on Specialty SP-481. Transcribed by Larry Conn.) the train and had been under way a little while. We had a whole pullman to ourselves, and once we got rolling, Bennie announced payday and pulled out all that money and split it right down the middle. Boy, that seemed like all the money in the world then! There were around three hundred social clubs in Kansas City then, and they all had dances in every part of the year, and these things kept us and all the other bands pretty busy. When those slowed down, we'd always play the Pla-Mor Ballroom or Fairyland Park in the country-club district. You had your own territory to play in and you didn't play anywhere else unless you got permission from the leading band in that territory. Around Oklahoma City, Wichita, Kansas, and places like that, Walter

Count Basie Orchestra Page's Blue Devils was the leading band. If Bennie New York 1943 wanted to play dates in that territory, he had to Freddie Greene / Guitar Ed Lewis / Al Killian / / Trumpet get in touch with . He and Bennie would Lester Young / Jimmy Powell / Earl Warren swap dates every now and then. / Rudy Rutherford / Saxes Eli Robinson / Dickie Wells Around Omaha in later years, Nat Towles had the Louis Taylor / Trombone best band. Buddy Tate was with them then. They had other bands around there, too, just like in Kansas City, like Red Perkins and Hunter's Sere• nades, but Nat Towles was the man you had to do business with if you wanted to play around there. Down in there were T. Holder, Troy Floyd and Alphonse Trent who were all great, and Bennie ED LEWIS' would exchange dates with some of them. played with both T. Holder and Troy Floyd STORY then. Jesse Stone was from Kansas City, but his band AS TOLO TO FRANK DRIGGS usually played out in the wilderness, as we called it, around Sioux Falls and Lincoln, Nebraska, etc. He usually got a bunch of college kids to work with him. I remember Eddie Tompkins played trumpet This is the second of two articles on Ed Lewis. The with him. Eddie's father wanted him to be a doctor, first appeared in the May, 1959 issue of the Jazz but he didn't care anything about that. He used to Review. follow Jesse all around that part of the country, when his father thought he was in college. George Lee also booked around the same territory a lot because those cities didn't have any bands. I remember the first time Bennie Moten came East Bennie was very strong politically in those days. to New York to play the Lafayette Theater and Pendergast was for him, and so was Judge Holland double at the Savoy Ballroom. The people never and Tommy Gershwin, the prosecuting attorney. His heard anything like it. It really upset New York, and word meant a lot, and he was a big influence among from that time on we were known as the interna• a lot of people. Bennie never held any office, but tional band. Before that we were just known as a whichever way he went, so did a lot of other people. Midwestern band. He was so popular at one time that he had a second That was the first time we went to Camden to make band, but I don't remember who was in it, and he the next batch of records. I remember that day be• didn't do it too often. The people around Kansas cause Bennie got a check for $5,020, and that was City used to accept band number two as long as it a lot of money around 1929 or so. Bennie always had Bennie Moten's name in front of it. wanted to please the guys and he cashed the check, The second trip we made East proved to be disas• but he wouldn't pay anybody until we were all on trous, because the first time Bennie upset the town,

23 and his rhythm was unknown to that part of the Hines was king of the Grand Terrace and whatever country. When he returned, though, he had bought he said was law. He had the backing of the gangsters up a lot of eastern arrangements and had started then, and they came in one night and told us we playing them in Kansas City. Well, the people weren't going to play around town any more. We around there accepted it because it was Bennie tried very hard to make a go of it in Chicago and Moten, but the real mistake he made was when he tried to get some record dates, but the town was went East and played the same stuff the eastern tight to us, and we had to hit the road. We didn't bands were playing and had been playing for years! make out too well after that, and Thamon quit the He was a flop, because the people expected the business and went back to Kansas City. Harlan same western music he was famous for, and in fact Leonard took over the band then and kept it going we almost got stranded. It was the saddest thing until 1937. he ever did . . . Bennie died on the operating table in 1935. He had That was one of the factors that caused the band a wonderful surgeon, Dr. Bruce, who was one of to split up. Bennie give notice to four guys: Vernon the finest in the Midwest. A lot of people blamed Page on tuba, Woodie Walder, Harlan Leonard, and Bruce for Bennie's death, but it wasn't his fault. Booker Washington. There was a clique of guys in Bennie was a nervous type of person, and they had the band that wanted to bring their friends in, and to use novocaine because he wouldn't let them put Bennie went along with them. The older guys him to sleep. He got frightened when he felt the couldn't see what was happening. Bennie replaced knife, and jumped, severed an artery and bled to Vernon Page with Walter Page, Woodie Walder with death. It really wasn't Dr. Bruce's fault, but people , LaForest Dent for Harlan Leonard, in Kansas City were so hurt over it that the poor and Joe Keyes for Booker Washington. After that, fellow had to leave town. He had one of the largest Thamon Hayes and I quit. It was one of those practices in the Midwest and he had to give that things. He replaced me with Dee Stewart, and I up. He's in General Hospital in Chicago today and think George Hunt replaced Thamon. That • was is still a fine surgeon. around February, 1932. There were several people around Kansas City who We couldn't sit around after that, and it was used to take care of the musicians. The Chief, decided that all of us should form a band, and whose name was Ellis Burton, used to operate the Harlan Leonard's mother-in-law, Mrs. Inez Penning• Yellow Front Saloon. He was a fine fellow and loved ton, financed the project and bought us uniforms, musicians, especially those who were married. If etc. We called the band Thamon Hayes' Kansas you were a married musician with children, and he City Rockets, and it was the surprise band of that had a single musician working in his place, that year. We gave the leadership to Thamon, because fellow lost his job and you got it. He was a strong he was very popular around Kansas City and he politician and he sold whiskey in Prohibition days had a good business head. We had all the guys I when no one else did. The police would close him mentioned plus Jesse Stone on piano, Richard up one night and he'd be open the next day. If you Smith on trumpet (he's head of the union now), Vic weren't straight with the union, he'd work you any• Dickenson on trombone, and Herman Walder and way and see that your dues got paid. He fed and Baby Lovett, who came from George Lee's band. paid more musicians than he possibly could use, At the battle of bands that year we were given the and he'd always have a pot of beans in the back. spot next to Bennie Moten, which meant next to On payday all the married fellows got paid first, and last, because the best band always played last. We the single boys would have to wait if the money ran had just about a dozen numbers rehearsed for that out, because he'd tell them that we had families to night, and if we'd been asked to play any more, feed. He was a great humanitarian, and we all loved we would have had to repeat. We had a specialty him for what he did for us. which was a preaching act that I did on trumpet Elmer Bean was a competitor of Ellis Burton's with the band, and it brought the house down. In and he also"used quite a few musicians when they fact, when we left the stand, most of the crowd left were out of work. He was in the rackets and had with us. It was sad to see the hall nearly empty for a club on 18th and Harrison where the great Pha a band as great as Bennie's. Terrell got his start singing. We started touring and we got a good job in Chicago Piney Brown was another great, giving musicians and were just starting to go over when the union food and clothing and keeping up their appearance. told us to get out of town. We had our four-week He ran the Sunset on 12th and Highland and also period and that expired, so we had to leave and operated the Subway Club on 18th and Vine, an come back again. This was the time when Earl after-hours spot. That place was the school for

24 musicians then, and he gave them a chance to Basie, like Blue and Sentimental and Evil Blues learn their horns. A lot of them who came in and confined my work mainly to the section, be• couldn't blow their nose, but they got up on the cause we had so many stars like and stand with guys who were better than they were Harry Edison. Basie added another man because and they improved themselves from it. the work was beginning to wear me out. He got Al There were so many great musicians in those Killian, one of the best men in the game. We called days . . . Eli Logan was one of the fastest men on him "Powerhouse," and he took a lot of weight off sax I ever heard. I would rate him the my shoulders. He died about eight years ago. of the sax at that time. He played like lightning. When Basie broke up his band, I was so disgusted Around Kansas City they rated him a genius. He that I quit playing and put up my horn for six wouldn't work with any of the bands but with two years. When he reorganized, he changed to a semi- or three other musicians as accompanists. He died bop band. Why he changed I'll never know; you'd early. have to ask him; he had the best band playing com• Tommy Douglas was another sax man who was well mercial blues and swing and had the field prac• regarded, and he still has small combos playing tically all to himself. His band has improved a lot around Kansas City today. and it's wonderful now and he has some great Walter Knight and I, from the old Jerry Westbrook musicians in it today. days, played at the Sunset with Pete Johnson, the I didn't have that much pride that I couldn't see great boogiewoogie piano player, and a drummer when my horn wasn't going to support me, so I named Murl Johnson. Walter had a wonderful style eventually got a job driving a cab and later changed and a nice big tone. Why he didn't get any further to a steady job with the subway. Starting at night than he did, I'll never know. He was easily satisfied as a porter, I eventually rose in seniority and passed and never left town, because he had all the qualifi• the exams and became head conductor, and have cations for success if he had left Kansas City. The now reached the qualifications for motorman. I'm last I saw of him was when I went back home for waiting for my appointment. the first time with Basie's band. I was persuaded to play again by my good friends, was a great blues man and had a good Buck Clayton and Andy Gibson, who convinced me tone. He was very original in his ideas and could to get out the old battle-ax and get my lip in shape, write successfully when few others I knew of could. because there was still room for me in the music and Smitty used to write together, game. I organized a twelve-piece band of other and a lot of their stuff was used by Basie. Smitty veteran musicians who have migrated to day jobs didn't like to travel and went back to Dallas. He has for a means of living: , Sandy Watson, one of the greatest aggregations around there today, Hilton Jefferson, Herb Thomas, Stretch Ridley on but nobody can get him out of there, not even John tenor, Henry Webster on baritone, Sam Saunders Hammond. John offered to fly him to New York on piano, and one or two others. Betty Roche and for Count Basie's testimonial dinner at the Waldorf- Walter Page sang and played with us at different Astoria, but he said he couldn't spare the time. times. We rehearse every week, which keeps us He's well fixed now, owns some property, and if in fair shape to play social dances on the weekends, you're ever in Dallas, don't leave until you've heard which is the only time most of us can play because him play. The world should know about guys like of our day jobs. We may have a possibility of a him, because he's one of the finest. record date soon, and have built up a nice library I started working around town with Jay McShann of originals which might become hits. and Murl Johnson for about five months. Johnson When jobs come in, they are usually for anywhere never had but one cymbal, just a snare drum and between four and eight pieces, so we rotate the jobs a bass drum, but he was all rhythm. Jay was always as much as possible. Jobs these days for a twelve- dreaming about the day when he'd have his own piece band are pretty scarce, but fortunately most band, which he eventually did. I was talking then of us don't have to depend on music any more in about joining another big band, so we got to be order to make a living. best of friends during that time. He's a fine musician It's a shame that there are so many musicians and still plays around Kansas City today. like us going to waste millions of dollars' worth of I joined Count Basie in 1937 and stayed with him experience and talent. One of these days I hope for ten years. By this time I was playing first chair the business will change so that some of the great because they felt I added so much to the band as musicians will be allowed a chance to enjoy their section leader. That was a great band, and Basie profession once again. was a great leader. I only played a few solos with If I get a chance to record again, I'm going to

25 dedicate some of the numbers to the late Joe Smith. He could play almost like a human voice, and he by NAT HENTOFF had so much soul. When he was playing with the Cotton Pickers he wasn't given much solo space, only four or eight bars, and maybe a sweet solo now and then. He married a girl in Kansas City, and she led him such a dog's life that he was heart• INTRODUCING broken and drank heavily, which contributed to his death. That's a hard thing to say about a musician BILL EVANS as great as he was, but that's the truth. He was very slight and never very well. His records should be brought out so everyone could hear them. I Bill Evans—along with Cecil Taylor—is one remember hearing Joe Oliver when I was very of the two most important younger jazz young. A circus came to town, and his band was pianists. Last summer he taught piano at playing with them. He rehearsed during the morn• The School of Jazz in Lenox. He started a ing, and every musician in town was there listening. trio this fall. He was one of the greatest, and I can appreciate "I want to be able to be free to go in my what Louis was trying to do then. own direction without having to drag other Jabbo Smith was another great trumpet player. We people into my way of thinking. Ideally, I'd heard him around Chicago a lot when Thamon Hayes like to play solo piano, but from a practical was trying to make it in the thirties. He played like standpoint, in terms of establishing a repu• Oliver and Louis. tation and the kinds of rooms one can play, a trio makes more sense. And actually, there Dewey Jackson's feet always used to hurt him. If is almost as much freedom in a trio and you came close to his feet, he'd jump a mile, but certainly a stronger rhythm base." he could play some blues that you never heard "I'm hoping the trio will grow in the direc• before. He was great. Charlie Creath was another tion of simultaneous improvisation rather blues man, something like Johnny Dunn. But that just one guy blowing followed by an• around St. Louis the best territory band was John• other guy blowing. If the bass player, for son's Crackerjacks. That's just what the name example, hears an idea that he wants to meant—crackerjack! Talk about playing, you never answer, why should he just keep playing heard such music in your life! Every time we went a 4/4 background? The men I'll work with to St. Louis to play, they'd wash us right down the have learned how to do the regular kind of drain. As great as Bennie Moten was in those days, playing, and so I think we how have the it was something terrible when they got through license to change it. After all, in a classical playing. After they finished, there wasn't anything composition, you don't hear a part remain left for us to play. That's when I first met Harold stagnant until it becomes a solo. There are Baker. That's another band that nobody knows transitional development passages—a voice about, and they had great musicians. begins to be heard more and more and Around Kansas City, Hot Lips Page was one of the finally breaks into prominence." best. So were Joe Keyes and Sam Auderbach, who "Especially," Evans continued, "I want my played with George Lee. Big Jim (Harry Lawson) work—and the trio's if possible—to sing. I used to play a lot with Andy Kirk then, and others want to play what I like to hear. I'm not like Paul King, Eddie Tompkins, Paul Webster, and going to be strange or new just to be strange Herman Walder, before he had his accident, were or new. If what I do grows that way natu• all great and all had original styles. rally, that'll be O.K. But it must have that wonderful feeling of singing." Musicians of Ed Lewis' varied background and ex• Evans went on to talk of the half of 1958 he perience are legion throughout the spent with Miles Davis. "It was a personal and are, for the large part, unnoticed since the as well as a musical experience, and prob• advent of modern jazz in the past fifteen years. ably brought me back to myself quite a lot. Those who have taken care of themselves are still playing good jazz in an individual style. They should be brought to the attention of record and night-club executives while they are still in full command of their horns.

