sign in sign up
<<
Home , 2 Trumpets, All Set (Babbitt), Al Jones (drummer), At Long Last, Barbados (composition), Barney Bigard

THE REVIEW

CD

The Style of Part II : Jazz Composer-Arranger Barnewe're proud to say... y KesseMM l• ^ firsMetronomt placee 1956,195 and Playbo7 yan polld 195s 8 Down Beat,

recordexclusivelsy for Contemporary I —and has since 1953! MUSIC TO LISTEN TO BY "" CONTEMPORARY C3521 ',ys^.v,,,„;.;; ••• • Barney Kessel Vol. 3

contemporary C3513

Barney's first CR , with Barney & quintet featuring Barney in a free-wheeling ses- Barney and his or , oboe & tenor sax, sion with "Sweets" Edison, Bill of standards for woodwind or- featured on alto sax & flute, on 12 favorites like My Old Perkins, , Red chestra. Laura, Makin' Whoo- , Claude William- Flame, Speak Low, Love Is Mitchell, Jimmie Rowles, pee, Carioca, Indian Summer, son, , etc. C3511 Here To Stay, etc. C3512 Shelly Manne, etc. C3513 etc. C3521 & Stereo S7001

THDE rOU WUIIEIS IDE MUM! MINET KESSEL WITH SHOD BUSK & JUS nam CONTTMFOBARY C3s$6 CARMEN M Barney, with Shelly Manne & Barney, Shelly and Ray again Great standards from the hit The first modern jazz album (who also were 1st demonstrate their supremacy, movie done in modern_ jazz of an opera—Barney's adapta• in the '56, '57, and '58 Down Volar e,Be Deedle Dee Do, The Runniri Wild, Sweet Sue, etc., tion of Bizet's music with or• Beat, Metronome, Playboy Merry Go Round Broke Down, with , , chestra & stars like Previn, polls). C3535 and Stereo S7010 etc. C3556 and Stereo S7029 etc. M3565 and Stereo S7565 Manne. M3563, Stereo S7563 monophonic , $4.98; stereophonic albums, $5.98 —at dealers everywhere (nationally advertised manufacturer's suggested tist prices)

8481 MELROSE PLACE 46, age listener. In all the hours I've lis• by soft zephyrs through the broken tened to WHAT-FM in , I've pane" needs to be declaimed. One LETTERS heard very little of the jazz recorded might forgive a declamatory interpreta• before the days of the 15-20,000 cycles tion of this line by one of the younger hi-fi, in proportion to the amount of primitive poets, but never a critic.) mass-produced trivia which most musi• And finally, Miss Clar's well nigh in• cians are indulging in today. Unlike comparable explanation of swing, (be• as in other classical forms, you can't re- fore which she generously informs us record pieces in high-fidelity, and have that jazz and Gospel do swing). "This to accept the fact that an important movement is achieved in two ways: first, part of our jazz heritage was produced by retarded entries and delayed attacks before good recording techniques were of notes (in other words, the performer developed. These stations (partly, I plays a shade behind the strict metro• suppose, because their long schedules nomic beat of the music so that the make it hard for the programmers to beat becomes an exterior force which listen to the records and make up cre• pulls the music after it); second, by the ative programs) are bringing up the simultaneous presence of tension and APPEAL public to a jazz that does without relaxation in the player—that is, the Trumpeter Punch Miller is very ill, broke, Parker, Young, most of Ellington, Bessie player makes an effort to relax in order and unable to play in . He Smith, Tatum, and many others who to maintain the loose flow of the rhythm, and his niece are being evicted from recorded little, if anything in good yet at the same time he is on edge in her house, and he is inelligible for wel• sound. I personally think that 25 min• order to avoid a structural disintegra• fare because he doesn't have resident utes a week on WQXR with John Wilson tion of the rhythmic and melodic status in Louisiana. are more valuable than 12 hours a day phrases (which would occur were he to Bill Russell (600 Chartres St., New on ten all-jazz stations across the coun• play too far behind the beat or were he Orleans, La.) has set up a fund to help try, at least in this important aspect. to anticipate it.)" I think this not only him. Roland Hirsch slovenly and unclear, but misleading, Punch is a fine person and doesn't de• Georges Mills, N.H. the reader who needs to be told that serve the rotten breaks life has tossed Gospel swings may naively suppose that at him. anticipation of the beat always de• Tony Standish OUR SEVEREST FRIEND stroys swing, which is absurd; or that London, England I've been reading this magazine of there is a given place behind the beat yours since the first issue, mainly be• where the notes must be attacked—an cause there's nothing else. It is un• equally absurd idea, held by many DEFENSE fortunate, though, that the stickum you Concerning your reference to Ralph young players I suspect. The use to hang the parts together must be approach to and holding back from the Gleason's "slashing review" of THE JAZZ this bright and wearying snobbery, so STORY I should greatly appreciate it if beat (acceleration and retardation) form unsupportable in view of your failings. flexible patterns, and it is in the sophis• you corrected the erroneous impression I was shocked at Mr. Keepnews' attack Mr. Gleason gave his readers (and now tication of these patterns, and their re• on John Holmes' book, The Horn, and lation to melody, that swing exists. yours) that my reason for narrating this shock reverberates a bit more 's script represented I am sure you yourselves can supply somehow by virtue of your cozy and more criticism of this kind; so please "one of the most horrendous efforts to rather nauseating little gossip column grab a buck that an industry where stop coming on with all this jive like by Mr. Hentoff (worth a letter in itself), you know everything. People who are profit is the main motive has ever pro• who presumes to discuss a reform of duced." hip knew about Monk, Miles, Philly Joe the language of jazz, himself employing and the Ward Singers long before you Somewhat apologetically I direct your a syntax and vocabulary ("transocciate") started waving the flag. And it's de attention to the fact that my income so tasteless as to be a kind of satire on rigeur these days to stroke the chin from television is (how do I say this the style which grows out of them. thoughtfully while listening to James without seeming gauche?) well, ridic• When Nat gets around to straightening P. and Jelly—you didn't invent that ulously high. To date I recall receiving out (after a course in Freshman Rhet• either. In fact, there's really not a great no royalties whatever from THE JAZZ oric), I think that before enlightening deal in your little Magazine that hasn't STORY album, and when I do they will, the world of jazz criticism at large, he been said before, and frequently more as anyone familiar with the record busi• might first pass the word to his own clearly, with less pretense. You ought ness should know, either be very small staff, particularly to Miss Clar, a Critic to think about these things, and stop or else materially non-existent because so completely mastered by the aca• paying attention to these fan letters of the custom whereby the artist-pays- demic style that she is able to write from the innocents. for-the-date. dully about the most forthright and This having been stated, I must now Mr. Gleason's usual sensitivity and in• vigorous music. admit that The Jazz Review does have telligence would seem to have deserted I think perhaps the whole staff should more spirit, knowledge and precision him in this particular instance. He get together and turn each other's mal• than any other magazine in the (Ameri• would have been much wiser to simply evolent insecurity on the monthly offer• can) field. The interviews of older jazz• criticize the album itself (which was by ings, so as to eliminate such things as men are interesting and otherwise un• no means perfect) and not stoop to these: available documents. Occasional arti• imputing base motives to the party nar• "There's Bird in spots in the timbre of cles by Mr. Williams are among the rating it. his tone." (Mr. Farmer) best jazz criticism (no caps) I have ever "If it (Mr. Russo's critical position) read, and Wellstood's review of the Hollywood needs a name, it can be called a rela• Monk's Music transcriptions was beyond tional-absolute view." (Mr. Russo) any disparagement I can form. But bear ALL JAZZ RADIO " . . . his (Webster's) sonority alone is in mind that Mr. Holmes was able, at I have some comment about these music to read F. Scott Fitzgerald by." times, to write very poetically, about "all-jazz" radio stations. These stations (Mr. Coulter not only provides us with some things in the world of jazz that are rapidly becoming mere purveyors of this fine occasion for embarrassed nobody else has yet got close to, in• background music, playing only the laughter, but later feels obliged to cluding yourselves. most recent records, making sure that display his irrelevant and incomplete there is a minimum of music that knowledge of Hopkins, Pope, and Roy Frederick Conn would catch the attention of the aver• Harris in a discussion of how "Lulled Brooklyn N.Y. The Jazz Review—with this issue— has been in existence for a year. We are grateful to our readers—and to the advertisers—for their support. We are neither prosperous nor ingenuous enough to be in the least complacent about what we have accomplished so far. But we have tried to make each issue better than the last, and although we have not always succeeded, that remains our goal. We owe particular thanks to our con• tributors throughout the world. They have taken so much time and care with their work, we know, because they too believe that jazz and the men who create it are important enough to be treated with time and care. And hardest of all, with real understanding. In years, we hope to grow in understanding—and in scope.

Nat Hentoff Martin Williams Hsio Wen Shin Co-editors: Martin Williams Contributing Editor: Publisher: Hsio Wen Shih Art Director: Bob Cato Advertising Manager: Hank Leonardo VOLUME 2 NUMBER 10 NOVEMBER 1959 Editorial Assistant: Margot Hentoff Israel Young and Leonard Feldman were I among the founders of the Jazz Review. 6 Don Redman, Composer-Arranger The Jazz Review is published monthly by as told to Frank Driggs [ The Jazz Review Inc., Village Station, 128, 14, N. Y. Entire contents copy• 13 The Style of John Coltrane, Part 2 right 1959 by The Jazz Review Inc. by Zita Carno Price per copy 50c. One year's subscription $5.00. Two year's subscription $9.00. 18 Muddy Waters Unsolicited manuscripts and illustrations should be accompanied by a stamped, self- by addressed envelope. Reasonable care will be taken with all manuscripts and illustrations, 22 Introducing Wayne Shorter but the Jazz Review can take no responsi• by Le Roi Jones bility for unsolicited material. \ 25 The NEW CONTRIBUTORS 26 Creole Echoes, Part 2 Don Heckman studied alto with Lee by Ernest Borneman Konitz and composition with the Hun• garian composer Ernst Von Dohnanyi. RECORD REVIEWS He now lives in New York, and divides his time between composing and writ• 28 by Max Harrison ing. 31 by Zita Carno Alexis Korner is a singer and guitarist 32 by well-known in London folk-music circles. 32 Jonh Benson Brooks by Don Heckman Harvey Pekar is nineteen, and is a 33 Ray Brown by Bill Crow sophomore at Western Reserve Univer• 34 by H. A. Woodfin sity. He says that he has spent a lot of 34 by Maitland Edey time hanging around a delicatessen, 35 by Max Harrison but, although sympathetic, would not beatnik. 36 by Art Farmer call himself a 36 by Maitland Edey 37 The Mastersounds by Maitland Edey 38 by Maitland Edey 38 Jimmy and Mama Yancey by Charles Payne Rogers 39 Brandeis Jazz Concert by Don Heckman 40 Birdland by Mimi Clar 41 Jazz Soul of by Don Heckman 42 Downbeat Concert by H. A. Woodfin 43 Seven Ages of Jazz by Martin Williams 44 Rockin' Together by Glen Coulter 44 Primitive and the Yanceys by Guy Waterman 44 Brownie McGhee and Blues in the Night by Le Roi Jones 45 Elizabeth Cotten by Mimi Clar 46 The Dixie Hummingbirds by Mimi Clar 48 Tambourines to Glory by J. S. Shipman

MOVIE REVIEW

50 Porgy and Bess by Le Roi Jones

BOOK REVIEWS 52 Whitney Ballietfs THE SOUND OF SURPRISE by Max Harrison 53 Leonard Feather's JAZZ by Bill Crow 54 Down Beat Jazz Record Reviews, Vol. 3 by Max Harrison 55 Jazz in Print by Nat Hentoff 59 Jazz Dance/Mambo Dance by Roger Pryor Dodge 64 Jazz Books in America 1935-55 by Sheldon Meyer 66 Reconsiderations/ by Harvey Pekar HON KBIIittAN JAZZ COMPOSER-ARRANGER

It has been close to twenty years since anyone has of any playing over the next several years. A series really paid much attention to the pre-modern com• of wonderful recordings resulted. By 1940 he poser and arranger. We live in the era of George dropped his band and turned almost entirely to Russell, and . It would seem writing for others, turning out some notable hits, from the recordings of the past decade that some of among them Deep Purple for , Five our greatest and most original minds have been all O'clock Whistle for , and Things Ain't but forgotten: , Don Redman, Jesse What They Used To Be for . He was Stone, , Eddie Durham, and even later the first to take a overseas on a continental men like Walter . For more than a decade, tour after World War II in 1946-47 to tremendous and for some much more, none of these men has acclaim and upon his return continued free-lance been called upon by either major or minor firms for commercial arranging. After several years he teamed the quality and originality in composition and ar• with , leading a band accompanying her rangement that is so necessary to sustain jazz. and writing her arrangements. Today he's still free• While the history books, and they are in many ways lancing for people like Sugar Ray Robinson, for CBS inadequate, have noted most of their contributions, and for many transcription and record firms and still they have done so without adequate recognition of working with Pearl. their true significance. A series of articles may re• He's always done such a professional job that hardly sult from further research, but it is fitting to begin anyone has ever stopped to think that perhaps he with the first and one of the greatest of all jazz com• has yet to realize his full potential in jazz. It would posers-arrangers.- Don Redman. be a marvelous thing should one of the major re• There may be a younger reader who will say, "Now, cording firms give him the freedom they have ex• who is Don Redman?" But it is not only to him that tended to the younger arrangers and composers over this biography is addressed: there are many older the past decade. people, followers and professionals in the field, who A most welcome addition to the jazz library would seem to have forgotten about Redman's talents. be an Ip from Victor and one from Columbia who Don Redman introduced arranged jazz in New York hold the bulk of Don's best orchestral work. Victor while with the Billy Paige band from in has some twenty good sides of the 1938 through 1922 and went on from there to be the jazz arranger 1940 period, and Columbia has an even better and in 's first great band, between wider range of material from 1932 through 1937 on 1924 and 1927. During those years he wrote ar• Brunswick, Columbia, Perfect and Vocalion dates. rangements for the Henderson library that pioneered Only Decca in the Brunswick " Jazz" set (no many of the standard techniques of arrangers all longer in print) has ever issued anything by Redman; during the of the middle and later 'thirties. that was the superior Chant of the Weed and Shakin' In 1927 he took an average Midwestern band, the African from late 1931, just as the band was McKinney's Cotton Pickers, with vague qualities of organizing. Victor's last Cotton Pickers collection musicianship and showmanship and little individ• was ten-inch LPT 24. uality, and made it one of the four jazz orches• Regardless of reissue, let's hope that Don Redman tras of his four years stay, in is plucked out of the bland commercial atmosphere competition with Fletcher Henderson's, Duke Elling• that he has been a part of for such a long time and ton's and Alphonso Trent's. He scored some excep• given an Ip without strings attached so that he can tional small group sides for during give us some more of the jazz that he still has up the same period and arranged for Paul Whiteman his sleeve. and 's bands as well. FRANK DRIGGS He formed his own orchestra late in 1931 and it was the equal in musicianship, inspiration and verve What follows is Don Redman's story, told in his own words.

I was a child prodigy you know. From the age of picked us up and brought us to New York under three I was performing in public. I didn't have much his banner. We were the first to play arrangements of any kind of instruction, just started in playing. in New York and did very well for a while, but we By the time I was fourteen I was playing music regu• broke up pretty quickly. larly. In grade school I had charge of the number I wasn't in town but a few days after that when I got three band. They had several different bands, all a phone call to come and make a record date for graded according to their ability. After a while i Emerson. I went down to the studio and found moved up to be in charge of the number two band, Fletcher Henderson on the date. There was a band but I never did get to the number one spot, although there, but it wasn't his band. He didn't have a band at that time I was playing all the instruments, espe• then, but was kind of a house pianist for Emerson cially . I started working around town (Pied• and he worked behind some of the singers like Edith mont, Wesi Virginia) with a bunch of local musi• Wilson. On this date, Florence Mills was singing. cians, none of whom ever left town. Fletcher had an in with W. C. Handy who knew him Actually, I began writing arrangements for some of from the South. Handy had a publishing company, the touring road shows that came to town, when I Handy and Pace, and also , and was in my teens. Our band was only seven pieces Fletcher was house man for them also. and we'd back up the acts, and occasionally I'd do On the Florence Mills date the band consisted of an original tune. Being a country boy I didn't know Howard Scott and on , much about copyrighting songs and lost Prohibition George Brashear on , Fletcher, Charlie Blues that way. It was a pretty big hit later on. Dixon on banjo, and myself. I even played piano on After I finished high school I went to Storer College some of them, and there were no drums, because in Harper's Ferry and majored in music, graduating they hadnt learned how to record them. I remember in three years. Then I joined Billy Paige's Broadway accompanying Baby Benbow on piano on one ses• Syncopators from Pittsburgh and spent the next sion. She was pretty popular at that time. year or two with them. They were very popular By the time we graduated to Columbia we added a around Pittsburgh in the early twenties, and were man here and there. came in considered, along with Lois Deppe's band, as the from 's band, and Billy Fowler came in top band from that part of the country. on baritone. Joe Smith made some of the early dates came to town about the same time I did, and he was too, before he left and went out of town. great even then. He joined Deppe's band. Columbia's studios were on Columbus Circle where Jim Fellman was our pianist and he was great. Earl the Coliseum building is .now. On one date we were got something from him then. Fellman couldn't read to make some instrumentals for them with the band, and he died by the time Billy Paige left Pittsburgh, even though it still didn't belong to anyone. After so we sent to Boston to get Roy Cheeks. He's still we recorded that day, someone told us about an around New York today, playing mostly exclusive offer for an audition at the Nora Bayes Theatre supper clubs and that sort of thing, because he had (Little Theatre) on 44th Street in Shubert Alley. We a fair voice, just enough to get by with as an enter• didn't want to go because we didn't have any ar• tainer. rangements or any repertoire. The guy who told us about the job said we ought to use the same tunes Bart Howard out of Toledo, was another fine pianist we recorded that day. We didn't even have all the around Pittsburgh then, and so was "Toodle-oo" stuff with us, just some of the blues things we made Johnson, who played in all the sporting houses. He with the singer. I remember we made the Dicty was a little hunch-backed guy, about the same size as Blues that day, and went down and auditioned with , but he could really play in that style. that stuff and got the job, which was for the Club Deppe's band got by because of Earl and himself, Alabam'. Thas was the Cotton Club of that era. although both Joe Smith and his brother Russell, When we went into the Club we added Kaiser Mar• were with him for a while. Deppe was a terrific shall on drums, Ralph Escudero on , Allie Ross, singer, and did some numbers with McKinney later a violinist, as front man, and Heard (I forget his first on, when I was there; I remember Ben Bernie's name), a trombonist and a nice arranger. We de• theme It's a Lonesome Old Town. He's out in cided to make Fletcher the leader because he was a now, doing mostly church work, but his voice is college graduate and presented a nice appearance. badly cracked. He was very big in show business We became popular right away and used to broad• back then, doing some of the "Great Day" shows cast over WHN all the time. Edith Wilson was on the and introducing Without a Song. bill with us and she wanted Hawk to come out on Our band became so popular that Paul Specht stage and play the blues behind her. He didn't mind, kins, and he'd bring in about two or three a year, but he wanted to get paid for it. George White was because he was lazy. He did a terrific job on Singin' the manager of the club and he told Fletcher to fire in the Rain. The only other arranger was Ken Mac- Hawk. Since we were doing terrific business and had omber and he'd do the new hits from the Broadway gotten other offers from Roseland and other places, shows which we had to do to satisfy the customers. we decided we'd give notice to a man if Hawk was After I left Fletcher started writing, and Charlie fired. We moved over to Roseland and from there on Dixon did some too. we were the top band in New York. No one rivalled I wasn't getting but $25.00 an in those us then. days, until Paul Whiteman gave me a blanket order When I was in Pittsburgh I'd heard a lot about Louis for twenty arrangements at $100.00 a piece, and Armstrong, and Fletcher wanted to get another good paid me the $2000.00 right then and there. I was man in the band, so we got him away from Joe Oliver out of this world then, because the usual $25.00 in 1924. Kaiser Marshall had a car and brought us was all anyone was getting. I did Whiteman Stomp downtown to meet Louis. He was big and fat, and for both him and Fletcher, as well as several others wore high top shoes with hooks in them, and long un• he recorded. sold Fletcher nine arrange• derwear down to his socks. When I got a load of that, ments including Henderson Stomp for a dozen I said to myself, who in the hell is this guy? It can't hamburgers. be Louis Armstrong. But when he got on the band• Louis became pretty dissatisfied because he got all stand it was a different story. Joe Oliver sent along the hard work, all the high stuff, and Joe Smith was his book of tunes when Louis joined the band, and the pet of both Fletcher and his wife. When he left right away I picked out Dippermouth Blues as a we got Tommy Ladnier. He was a terrific soloist, but framework for Louis. We called it Sugarfoot Stomp he couldn't read too well, and he had to go out and and it used to go over very big. In fact, Louis, his learn his parts. He was especially good on the low- style, and his feeling, changed our whole idea about down blues, I thought even better than Louis. the band musically. Fletcher's wife had been married to Russell Smith, We used to have battles of music with Sam Lanin and he taught her to play . He had the beau• all the time. He was at one end of the hall and we tiful tone and was the first chair man. She used to were at the other, and in the middle was the arran• play just like him, and whenever he was out for gers' table. All the time both bands were there, the some reason, she used to do the first chair parts, arrangers' table used to be full. We were always and she did them well, too. She was in back of making up new arrangements trying to top theirs. Fletcher in practically everything he ever did. They had , Miff Mole and Vic Berton in Around New York there were many good musicians their band. We used to tear off the top of any new then. When I first came to town, Johnny Dunn was arrangement and put a fake title on it to throw them the trumpet player. He was a terrific salesman for off . . . we'd be trying to see what the other was himself and he was the first one I knew to use any playing. They had one arrangement that really used kind of mute. He'd set himself up in a show with to break up the crowds, and Fletcher sent his men just himself and dancers. His valet would come fol• all over town trying to get copies. They called it lowed by all sorts of trunks, and I used to wonder Hole in the Wall and we didn't find out for a month if they were all for one man. The valet would set that it was really Milenburg Joys that they were play• them up against the wall, and in them would be ing. We had the best musicians in town playing with all kinds of pots and pans, flowerpots, cans, any• us then. thing to get a different sound out of his horn. I think We needed another reedman and I wanted to get he was an influence on Duke because he really did Vance Dixon in the band, but he didn't want to leave get a lot of sounds out of his horn. In those days he Virginia, so I sent for Milt Senior who was with the used to be with pit bands, and nobody was featured Cotton Pickers. When he wouldn't come to New York, from a pit band, but him. I don't think he was much Louis suggested we get out of King of a musician technically. He later went overseas Oliver's band. He joined us the night he hit towrr; with Florence Mills and the "Blackbirds." and we featured him on numbers like Dizzy Fingers, There was another guy around town called Brass- Tiger Rag and he broke up the place. Jimmy Dorsey field who was a sensational sax player then. He was there that night and he came every night after couldn't read a thing, nothing. Nobody else could that. play his horn, and his mouthpiece would be on the In the three years I was with Fletcher, the only other horn so that it would be a half note out of tune. one to make any arrangements was Coleman Haw• When he played it, it would be in tune. Everybody used to marvel at him. side for Ben Pollack's great band with Benny Good• and Jimmy Harrison used to have a band man and Jimmy McPartland. uptown at Connor's on 135th Street, and all of us The Cotton Pickers were so popular that we battled used to practically live in there. June was very good, bands all over the country. I first met Count Basie but he couldn't read. They used to play some great when we went to Kansas City and battled Bennie jazz together. When Jimmy was in Fletcher's band Moten at 15th and Paseo. That's when I first heard later on, he was the best around. Mot en Swing, which is nothing but the "go" chorus Benny Carter's cousin, Cuban Bennett was another from You're Driving Me Crazy. They also used to do a terrific trumpet player, and all he needed was a terrific job on I Want a Little Girl and I'm surprised little to really make it. they never recorded ii They really had a fine band In those days nobody had the knack of picking out and they used to give us a lot of trouble. talent better than Chick Webb. He picked Johnny We went to Hollywood to play Sebastian's Cotton Hodges, Bobby Stark, John Trueheart, Don Kirkpat- Club after Louis in 1930. The first week there I rick and of course, Ella, and many others. thought we were dead ducks, and nobody could I had gotten an offer from Bill McKinney to run his figure out why. We didn't begin to click until Sunday band for him, but since I was getting pretty good night when all the bands were off and the hotels money from Fletcher and was well regarded, I de• were closed. The musicians packed the joint and cided not to take another offer until it was better really put us over. They told us that nobody had than what I was getting then. We used to work the heard a band playing arrangements up until that Graystone Ballroom in Detroit all the time, while time, and after that it was smooth sailing. We played McKinney was at the Arcadia and he would come to a packed house for seven weeks. over and tell me when he got in a position to make There had been a lot of dissension building up in me the kind of offer I wanted, would I take the job? the band, not among the musicians, but with man• I told him I would. agement, which was McKinney and Charlie Horvath, When I joined the Cotton Pickers they were pretty the manager of the Graystone. The boys wanted a much of a novelty outfit of around ten pieces. John raise, because their name was a big attraction then, Nesbitt, an exceptional trumpet player was doing but they were turned down. On that trip to the coast all their arranging, and he knew his music, but he the management brought the announcer from De• was copying everybody else's records. They had troit and his whole family and a couple of other guys been known as the Synco Septette for years, ever and their families along on vacation paid for with since they built their reputation at the Green Mill Cotton Pickers' money. The guys in the band couldn't in Toledo. I told Nesbitt to stop copying others work get a five dollar raise! That was it. because he had enough ability to do his own stuff, When we got back to Detroit, I got word that Tommy and he eventually did turn out some fine things for Rockwell and Sam Smith wanted me to take a band the Cotton Pickers. into Connie's Inn in New York. McKinney knew I was He loved Bix and used to play a lot like him in his getting ready to leave and that I wanted to take own way. I'm thinking of doing one of his things this some of his men with me. He told me I could take year, Will You Won't You Be My Baby? anyone I wanted except Cuba Austin and The Cotton Pickers wasn't a solo band, but a unit. the bass player. I picked , Ed Cuffee, I was trying to get a sound and a style a little differ• Ed Inge and Buddy Lee. They gave Cuffee and Prince ent than the other bands. Out in Detroit we really a raise so they stayed on. I heard that Horace Hen• had that town sewed up and the people used to be derson had a school band at Wilberforce that was wild over our stuff. The band became so popular at very good but out of work, so I got to them and took the Graystone that (who owned the six men plus Horace and got the band together. Graystone and backed the band) wouldn't let me I barely had the band organized when take all the men to New York with me when we got had gotten me a recording contract with Brunswick, the offer from Victor to record. That's one of the frills and Horvath were set to manage the band, but reasons why there were so many different guys on they were cut out when Rockwell took over. We re• those sessions. hearsed for two weeks and I didn't even have my While I was directing the Cotton Pickers we used trombone section set when we cut the first sides. to have Mondays off and I'd go to Chicago for some had to fill in for Sidney DeParis, because sessions with Louis Armstrong. He was featured with he was kind of temperamental and didn't show up 's band at the Savoy Ballroom, and for the date. and Shirley Clay were took a small group from the band to record for Okeh. with the band then, and so was Bennie Morton. Fred At the same time I was doing some arranging on the Courtesy

McKinney's Cotton Pickers Detroit/1928. Left to right: J. Hoxley, alto/Todd Rhodes, piano/ Our records started doing very well, and I was doing Langston Curl, trumpet/Cuba Austin, drums, a lot of writing, things like Cherry, How'm I Doin' Prince Robinson, tenor/Ralph Escudero, tuba/ Dave Wilborn, banjo and vocals/, trombone/ and numbers like that. I never liked How'm I Doin' George 'FatHead' Thomas, alto and vocals/ until I heard one of the singers in the show at Con• John Nesbitt, trumpet and arranger/ nie's Inn put it over big. Then Don Redman, alto, , vocals, and recorded it and it sold very well. We were in Connie's arranger. Inn regularly for three or four years during the early thirties, and in 1932 were sponsored by Chipso in a package with the Mills Brothers. We were really hot then. We were on the air three and four times a week and the only time we went out was during the summer for a couple of months. I'll never forget the night the Lindbergh baby was Robinson was also in the band but he quit after a kidnapped. We were on the air from Connie's all while because he wasn't getting enough solo work. night long, in between news flashes, until nine the I thought Bennie was the best around in those days next morning. We were really swinging. It's too bad anyway. someone couldn't have taken that down that night. We needed a singer and I was told to go around to Connie kept bringing us hot coffee and food and the the Rhythm Club because there were two guys there place was jumping. who were singing great. They turned out to be Har• During those same years we made a short film for lan Lattimore and Orlando Robeson. I preferred Warner Brothers with a racing background. It was Harlan because he had a deeper voice and was so called Sweepstakes and it won some kind of an handsome, and he was a fine performer. His idol award I believe. was and he used to sing like him. When We did a lot of travelling and were Crosby heard him the first time, he changed his way almost always playing for white dances during the of singing so that it would be closer to Harlan's. early years, and were considered a very commercial got Orlando and he was a big hit property then. We had a terrific band but I wasn't with him during the thirties. able to do the kind of jazz things I might have in the places we were playing. This was true even on they played an up- arrangement of The the road. I did get one of my best men while we Whistler and his Dog and took four were on the road, however, after many other leaders choruses. That was it, I was sold. I told him to stay had tried for years. in New York even if the band did go back home, Down in St. Louis there was a band called John• and he said he'd be glad to if I could find him a son's Crackerjacks that really used to make us work job. I told him to go into any of the joints and start every time we hit town. They had a pretty good playing his horn and he'd get all the jobs he wanted. outfit, but one man was really exceptional. That He did stay when the band went west again, but he was Harold "Shorty" Baker. Duke, Fletcher, Andy would have made it anyway, with his unusual talent. Kirk and others had been trying to get him for Later on I took McShann's band out for another years, but no one had been able to turn the trick, month, this time to the Tic Toe in Boston. After because of his older brother Winfield, who was a that I kept pretty close to my writing, and sold pretty poor trombone man. He told all the leaders arrangements to all the bands then. if you wanted Harold you had to take him too, and I did take a band out again in 1943 and we went nobody wanted that. One night he got pretty high in the Cafe Zanzibar on Broadway and recorded a and I got him outside after the dance and made him couple of sides for V-Disc, Redman Blues, Pistol the offer, which he accepted. Some of the other Packin' Mama and things like that. guys who knew him said he'd never be there, but After the war I was the first leader to take a band he was in time for the bus to leave the next morning overseas and we did terrific business all over Eu• and without his brother. He stayed with me until I rope. We were supposed to have gone over before reorganized the band in 1938. the war, but things prevented that, and the same Around 1937 we went under the Mills banner, al• agency arranged this tour. I took , though they never did much for us as far as records , , Billy Taylor and a lot of went. We started working the Savoy quite a bit other fine musicians, and we recorded quite a lot around that time, but I was getting tired of the road. while we were over there, both with The excitement, the bright lights, the star billing, and with small groups. That was in 1946 and 1947. and all that I'd had, and I said, give me some money I've been freelancing ever since, then, with CBS now. Actually I always liked to write, and liked that and for many of the recording firms, and in the fifties part of the business best anyhow. I wasn't even play• I tied up with Pearl Bailey, and have been making ing too much myself then, and I never did go too all her arrangements and directing her orchestra much for Don Redman's playing. I could play parts, ever since. pretty things, arrangements, but there were guys Most of the recordings I've made in the past year like Benny Carter around, and I never fooled myself or so have been commercial things, for outfits like thinking I could play jazz like they could. Sesac and groups like that. They all liked what I did I still had offers from many sources to take over for them, and I managed to get Hawk, Charlie bands and to organize new bands, but I wanted to Shavers and guys like that in on the sessions. concentrate on writing. In fact I turned down all I haven't signed with anyone yet, because I want a kinds of offers. All the agencies would call and want free hand in composing and arranging, and most of me to go out on the road for them. They offered the companies all have their things they want you me very good money, but I didn't have anything to do. There's so much talent in town today that ready, no repertoire, nothing. anyone ought to be able to make good records, but I did go out a couple of times when Jay McShann not too much of what's on the market is good. came to town in 1942 and found the going tough Some of the younger musicians who are being re• after a while. They were getting ready to go back corded so much today just don't have the experience to Kansas City. I'd gotten an offer from the American behind them to make good records. at a guy Legion in Trenton for a two week stand which I had as great as Hawk is, he didn't really hit his stride to turn down, until my manager told me about until he was ready to go overseas in the middle McShann's band being around and struggling. He thirties, and by that time he'd already been in the said they were organized and a pretty good outfit. business for close to ten years. I took them out under my name and the first night I'm planning to do some remakes of some of the on the job I told Jay to set up and play his own best things I did, like Cherry, Milenburg Joys, Try music, just like it was his own gig, and I'd just Getting a Good Night's Sleep and things like that. stand up in front of the band and direct and work I think there's a market for them, and the public with the people. I didn't pay them too much at• is going to want the big bands back pretty soon tention the first night, but on the following night anyway. THE STYLE OF JOHN There are a number of devices which Coltrane em• ploys in building a solo which are by no means COLTRANE obvious, and which would take repeated hearings to spot. But once you know what they are, you will be able to understand more fully just how he goes ZITA CARNO about it. One of them—and it shows up at once on Blue Train —is his little trick of building up on a single note (as in this case) or a short phrase, then taking off from there. It is personal with him, like so many of the things he does. Another is his wonderful use of sequences—which I mentioned earlier in the end of his solo on Bass Blues wherein he employs one of his pet phrases this way. Another excellent illustration is his tag on PART 2 Locomotion: (Example 6) Coltrane has a way of starting his solos in the least style and a good blues solo. expected places. What is more, he never does any• The tune itself is a revealing sample of Coltrane's thing exactly the same way twice. He also has a writing, being as direct and straightforward as his peculiarly individual way of altering the phrasing, playing, and offering a tremendous insight into his unlike anything ever heard before. It is almost im• overall conception. It is a most powerful blues line, possible to describe it, but if you look back at Ex• brooding, mysterious, almost like an eerie chant; ample lb, in part one of this article, you will see someone has remarked that it is more than just a something of it. It involves an extremely subtle shift• blues, that it has other meanings in it. This is true of everything he does. ing of accentuation (you'll see this also in Examples 2b, 4 and 5, as well as in the solo on Blue Train), There are some unusual things about this solo. For one thing, this recording was done during his which results in previous often a-rhythmic phrasing tenure with , and here and there that will throw the unwary listener off the track. are isolated flashes of certain aspects of his current At this point I am going to do what I said I'd do work—sort of a preview of things to come, as it were. earlier—quote Coltrane's complete recorded solo on I refer particularly to the "sheets of sound," which, Blue Train, inasmuch as it is a perfect example of it is interesting to note, is a spontaneous develop• so many of the previously mentioned aspects of his ment. This solo continues to build up all the way to the cooking and more cooking, I'd like to say a few last chorus. It reaches its peak at the sixth chorus, words about the way he handles slower . I where the other two horns come in with a riff (Ex• mentioned earlier in discussing various aspects of ample 7a) which repeats six times, and adds even his technique, his fantastic control which enables more impetus. This constant building-up is a most him to play a ballad without having to double-time striking feature of Coltrane's work, and has been ap• on it. But that control isn't all. Except for the fact parent even from his earliest days with . that he is more intense, his ballad concept could Then, too, notice how he tends to stay in the high be likened to that of Miles Davis. He has the same register of his horn. Well, he can be justly proud of straightforward, thoughtful approach. And I'm not that register. It is strong, clear and—in his hands— just talking about the classic 'Round Midnight he full of a terrific emotional impact. did with Miles; there are plenty of other tracks which He does one thing that is unusual in that it is diffi• provide a fine demonstration of this kind of lyricism: cult to do well: he slurs those long phrases all the his unusual interpretation of the seldom-done stand• way and plays them so clearly. There is ample evi• ard While My Lady Sleeps, for instance, or Slow dence of how solid his technique is—that fluid, un• Dance, to give two examples. They are object les• erring finger action. sons in how to play a ballad without unnecessary Lest you think that Coltrane's playing consists of "cooking." That is Coltrane the instrumentalist—powerful, sen• posed a few years ago, could never be taken for a sitive, ahead, and always experimenting. Now I'd line by someone like , despite the fact like to talk a bit about Coltrane the jazz composer that it is slower and more relaxed. (Example 8) and arranger, inasmuch as it may throw still further Among other tunes of this kind is one called Straight light on certain other aspects of his conception. Street, which, although based on twelve-bar phrases, Coltrane's writing may not be quite as familiar as could never be mistaken for a blues. (Example 9) his playing, except to his most avid followers. He is, The chord progression, by the way, is a character• like Horace Silver and Benny Golson, always experi• istic one. If you look closely, you will notice that it menting with different structures and unusual chord is the old familiar ll-V changes—with a twist not progressions—but his writing is easily distinguish• instantly noticeable. Of course, you know that it's able from that of the other two. this ll-V business, because I told you so, and there For one thing, his melodic lines—blues or not—are it is in front of you. But if you were listening to it all very powerful, direct and straightforward, with for the first time, you might notice only that the strong emotional impact. When he gets "funky" (the changes seem out of the ordinary. Coltrane handles theme of Blue Train is a perfect example) it is, as I this so cleverly that you don't realize just what it is. said earlier, hard, driving, intense—not like any Another example of this occurs in Moment's Notice. other kind. Even John Paul Jones, which he com• Example 10 gives part of the introduction.

si in !i

in

1 I i I

1 li

Ill j 1 HL t • EE i The deceptiveness that is part and parcel of Col• reconstruction of a tune or part of it, and right there trane's writing also shows up in his blues Locomo• you get another view of his harmonic conception. tion. The structure of this tune is not too unusual-. For instance, the first few bars of his arrangement 12-12-8-12 blues is now almost standard on the East of While My Lady Sleeps. (Example 12) Coast. But even here he has a little twist: he has Another illustration of the reconstructive process he each succeeding soloist take an unaccompanied uses can be seen in what he does to the familiar eight-bar break before going into his solo. Latin-beat introduction so often played on Star Eyes. But it is the rhythm of that eight-bar riff in the line (Example 13) itself that is really confusing. (Example 11) As I said in the first part of this series, the only You hear it on the recording, and it sounds as if the thing to expect from John Coltrane is the unexpected. accented E-flat were on the first beat of the meas• ure. As you can see, it isn't. (I was thrown off by it on the first couple of hearings, and I'm supposed to have a good ear!) His approach to arranging is just as different as everything else he does. Very often what he does amounts to an almost complete reharmonization or

GiliaiLl ALEXIS KORNER muddy waters Rollingfork is a small extremely poor Negro com• munity on Deer Creek in the southernmost part of Mississippi. There, on April 4th, 1915, McKinley Morganfield was born, the second son of 01 lie Mor- genfield and Berta Jones. Berta Jones died when McKinley was three, and he was taken to Clarkes- dale in northern Mississippi to live with his grand• mother, Delia Jones. He grew up and went to school there, and only occasionally returned to Rollingfork to visit his father. As he grew older, he went to work on the Coahoma County plantations, but through the influence of his father—01 lie Morgenfield played the and sang the blues as did many of his friends—he had already started as a musician. The first instrument McKinley learned to play was the harmonica, and in Stovall, just outside Clarks- dale, where he now lived, he was playing in a group which consisted of himself, his two friends, Scott Bowhandle and Sonny Simms (guitar and violin) and Lewis Fuller on mandolin. This was a typical Negro string band, and the music, strong with traditional patterning, probably sounded very much like the earlier jug bands, with harmonica, mandolin and vio• lin embroidering above the ground base set by the guitar. The country string bands of this period—late 1920's to mid-1930's—often possesed an almost baroque flavour, with the rhythmic emphasis on the first and third beat of the bar over which melody instruments played delicately phrased patterns, deriving largely from 'educated' Creole sources. I use the word 'baroque', in this instance, to describe an atmos• phere strongly linked with the music of eighteenth century northern Europe since it was this delicate formal idiom which was brought to Louisiana. In time it spread, largely through the agency of the more socially acceptable Creoles of New Orleans. Formalism is, in any event, an important aspect of American Negro folkmusic, with impro• visation, excepting in certain forms of jazz, playing a secondary role. In fact, this particular form of blues could be described as a type of Negro- Creole chamber music, unhappily short-lived. By about 1933 it was almost dead. This was the music McKinley Morganfield was play• ing at local dances and it was quite opposite to his present day style. But McKinley was fortunate in his early removal to Clarksdale, for here in the

nortnern Mississippi area, were a number of ex• whom young McKinley Morganfield learned much by tremely fine blues singers. watching and listening, was a true wanderer, and A country singer in those days had to be a musician, he never stayed long in one place. Within a short an entertainer and a human newspaper—there is an time he was recording at San Antonio, Texas, and obvious parallel with the earlier European Minne• McKinley was to see no more of him. But, today, singers and the present day folksinger-musicians of Muddy still plays phrases when he Roumania. The country singer had to find some per• works over songs in private and, unlike many other sonal means of expression without moving outside singer-guitarists, is pleased when this source is the idiom of the blues. It was only within these recognised by occasional listeners. limits that his value could be absolute. Fortunately, More violent than Johnson's in style, Muddy's guitar several outstanding singers in the pure blues tradi• always lacked finesse and dexterity, tending to• tion, frequented the Clarksdale area, among them ward more obviously robust patterns. Without John• Son House, Charlie Patton, Son Bonds, Kokomo son's amazing timing, McKinley nonetheless suc• Arnold and Robert Johnson. ceeded in producing a vital rhythmic accompani• These men all played guitar using a northern Mis• ment which embodied all that he could manage sissippi 'bottleneck' style for many of their accom• of Robert Johnson's "bottle-neck" technique and paniments. In this style of playing the guitar may phrasing. And, while McKinley copied, he also be tuned normally (E,A,D,G,B,E) or to an open changed, for the times were changing and music D Major chord (D,A,D,F,A,D)i. The strings, in• was becoming less subtle, less formal, less precise, stead of being pressed down with the left hand more jagged. fingers, are played with the aid of a bottle neck—the In 1941 Alan Lomax came to Stovall in search of rough edges first smoothed over—or a piece of brass Robert Johnson, to record him and bring him to tubing worn on the little finger of the left hand. public attention. He came to Stovall to find that When this is passed up and down the strings, a Robert Johnson had wandered to Texas some five whining note is produced and a comparatively heavy years before and had supposedly died, poisoned by vibrato is obtained by moving the very slightly a mistress. But the people in Stovall told him of a over any one given fret. The really fine players of fine singer who had modelled himself on Robert this style* could control the pitch and tone of the Johnson, and Lomax decided that he should at least notes to produce an almost perfect match with the hear him. When he had, he immediately recorded voice, especially when singing in the falsetto regis• him and, on Library of Congress (Nos. AAFS 18/AB ter. And when Morganfield really started to play the —78rpm.; No. AAFS L4—33V4rpm.) are transcribed guitar, it was in the "bottle-neck" style with the D McKinley Morganfield's first recordings: Country Tuning. Blues and I Be's Troubled. He listened to all these good singers whenever they is, in fact, Waters' version of John• were to be heard but the man who made the greatest son's Walkin' Blues, and the guitar playing is almost impression upon him was Robert Johnson. identical to that on Johnson's version. But while Alan Lomax considers Johnson to have been one of Johnson's singing was phrased with intentional ir• the greatest men in blues and, though not in com• regularity, with sudden swoops into falsetto, Muddy plete agreement with this assessment, I feel that phrased in more predictable patterns and used he is a fine example of a country blues singer and falsetto sparingly, rarely for more than one bar at player. Able to pick (normal tuning) or slide (D a time. I Be's Troubled is also a twelve-bar blues tuning) with equal facility, Johnson had a masterly on the normal progression, but where Country Blues instrumental technique which was perfectly suited is a slow blues with the words sung at double tempo to his high tenor voice; his falsetto was one of the over a lurching 2/4 accompaniment, here the finest ever recorded in the blues. Johnson, from melody rides at half tempo over a fast 4/4 rhythm. And the accent is on the first and third beats, while it is on the second and fourth beats in Country Blues. This kind of shift in emphasis was, of course, (1) . The D Tuning is often referred to as 'Vastopol' Tuning. essential for a performer who might have to play This is a corruption of 'Sebastopol' and, we are told, seven hours at a stretch for a dance or party. I Be's comes from the balalaika tuning brought to New Orleans by Russian emigres in the early part of the 19th century. Troubled has also been re-recorded by Muddy since (2) . This style is not peculiar to the Northern Mississippi re• 1941; one particularly good version is under the gion. It was fairly generally used and Texas, for instance, produced some fine 'bottle-neck' musicians of whom title I Can't Be Satisfied. Ramblin' Thomas is a typical example. In the winter of 1942-3, Muddy moved to Chicago, where he worked in a paper mill during the day But when one sees Muddy one also realizes a time and played in the evenings at parties or ses• second reason for the modification of his singing sions. Very slowly, for Chicago boasted a quantity style; it is his constant physical movement. of fine singers and musicians, he began to make As he relied more on Otis and as ac• a reputation, and he gained much experience work• companists and less on his own guitar playing, he ing with established singers. Muddy has always been introduced more dance movement into his stage extremely proud of his association with Sonny Boy presentation with striking visual impact. And inevi• Williamson, the singer and harmonica player, and tably, since one cannot produce the same tones his performance of Standing Around Crying^ is a standing on one leg with the diaphragm tightly con• tribute to the influence which Williams has exer• tracted, his singing became less classical. Some cised on many singers since the 1940's. Here tones were chopped off short, others extended, and Muddy uses Williamson's trick of stammering a the whole musical effect became more violent and word, holding back a phrase until it is almost too eccentric. late to get it into the meter, then spitting it out*. When Muddy sings one of the older blues such as Muddy became known for his singing, and record• Blues Before Sunrise or Turn Your Lamp Down ing sessions followed. Low, one can hear, immediately, that much of Major influences on Muddy also included the his earlier style remains. It is only when one hears sounds of piano playing and his in• him singing these older blues that one understands troduction to the . He realised that, fully Bill Broonzy's very high regard for Muddy, a to feel right, he would eventually require piano in regard which is increased by the realization of his group. With his early love for the harmonica Muddy's considerable interest in the work of older confirmed by the virtuosity of Sonny Boy Willi• singers. amson, Muddy decided that it must become part But if Muddy's delivery has changed, so have his of his 'sound'. So he started working with Little lyrics. Always an individualist, Muddy has tended Walter, a fellow southerner and an excellent tech• to write his own blues rather than sing other nician whose style was based on that of the great people's and, in this respect, his stay in Chicago Williamson. He later brought in , his seems to have been most beneficial. With his diction cousin—one of the finest blues pianists to be heard becoming clearer there has been a heavier emphasis today—to fill out the group; but Muddy's early com• placed upon the words and many of Muddy's present mercial recordings were made with guitar, bass, day songs contain verses of outstanding poetic occasionally drums or washboard, and harmonica. character and expressiveness. These qualities are The guitar-harmonica accompaniment, played in all too rare in the blues-rock market. unison, is extremely effective behind Muddy's voice, Hoochie Coochie, (printed on the Blues page) is the bass and washboard play a backing mainly in one of Muddy's best recordings since the Library double time. The best of these recordings, I feel, is of Congress sides. And in Still a Fool—a new ver• , a thirteen and a half or fourteen sion of his Blues—Muddy starts with bar blues. Muddy's singing is already changing. this verse. There is no doubt that Muddy has suffered in recent "Well now, there's two, two trains runnin' years from the obsessive echo which has been used And neither of them goin' my way. on his recordings, and has seriously distorted both Well now, one runs at midnight his voice and the groups accompanying him. It has And the other just before day." affected his style: the patrons of a club go to hear The effect, direct yet mysterious, is extraordinarily their idols as they have heard them on records, and powerful and a good example of Muddy's great so Muddy has tended to coarsen his delivery to keep strength in the blues: his lyrics. Whenever I have up with his records. heard him sing in private, I have been impressed by the power and vividness of his imagery. Muddy Waters has great personal dignity, great masculinity and he believes intensely in his work. (3) . . Chess !p 1427. He has not bettered the blues, he has only changed (4) . Sonny Boy Williamson actually had an impediment of them to suit the times. As I once heard him remark speech, on occasion, caused him to mumble or stammer lyrics of his songs. to Otis Spann—he was listening to a 1932 record• (5) . For fuller details of Muddy's early sessions and how ing of Bill Broonzy—"You see, Otis, they didn't need they occurred, refer to Paul Oliver's informative article a rhythm section then. Just one man, by himself, in the January, 1959 issue of Jazz Monthly. (6) . THE BEST OF MUDDY WATERS. Chess Ip 1427. he could swing like a whole group." LeROI JONES Usually, talking over old times with old cronies just out of their teens, and mention• ing, almost wet-eyed, 'You remember how Wayne Shorter used to play those fantastic INTRODUCING solos at The Masonic Temple?', tapping on the table in a tempo so fast, Wayne would WAYNE SHORTER probably still have trouble making it. But that's a sense of it; the kind of aura he cast even as an adolescent, maybe because we I knew Wayne Shorter first in Newark where were all adolescents ... but I think not. I we were both, malevolently, born. He was think Wayne carries that aura around him one of the two 'weird' Shorter brothers that like an expensive Chesterfield. Talking to people mentioned occasionally, usually as him one senses immediately this air of 'in• a metaphorical reference, ". . . as weird as vincibility.' Hearing him play, one is con• Wayne." Wayne and I never ran together, vinced it is no mere air. or got on very intimate terms; we lived in Wayne went to N.Y.U. and graduated with a distant parts of the city, went to different degree in Music Education. But all during schools. this time, he was still playing with the Wayne went to Newark's Arts High School. Phipps band, and staying over in New York I used to see him in the too-tight green and playing at sessions with the bigtimers. It grey band uniform, tootling on a silver horn. was at one of these sessions that he met Or meet him on High Street always 'clean,' John Coltrane and they became very close rather distant, and smiling, what I've come friends. It was also during this time that to know as a really 'secret' smile. He was Coltrane had just gone with Miles Davis. playing tenor with a young group at most of John talked and played, Wayne listened and the high school crowd's dances throughout also played. the city. The band was Nat Phipps', and I After school, Wayne played around for a wish some one had recorded them. All 15, while, and then, due largely to a session he 16, 17, they played, then, with a mature was in at a Newark spot called Sugar Hill, musicianship that would, I'm afraid, make was taken into the Horace Silver group. the Farmingdale High School band sound Wayne made a few dates with them, includ• dreary. (The Phipps band, by the way, still ing Birdland and Newport in 1956, but then plays around Newark, and still has several the army got him. Luckily, he managed to very good musicians.) get into the Fort Dix band, and stay there. Wayne was precocious; I heard many pretty He came to New York every weekend, mak• astounding things he was doing at 17 and ing sessions, and getting heard. He got out 18. Even then, when he coudn't do anything of the army late last year, and in his brother else, he could still make you gasp at sheer Allen's words, "Man, he went to the army technical infallability. That was when almost and took care of a lot of business." Wayne every young body playing any kind of an started writing, practiced a lot, and most of instrument, even bongo players, sounded all, came out of it his own man, playing his like Charlie Parker. Wayne did too. But even horn like nobody else around. He had passed as a Bird lover in a high school band, Wayne through two very critical stages of his life: managed to come up with power. I remem• the young precocious imitator of Bird, and ber telling somebody, "Well, that's the hip- the 'good' young whose pest imitation of Parker you'll ever hear." ideas have not quite jelled. He is, now, al• Nowadays, Charlie Parker's got nothing to most at that third even more critical stage do with Wayne, except, perhaps, in -the sense of his career: the Innovator. He still has a that Antonio Stradivari is an 'influence' on little way to go, but not so much as to make Franscescatti. anyone who's heard him, recently, doubt for When I got out of Newark permanently, after a second that he'll make it. college, I heard about Wayne occasionally. I'd say Wayne's style is linked to the two Wayne Shorter Don Silverstein major tenor saxophonists of our day: Sonny ing up at you with what seems to be a fan- Rollins and John Coltrane. From Rollins, he tastic emotional thrust, but never railing, has learned what proper utilization of 'space' or waving their arms meaninglessly. (rests, doubletimes, "running through" bar But Wayne's music (the playing, the compo- lines, etc.) can do in improvisation. Like sitions) is unique, and seems, above all, im- Rollins's, his solos are orderly and precise, ^fl portant. The playing is characterized by an but, watching Wayne play, both eyes tight almost 'literary' (in the best sense of the shut, smiling during his short breaks, it is word) arrangement of musical relationships, obvious that the only chart he uses is some- Everything that comes out of the horn seems where behind his eyes. But Rollins seems to not only "premeditated" (the fire and sur- stand, like Joyce, above and beyond his prise of instantaneous extemporization is work, paring his nails, Wayne and Coltrane always present), but definite, and assimil- are right in the middle of the music, broil- ^| lated ... no matter how wild or unlikely it might sound at first. He seems to be willing "You said it, man. Everybody's afraid of to try anything. He usually makes it. those tunes." He laughed, "I don't blame When I started this piece, Wayne was playing 'em either. tenor with 's big band, but "You know, when you're into something . . . since he has gone into 's Messen• like John, you may make a lot of fluffs and gers. The night I went up to see Wayne with clinkers ... but that's in it too. All that stuff the Fergusons I talked to Wayne after each counts. If you're really doing something, you of three sets, wanting to get his voice in can't be safe ... you've just got to blow ... this article. and try to take care of some kind of business "Well, of course, you don't get as many solos (smiles) some way. Gee, I hope we play as you'd like, but a lot of times things hap• those tunes of Slide's and mine this set. I pen in a small group, and besides, we've feel like playing something." got a few people in this thing who really "Does Maynard take requests?" cook. , the trombone player, "Yeh, sure ... he goes for that. You know, he writes some fine things. We'll probably like you're a fan!" play some of Slide's things later. You know, 'O.K.', what tunes shall I ask for?" I've got a few tunes in the book too." "Well, the best of Slide's tunes is called "What it comes to is seriousness! Nothing Newport; mine is Nellie Bly." comes to anything unless you're serious After , the band went off into Slide about it. Man, that's the only things I dig Hampton's Newport, swinging, lush, brassy. . . . serious people doing serious things . ... Halfway through the tune, Wayne got up to otherwise, there's not much to it. Of course, solo; after his first few notes, it was apparent there's such a thing as serious humour too. to almost everyone in Birdland that the You know? Like Monk. Man, that cat's jokes young man playing was the most exciting are dead serious! To me, that's what people thing that had happened all night. The only like Sonny and John represent, a really seri• thing wrong with the solo was that it was ous approach to music. And with people too short. Taken at a seemingly impossible that are constantly improvising, you can see double-timed tempo, it stiH was full of the the real accomplishment. It's amazing! At kind of fierce, certainly satirical, humour least, it amazes me. John especially. I mean, that characterizes a Monk or a Rollins. When he doesn't ever stop taking care of business." Wayne finished the solo, most of the Bird- "What about traditional jazz musicians? land patrons broke into a loud happy ap• Have you ever listened to JeHy Roll Morton plause. The minute the band went into or Louis or early Duke, with a conscious de• Wayne's Nellie Bly, a thirties hipster type be• sire to incorporate their approaches?" hind me called out excitedly "Oh, oh . . . "Well, no. Although I've listened to a lot of some of that uptown stuff." He started pop• traditional people, especially Louis and ping his fingers vociferously. Wayne's solo, Duke, and may have gotten a couple of this time, was even better. Half the solo at things they were doing, unconsciously, but double-time tempo. The fellows in the band I can just about feel what they were doing broke up. The coda was supposed to be a without having to play that way myself to unison thing with Wayne and Ferguson, but find out. You know, what Bird played came Ferguson fluffed so badly, Wayne reared right through, and from everybody. Every• back on his haunches and blew a long, long, body who's saying anything plays like they've sustained, Ammons-like "honk," throughout heard everybody. I'd like to make a record the entire passage. The old timer in back of of Monk tunes, and one of Tad Dameron's me fell out of his chair. tunes. Of course, Monk's are greater, but Tad I walked towards the subway with the old did a lot of things that help all composers man in pursuit. "You know," he said, "You out. But, Monk, Whew!" can tell right away and that boy's "Well, if you do a record of Monk's tunes, I sure one of 'em." wish you'd do some of those great things nobody does because they're so tough to do, I agreed happily and he shook my hand Four-In-One, Humph, things like that." warmly as we parted, taking "A" trains north and south. FIXIN' TO DIE BLUES THE I'm lookin' fire in my eyes and I believe I'm fixin' to die, AHCMS 'm ,ookin'fire m mveve s and 1be|iev e ,>mfixin 'to>die I know \ was born to die but I ain't goin' to leave my children cryin' Just as sure as we live everyday, sure we're born to die, Sure we're born to die, Just as sure as we live, sure we're born to die, I know I was born to die but I ain't goin' to leave my children cryin' Your mother treated me, children, like I was her baby child, Was her baby child, Your mother treated me, children, like I was her baby child, That's why I tried so hard and come back home to die So many nights at the fireside, how my children's mother would cry, How my children's mother would cry, So many nights at the fireside, how my children's mother would cry, 'Cos I ain't told their mother I had to say goodbye Look over yonder, on the buryin' ground, On the buryin' ground, Look over yonder, on the buryin' ground, Yonder stand ten thousand, standing to see them let me down Mother, take my children back, before they let me down, Before they let me down, Mother, take my children back, before they let me down, Ain't no use them screamin' and cryin* on that graveyard ground (By Bukka White on Okeh 05588. Transcribed by Alexis Korner.)