26 Bill Evans BOB CATO

it over, run through certain changes, and often we'd use the first take. Even though the performance might not have been per• fect, it had something else. I had felt the group to be composed of A beautiful thing about that band was how super-humans, and it helped my perspec• little was said about the music. That makes tive to know how human they are and to you rely on yourself; it makes you a person. experience the real and beautiful ways in It was a good social lesson, and pointed up which they deal with musical problems." how good a way that is for a person to live." "There wasn't much said in Miles' band," "About accompanying Coltrane," Evans Evans continued, "but things happened. I answered a question, "he builds everything finally left because I was mixed up. Miles on the basic changes. In other words, like wanted me to stay, but my dad was sick, the others, he had agreed on a common and I also wanted to try playing solo. Then ground that everyone has to consider in too I felt, in a way, inadequate in the group. group improvisation. In accompanying him, It's a feeling I've been hung with for a few therefore, you could play the basic changes years. One of the main things the group did and they'd fit. It's something like the situa• for me in time was to help me lose my tion in strict counterpoint where you have hesitancy and that lack of confidence. passing tones and even dissonances and We never had a rehearsal. Everything was done on the job. On the record dates, half or all of the material might be all new and had never been rehearsed before. We'd talk

27 Evans was next asked about the possibil• ities of atonality in jazz. "I don't know who can do it. If you experience music and de• velop naturally that way, I suppose it's pos• they don't sound dissonant because they sible, but if you want to go out and be come between consonances. I felt though atonal, where are you going to draw from? I could have complemented Coltrane better. Unless you have that conception to begin I kept looking for something else to do. with, how can you avoid past experience, As for Miles, he aims at the most direct past relations to tonality? And for group simplicity. If you're thinking harmonically, improvisation, where will you be able to you can clutter-up completely. If, however, find in atonality the common ground the you want to work to really free melody, you members of an improvising group need? have to get back to beginnings again. For "Perhaps," Evans added, "I'm using the example, you can take one mode and stay term 'atonality' too strictly. In my last River• in it. Then, when you do change, the change side album, I could have been said to have is very significant." been playing atonally in Young and Foolish. A reader had written a letter about Miles' It's in C. A half chorus later, I went into D comments in the December, 1958 issue of flat and wound up in E major. But it doesn't The Jazz Review on his preferences for sound atonal to me because it's based on building improvisations around scales. "I traditional harmonies." dig," wrote Joe Kaercher of St. Paul, "how About the impressive original, Peace Piece Khachaturian uses different modal and in the same album (Riverside 12-291), Evans oriental scales, but he also uses harmony. noted: "It's completely free form. I just had I also dig George Russell's method of writ• one figure that gave the piece a tonal re• ing lines with the Lydian mode, but he still ference and a rhythmic reference. There• uses changes. Could you get a fuller expla• after, everything could happen over that one nation from Miles on these points and spe• solid thing. Except for that bass figure, it cially how he plays My Funny Valentine 'like was compete improvisation. We did it in two with a scale all the way through.'" takes. Because it was totally improvised, I An answer from Miles will be forthcoming, so far haven't been able to do it again when but Bill entered the discussion when told of I've been asked for it in clubs." the letter. "Miles sometimes gets away from Twenty-six months passed between Evans' chromatic harmonization and stays within first album as leader (Riverside 12-223) and the mode itself. My Funny Valentine is his second. "I didn't feel I had anything based on a three-flat scale. He could make particularly different to say that I hadn't his whole melodic improvisation on that done the first time. And maybe the second scale without any chromatic notes. In my wasn't all that different except that I do accompaniment to him, however, I might play think some of the things were different in some chromatic notes but that wouldn't terms of feeling." affect him if he wanted to stay within the scale only. Or take Young and Foolish. The Bill doesn't expect twenty-six months more melody is all in the C scale—no chromatic to elapse before his third which will proba• notes in it. Yet you can harmonize it chro• bly be with his trio; nor should his next solo matically and the mode nonetheless remains recording take that long to develop. He's the same, and you can stay within just growing fast—in confidence as well as that mode when improvising. Asked about musically— and as a leader actually work• influences on his playing, Bill said, "There ing as such in clubs, his rate of growth are so many. You hear musicians all your should increase. At thirty, he's already life. Including 'unknowns.' I've been influ• arrived, but there are still major develop• enced by players in New Orleans, Chicago, ments' ahead. St. Louis, and I don't know their names. was an important influence for me; the way Lennie Tristano and Lee Konitz started thinking structurally; all classical music; Woody Herman's big band. Actually, all musical experience enters into you." small ensemble rehearsal in a tent BOB CATO

A Letter from Lenox, Mass. by MARTIN WILLIAMS

August 31 From the first day of this year's session of The School of Jazz there was undeniably something in the air, and it was not long before one realized exactly what it was: in its third year The School was coming of age. It was probably possible in past summers to overhear a student bull session on whether life or art is more important, but it would hardly have seemed so appropriate—and for most of the people involved this year they were really the same thing. Perhaps Jack Duffy, an auditor and classicist fresh from Tanglewood, caught it best when he said that these people seem to think and feel as one action, and that here the whole idea of work was different. He was right. Work was pleasure, thought, freedom, discipline, passion, self-discovery. One could say that of jazz itself—and in our time one can say it of few other human activities. There were several reasons for this new atmosphere at Lenox but as one reflects on them, he realizes they don't explain it all. The mysterious and natural process of growth is simply a part of it—and perhaps the mysticism of 3 is too. The faculty has matured as a faculty; musical practice session disagreements being granted, now most of its E o O members seem to know better exactly what they are about and how to work at it, and the new members (Bill Evans, , ) are decidedly part of the new atmosphere. Another part of it was a generally superior student body—superior in talent, in outlook, and in experi• ence. They were ready for a faculty generally ready for them. There were far fewer "teach me the changes and just let me wail", for whom "self- expression" is inevitably a string of hip cliches, and there were far fewer Ivy League dabblers, buying their way into a world they may secretly think they should feel superior to. The Schaeffer Brewing Company scholarships did not bring in such types from the twelve schools where they were awarded, but brought good students. And even students who do not intend to become professional jazzmen contributed to the purposeful tone and musical achievement of the School. (Let us have more Kenny and Max at play lawyers and engineers in American life who know what jazz is and can play that well!) For me to add that trumpeter Al Kiger (see Gunther Schuller in the August issue) recorded with the MJQ at the end of a session is in a sense for me to slight several considerable talents. Let me put it this way.- the concert at the Music Barn on August 29 was one of the best concerts I have ever heard and a credit to everyone involved. Even when nothing happened there was rare honesty, and most of the time plenty happened. I honestly believe (not that I am alone or particu• There were five small groups coaxed, cajolled, larly original in believing it) that what Ornette encouraged, taught, and finally led, by Jimmy Guiffre; Coleman is doing on alto will affect the whole by and John Lewis, by Bill Evans, Connie character of jazz music profoundly and pervasively, Kay, and ; by Gunther Schuller; and by and that the first consideration is that what he plays . And there was the big band led can be very beautiful. (I had better say that I have by Herb Pomeroy. Student composer-arrangers not heard that first recording and hear mixed reports contributed to the repertory of the small groups. of it as a picture of his talent.) When he stood up Some of the results were phenomenal. For example, to solo on the blues with the big band on the first one ensemble had a group feeling that some pro• day of school, I was taken. It was as if he opened fessionals seldom get; Max Roach had taught one up something in one's soul and opened up the way very young drummer how to drum musically in for jazz to grow. His music makes a new sensibility three weeks; a composer who had previously pro• for one's ears and heart and mind, all the while duced rather hip pop tunes discovered a real com• including the most fundamental things in jazz. It positional talent for instruments; several who had seems impossible for Ornette Coleman to talk arrived with heads full of fashionable phrases and about music without soon using the word "love" turn-arounds, had learned to make real music. and when he plays one knows that, undeluded, it is And certainly the donors of scholarships—BMI, the love of man his music is talking about. As is so Harvey Husten Memorial Committee, United Artists necessary with an innovator in the beginning he is Records, Associated Booking Corporation, Dizzy not afraid of what his muse tells him to play: "1 Gillespie, —can be very proud of don't know how it's going to sound before I play it their association with such an enterprise. anymore than anybody else does". The step he is But perhaps the most significant fact was the taking, like all great steps, seems inevitable only presence of Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry—on when someone has taken it and Coleman is taking scholarships from , I hasten to add. it with a sublime stubbornness: if you put a conven- If the School of Jazz can teach them (and it did), it has surely made a significant contribution to American culture quite beyond what anyone has a right to expect of any school.

31 have to discover and work out much of it for himself; he must find others to play with besides Don Cherry, who breathes as he breathes musically. And formal ones: it is quite true and inevitable that I don't necessarily need eight bars to develop a line that it took me eight bars to state (the blues is not a strict twelve-bar form to a Clarence Lofton or ), but can a group follow me? But to say that his variations sometimes do not have the usual relationships to his melodies is not to say that they have none. On The Sphinx (the one mature composition of his in the concert, I think, and a beautiful one) his solo at one rehearsal seemed based on a con• stant rhythmic development of his theme. I have said that the School taught him. When he arrived, he was (through lack of experience) no kind of large ensemble player. In the concert, with the big band and with the groiip of six, he had become one. And the school taught him about something about which, since he taught himself, he can learn still more: technical mastery of the saxophone. And there was a great lesson for others in his presence at the School: that music has its ultimate basis in the human soul and human feelings, not in key• boards, musical devices, or skills. Several of the factulty justly hoped that "the critics" would not fill him full of wrong ideas about his duty to be "the next thing"—or whatever. Somehow, one has the feeling hearing him play or talk that he will simply do what he must do, not taking credit rehearsal in the Music Barn for his talent but simply feeling a duty to explore and use it, so long as he can work not deluded tional chord or rhythm under my note, you limit the about "recognition", that he will play the music he number of choices I have for my next note; if you do hears, obey his muse, and fulfill his destiny as an not, my melody may move freely with far greater artist, perhaps listening to what advice seems just choice of directions. and helpful but forgetting the rest, and resign him• Chaotic and a-harmonic? No. Sonny Terry is a- self patiently to the fate that any innovator must harmonic, but Coleman is not for he can work have. If he does that, he will be one of the very few through and beyond the furthest intervals of the American artists who has ever followed his talent chords. For John Coltrane, is it not simply because without letting himself be somehow exploited by his he quite naturally still hears and plays off of those "public" or his "notices". But, honestly, I really orderly chords that everyone uses, that, like a think he will. harassed man in an harmonic maze, he must invite the melodic disorder of running up and down scales? Ornette Coleman is exceptional, but perhaps his Somebody had to find the way out of that passion• presence at The School was not so much an ex• ate impasse; it has fallen to Ornette Coleman to do ception as another evidence of the growth it has it. When he is really creative (and inevitably he had. Watching those enlightened faces as Gunther must still do plenty of mere searching), his melodies Schuller played and analyzed the intracies of are unusual, but never jarring and one noticed at Grandpa's Spells ("of course some of these breaks the concert, they can reach out and affect each seem funny but they are also very beautiful"), I individual in an audience. remembered John Lewis's opening speech three There are problems. Musical ones: he may still years ago: "we will teach you only about the jazz of the past ten years. We cannot show you how Jelly Roll Morton played because we don't know." Marshall Stearns had played his records before, but now there was also room for a comparison of the music of Morton, Ellington, Monk, and John Lewis. And there was room for Ornette Coleman.

32 in much of the other playing here. As I hope to devote more space RECORD to Powell in these columns in a later issue I will only comment on one feature of his playing: the re• REVIEWS markable impression of urgency it conveys. The musical relationship between Powell and Parker is not I have never believed bop was the unlike that between Armstrong and work of a small group of musicians Hines. The music of both Powell who desired to create a private and Parker has an at times almost musical language. Valid creation is harsh directness of expression that never the result of extra-musical is partly the result of their ability impulses of that kind, and a new to absorb themselves in a per• idiom is produced by gradual in• formance from the first beat. novation upon established practice At the time this session took place OPUS DE BOP. Savoy MG 12114 rather than by artificial contrivance. Stitt was just gaining a reputation Stant Getz, Hank Jones, Curly Even so, a high proportion of the as the first altoist able to reproduce Russell, Max Roach. Sunny pioneer modernists were exception• at least some of the elements of Stitt, Kenny Dorham, Bud Powell, Al ally gifted and they did evolve a Parker's style. The truth is that at Hall, Wally Bishop. Fats style of great complexity that made this time his conception differed Navarro, Leo Parker, Tad a number of new creative and tech• from Parker's more than it does Dameron, Gene Ramey, Denzil Best. nical demands. Thus bop did be• now, although this may be because Opus de Bop, Running Water, come a kind of clique music but he was then insufficiently accom• Don't Worry About Me, And the the clique was of the best sort in plished to follow all of Bird's meth• Angels Swing, Fools Fancy, Bebop that unusual ability was the only ods. On each of the four titles here in Pastel, Ray's Idea, Bombay, way to admittance. Two of the most his tone is lighter, and also less Eb Pob, Going to Minton's, Fat Girl, obvious difficulties were the new consistent, than Parker's. He runs Ice Freezes Red. rhythmic complexity resulting from the changes in the Bird manner and IN THE BEGINNING . . . BEBOP. the sub-division of the beat, and his melodic style is very similar, but his improvisations betray some SAVOY 12119. improvising creatively on the dense harmonic sequences. The 'cool' uncertainty in their organisation phase that followed bop was a reac• and lack the seeming inevitability tion against this complexity and of so much of his exemplar's work. traces of it can be seen even today Dorham plays better than on some in the attitude of some musicians: of the records he made later in the e.g. Miles Davis's concern with 'forties, e.g. the Clef session with melodic rather than harmonic enti• Parker in 1949. Melodically his ties (see The Jazz Review, Decem• style is based on Gillespie, but is ber 1958). less virtuoso in conception. His tone is well-rounded, if rather small, and A certain division was evident from is related to Howard McGhee's the outset between the actual bop 'closed' sound. A notable point is musicians, whose work incorporated the fluidity of Dorham's line that most of the more valuable innova• derives partly from his technique tions of the new jazz, and what per• but more from the character of his sonal taste leads the present writer ideas. The best trumpet solo of this to call the lesser moderns. This was session is in Bombay and it also less obvious at the time than it is serves as a good illustration of the now but the matter is put into some use of double-time. Two of the kind of perspective by the two Savoy titles, Fool's Fancy and Bebop in issues listed above. Five of the six Pastel, are almost identical in theme sessions represented were recorded and arrangement with Wail and in 1946, a year after modern jazz Bouncing with Bud recorded by had begun to be recorded in any Powell for Blue Note three years quantity. later in 1949 with and Only one of these sessions has a Sonny Rollins. Only the intros are properly integrated bop group pre• different. senting the music at something like its best. This is a Bud Powell date In those early days the new men with Kenny Dorham, Sonny Stitt, were often recorded with musicians Al Hall and Wally Bishop. Powell playing in older styles. This does is perhaps the greatest musician still happen, though less frequently, represented here and is at his best, and the resulting incompatibility al• the piano solo on Ray's Idea be• ways prevents fully integrated per• ing one of the finest things on the formances being produced. Fats two discs. Something of his great• Navarro, one of the most brilliant of ness is suggested by the authority all the early moderns, can be heard of his playing, a quality difficult to here with two rather unsuitable define but which is not very evident groups. In the more satisfactory in-