HOOCHIE COOCHIE The gypsy woman told my mother Cause you know I'm here Before I was born Everybody knows I'm here I got a boy child's comin' Well, you know I'm a Hoochie Coochie Man Gonna be a son of a gun. Everybody knows I'm here. He's gonna make pretty womens On the seven hours Jump and shout On the seven day Then the world gonna know On the seven month What this all about. The seven doctors say Cause you know I'm here He was born for good luck Everybody knows I'm here And that you'll see. Well, you know I'm a Hoochie Coochie Man I got seven hundred dollar Everybody knows I'm here. Don't you mess with me. I got a black cat's bone But you know I'm here I got a mojo tooth Everybody knows I'm here I got the John the Conqueroo Well, you know I'm a Hoochie Coochie Man I'm gonna mess with you. Everybody knows I'm here. I'm gonna make you girls Lead me by the hand (By McKinley Morganfield [Muddy Waters] Then the world will know on Chess LP 1427. The Hoochie Coochie Man. Transcribed by Pete Welding.) This is the second of a series of articles by Mr. surprisingly Spanish flavor. Some, in fact, are so Borneman. The first appeared in September. reminiscent of today's so-called Afro-Cuban music that they could probably be taken over into the repertoire of the band without causing raised eyebrows in Puerto Rican Harlem. CREOLE ECHOES These dances—the counjaille, bamboula, chacta, babouille and juba—must have had an influence on early jazz. There are no recorded samples of them, but it is significant that the early jazz themes have a much more "Spanish" flavor than the later ones. 's New Orleans Blues, based on a PART II Creole song that Jelly heard in 1902, is of course the most famous case in point. Other Jelly Roll ERNEST BORNEMAN tunes that breathe the same atmosphere are Mama 'Nita, Spanish Swat, Fickle Fay Creep, Creepy Feel• ing, The Crave and his adaptations of La Paloma There is a vast literature describing the Place and Tia Juana. Congo [New Orleans] songs and dances, but per• Even Jelly's lifelong enemy, W. C. Handy, agrees haps the best record of them that we have is the that all the early Southern blues had a markedly extraordinary music composed in the 1840s by "Spanish" flavor. Handy himself, of course, repro• Louis Moreau Gottschalk, son of a German cotton duced this most accurately in broker and a Creole mother, who transcribed much (1912) and St. Louis Blues (1914). Note that Louis of what he heard at the Place Congo into an idiom Armstrong, though not a Creole himself, invariably which is formally European but shows an unusual plays St. Louis Blues with a Creole beat. gift for transcribing African cross-rhythms into con• Another Negro writer of the period whose ears were ventional notation. particularly well tuned to the sound of Creole folk- Of his many works, La Bamboula, Oanse Negre, music was William H. Tyers, a West Indian. His Op. 2, and Le Bananier, Chanson Negre, Op. 5, are Trocha (1897), Maori (1908) and Panama (1911) perhaps the most impressive. How honestly he follow directly in the tradition of Louis Moreau and preserved his source material can be judged from the anonymous songs preserved by G. W. Cable. the fact that at least one of his themes, Quand pa- Certainly the Creole influence runs right through tate cuite na va mange li, survives up to the present the idiom, from Jesse Pickett's Bowdigah's day in New Orleans in almost unchangd form. Dream in 1898, through Fred Mack's Coon-jine What these transcriptions establish is three things: (counjaille) the same year and Louis Chauvin's the existence of a mature form based on African Babe, It's Too Long in 1906, to Scott Joplin's Helio• rhythm, African call-and-response structure, and trope Bouquet (1907—based on a Chauvin tune— Franco-Spanish tunes; a melodic profile almost and Chauvin was Creole), You're in the Right Church identical with that of Creole jazz; the recurrence But the Wrong Pew (Cecil Mack and Chris Smith, of a metrical scheme reminiscent of the Moorish 1908), Scott Joplin's Solace Rag (1909), E. J. elements in flamenco. Stark's Chicken Tango and Paul Pratfs Everybody In 1886, George Washington Cable published two Tango (both 1914), Fred Fisher's and Felix Ber• books—Creole Slave Songs and The Dance in the nard's Dardanella (1919), Lucky Robert's Spanish Place Congo, with musical transcriptions by Mary Venus (1923) and the famous Charleston the same L. Bartlett, H. E. Krehbiel, Mme. Louis Lejeune and year. John A. van Broekhoven. Krehbiel's transcriptions Note that Cecil Mack, who wrote The Charleston are the best of these: they show how very accurate with Jimmie Johnson, had been using the same Louis Moreau's ear and pen had been forty years kind of "Spanish bass" in his own You're in the earlier. Once again we find the rudiments of Creole Right Church fifteen years earlier. Note also that jazz in unmistakable form, and once again we note many of the early records by the Original the extraordinary resemblance to the music of Mar• (which borrowed its themes and phrasing tinique, Guadeloupe Santo Domingo and Trinidad. from Creole jazz) showed the same beat, in par• Here is material of such jazz tunes as ticular Oriental Jazz (1917), At the Jazz Band Ball Salee dame, Eh la bas, Moi pas I'aime ca, Ce mon• (1918), Fidgety Feet (1919), Sphinx, Sudan and sieur qui parle, Les Oignons, C'est I'autre Cancan, Palesteena (1921). The earliest Negro jazz on rec• and Creole Bobo. But though the Creole songs of ord—particularly Indianola and Arabian Nights by the 1840-1880 era were essentially French in mel• Jim Europe's Hellfighters—exhibits similar "Span• ody, the Creole dances of the same period showed a ish" phrasing. These records were made in 1919, four years before the first discs, and and so on. demonstrate conclusively what was further docu• A particularly good bloc of Creole recordings were mented in 1924 by Piron's West Indies Blues and in made in 1955 by Omer Simeon—Grand Boubousse, 1925 by the Jim Dandies' Geechee Dance. Qua-ti Rhythm, Qua-ti Blues, and Lagniappe, with When the jazzmen moved north, they lost touch Sam Price on piano and Zutty on drums, neither of with —which, of course, simply means them Creole jazzmen, but both' of them sufficiently African music filtered through Spain and France— sensitive to the real heritage of jazz to blend per• and started playing Tin Pan Alley tunes. In fact, fectly with Simeon's Creole clarinet. almost nowhere except in the blues did a flavor of All this made an impression on the pre-Bolden jazz survive. The sole exception, apart revivalists. Bob Scobey recorded some mildly inter• from the blues, occurred in the series of recordings esting tracks with Fred Higuera on bongoes, and made by Creole jazzmen in exile—Jelly Roll, Bechet, some of the other revivalists explored such tunes as Ory, Nicholas and company. Blanche Touquatoux, Rum and Coca Cola and Ce Here we have Jelly's Tia Juana and his two versions monsieur qui parle. Far and away the most interest• of Mamamita in 1924, the Original Jelly Roll Blues ing development to arise out of this back-to-Creole- of 1926 with Castanet accompaniment, Barbados Jazz movement among the traditionalists occurred and Creole with Dave Nelson in 1930, two versions in England—not because English jazzmen were of Fickle Fay Creep in 1931, two of Creepy Feeling superior to American ones, nor because they showed in 1938, and of course the whole series of "Spanish greater percipience, but simply because they found tinge" recordings for the Library of Congress that themselves in daily contact with West Indian mu• same year. sicians. The next year, barely three weeks before Jelly Roll The conditions in the English jazz world during the made his last Creole record, The Crave (14 Decem• late 'forties and early 'fifties had this much in com• ber 1939), one of the milestones of jazz history was mon with those of early New Orleans: the presence set—'s session with the Haitian Sere• of a large contingent of Negroes who had absorbed nades (22 November 1939). I have heard ten of the Creole tradition; a body of fairly skilled white these sides—Rose Rumba, Merengue d'amour, Ti instrumentalists who were willing to listen and Ralph, Baba, Nana, Diane, Mayotte, Sous les palm- learn; a style of phrasing still flexible enough to be iers, Tropical Moon and Magic Island—but Bechet bent in almost any direction. told me that another four sides of "original Haitian Out of this came some of the best Creole Jazz music" were recorded. If these are indeed what recordings ever made. Largely inspired by Freddy Sidney says they are, then they would constitute the Grant, a brilliant West Indian clarinetist and ar• first deliberate reunion of jazz and Afro-Spanish ranger, recorded between 1951 folkmusic in history—predating the formation of the and 1957 these 21 tunes: Tia Juana, Buona Sera, Machito band by a year. Tangana, Ce Mossieu qui parle, Mamzelle Josephine, Certainly a deliberate effort to return to Creole jazz C'est filon, L'annee passee, It's Mardi Gras, Creole can be detected hereafter in the music of all jazz• Serenade, Red Beans and Rice, Fish Seller, Coffee men who had ever heard the real thing. Listen to Grinder, Fat Tuesday, , King Porter Creole George Guesnon's 1940 blues tracks, es• Stomp, London Blues, Original Jelly Roll Blues, pecially Iberville and Franklin, then to Ory's 1944 Friendless Blues, Heat Wave, I Love and The version of C'est I'autre cancan, and the Creole Lady in Red. Stompers' and wooden Joe Nicholas' versions of Eh The best of these sides came out under the name la bas in 1945, and you will see what I mean. By of "The Grant-Lyttelton Paseo Band"—and the word 1947, when Ory made his own versions of Eh la paseo in the title indicated (if anything was needed bas, the Creole style had been reconstituted almost to indicate it) the continuing dependence of Creole intact. There are traces of it in Ory's Creole Bobo, jazz on the Spanish tradition. Jelly Roll Morton used Wooden Joe's Ai, Ai, Ai, the All Star Stompers' to insist that there could be no jazz without "the Dardanella and the Creole Serenaders' Moi pas Spanish tinge," and history has borne him out I'aime ca, Salee dame and Les oignons during the triumphantly. In fact, jazz might well have died out same year, in Bechet's Broken Windmill in 1949, or become absorbed by country blues, hillbilly ' The Pearls and The Martinique in music or Tin Pan Alley (look what's happening to 1952, Albert Nicholas' Moi pas I'aime ca in 1953, de skiffle and ) if it had not been for an Paris' Madagascar and Armstrong's Chantez les bas event which I have never seen mentioned in any in 1954, Barbarin's Eh la bas, Parenti's Vieux Carre jazz history—the Jones Act of March 2, 1917, and Buckner's Martinique in 1955 and just about whereby the island of Puerto Rico became a ter• every one of such Bechet Paris recordings as Creole ritory of the and citizenship was Blues, Lastic, Les oignons, Le marchand de poisson conferred collectively on Puerto Ricans. DIZZY GILLESPIE: "Groovin' High". Savoy M6 12020. RECORD REVIEWS Gillespie, trumpet; Belter Gordon, tenor; Frank Paparelli, piano; Clutch Wayne, guitar; Murray SMpinsfcy, bass; Saeiley Manne, drums. Blue V Boogie; February 9,1945.

Gillespie, trumpet; Cfnrtie Parker, alto; , piano; Remo Patonieri, guitar; Slam Stewart, bass; , drums. «roovin' "Ufa ; All the /Mags Voa Are; February 29,1945.

Gillespie, trumpet; Parker, alto; M Haig, piano; Curly Russell, bass; , drums. ; Hat House; May 11,1945.

Gillespie, trumpet; Saray Stitt, alto; Haig, piano; Ray Brawn, bass; , drums; HW lacksen, vibes. Cop Bop Sh'bam; That's Earl, Brother; May 15,1946. Gillespie, Save Burns, Raymond Orr, Talin Oaawood, is4ra Lynch, trumpets; Alton Moore, Leon Cormenge, Gordon Thomas, ; Howard Johnson, Lucky Warrea, , John Brown, Saul Moore, saxes; Jetw lewis, piano; Brown, bass; Clarke, drums; Jackson, vibes. Our Delight; June 10,1946. One Bass Hit Part II; Rays Idea; Things to Came; July 9,1946. Matthew McKay, , trumpets; Taswell Baird, trombone; Scoops Carey, alto; Bill Frazier, tenor; Joe Harris, drums replace Orr, Daawood, Cormenge, Johnson, Abrams, Clarke. Dizzy Gillespie Emanon; November 12,1946. DIZZY GILLESPIE: "The Champ". Savoy MG 12047. Gillespie, trumpet; John Coltrane, tenor; Jackson, vibes; Kenny Bnrrell, guitar; Percy

Heath, bass; , drums.

Tin Tin Deo; Birk's Works; March 1,1951. Gillespie, trumpet; J. J. Johnson, trombone; Bud Johnson, tenor; Jackson, piano, vibes; Heath, bass; Art Blakey, drums. The Champ; April 16,1951. , alto, baritone; At Jones, drums replace Johnson and Blakey. Johnson out. Swing Low Sweet Cadillac; August 16,1951. Stuff Smith, violin added. Caravan; The Bluest Blues; Sunny Side of the Street; Stardust; October 25,1951. Time on my Hands; They Can't Take That Away from Me, date uncertain. Gillespie, trumpet; Graham, baritone; , piano; Bernard Griggs, bass-, Al Jones, drums. Ooo-shoo-be-doo-bee; July 18,1952. DIZZY GILLESPIE: "The Dizzy Gillespie Story". Savoy MG 12110. Gillespie, Burns, trumpets; John Brown, alto; James Moody, tenor; , piano; Ray Brown, bass; Joe Harris, drums; Jackson, vibes. Boppin' the Blues; Smokey Hollow Jump; Moody Speaks; For Hecklers Only. September 25,1946. Bid Spilka Gillespie, trumpet; , Richard Kenny, Harold Smith, trombones; Shirley Thompson, baritone; and a studio string string orchestra conducted by . Arrangements by Johnny Richards. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot; Lullaby of the Leaves; I Found a Mililon Dollar Baby; What Is There to Say?; October 31,1950. Alone Together; These Are the Things I

Love; On the Alamo; Interlude in C; November 1,1950. The varied facets of Gillespie's in• Shelly Manne—understandably, this was the early days of modern jazz. After fluence can be heard in so much February 1945—doesn't know the the solos there is an attractive and un• modern jazz that it is scarcely neces• kind of support Gillespie needs. Chuck usual unison passage for the horns that sary to discuss the details of his style. Wayne plays a good modern-swing style leads back to a partial re-statement of Yet while his influence over nearly a solo but does not increase the effec• the theme. All the Things You Are com• decade and a half is undeniable his tiveness of the rhythm section. Add to mences with the riff that had opened position in jazz is now quite changed this the squareness of Frank Paparelli's Eckstine's Good Jelly recording of the since those few years following the piano solo and fill-ins and the whole year before. Hart is unusually conserva• initial impact of bop. For us in Europe pulse of the performance is wrong. tive in his solo but Parker's eight bars, —and, I suppose, for the great majority Despite this, and although the virtu• though fragmentary, look forward to of listeners everywhere—that impact osity was not as immaculate as it was the three lovely Bird of Paradise solos was first felt through the records soon to become, Gillespie's lengthy based on this sequence he was to Gillespie made—some with Parker—for solo is fairly typical of his early matu• record of Dial in 1947. obscure companies like Guild and Musi- rity. Although somewhat loosely put to• The date that produced Hot House and craft in 1945 and '46. Hearing them gether, it contains features of melodic Salt Peanuts has a better personnel again so long after, or to have gone on invention, rhythmic structure, harmonic still. AI Haig, the finest bop pianist listening to them over the years, is thinking and tone that were shortly for group playing and accompaniment, a considerable experience. On first ac• to be recognized as characteristic and was present and Curly Russell was on quaintance they may have seemed to some of which he retains today. Not• bass. Sid Catlett's conception was ap• possess a somewhat contrived audacity withstanding Parker's work on Tiny propriately sensitive to the require• but that they retain the power to de• Grimes' 1944 recordings, Monk's with ments of the music even though he light and astonish us is sufficient Coleman Hawkins the same year, could not provide quite the backing indication of their worth and true origi• and some of the Eckstine band titles, Kenny Clarke might have given. Using nality. Uneven they may be, but all con• this solo is the first fully-fledged the chords of standard ballads as the tain great moments and some now statement we have by a modern basis for new compositions was com• sound like jazz classics—sound, that jazz musician. mon during this period and Tadd is, as if their value will no more dimin• Later the same month Gillespie re• Dameron's Hot House is a superior ex• ish in the future that it has in the corded with a more sympathetic per• ample of the practice. The trumpet past. Some of them can be heard on sonnel including Parker and Clyde Hart. solo here is nicely poised over Haig's Savoy MG 12020. Remo Palmieri's chugging guitar sensitive accompaniment and contains is no help, but Cozy Cole is a far more some passages that effectively illustrate Many elements went into the making the use of double-time in bop. Parker of modern jazz: some were the creation skilled and adaptable drummer. Slam Stewart is an insufficiently attacking sharply contrasts some of his phrases in of individuals and some the result of a way typical of his later solos. cross-fertilisation of ideas; some had bassist but fits into the scheme of things better than anyone who has not Salt Peanuts has more scoring than been for years developing in pre-war usual and some interesting harmonic jazz, others came from spontaneous in• heard the titles could believe, and his solos on two of them are among his touches. It is a good, rather aggressive sights. The early Gillespie records are theme based on an octave-jump idea the first preserved collective expression best in any context. Hart pecks out the changes with discretion and sym• and the scoring yields a somewhat fuller or synthesis of all the playing, exper• sound than one might expect from imenting and thinking that had gone pathy and was one of the few pianists qualified for this kind of music at the a two-horn ensemble. Parker on. Bop presented multilateral innova• sounds less assured than usual but tions: melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, time. (Speaking of this period said, "All of us were think• Haig's solo is especially good. Gillespie etc., and, as these took several years is better still. His entry could hardly to integrate into a homogenous ing about the new style, trying to get used to play it. Clyde was the only be more arresting and underlines as idiom, it was in some ways fortunate clearly as any moment in these records modern jazz was not recorded until pianist that could play those things without any trouble.") Groovin' High the absolute freshness of his imagina• 1945. The new jazz of 1943-4 tion at this time; surely no one before would have been interesting but and Dizzy Atmosphere are typical com• positions of the bop repertoire and would have associated such a passage immature. By 1945 the key musicians with the trumpet. The rest of the solo were ready. excellent vehicles for both horns—bet• ter than much Gillespie has found is played with great conviction. (In an• If they were ready most of the record• other version of this recorded soon ing supervisors were not and because since. Parker plays fluently, revealing— especially in Groovin' High—a side of after with a less sympathetic group the it was not understood that they were trumpet solo replaces some of this presenting something really fresh, bop his solo personality not much repre• sented on records. His tone has an airy, intensity with greater clarity of musicians often shared sessions with organization.) unsuitable companions. Thus on many singing lightness reminiscent of Benny Carter and the solos are shaped with records the new and established jazz Parker's work was very uneven idioms were heard side by side. This melodic grace and elegance. This deli• cacy again characterised his playing throughout 1945 and never on these prevented properly integrated per• sessions has the vividness and power formances and was disadvantageous on the Ornithology/ date of March 1946 and, to a lesser degree, it was soon to acquire. Even so, it to the repertoire that was another of is noticeable that on the records from the new things the bopsters had the Stupendous/Cheers session of Feb• ruary '47. But it was always rare. Gil• which he is absent Gillespie domi• to offer. Again, this repertoire—pieces nates more. Twelve months after the like Hot House and Shaw 'Nuff— lespie has two solos in Groovin' the first of which begins strikingly but ends Hot House recording Gillespie led a has been the model, even if sometimes session on which—at last—all the par• indirectly, of so many jazz compo• with a miscalculated and ineffective descending phrase that leads into a ticipants played in the bop idiom. sitions that it is superflous to , who was just gaining a describe it. bland guitar solo. At the close the tempo halves and he plays four bars reputation as the first man to emulate Several of these points are illustrated of beautifully-shaped legato trumpet Parker's style, has a fair sixteen-bar by Blue 'n' Boogie, the first title re• unlike anything recorded before. In solo on Oop Bop Sh' bam that is close corded under Gillespie's name. He is the faster Dizzy Atmosphere he takes a to his exemplar in tone but is much heard with a gathering of musicians daring solo that imparts the essence simpler in melodic concept. The trum• who, though advanced in relation to the of the bop solo style, and in itself pet playing is bolder than ever and then prevailing swing idiom, show no gives a very good idea of why he oc• on this title Gillespie take one of real affinity with his ideas. Murray cupied so commanding a position in the best solos he had recorded Shipinsky's bass is acceptable but up to this point. Eight of the titles on Savoy MG 12020 Both in Our Delight and Ray's Idea opens with a thin, light music in• are by these small groups. It is un• Gillespie responds to the melodic sub• troduction that is quite unrelated to fortunate others could not be included, stance of the theme with masterful what follows. The rhythm is established particularly Shaw 'nuft, Good Bait, I solos better aligned with their accom• by Latin American instruments and a Can't Get Started, and —the two paniment than usual. In Emanon, a small group of male voices sings not latter containing perhaps Gillespie's blues, there are unusually forceful the beautiful original melody but a finest solos of the period. As it is exchanges between trumpet and or• commonplace new one—presumably by the remainder of the disc is occupied chestra, some pungent ensemble dis• Richards. Gillespie also sings, quite by five performances by the big band— sonances, a solo by and agreeably, and sounds oddly like Louis his second—Gillespie led in the later remarkable unaccompanied scoring Armstrong, though less husky. His trum• 'forties. Despite the originality of their for the trumpets. pet solo has continuity and ideas that small combo work the boppers did not Some interesting though less signifi• are suprisingly good in view of the establish a comparable big band idiom. cant small combo recordings from this distracting accompaniment. A final Because of its complexity bop was es• period (1946) are reissued on Savoy touch of incongruity is provided sentially small group music. The ad• MG 12110. Among those featured is by the recapitulation of the string intro• ditional harmonic vocabulary could John Jackson, a now forgotten Parker duction. Alone Together has an easily be written into band scores but disciple whose solos—like Stiffs at this absurd haunted house opening but the the melodic complexity of the leading time—resemble his exemplar in tone strings accompany Gillespie's theme soloists' improvisations, and some of but were in a far simpler melodic statement without too much obstruc• the rhythmic devices could not. Brass style. The trumpeter Dave Burns was tion. Nor are they unduly offensive in and reed scoring did show the influ• a rather more positive follower of These Are The Things I Love, but ence of Parker's and Gillespie's Gillespie. His work is unusual in that little enthusiasm can be expected from melodic paterns and thus had a degree he thoroughly understood the Gillespie Gillespie in this context and a soloist of originality but there was no conception and was able to play can derive no impetus from such ac• innovation in ensemble texture or the fluently within it without having the companiments. Lullaby of the Leaves is relationships of the sections. It would originator's extraordinary technical brisker and has a few dashing trumpet be broadly true to say the bop men equipment. It is illuminating to com• phrases but Gillespie never sounds adapted their style to the big band, pare them as they alternate on Smokey really involved. He blows more force• rather than the converse. Hollow Jump. Despite their resem• fully in On the Alamo but is unable to The best arranger was Gil Fuller. While blance to Gillespie's Burn's ideas are develop a train of thought as his solo possessing a fine sense of the big band somewhat predictable and, on Moody passages are separated by interludes in style and an acute awareness of the Speaks, very nearly commonplace. ghastly good-taste by strings and piano requirements of the large ensemble he Again, the themes are fairly typical of (). Interlude in C is a taste• appeared to sacrifice fewer of the new the style and period and two of them, less hodge-podge based on a theme innovations and to compromise less Smokey Hollow and For Hecklers Only, from Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto with tradition. In spite of this, his ar• were partly composed by Gil Fuller. No. 2. The string writing seems to be rangements, more complex than Basie's, Gillespie's best solo of the session the worst in the collection but perhaps less subtle of texture than Ellington's, comes on the latter title and he makes this is only because of the unavoidable seem in their use of the orchestra as a sober muted contribution to comparison with Rachmaninoff's own. a virtuoso instrument to derive from Boppin' the Blues. Although he is not These string sessions were experi• 's work with Lunceford. Marked too happy in the bridge, Smokey mental and their failure is not in differences arise from Fuller's harmonic Hollow has one of 's better itself particularly significant. It is only and melodic vocabulary, but both men early solos. James Moody plays when we consider the bulk of Gilespie's used their orchestras as vehicles for very poor tenor on each title. recording in the 'fifties that a num• dazzling ensemble virtuosity with sharp, It was also in 1946 Gillespie made his ber of disturbing points arise. An almost dramatic contrasts of texture. first records with strings. These were uninspiring selection from some 1951 Yet Fuller's imagination, like Oliver's, of some of 's tunes and sessions can be heard on Savoy MG was disciplined and he never wrote remained unissued because of objec• 12047 and, as they are all too typical passages that were eccentric or un• tions made by the composer's widow. of what was to follow, a few comments balanced. The work of both arrangers In 1950 he made another attempt and on them must be made first. The Champ is characterised by clarity of texture recorded eight miscellaneous titles. is really a good theme but all the and exceptional fullness and depth of Eddie South, in some delightful records solos, except J. J. Johnson's, are ex- sound. If there is a band score that made in Paris with Reinhardt hibitionistic and empty. Gillespie's is reflects the spirit of Gillespie's solos more than twenty years ago proved the cohesive enough but he employs the it is Fuller's Things to Come. Un• violin can be a good solo jazz instru• more superficial of his mannerisms fortunately it was played too fast in ment but the lead he then gave was rather glibly. and Birk's the recording studio to produce its full never properly followed up and en Works are pleasantly restrained, if effect, and Fuller got this conception masse, strings have been a consistent slightly negative, performances with over more successfully in "The Scene failure. It has become widely believed some good moments from Milt Jackson Changes," which he recorded for Dis• they cannot be successfully employed on the latter. On several titles Gil• covery in 1949. Even so, Things in jazz because of their sweetness. lespie is unsuitably teamed with the remains a brilliant score with astonish• This is untrue and the orchestration violinist Stuff Smith. One of them, ing interplay between the sections of contemporary composers like Bartok Caravan, suits the trumpeter particu• and harshly accented brass chords. —e.g. in his Divertimento for Strings- larly well but Smith's sawing in Here and in One Bass Hit, Part two shows that when employed with ade• the foreground is distracting and un• Gillespie's solos are not very happy. The quate insight and accomplishment pleasant. Joe Carroll's rather expres• ideas are evident as usual but it is strings will yield a wide variety of in• sionless singing and Smith's all as if he experienced difficulty in shap• vigorating sounds. The writing on all too expressive violin playing go ing his material in relation to the jazz albums utilising strings has been amusingly well together in Time on heavier sounds and thicker textures of amateurish and based on thernost My Hands. Stardust features Gillespie this context. Remarks about the basic• facile conceptions of light music. The throughout and is a thoughtful but ally traditional scoring of most of scores Johnny Richards produced for still rather pedestrian track. these performances are illustrated by Gillespie are probably the worst of all, The prevailing impression conveyed by the conventional theme statement of and in some the strings are only one these and many similar records is of an Dameron's excellent Our Delight and of a number of practically irreconcil• artist who no longer wishes to domi• the saxophone writing in One Bass Hit. able elements. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot nate, or indeed to control, his sur- roundings. Isolated fine records have Two Left Feet; Just Squeeze Me; I Got It rblue note1 got made but for a long time now it Bad And That Ain't Good,- Nothin'; Jump THE FINEST IN JAZZ has been as if Gillespie no longer has For Joy; Bli-Blip; Chocolate Shake; If Life an objective and has even lost his Were All Peaches And Cream; Brownskin I SINCE 1939 A sense of direction. This is as true of Gal In A Calico Gown; The Tune Of The recent items as those mentioned above. Hickory Stick. All arrangements by Bill Russo. Despite the fine work of Rollins and Stitt on (Verve MGV 8262) the most notable aspect of that record for me was Gillespie's failure, donaldson with This is certainly one of the most un• the 3 sounds not merely to dominate, but, almost, to usual jazz records to come out in some assert himself at all. The contrast be• time: the fine arranging talent of Bill tween all this and his brilliant and Russo, the brilliant alto work of Can• purposeful work in the 'forties is all nonball Adderley, and a Duke too obvious. Whatever may be the in• Ellington score which should be dividual personal assessment of their done more often. worth, Gillespie's early small combo records indisputably embody a genuine Russo has done a masterful job. The re-thinking of the basic essentials of arrangements bear the stamp of his jazz in new terms. Nothing he has done personality, and at the same time re• since can alter Gillespie's vital posi• tain the Ellington spirit. He makes use tion in the earlier developments of some most unusual sonorities which at times remind one of some of of modern jazz, nor can the subsequent WITH influence of the music he created in those "Cannonball Adderley with Strings" sides, particularly the soulful (, Andrew Simpkins, Bill Dowdy) those years be disputed. The question As Lou said. "A musician who really plays his later records compel us to I Got It Bad and If Life Were All jazz has to have it here, in the heart." We Peaches And Cream. He gets a lovely think you'll realize that both Lou and The ask is why he has failed to maintain Three Sounds have it here. his commanding position and go effect on Squeeze Me which recalls the 4012 on to further achievements—for today Miles Davis interpretation in its gentle• ness. He gives Two Left Feet and he is just an unusually individual RECENT RELEASES: soloist who only occasionally Hickory Stick just the right touches extends himself. of humor. ART BLAKEY But I have some reservations about the Perhaps part of the answer lies in the AND string quartet on certain tracks. On AT "THE JAZZ CORNER OF THE WORLD" nature of the man's gifts. Louis Bli-Blip Russo has the quartet do some With , , Bobby Armstrong's abilities as an actor and Timmons, Jymie Merritt. percussive effects—good, but I miss BLUE NOTE 4015 'showman' have impeded the total ful• the impact of a full band here. fillment of his musical genius and it The same is true of many of the may be Gillespie is too much of a fun- JACKIE McLEAN other faster tracks. The use of the IVnr Soil. With , Walter Davis man to wish or be able to maintain string quartet in these instances gives Jr., , Pete La Roca. any kind of 'leading' position for long. me the impression of the Budapest BLUE NOTE 4013 Creator and clown cannot exist peace• group trying to play Night In Tunisia fully together indefinitely and in the —it doesn't sound right. But it's commercial climate in which jazzmen worth a try, isn't it? The Scene Change,. With Paul Chambers, must work musical gifts must often . Adderley does some of his finest play• BLUE NOTE 4009 take second place to more easily ap• ing on this record. He seems to have preciated qualities. Again, when his big a feeling for these tunes, and it shows. band broke up early in 1950 he found HORACE SILVER He has a fine natural swing to his Finger Pop in\ is necessary somehow to broaden the P With , Junior playing which seems made to order Cook, Eugene Taylor, Louis Hayes. scope of his appeal—records show his for stuff like this, and I'd like to hear BLUE NOTE 4008 tone changed at about this time—and him do more of it. He does everything— this may have led to a dissipation he cooks his head off, he does the of his talents. ballads with a quiet yet intense lyric• The Sounds. With Eddie McFadden, , Art Blakey. These tentative explanations may be ism, he gets funky, and all at just BLUE NOTE 15S6 wide of the mark but it is already clear the right time. It is interesting to note that Gillespie's failure to retain the how far he has progressed in the for• unique and creatively influential mation of a style all his own; this Hewk's Time. With Wynton Kelly, Doug position he once had is one of the recording was done in 1958, not too Wafklns, . most notable failures of modern long after he had joined Miles Davis, BLUE NOTE 4001 jazz in the decade now ending. and the effects of his exposure to Max Harrison Miles and John Coltrane are plain. ART BLAKEY Cannonball is breaking further away Holiday for Ski™. With Philly Joe Jones, Art Taylor, Donald Byrd, Sabu, etc. from the Charlie Parker mold all of the BLUE NOTE 4004 time, doing things of his own and making them come out of that horn. His distinctive, brilliant sound, a tre• DONALD BYRD Off to the KaeeM. With Jackie McLean, mendous sound for an alto—at times , Wynton Kelly, , it sounds more like a light tenor— Art Taylor. BLUE NOTE 4007 CANNONBALL ADDERLEY: "Jump for adds new dimensions to these tunes. Joy". Mercury MG 36146. is effective in his occa• Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, alto sax; sional solo spots and adds depth to the LOU DONALDSON supporting group. The rhythm Blue, Walk. With Herman Foster, Peck Emmett Berry, trumpet; , piano; Morrison, , . section is alert, sure and solid, with BLUE NOTE 1593 , guitar; , bass; Jimmy Cabb, drums; and Leo Evans and Hinton in particular Kruczek, violins; Oave Schwartz, viola,- standing out. 12" LP, List $4.98 George Ricci, cello. Zita Carno Complete Catalog on Request , INC. 47 West 63rd St., New York 23 RUBY BRAFF: "Easy Now". was also one of the most important suave sophistication (ie. Blues For RCA Victor LPM-1966. of the men who developed the style of Christmas). On the other hand, there Ruby Braff, Emmett Berry, trumpets; Bob the thirties. Those men had to do it are times when he seems incapable Wilbur, tenor sax; , trombone-, for themselves; they had had few of reaching beneath the surface of the Leonard Gaskin, bass; , guitar; examples to fall back on, comparatively music to find the jauntily swinging Marty Napoleon, piano; , drum. few men who preceded them from subtleties in which it abounds. I sus• My Walking Stick; When My Sugar Walks whom to develop their styles. pect also that the rather peculiar down the Street; This is my Lucky Day; On the other hand, you would think rhythmic inflections employed by Adder-

For Now; I Just Couldn't Take It Baby; that a younger man who took up a ley are not exactly what Brooks had Little Man You've Had a Busy Day. style of a time before his own in mind when he wrote the Concerto. Ruby Braff, , trumpets; Hank would find no challenge in it since, Adderly tends to play in a kind Jones, piano; Lowe, Gaskin, and Lamond. you might say, so much of the work has of suspension on top of the beat and

Willow, Weep for Me; The Song is Ended; been done for him. He might find that there are places (his solo directly Give my Regards to Broadway; Someday way of playing a pleasure, but only before the end of the first move• You'll be Sorry; Yesterdays. easy fun. But I don't think that that is ment) in which his differences with true of Ruby: he does find a Galbraith and Hinton are more challenge in the style, and he is than obvious. Art Farmer, however, creative in it. However, I don't think seems to have grasped Brooks' inten• I think I would have enjoyed this he or anyone else happened to tions. Having listened to the music more if I had heard it in find their challenge this time record and subsequently studied the person; the warmth of it doesn't reach on this Ip. It seems to me that the score, I think that there is an me on this record—and I think it's same men could have done the same absolute unity of intent between the for technical reasons that it doesn't. thing as well almost any time. lines written by Brooks and the solos The microphones in general use Art Farmer improvised by Farmer. Listen par• nowadays are unfair to the whole style ticularly to the lyric beauty of his line of jazz this record represents. in the slow section of The Loop; and Nowadays most of the recording is done again to the amazing unity existing with Telefunken microphones, between the theme of Rufus Playboy or others with similar ritornello and his solos which fol• characteristics, that pick up the low it. The rhythm section top part of the sound and emphasize plays excellently and Barry Galbraith the highs, without enough lows. in particular once again demonstrates This musical style is played JOHN BENSON BROOKS: "The Alabama his startling virtuosity as a section, with plenty of highs in the first Concerto". Riverside RLP 12-276. rhythm, single line, and place, and when they are emphasized Art Fanner, trumpet; Julian Adderley, alto chording guitar player. by recording equipment, the result sax; Barry Galbraith, guitar; Milt Hinton, Brooks was, during the middle forties, is not true to what the players bass; Brooks, piano (third movement only). one of the best of a large number of sound like. The music sounds shrill, First Movement; The Henry John Story; Some top-notch dance band arrangers. His and when a player opens up, it Lady's Green; Green Rocky Breasts (Nature!); charts for the Randy Brooks, comes out as a shriek, like a small Job's Red Wagon. and bands were beauti• insect flying in angry circles Second Movement: Trampin'; The Loop. ful examples of the rich sonorities to around a room. Third Movement: Little John Shoes; be found within the structure of dance Milord's Calling. band instrumentation. Yet one of the I like everybody on this record in major criticisms that can be made of varying degrees, but I prefer the tracks Fourth Movement: Blues For Christmas; Rufus Playboy; Grandma's Coffin. the Alabama Concerto is that it with two trumpets to the septet lacks in tonal color. I can only attrib• tracks. I think that the arrangements ute this to the fact that, in a on the septet tracks were made only for number of places, he seems to use his the instrumentation, not for the men instruments as if they were part of involved. These men have very "The Alabama Concerto" is derived larger sections. The opening individual timbres and vibratos; this from "folk music" thematic sources John Henry statement almost by its kind of anonymous ensemble writing encountered by John Benson Brooks nature suggests a brass section figure, doesn't work out for them, nor they during an association with the folk- and in many places the interplay for the writing. lorist . It is, of between trumpet and alto are strongly There are a lot of tracks, but a course, somewhat of a misnomer to reminiscent of moving brass over a monotony of tempos. I get refer to it as a concerto; it comes chording sax section. There are impressions of just two—a medium far closer to being an updated form numerous other examples, although bounce, and a ballad tempo a of the concerto-grosso, in that it con• there are certainly many sections bit slower. sists of a suite-like series of theme in which the four voices function satis• Sometimes when the two trumpets and variation movements constructed factorily in an integral relationship are playing together I couldn't in a ripieno-concertino relationship. The with each other. tell which was who—especially with soloists improvise on a harmonic Roy and Ruby, but on the other basis derived by Brooks from his basic It seems likely that in this composition hand, I haven't heard as much of them thematic material. This chordal deriva• Brooks had not adequately solved his as I would like to have. tion is quite a bit more sophisticated own tonal problems and as a result, Emmett Berry is an unsung hero. than the folk material would, by its the harmonic texture which he has de• I like him especially for his rhythmic nature, imply, and it is only by the vised simply overpowers the instru• conception; he really gets into the occasional use of archaic rhythmic and mentation involved. And it may also middle of the beat and sits right melodic devices that Brooks retains an have provoked a tendency to on it. Even playing alone, he would identification with the character of orchestrate with larger forms in mind. have that kind of fine inside his source of material. In this respect I'm not suggesting that a small time and swing. the use of Cannonball Adderly as a group is necessarily limited to simple I particularly like Vic Dickenson, soloist has both advantages and dis• tonal structures. Certainly the but this record makes me want advantages. There are times in which Bartok string quartets are more to hear him in person. he brings an element of blues, earthi- than adequate proof that such is not Of course, Roy has developed his own ness and pure to places which the case. But I do feel that the voice and should stick to it. He would otherwise be constricted by their limitations involved in a form which states thematic material and then electronically generated tone, automatic RAE-COX derives from it a complex vertical vibrato and unavoidable sameness harmonic structure as a basis for im• of attack prevent the musician from provisation can easily result in tonal getting his own voice into the stultification. There are too many music. Oscar and a few other organists instances in which it is only have managed to make the thing possible to produce a skelton of swing, but the main sound, the intended tonal effect. If Brooks resonance, attack and release are had given his soloists something more characteristics of the organ rather in the way of a horizontal tonal basis, than of the organist and aren't and if his concerted sections had particularly pleasing to my ear. I wonder been derived more from the basis of if an adjustable vibrato control such the thematic groups implicit in as Milt Jackson uses on his vibes the material itself rather than from an would humanize this damn externally imposed vertically, this machine a little? would have been a more satisfactory They have recorded Ray well here, composition. but the illusion of the physical Although there are many aspects of this position of the instruments in relation record which do not quite come off, to each other shifts radically as the it would be foolish to overlook the control-room is constantly Rumpus on Rampart Street: Ed Hall importance of Brooks' intentions as a changed to favor whoever is soloing. plays throughout with an irresistibly composer. There is about this Since it is Ray's date he is given contagious drive and that immediately music the air of a brilliant mentality precedence on each mixture, identifiable tang that is one of the most at work. In places it overwhelms but sometimes it sounds like the rest of pungent and virile sounds in jazz. Ed the music, uprooting it from the musicians are being dollied in and swings unerringly, in solo and with a its sources and making it into a gem of out of the adjoining room as they , backed by a firmly inte• sophisticated . continue to play. I realize that there grated rhythm section with Jimmy This is both good and bad; are difficulties involved in Raney, Dick Carey, AI Hall and the good for Brooks's development, but recording this instrumentation, but ebullient . not so good for this as a work of art. if the musicians can't balance The problem which he has set for themselves so that each other's solos Best selling Ips on RAE-COX himself; that of finding a rapproche• are audible in the studio ment between the root sources of there's little point in playing at all. music and the incredibly intricate Ray displays enviable agility all over techniques of contemporary composition the and uses it in the ENRICA is a problem which must eventually be service of well-developed ideas most met by anyone who considers himself of the time. One of the physical to be a serious composer. In "the problems of the bass that he hasn't Alabama Concerto," Brooks has shown completely solved (who has?) is that he is one of the few who are the difficulty in sustaining the big grappling with the problem with all the buttery sound he gets (when there's resources at their command. time to pluck a string strongly and hold Don Heckman it into the fingerboard long enough to make the instrument resonate completely) through rapid passages where there isn't time to pluck all the notes or to let each one ring before shifting for the next one. His simple figures sing with the same marvelous sonority that is present in his four-four RAY BROWN: lines, while many of his double and "This is Ray Brown". triple-time figures have only about Verve MGV-8290. half that sound. This creates enforced Brown, bass; , piano and dynamics that don't always coincide organ; , guitar; , Garner Plays Garner: Linton Garner, older with the structure of the phrase brother of Erroll, has long been known drums; , flute. he's playing. among musicians as a consistently Oscar, Herb and Osie lay down warm, swinging, unpretentious pianist. Although Ray Brown is a superb bass the time with energy and drive, but He has melodic imagination, a solid player and has a compatible group never violently; these are big strong beat, and he communicates a delight of musicians to work with on this date, men doing an honest day's work in making music. His crisp, dependable it isn't altogether successful with vigor and good humor. Jerome's accompaniment includes drummer either as a group effort or as a vehicle flute adds an attractive tonal color to Jimmy Crawford and bassist AI Hall. for the display of his solo voice. the bass and guitar but sounds Much of the uneasiness I feel is due to terribly fragile when matched with the Best selling Ips on ENRICA the sound of the Hammond organ. I specific gravity of the organ, no try not to get sidetracked by the matter how evenly the control room Just Released Just Released associations I have with that matches the volume levels. instrument, skating rinks and soap Herb's strummed rhythm guitar blends Benny Green Swings the Blues—featur• operas, but after Oscar Peterson's with the bass solos better than any ing Jimmy (Night Train) Forrest on tenor introduction to other accompaniment on the record, sax. This is at its best. Titles I keep half expecting to hear a and the sound he and Ray make include Been Walkin'; Blue Mambo; handsome-voiced announcer telling me walking chords and lines together bowls Hop, Skip and Jump. about Helen Trent's latest unrequited you along both rhythmically and romance. harmonically just the way you always Rae-cox Records Inc.— Aside from such distracting wanted to be bowled along. images, the Hammond organ's Bill Crow Enrica Records Inc. 1697 Broadway, N. Y. 19, N. Y. C15-06400 33 KENNY BURRELL: "Blue Lights, which he constantly stifles. The first time. His melodic concept isn't Volume I". Blue Note 1596. half of his solo on Caravan, for instance, ambitious, or strikingly original; he , trumpet; Junior Cook, tenor; seems to augur well, but then he falls works with short simple phrases, , tenor; Kenny Burrell, guitar; back on running the chords again. doesn't build, and makes no vast