33 stance he appears with Tadd Da- The rhythm section is badly record• and deliberate. Overall Getz's mel• meron, Gene Ramey, Denzil Best ed—one can hardly hear Al Haig— odic construction is here more frag• and Leo Parker. Leo is not at his and includes a guitar. With the mentary than it later became. monstrous worst here (for that one piano, bass and drums fulfilling their That the rhythmic qualities of bop must hear The Mad Lad recorded tasks in rather different ways from were—and have remained—the most with Sir Charles Thompson on in the swing era, the precise function difficult to assimilate is also sug• Apollo). He has an enormous tone of this instrument in bop rhythm gested by four Allen Eager titles. but his ideas are commonplace sections was never determined. The Mr. Dues and O-Go-Mo have tricky formulae arbitrarily strung together kind of continuous 4/4 it had pro• intros, abrupt, fragmentary melodies, and punctuated with sudden dives vided with, say, Basie would have horn chords echoed by the piano into bottom register. Still, all this been a handicap harmonically and and other features that suggest serves to emphasize the discipline rhythmically and there never seemed further attempts to produce origi• and logic of Navarro's melodic con• any real justification for its pres• nals like Shaw 'miff or Groovin' High. struction. On all four titles he offers ence. On Parker's Night in Tunisia/ The solos are completely out of typical trumpet solos. Among his Ornithology date and his Cheers/ character with this. Eager has the consistent qualities were the full• Stupendous session neither Arv Gar• tone and some of the melodic grace ness of his tone, the intense con• rison nor Barney Kessel was able of Lester in his Taxi War Dance/ viction of his playing and a vein of to do more than alternate their Twelfth Street Rag period, if not the melodic invention surprisingly in• chording with that of Dodo Marma- rhythmic resiliency or such imagina• dividual in so young a musician. rosa at the piano. On this Davis tive construction. A sign of the sty• (Navarro died in 1950 at twenty-six.) session Huey Long did not advance listic disunity of this session is His sense of logical musical de• the problem nearer a solution. Shelly Manne's cymbal playing be• velopment is clearly illustrated by The other music on these records hind Eager on Mr. Dues. This is a his use of the high register. He is not bop but often tries to be. world away from the atmosphere of had an impressive command of the More fundamental here than the Lester's music and is more in keep• upper reaches of his instrument Parker/Gillespie influence, however, ing with the theme. Winding does but reserved it for climaxes that is the example of Lester Young. Of not really have a style at all here. were always the result of increas• all the tenors who used Lester's His line is choppy and discon• ing musical intensity. The Eb-pob music as a kind of quarry from tinuous most of the time and he is solo also shows how, once a climax which to hew a style of their own very hesitant in the latter part of was reachced—in this case just be• is probably the most the Oh Kai solo. Modern jazz trom• fore the chorus's half-way mark- creative. It is the more surprising bone was only given form and he would release the tension grad• that his first session should hardly definition by J. J. Johnson and al• ually. Although the musical language exhibit that influence at all. In many though by this year (1946) he had is very different it is instructive to respects he sounds like—of all made some characteristic records— compare this solo, from the point of people—. (Although also for Savoy—he had not yet made view of construction, with Bix Bei- Gordon's records do not appear to his mark on others. Marty Napoleon derbecke's on Jazz Me Blues in be a very positive contribution to has well-conceived piano solos on which the same leading away and modern jazz in themselves he has Saxon and Mr. Dues and Safranski's down from an early climax is beau• affected a surprising variety of bass playing is excellent through• tifully handled. Goin' to Minton's has artists. To mention only one very out. a somewhat more discursive solo different from Getz, Jackie McLean but here a well chosen variety of has named him as a formative in• Brew Moore is once supposed to ideas are happily organised into a fluence.) Getz's swing on this 1946 have said, "Anyone who doesn't play fully cohesive utterance. Again, the date is far more aggressive than on like Lester is wrong!" and certainly sure-footed articulation of the open• his later, more characteristic work there are no bop overtones at all in ing idea recalls the Beiderbecke of and his tone is like Gordon's too. his four titles. The strong accents Royal Garden Blues or At the Jazz Soon, in the solos with Herman, rest firmly on the beats, e.g. the Band Ball. Such comparisons should Lester was to become virtually the of Brew Blew, and there not be taken too far, but Navarro's sole influence but the fact Getz at• is no suggestion of the bop split- explosive opening in Ice Freezes tempt to come to terms with the ting-up of the beat. Having mas• Red does remind one of the way more recent innovations is shown tered what might be termed the Bix's Since My Best Girl Turned Me by Opus de Bop and Running Water. mechanics of Lester's vocabulary Down solo bursts into life. Opus is a definite attempt to write Moore seems content to move The other Navarro tracks find him a bop original and Running Water around within it without attempting in an Eddie Davis group. While there seems to be in emulation of those much that is new. Sometimes a are no honks or squeals, Davis's very fast Parker performances such phrase is given an unfamiliar twist jivey tenor is sometimes hot in an as Bird gets the worm. Yet it has but it is usually the kind of twist obvious kind of way—like Wild Bill nothing of Parker's rhythmic struc• Lester might have given it himself. Davison's trumpeting—but generally ture and here and in Opus de Bop Nonetheless within this area Moore fails to stimulate excitement very Getz moves around the beat in works with ease and skill. 'Invention' convincingly. Navarro takes lithe, Young's manner. Don't worry 'bout would hardly be an accurate term forceful solos in Spinal and Red Me is less hectic and gives some to use but his melodic continuity Pepper and puts in a few excellent indication of the shapely melodic is impressive, particularly when he bars on Just a Mystery before Davis invention, if not the harmonic is aided by a fast tempo, as in More comes along with a Yankey Doodle subtlety, for which he was to become Brew. He also achieves something quotation. The short, filigree muted famous. And the Angels Swing is like real eloquence on No More solo on Maternity sounds much like similar but has an odd, inappropri• Brew, a blues. Each of his solos, Gillespie. ate intra and is rather more formal however, remains a series of twelve or thirty-two bar episodes without

34 any real overall shape. This is the Cliff Jackson's and by second-hand, more obvious when they are com• an important force in all subse• pared with, say, Lester Leaps In. quent jazz piano. This is a different There the tenor work, for all the root from the ragtime of Joplin, breaks and piano interludes, has James Scott, Turpin and the others. true form and development, at least The music of Eubie Blake followed as far as the over-extended coda. a different trail; it never cultivated This music is of variable worth, with the discipline and tradition of Jop- the Powell and Navarro solos easily lin's ragtime. It never reached for outdistancing the rest, though all the stars. Instead it swings out, more of it is worth getting to know. And free-wheeling, more improvisational, both Ips are helpful in separating more flexible to innovation. When the different paths along which Eubie plays Mississippi Rag, Maple modern jazz was travelling ten of Leaf Rag and Sunflower Slow Drag more years ago. on this Ip, I would call him a jazz Max Harrison pianist playing ragtime. Not that semantics are important. I am not denying the 'album notes' characterization of Eubie as "the real thing", I am simply trying to ART BLAKEY keep clear which thing. AND EUBIE BLAKE: "The Wizard of AT "THE JAZZ CORNER OF THE WORLD" The important point is that this is Art is back at the famous corner of Broad• Ragtime". 20th Fox 3003. way and 52nd Street, this time with Lee a remarkable exhibition of continu• Morgan, Hank Mobley, Blake, piano and vocals; Noble ing vitality and swing in a most re• and Jymie Merritt. BLUE NOTE 4015 Sissle, vocals; Buster Bailey, markable 75-year-old. It is rather clarinet; Bernard Addison, guitar; startling to realize that this man was Milt Hinton or , playing professionally in the Nine• bass; , drums. teenth Century. Jubilee Tonight; Eubie's Boogie Rag; The Dream Rag; Mississippi Guy Waterman Rag; Maple Leaf Rag; Ragtime Rag; Mobile Rag; I'm Just Wild about Harry; Carry Me Back to Old Virginny; Maryland, My Maryland; BILL EVANS: "Everybody digs Bill Carolina in the Morning; Sunflower Evans". Riverside 12-291. Slow Drag; The Ragtime Millionaire; My Girl is a High Born Lady; Bill Evans, piano; accompanied on Good Morning Carrie; Bill Bailey tracks 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8 by , Won't You Please Come Home. bass, and , drums. Minority; Young and Foolish; Lucky to Be Me; Night and Day; Epilogue; If Blake really recorded these num• Tenderly; Peace Piece; What Is Off to the Races. "This is a largely new Donald Byrd. Like that of any other good bers at the age of 75, as the album There to Say; Oleo; Epilogue. jazz player, his performance is not wholly notes say, he performed an uncom• perfect nor is it amazing from a technical standpoint. This is, however, the best re• mon physical feat. But, wholly apart Probably Bill Evans would be an im• corded example of Byrd I've heard yet." —Bob Freedmon from the performer's age, these are portant jazzman if only because he The Jazz Review very pleasant numbers. functions so well in the East in the BLUE NOTE 4007 Apparently Blake thoroughly enjoys midst of all the funky hollering, and himself, running through such dan• shows that there are other ways to the scene eh*,lgB, THE AMAZING dies as I'm Just Wild About Harry, convey emotion and other emotions BUD POWEjJ. Jubilee Tonight, Bill Bailey Won't to convey—indeed, by implication he blue note 4009 You Please Come Home and an up• reminds us that real hollering may • •"2' tempo version of Carry Me Back to convey emotion, but that it isn't art. Old Virginny which seems singulariy But he is important for a lot of rea• un-reminiscent of the Old Dominion sons that go beyond the delight of of Senator Harry Flood Byrd and his touch and the message of feel• Governor J. Lindsay Almond. ing that his touch alone might con• Also, in the fascinating Dream Rag, vey. Blake reveals that he is not mere Whatever Evans has learned from fun and games, but a solid, creative Lennie Tristano, he has one capacity musician with rich ideas, wide musi• that Tristano does not, a really ex• cal resources, imagination, capable ceptional, relaxed, rhythmic imagina• of restraint as well as exhilaration. tion and flexibility, and with it BUD POWELL All of this is put out under the name he has absorbed and even supple• The Scene Changes. Bud's genius is In evi• of "ragtime." I think that the term dence throughout his latest album. With mented the rhythmic basis of bebop. new vigor and drive Bud swings through ragtime is most useful if it is re• nine new compositions. Splendid accompani• All that technique, and every note ment by and Art Taylor. stricted to a certain body of music of it, function as one: rhythmically, BLUE NOTE 4009 within which Blake's does not fall. harmonically, and linearly; a man 12" LP, List $4.98 His style is the ancestor of James might earn the title of artist for Complete Catalog on Request P. Johnson's, Willie the Lion's, Fats's having done less. 47 West 63rd St., New York 23 35 And Evans would be an important solo voices, Farmer's is notable for opening chorus. But the record's jazzman at the moment if only be• its well-mannered, self-contained, ex• best moments do not scar very high, cause he is a leading member of quisitely adjusted social tone. Gol• and were perhaps not intended to. the movement which moves em• son, most of the time, plays a dilu• One does not expect a prophet to phasis away from the thick and tion of the wailing, whirling decla• turn up at tea-time, nor a seer at rapid chord-shiftings of bop. And mation most often associated with a soiree. within it Evans uses those "ad• John Coltrane. Bill Evans has made Glenn Coulter vanced" intervals of his and his a style of the displaced accent, the scales to improvise continuous and kind of sprung rhythm that can aug• original melodies. ment the drive of a fast number or, Since I'm obviously calling this an at slow tempos, produce languish• EDMOND HALL: "Swing Ip by an important musician, I has• ing suspensions, delightfully and Sesion". Commodore FL 30,012. ten to add a few things. It seems to validly romantic. The blending of Downtown Cafe Boogie, Uptown me that Evans' ad lib performances these three unlike talents is perfect Cafe Blues, The Man I Love, like Lucky to Be Me may be a mis• on this record. I can hardly recollect, Coquette. take: they show only his technique for comparison's sake, such another Sextet: Hall, clarinet; Emmett and touch, and they may sustain a ensemble. Berry, trumpet; Vic Dickenson, mood, but we know of those things Unfortunately, this chamber-music• trumpet; Eddie Heywood, piano; anyway and know of them without like unity is the chief distinction of Al Casey, guitar; Billy Taylor, bass; the languidness these excursions the record. The harmony has been Sidney Catlett, drums. constantly risk. And a man with achieved, and maintained, at the ex• Caravan, It's Only A Shanty, Where Evans' rhythmic capacity should use pense of the unexpected. What the or When, Night and Day, I Want them. Peace Piece on the other hand record amounts to is a tasteful dis• to Be Happy, Show Piece, It Had is a remarkable ostinato tour de play of the amenities. Each soloist To Be You, Sleepy Time Gal. force, an improvisation as good as applies his favorite devices to each Quartet: Hall, clarinet; Teddy some of the carefully wrought number, and graciously yields to the Wilson, piano; Billy Taylor, bass; French impressionistic compositions next. But this is to characterize the Art Trappier, drums. which in part inspired it. Does it record in the most severe way. From Edmond Hall is one of those pro• swing? The answer is, of course, that another point of view, it would be fessional musicians who has been rhythmically only the jazz pianist maintained that these musical good around at recording time for a hun• named Bill Evans could have played manners are uncommon in jazz, and dred or so nondescript bands that it. gratifying. And one must grant that needed a clarinet. For these many Quite a record. But there is some• each soloist, in applying his devices, adequate contributions as a side- thing missing on even the best does so with great skill. man, the Commodore people evi• tracks: Minority, Tenderly, Oleo. The So overpowering and contagious is dently saw fit to put out this album resources and the possibilities of his the atmosphere of gentility, how• featuring Edmond Hall as soloist. playing are here, but there is a kind ever, that it has led me into near- The project falls somewhat short of of relaxed variety with emotional Jamesian nuances in trying to de• unqualified success- There were, it and melodic concentration in some scribe it. And more pertinently, it seems, good reasons for Hall's long of his other recordings that one results in music that is frequently apprenticeship as a sideman. misses here. It is present in his work so reticent as to be meaningless. To being with, he has nothing that on "Cross Section—Saxes" (Decca Golson's tune Fair Weather, an at• could properly be called an idea, DL 9029), is even on a gimmick tractive tune in a rather Victor Her• much less an extended, cohesive record like "Guys and Dolls Like bert way, is explored—rather, ig• series of thoughts. At all times he Vibes" with Eddie Costa (Coral CRL nored—in a series of choruses so generates simply a series of unre• 57230) and of course in his excel• empty that one can hardly wait for lated phrases, some bright, some lent All About Rosie solo (Columbia it to have done. Yet the men are not dull. coasting; they have been, rather, WL 127). Obviously a conclusion is Then too, Hall is about as lacking at hand: there is an easy but forceful diverted from their jobs by too much self-awareness. in a personal touch as any solo terseness in the playing of Evans clarinet could be. His sound is com• the sideman that Evans the leader is Nothing else on the record is so null pletely faceless. not always in touch with. as this. Anybody not already sated The selection of tunes is as unin• Martin Williams by churchy numbers will like Jubila• spired as the playing—Where or tion. Quite reasonably, the politeness When, The Man I Love, Night and that holds sway throughout is most Day and other tired chestnuts. It meaningful in the ballads. Farmer's may be that non-musicians with a ART FARMER: "Modern Art". solo in The Touch of Your Lips is taste for this period of jazz will find United Artists UAL-4007. most effective: it makes much of it relaxing, enjoyable listening. It is Farmer, trumpet; Benny Golson, the interval of the major third, but nothing more. tenor; Bill Evans, piano; is deceptively consonant because On the quartet numbers, the effec• Addison Farmer, bass; Dave frequently the implied chord is at tiveness varies with the type of Bailey, drums. odds with the true one. That is noth• tune. Hall apparently has no feeling ing new, of course, but it is pecu• Mox Nix; Fair Weather; Darn for what a clarinet should do in a liarly refreshing here, perhaps as a quartet in which it is the only mel• That Dream; The Touch of Your series of malapropisms in the midst ody instrument. The most pathetic Lips; Jubilation; Like Someone of so much well-adjusted discourse. illustration occurs on he well-known in Love; I Love You; Cold Breeze. Like Someone in Love is a hand• climax to Where or When. The pas• The stylistic balance on this record some piece, to say the least, and for sage is plainly bad jazz. is particularly happy. Of the three more than Golson's lovely, breathy Incidentally, where or when on earth