Duke Jordan, piano; Sam Jones, bass; Cook and Brooks are almost flights. Rhythmically, though, he's a Art Blakey, drums. indistinguishable here. They descend, master. Those unstartling lines move so Yes Baby; Scotch Blues. roughly, from Young by Gordon, well because each note is placed so Bobby Timmons, piano for Jordan. Autumn Stitt, Coltrane, Gray, and God-knows-who perfectly. Of his contemporaries on in New York. Burrell, Timmons, Jones and else. The worst that can be said of trumpet, Roy Eldridge gives him Blakey. Caravan. them here is that they are dull, the best competition, but aside from and not in a new way. Brooks has the superficial similarities (common to If someone were to ask me what had his best moments on Yas Baby, but his most trumpeters of their generation) happened to or funky jazz playing on the rest of the tracks is they are entirely different. Roy is since the early fifties, I would oniy have just desultory. I have heard Cook a romantic, a builder of vast choruses. to use this record. in person when he struck me as a still When he makes it he is sublime, Of course, the hard bop movement developing but interesting soloist. I but he doesn't always make it and he owed little or nothing to the cool hope my recollection is the suffers from a tendency to play school, but it actually owed only accurate one, and that this session flat, waste notes, and scream when he slightly more to bop. If bop is taken only represents a bad day. runs out of ideas. Sweets, though at its best in the work of Parker, I think Burrell is a standard post-Christian he lacks Roy's melodic gifts on the it is obvious that few, if any, of the guitarist. He serves to remind one grand scale, is absolutely consistent, hard boppers have understood of how little has been done with the safer than Roy because he takes fewer the nature of Parker's rhythmic guitar since , who is as risks. He can get a little dull (ai on contribution to jazz. Parker introduced much misunderstood as Parker. Fair Ground in this set), but he is never a dazzling rhythmic complexity which Autumn in New York is all Burrell and in bad taste, never unrelaxed or out brought an entirely new concept belongs in a hip cocktail lounge, of control. His phrasing is short and to of time into jazz. There was, certainly, not in a jazz album. the point, conservative harmonically much more to the bop revolution, Sam Jones is a splendid bassist. and structurally, but spiced (at medium, but I do feel that this was the essence He is a bit too self-effacing, which is and up tempos) with rapid flaky of it. The hard boppers sought and too bad since he is a better soloist passages rarely longer than a bar. He found their tradition in the groovy than most bassists. Here he is likes to end a long sustained note world of and gospel somewhat in the background, but one is with one of these. Sweets cuts music rather than in bop. grateful to and for him. everybody at so simple a thing as What resulted was music almost Bobby Timmons is a promising soloist; holding a note; his tone is so clear, and entirely blues based and oriented, and he is, obviously, not yet sure of what within a certain range of tempos his which consisted, and consists, of he wants to say nor of how to say vibrato makes triplets, with the effect strings of long solos derived from the it. But when he finds out the results that he rides the note rhythmically chords fed to the soloists with should be worth listening to. Here one without altering breathing or volume. He regularity by the pianist. In and around can hear Wilson, Silver, and several also knows how to repeat a note or a this movement certain remarkable others with an occasional little phrase with a different rhythmic soloists have developed and their best glimpse of the essentially lyrical emphasis each time. And there are work is now concerned with a search Timmons peering out. rests, plenty of rests. I think certain for individual form which is often Yet there is one good reason for owning younger players who run to long hampered, by their working in groups this record and that is that strings of unrelieved eighths where form is but a word. For hard appearances of are so or sixteenths could learn a lot about bop itself has fallen victim to rare. On Yes Baby his first solo is rests from Edison. I've heard him the monotony of formlessness implicit such a model of melodic construction play better than on this album, but this in its earliest attempts. The average and beauty that it makes all that can almost always be said. His best hard bop soloist is only too content comes before and after worthwhile. work here is on The Strollers, a medium to run the changes in the most When he returns for a chorus after Sam blues, and two magnificent breaks pedestrian way by now, and a concern Jones, it is so beautiful that one he takes on Sunday, trading fours for melody and form is easily forgotten. wants to laugh, cry, gesticulate, and with Forrest and Persip. It is this sort of formlessness which give copies of the record to all Forrest is a tenor who deserves more characterises this record and makes it, one's friends. On his own Scotch Blues, attention than he seems to be getting. with an important exception to be unfortunately, Jordan fails to develop He has technique to spare, and great noted later, such a trying very much, although he is always fluency, plays a lot of notes, but listening experience. in there trying. The main mistake seems not in the hammering style of the In Art Blakey we have the archetype to be his attempt at a chorda I Coltrane school. Even when honking a of the hard bop drummer. But on this approach which is simply unsuitable note he avoids a harsh sound. His record he seems unwilling to enliven to his style. But the solos on tone is full, but his vibrato is light and things with the dynamism of which Yes Baby are there, and they will last delicate, and tends to disappear at he is capable. He coasts along for a long, long time. fast tempos, except on contentedly on a series of rolls and of a phrase. He gets a warm, husky accents which are, by this time, cliches. H. A. Woodfin sound, and uses a growl now and then. Louis Smith is one of the latest in His lines are flowing and balanced, the line of those trumpeters who but, like Edison, he takes few derive from Fats Navarro through risks. (That sounds just a little too . Smith, like Brown, lacks HARRY EDISON: "The Swinger". patronizing; he doesn't play a dull note Navarro's sense for congise Verve MG V-829S. in the set, and everything he statement, and he seems quite Edison, trumpet; , tenor; tries, he makes with ease.) happy leaping from chord to chord , piano; Freddie Greene, guitar; The excellent rhythm section sounds as though it's been working as though melody were an unheard of , bass; , drums. thing. Yet, Smith still strikes me as Pussy Willow, The Very Thought of You, as a unit for months. Persip's having a definite potential, most Nasty, The Strollers, Sunday, Fair Ground. playing is beautiful, never loud; he uses obviously apparent in his good tone, fine little snare figures at fast tempos Edison's strength is in his perfect which really lift, and never clash of August 1, 1959 he is quoted with the soloist. Benjamin is steady, saying, "Music in pictures should say NEW CAT IN TOWN and provides nice, if standard, lines. I something without being obviously have to look far to find any music, you know, and this was complaint with the rhythm section; all new to me." This might account if there is one, it's that Benjamin tends for the curiously negative effect some to pinch off his notes a little, instead of it produces when heard in of letting them sound full. Since isolation away from the film. Perhaps Greene is there to make the changes he is aware of its shortcomings explicit, Jones can afford to let for he is also quoted as stating, "The some by and concentrate on accenting next one will be better. I'll try and taking care of the holes. His another one and then I'll show them." acompaniment is clean and spare. He is None of this, however, explains why always in the right place and never these performances are about the most in the way, makes the change disinterested-sounding the band has and then shuts up. He is less effective ever recorded. Execution is every as a soloist, though; his'choruses bit as good as one would expect but are uneventful, full of long, the lack of enthusiasm is manifest on functionless empty spaces during most tracks in a heaviness that cannot which I keep waiting for something to all be accounted for by the unusually happen, and he likes those thick scoring sometimes adopted. block voicings which I The music for the main title No jaded jazz, this. Few contemporary com• would prefer left out of any pianist's begins somewhat rhetorically with bos top the Mingus Quintet in the art of work. In' addition, that extreme wa-wa fanfares and strong ensemble creating new, round cool sounds. Working from a musical skeleton, Charlie Mingus lightness of touch never varies, which chords, and with the drummer spontaneously makes music related to the eliminates most of his chances for hammering the off-beat relentlessly. moment. Mingus at the bass is strictly off-the- shadings in dynamics, however subtle. This resolves to an saxophone record", a jazzophile's dream. Ah urn, yes, Except for Sunday and The Very figure with brass interjections. experimental mile-high music that's solace Thought of You, all the tunes are Nance has a good wa-wa solo in the for your soul. Go oh ah with Mingus today. originals by Edison, and all form of a dialogue with these blues, medium or fast. Recording interjections. Both ostinato and drum- MINGUS AH UM— balance is very fine. Notes, by Nat pounding are abandoned later when CL 1370 CS 8171 (stereo) Hentoff, are gently anecdotal. Ellington takes one of those GUARANTEED HIGH-FIDELITY AND STEREO-FIDELITY RECORDS BY Maitland Edey slightly quizzical piano solos of his. Flirtibird is an excellently composed vehicle for Hodges and it is unfortunate COLUMBIA he does not take full advantage of it. A lack of enthusiasm is again •"&•*•"$ Matt lit. ktmm « Until Mental Spin. he. suggested by his perfunctory phrases and his stiff, almost hard tone is DUKE ELLINGTON: "Anatomy of a reminiscent of Tab Smith's playing in GOLDEN CREST Murder", music from the sound track of the 'forties (for example on Charlie presents: the motion picture. Columbia CL 1360. Shaver's Mountain Air and Rosetta on Main title (featuring and Jimmy Keynote). The score has four main 'THE Hamilton); Flirtibird (); Way themes and this track introduces one Early Subtone (); Here to of them, a six-note phrase that is COMPLETE Zero ( & ); Low antiphonally used here in three Key Lightly (Nance); Happy Anatomy (Clark dialogues. The first is between Terry & Gonsalves); Midnight Indigo; Almost Ellington, who states it several times DON Cried (Harold Baker); Sunswept Sunday with variations, and the ensemble, who (Hamilton); Grace Valse; Happy Anatomy (the provide a different response to each P. I. Five); Haupe" (Hodges); Upper and REDMOND' of these. Hodges then takes (CP. 3017) Outest () Ellington's place and supplies further variations but keeping the idea featuring recognizable. Finally the band and the following This collection of pieces from the soloist reverse places. The same six- sound track of Otto Preminger's note motive is employed in Great Artists: is in several Baker's feature, Almost Cried, but not e Danny Banks, sax respects disquieting for the long term in such an interesting way. Ellington admirer. Although it is e Bobby Byrne, trombone Nonetheless this underrated trumpeter's e , bass superior to what most other jazz leaders playing, with its unusually clean tone, could do, at no point does it exhibit e Barry Gailbraith, guitar is always enjoyable to hear. e Tyree Glen, trombone the originality of "" Another use of this theme is in the or any of his best work. e Coleman Hawkins, tenor introduction of Early Subtone. This has e Osie Johnson, drums The invention is almost as prolific a beautiful section by Procope's as ever but does not seem to be so e Hank Jones, piano clarinet but is otherwise chiefly e , sax typical of Ellington as usual. disconnected padding. This is largely because the music e 'Red' Press, sax Hero to Zero, one of the best tracks, e , trumpet departs from the highly distinctive is a good piece of atmospheric melodic and harmonic idioms he has writing. There is no central melodic AVAILABLE evolved. The thread of interest until the theme appears AT YOUR commonplace that runs through most towards the end, and most of the time of these pieces may be due to Carney's and Gonsalves's lines are RECORD DEALER his having to compromise in some simply the most prominent thread in the directions to meet the unaccustomed texture rather than the focal points. GOLDEN CREST RECORDS requirements of film music. In the Thematically related to this are American Weekly Entertainment Guide 220 BROADWAY HUNTINGTON STATION. N. Y. Low Key Lightly and Haupe. from him; if he did that, I think that all individuals who have their own The former has a lengthy piano his phrases with multitudes of abilities, and who are not afraid to do introduction leading to some rather notes wouldn't suffer from a lack things a bit differently. Many have graceful schmaltz from Nance's violin. of contrast. been strengthened by the work these Haupe is another Hodges feature and I have heard called a men did, but there is a danger of elicits much better playing from major influence on Benny, but I conformity or complacency in this style him. His tone is softer and the melodic would say Don Byas was, more than and collectively in the various groups lines are more sensitively shaped. Lucky. By now, Benny has developed in who play it. Players cannot afford to It is a less imaginative composition his scales to a point of great harmonic settle for only the proven and accepted than Flirtibird. freedom—in the direction of the in any style of jazz, or the style will Happy Anatomy is a simple vehicle broadening begun by Sonny Rollins and just stop developing, as "Dixieland" did. for improvisation with solos by then carried on by Coltrane. On this Ip, the men were striving, and Gonsalves and Terry. The backgrounds Lee Morgan is the best trumpet player challenging themselves, but are particularly good, especially the for his age I have heard; he never I don't hear any intent to do anything trumpets behind Gonsalves; but ceases to amaze me with his ability. different with the style itself. But the drummer is too heavy again. Terry's Lee does remind me of Clifford Brown for what it is, it is a good record. contribution is easily the best solo sometimes, although I didn't hear Art Farmer on the disc. Midnight Indigo opens with Brownie when he was that young. For the beautiful combinations of actually trying to play the trumpet, xylophone, string bass and Carney's Lee deserves a lot of credit. There are leading to a dialogue some things that he doesn't play between piano and xylophone. There are as cleanly as he seems to want to, but BILLIE HOLIDAY: "Songs for Distingue some rich, quietly sustained chords he is not afraid to make a mistake. Lovers". Verve MGV-8257. on the horns and at moments the I like his tone and his openness Billie Holiday, Vocals; Harry Edison, trumpet; delicacy of texture is worthy of such a great deal, especially in the lower , ; , pieces at the 1940 Dusk. Altogether a register. I expect and hope that piano; Barney Kessel, guitar; Red Mitchell, beautiful piece that no other jazz he will continue the way he is going, bass; , drums. musician would have had the which seems to be to use more Personnel (not listed on jacket) refinement of imagination to carry thoughtfulness and clarity in Day In Day Out; A Foggy Day; Stars Fell on out successfully. his playing and not to play a phrase Alabama; One For My Baby; Just One of These Things; I Didn't Know What Time It Was. Sunswept Sunday is a stodgy non-jazz just to see if he can do it. piece appropriately featuring Jimmy I have always admired 's piano, but on his solos here he gives me Hamilton. Within the context of On too many of her last albums Billie film music it is no criticism to state this the feeling of a man trying to get out from under the drummer. was not accompanied by the kind of is not jazz and it clearly had to be group she deserved; it was usually included in this Ip, but it is not good Percy Heath is largely responsible for the kind of bass playing that a case of singer versus everybody else: material for the Ellington band. Billie wearily working her way through Still less suitable is Grace Valse, a usually goes with the style of playing on this record; that is with the style you a swamp which, as often as not, sadly conventional piece of heavy 'light' included strings and a harp. music. Upper and Outest is patched usually hear in the East I think that it's a good way to play bass. But This album is an exception. Billie together from the forgoing items, was backed here by a four-piece ostinato figure, six-note theme, heavy I would have liked to hear him more clearly than I did on this record. I think rhythm section and two horns: trumpet drumming and all. It is an and tenor. has for some unpalatable rehash. Cat Anderson it's the engineer's fault. Percy is not a loud bass player but a beautiful one, reason left the personnel unmen- makes his appearance towards the end tioned, and from the outside, the of this piece and the end of this and his work can be drowned by too much turbulance from the rest of album looks just like one of those review is perhaps the place to disagree string-section jobs aimed at the pop with the views expressed on him the rhythm section. Philly Joe Jones is one of my favorite public. Granz's neglect seems strange, when the last Ellington disc considering that the players have was reviewed here (The Jazz Review, drummers to hear, but I wish there were a way that drummers of his plenty of solo space, in some cases May 1959). I wonder if those who think almost as much as Billie herself, Anderson is not a jazz musician capabilities could be exposed without hampering the possibilities for and particularly strange when you know his solos on Jam with Sam, Cat put the record on and realize that Walk, or Stompy Jones. Presumably not. subtlety and contrast in volume of the other players. In a big band, I don't the horns are Harry Edison and Ben Max Harrison think this problem would exist, Webster (this is what my ear says; I but in small groups I think it does. So won't get hung-up making a guess far it has been overcome in quintets at the others, who are not so obvious). by having the drummer lay out There are six tracks, all fairly long. "BENNY GOLSON and tho occasionally, which I think is a good The tunes are standards, slow or Philadelphians". United Artists idea. Of course if a drummer can medium in tempo. UAL 4020. play, he wants to play the best he can Billie's singing varies in quality Benny Golson, tenor sax-, Lee Morgan, at all times. But sometimes what is throughout the set. It varies from trumpet; Ray Bryant, piano; Percy Heath, best to him seems a little to strong chorus to chorus, and sometimes even bass; Philly Joe Jones, drums; for the other members of a group; from bar to bar, so certain tracks You're Not the Kind; Blues on My Mind-, it can force them to struggle to be can't be selected as more worthy or Stablemates; Thursday's Theme; An Afternoon heard, to stay on top. less worthy than others. Fine phrases in Paris; Calgary. The recording generally represents a and inflections occur alongside phrases certain style which has been called which are not so fine—phrases "Hard bop" "East Coast" etc. It which seem shadows or caricatures of Benny Golson is one of my favorite what Billie could really do. Those writers and one of the most melodic is a mixture of things from several eras, actually, but by now it is a tradition once unutterably poignant touches, around. He has a fine sense of harmonic a slight hesitation hitting a note, a structure, but he doesn't let melody in itself. The major sources of the style are Brownie, Miles, Horace, Rollins, perfect use of vibrato (none at all on suffer because of the harmony. As the beginning of a note, then widening a tenor player, he gets a good big sound Coltrane, Blakey, Max, Philly Joe, Percy Heath, and a few others. They are out), bending a note a little to break on his horn. I would sometimes like your heart, these became too often to hear a more simple solo line exaggerated, and sound a little THE MASTERSOUNDS: "Ballads and VEE JAY JAZZ affected. She sometimes liked to wait Blues". World Pacific WP-1260. a bit too long befdre coming in on Buddy Montgomery, vibes; Richie Crabtree, a phrase, then has to rush a few piano; Monk Montgomery, electric bass; words to catch up. A singer singing Benny Barth, drums. words can't afford to be as liberal Blues Medley (Bluesology, Purple with rests as somebody playing a Sounds, Fontessa), Heidi, Little Stevie, horn unless some words are left out. Solar, How Deep Is the Ocean, Monk's She had become fond of a few gim• Ballard, Mint Julep, The Champ. micks, for instance a low, hoarse, Louis-like growl which is no part of her natural style. Worst of all, that perfect vibrato in places is a little This is one of those records which sloppy, a little too wobbly. These are the contain a few short passages of faults. The virtues are what they beauty and emotion surrounded by always were, only a little diluted here choruses of cliche-ridden, carefully and there. She still could hit you with stylish, mechanical playing. Walter Perkins' MJT + 3 a fine note or a moving phrase, and Aside from the general complaint, I VJLP 1013 & SR 1013 I would far rather listen to Billie today find that the group has two specific than any other singer in the idiom, failings: any singer other than a folk-blues or 1) They don't play well together, gospel singer. She was still the most that is, as a cohesive unit. moving singer of ballads, and she made 2) They sound superficially very much it now and then on this album as she like either the should have. (on blues and up originals) or like The rhythm section is a pretty good the early Shearing quintet (on the one, especially the bass and drums. lusher ballads). The MJQ influence Both the pianist and the guitarist tend is the stronger, evident in some of to drive a little hard; the pianist, when the writing and particularly in the comping, pushes in a Peterson-like style playing of Buddy Montgomery, who which wasn't right for Billie, though is the most faithful (and best) imitator the horns can use it properly. Billie of Milt Jackson I've ever heard. needed someone more relaxed or maybe There is certainly nothing inherently "60"—Paul Chambers, Cannonball even more old-fashioned; of the modern wrong with one group trying to sound Adderley, Wynton Kelly, Philly Joe pianists, a Hank Jones would have fit like another; the trouble in this Jones, , better. The guitarist, whoever he is, case is that the Mastersounds fall is not right for this session. He would so far short of their models. In VEE JAY RECORDS have contributed a great deal by addition, they somehow manage to give 1449 So. Chicago sticking to an even, mellow four, but the impression, correct or incorrect, he throwns in annoying little blips too that they aim at the MJQ style, not often, and sometimes tries playing lines because it's that natural inevitable under Billie. one for them, but because it happens Much of the album's strength is in to be in fashion at the moment. Only Edison and Webster. Edison is better Buddy Montgomery never plays a soloing than playing behind Billie since pretentious or silly phrase. Given his he doesn't fit his phrases to hers, and natural Jackson-based style, it might distracts rather than contributes. His seem understandable to work towards solos are, as usual, clean, uncompli• an MJQ-like group style. But that cated, and swinging, but blowing style is a very individual one, so behind a singer is a special art. much so that it even tends to get a If Edison has it, he doesn't exercise little precious sometimes. It's not a it here. style very many vibes-piano-bass-drums Webster, on the other hand, has it quartets would have evolved naturally, and exercises it. He rolls long, oblique or would feel really comfortable work• BAY AREA lines out under Billie's voice, sounding ing in. Trying to do so, the Master- like the whole Ellington sax section sounds end up sounding just a little of Webster days. The lines he plays false. here sound very similar (in style, The first failing, that they don't play not in choice of notes) to some well together, seems to be that Ellington scored for that section; predominantly Richie Crabtree's I don't know which one learned from problem. Though his ballad chording the other. A good example here is under Buddy Montgomery is capable on Day In, Day Out; when Webster enough, he tends to fall apart comping came in behind Billie the whole on blues or anything medium or fast. character of the performance changed. It's not a technical difficulty; it's He provided a tremendous lift. Solo, just that he hasn't learned to put he seems to play fewer notes than he down an accompaniment that supports, once did, and those notes are less rather than trips, a soloist. He DANCE ORCHESTRATIONS even, accented with more care and distracts. He drops things in the variety. Webster, more than any other wrong places and gets in the way, COMBO ORKS . Musical Supplies tenor, can change his tone to fit his giving the group an unbalanced, needs; he can be soft or harsh at seasick sound, confused and out of For Free Catalog Write to: the same volume. The finest moments control, very different from the liquid in the album for me, are when he clarity of the MJQ ensemble. TERMINAL is blowing. Benny Barth is not a particularly MUSICAL SUPPLY, inc. Maitland Edey resourceful drummer. He seems to be Dept JR. 113 W 48 St .New York 36, NY at a loss as to what to do, have been unobstructed if Crabtree on rare brief phrases, but tends to particularly on the middle tempos, had sat out. ruin any momentum with a few badly where he sounds chunky rather than Of the remaining tracks, The Champ, placed notes at the end. For his own flowing. A clever drummer can Little Stevie, and the Bluesology sake, this set should not have been contribute a powerful sense of form part of the blues medley are the issued. by building a different sound for each most interesting. The Champ has an He is accompanied by John Letman, soloist, varying his choruses, preparing introduction by Barth; he brings in an unimaginative edition of some of entrances, etc. Barth hasn't moved in the theme with a Salt Peanuts quote. Roy Eldridge's less successful work, this direction at all. Instead he seem They get a good Dizzy strut. Buddy and by an unjustly magnificent to rely on a stock of standard ideas has two choruses without piano, rhythm section: Jimmy Jones, George and techniques, not always using but doesn't sound quite comfortable Duvivier, and Denzil Best. Jones them when needed or fitting. The at the tempo. Crabtree riffs under has a few choruses, none particularly worst and most obvious of these is him for the rest of the solo, providing memorable, but each standing out a kind of abortive shuffle rhythm. obstacles rather than support. like a little oasis. The choice of The two Montgomerys are in a different Crabtree's own solo is unpretentious, tunes helps no one very much. class. Buddy, as noted, is based on may be his best on the album. Maitland Edey Milt Jackson; the grace notes, the There is almost a false start on bending of phrases, the fragile hesita• Bluesology, and five fine choruses of tions are all very much like Jackson's. Buddy with the rhythm section under Montgomery's touch is lighter, and he control. The rest of the medley is JIMMY AND MAMA YANCEY: avoids Jackson's only ugly idiosyn• painful. Little Stevie, written by Monk "Pure Blues". Atlantic 1283. crasy: that slow, grinding, electronic Montgomery, has pleasing minor Yancey, piano; , bass. vibrato on ballads. His phrasing is resolutions; it shows a strong John Mournful Blues; Yancey Special; delicate and full of blues. Monk Lewis influence. First Monk then How Long Blues; Yancey's Bugle Call-, 35th Montgomery is steady and has Buddy state the theme. Monk's next and Dearborn; Shave 'em Dry; Salute to some good lines. He tends to favor solo begins very well, but even one Pinetop. large leaps in unexpected places. of the Montgomerys fails at last; Estelle 'Mama" Yancey, vocal; Jimmy The sound of his instrument, electric he gives us, in his second chorus a Yancey, piano; Israel Crosby, bass. bass, is very distinctive; the straight dose of Istambul, Not Make Me a Pallet on the Floor; Four notes tend to carry longer and Constantinople. After beautiful blue O'clock Blues; Monkey Woman Blues; don't fade as fast. Whether you Buddy and fair Crabtree (always Santa Fe Blues; How Long Blues. like it or not is a matter of taste. The stylish, never committed emotionally), instrument's great advantage is that there is an abrupt change of tone. Just one measure. That's all it takes it is fretted, so the player has no Barth sets up a crisp cymbal for anyone who has nosed into the pitch trouble; he is never slightly pattern, Monk enters, John Lewis broad bays, the tidewater and the sharp or flat. appears, smiling, in the control room headwaters, searching for the window, Buddy and Crabtree enter, There are three ballads, How Deep genuine and the spurious examples and we are in the middle of one of this thing called jazz, to feel the Is the Ocean, Monk's Ballad (by of those baroque-flavored things. Monk Montgomery), and Heidi (by presence of a master of the jazz beat, Crabtree). How Deep is treated con• Maitland Edey the jazz attack (inflection), using servatively; Buddy gets off several only that piano technique which is lovely, soaring lines, otherwise necessary to the realization of sticks closely to melddy and STUFF SMITH: "Sweet swingin' Stuff". the Yancey ideas. Sure it's a self-taught embellishment. Monk's Ballad begins 20th Fox 3008. technique that we have here (in with an introductory piano quote Smith, violin; John Letman, trumpet; Mournful Blues one of his feet reposes from the Warsaw Concerto or something James Jones, piano-, George Duvivier, on the pedal, presenting us with a reminiscent of it. I would suspect bass; Denzil Best, drums. blues Cathedral Engloutie), but his that this was a joke, except that La Cinquintaine, 0 Promise Me, To a ideas are honestly drawn from his the rest of the track is quite sober Wild Rose, I Love You Truly, Humoresque, background. That environment included and straight-faced; it's one of those Home on the Range, Mighty Lak a Rose, the rail center of Chicago, the things which serve to alienate the A Bird in a Gilded Cage, Hearts and plaintive hymn-like phrases made out most patient listener. The ballad has Flowers, Medley: Buffalo Gals—On the of tremoloed sixth (Mournful), coupled an original and moving bridge, Banks of the Wabash; Blue Tail Fly, with grace-noted triads that rock with though, handled by Buddy with Gypsy Love Song. After the Ball. the fervor of a devout religious be• feeling. Heidi has a piano solo showing liever, and, perhaps most of all, the a Billy Taylor influence in places. Stuff both plays and sings here art of creating primary and secondary Mint Julep is the heartbreaker of with about equal space and billing. themes and phrases culled from Yan• the set. It's a twelve-bar blues His singing is deeply offensive: cey's long experience as buck-and-wing with a bridge, written by Rudolph cynical, unmusical performances based dancer, and his subsequent avocation Toombes. As written, the first eight on the cheapest aspects of Louis' as pianist for countless - bars have a syncopated, almost Spanish vocal style. His playing, while far rent parties where he was sure to be bass line played unison by piano more pleasant than his singing, leaves aware of original tap-dance variations. and bass, over which Buddy has a me totally unmoved. His technique Bugle Call exemplifies these tap-dance light, funky melody line. The last four is inadequate; his pitch is erratic, figures as they spill out of his right and the bridge use a walking bass sometimes as much as a quarter-tone hand, while the left pursues a and Crabtree's usual comping. It's a off; his vibrato is coarse and Charleston bass with some boogie heartbreaker because those first eight clumsy, a relic of what some people woogie patterns. bars, light and balanced, promise so in the entertainment business used It is the impact of one hand against much emotionally, and the promise to think was a hot jazz sound. the other that gives Yancey's playing isn't kept. For a moment the Most annoying is his tendency to a real holographic character, as may Mastersounds almost touch the slip his finger up a string a whole be discerned by comparing Meade eternal blues; but then, after the fifth at the end of a phrase; he Lux Lewis' Decca version of the first eight bars, Crabtree becomes can't play a chorus without throwing Yancey Special with this one. fashionably crisp and cute, and Barth in this gimmick. It is precisely the Yancey's right hand phrases in 12/8 comes down, chunk, chunk, every two same device that the man uses time, with all of its attendant and four. Buddy solos well; he would in the Hot Canary. Stuff swings well possibilities of triplets, triplet syncopations, grace-noted triplets, Jimmy shares the glory of Santa Fe, JOHN COLTRANE and fragments of tied triplets. with his opening chorus, full of Simultaneous rhythmic effort is being syncopated devises that depict the executed by his unerring left hand quiet coasting rhythms of a Santa Fe IS ON PRESTIGE in 4/4 time (with all of its habanera, train, as he does in the first chorus Send for free catalog: , Inc. Charleston figures and tied notes), of Make Me a Pallet. In slurring and vain indeed are the strivings of a note down from the minor third 203 So. Washington Ave., Bergenfield, N. J. imitators who try to achieve Yancey's to the tonic, and cutting the tonic off gift of ambidextrous phrasing gift extremely short, Mama employs a in a hurry. His apt pupil Meade Lux Negro blues characteristic that is did absorb some of what Yancey not only effective emotionally, but had to offer, for one finds the same also allows the rhythmic cross-rhythms of the composer's accompaniment to shine through. Yancey Special in the Old Paramount Although the performances themselves KJAZ version of Honky Tonk Train Blues by are not quite the match of their Lux, but in most of the latter's work Session, Solo-Art and Victor records BAY AREA one feels the 4/4 drive without the made ten to twelve years before equal amounts of 12/8 and I think these, all of the old artistry is that there you have Yancey's signal there, and with a bit more fidelity. contribution. My use of this adjective Charles Payne Rogers is dictated by the fact that many of these blues are train blues, perhaps dictated proximity to the LaSalle St. station. The daily dinning into one's consciousness of the sounds of driving rods, crossing gates, "MODERN JAZZ CONCERT: Six Compo• whistles, and Westinghouse valve gear, sitions commissioned by the 1957 coupled with the temptation of the Brandeis University Festival of the Records shipped anywhere rails as a means of escape from Arts". Columbia WL 127. moDCRn music • Dept. i daily social and economic problems, Personnel: Hal McKusick and John La made the train.blues a natural product Porta, saxes; Louis Mucci and Art Farmer, 627 N. Kl NGSHIGHWAY of the imagination. 35th & Dearborn, trumpets; Jimmy Knepper, trombone; ST. LOUIS 8, MO.. U.S.A. with its wonderfully paced bass Robert DiDomenica, flute; Manuel Zegler, ALL RECORDS REVIEWED IN JAZZ REVIEW boogie, legato, and its 12/8 grace- bassoon; Bill Evans, piano; , AVAILABLE THRU US—OUR SERVICE IS FAST vibes; Joe Benjamin, bass,- Margaret Ross, All records shipped or* factory fresh. Send for noted whistle effects, is one of the details on bonus offer of IPs. more poignant ones: the listener can harp; , ; Barry Foreign Orders Welcome actually hear the big Mikado chuffing Galbraith, guitar; Teddy Sommer, drums. FREE 12" LP BARGAIN LIST/TOP STARS along easily down the Rock Island George Russell, All About Rosie; Harold $1700 Deposit On CODs—No CODs Overseas line. Shapero, On Green Mountain (Chaconne after Monteverdi); , Suspensions; Part of the distinctive holograph Charlie Mingus, Revelations; , that is Yancey's lies in his touch, All Set; Gunther Schuller, Transformation. JAZZ PHOTOGRAPHS and in the nuances of his keyboard Send stamp for free detailed list attack. Not only does he underline the main idea, but he also sub-titles One of the remarkable things about of hundreds of photos of jazzmen, the subordinate fill-in figures. To get the Brandeis Jazz Concert recording is bands old and new, obscure blues some idea of his subtlety at nuance, that it ever took place at all. As artists, sweet bands and vocalists. one has only to turn to some train Gunther Schuller mentions in his liner blues by his "students," Cripple notes, it could not have taken place Traditional and modem musicians Clarence Lofton and . ten years ago. In that short period the represented. Photos of bands add Compared to their highly rhythmical acceptance of jazz as an art by the to the enjoyment of your record• but mechanical drive, Jimmy's raggedy public and musicians alike has been blues utterances are evoked with so rapid that composers and ings. poetic feeling. In Mournful there is performers of this calibre have been Examples: Oliver, Morton, Bechet, the homely, rooted domesticity that able to work and develop in an , Basie, Moten, E. has been felt by Charles Ives and increasingly favorable climate of Virgil Thomson; on side 2 it is further opinion. We are still in the earliest of Lang, Bix w. Whitman, Waller, Earl borne out by Mama Yancey, her beginnings, but at least we are on Hines 1943, , husband's piano and the clipped the way, and I fervently hope that bass of Israel Crosby. Monkey Woman Columbia will continue to serve as Dizzy with Bird, Bunny Berigan, brings forth Mama's sing-song Negro an example of the good work that early St. Louis and K. C. bands. sprechstimme, upbraiding another can be done by a large corporation. New price schedule now in effect. woman, while How Long finds her Much has been said (and will be said) plaintive, re-iterative whine expounding about George Russell's Lydian System Duncan P. Schiedt on her capacity for absorbing marital of Tonal Organization, but of course 2534 E. 68th St, Indianapolis, Ind. trouble. Still another blues of is not the technique which is complaint, Four O'clock, has the important to the audience. What does Subscribe to chastising voice of the dutiful wife matter is that Russell is able to in strict observance of moral protocol. use his system to produce an Crosby and Yancey deftly brush in amazing variety of tonal color. Listen JAZZ-HOT the background here, softly delineating to the second movement of All About the coming home at four in the Rosie, where he displays a masterful The famous French review morning in light accompaniment, control of his material, moving 1 year (11 issues): $5.00 so that the slightly spurned woman through a variety of shifting tonal will hear her man come in. areas, yet always retaining the essence Write to: Jazz Review, Box 128 Estella Yancey does well with the of blues feeling. And again in the Village Station, New York 14, N. Y. "mistreated" role. opening of the up-tempo third recent back issues available now movement where changing instrumental composer and is often concerned with the two remain separate entities and sounds evolve into a rocking Basie-like form and technique only as adjuncts never really give a complete feeling swing. to the emotional development of his of integration. What is more important, Russell's system is also important in work. At times this is a very great I think, is the means and methods that he can give such a good strength indeed, as in the truly moving which Schuller has used. He is very improvisational basis to his soloists. first section of this work. Listen in nearly on the verge of making a Bill Evans' pano solo in the third particular to the lovely passage for breakthrough to a point where movement is an unsurpassed example horn and bass, and again to the composing techniques formerly of the unity that can exist between almost Broadway-folksy section which associated with "classical" music will the composed and improvisational immediately follows it. Mingus is a ue used to project jazz works. Thus sections of a piece of music. It is composer who (unlike so many others) both jazz and "classical" music will also a remarkable testament to the feels through his fingers. It is a rare have the common goal of producing an developing skills of this influential attribute. "art music" unlimited by parochial young pianist. The next section, a group improvisation, considerations. Harold Shapero's On Green Mountain is not as successful as one might Let's hope that the visionary foresight is not only an 'unforgiveable pun' on desire, although it is worth probing of the Brandeis Festival sponsors will the name of Monteverdi, but possibly through the cacophony to pick up the continue to influence future promoters also an unforgiveable joke at the really humorous trombone work of of such events. Under such benign expense of jazz composition. I can't Jimmy Knepper. Following this is a conditions and with the exciting agree with Gunther Schuller's recapitulation and, according to stimulus thereby offered, jazz cannot description of this work as an Schuller, an improvised ending. The help but prosper, develop "improvisation by jazz musicians on ending is an excellent example (in and grow. 'classical' thematic and harmonic contrast to the earlier group effort) Don Heckman material." Although the first and last of what such a method can achieve sections, which surround the among empathetic musicians. improvisations, are interesting examples If Milton Babbitt's composition All Set of what a contemporary composer can is to be considered a jazz work then HANK MOBLEY, BILL ROOT, CURTIS do with a somewhat archaic form, the it must be done so primarily because FULLER, LEE MORGAN: "Another center section is simply an AABA it is performed by jazz musicians. In at Birdland". up-tempo blowing episode. Shapero has this sense, perhaps, we may have Roulette R-52022. made it more difficult for his soloists come full circle, in that one of the Mohley, tenor sax; Billy Root, tenor sax; Curtis by insisting that the trumpet and traditional strengths of jazz has been Fuller, trombone; Lee Morgan, trumpet; Specs trombone adhere closely to a banal embodied in the ability of the Wright, drums; Ray Bryant, piano; Tommy Monteverdi theme (which is faintly individual musician to modify and Bryant, bass. interpret the composed music in a reminiscent of the 'Anvil Chorus') in It's You Or No One; Jamph; Nutville; Wee. the first part of their solos. It has manner which he feels best satisfies always seemed to me that the jazz his own artistic intentions. The work By far the most immediate of composer must be more concerned is uncompromising and difficult, both the jazzman's barnful of problems with the idea of giving the improvisor to perform and to hear. Although he is that of having to produce his art free rein than with the imposition of makes extensive use of the daily between certain hours at certain more restrictions. Shapero's reasons fragmented serial composition places for combinations of people for violating the soloists' freedom technique which is so influential that are shuffled before him like just don't seem to be justified by among the younger "classical" a worn-out pack of cards. Whether the material that he presents composers, Babbitt has been careful he is mentally or them with. to avoid some of the difficulties which physically to create, or whether the have plagued "serious" composers when Suspensions, the Jimmy Giuffre work, surroundings are conducive to his they have attempted to write jazz. act of creation, is of importance improves with each listening. It is Instead of adhering to the conception composed throughout, with no to no one save the jazzman himself— which views jazz as an imperfect and, of course, he doesn't count. improvisation, but Guiffre has managed combination of the diametrically to overcome some of the difficulties The classical musician has weeks to opposed elements of vertical melody- practice for a concert, or has at of our inadequate notation system to harmony and horizontal rhythm, he has project, at times, the feelings of a least the assurance of knowing he permitted his thematic groups to can depend on a score written by completely integrated group effort. The employ rhythms which are implicit composition consists of three basic someone else. The painter, if in their nature. Thus the significance dissatisfied, can toss a picture aside sections organized into a general ABA of each note as a part of an organic relationship. The first and last sections and begin again, or paint over the musical framework is emphasized, and old. And the working schedule of make extensive use of a whole tone the rhythmic impetus which is derived and minor third accompaniment figure the painter or classical musician is is implied by the most forceful more or less up to him. used beneath a blues-tinged melodic natural means. There are, as Schuller line. In the center section he introduces In jazz alone of all the arts, the notes, 'many rare and subtle tonal artist is required to produce by a a 5/4 ostinato bass and then proceeds experiences' in this music, and to build up steam with a rocking 4/4 clock, in an on-again, off-again repeated listening will bring forth assembly-line procedure, before theme swinging through the top more. instruments. The original thematic germ audiences which are, to say the is then recapitulated to close the Although Gunther Schuller's least, unspeakably rude. And it is composition. Giuffre's strength as an Transformations is a competent, in jazz alone, too, that the artist, orchestrator is abundantly in evidence interestingly conceived work, I can't like a vending machine, must promptly and in places the tonal color which agree that it even begins to satisfy and efficiently eject the brand of he achieves is as striking as anything the problem which he has set for packaged art for which the buying on the album. himself (i.e. "the amalgamation of audience has exchanged its coins. jazz and classical music"). What And not to be overlooked is the Despite the fact that Charlie Mingus' atmosphere in which most of jazz is Revelations has a recognizably does happen is a kind of 'transformation' from a conventionally manufactured (and in which someone orthodox external form, like much of like Bach would have had a lovely his work it sometimes imparts the composed section to an improvised episode, and, finally, a juxtaposition time concocting instant fugues): feeling of a stream-of-conciousness dreary cubicles of depression, housing technique. He is an naturalistic of the two. In most cases, however, an inattentive conglomeration of with a tape recorder for enough Available for the first time! individuals who fill the spaces not nights to catch a really good one— THE MARSHALL BROWN YOUTH BAND taken up by transient barmaids. the rare occasion when musicians and Although a disturbing number of listeners respond to each other and LIBRARY OF ORCHESTRATIONS "S patrons of jazz clubs are present for the music falls almost fatalistically •o purposes other than hearing jazz, into place. Too often, albums by Marshall Brown o the jazz artist's dilemma is further arbitrarily recorded on-the-spot were • DATELINE NEWPORT £ heightened by the fact that occasion• not cut on one of these good • VELVET GLOVES "g ally jazz lovers do happen to be quietly nights. • ROCK BOTTOM ™ and inconspicuously seated amidst Though many musicians prefer the • CHA, CHA, CHA, FOR JUDY .» the attending menagerie and hang relaxation of a club, despite its • SOLID BLUE S on to every note played. So that while handicaps, to the formality of concerts • COPLEY SQUARE £ the jazzman may be discouraged, or the chill of recording studios, • CINNAMON KISSES » even disgusted, by the average club the club—its audiences and working • CERULEAN BLUE « audience, he cannot afford to let conditions—is one of the dilemmas by John La Porta §• down his musical standards because of jazz as a way of art, and the • TWO BY TWO | of it—not just out of respect to appearance of this Birdland album 0 WELCOME BACK, JACK „ the chance visit of a perceptive somehow reveals the problem musically • EARLY DUES S and interested critic, but out of within the circumference of a twelve • DANCE BAND WARM UPS Z „ respect to himself and his reputation inch Ip. by ~ "S which is in the hands of these Mimi Clar • FAST COMPANY « g chance visitors: the fan who passes by £ " the word along orally, the critic • THE DANCING PUPPET | g who does so in print. And, unlike by Fred Karlin "5 ° the painter, the jazzman is not • NIGHT CAP °- ° able to throw a bad solo on his Instrumentation: 5 , A trumpets, 4 trom• private scrap heap; if he plays badly, bones, piano, bass, guitar, drums and conductor's score, orchestrations may be played with the he does it in public. "THE JAZZ SOUL OF P0RGY AN0 following minimum instrumentation: , This problem came to mind as BESS", Conducted, Orchestrated and 1 trombone, 2 alto saxophones, 1 tenor saxophone, I listened to "Another Monday Night Arranged by . United Artists piano, bass and drums. at Birdland." I was not particularly UAL 4032. MARSHALL BROWN MUSIC. INC. impressed with the album, the playing Art Farmer, Harry Edison, , Markie Now available at all leading music stores or write, was so loose it failed to captivate Markowitz, , trumpets; Bob wire, or phone direct to: me and hold me either by melodic , , Jimmy , Charles Colin Exclusive Distributor inspiration or by technical display. , , trombones; Sol CHARLES COLIN, 1225 6th Ave., N. Y. 19, JU 6-9791 And yet, to anyone who has been to Schlinger, baritone sax; , AI Conn, Enclosed please find $ Birdland and taken in its atmosphere tenors; , , altos; Herbie Please send orchestration(s) I have marked. himself, it would be a wonder if Powell, guitar; Charlie Persip, drums; Bill ($3.00 each.) the results on this album has been Evans, piano; George Duvivier, bass. Name otherwise, for at Birdland, the Summertime; A Woman Is A Sometime Thing; Address problem discussed in the preceding My Man's Gone Now; It Takes A Long Pull City .State. paragraphs is operating full blast. to Get There; I Got Plenty 0' Nuttin'; Bess, In such an environment, all one You Is My Woman; It Ain't Necessarily So; can do is blow, and that is what Medly (Prayer; Strawberries; Honey Man; Crab the musicians do here. This Monday Man); I Loves You, Porgy; Clara, Clara; There's blue note night group, in its second such A Boat Dat's Leavin' Soon For New York; recorded venture, sounds as if Oh Bess, Oh Where's My Bess; Oh Lawd, THE FINEST IN JAZZ "Another Monday Night at Birdland" I'm On My Way. SINCE 1939 took place on the same Monday night as the first "Monday Night at Birdland." If this looks redundant The only recorded version which could, on paper, then it is because in both by any valid definition of the word, albums the group sounds pretty much be called the "jazz soul" of Porgy 5* Witt that way, too. And Bess would have to be the Evans-Davis collaboration on In person this Monday night session Columbia. Despite trjis, the would entertain painlessly and performance of this interpretation is spiritedly for the duration of the outstanding. Although the band is sets, and would give the added composed primarily of the same studio privilege of watching the musicians men who make up most of the New in a live performance. Away from York recording sessions, they play here the club musical attention would be with a crackling authority that is focused elsewhere. Possibly that is rare in bands that have not been the trouble with this Birdland album-, together for a long time. once heard, one has no desire to Potts' arrangements are, at times, hear it again. exceptionally skillful examples of Returning to the problem, one orchestration, chock-full of the best wonders how these musicians could professional jazz techniques. He uses DONALD BYRD possibly turn out any music of his devices brashly and confidently, Off to the Racea. "This is a largely new Donald Byrd. Like that of any other good originality, inspiration, innovation or and there is no question of his Jazz player, his performance is not wholly ability to project a feeling to his perfect nor is it amazing from a technical lyricism under the induced labor standpoint. This is, however, the best re• of recorded club sets or youstaill- musicians which urges them into corded example of Byrd I've heard yet." play-at-10-o'clock-sharp-on-Monday roaring excitement. The trouble is that —Bob Freedman The Jaxs Review jam sessions. Not that the emotional impact is surface, and BLUE NOTE 4007 has not and will not come from very little is stated by implication. The clubs, but to capture it on a passion of the score is never 12" LP, List $4.98 recording would involve nightly vigils touched except in the most superficial Complete Catalog on Request BLUE NOTE RECORDS, INC. 47 West 63rd St., New York 23 manner. Summertime as a full-voiced complete with some good photographs and then, to compound things, up-tempo swinger just doesn't accede and a fairly accurate description of diluted them until they became to the meaning and spirit of the solos and personnel (the notable palatable to a mass audience. I original, in which it is used as an exception being an unlisted solo by don't mean to say that Albam, or any introduction to Catfish Row as a way Art Farmer on I Got Plenty 0' Nuttin). of the other people referred to, is, in of life. Perhaps with luck it may even turn any sense, an intellectually dishonest This lack of involvement with the out to be the last jazz version of musician. He undoubtedly works quite emotional currents of the opera makes : Porgy and Bess. Enough's sincerely and honestly at jazz. All the scheduling of numbers in enough. the same, the result is unoriginal performance order superfluous. There Don Heckman and dull. Work of this sort lends itself is no unifying thread joining the admirably to the efforts of the new sections either stylistically or jazz promoters and publicists who emotionally. In I Got Plenty 0' Nuttin, aim at an audience to whom the for instance, Gershwin's original more advanced and significant works of rhythmic motive is retained, but the a Russell or Monk, for instance, are character of the tune is then meaningless. It is interesting to note distorted by an anachronistic set "DOWN BEAT JAZZ CONCERT, VOL. 2". that Albam has seven Ips on the of canonic imitations. In I Loves You, Dot, DLP 3188. market under his own name, while Porgy, Bill Evans' piano solo moves Blues Over Easy—Manny Albam and His Jazz George Russell has one. There is a for four bars over an absolutely Greats: moral here, but I hesitate to draw static harmonic base. Although this Bernie Glow, Nick Travis, , it; cynicism about recording companies seems to be intentional, the logic trumpets; Frank Rehak, Jim Dahl, Tommy and promoters comes too easily to behind such a distortion of the source Mitchell, trombones; Al Conn, tenor saxophone; me these days. material is never justified as the Gene Quill, ; Pepper Adams, For this concert Albam evidently arrangement continues. Then the lovely baritone saxophone; Jerome Richardson, flute, decided to work in the Basie style opening of Oh Bess, Oh Where's tenor saxophone; , piano; Milt and so turned the appropriate My Bess? is superseded by some of the Hinton, bass; Osie Johnson, drums. Soloists: faucet. What came out was a mass most blatant stock arranging tricks George Auld, tenor saxophone; Hal McKusick, of tedious riffs unrelieved by any (Open brass over a sax 'obbligato': bass clarinet; Dick Katz and Steve Allen, subtlety of dynamics or section unison trombones pumping out piano; , alto saxophone. work. Several soloists, such as George rhythmic figures). The final ignominy — Quintet: Auld and Paul Horn, blew dully and is the attempt in the liner notes to Scott, baritone saxophone; Jimmy Knepper, to no purpose. The piece de resistance inform us that Potts' arrangement of trombone; Kenny Burrell, guitar; Sam Jones, came when Steve Allen sat at the Oh Lawd, I'm On My Way will lead bass; Paul Motian, drums. same piano'with Dick Katz. At this the listener to believe that "Porgy Rose Room—Steve Allen Quartet: point words become simply inadequate will surely make it to New York to Allen, piano; 6eorge Auld, tenor saxophone; to describe the results. One's sympathy find his Bess." Well, if such Milt Hinton, bass; Osie Johnson, drums. for Katz is boundless. positivism can be carried by a basic Dougy's Buggy—Don Elliot Quintet: I suggest, for the next Down Beat up-tempo swinger, with solos around the Don Elliot, trumpet, vibes; Hal McKusick, bass bash, that Albam compose a concerto sections, then all is well. But I'm clarinet; , bass; Bob Corwin, grosso for and the Dukes afraid I can't agree. The implication piano; , drums. of Dixieland. This to be followed by an of the opera, (and it is an extremely Fast Thing in C—Steve Allen Trio: encore played by Steve Allen and pertinent implication) is that Porgy Steve Allen, piano; Osie Johnson, drums; Milt Joe "Fingers" Carr at the same piano will not recapture Bess, and it is this Hinton, bass. and at the same time. Tickets should triumph of .despair which emphasizes really move for that, and it might its pathetic beauty. This denouement Fortunately for me, I did not attend even settle the cold war. is never achieved in the Potts' score. Scrapple from the Apple: Here we Nevertheless, there is still a lot the concert at which this was made. But the record itself is sufficient have Tony Scott making Tony Scott of good old-fashioned blowing on the noises on the baritone saxophone album. Art Farmer stands out, as testimony that for the promoters jazz was a term used to sell tickets. rather than the clarinet. It is still he has on practically all of his pretty dull. Jimmy Knepper turns in recent performances. His delightfully Actually, the whole affair could be dismissed by simply calling it a some surprisingly sloppy work. I, for conceived solo on I Loves You, Porgy is one, hold rather high hopes for strongly reminiscent of that picaresque mess, but certain features of the thing deserve to be examined, if only to Knepper, and it is disturbing to hear quality that Dizzy could get in his him play this badly. But just being in early ballad work. And delineate the outlines of this sort of cultural blight. I will glance at this concert at all must have been a (who has gained immeasurably in disconcerting experience. his command of the instrument) is each selection in turn. Blues Over Easy: Manny Albam is a Rose Room: This one puts us back with alternatively gutty and wistful; listen Steve Allen. I don't know how to to his solo on Oh Bess, Oh Where's curious, but all too typical, phenomenon. To that mass of record describe Allen as a pianist. My Bess. achieves "Amateur" struck me, at first, as an an amalgamation of sound which has buyers, concert-goers, and poll-voters to whom jazz means Andre Previn, apt term, but this would be unfair been far too rare for the past ten to deserving amateur musicians. years or so. Their work on A Woman Stan Kenton, , and Peter Gunn (twenty years ago this What can one say of a pianist who Is A Sometimes Thing reminded has neither tecehnique nor ideas? me of that tight, single horn quality sort of audience was really excited about Ziggy Elman), Albam is one It is obvious why Allen was on that was characteristic of the old hand for the concert; his hip television Benny Goodman sections. of the arrangers in the select company of Ralph Burns, , and program personality guaranteed the Avoid the pretensions of the liner notes presence of thousands of discerning (and title) and accept it for what . His title to this exalted position is clear and unambiguous; devotees of the art. George Auld and it is; a happy non-experimental, everyone else play badly. swinging big band. his work is trite, derivative, and uninteresting. Albam is only too Give Me the Simple Life: Paul Horn The production of the album, by the shows up here as the tritest flutist way, is superb. United Artists has representative of those big band arrangers from the mid-forties who in jazz. Katz, possibly suffering apparently spared no expense in from trauma, plays competently, but presenting an attractive package, derived their only vital ideas from the innovators at work at the time, not with the skill which one has come to expect from him. I suppose loosely call vaudeville) was art. Finally, bland would best describe this one. the modern jazzman (arranger or hanover Dougy's Buggy: We have here the improvisor) is in the most daring and edifying spectacle of Don Elliot dangerous position of all, for if he does — S8001 " making noises meant to sound, not produce a music valid for its own presumably, like Miles Davis. They sake (an "art music", if you will) he don't, but they are bad. Elliot, produces nothing whatever. He no sparing us nothing, also plays the longer fulfills the social functions of vibes, but neither Milt Jackson nor "background music" or of "show". should worry. Hal McKusick Jazz took a precarious path in the mid- contributes a few good moments, but forties, and I suspect that the abiding BUCK HAMMER his voice is as one crying in the anxieties of some of those who set wilderness. it on that path may have come in part Fast Thing in C: Steve Allen returns from the knowledge (conscious or as a boogie woogie pianist with not) of the very vulnerable role they absolutely no comprehension of the were taking on for the future of their style. But, then, even simple art. It is as if they were saying competence is, I suppose, too much both for themselves and for their to expect. successors: we will make a new This entire review has amounted to a kind of valid "concert" music or we long caveat emptor. It is only fair to will perish; jazz will become a kind note that excellent musicians such as of art music or it will die. And if Dizzy McKusick, Katz, and Watkins are, here, had something to fall back on, Parker simply overwhelmed by mediocrity. had nothing. Like Peck Kelly of Texas, and Joe Also, the drumming of Osie Johnson, All of this talk is perhaps a way Abernathy of New York, Buck usually dependable sets a new of avoiding the rather dismal prospect Hammer has become a legendary standard in sloppiness. of reviewing the set at hand: the The record has notes by Dom Cerufli history of jazz as a long and tawdry figure, although to what extent the in a golly-it-was-great style. vaudeville turn (why doesn't someone event of his untimely death con• H. A. Woodfin do the history of painting in living tableau on the Loew's circuit? it's art tributed to the current wave of ain't it?) equipped with a "clever" interest in him it would be at the title arrived at by considerable present time hard to say. We stretching ("folk" and "blues", "bop" THE SEVEN AGES OF JAZZ, produced and "modern" all make it as must be wary, of course, in over• by Leonard Feather. Metrojazz 2-E1009. categories); and—in case anybody praising Hammer, or expecting too Variously: Brownie McGhee; Willie "The Lion" should miss the real tone of it all— much of him. On the other hand, Smith; ; Tyree Glenn; ; Don Elliott doing that club act of his Don Lamond; Milt Hinton; ; (as Norvo, Hamp, Gibbs, Jackson). we must savor the contents of this Coleman Hawkins; George Auld; Billie Holiday; Dick Hyman does un-swinging album very carefully for this col• . and presumptious imitations of Hines, lection is all we have heard of I'm Gonna Tell God How You Treat Me; Take Garner, etc. Buck, or all we shall ever hear. This Hammer; See See Rider; Maple Leaf Rag; If I keep this up, I know I shall Tiger Rag; Dippermouth Blues,- Sneak Away; soon be carping badly, but I would Peck Kelly would not record at all, Singing The Blues; It Don't Mean a Thing; also like to suggest that J.A.T.P. is and eventually would not play at Stompin' At The Savoy; Honky Tonk Train not one of the most important artistic all. Abernathy refused to record Blues; Monday Date; Ain't Misbehavin'; After events in the recent history of jazz, You've Gone; I Wished On The Moon; Lover and that such efforts at neo-classical for long periods of time but fortu• Man; One O'clock Jump; I'm Beginning To See jazz that Hyman's allude to nately was induced to take part in The Light; If I Could Be With You; Groovin' here are spurious—I mention those High; Stuffy; Indiana; Blue and Sentimental; points because they persist in several several commercial sessions on a I Cover The Waterfront; Indian Summer; Vibes accounts of "jazz history" in which few occasions. Buck Hammer for Impressions; Jazz Lab; I'm Gonna Tell God Leonard Feather has been many years refused all offers that How You Treat Me. involved. would have involved his leaving Well, if the files of Decca-Coral- There are several commentators who Brunswick were not up to the task Glen Springs, Alabama, and when think that jazz is best approached (see The Jazz Review, September), an he finally consented to visit Nash• as a kind of musical vaudeville, and effort by Elliot, Glenn, Hyman, etc. to ville, in the winter of 1956, to re• the more honest among them frankly play "dixieland" is an unspeakable admit it. travesty. And if you can sit through cord these few sides he did so Well, 's prancing and a lot of pseudo-style and a lot of with no particular enthusiasm but shouting, the late Sidney Bechet's bit pseudo-culture (it must be possible to as the result of a promise made to of taking his clarinet to pieces—and discuss bop drumming without for that matter most of what Ted Lewis implying that all before it was his brother Martin in an off-guard does—are fine vaudeville, no doubt, boorishly monotonous), and such moment. but they aren't very interesting terrors as Buck Clayton also trying to musically. And Armstrong and Gillespie play dixieland, you get some rewards. Available monophonic and stereo. are interesting musically, sometimes You get Buck Clayton and Coleman despite their vaudeville. Maybe Hawkins playing beautifully on tracks this is worth going on with for representing the 'thirties and early a bit: all folklore is not art, but a 'forties, and you get Billie Holiday on ftanover lot of pre-jazz and early jazz was art. what seems to me two of the best All vaudeville, even a lot of good tracks she had made in years—and — M8001 - vaudeville, is not art, but a lot of jazz my goodness how beautifully Clayton of the thirties (which had the overt accompanies her. function of being what we can Martin Williams Hanover-Signature Record Corporation 119 West 57th Street, N. Y. 19, N. Y. 43 "Rockin' Together". Atco 33-103. both pieces are good low comedy, Yet Yancey is something several

Yakety Yak; lfic; Early in the Morning; Night attacked with the appropriate notches above the run-of-the-mill Life; If I Had My Life to Live Over; Yes Sir vehemence. Apart from four numbers, primitive piano. That's My Baby; Splish Splash; Searchin'; the record offers little but Repetition in his hands is effective. Woodchopper's Ball; If Hurts to Love Someone; crudeness and a sought-after He extracts maximum value out of Confess it to Your Heart; Sh-boom. monotony, appropriate, in its ghastly very simple rhythmic ideas. He builds way, to the dim, despairing a special kind of swing—not rocking There is little need for an extended beerjoints which are its usual like Billie Pierce or so many of the discussion of this record in this surroundings. old pianists—more like that of the magazine. Everybody can see that it is Glenn Coulter modernists with whom Yancey a collection of recent popular hits. Like otherwise had nothing in common. them or not, everybody has heard All in all, Yancey's is one of the truly some of them, and severer unique and personalized piano styles spirits doubtless have pithier criticisms of jazz history. To say that he is to offer than I. None of the selections "economical" is to belabor the obvious. has much to do with jazz, and it is Yet on each listening it comes home sad to realize how little some of them once more what an unusual feat it is have to do with human life from "Primitive Piano". Tone Record LP 1. to create something so meaningful any point of view. It has surely been Speckled Red, Billie Pierce, out of such extreme austerity. The James Robinson, Donald Suggs. only other pianist who has ever observed many times that American JIMMY AND MAMA YANCEY: crowd culture succeeds most when it is approached this kind of achievement "Pure Blues". Atlantic 1283. is Monk. most wholly divorced from the See page 42 for personnel common concerns of plain existence, and titles. I should immediately emphasize that when it is quite deliberately divested there is no comparing Yancey with of anything that might require a Monk. Because Yancey does so much little effort on the part of the consumer, Tone Records has given us ten numbers with so little, one tends to over-value when it comes closest to warranting in the best tradition of primitive the end product. A major triad painted the label "Untouched by human hands." twelve bar blues; repetitive devices, every shade and variety of color is The most pertinent to my thesis of the missed notes, false starts and a heavy still a major triad. And Yancey is above numbers is probably the foot on the pedal when the going still a primitive pianist. version of Woodchopper's Ball, a gets tricky. Incidentally, Mama as a vocalist is grinning death's head if ever there was Speckled Red essays a chorus rather difficult to get used to. She uses her one; more complicated instances are "advanced" in some respects at the voice as an instrument. How richly the two numbers by — end of Dad's Piece. Beyond that, significant are the words in Bessie Splish Splash and Early in the Morning, however, the conception throughout Smith's blues—Empty Bed Blues, for two shamelessly cynical artificially this record is as safely "primitive" one very good example. How utterly excited imitations of rock and roll as the execution. irrelevant are the words Mama sings so proficient that they almost compel Billie Pierce plays a lot of piano in the face of what she's doing with the admiration; how much decenter within this idiom. Her ideas are on a notes. For particularly striking seems the work of , even, bolder scale than her technique is illustrations of this, dig the first in contrast to these foolish pieces, able to puli off, notably on the four- choruses of Four O'clock Blues and delivered in kind of Little handed In the Racket. But whatever How Long Blues, especially the latter Black Sambo dialect. else, this lady swings! In this respect where the words could be quite Of course there is some enjoyment here, she outdoes her male colleagues moving if Mama had any interest in and occasionally the breath of life. on this Ip. The strong work here is putting them across rather than I have always liked Sh-boom; even the unquestionably hers and Speckled the notes. amateurism which builds it to a Red's. Between them they trot out all Guy Waterman premature climax, leaving the last half- the strengths of primitive piano at chorus with nothing to do but its best—and its limitations. repeat—even this seems a The other work emphasizes the rather endearing trait, in these limitations. Of course, it is not all surroundings. The lyrics, too, are by a question of technique—though part no means nonsense: everybody of it must be. James Robinson, for must feel how pathetic the ellipsis: example, may have some ideas, but "Hello, hello again—sh-boom— he lacks enough technique even to let And hoping we'll meet again." It is us know whether he does or not. BROWNIE McGHEE: Brownie "McGhee difficult to admire this expressly without The role of technique is an interesting Sings The Blues". Folkways 3557. giving an impression of satire; but thing. Jimmy Yancey, for example, those two lines seem as successful a has hardly more technique than Doug "Blues in the Mississippi Night". description of the fragmentary, the Suggs and Robinson and perhaps less United Artists 4027. impermanent human relationship as one than Billie or Speckled Red. Yancey might find anywhere in popular music. can't even manage clearly those There is a similar pathos in repeated triad figures in Yancey's The McGhee record is, I'm certain, Yes Sir, That's My Baby, though it is Bugle Call. one of his best. It is, say, a good difficult to judge the sensations performance by a seasoned performer. through the echo-chamber miasma that It would be embarrassing to inquire The other, "Blues in the Mississippi surrounds them. This is a rather how many tunes in Yancey's total Night", is not even a performance . . . churchy reworking of the old tune, repertoire were not standard blues. (except in the most literal sense . .. carried chiefly by a Very few, I suspect. On this Ip, he the same way the word "act" means who looks and sounds very young, a forges through one whole side of two things). So, I say, the difference bit unsteady, but tasteful. seven numbers, without once leaving between these two records is "an Also worth mentioning are , the twelve-bar structure. With Mama act" vs. "the act". in two well-known and quite singing on the other side, caution is Brownie knows what he's doing. Two successful comic number, Searchin' thrown to the four winds and together of the tunes on this record Poor Boy, and Yakety Yak. I do not find anything they dash out into the foreign changes I Ain't Gonna Scold You) are very good musical worth commenting on, but of Make Me a Pallet on the Floor and Brownie, indeed. But what he does How Long Blues. best is still "performance", "an act", Then You'll and seems, no matter how good the in suitable music he had recorded THE performance is, never to reveal much previously. During the tales about the Know You've of the performer, or, as far as I'm reprisals it is the terribly sad, terribiy concerned, to indicate ihat the beautiful chant Another Man Done Got "performance" is an extension of some Gone. The version LomaX has here (I BLUES genuinely felt emotion. All the elements wonder who it was? ... a high, flat, of good, "moving" blues singing seem yet piercing, woman's voice .. . to be contained in Brownie's work sounding as if the world had finally except, to me, the real excitement killed off everything she'd loved) makes never quite gets through. Like a you question Odetta's version. In fact, mystery story without a climax; a makes you not want to hear it again! lot of plot but no resolution, ft There is much of the South that gets dull. comes to us whole here. The South, I suppose the major reason for this and all it means to anybody who kind of emotional void in Brownie's knows it. From the tragic tales of work is his insistence on sounding, reprisal, rape, unbelievable injustice, most of the time, like a watercolor to the overpowering humor the Negro , a man who seems to rhe has transformed these into. There are to make blues singing a kind of wonderful bits of typical southern irritating mood music. Every tune, Negro humor here. "Putting down" (or somehow, seems almost to end up "on") white folks has always been saying "1 came up the Mississippi on the ranking, and indeed sharpest a boat... and after suffering untold example of Negro humor. .. (e.g. horrors at the hands of you white telling how in some part of the folks ... hyar I is right hyar at South a Negro had to call white The Cafe Society". Not good. Blues mules "Mister," and ask for Prince singing is like any other 'art form': Albert tobacco by saying "Can 1 please mere imitation, either of another artist, have some Mr. Prince Albert Tobacco?" or of the more easily developed effects My grandfather used to tell it too ... of the particular form, can never "What you mean, 'gimme', boy, dont produce anything but, perhaps, a rather you see that white man on the can?" showy vapidity. And then he'd add ... "Sho was glad Opposed to Brownie's "performance", it wasn't a white woman ... I'da "Blues in the Mississippi Night" seems never got nothing to smoke!") to me to be a good example of the A minor (or maybe not so minor) artless "act". The merest artifice could incongruity is that on most of the have ruined this record. The slightest Folkways (and other companies with old performer's self-consciousness would blues singers) liner notes, where the have reduced it to the rankest lyrics of the songs heard in a particular parody. album have been transcribed, there JOHN LEE HOOKER are always tremendous discrepancies What we have is three men talking between what the singer is singing, (for the most part) amongst and what the transcriber has written themselves. Telling each other old, down. It was really awful on Brownie's familiar lies. Lamenting familiar, yet notes ... and he sounds like Milton still poignant, laments. We are aware Cross compared with, say, Blind Lemon that these people are performers only or somebody. I suspect the transcribers because their 'performances' are are Johnny Math is fans, or maybe caught here on the record, frozen have paper ears. and 'untouched'. . . and therefore 'artificial'. But these three men have LeRoi Jones nothing to do with the world of performance. In this record you get a part of their lives . .. which is, among the world of performers, limited only to the greatest of artifice. If John Coltrane makes you feel some of the energy of his life, through his art, then you have something equal to this record. At its best, you get a sense of 'overhearing' all the wonderful ELIZABETH COTTEN: "Negro Folk dialogue. As if you were sitting in some Songs and Tunes". Folkways FG 3526. dumpy old saloon in the rural deep Wilson Rag; Freight Train; Goin' Down the South, and here next to you, these Road Feelin' Bad; I Don't Love Nobody; Ain't three jocular Negro men, lying their Got No Honey Baby Now; Honey Babe Your heads off... and once in a while Papa Cares For You; Vastopol; Here Did chanting little snatches of songs Rattler Here; Sent For My Fiddle; Geo. Buck; they feel close to. That feeling is made Run-Run; Mama Your Son Done Gone; Sweet priceless here. Bye and Bye; What a Friend We Have in To emphasize certain parts of the Jesus; Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie; Spanish Flang conversations (e.g. when the men are Dang; When I Get Home; Graduation March. talking about the reprisals the whites took against any Negro who defied them, sometimes, as in the case There is a tendency in the folklore SONNY BOY WILLIAMSON mentioned, killing off whole field to collect and record every scrap families . . .} Alan Lomax has dubbed of information or "lore" falling from CHESS RECORD CORP. 2120 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, III. 45 the mouths of old-timers without many of the songs are fragmentary and THE DIXIE HUMMINGBIRDS: "A weighing its merit. While field consequently not too satisfying Christian Testimonial". Peacock recording is of great value to the unless the listener is familiar with PLP 100. scholar as a tool for research and as complete versions. The Final Edition; Oh How I Love Jesus; I a means of preserving material intact, A few of Mrs. Cotten's comments Just Want To Tell You; Christian's Automobile; the on-the-spot session from the rickety about the tunes—where and when they Nobody Knows the Trouble I see; Are You porch does not always tie up into a were played and how she learned Ready; God Is Now Speaking; We'll Meet neatly-packaged Ip. them—appear in the notes, but in Again; Poor Pilgrim of Sorrow-, He'll Do the In the eagerness to capture an general the notes are of no help in Same For You; Devil Can't Harm a Praying authentic "itch-and-scratch-it relating the songs to each other, in Man; Christian Testimonial. folksiness" (as a Time movie reviewer supplying some thread which would phrased it), some collector-recorders tie the tunes to the folk song tradition, appear to lose all sense of proportion or in pointing out the influence of and eagerly swallow any served this music on later types and the them by the quaint "uncle" or "aunt" direction of its subsequent The Dixie Hummingbirds are one of who is putting them on. development. Probably the scholar or the leading gospel recording groups If the scholar wishes to record these folk music student is capable of in the country today. old-timey reminiscenses or fabrications supplying this information for himself, A group with a light, easy, floating for his private purposes, fine. If he but for the casual listener, a more sound, rather than a blue or robust is able to extract from the collection informative set of notes would delivery like the Original Gospel even one really worth-while item for be of aid. Harmonettes, the Dixie Hummingbirds use in his academic undertakings, good. In this Ip, emphasis is on material (James Davis, Howard Carroll, James The scholar should be able to rather than performer and performance. Walker, Ira Tucker, William Bo-Bo, distinguish what is actually pertinent According to folk song enthusiasts, and Beachey Thompson) build their to folklore and cultural tradition and the fact that Mrs. Cotten's vocals are lead-chorus arrangements over guitar, what is merely the personal a little shaky and ofen flat, that some handclaps and drums, while the bass idiosyncrasies of an informant. But of her singing is so faint behind the voice acts like part of the rhythm does the layman possess the knowledge guitar that the lyrics would be a section by booming out resonant bass and discriminatory powers to do total loss were they not printed in lines on the syllable "bmm." (The likewise, if such material is dumped the notes, and that her playing is descending bass lines on He'll Do the in front of him unsorted on an Ip? invaded by occasional squeaks, is Same For You and the breaks on Are He might be convinced beforehand secondary to the fact that the material You Ready stand out like Blanton's that the material must be worthy of itself has not been tampered with work behind the Ellington orchestra.) conservation and respect since it and that Mrs. Cotten presents the Though the Hummingbirds' style takes emanates from "The Folk;" and when songs for themselves. shape most readily on ear-catching he is exposed to the "let's-get-together- These are not the finished songs like Devil Can't Harm a Praying folks" atmosphere of some of these performances of folk songs we have Man and Are You Ready, both of which recordings, his initial convictions are from singers of folk song who give move at a brisk trot, their performance likely to be reinforced. concerts or make records; these are of slow or spiritual-type numbers like These remarks were prompted by the not even performances. With Mrs. Poor Pilgrim of Sorrow, Nobody Knows album "Negro Folk Songs and Cotten, in contrast to the precious the Trouble I See (standard words but Tunes." Not that the recollected songs handling of songs by some professional different tune), and particularly the played and sung by Elizabeth Cotten folk singers who are so full of folksy lovely Christian Testimonial, is of the here are hokum or superfluous; they abandon and so determinedly highest musical quality and reflects form one more small bit of background in-concert-but-afl-folk, one has the their personal inspiration and religious data on the Negro folk roots of jazz. sense of overhearing someone singing conviction. However, little can be derived from to pass the time, taking up another the album that will be of more value song on tiring of one. The track called Christian's Automobile to the scholar and historian, than I feel, though, that there are many is one of those metaphorical to the layman or casual listener. elderly persons with good memories excursions that relates religious The album is a hodgepodge of and extensive repertoires who, if given experiences to everyday events. The instrumental guitar work, gospel hymns, an opportunity to record, could equal partial transcription of the text which blues of varying lengths, and if not surpass Mrs. Cotten, whose follows, reveals an obvious but miscellaneous secular songs, some of voice and material are very ordinary. effective use of imagery to get across which have been recorded before in The fact that this lady happened to spiritual ideals in terms immediate fuller, more musically satisfying work for the Seegers did not exactly enough to be easily comprehended versions. Mrs. Cotten picks her harm her discovery or recording and applied: instrument upside down, as she is "career." If the only requisite Every child of God running left-handed, and her style is identified necessary to making a folk recording be for Jesus as "ragtime." Those who are that the person recall a few old songs, Just like an automobile . . . connoisseurs of folk guitar and banjo I can think of several geriatric Prayer is your driver, faith is your styles, able to distinguish picking individuals—some in my own family— steerin' wheel, techniques, will be able to appreciate I could "discover" right now. tf you get on the road to glory, these technicalities on the Though old songs and items Satan is gonna try to flag you down instrumental tracks; those who are transmitted through oral tradition But keep on driving . . . not may find the music a bit should be preserved, if only for the You got to check on your tires; repetitious. negative virtue of establishing the low you got a rough road ahead calibrations by which to gauge the And when you're weary from According to the notes, Mrs. Cotten popular expressions of a culture, they the journey learned these songs in her early years, need not all be thrust before the public God will put you to bed. then joined the church shortly after haphazardly. Since Mrs. Cotten's songs You got to check on your brakes, her marriage at fifteen, and for are useful primarily for these involved and stop your wicked ways .. . thirty-five years gave up all but in research, this material really You gotta check on your lights; religious music. When she began belongs in archives, for it does not and see your own faults working for the Seeger family she work into an Ip of consequence. Stop while you can see them tried to recall the old tunes. Since she children. was unable to remember all the words, Mimi Clar Or your soul will be lost. HEW WBNN'S