36 the album notes came up out of throughout. This is at this with "that sadness that D. H. his best, and it is very good—the Lawrence called the most beautiful high-point of an otherwise undistin• ingredient of art" escapes this re• guished series of numbers. Records shipped anywhere viewer's understanding. The other four numbers are done The up-tempo quartet numbers don't by a workmanlike 'thirties-type band, Q£ mOD€Rn mUSIC - DepJ. J come off. Hall, of course, plays too in which Hall does not particularly 627 N. KINGSHIGHWAY many notes; he sounds like he is stand out. Actually the performer in ST. LOUIS 8. MO.. U.S.A. striving to fit in both melody and these numbers, as one would expect, ALL RECORDS REVIEWED IN JAZZ REVIEW dixieland-type clarinet fill-in accom- is Sid Catlett. His presence on AVAILABLE THRU US—OUR SERVICE IS PAST these four tracks is perhaps the All records shipped are factory fresh. Send for also pushes too hard, coming on as details on bonus offer of FREE JAZZ LPs. he would if he had a full orchestra only important thing on this Ip, foreign Orders Welcome aside from Wilson's good moments. FREE 12" IP BARGAIN LIST/TOP STARS behind him. All he has is an un• $1.00 Deposit On CODs—No CODs Overseas usually reticent three man rhythm However, Big Sid can be heard bet• section. On his part, Teddy Wilson ter elsewhere. lacks drive on the up-tempo num• Guy Waterman bers. Particularly forceless are Caravan, Shanty-Town, and I Want to Be Hap• JOHN LEE HOOKER AND STICKS py. The same would be true of Show Piece, were it not for one bright McGHEE: "Highway of spot, the first chorus after entry of Blues". Audio Lab AL 1520. bass and piano, after an extended This record is not , duet of clarinet and drums alone. and for those who insist on high On the other hand, the relaxed fidelity and , this medium-tempo tunes go pretty well may not have much appeal, because —Night and Day, for example. it is archaic in every respect. How• Sleepytime Gal is superb, largely due ever the blues in their raw, rough, to Teddy Wilson's flash of real bril• and often crude form are not over- liance. Wilson does as much in this represented on lps and in my number as I have ever heard him opinion this $1.95 disc would make do. Even before his very capable, a very worth-while investment. relaxed, economical solo, he has al• Side 1 is devoted to the average, ready outdone himself on the open• run-of-the-mill blues-and-jump sing• ing chorus. This bears close listen• er Sticks McGhee who is backed by ing. a typical jump band of the tenor Every phrase of the melody, as sax, drums, guitar, piano, and bass played fairly straight by Hall, is variety heard on almost every r & b either echoed or anticipated (as in record about eight years ago. He bar 11), by Wilson. Yet regardless sings pleasantly but unconvincingly, of the extraordinary aptness of Whiskey, Women and Loaded Dice; every phrase, the accompaniment is Sad, Bad, Glad; Head Happy with continuously flowing and swinging. Wine; Dealin' From the Bottom; Get This is the surprisingly difficult job Your Mind Out of the Gutter; and of the jazz trio pianist—and it is Jungle Juice. As the label states, so seldom done as well as Wilson Audio Lab is a production of the does it here. The job is to main• King Record Co. and most of these tain a consistent and appropriate sides, like those by John Lee rhythmic-harmonic background for Hooker, appeared as singles about the melody instrument and still get ten years ago. The recording quality in a fully complementary and intel• of the Sticks McGhee side is aver• age for this type of material and ligent second melodic line. (It was could pass for what the cover in• Jelly Roll Morton's gift for this evitably calls "High Fidelity," but demanding assignment which made under no stretch of the imagination the trio his foremost vehicle and can this be said about the John set him head and shoulders above Lee Hooker side. Moaning Blues and the crowd. In this opening chorus, Late Last Night especially sound as Wilson, in his different style, ex• is they were recorded on a home re• hibits the same kind of skill.) Note corder, but this side warrants further some particularly good spots—the comment. DANCE ORCHESTRATIONS closely compatible piano and clari• net phrases around the middle of John Lee Hooker was born in COMBO ORKS . Musical Supplies the chorus, the timely piano trill Birmingham, Alabama, and is today buried behind a Hall run on the only in his middle forties; I say For Free Catalog Write to: fourth beat of bar twenty-four, and only because his style is a truly the preparation for the final bars in archaic one, and it has changed TERMINAL bar twenty-eight. Also note the very little since he first began re• MUSICAL SUPPLY, inc. thorough consistency of touch cording about ten years ago. His Dept. JR. 113 W. 48 St.. New York 36, NY. 37 electric guitar has a very distinctive, MILT JACKSON: "Bags' Opus". eight bars and the release of the droning sound and his foot tapping United Artists UAL 4022. first chorus which are beautifully becomes part of the overall sound constructed in these terms, and on Jackson, Vibraharp; Benny created by John Lee's sometimes I Remember Clifford. Golson, ; Art moaning sometimes chanting voice, Farmer, trumpet; Tommy Flannagan, Yet, as good as he is here, I feel accompanied by the fantastic sound piano; Paul Chambers, bass; that Jackson functions best within a of his guitar. John Lee Hooker liter• Connie Kay, drums. more tightly controlled unit such as ally moans the blues in a manner Ill Wind; Blues for Diahann; the MJQ or the various Monk groups reminiscent of the men on some of Afternoon in Paris; I Remember with which he has recorded. I realize the recordings made by Alan Lomax Clifford; Thinking of You; in Southern prisons. Inevitably one that this is something of a heresy— Whisper Not. comes to compare John Lee with Jackson is often supposed to be an Lightning Hopkins, because both are essentially wailing musician who is rather well-known blues singers of Essentially this is an unpretentious, held back by the MJQ. But, despite relatively recent vintage, but very low-keyed blowing session with solos all of Jackson's own comments much in the traditional vein. How• from all concerned within a frame• about soul and his many fine per• ever, essentially Lightning plays in work provided by Benny Golson's formances on recordings such as a very loose and flowing style and his rather perfunctory arrangements. this, I think that the more tightly guitar is part of his voice; on the There is a danger in this sort of organised groups give him a support other hand John Lee Hooker's guitar session that it will collapse into a and background which strengthen is not part of his voice but a rather soul-baring contest with everyone rather than diminish his lyricism. metronomic accompaniment per• bent to demonstrate their posses• Except, oddly enough, on Thinking of fectly matched with his vocal ex• sion of the greatest possible quan• You where his is the only major solo pressions. The sarcasm, bitter tity of this much-talked-about sub• voice, Art Farmer plays with his humor, and often running com• stance. But none of the men here usual quiet excellence throughout mentary which form part of Light• has ever been guilty of this sort of the Ip. I have never heard Farmer ning's blues singing, and which in thing, although Milt Jackson has play badly and, while he is not at my opinion makes him one of the come close on his records with Ray his very best here, his almost Bixian greatest blues singers of all times, Charles, and none of them are here. solo on Afternoon in Paris and his is unfortunately lacking in John Lee The rhythm group of Flannagan, wonderful entrance after Golson on Hooker and his recordings tend to Chambers and Kay functions well, Blues for Diahann are most per• become a bit monotonous. with Kay's work a real delight. He suasive statements. It is difficult to has been rather unjustly neglected say what went wrong on Thinking of The recordings on the Ip are among by the press. He is an exceptionally You as Farmer usually excels on John Lee's first and many of the sensitive musician, and his support, ballads, as in the remarkable The while never obtrusive, is always titles appeared on the King label Very Thought of You on Contem• there. Its subtlety often makes it under the pseudonym of "Texas porary 3554, but little of signific• pass unnoticed. His work behind Slim." Don't Go Baby is the tradi• ance develops- tional blues Baby, Please Don't Go Jackson on III Wind is rare. and on this track all sorts of back• As an instrumentalist Benny Golson ground noise can be heard—per• Flannagan and Chambers play com• still seems to be trying to establish haps some of these sides were re• petently but with little of the brio his own voice. He often seems torn corded at some music store or under that Kay demonstrates. Chambers' between the poles of a Thompson- similar primitive circumstances. solos here are not among his best Webster approach and a Coltrane Nightmare Blues and Moaning Blues and Flannagan does little but offer approach. On the Bags'-Grooveish are very slow and, as the second his own version of Bud Powell. Blues for Diahann he begins with title indicates, very moaning. Think• a fine Thompson-ish solo which soon ing Blues is a pleading number and Milt Jackson is a musician taken degenerates into a series of empty Late Last Night is another real for granted in contemporary jazz. Coltrane-isms, and this sort of dif• tough moaner. Finally Devil's Jump He is generally acknowledged to be ficulty is present throughout the re• is an up-tempo boogie played in the best vibist around, but after cording. I think that Golson may the style to which Lightning Hop• this acknowledgement little else is well have something important to kins refers to on his record of New said of him. Actually, Jackson has contribute on his instrument once York Boogie: "John Lee Hooker told been the only vibist to be able to he has found a way in which to do it. me one day, if you don't get it like combine the percussive swing of His solo on Whisper Not is a fine this, you're wrong." Hampton with the gentle lyricism one, owing more to Ben Webster of Norvo in a style of his own. This than to Coltrane, but with enough Today John Lee Hooker still records is not to say that Jackson has originality in its construction to for the Vee-Jay label, but in general copied these men or has even been allow one to wager that Golson may his career is somswhat parallel to influenced by them. But he has de• soon remind us only of himself. My Lightning's and he reached what veloped a style which encompasses attitude is further borne out, I think, was probably the peak of his popu• many of the qualities of these men, by his much more successful fusion larity between 1950 and 1955. The although his basic approach owes of the two styles on Art Farmer's recordings on the Ip are very good nothing to them. Rather his idea recent Ip (United Artists UAL 4007). examples of John Lee Hooker at his seems to be to approach a line with In the writing for the session, Gol• most primitive best. Time has a distinct drive which is transmuted son, like Gigi Gryce, seems to be changed his style little as his recent by the delicately controlled vibrato limiting himself to slight but often Vee-Jay recording of I'm into an essentially lyrical state• attractive themes for blowing and to (V-J 308) will show. ment. For example, his work here devising equally slight arrange• Chris Strachwitz on III Wind, particularly the second ments of these and other tunes—

38 extremely conservative arrangements in what might have become stilted which allow for little or no develop• or mechanical—it is always kept in ment. Hear Whisper Not and After• beautiful musical movement. I can noon in Paris. It would be interest• quite easily do without the out-of- ing and, I think, worthwhile if some• tempo "concert hall" paraphernalia one would commission an album of Midsummer and all it represents, CHRIS CONNOR from Golson which would demand or I would be able to do without much more than was demanded it if the jazz sections of the piece SINGS BALLADS here. weren't so good. And Festival Sketch, OF THE SAD CAFE granted its rhythmically interesting The recording is well and tastefully opening motive, seems to me lower done and, if nothing really outstand• drawer Lewis. ing occurs, there is still enough ex• cellence of performance here to Then Sonny Rollins. Schuller says he make it worth listening to with at• is, alternately, "whimsical and sar• •rhc tention and appreciation. donic" and really creative, which H. A. Woodfin is really to say that he is alternately only personal and then really artis• tic. Undeniably, there is a delight in hearing Rollins' own mood, more delight in hearing the coaxing con• "THE MODERN JAZZ QUARTET: versations among the players and At Music Inn, Vol. 2. with the confident saxophonist who SONNY ROLLINS". Atlantic 1299. implies with such little effort. But Milt Jackson, vibes; John if jazz (as some contend—not Lewis, piano; Percy Heath, bass; Schuller) is really the art of the Atlantic LP 1307 passing emotions of the moment, Connie Kay, drums. Tracks 5, Chris Connor, the sensation of all of this 6, with Sonny Rollins, tenor. then it is either a very minor art year's jazz festivals, presents a beauti• Medley (Stardust, I Can't Get or no art. And, despite the note of ful collection of songs of lost love and Started, Lover Man); Yardbird orneryness involved, Rollins' han• bittersweet memories. Her warmth, taste dling of the theme melody on Bags' and understanding make this a rich Suite; Midsummer; Festival Sketch; listening experience. Chris is accom• Bags Groove; Night in Tunisia. Groove shows one thing that can panied by a complement of top jazz save an artist from the chaos of the musicians—and strings. Gunther Schuller wrote liner notes moment and the very subjective. for this Ip. They are the kind of Like the Quartet, he has his sense notes which will make one listen of form. DICK KATZ: with more attention and understand• ing (and any other kind will be The kind of form that each has PIANO & PEN either puff or pap), but therefore are evolved is different and was dif• also the kind that may leave a re• ferently arrived at. A previous meet• viewer with much less to say. ing on records (on Prestige 7029) is pretty dreadful. All were already The first point about the Quartet is, very good players, but none had ar• of course, that it began as a col• rived at a sense of form. There was lection of fine players. Its forms no basis for the meeting except per• (whatever their source) came as the haps the fact that both Jackson and best way for the group to express Rollins obviously liked to blow, and (and improve) itself individually and that is not much of a basis. All of collectively. Most group forms in the differences in basic musical jazz have ultimately come from the sensibility between Rollins and the needs and potentials of the players Quartet were glaringly dramatized, in them. That the Quartet's formal and they clashed. Here, they meet sense is also one of the most out• after each has achieved a maturity standing in jazz is a tribute to its and sureness and meet on just that members. No doubt the 17th and basis, and therefore their different 18th Centuries were Lewis's idea, approaches to music and musical Atlantic LP 1314 but, as now transmuted by the feeling do not clash—or when they Dick Katz is the superb young pianist group, they are both MJQ and Lewis, are about to, one now more mature Atlantic presented in Jazz Piano Inter• Jackson, Heath, and Kay. Has such national (LP 1287). Considered by critics wholesale borrowing from Europe man can modify his ways for the a top "comer" of the day, Dick Katz in previously produced anything but moment to bring them together. his new LP is seen to be not only a There is another thing that can save brilliant pianist, but a composer and musical foolishness, between ragtime arranger of the first rank as well. and the Quartet? from the transient and subjective, the point we began with: when real So, a record by four of the most creativity simply overtakes one and Both albums available monaural $4.98 expressive players around in a dictates its own form. You have to and stereo $5.98 uniquely integrated and responsive be ready for that. Jackson was on group. A joy! What more to say? At Night in Tunisia and Lewis was on Write for IP catalogue least this: the beautiful distillation Bag's Groove and, my goodness, the and stereo disc listing. and re-building of Yardbird Suite results are something to hear. TLANTIC is excellent, and—the difficult thing Martin Williams ma 157 West 57th St., New York 19, N. Y. : "Bones for the Ory in that he is very economical erated in this number, which closes King." FELSTED FAJ 7006. with notes, using plenty of glisando, on a flexible four-part chorus by the Bones for the King; Sweet Daddy while later on the side (in Heart) he horns. Spo-de-O; You Took My Heart. has amalgamated to this the whole The tribute-to-Fletcher piece, Dicky Wells, trombone; Prez Young pre-bop lyricism of sim• Smack, begins with a rhythm sec• Vic Dickenson, trombone; plicity, revealing at once that the man tion monitored out of audibility, Benny Morton, trombone; is a keen student and practitioner of buried under riffing reeds, the whole George Matthews; trombone; total jazz and gives to his trombone atmosphere of this ensemble is Kan• Skip Hall, organ; a considerable stylistic amplitude. sas City and the regional style which , bass; There is never a blues played without its name represents. Briefly, the mo• , drums. a modicum of hope buried within it. ments that count are Buck Clayton's Hello, Smack, Come and Get It; This is the converse: not a blues of and Dicky Wells' part-choruses, and Stan's Dance. protest, but a happy expression with Buddy Tate's easily played solos of Dicky Wells, trombone; only an inkling of despair seeping evenly-detached notes. The letdowns Buck Clayton, trumpet; through some of Wells' statements shall not be mentioned; they are too Rudy Rutherford, clarinet and and those of Matthews. Indeed, it evident. Get It is a fabricated blues: baritone sax; Buddy Tate, tenor would be impossible to paint this sincere in intent, but of cerebral- and baritone sax; Skip Hall, piano; canvas differently with a mounte• sounding manufacture in structure. Everett Braksdale, guitar, bank like Skippy Hall loose in the Barksdale has a good solo here and Major Holley, bass; studio; his good-natured organic so does Buck: a searing, molten one Jo Jones, drums. grimaces are a cure for any blues. that is marred, however, by unfor• Jo Jones' cymbals sound very nice tunate recording balance. Best mo• Here are two types of instrumenta• on Bones, thanks to astute mike ment of the entire side comes when tion, one unorthodox and one con• placement. His snares also point up Dicky Wells gives his all in a memor• ventional. Which succeeded? The the soloists rhythmically. The tempo able essay on the blues over stop first one, the one that refied the is expertly maintained. chords by his men; the leader has conventions of the riff-ridden format The four exhibit a very an ample fund of nuanced notes and and come up with its own concept. good ensemble sonority in the open• other pitchless impedimenta needed Wells offers choice blends of instru• ing chorus of Heart, setting an ex• to carry it off with distinction. mental tone color, and his selection hilarating stage for the four solos Notable in Stan's Dance are a piano of George Matthews, Vic Dickenson that follow, with Dicky Wells bringing solo in which the capable ideas and Benny Morton made a solid yet up the rear after leading off in his of Skip Hall teem forth in all their flexible front line for the beautifully easy, idiomatic manner. coruscation, followed by an earthy, executed ensemble choruses and At the outset it was apparent that well-articulated open-horn solo from side-remarks of this four-part trom• the quality of the rhythm section Buck Clayton, whose conception has bone choir. Their superbly agile har• would match that of the soloists. It scarcely changed since the days in mony was at all times controlled and is entirely to the credit of organ, which he made the Kansas City Six resonant. And, to keep this foursome bass and drums, that they kept the and Seven sides for Commodore. The from becoming stodgy, Dicky sup• areas between the solos emotionally mood is broken by the unfeeling clar• plied Hall's impish organ caulkings heightened. Of course, if some of the inet work, and from the one the and the leaven of Jo Jones' mar- soloists failed to keep up their end record is just bits and pieces, with velously paced percussion. Binding of the bargain (the case on side 2), background suppliers sticking close all this together was the plangency the whole surcharged effect was dis• to the tonic, a la Glenn Miller and of Major Hoi ley's walking bass, in the sipated. Good jazz is like that — a Kansas City. But return to the other tradition of the late Walter Page and true aural democracy, with each solo side. . and rhythm man pulling his own Charles Payne Rogers weight in sound. And inside that de• On Side 1 solo, the recording engi• mocracy, three trombones contribu• neers achieved a balance of tonal ted their individual statements in mass that helped the performance their own way. Dicky's first solo was immeasurably and in contrast to the pure jabberwocky; Benny Morton (he second where certain rhythm mem• THE GAY SISTERS: "God Will of the unforgettable Shim-me-sha- bers seem far too distant to be effec• Take Care of You," wabble, Red Allen, Decca) ushered tive. The solos on the Bones for the in a good solo that more in trumpet Savoy MG 14021. King, are probably a matter of taste, than trombone style. And it is always God Will Take Care of You; I think that in the matter of: 1) con• news when a man exceeds himself: I'm Gonna Walk Out in Jesus' Name; tent, and 2) appropriately expressive Vic Dickenson's on-the-beat-type of I'm a Soldier; Oh Lord, Somebody phrases for the instrument at hand, trombone, replete with rips and tre• Touched Me; Only Believe; George Matthews and Dicky come off molos, surpassed many of his pre• God Is on our Side; We're Gonna best. Both men make eloquent use vious efforts. Finally, the muted solo Have a Time; God Shall Wipe All of the sliding quality inherent in the of Dicky brought out the history of Tears Away; He Knows How Much We trombone. Matthews has that multi• the many years that he had spent in Can Bear; It's Real; The Little dimensional, cavernous sound to the company of Lester Young. This Church on the Hill. each note; with a little more exer• particular kind of phrase-making al• cise of imaginative phrase-making he Evelyn and Mildred Gay still have a ways seems to be trying to negate would be among the best on this in• few rough edges left, enough to make the inexorable four-four dance pulse, strument. Dicky Wells, himself, is an a very lively album. and Dicky's ideas as herein con• amazing package of the jazz gamut. One sister's voice is soprano, the tained the tremendous interest gen• On these blues he is much like Kid other's is a deep alto. When not in

40 duet, the soprano part often detaches The First and Only Complete Guide to from the main body of song to break into excited upper register cries. Intensifying the "in-church" atmos• phere of the album is the song We're JAZZ Gonna Have a Time. The male chorus joins to answer with the title refrain each statement sung by the Gay Sis• IMPROVISATION ters, who string together traditional by America's leading lines from scattered song stanzas: jazz piano teacher "Let's go rock an' roll." JOHN MEHEGAN "The bell's gonna ring." Instructor, Juilliard School of Music "There's two white horses." and Teachers College Columbia Uni• "Shout around the floor." versity; Jazz Critic, New York Herald "I'm gonna sing, sing, sing." Tribune. "There's a good, good, good time." Preface by "Ride, ride, ride." "Come and go with me." LEONARD BERNSTEIN The appearance of lines like Ride, It would cost you hundreds of dollars to study this material personally ride, ride, ride, Let's go rock an' roll, with John Mehegan, but his big book makes all the information available and, in Somebody Touched Me, "I for about the price of one lesson. knew I love that man" have curiously LEONARD BERNSTEIN comments: "A highly important and valuable paradoxical overtones of secularity, publication." : Fulfills a definite or perhaps I should not inherent in the songs themselves, say desperate need." and not intentional on the part of the ROBERT T. PACE, Associate Professor of Music, Teachers College Columbia artists involved, but rather due to the University: "The author has presented his subject from a pedagogic and listener's previously experienced musically sound approach." contact with these phrases in con• : "There has long been a need for a book explaining texts other than sacred. However, the the basic tools with which a jazz musician works. This is such a book ..." instrumental accompaniments, in• Send $15 now for a first edition copy of JAZZ IMPROVISATION by JOHN troductions, and interludes provided MEHEGAN. 10-day money back guarantee if you are not entirely satisfied. by the Gay Sisters, on piano and WATSON GUPTILL PUBLICATIONS, INC., Publishers of quality organ, with periodic appearances of books since 1937. the tambourine, are so embedded 24 West 40th St., Dept. JR, New York 18, N. Y. For N.Y.C. delivery with "hot" elements, that, regardless add 3% sales tax. of the intent of the performers or the context of the music, the listener finds it difficult to separate the musi• cal identities of Negro secular and sacred music. The piano practically barrelhouses on Somebody Touched Me and I'm a Soldier. A boogie-ish chorus intro• duces I'm a Soldier and a boogie bass pervades Somebody Touched Me, while Garner comes to mind in The Little Church on the Hill and "We're Gonna Have a Time." The sister on piano plays in a style more individual than most gospel pianists; she breaks out of "gospel cliches" and resorts to some of her own imaginative ideas; and whatever she does is heavily couched in jazz. (These "gospel cliches"—the stock harmonic patterns and voicings and the skippering little rhythmic melo• dies—would make an interesting study in themselves; the same instru• mental figures recur on all the rec• Noted jazz historian, MARSHALL STEARNS, author of the STORY OP JAZZ, takes notes ords and in all the churches, and for his new book on jazz and the dance from an interview tape that he plays back on there seems to be a definite way of his NORELCO 'Continental' tape recorder. DR. STEARNS is Director of the INSTITUTE playing gospel music, a tradition with OF JAZZ STUDIES and Associate Professor of English at HUNTER COLLEGE. "/ make specific patterns and formulae which constant use of my NORELCO 'Continental' when doing field work for my books and articles," states DR. STEARNS. "Here, the most significant feature is three speed is being passed on around the versatility. I find that the extremely economical 1% speed is ideal for recording country.) interviews from which I later take material needed for my work. The other speeds This is an album of more than routine are exceptional for their ability to capture the full fidelity of music and voice." interest. The NORELCO 'Continental' is • product of North American Philips Co., Inc., High Mimi Clar Fidelity Products Division, Dept.leeC, 230 Duffy Avenue, Hicksville, L. I., N. Y. 41 cate existing but unfamiliar ones" our lives in daily association with from the field of legitimate music; the founding fathers of jazz failed, BOOK for instance, "slapping for pizzicato precisely because of our closeness, playing." But this, too, is surely a to see the wood for the trees. Thus REVIEW muddle. Jazz players follow legiti• Newton's book, as a study in per• mate technique when they pluck spective, is a genuine eye-opener. their strings. But is there any such But he employs a technique which THE JAZZ SCENE by Francis Newton. thing in legitimate music as slap• is often disconserting—a deliberate Macgibbon & Kee (London) 1959. ping? If so, dare we call it pizzicato? effect-before-cause approach which In a long passage on the political starts with the consumer and treats "Francis Newton" is the pseudonyn indifference of jazzmen, he claims the producer more or less as though of an English scholar of distinction that there is no such thing as a he were the consumer's creature. who has become increasingly inter• "political refugee" from McCarthy- Coming from a man who is at least ested in jazz during the last few sim among jazzmen. Is that true? acquainted with Marxism, this years and has for some time now What about ? sounds very odd indeed. The world conducted a column in the New He is a bit ungenerous to his Euro• of jazz, he says, "consists not only Stateman & Nation. His first book pean colleagues. "The French," he of the noises which emerge from on the subject, The Jazz Scene, is says, "patently know too little to particular combinations of instru• a highly intelligent but oddly un• write full-dress books, as was the ments played in a characteristic way even work. It makes great demands case with M. Panassies Le Jazz Hot . . . The fact that British working- on us by setting out tables of census (1934), virtually all of which was class boys in Newcastle play it is at classes, occupations of jazz fans, abandoned by its author within five least as interesting as . . . the fact and other sociological matter in years." Now I've had all sorts of that it progressed through the front• which few readers of books on music disagreements with Hugues over the ier saloons of the Mississippi Valley are likely to be interested. And it at• years, but I hate to see him shrugged . . . You who read this page, I, who tacks out patience from the opposite off like this. He "abandoned" very have written it, are not the least un• side by insisting on explaining words little; he added a great deal; he was expected and surprising parts of the and events which every reader of a the progenitor of serious jazz criti• world of jazz. What business have jazz book is bound to know by heart. cism-, and he remains the best of we, after all, with what was not so In two separate glossaries—one at the critics in one simple sense: he long ago a local idiom of negros and the beginning and another one at has the best ear. poor whites in the Southern states the end—Newton explains words like of the USA?" "combo," "pop music" and "side- The difference between Hugues and man." When men like Prez, Bean or Newton is this: Hugues writes about What indeed? The question becomes Weely are mentioned, he finds it music — Newton about the back• pertinent at the end of chapter 2 necessary to explain that these are ground of music and its impact. where a list of basic jazz records is nicknames for Lester Young, Cole• Newton's book says very little about given which is so oddly slanted man Hawkins or . He jazz as music that hasn't been said towards Europe that the answer calls pod "pot," translates in there before, but it says things about the should probably be "none." As a as "somewhere," and perpetuates jazz audience, the mentality of jazz foreigner living in England, I've the old howler about Jack the Bear musicians, and the economics of the learnt to respect the quirks of the being a "cryptic title" based on jazz business that haven't been said natives—but to find "Spike Hughes' Harlem rhyming slang for not any• anywhere else. Hugues hardly ever Negro Orchestra" mentioned among where. Titles like Little Posy and theorized—but the moment he did, the best forty jazz records available Portrait of the Lion are similarly de• he became fallible. Newton theo• in England is carrying local patri• scribed as "esoteric jokes ... ex• rizes a great deal and becomes otism to the point of paranoia; and pressed in the Harlem slang of the fallible the moment he gets down to to pick "Dickie Wells in Paris" as hipster." The resultant sensation is music proper. In this sense, Panassie one of the fourteen best records of rather like being alternatingly snub• seems part of the Anglo-Saxon tra• mid-period jazz is symptomatic of bed and nudged in the ribs. dition of criticism, Newton of the the astigmatism which has afflicted He defines jazz as "what happens Continental one. In fact, The Jazz Europeans ever since they discovered when a folk-music does not go un• Scene has much more in common America. I, too, admire Dickie, but der but maintains itself in the en• with the German jazz books of even Panassie's not inconsiderable vironment of modern urban and Joachim Ernst Berendt (misspelt powers of salesmanship have failed industrial civilization." True, but Behrendt throughout Newton's vol• to persuade me that Dickie's ac• surely too wide? If we are to take ume) than with anything written by companiment on this particular disk this literally, then flamenco is jazz, an English or American critic. is even mildly competent. and so is naga-uta in Japan, Hard- The book's main weakness, in spite There follow three historical chap• anger fiddle music in Norway, or the of its title, is its remoteness from ters in which Newton sides largely Tutelo Fourth Night Spirit Release the living Jazz Scene. A scrupulous with Feather. New Orleans jazz did Singing at home. writer, Newton makes no bones about not trigger off the jazz era but merely the fact that he has met next to contributed to it. Jazz didn't spread "Nothing like the conservatoire," he none of the people about whom he north from Storyville but grew up says, "or like the classical ballet writes. He hides neither the fact simultaneously all over the U.S.A. school has ever existed in jazz." Is that his information has reached him "At most, New Orleans accelerated that really true? What about Tio's largely through books and records, whatever tendencies towards jazz clarinet school in New Orleans? nor his lack of practical experience existed locally . . . The subsequent Tristano? The School of Jazz at in the dance band world. He knows movement of jazz musicians reflect Music Inn? Jazz at Juillard? that these are no shortcomings, for not only the traditional touring routes Most jazz terms, he claims, "dupli• many of us who have spent years of of vaudeville artists and minstrel