JAZZ PORTRAITS—Charles Mingus BRASS SHOVT arranged by™ 'S AFRICAN with John Handy, , Richard Golson. Art Farmer with Lee Morgan SUITE-Johnny Rao's Afro Jazz Septet Wyands, Dannie Richmond Ernie Royal. , Curtis' UAL 4042 • Stereo UAS 5042 UAL 4036 • Stereo UAS 5036 Fuller, ,

Percy Heath, , P„n|, j06' Jones, Bobby Timmonj, and others UAL 4047 . Stereo UAS 6047 W*»> i BUS wc H LOVE FOR SALE

1STAUVE! A NIGHT Al IHE THE IVORY HUNTERS DOUBLE HALF NOTE-Zoot Sims, , BARRELLED PIANO-Bob Brook Phil Woods meysr & Bi» Evans Wfth Percy Heath Stereo UAS 5040 and Connie Kay UAL 4040 LOVE FOR SALE- Trio and Quintet ML3«4 • Stereo UAS 6044 UAL 4046 • Stereo UAS 5046

MOTOR CITY SCENE — , Billy Mitchell, , Paul Chambers, Elvin Jones and UAL 4025 • Stereo UAS 5025 B0bB torfBar,y Ga/braiHltlT, ^m Ml 3045 . Stereo UAS 6045

^^ADIUA DIGG S JAZZ with still more exciting additions to its jazz BK; MH.I KH collection. These long playing albums offer everything new and important in jazz. ..the originality of ART FARMER, DID YOU EVER HEAR THE CHARLIE MINGUS, and CECIL TAYLOR BLUES?—Big Miller his choice ot" .. .the inventiveness of , deep blues by Stereo UAS 6047 UAL 3047 "' BOB BROOKMEYER and LEE MORGAN ...the poignance of BIG MILLER .. the cool sounds of ZOOT SIMS, AL COHN and HERBIE MANN. . .the robust drive Of THAD JONES and RUBY BRAFF ...the gentleness of BILL EVANS. Jazz today is best on U. A. All albums available in Monaural and Stereo. II CD i^^-1^B-gfB BBils^^^^H 729 Seventh Ave., N. Y. 19, N. Y. ^Lji^LbiHV H H Send for our free new 32 page Long Playing catalog...just off the press. You gotta check on your generator about, but nothing of the same rhythm is broken down into smaller You need more strength and power distinction. Considering Langston units, increasing the tension toward a You can't do nothing without Hughes accomplishments as a poet the climax, something few of the other the Man, verses, all by him, are rather ordinary. pieces achieve. Let the Church Say You need Him every hour. "As I go, as I go / Oh, Jesus, walk Amen does have the full machinery— Christians, oh, press on by my side / As I go. / As I go, Carl McWilliams' sax in addition to the your starters as I go / Be my guide as I go / tambourine, organist Hampton Carlton, And start your automobile. Through this world" does not seem to pianist Hugh E. Porter, and guitarist Put it in first gear and go on me to be particularly remarkable Yvonne Cumberbatch—but it is also up the hill. poetry. There is however some much less good. There is a fair female Drive on, children, if I never refreshing vernacular: "Devil, devil let soloist in the 'Licker drinking brother' see you no more yourself get lost! / Yesterday, I verse, and another pretty good one I'll meet you when I pull in played your game, / But today I'll in he last verse ('If some weary on the other shore. be the boss. / I gave up balling / warrior'), but the woman who solos And I'm no worried—I've got And I gave up sin, / Gave up (the anonymous notes also fail to my parking space . . . whiskey / And I gave up gin. / My identify many of the people on the Mimi Clar feet are anchored on the gospel record) on 'Listen, wayward sister' is shore / And I ain't gonna play perfectly dreadful. I did like Devil, no more" which must be something of Take Yourself Away sung from the a new departure in religious verse. piano—which sounds, by the way, TAMBOURINES TO GLORY. Nor could I tell Jobe Huntley's tunes remarkably like Fats Waller—by Hugh Folkways FG 3538. from a hundred others I've heard. Porter, accompanied by some fine I don't know much about gospel Huntley is also the soloist on When massed antiphonal singing. music, but I know what I like. On I Touch His Garment, Back to the The notes make the interesting remark the one hand I like the informal Fold, and Tambourines to Glory, that 'church music is usually fifty years congregational singing, usually with although I suppose it would be more behind worldly music' I don't know plenty of handclapping and sometimes correct to say he is the leader on that this has always been true—it with instrumental accompaniment, that the last piece. At the beginning of seems to me there was a time in I think of as sanctified singing— Back to the Fold his voice is downright music history when quite the reverse whether it really is or not I don't bad; at its best, it just isn't very was true—and I don't know about the know. On the other hand I like the good. The timbre isn't there to begin fifty years. I'd say thirty years is solo singing by the kind of singers with, and he doesn't seem to be closer, for one striking thing about I used to think of as 'trained'. (I also able to do anything with his voice the music on this Ip is the way it happen to like Rev. Gary Davis and to make up for the lack. snacks of the 'twenties. From the piano Blind Willie Johnson, especially for As a soloist, Rev. Ernest Cook (Home introduction, which could serve any their stunning guitar playing, but that to God, Thank God I've Got the Bible) Follies chorus line, the title number would make three hands and a bad seems much better to me, which is Tambourines to Glory sums it up: the figure of speech.) not to say he is a great singer. But 'hot' saxophone, the breaks, the stride Harry Smith included two terrific at least he has some kind of voice, piano, the Hall-Johnson type,choir examples of the kind of ensemble and I rather enjoyed Thank God I've bring us right back to the singing I mean in his "Anthology of Got the Bible. Of course the occasional . interjected 'yeahs' in the background " for Folkways Of course the faint odor of vaudeville (a marvelous collection anyhow): Rev. help, and so does the humming at the beginning. I seem to detect may not be in the F. W. McGee's Fifty Miles of Elbow music at all. There are, indeed, plenty Room with piano, guitar and a fine hot On the whole, the numbers with the of joyful noises on the Ip; what I trumpet; and Rev. D. C. Rice's I'm in chorus—I must confess a certain miss is anything deeper. It is probably the Battlefield for my Lord, with a full amount of confusion as to who they wrong to ask of a music whose aim instrumental group including a trumpet are, but I would guess the Porter is to celebrate something we don't even who certainly sounds like Bunk Singers—seem to be the better ones. believe in that it move us. Yet Georgia Johnson, although I understand he The choral singing has none of the Peach does just this; it could be said probably isn't. There is about some of looseness of the sanctified that it is precisely the ability to these groups an unforced exuberance— congregation, their shifting accents, transcend the narrow base from which I am tempted to say honest or their unpredictable entrances and she operates that makes her singing exuberance—found in the best New exits. As a matter of fact the chorus Art. When doesn't Orleans jazz. I don't know how far back is pretty well disciplined, with a bright convery this great conviction—and the style goes, but it was already fully sound and an unstrained vigor. There 'Tambourines to Glory' certainly developed by the time the records I are a few 'hallelujahs', 'oh yeahs', and doesn't—we are left with mere singing, mentioned were made (1929-31); in 'sing it's!' scattered about, but for the which may be more or less good as any event most of the features most part the chorus comes in singing, nothing more. Right at the associated with modern gospel music cleanly, just where it is supposed beginning of the novel Tambourines were there, as well as an integrated to. Whoever did the arrangements to Glory, Essie is talking to Laura: instrumental style one seldom hears showed some imagination in the use "In the evening, Mama would go to anymore. of the chorus, which is sometimes service by herself and turn out the Of the good soloists I have heard, in unison with the lead singer, light and leave me in bed until I most seem to be women. The best of sometimes antiphonal (this is Afro- got teen-age. Then I went to church them all, as far as I am concerned, American music, you know), and on at night too. I loved those songs, is Georgia Peach, who is not only a As I Go snaps out 'walk b'side me' Precious Lord, Take my Hand. Oh, but great gospel singer, but a great artist. in a march rhythm under Ernest that's pretty! Let's go to church Easter, I know her only through her records, Cook's 'As I go, as I go.' A familiar Laura." particularly the Classic Editions Ip effect I suppose, but a good one. "Which one, Sanctified or Baptist?" (I've never interviewed her); on them I'm Gonna Testify is an exciting "Where the singing is best," said she exhibits a voice of magnficent ensemble number with almost the full Essie. tonal quality with which she does machinery: a tambourine (teenage "Sanctified," said Laura. wondrous things. Benjamin Snowden), after-beat hand This Ip was recorded at the New "Tambourines to Glory" has both of the clapping, the high, sustained note from Canaan Baptist Church. kinds of gospel music I've been talking the chorus. As the piece develops the J. S. Shipman The Swinging Man's Jazz is on wmmm AT MUSIC INN •^frtW Atlanti"^•jr J i J • c enter ADTICT. THE GENIUS OF 1312

IMI'll'iMM.'ll Ml I H I \ I H >N- I - » •- M ,\,l.\< I 1."-.1HN~. .11111% IJWIS THE MODERN JAZZ QUARTET AT MUSIC 1OQQ INN, VOL. 2 Guest Artist: Sonny Rollins

(El SINGS BALLADS OF THE SAD CAFE 1307

IMTHEAD IMPROVISED MEDITATIONS 1 EXCURSIONS John Lewis 1313

UTIIUIEWMAI

FATHEAD David Newman 1304

THE FOUR BROTHERS SOUND lOQC Jimmy Giuffre

mm.•Arm or Available monaural $4.98 and stereo $5.98 BAGS 1 FLUTES Milt Jackson

WRITE FOR COMPLETE LP CATALOGUE AND STEREO DISC LISTING.

TLANTIC RECORDS

157 WEST 57lh STREET • NEW YORK 19, N . Y THE SHAPE OF JAZZ TO COME 1317 "The Shadow," one of my favorite radio intellectual commitment. I am quite programs. When we got there and I sure Preminger and Goldwyn are MOVIE discovered that all this marvelous much better off without either. I am action was just a bunch of sound saying that the vision Heyward and effects, and actors standing in front Gershwin present (from the first, their of microphones with their hats on, artifact) for use as an American REVIEW reading from sheets of paper, I was drama with music is useless, and that thoroughly disenchanted. to make an honest beautiful statement But I must admit there wasn't nearly out of their raw material would take as much disenchantment at the genius, perhaps of a kind not to be unmasking of Porgy and Bess as there found in America. To make good was with "The Shadow." Perhaps entertainment (which I believe might because, to be quite honest, I have be done, with a good rewriting) is a never been sold on Porgy and Bess; in simpler task, and I think it is not fact, for most of the time I've known asking too much to hope that one about the play, I've more or less day it might be accomplished—or at been persuaded it was really an awful least that I might see such an thing, with hardly any merit. I always entertainment. thought the music represented very Another point I have considered (and good American popular music (and as perhaps this is most important to such, I suppose could be classified me) is that P and B represent almost as "folk music", but the folk in this the perfect statement of the American case being so shallowly sophisticated middle class about Negroes, and that as to have almost become a form this filmed version is probably that of musical expression completely anti- statement in classic rendition. I would musical as well as anti-emotional). But say the music is perfect in this this is something somebody else statement for the same reasons Time ought to talk about at length in an magazine can that Dave Brubeck essay prying into the significance is the most important jazz musician (culturally) of the success and general of our time—that kind of pleasant, acceptance, by a whole people, of a but in reality, hideous and dishonest music as eminently sterile as the dilution. Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue, American Popular Song. Anyway, it Paul Whiteman as witnesses) made has always troubled me that Gershwin's a music that capitalized on this kind music, while admirable in its own way, of dilution. Heyward's story is almost never had much to do with Negroes. I the same kind of dilution, but his mean, I Got Plenty of Nuthin' has results from lack of talent. Gershwin, never made me think of Negroes, at least, did bring an original energy especially just Broadway and for some into what he diluted. He is a "pure As a movie, Porgy and Bess is a unfathomable reason, Oscar Levant. complete failure. Otto Preminger and product of America," however tepid. Heyward's novel is mere second-rate The film is the classic statement of Sam Goldwyn with their usual fare, and I'm not interested enough in passionate intensity have managed to this general flattening and softening of it to try to discuss it separately from a particular element in America life. suck out what few vital juices there are what it got to be as a musical. to the original "operatic" version. They The presentation is geared perfectly to I suppose another important factor the content. Everything is smooth, present it here as a kind of flat, in my general feeling of estrangement uncinematic series of rather dull hitchless, polished and thoroughly from Porgy and Bess is the caliber unbelievable. Just as we certainly don't monologues, interrupted, not frequently of performance I've been exposed to. enough, by singing. There was no have to worry about somebody having I've seen it three times, and each reed trouble in Roger Williams' reason for this version to be filmed time I've come away feeling not so on location, or the characters to dress orchestras, from the beginning of the much out of sympathy with the play film we are sure nobody's in danger in period costumes, or the usual effects as confused about its importance, of Hollywood films; instead all the of being put in the way of any artistic seriousness, meaning (to me), etc. The catharsis. It's just as smooth and movie's characters should have been first time I saw Porgy and Bess was made to stand in front of microphones, bland as you please. in an amateur performance by a Sidney Poitier says it took him a long like a radio program, reading their hopelessly inept neighborhood group in lines to cue in the singers. There time to decide whether he wanted Newark, N. J. The second performance to do P and B or not, because he seemed to be no real attempt at I saw was a Broadway presentation film making, certainly no real attempt wanted to make sure he wouldn't be featuring Lawrence Tib-bet as Porgy. offending anyone (Negroes, I suppose). at making a film out of Porgy and Bess. The film is the third. I have disliked, It seemed the usual badly acted but Well, what James Agee said about the unreservedly, all three performances. cries that sprang up when it was beautifully sung opera with not nearly The Tibbet debacle actually convinced as much help from the singing as one announced that Hollywood had bitten me for a time that P and B was mere off more than it could chew, politically, usually gets in a Giovanni. It seemed parochial head-patting fare. (I also—aside from the depressing fact when it filmed For Whom The Bell Tolls realize now that I was just confusing applies here: the only persons that that operas usually don't have much aesthetics with sociology.) I also development of plot, or characters, and would be offended by this would be realize now that P and B is not positive people interested in seeing a good are essentially just fine singers enough to be even a "shuffle" drama. clumping awkwardly through stagey film. (Although I suppose someone This is one reason a crew like could take exception to all those lines—that there had been no attempt Goldwyn and Preminger couldn't to broaden the opera-ish script into a women walking around with rags on possibly have made a good film out their heads, everybody knows Ralph credible screenplay. Most of the time, of the opera. They are completely I felt the story was being narrated, Bunch and Jackie Robinson never walk without insight, and the only thing that around with rags on their heads.) But rather than acted: nothing happened, could make a human and possibly really, but the singers kept insisting it it makes me despair of ever really moving production out of Porgy would seeing Negroes in films where they had. It reminded me of the time my be a great deal of insight and father took me to see a broadcast of are not chained to somebody's idea (no matter how heroic or noble) of how old days it was easier: the theatre. they ought to be. The Defiant Ones and ' patronizing and the paternal were Basically, the film is bad because Edge of the City almost make the o.k. and funny. But in these enlightened the original is already too weak grade, but not quite. (I think one times, one has to be a little more to stand further dilution, but we are reason these two films don't make it is subtle. The trend now is to make any presented with a double dilution: first the unevenness of Poitier's stories or parts for Negroes completely the middle-class vision of the Negro performances. As good as he is, Poitier boring, and/or unbelievable. (See (or at least the thirties middle is not a "professional", in the same James Baldwin's essay on Carmen Jones class) and with Preminger-Goldwyn, an sense that, say, Franchot Tone is. in his Notes of a Native Son for the artistic dilution. It is a hard burden Poitier has passions he can control or low-down on all that). to saddle on some respectable flaunt with, sometimes, amazing What ought to popular tunes. But the singing in the effect, but he has not, and may not ever realize before he makes any more films film is good: the voices of William have, the effortless emotional (that is, if he is interested seriously Warfield and Adele Addison in the title precision of a Tone. Poitier is an actor "in presenting the Negro as he really roles and Brock Peters as Crown using who needs direction, and a great is") is that just to put a man in a his own voice. In fact, the singing deal of it, to give an even, well-thought- business suit and have him speak good is so good compared with the acting out performance. In The Defiant Ones, English is not enough to have him (Poitier does nothing; Dorothy I suspect there was a strong realistic. A Negro on the screen, just Dandridge has always been a cipher pair of directorial hands manipulating because he is not made into a as far as I'm concerned; Pearl Bailey is Poitier's admittedly marvelous butler or a domestic, is not great as Pearl Bailey—but then energies. Once this is understood about automatically more desirable. There there's that saying about pearls before Poitier, it is not difficult to see why are other things men and women swine, or something). I had wondered he was awkward and incredible, do besides not being butlers and maids. why (to really get the perfect class except in one or two scenes, throughout (I bring up Belafonte here because statement) Goldwyn hadn't decided to Porgy and Bess. Preminger-Goldwyn he has launched a project for use the Miles Davis-Gil Evans is, for a talent like Poitier's, getting more Negroes into films.) And "Porgy and Bess." The kind of sophisti• decidedly lethal. I think there have been no convincing cated mood music Miles and Evans Anyway, what I mean is that this portraits of the Negro from made the tunes into would have P and B is the perfect movie for both Hollywood (with the possible exception fit perfectly. They (the movie and the Negro and white middle class. It offends of a few parts of The Defiant Ones, Davis album) gave me the same feeling: no one except those few I mentioned Edge of the City, and Intruder in the I kept thinking that when Porgy left earlier, and it is supposed to be Dust). Further, there are only a Catfish Row for New York, he was marvelous entertainment. It fits right frighteningly few Negro actors who headed straight for the local NAACP into the current trend in Hollywood for have the talent to give a really office, and that, he Sportin' Life handling Negroes (and in Hollywood convincing performance. Poitier, Juano and Bess would turn up sooner or later there has got to be a trend or standard Hernandez in the movies, Claudia in the "Speaking of People" column fashionable method for handling McNeil, Earl Hyman, Earl Scott of Ebony magazine. them, or they don't get handled). In the and perhaps Melvin Stewart, in the LeRoi Jones

Barry Belafonte a "diminishment" of Cootie Williams but a strong, many-sided solo per• BOOK REVIEWS sonality on his own. The alleged in• fluence of gospel music on Thelonious Monk is dubious, and it is untrue that Riverside's Monk's Music Ip revealed a "heretofore largely undemonstrated tal• ent as an arranger". That talent was made obvious years ago by recordings like Criss Cross and Carolina Moon. (However Mr. Balliett does appreciate the value of Monk's consistency.) There are a few historical slips such as plac• ing Stitt with the hard boppers and the still underrated with younger drummers like Elvin Jones and Louis Hayes. And misconceptions too. Polytonality and atonality are not in essence "classical devices" as Mr. Bal• liett appears to think. They have not' yet been used extensively in jazz but that does not make them the exclusive property of straight musicians. A refer• ence to "classical techniques pasted onto standard jazz contents" is particu• larly irritating. How on earth does one paste together techniques that are con• cerned with the organization of musical material—structures in pitch and time? This is typical of what happens when non-musicians write on music. But despite it all Mr. Balliett writes WHITNEY BALLIETT: The Sound when applied to a musician's attack? with considerable understanding of of Surprise, 46 pieces on jazz. How do "crablike" runs differ from such diverse musicians as Pee Wee Dutton & Co. Inc., 1959. "grapeshot" ones? It is difficult to be• Russell, Garner and Mingus. He has lieve the peanut-butter sandwiches on a good introductory piece on the blues This book collects the jazz pieces Whit• and a completely accurate assessment ney Balliett contributed to The New page 79 tells us much about Art Farmer, or to understand how Hawkins was once of Kenton—placing him in relation to Yorker in 1957, 1958, part of 1959, the lesser pre-war white swing bands and revisions of articles for the Satur• a "cool museum" of tenor playing. Does "port and velvet" say anything about the and not with the modern movement at day Review and The Reporter, ft is all—that is brief yet leaves nothing doubtful if Mr. Balliett has done him• marvellous accomplishment of Gil Evans's orchestral technique? In what more to be said. He makes some self a very good service is preserving original miscellaneous points such as all these pieces between hard covers. sense are Monk's compositions "some• what calculated"? How can a trombon• the one that "although jazz began as Many of them are concert and record a vocal music it has produced only a reviews—workaday material of the kind ists tone be "tufted"? And in the cause of picturesqueness Mr. Balliett has de• handful of full-fledged jazz singers". every jazz writer has to produce but, Particularly excellent is a piece on with occasional exceptions, of ephem• vised some rather curious verbs: "to blat", "to thunk", "to whump." How• Sidney Catlett that ought to find its way eral interest. Mr. Balliett may have felt into a better anthology than this. In• that in bringing them together he was ever, this style of writing does occasion• ally achieve suprising accuracy. The deed he writes with considerable assembling a picture of the analytical skill on drummers, Btakey scene as it appeared to one observer description of Brubeck's playing as "melodramatic" is as felicitous as that and Philly Joe Jones among them, but at the time but most of them are too has limited sympathy with the more brief and written too close to the events of Kenton's "alarming, froglike volume" is irresistible. "A clandestine series of modern ones. I believe he is the first to to provide many significant insights. point out the hints of later innovations When writing for magazines like The chords that only implied the melody" is good too. Now and again Mr. Balliett that can be detected in Kenny Clarke's Jazz Review or Jazz Monthly one is cer• drumming on Bechet's 1940 One O'clock tain the great majority of readers are sums up a situation with admirable conciseness, as when he says "the final Jump session. His views on Roach are interested in jazz and want to know quite unacceptable. more about it. But with The New Yorker collapse of the big-band era in the late one's audience is not primarily inter• 'forties left a permanent hole in jazz". At the end of the book it remains ested in jazz, perhaps not interested Nonetheless many statements in this difficult to say just where Mr. Balliett at all, and to retain attention it is often book are extremely debatable. It was stands. Although he is sympathetic to necessary to entertain rather than to de• not just "a few years ago" that Monk, some of them, he is quite censorious termine what is happening in the Lewis, George Russell and Gil Evans of the moderns and seems most music. To say this is not to condemn "began using the greater technical fa• strongly attached to the pre-war swing Mr. Balliett, merely to recognise the cilities first opened up by bebop". They men. He certainly writes of some of limitations within which he works. were all active in that direction in the the latter—Catlett and Ben Webster, Under the circumstances it is almost 'forties—except Evans who never had for example—with notable insight. Yet inevitable he should use many phrases anything to do with bop. Throughout he is capable of an unpleasantly stick that, reminiscent of the emotional im• the development of jazz the 'schism' be• near-debunking of Louis Armstrong. It pressionism of early jazz Writing, have tween improvisation and composition would be interesting to know from Mr. greater picturesqueness than meaning. has never been so great as Mr. Balliett Balliett in which records does Louis Does "cowlike" really tell us anything implies in his introduction. In the best display "a tendency to fluff one out of about the trumpet sounds of Harold jazz they go inextricably together. To every five notes". One also wonders Baker or Joe Smith? Or "goatlike" about those familiar with his best work with how well acquainted with Armstrong's Sonny Roflins? What does "florid" mean Ellington, is in no sense records he is when, despite pieces like Wild man blues, Mr. Balliett tells us he has never been an "energetic im- provisor". And is the accompaniment provided by Hines, Singleton et al on records like Basin Street blues really a "tea-dance background"? At times Mr. Balliett's values seem very uncertain. Max Harrison THE ART OF

JAZZ by Leonard Feather. Petersen Publishing Co., Los Angeles, Calif.