42 shows but . . . the routes of migra• Brilliant and largely true. ago. Naturally, he gives Finkelstein tion of ordinary negroes. (Through• The next four chapters (Blues and full credit—but that isn't good out the book, Negro is spelt negro, Orchestral Jazz, The Instruments, enough. If a man is capable of though Jew isn't spelt jew, and The Musical Achievement and Jazz originality, as I know Newton to be, indian is spelt Indian). For this mass and the Other Arts) are sketchy. Well he cheats us by witholding his migration, rather than the temporary written and at times neatly epigram• gifts. purity drive in New Orleans, pushed matic, they add little to our store The rest of the book is solid soci• even the New Orleans musicians of jazz knowledge, for in contrast ology, broken down into chapters on northwards." to his courage on social matters, , The Jazz Business, Sociological commonplaces like Newton seems afraid here of putting The Musicians, The Public and Jazz these are always useful as antidotes forward any ideas of his own. "There As Protest. Steep up-hill work, all of to the racial romanticism of Goffin, is some argument about the charac• it, laid out in paragraphs that some• Blesh and Mezzrow, but Newton him• teristic blue scale and its harmony," times cover three pages without a self is not entirely free from it, for he says and goes on muttering under break, and followed by an appendix in his next chapter he quotes, of all his breath for half a dozen sen• on the social and economic back• places, South Africa as "the most tences or so. Which is rather like ground of the British jazz fan, a flourishing centre of creative jazz writing a book on 17th century glossary of Jazz Language, a Guide outside America." I can understand music in Italy and passing over to Further Reading and an Index. how amused he must have been Palestrina with the casual note that Even here, alas, the book bears when he first discovered that there "there is some argument about the the marks of haste and uncertainty. was any such thing as jazz among characteristic use of polyphony in Names that pop up half a dozen Johannesburg Negroes. But this kind his madrigals." times or more in the text may occur of discovery usually works out as a Surely, if I buy a book on jazz by once, twice or not at all in the index. subconscious confidence trick: the a distinguished scholar, this is pre• Source material to which we are very fact that Africans should be cisely the sort of question on which directed by reference numbers in playing jazz at all tends to encour• I would seek his authoritative ver• the text, turns out to be non-exist• age one in overrating the quality of dict. And this is not an exceptional ent. Chapter 4, reference 23 (p. their music. Let me predict that Mr. incident of shirking the issue: it's 70), and chapter 8, reference 5 p. Newton, with the passing of time, the kind of thing that occurs 145), thus simply don't exist. Other will find out that South African jazz, throughout the book whenever the references lead us into blind alleys. in spite of the players' skin colour, discussion turns to purely musical Chapter 6, reference 1 (p. 99), deals is as derivative as its English coun• matters. "I owe . . . this and the with Blind Lemon Jefferson, but terpart. next chapter to Charles Fox," says refers us mysteriously to the Jazz Messengers' version of Hard Bop. The next chapter, Transformation, Newton at one point; and a little Chapter 7, reference 1 (p. 122), distinguishes between "jazz evolu• later: "Throughout this chapter I have greatly relied on {Tinkelstein's deals with Ellington's Concerto for tion up to the end of the middle Cootie, but refers us bafflingly to period" (which is or was "the prod• Jazz, a People's Music}. My account of the modern transformation of the "Behrend's diagrams which are as uct of unself-conscious popular good as any." Chapter 9, reference musicians playing for an unself-con• ballad is also based on this book." All of which speaks highly for 1 (p. 148), deals with Constant scious public") and modern jazz Lambert's Rio Grande but refers us, which is "the product of self-con• Newton's honesty—but it makes us wonder why he ever thought of writ• of all things, to "Rex Harris Jazz scious musicians playing for a self- (Pelican Books)." conscious public." Nothing, says ing a book on jazz. Newton, "is less resistant than folk If it were a question of field work The Guide to Further Reading art, for its artists and public prac• as opposed to interpretation, or of contains Hodeir and Bruynoghe, but tise it not only because they have a pioneer work as opposed to cur• nothing by Ramsey, William Russell, strong preference for it, but because rently possible research, such defer• Gene Williams or Charles Edward it is the only art they know." This ence to other writers might be taken Smith. Of Panassie's many books, change from folk music to minority as part of the normal process of only the Dictionary of Jazz is men• art, or from old jazz to new, is par• academic work. But if a highly intel• tioned. Ulanov on Ellington is there, alleled by a change in repertoire ligent man, in a book on music, but Boyer isn't. Raymond Horricks, from blues to ballads. "Even when stops thinking for himself the of all people, crops up twice, but playing the blues, a modern moment music qua music is being Winthrop Sargeant is missing. They trumpeter like Miles Davis thinks discussed, one naturally wonders All Played Ragtime is in, but Shin• automatically in terms of the way why he doesn't turn his talents to ing Trumpets is out. Naturally, a a 'ballad' is played." (Words like a subject more congenial to them. bibliography like this must be selec• ballad are always hedged in by quo• This process of making things easy tive, but it is precisely the selection tation marks in The Jazz Scene). for himself extends at times even to that makes us wonder whether New• With the advent of a self-conscious extra-musical matters—blues lyrics, ton's standards can really be relied jazz audience, the player's task thus for instance. Next to none of the on. If there is room for The Fabulous defeats itself: "The specialized jazz samples which Newton quotes here Phonograph, how can the absence lovers themselves become a com• are new to us; almost all have ap• of Jazz: New Orleans 1885-1957 be mercial public, demanding the im• peared in print before. When he justified? possible, to hear the spontaneous, contrasts a blues with a pop song The style, on the whole, is more unplanned jazz of the jam session (to show how down-to-earth the one literate than one has come to expect played to order on a concert plat• is and how wishy-washy the other), from jazz writers, though even here form." The true jazz lovers' search he uses the same juxtaposition of the the occasional hyperbole creeps in: for truth thus "tends to strangle the same two lyrics which appeared in "It's Tight Like This takes us into music they wish to embrace." Jazz, A People's Music eleven years the emotional realms of Macbeth's

43 soliloquies" (p. 139). There are might. in itself have limitations and the awkwardnesses that bewilder us in The play's setting is the squalid loft manner of treatment within form a writer of Newton's accomplish• of an addict, and the characters in• can elevate the starkest content. But ments—the word "classical" (p. 17) clude four jazz musicians who, like Mr. Gelber wants to shock. employed not as an antonym to all but three peripheral roles, are To this purpose he has employed a romantic but in the sense of "non- attracted or addicted to heroin. The series of devices (the connection jazz." Other phrases hurt like a faint play is in two acts, the first of which might well be called Waiting for toothache: "The most usual use" has as its passive action the long Cowboy), entrances from the house, (p. 16), "I daresay a number of, wait for "Cowboy" to bring the voices from the back of the house, say," (p. 17), "took against jazz" (p. longed-for drug. In the second act players who are both "in" and "out" 70), "Ellington has been visibly Cowboy arrives bringing the heroin of the play—all techniques which troubled by the loss of Barney which paralyzes not only the charac• draw on Commedia dell'Arte, Moli- Bigard" (p. 142), "only two things ters but the play, for now there is no ere, Shakespeare and vaudeville and remains of his former self" (p. 220), raison d'etre. The characters are a all revitalized by Orson Welles in "jive talk puts a premium of linguis• group of inconsequential men, with• his Mercury Theatre productions, tic creativeness and slipperiness" out aspiration, without history, who Thornton Wilder, the Group Theatre's (p. 292). talk in disjointed phrases, have petty Waiting for Lefty, and which The These are blemishes so small that arguments, listen to jazz without Federal Theatre's Living-Newspaper one would pass them over in most enthusiasm or comment, and just used extensively. Mr. Gelber appar• other writers without wishing to com• wait to get high. ently has also been attracted to the presentational theatre of Bertolt ment. But Newton is so capable, Woven into this atmosphere of mal• Brecht, but his attraction is mere and the practice of dashing off jazz aise is music written by Freddie flirtation—he has not become inti• books in a few months is geting Redd and played by a quartet with mate with the subject of his affec• to be so prevalent among men of Mr. Redd on piano and Jackie tion. It would seem that in an effort McLean on alto. I think it a fair ex• intelligence, that the time has come to remove the cobwebs from theatre ample of Mr. Gelber's confusion to draw attention to the inevitable Mr. Gelber has torn down the walls. between naturalism and realism to debasement that will creep into jazz Not only does Mr. Gelber confuse us tell you that these musicians appear literature if the critics don't treat with the position of the four musi• on stage as junkys in the context of their tasks with greater respect. The cians, he drags in other gifted men the play, play jazz and, astonishingly more books of his kind that are implying some complicity in this enough, use their real names. One written, each of them quoting and black world. Twice he has a vague What are these musicians in the sub-quoting the same stock of facts character, a queer meaningless per• convention of the proscenium in the and interpretations, the more dif• son take stage simply as a means of context of a play using their real ficult will it be to persuade readers bringing on a phonograph which he names? Actors? Themselves? What? that anything worth saying about plugs in and then uses to play a And if this is a new documentary jazz remains to be said. Charlie Parker-Miles Davis record in technique, to what purpose, since it As the pile of jazz books grows, so the stony silence of the junky's is inconsistent with the other fic• will the reader's distrust of the lot room. That done, he tucks his phono• tional characters? This distortion of them. Cynicism on the author's graph under his arm and wordlessly smacks of the gimmick and it serves part breeds cumulative cynicism on exits. What is the implication? Or is to distill Mr. Gelber's slight stage the reader's. Thus, if the blessed that what Mr. Gelber means by a reality. One wonders, "Are these men event should come about one day "jazz play"? Is there some illumina• really junkys and are we seeing here that someone writes a jazz book tion in this oddball behaviour which a playing out of a personal night• reveals anything about the nature of which really breaks new ground, he mare? It may be "true to life," but it either jazz or junk? Or does he sup• may well find himself preaching in is not true to theatre. There is no pose that an accumulation of dis• a wilderness. illusion, no space in which the audi• jointed acts and inferences will Ernest Borneman ence may co-create, and without the result in the image of a junky? quickening of a spectator's thinking- He has shown us the shell of a junky feeling, there is no art. and not engaged our sympathy or in• It is this basic formlessness and creased our understanding more naturalistic content which colors all than a sensational newspaper ac• my criticism of the play and which count or a cliche-ridden movie. More makes discussion of acting, set de• THEATRE important he has abused our sen• sign, lighting impossible. The actor, sibilities and made a virtue of his director, designer, etc. are in the crudity. He has depicted a series of REVIEW service of the play and I do not think violent brutal acts in street language Mr. Gelber wrote much of a play. A and his excuse for showing them to great deal was said in its favor by us is, "That's the way it is, man . . . THE CONNECTION by Jack Gelber. reviewers—that it shows junkys as that's the way it really is." Perhaps Directed by Judith Malina. Original they really are, that it strips the Mr. Gelber would do well to listen to music composed by Freddie Redd. glamor from this hidden society, that a good blues singer reveal great Jazz and junk go together like ham Mr. Gelber is an innovator. depths of misery, within the limits and eggs in the world of Jack Gelber, What I saw was the deterioration of of a modest and infinitely fluid form whose play The Connection opened the modes of "epic theatre" into and still make one remember the at the Living Theatre last August. sensation-seeking devices. The form beauty and endurance of the human Obviously, Mr. Gelber has been "on that gives an art its dignity and spirit. the scene" and he shows us a literal meaning may be fluid, allowing for picture of junkys that catches one's many internal variations, but it must attention the way a photograph Hortense Geist

44 trombones, metal clari• JAZZ IN PRINT nets, accordions and bass viols merge into heterogeneous combinations to provide music for dancing in the African beer, halls and parks. In Mpopoma Bulawayo (Southern Rhodesia), a dance plaza designated 'Jive Klub' has been dedicated exclusively to that style of dancing." A new paperback edition of the extremely hard to by NAT HENTOFF find Songs of Leadbelly is now out via Folkways Music Publishers, 10 Columbus Circle, New York, N. Y. John A. Lomax's controversial introduction A compact, valuable series use of it in my chapter is not reprinted, and of paperback discographies on Baby for The Jazz several songs not con• is being issued by Ole Makers. There are photo• tained in the original Vestergaard Jensen of graphs and an index. are included. Brande Boghandel, Brande, Newly published by Carl Haverlin, head of Denmark. Those received Gollancz in England is Broadcasy Music, Inc., so far include three vol• These Jazzmen of Our Time. contributes in a letter a umes of Ellington from Raymond Horricks wrote new etymological theory 1925 to the present ; Miles nine of the profiles, in re ofay: "Some Negroes Davis; ; Count and there are pieces by who worked for white Basie. All have bi• Charles Fox, Benny Green, families aped the ways ographical notes by Knud Max Harrison, Ed Michel, of the white folks. Among H. Ditlevsen. Alun Morgan, Martin other things, they George Pitts of The Pitts• Williams and this writer. picked up the phrase burgh Courier says in a Willard Rhodes had a which was quite common letter: "About the Dick piece, Western Influence in French-speaking New Clark thing—latest re• Diluting African Music, Orleans, au fait. Since ports have it that a few in the Sunday New York some had great affection Negro dancers have been Times music section: "In for the families for which seen on the show periodi• his indomitable drive to they worked, they tried cally, simply because of advance himself and im• to get their children the load roars of protest. prove his condition of to do things which were I wrote several letters life the African has au fait and not gauche." to Clark and was 'assured' accepted the externals of The theory goes on that that no discrimination Western culture, which white and au fait became existed, but for the he regards as symbols of synonymous in the argot, record, Negro viewers are civilization and to which and later generations still far from satisfied." he attaches a prestige turned it into ofay." The excellent value. Nowhere is this A. L. Lloyd, editor of Story as Told to Larry trend more evident than in the excellent British Gara is now available in the contemporary music magazines, Recorded Folk paperback, published by that reflects so vividly Music, writes: "I was Contemporary Press, part the detribalized state particularly interested of Contemporary Records. of the urban African. in your interview with It's $2.50 and is avail• The indigenous music that Miles Davis, and smiled able by writing to Contem• was so intimately and at his admiration of porary, 8481 Melrose functionally integrated in Bill Evans' skill in Place, Los Angeles 46, the tribal culture is being able to play in California. Parts of it rapidly displaced by the 5/4 (a rhythm first used appeared a few years ago new music modeled after in art music by Chopin, in the British Jazz American jazz, 'jive,' and I believe, probably Journal and I made heavy rock 'n' roll. ,

45 as a borrowing from folk says Bland, is that The Jazz Review would music). Still, one sees hard-to-define 'swinging' welcome answers to any what Mr. Davis means, quality. And this, he or all of Mr. Borneman's and indeed it might says, is the precise questions in letter or well be something of a quality that jazz can best article form. liberation for jazz contribute to contemporary The new Italian jazz musicians to break out of serious music. He feels magazine, Jazz Pi Ieri their 2/4 and 4/4 fetters a swinging beat in E Pi Oggi continues to be (not that some of them contemporary music would the most handsomely don't do plenty in those solve all its problems produced in the world. It fetters!) It is possible of appealing to was with its permission that intelligent jazzmen audiences." that Fran Thorne's Newport may learn from an ac• Questions from Ernest and Great South Bay was quaintance with southeast Borneman: "What makes printed in this journal's European folk music, musically illiterate July, 1959 issue. Address where musicians play the people buy modern jazz? is Firenze S. Reparata 97, Italy. most complicated rhythms It's easy enough for a man with a fabulous sense of who can't read music to The death of Boris Vian is beat without ever getting follow simple Dixieland too painful for me to try fussy. On the other hand, music. But almost the for the right words. Vian when one sees what happens whole of the modern school was a novelist, recording to jazzmen who try too is obviously unintelli• director, trumpet player, self-consciously to learn gible to all except those playright, translator of from African folk music, who have a reasonably contemporary American one wonders whether good schooling in harmony. literature, recording the attempt to absorb So what do they get executive, and a marvelous exotic elements can ever out of it if they haven't deflator of pomposity be more than a gimmick. got that schooling? Is and phoniness. He died Still I'd like to hear it all a fraud? Is it at 39 on June 24, 1959, the reactions of an intel• as he was attending a ligent jazz musician snobbery? Is it fashion? Or do they get a vague private showing of a new like Davis to some of film based on his novel, the music in my album echo of what the musician is trying to do? I'd "I'll Spit on Your Tombs." of Bulgarian music which I hope Charles Delaunay like to see this American Columbia has will think of issuing a investigated by someone just released as part of pamphlet collecting Vian's with real sociological ex• its World Library of Folk Revue de Presse columns perience. Other questions: Music series." for Jazz-Hot. Boris' What kind of music was The Bulgarian album will comments on jazz writing played in New Orleans be played for Miles, here and in Europe between the end of the and his comments will contained some of the fun• Congo Square dances and be noted. niest, most stingingly the Buddy Bolden band? true writing in jazz If you're looking for Are there any spirituals history. rare records, transcrip• with French or Spanish tions, jazz literature, lyrics? Did any spirituals The June Jazz-Hot has etc., while in Chicago, ever arise on plan• material on Sidney Bechet, contact John Steiner, tations owned by Clifford Brown and 1637 N. Ashland, Chicago Catholics? What did jazz Kenny Dorham. The July- 22, Illinois. musicians earn, year by August on Bechet, Lester Chicago Negro composer year, in any given Young as a clarinetist Ed Bland told Don location? What's the and Martial Solal. If you Henahan of the Chicago chronology of the jazz can read French at all, Daily News; "Jazz is dances and who really this magazine is in• exhausted as an art invented them? What dispensable. form. Bop did for jazz influence have the Puerto A lot of comic strips at what Bach did for the Rican immigrants had on one time or another try fugue—took it to the Harlem music? Facts, to use "jazz" as part limit of its potential• please, not just a repe• of the plot or as the ities. Jazz doesn't tition of the obvious idiom of a particular interest us any more." statement that they character. The only one Henahan concludes the influenced the "Afro- that works jazz in with interview: "One of the Cuban" school." accuracy and wit is Gus features peculiar to jazz, Arriola's Gordo.

46 RECONSIDERATIONS/

I Can't Get Started, Columbia from Young's at that period. We note and again with such vapid lyrics 37484, by Billie Holiday—record• the controlled vibrato and dazzling as those for What A Little Moonlight Can Do and even Me and My Shadow ed September 1938. No longer vocal runs away from the melody which were so characteristic of she has succeeded in enlarging the in print. Young at his best. But even more emotional scope and depth of what important is that Billie (with Young she sings. In I Can't Get Started In its beginnings, the swing style of and the Basie band) changed the she fails with honor and it is in• such bands as Fletcher Henderson's entire structure of jazz rhythm and teresting to speculate about the was a purely instrumental approach the soloist's relation to it. The 4/4 reasons. In terms of vocal accom• which paid little or no attention to rhythm became one in which the plishment, the recording is in no the possibilities of a complementary weak and strong beat distinction no way inferior to others of the same vocal style. longer held; instead, the pulse be• period. Yet the listener seeks in Earlier vocal styles such as the came equally accented, and against vain for that sense of deep emo• music hall blues of Bessie Smith or it the soloist, in essence, improvised tional involvement that is so much the florid virtuosity of Armstrong both melodically and rythmically. an effect of Billie's best work. If Me were simply not suited to the driv• This is immediately apparent in I and My Shadow is emotionally mov• ing 4/4 rhythm and section inter• Can't Get Started in which the only ing, why does I Can't Get Started play of the swing band. Besides soloists are Billie and Lester. We seem unconvincing? the material itself had changed. The can observe how they work in, I suggest the reason is to be found typical swing themes were, for the around and on the beat with a free• in the lyrics themselves. Those most part, drawn from or influenced dom seldom before present in jazz. popular songs into which Billie by the thirty-two bar popular song Young's introduction is immediately projects the most intense meaning, form, except for the Midwestern followed by Billie's first chorus in no matter how foolish the lyrics, are blues which Basie brought to the which she continues to develop the those dealing with sexual emotion East with Jimmy Rushing. melodic content of the theme with under any of its various guises. It was not until the appearance of a constant awareness of the rhyth• Ostensibly I Can't Get Started is Billie Holiday in 1935 that the swing mic possibilities; and when Lester such a song. But the lyrics are only idiom found a vocal style. Even in follows with sixteen bars, we hear apparently connected with such an her earliest recordings, Billie's voice immediately that they are both deal• emotion. The song really functions was completely suited to the swing ing with the theme in the same way. as a flippant exercise in which the medium. A Holiday vocal is a solo Nevertheless, no amount of discus• words connect the emotion of love in the same sense as a Lester Young sion of the ways the jazz vocalist with various topical events. The improvisation with the Basie band treats voice as horn can deny the result is that the connection with is. It is not only that she treats her fact that the vocalist must deal with the erotic theme is lost, and the voice as an improviser does his horn an additional problem which is not song degenerates into a collection but also that her voice, particularly of concern to the instrumental of clever references. Not even Billie in her recordings from 1935 to soloist. The problem, of course, is can make it seem important. 1940 is not superimposed upon the that of words and their meanings. In short, I Can't Get Started is in• other instruments, but acts as one The vocalist is working with the teresting in that it grants us, even of the instruments. In those record• lyrics of a song and must adapt the by its failure, an insight into the ings, she is not the dominant voice words to his or her own uses. And strange relationship between jazz although she is the most important the lyrics of the standard popular singers and the lyrics in which they one. Rather she interplays with the song are seldom estimulating in must become involved. Each singer other horns. themselves. The emotions described must solve the problem of meta• are generally shallow. The jazz morphosing lyrics in a personal way. This interplay is nowhere as striking vocalist must make these words I Can't Get Started demonstrates as in those of her recordings made meaningful and deeper. that some material is instracable to with Lester Young. As has been No one is a greater master of this certain methods. pointed out often, her style in the difficult art than Billie Holiday. Time late 'thirties was derived directly H. A. Woodfin

47 drums: Kaiser Marshall, Walter John• reached into the band in FLETCHER HENDERSON son, Sid Catlett. And the roster of Chicago for Louis Armstrong. The those who appeared on a record date band's character changed. In a few ON RECORDS or two, or filled in with the band for short months, musicians and the a few days or weeks, would read al• public jammed the Roseland Ball• by ERWIN HERSEY most like a discography's index. room to listen. Thus, Henderson's records cannot be There was little change in the ar• entirely uninteresting. Except for the rangements, except that they became To those of us whose interest in jazz very earliest (when the band was a little hotter and this major new was nurtured by reading Hughes making an effort to be "commercial") voice gave the band a swing, warmth, Panassie's Jazz Hot in the late a recording, no matter how dated or and vitality it had lacked previously. 'thirties, an interest in Fletcher Hen• how corny it may sound, invariably Even the worst arrangements and the derson was natural; Panassie had provides at least a few bars of first- sloppiest ensemble passages were awarded Fletcher the highest honor rate solos. now more than compensated for by by placing him with Ellington at the It is interesting to note that Fletcher, the sound of the brasses, with the summit of the big bands. This sent roundly condemned by many for di• voice of the young Louis ringing loud many of us scurrying to Commodore, luting the purity of the early jazz by and clear—and, of course, by his ex• the Hot Record Shop, the juke-box eliminating the improvised ensem• citing solos, capable of bringing even dealers, and Salvation Army ware• bles and taking the perfectly natural the dullest record to life. houses in a frantic search. The rec• step of orchestrating them, should There has been argument over just ords were as good as Panassie had have utilized so many traditional New how good an arranger Fletcher actu• said. Orleans tunes and early published ally was. Certainly the scores from There can be little doubt that every blues; the music the band played this period offer little evidence of any big band from 's during these years stemmed from the outstanding talent aside from the in• to Johnny Richard's owes an incalcu• music of New Orleans. There was very itial genius which led to his belief lable debt to the man from Cuthbert, little else that could be utilized by a that jazz could be orchestrated at all. Georgia, and almost every musician band of the type Fletcher had organ• What is important in this period is who has arranged for a large band ized, and the presence of such New the beauty of a virtuoso Louis solo will acknowledge it. Orleans musicians as Louis, Tommy coming after one of the corny clarinet In the course of putting a sizable Ladnier and Big Green in the band trios so much praised by early record collection, accumulated for inevitably led to the use of things writers; the rowdy swing of Big the most part in the late 'thirties and with which they would be familiar: Green's trombone; and the rough- early 'forties, on tape, I had occasion Shake It and Break It, Aunt Hagar's hewn efforts of a young Coleman to listen closely once again to some Blues, Oh Sister Ain't That Hot, etc.; Hawkins — remarkably similar to sixty sides made by Fletcher from and a few years later the band was those of an equally young Bud Free• 1925 to 1937 which bridge the gap playing Dippermouth Blues (as man a few years later — to achieve between the "jazz" and swing eras. Sugarfoot Stomp), Fidgety Feet, Sen• the style which seemed to emerge These records, almost all of them sations, Snag It, etc. fully almost overnight around 1930. unavailable today, provide evidence More interesting, some of these titles A good example of what the band of just what it was Fletcher Hender• suggest that during these formative sounded like during the Louis period son did for jazz, and many of them years Fletcher was more than a little may be found on the first Sugarfoot sound as good today as they did influenced by white, rather than Stomp, May 29, 1925. A four-bar twenty years ago. Negro, New Orleans music, and often intro leads into a hideous (by today's There has probably never been an• at second-hand. Certainly the Mem• standards, at least) ensemble sax other band which, over a comparable phis Five seems to be peeping out chorus, punctuated by oom-pahs period of time, employed so many from behind the shadow of the earli• from the brasses, and aided not at all top-ranking soloists. As one of the est recordings, and this may partially by a plodding rhythm section. A fair- earliest road bands, Henderson had account for their comparative bland- to-middling brass chorus follows and a tremendous personnel turnover, ness. is succeeded by two corny choruses but he kept out a well-trained ear, Fletcher was the first to attempt to by the clarinet trio, replacing the tra• knew who was doing what where, and, orchestrate material of this kind for ditional clarinet solo. Then comes a when a replacement was needed, a larger jazz band. The band was good solo chorus by Big Green, fol• found the best man available. Many organized in the early twenties, prob• lowed by Louis playing the three of today's best-regarded musicians ably in late 1921 or early 1922, and traditional choruses. The band rides of the older generation first came to by 1922 was already recording for out after the "Oh, play that thing!" prominence with Henderson: trum• Black Swan. exhortation, enters one of the lightly pet: Louis Armstrong, Russell Smith, During this period, Fletcher seemed arranged, pseudo-New Orleans touch• Joe Smith, Tommy Ladnier, Rex to be feeling his way. It was not until es resorted to so frequently in early Stewart, Bobby Stark, Red Allen, Joe Big Green joined the band in 1923 arrangements, and concludes with a Thomas, Mouse Randolph, Roy El- that it had an outstanding soloist, rather grim sax section tag, also dridge, , Emmett Berry; and its repertoire in the early days typical of the period. A record which trombone: Charlie Green, Jimmy consisted primarily of watered-down does not have too much to offer to Harrison, , Benny Mor• versions of the blues, many borrowed the modern ear; still worth listening ton, J. C. Higginbotham, Sandy Wil• from the Memphis Five's book. Pan• to for the solos and for the indication liams, Dickie Wells, Keg Johnson, Ed assie speaks of "commercial conces• as to what Fletcher was striving for. Johnson, Ed Cuffee; tenor: Coleman sions" at its debut; certainly the band Meanest Kind of Blues, Copenhagen, Hawkins, Ben Webster, ; appears at its best during this period Everybody Loves My Baby and Money alto: , , in many of the blues accompani• Blues are other typical examples of Edgar Sampson, Hilton Jefferson; ments, freed from the early arrange• the band's style during the Armstrong clarinet: Buster Bailey, Jerry Blake; ments. Little by little, however, it period. bass: , ; improved, and in 1924, Fletcher In just a year, Louis was gone, re- 48 placed by the sensitive Joe Smith, and similar sides offer evidence of (Jangled Nerves) or tastefully using who brought a completely different the band's sound during this period. a mute to build exciting choruses style—light, warm, pure. A vastly (This is the music Goodman must (Stealin' Apples)—and the fresh under-rated musician little talked have heard and enjoyed, and re• sound of Choo—based on Hawkins, about today, Joe's work with the Hen• called at a time when he was seek• but using a soft-voiced, whispering, derson band grows more and more ing a top arranger.) Arrangements effortless style, a strong contrast to impressive as one listens to the re• that swung of themselves and were the more lush, emotional outbursts cordings. given momentum by the propulsive of Bean and Ben but still capable Why not complement the pure, fluid beat of a great rhythm section; en• of generating enormous warmth in style of Joe Smith, Henderson must semble passages which were no carefully designed choruses at all have reasoned, with that of another longer mere fills but advanced the tempos (Jangled Nerves, Blue Lou, trumpeter, one whose style was al• development of interesting new Christopher Columbus, Back In Your most diametrically opposed? And so compositions and were well played; Own Back Yard, etc. first Rex Stewart, and later Tommy and, inevitably for a Henderson These records, even today, stack up Ladnier, joined the band. The effect band, the exciting solos, now by well against almost any band sides is electric. Almost any one of the Red Allen and Bobby Stark, a de• ever made for swing, power, and ex• numerous records made by the band veloped Coleman Hawkins; Jimmy citement. In fact, there are few, if during this period indicates the ex• Harrison and, later, Claude Jones, any, records as perfect, within their citement it must have generated; the Benny Morton and Higgy, Benny own frame of reference as Stealin' contrasting solo work of Joe and Rex Carter, Buster, and others. Apples, a simple little riff tune or Tommy, of Jimmy Harrison (who But the band was changing again. which has Choo coming out of the joined late in 1926) and Big Green, Bean dropped out and decided c ensemble first chorus with a mag• added to those of Hawkins and Bus• Europe for a few years; Jimmy Har• nificent tenor solo, followed by an ter Bailey, make one wish the Ip had rison had gone to join Chick Webb equally fine chorus by Roy, as thrill• been invented years earlier so that in 1931; etc. However, now came ing an exchange as the Louis-Johnny one could hear the chorus after what may well be the greatset re• Dodds set-to on Wild Man Blues. chorus solos that must have been cordings, the series made for Decca Compare the solo room on all of played at Roseland. in the mid-thirties, with Red Allen, these records, for example, with the The first-rate Henderson records Buster and Ben Webster prominently four and eight-bar bits allotted to from this period are numerous: The featured in versions of many of the soloists on the Lunnceford records. Stampede, with a beautiful Joe compositions later made famous Even Duke seldom did more to help Smith chorus in his purest style, by Goodman—Down South Camp his soloists in the arrangements. and some remarkable breaks and a Meeting, Big John Special, Wrappin' By 1938, the Henderson band was fiery sixteen bars by Rex; the amaz• It Up, etc.—as well as a truly superb eclipsed by the rising new stars of ing Feelin' Good, with Rex; Sen• group—Stealin' Apples, Blue Lou, swing—Lunceford, Chick Webb, BG, sation and Fidgety Feet, which, Christopher Columbus, Back In Your TD, etc. Fletcher joined Goodman perhaps more than any other rec• Own Back Yard, etc.—made for Voc- briefly in 1939, tried to reorganize ords from this era, demonstrate with alion a few years later, with Roy Eld- his ba nd in 1940 but failed, and remarkable clarity the band's style ridge, Choo Berry, Buster and Jerry never regained for himself the place on New Orleans-type tunes, as well Blake. his band had held for so many years. as an indication of internal cutting The Decca recordings provide a He tried a final band in 1951, failed contests; Snae It, which provides startling contrast with their Good• once again, and died of a heart at• Joe Smith with an opportunity to man counterparts. Rougher in tone, tack the following year at 53. demonstrate how the famous not quite so slick, not nearly so well During a period when almost any• choruses from this war-horse should rehearsed or recorded, they never• body and his brother can have a be played; Wang-Wang Blues, with theless present the band in its record date practically for the ask• a Dukish feeling aided no end by a flower—playing the identical ar• ing, it is shocking to find that so visit from Cootie Williams; and many rangements with an infinitely greater little of the Henderson band's best more. swing and power than that ever gen• work is available on Ip. Aside from It is difficult to say when the Hen• erated by the Goodman band, and an occasional track on some omni• derson band acquired the modern featuring solos which make those bus histories of jazz, there is almost sound (that is to ^ay "modern" by of the Goodman versions sound pal• nothing. Nor is this the only gap in the swing standards of the thirties, lid by comparison. The excitement present-day record catalogues. With at least) which is a highlight of its generated by a Red Allen, playing big bands now a thing of past, one recordings beginning in 1930. Some as well as he ever has, by Ben Web• searches in vain for McKinney's Cot• evidence of it can be found as far ster getting his first real opportunity ton Pickers, Luis Russell, Don Red• back as 1927, on such sides as to be heard on wax, and by Buster's man, and some of the great (although Variety Stomp and St. Louis Shuffle; jazzy clarinet, overwhelms that pro• little known) Southwestern bands of many of the corny touches of the duced in the more effete, swing-type the thirties. An Ip made of the best earlier recordings are gone; Bean is work of Benny, Harry James, Art sides recorded by any of these at least part of the way toward the Rollini et al. groups could provide far more value style which identified him (and the The Vocalion sides, and a few Victor and enjoyment than ninety per cent band itself) a few years later; and recordings from the same period, of what passes for jazz in each the ensembles are less sloppy and are possibly even more interesting. week's crop of new releases. have improved intonation. On the They shout less, are more relaxed, Such recordings as Henderson's are basis of recordings, there can be swing a bit more, and are played part of the jazz heritage, and a part little doubt that this change was evo• better. By this time, most of the old which has to a large degree been lutionary rather than revolutionary, stand-bys are gone, replaced by a overlooked by many of our younger and spread out over several years. group of newcomers on their way to musicians in the search for roots By 1930 the band was swinging; Talk fame.- Roy—testing his marvelous which seems to occupy so much of of the Town (featuring Hawkins at his agility, range and singing tone in their time these days. best), King Porter Stomp, Yeah Man fanciful flights into the stratosphere 49 apparently unbridgable. One can only Preacher seemed to be rather closely WOODY HERMAN IN assume the local optimists who be• related. The medley in these con• lieve otherwise don't spend much certs was quite welcome for in it BRITAIN by MAX HARRISON time listening to American records. Herman guyed his past successes in For many years American jazz musi• Even so, it is true that rhythm sec• a charming manner. cians were not allowed to perform in tions are the weakest point on the In view of his reputation it was to be Great Britain. During the past three local scene and the chance to hear expected that Harris should be given years, however, a carefully-regulated some of our better hornmen with the most solo space, but it is difficult series of exchanges have enabled us American support was welcome. to account for the enthusiasm with to hear a considerable number of the The American contingent Herman which his work is regarded, Certainly outstanding figures. After being brought with him consisted of Reun- his style is his own creation and is viewed for so long in the deceptive ald Jones, Nat Adderley, Bill Harris, consistent within itself. On a feature (if not romantic) haze of distance, , Vince Guaraldi, Keeter like Gloomy Sunday he built a mel• contact with live jazz performances Betts and Jimmy Campbell. To these odic line that was inventive and fully has often proved in the event disillu• were added Les Condon, Kenny characteristic of that style. Yet Har• sioning. The most frequently made Wheeler, Bert Courtley (trumpets), ris's idiom is not so much original in complaint about visiting American Eddie Harvey, Ken Wray (trombone), the sense of presenting new musical groups has been that their repertoires , Ronnie Ross, Art Ellef- discoveries as ingeniously freakish. have been too limited and their pro• son and Johnny Scott (reeds). This is Angular phrasing is common enough grams unduly stereotyped. a rather curious miscellany and one in jazz but Harris's is jagged and Ellington was the biggest disappoint• suspects that musicians were en• somehow inconclusive. It is as if he ment of all. When a band is travelling gaged at random on both sides of the is not quite able to control his ideas Atlantic from among those who hap• on a tight schedule some limitation and is uncertain of how best to pre• pened to be free. Herman had just of repertoire is inevitable. Several sent them. Adderley was the soloist two days to shape this assemblage times while he was here Ellington re• from whom most could be expected into a band before the opening con• marked that he had a book consisting but he was given little to do. He cert. Aided no doubt by the long ex• of several thousand pieces and that played some swinging, clean-toned he never decided what he was going perience of Jones and Harris, he did a surprisingly good job. At the open• phrases now and again but much of to play until he was on the stand and his solo work tended to eccentricity. saw what kind of audience he had. ing concert at the Festival Hall in London the brass was able to tackle Guaraldi was the musician to show Despite this he gave the same bland, the greatest improvement during the medley-laden program at one concert Caledonia with confidence, and while no one expected them to ap• course of the tour. At the first con• after another and, although the band certs his solos lacked direction and was on a few occasions allowed to proach the first Herd they executed the celebrated difficult passages with had a sometimes tenuous connection show what it could do, by the time with the beat, but latterly he played the tour was over many of the audi• impressive cohesion. That the saxo• phone section should be the best much better, producing a fine solo ence felt as bored as the musicians on Opus de Funk on the band's last looked. integrated was natural for it con• sisted entirely of local musicians who day. Of the local men the tenor saxo• It is typical of the paradoxes and were already acquainted. The trom• phonist Don Rendell acquitted him• absurdities of the jazz world that a bones had generally a less prominent self best and played a very agreeable comparatively minor figure like part to play but achieved a good in• version of Early Autumn. Ronnie Woody Herman should provide con• ternal balance. Campbell proved to Ross, easily one of our best musi• certs that, if infinitely less rich in be a loud, unsubtle drummer but one cians, never seemed to hit his stride potential, were more satisfying in who managed to swing the band with the band and was not really at fact. This is the more remarkable be• nonetheless. This was apparently home in its context. cause the band with which Herman Bett's first big band engagement and After its debut the band began a tour toured this country in April was a although he played with appropriate in which it played twenty-five con• pick-up group. power and swing the rhythm section certs in sixteen days. With the travel• If was a pick-up group of a special would surely have benefited from a ling involved there was little time left kind because unlike most of our more experienced bassist. As far as for further rehearsal and in the clos• other American visitors Herman at• ensemble playing was concerned the ing concerts of the series the quality tempted something new. His band band was more impressive in its parts of its ensemble playing was not was in fact an Anglo-American one. than as a whole, although the cli• noticeably advanced. It has long been argued in the more matic final choruses of several items Herman's Anglo-American experi• optimistic British jazz circles that had most of the fire and attack asso• ment, then, didn't prove anything for while our hornmen approach the ciated with Herman. It was notable several reasons. The visiting con• quality of the best Americans they that they even swung on a very slow tingent contained no genuinely out• are nearly always hamstrung by our blues (called Like Some Blues, Man, standing soloist from whom the local lagging rhythm sections. From the Like). musicians could gain new musical point of view of musical value this, insights, and the rhythm section did of course, is untrue. Non-American The repertoire was as one would ex• not approach the superlative stand• jazz is always at least one step be• pect from Herman with pieces like ard of the American best. The musi• hind the original; we may follow Early Autumn and Apple Honey. We cians were no doubt the best that closely but we never innovate. As far also heard an amusing original by could be found for the time and as executive ability goes there may Adderley called The Deacon and the place, but it was too hurried an affair be little to choose between average Elder that was played by the Amer• altogether. The band was in existence sidesmen on both sides of the Atlan• ican contingent alone, and Horace for too short a time and worked too tic but creatively the gap between the Silver's Opus de Funk and The crowded a schedule for much real best American and best European is Preacher. The Deacon and The musical contact to be established.

50 The Jazz Knob at the center of the dial in Los Angeles

FM 98 W KNO Five by Monk by Five: Quintet BILLY TAYLOR: Thelonious in top form in dynamic Cannonball Takes Charge: Just re• with Four Flutes small-band versions of 5 Monk tunes leased! Adderley plus top rhythm The swinging pianist's debut on (2 of them brand-new). With Thad swings on standards and a blues, Riverside is really something differ• Jones, . (RLP 12-305; (monaural RLP 12-303; stereo LP ent. (With Mann, Wess, Richardson). also Stereo LP 1150) 1148) (RLP 12-306; also Stereo LP 1151)

PHILLY JOE JONES BIG BAND SOUNDS

MUCH Brass: NAT ADDERLEY Drums Around the World: Brass and blues are the themes of PHILLY JOE JONES this most unusual three-brass LP plays Most exciting of today's drummers featuring Nat's brilliant and rollick• the best of Lerner & Loewe in a distinctive LP of rich big sounds: ing cornet. (RLP 12-301; also Stereo Melodic jazz treatment of tunes from with Cannonball, Lee Morgan, Golson, LP 1143) Gigi, My Fair Lady, etc. With Bill Mitchell, etc. (RLP 12-302; also Evans, , Herbie Mann, Pep• Stereo LP 1147) per Adams. (RLP 12-306; also Stereo LP 1152)