This is an accurate history of the de• THE ART OF JAZZ velopment of jazz from the thirties until Essays on the Nature the present. Published in magazine and Development of Jazz form with many excellent photographs and few advertisements, it is well Edited by MARTIN T. WILLIAMS worth the 50< tab. A collection of the best writing on The strongest feature of the writing is the subject of jazz ranging from the historical detail. Leonard gives a Ragtime to Bop, through Dixieland good resume of the state of affairs that and the Blues. These significant affected the economy of the jazz musi• articles cover such jazz greats as cian at the beginning of the war, cata• Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, logues the arrival of new musicians, Sidney Bechet, and Bessie Smith. groups, composers and music, and fol• "Scarcely a dull beat to a page lows the principal developments of and only the kind of critical dis• style. There are many accounts of the sonances that provoke think• specific circumstances leading to the ing."— Langston Hughes $5.00 formation of various groups that pro• At all booksforos duced important music, such as the OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Eckstine band and the Miles Davis Capitol recording group. Leonard's conception of cause and ef• fect in the music world is okay until he begins to deal with the creative process itself. His idea that new forms were invented because jazz had stag• nated is a common mistake: whenever a few years pass without the appear• ance of a new hero, up goes the cry that jazz is stagnating. Even when there is no great leader around, musi• cians who are able to work creatively find some way to sustain their in• terest in music. The act of creating is always the most satisfying part of it, and whatever form holds the musician's interest at the moment is valid. When a musician of exceptional originality invents some especially beautiful music, other musicians are excited by the possibilities presented and their imaginations are in turn stimulated. The emergence of the exceptional artist is a rare and wonderful phe• nomenon, but it is a mistake to think that the work done by less spectacular musicians leads to stagnation and decay. When "the market for jazz is good it becomes easier for both the creative and the mechanical worker to sustain themselves; when business is bad only the creative worker has any reason for continuing to play. All the economic and social factors that Leonard men• tions certainly have their effect on him, but they do not determine what sounds good to him. Several fragmentary interviews With jazz players are sprinkled through the text as illustrations of various points First of all, they are insufficiently the chief point about the Monk/Mul• of view. In the Miies Davis interview cirtical. The average rating all these ligan Riverside was that, through ex• I notice that where Leonard asks a discs received was 3.3 stars—and 3 treme contrast, it illustrated the very general question, "How did the evolu• stars is supposed to indicate a record different approaches of these two im• tion into the cool era begin?", Miles as being good. I don't believe the bulk portant musicians. This is not men• gives a specific personal answer, "I of that 442 records, were better than tioned. Langston Hughes's poetry read• always wanted to play with a light good. They may have been with regard ings to music by Henry Allen, Dicken• sound, because I could think better to competence of performance but not son et al receive 4 stars, but the re• when I played that way", when Leonard in musical value, not in making an viewer seems unaware there is no es• asks a loaded question, "Would you original contribution to jazz. When one sential fusion between words and music say he |Tristano] was one of the few looks at the star ratings, it at once here. The extreme incongruity of team• •white musicians who had harmonic becomes hard to tell what standards ing with Jimmy Giuf- originality?", Miles avoids the trap are in operation. Thus Harry Belafonte's fre on "" Ip goes ("Yes, he did . . ." not, yes, he was.) dreadful "blues singing" is awarded unremarked, as does the artificiality of Lednard is a better interviewer when 3V2 stars—as many as Rushing and Johnny Richards' use of African he asks simple questions that can be Broonzy. But then Down Beat isn't very rhythms in "The Rites of ." answered simply. When he begins prob• strong on blues anyway. In the whole The description of Jackie McLean and ing for musical values the lack of year only five important blues issues John Jenkins as "two latter-day birds- clarity in his questioning indicates that (two Broonzy, one Rushing, one Brownie in-the-hand" and a reference to Con• he isn't sure what it is he's trying to McGhee and one /McGhee) don's "China Shop Bulls" suggest Bill find out. Fortunately even poor ques• were covered. European visitors like Russo was justified in complaining jazz tions often he is in• Albert McCarthy and Yannick Bruy- writers cannot always resist a cute terviewing the chance to mention some• noghe have written of the fine blues phrase. On page 40 Ornette Coleman's thing of interest, and the dialogues in singers who can be heard in Chicago lines are called "attractively linear." this book between Leonard and Mul• today, and companies like Chess Rec• One might as well talk of dry dust ligan, Miles, Brubeck and Previn are ords are still recording many con• or wet water. worth reading. temporary singers, yet relying on Down A selection of the usual cliches is Beat one might conclude this vital Albert Isaacs, the art director of this here too. That Coleman review con• aspect of jazz had ceased to exist. In• tains the usual one about Monk's limita• volume, is to be congratulated on the stead a record by the effete Herb Ellis general good quality of the photo• tions: ". . . the frustration of not is given 5 stars and recommended as being capable of attaining the heights graphs. There are over a hundred in "the whole story" of the blues. Many all, including many historically interest• yearned for so desperately" and so on. mediocre items receive surprisingly It is surely significant that none of ing band photos, some really excellent high ratings, for example undistin• portraits of individual soloists and those who speak of Monk in this way guished collections by Manny Albam has never pointed to a specific passage some charming informal shots. In a and Buddy de Franco have 5 stars double page spread with Miles, Allen in one of his records and told us what apiece. Against this the unique Hen• notes Monk would have liked to play Eager and , a youthful derson band reunion on Jazztone gets Charlie Parker is caught with an ex• had he been able. One of the Powell 4 stars and Bud Powell's "Blues in the reviews mentions the legendary matu• pression in his eyes that is as direct Closet" set a mere 2. It seems reason• and moving as the sound of his saxo• rity of Bud's work with Cootie Williams able to conclude that slick competence in 1944. Since Leonard Feather wrote phone, a beautiful picture. The photo is the quality most likely to win ap• credits are lumped together in the in Inside Be-Bop ten years ago that proval, but then the clumsy, insensitive Cootie's Hit sessions featured the front of the book, but I have a hunch "New Orleans jazz" of Ken Colyer and this one is from the good work done pianist "playing almost the same bop Turk Murphy is awarded 3 and 4 stars style he features today," nobody seems by Herman Leonard in the late forties. respectively. Do the reviewers con• Bill Crow to have bothered to listen to the cerned know any of the American Music "" album. The fact Ips? It seems unlikely. is that Powell plays a surprisingly The impression of confused values is advanced bop solo in Floogie Boo, but heightened by some of the extraor• the rest of his work gives scant indica• dinary opinions expressed in these tion of his later development except in pages. On page 54, without any ap• his touch. DOWN BEAT JAZZ RECORD parent satirical intent, Leonard Feather REVIEWS, Vol. 3. Maher states that de Franco has done as If going through this compilation does Publications 1958. much for the clarinet as Parker for the not often enlighten one about the re• alto! A Donald Byrd review speaks of cords, it does inspire a number of During 1958 the Down Beat reviewing the "Gillespie-Navarro-Davis tradition." random thoughts ... on American team plowed its way through 442 new His early death may explain, though not writers' gullibility in accepting the records in addition to reissue material. excuse, ignorance of Navarro's work, but ridiculous "folk" pretenses of the Giuf- The new records in themselves consti• a reviewer really ought to know that fre group ... on past history like tute more than twelve days' continuous Dizzy and Miles stand for very different 's assertion that he listening time, and when one remem• things in trumpet playing. The Seven wrote and sold it outright bers that each disc needs to be heard Up bottle gimmickry of Lateef's for twenty-five dollars . . . and on the several times and sometimes compared "Sounds of Yusef" gets 3 stars, and decline of jazz. Too many Ips are based with earlier issues, the task accom• those interested in George Lewis' debt on show scores, and jazz did not need plished assumes truly formidable pro• to (!) should consult page that kind of prop at one time. There portions. 151. are too many attempts to resurrect past But before suggesting anyone spends achievements: "Ronnie Gilbert Sings a dollar on this book, one must ask Only Martin Williams' reviews are worth Bessie Smith," "Billy May Plays Lunce- how well the team fulfills its task. It reading all the way through and he has ford," " Sings Bessie would be absurd to expect a reviewer interesting ideas on Julian Adderley Smith," "Buddy de Franco Plays Good• to have the same taste and predilec• (pp. 10-11), Coltrane (p. 93), Billie man," "La Vern Baker Sings Bessie tions as oneself but he should have a Holiday (p. 100), Hank Jones (p. 113) Smith," "De Franco Plays Artie Shaw." coherent scale of musical values that and Willie The Lion (p. 188). In the Whatever his limitations, Artie Shaw, in are evident in his work. What kind of main, however, there is little attempt at his own day, was too concerned in be• standards do the Down Beat reviewers analysis, and the essential features of ing himself to want to re-create anyone have? some records are ignored. For example, else. Max Harrison Quartet." JAZZ IN PRINT Was Brubeck adherent Art Blakey also on the program? Time was characteris• tically responsible for a malicious report on the death of Boris Vian. The attack was actually made on the film, "J'irai cracher sur vos tombes," based on his book that, while largely a parody, was hardly sympathetic to certain American mores. After quoting the approv• by NAT HENTOFF ing French critics and the violently disapproving Paris "Herald Tribune" man ("absurd and scandalously inaccurate... Thirty years ago, Roger A press release from Phil a silly, sour travesty of Pryor Dodge's first Shea, Boston Jazz Fes• American life"), parochial article, Negro Jazz, ap• tival: "Throughout the Time ended:"Where Author peared in the London history of jazz there have Vian's views might lie be• Dancing Times. "Everything been two basic orienta• tween these two extremes, I had read," Dodge re• tions to this music, the no one will know. He calls, "was on the hard and the cool. The attended a preview of Gershwin-Whiteman band• hard school is character• "The Spitter," took one wagon. Even though better ized by a more vigorous, look at his fantastic articles of that time percussive animated style Trenton, and slumped in have since come to light of playing. The cool his seat. At 39, Boris such as Ernest Ansermet's school is more subtle, Vian was dead of a heart and Abbe Niles' foreword relaxed and muted. Among attack." to Handy's Blues, saxophone players to be The obvious implication together with his article heard at the festival, for is that Vian was fatally in the 1929 edition of the example, Coleman Hawkins shocked at his own unfair• Encyclopedia Brittanica, can be described as ness to America, and I believe mine was the definitely of the hard succumbed to a just first which did not accept school. is American God's anger. Vian Whiteman, Gershwin and cool. Trumpet players like had had a serious heart Grofe or any of the other Dizzy Gillespie, Roy ailment for some time writers composing in Eldridge and Buck Clayton before his death, and six extended forms. Both Don all are hard school months before he died, Knowlton and Niles looked players. One top performer was told his time to the Gershwin-Grofe at the festival is a was short. team to take jazz out of hybrid, a pianist who Duke Ellington to AP its 'monotonous foxtrot can be described as columnist Bob Thomas: "If dance-time...' I actually belonging to neither I didn't keep working all wrote my article in school. That, of course, the time, I'd miss out 1925, soon after the is Dave Brubeck..." on some greatest experi• famous Whiteman concert, Lukesoft? ences. Like having but found no publisher Time, the weekly editorial Iowa farmers drive 200 interested. My contention page, reviewed the fourth miles to hear you in all along has been that annual Randall's Island January. Or going back to jazz can crystallize into (New York) Jazz Festival England and having people composition throu&h From the inside report: in every town show you notation but that those "Most of the groups that programs from 1933, when who did it were on the followed showed their ad• you last played there. wrong track from the herence to Brubeck style. That sort of thing you Gershwin-Grofe efforts in Among the best: Miles can't buy. It's what keeps Rhapsody in Blue up to the Davis' Sextet...Ramsey you working and keeps work of Bill Russo." Lewis Trio...Modern Jazz you young." The July Jazz-Statistics Sixteen partial scholar• Father Norman O'Connor in (American representative ships at The School The Boston Globe: "We Ernie Edwards, Jr., 718 of Jazz in Lenox were (Billie Holiday and Keenan Avenue, Los Angeles riding on a promised (and Charlie Bourgeois and 22, California) has oft-announced) Newport O'Connor) stopped at the discographies of Jesse scholarship grant. Admit• residence where I live at Powell and some Hampton tedly, only $1,000 had to have coffee. One of big bands. been firmly promised with the young ladies who Prez by Leonard Feather in another $1,000 regarded served the coffee was the September Playboy as nearly certain. from Ireland. Billie spoke indicates Feather did his After the school had to her, got a kick out of own research, and the started, Newport failed the Irish brogue, and article is worth looking to come through on the wanted to know if there up for the new ma• whole amount. were any more where terial Feather has found More paperback • she came from. There was and other sections of graphies from Debut another one in the Lester's biography that Records, Box 46, Brande, kitchen, and we all moved he's clarified. Denmark. In the new batch there where the lady who Head-by-line of the year. are Louis Armstrong, was notorious for 'Strange From The Boston Herald: Vol. 1 (1923-31, Vol. 2 Fruit' and narcotics went "55,000 at Newport (1932-46), Vol.3 through a program of Festival Found it One of (1947-58), Charlie Irish melodies...There she Greatest." By-line — "By Parker (complete). was, standing in a George T. Wein (Wein is A London Observer reporter kitchen, moving the hand vice-president and in Moscow writes that so gently as she always director of the Newport 's "Music did when she sang...The Jazz Festival.)" Who U.S.A." is not jammed in girls never stopped talk• needs a press agent when Moscow, and that "not one ing about the incident, you can be a reporter? person here...does not and neither did Billie. Skip Fero, 426 Briarcliffe listen to it... Yet the She was there for forty- Avenue, Utica, New York, minute the music ends the five minutes." is writing a biography j amming returns." A good story, but of Theodore "Fats" Francis Newton on Billie notorious for Strange Navarro. He would appreci• Holiday in the New States• Fruit? ate any information. man: "... She was the In Jazz 3: a quarterly of Jazz, a small Marseille Puccini heroine among American music, there's jazz magazine, has a piece blues-singers, or rather an excellent analytical on Ray Bryant. Down Beat among jazz-singers, for study of Lester Young by hasn't yet, nor, alas, though she sang a cabaret Louis Gottlieb; a beauti• have we. version of the blues fully written descrip• Louella Parsons, our incomparably, her natural tion of the funeral of a favorite source on music idiom was the pop song. New Orleans jazzman in Los Angeles, writes: Her unique achievement was by Sam Charters ; and an "Jazz music which origin• to have twisted this into interesting piece by ated in Africa will be a genuine expression of Larry Austin on Jazz in used for sound in the major passion by means Higher Education. Ken 'Tarzan and the Ape,' of a total disregard of Hume has A Letter from Los MGM's new series, accord• its sugary tunes, or Angeles, parts of which ing to produces Al indeed of any tune other make one wonder again why Zimbalist. 'This is the than her own few deli• Down Beat's reporter there idea of ,* cately crying elongated doesn't expand his Al told me, 'and Shorty notes, phrased like newsgathering route. who is an expert, is using Bessie Smith or Louis Publication date of Sam bongo drums, trumpets and Armstrong in sack-cloth, Charters' The Country other African musical sung in a thin, gritty, Blues (Rinehart) is instruments in place of haunting voice whose November 5. Ross Russell normal sound. We have natural mood was an un- writing a novel involved a large orchestra and we resigned and voluptuous in part with jazz. believe we have a welcome for the pains of And Ernest Borneman has a novelty.*" love...Suffering was new non-jazz novel, her profession, but she What does a trumpet look Tomorrow Is Now (Neville did not accept it." like? Made out of tusks? Spearman, London). Chris A. Strachwitz The first book to tell the story of (10 Roble Road, Berkeley 5, California) is working on a guide to contemporary blues singers — one that would evaluate "the style, The Country feeling, and musical quality of the various Blues artists." He will begin by Samuel B. Charters publishing the guide serially in Coda (John The early singers of the blues, men Norris, P.O. Box 87, like and Station J, Toronto 6, Big Bill Broonzy, were artists who took the field cries and work songs Ontario, Canada). He hopes of the American Negro and devel• eventually to compile oped them into a unique musical complete biographical and form, music which has been called the only purely native American folk discographical data on the singers he includes. Here is the story of the early blues He'd like any suggestions singers told by an authority in the and help he can get. field. A jazz musician himself, Mr. Also involved in finding Charters brings great factual knowl• edge and deep sensitivity to his story more information about of the lives of the early blues singers blues is the invaluable and the music they made. Record Research (131 Illustrated. Hart Street, Brooklyn 6, N. Y.) Compiler of their new Blues Research $4.95 at all booksellers project is Anthony Rotante RINEHART & CO., INC., 232 MADISON AVE., NEW YORK 16 (2059 McGraw Avenue, Bronx 62, New York) and Coming December 3 at $5.95, but avail• co-ordinator is able by special arrangement to /ass Review readers who order before publication ot Paul Sheatsley (130 West only $4.95. 12th Street, New York 11, N. Y.) They've begun Order Now- in Recorded Americana, Bulletin 9 (distributed by Record Research) with arid save $1.00!Jaz z the Texas and Mississippi Edited by scene. "We are very Nat Hentoff and anxious," they note, "to Albert McCarthy get in touch with some TVTat Hentoff, writer on jazz and collector or group of ' editor of The Jazz Review, is collectors familiar with also an editor of two of the foremost books in the field, The Jazz Makers Chicago labels and also and Hear Me Talkin" To Ya. His for Philadelphia labels... co-editor, Albert McCarthy is a Brit• All our friends from ish jazz critic and editor of Jazz Monthly. These two authorities in the abroad are welcome to field have now created a book with join in." an entirely new approach to jazz. JAZZ is the only book of its kind to A note from I. L. Jacobs reflect the revolution which has been of P.O. Box 374, National taking place in jazz criticism. City, California: "Has Here are essays by twelve of the world's foremost jazz critics and Marshall Stearns or one of scholars, which, taken together, pre• his co-workers tried to sent the whole field in its modern collect copies of reverse- perspective. image three minutes USE THIS COUPON TO PLACE YOUR PRE-PUBLICATION ORDER Panoram 'soundies' from the late '30s and early THE JAZZ REVIEW, 40s. Now growing scarce, P.O. Box 128, Village Station, N. Y. 14, N. Y. NAME.. my ancient distributor's Enclosed is (check/money order) in the catalog lists reels amount of t Please send me ADDRESS copies of JAZZ at the special pre- by Duke, Fats Waller, Red publication price of $4.95, plus 1S< postage and handling, per copy. Offer expires De• Allen, etc. cember 3, 1959. CITY ZONE STATE.. A new is the Trombonist-arranger Eddie JAZZ BULLETIN Sportsman's Lounge on Durham has been working West 50th Street, where regularly in the Freeport, NEW YORK NEWS, compiled BILLY GRAHAM'S quartet Long Island area for the from reports by Frank played during August, past two years. He has Driggs, Dan Morgenstern followed by Lawrence brother Roosevelt Durham and others '88' Keyes in September. on piano, altoist Clarence Trumpeter HAROLD "SHORTY" The ADDERLEY BROTHERS' Gee Royster and either BAKER has left Duke new rhythm section is or Herbie Ellington, and is rehears• BOBBY TIMMONS from the Cowans on drums. ED LEWIS' ing a quartet which in• Messengers (replaced by gig band is back working cludes bassist Francesco Walter Davis Jr.), SAM social club dates in Skeete. Trombonist BENNY JONES from Monks group Harlem and on the Island, MORTON in the Radio City and LOUIS HAYES from with musicians Paul Web• Music Hall Symphony Or• Horace Silver's quartet ster, , chestra. Trumpeter LOUIS (replaced by Detroiter Russell Bowles. BACON is back in action Roy Brooks). The group MID-WEST ROUND-UP playing at the Vat in recorded in mid-October Blues singing guitarist Palisades, with in San Francisco for SCRAPPER BLACKWELL gave Cliff Jackson weekends, Riverside. Riverside also a concert in Indianapolis and sitting in at Ryans, recorded guitarist WES during September. Trom• also giving out with Arm• MONTGOMERY (The Jazz bonist DAVE BAKER and strong-styled vocals. Review, September) with guitarist Allen Eager is at the his own trio (Melvyn gave a joint concert for Duane, upstairs. Bassist Rhyne, organ; Paul the Indianapolis jazz club AHMAD ABDUL-MALIK is with Parker, drums) in New on October 4th. pianist Oscar Nord, at York in early October. Billingsleys on Park Ave. The final personnel of Chicago: Vee Jay's first LUCKY ROBERTS, legendary * show-band jazz lp features PAUL Harlem pianist, in good will be , CHAMBERS. Others signed by health again, is playing , Lenny John• Vee Jay include LEE MORGAN weekly for patients in a son and Floyd Standifer, and WAYNE SHORTER (but not Veteran's Hospital. trumpets ; , Art Blakey as reported Organist MARLOWE MORRIS at , Jimmy here last month; he signed the "L" Bar, Broadway & Cleveland and Ake Pers- with Blue Note.) Argo 148th Street. PAUL QUINI- son, trombones ; Porter recorded Minneapolis CHETTE played a week-end Kilbert, Phil Woods, pianist HERB PILHOFER in at Henry's, in Brooklyn, Jerome Richardson, Budd September, and Chess re• with pianist Joe Knight Johnson and Sahib Shi- corded MUDDY WATERS sing• and young drummer Vince hab, reeds ; Julius Wat- ing Big Bill Broonzy Hickey, a former student kins, french horn; Patti songs. Strand recorded of Baby Dodds. Pianist Bowen, piano; George young girl singer PAT WILLIE GANT, who led some •Buddy' Catlett, bass; THOMAS backed up by a fine bands in the 20s, at Kenny Burrell, guitar; group that included Les Ceruttis. Joe Harris, Drums. Spann and Charlie Persip. Standifer and Miss Liston The band for YVES MON- Kansas City: Composer- will also write for the arranger and reed man TAND's hugely successful band. one-man show produced by TOMMY DOUGLAS with drummer Norman Granz included is rehearsing Edythe Jackson and JIMMY GUIFFRE, trombonist a big band for his Decem• organist-vocalist Bobby , bassist AL ber Birdland opening; Moore returned to K.C. HALL, drummer CHARLIE sidemen include Paul after a summer playing in PERSIP and guitarist JIM Quinichette, Gene Quill, International Falls, Min• HALL. HARRY "SWEETS" EDI• Eddie Bert, Frank Rehak, nesota. SON booked for seven weeks Burt Collins and singer Ex-Lunceford tenor star at Birdland, opening op• Big Miller. Nat is also is gigging posite 's writing for WOODY HER• weekends and directing a big band...veteran trump- MAN'S new road-band and funeral home during the Organist RAM RAMIREZ is for the Broadway Revue day. JOHN JACKSON has still at Branker's at which will open in No• switched from alto to 155th Street and St. vember with Lonnie tenor and works in a pack• Nicholas Place. Sattin. ing house during the week. Jazz Dance

Ulamao Dance

ROGER PRYOR DODGE

Any attempt at exhaustive description of an unfamiliar art is more likely to confuse with a welter of vivid and high sounding terms, than to convey the essence of the thing itself: such is the danger in writing on the jazz and mambo Dance. Although I certainly believe that we would profit by a detailed recording of both, it is not to my purpose to present one here. Rather, I will discuss what is already familiar and point out some of the problems that arise when a dance of "doing" is transformed into a dance of "presen• tation." I hope to show that the idea of a musical parallel to them is fallacious and breaks down on analysis. The arts of performance, specifically dance and music—we dance, we sing—are certainly authentic arts, but by their very nature they transport their "doers" beyond any intelligent consideration of what they are doing while they are doing it. Self-criticism by an artist is objective examination of his finished work; it does not take place simultaneously with creation. Thus any real self-criti• cism of these arts must come through a later observance of the performance as reproduced by screen or phonograph. Even when the folk-popular dance reaches its highest pitch of excellence self- criticism at the time of performance does not become a part of the art. In its early state the dance of "doing" became a major art; but one which loses all sustaining power and satisfaction when up• rooted from its native soil. Music, because it was more easily transplanted, did not deteriorate under these conditions, but was able to develop and sustain itself without, like the dance, having to rely on expedients introduced by the individual performer. Music that serves the dance prepares itself during its improvisa- tional phase for the coming of the composer, who will first work in the spirit of improvisation and finally go beyond it into ex• tended forms. Until music's inevitable decline it was this indi• vidual performer-composer who charged its material and forms with greater and greater significance, but in the beginning he did not institute any new ways, new forms or formats.

AI Minns demonstrating the Lindy ple back-country expression. Other• music, in the other we are working wise we would merely have a new with the arrangement of short steps. folk flavor shot into the arm of aca• In music, I believe, there is a carry- demic art, not a genuine new art through of mood inherent in the The dance as a "doing" lacks com• springing from the folk. melodic process itself, while in the position, except in so far as a few Let us look at some differences be• dance any prevailing mood derives over-all formations are resorted to tween music and dance. The folk not so much from the sequence of for the sake of convenience; nor is subconsciously developed the song steps; but up to now such movements composition the dancer's concern. form, which with the greatest ease expression superimposed on the But there comes a time when, under encompassed any time length from material by the dancer. Of course the eyes of spectators, the dancer eight to sixteen bars, lasting, in the bodily movement and stance can is made conscious of the effect he is blues, for instance, as long as forty vary regardless of what steps are producing on others, and his "do seconds. With the possibility of used, and these enforce the pleasure ing" is no longer for himself variety through different instrumen• we derive from rightly qualified alone. If he leaves the dance-floor tal solo passages and further variety steps; but up to now such movements for a platform and exhibits his steps added by the imagination of the have not crystalized or been co• to an audience he is faced with the players in the ensemble, together dified in any grammar of the dance. problem of how to present his scant with a nod from the leader signal• And so I say that a group of "pick material. As his previous concern ing the last chorus, we have a piece up" musicians with no rehearsal can with the act of "doing" has switched of music easily four minutes in give us sessions of music that have to a new concern of presentation length that conveys to the listener over-all unity, while unrehearsed he must have recourse to a purely a feeling all of a piece. This entire dancers can only start dancing with optional framework to hold the in• procedure can come about with little the music and keep going until the terest of his audience. Within this thought. In the dance the longest last note. Very often in the Savoy, framework he sets his dance, he stretch is a combination of single groups of dancers used to circle a composes; but throughout, his prac• steps, which put together, constitute pair who would dance furiously for tices must be optional rattier than, what, in dance terminology, is called only about fifteen seconds, and then as in jazz music, proceeding through a "step." None of these steps ac• be followed by another pair. It was the means of a conventional frame• tually takes more than two bars, terrific dancing—the greatest—but work. Unlike the musicians, he finds while most of them take only a half it gave no feeling of inherent unity; that he had no material in a state or whole bar. The Charleston, for nor, because of the dancers' very ready for presentation. This explains example, takes one bar; Boogie brevity did one demand this. much of what I shall speak of in Woogie, two bars; Jig Walk, a bar This unorganized state is of the connection with the presentation and a half. While music is thought nature of the dance, and this is not problems of the Lindy Hop. of in tunes, dance is thought of in said in disparagement. From the time I take it as a premise that art steps; and between the two there a dancer walks onto the dance-floor springs from the folk subconscious. is a great disparity in time length. he is in a state of exaltation in Without trying to explain my reasons In performance we expect from both which he threads his way through for holding this theory of the folk dance and music a duration of two the throng or remains in one place, origin of art, I should like to add to three minutes. A piece of music repeating over and over a few steps that I find folk expression alone far easily meets this requirement in in no set sequence until the music more significant than any individual its natural and subconscious de• stops. This for him is a complete expression that fails to take ad• velopment within a conventional experience, both esthetically and vantage of folk material. How much frame, but in the dance, the dancer physically—as exhilerating as any of this basic material any artist may himself must substitute an optional physical exercise: taking a long walk, choose to retain in his own work is frame in order to fill out the time. skiing or fighting waves on a beach. a matter of personal taste; but ob• A dancer normally uses only the A few steps done with little varia• servation has taught me that only steps at his disposal, and in any tion will satisfy for a whole eve• in the very late stages of an art is order. His dance never gives the on• ning—and evening after evening. it advisable for him to rely on purely looker the same feeling of the pro• The remarkable thing about this ac• optional means of his own. Folk ex• gress he has when listening to a tivity is that its artistic significance pression seems to be the result of tune. Our only cue to the approach• carries to onlookers, and they, a built-in mechanism, like a bird's ing end of the dance comes from through the power of empathy and nest-building instinct, which pro• the music. This is evident when we their esthetic sensitivity participate vides a powerful and unself-con- watch any floor full of dancers, in the dancer's experience. They are scious driving force for the creation whether they are dancing in couple also conscious of a silhouette in of strong and healthy art forms. or completely apart. Any dance com• space, something hardly intuited by Once the drive has spent itself these position, however brief, is the op• the dancer. forms become static—they no longer tional invention of either the dancer develop. Anything further becomes or choreographer. But whether op• The spectator at a dance-hall can what I call the use of personal op• tional or not, the choreographer receive the greatest kick by just tions which needs a rare esthetic must eventually intervene. Just as watching the dancers in context of acumen to guide and preserve it— one sequence of solos and ensem• the whole whirling assemblage, at least in today's world. bles in a band contributes more picking out here and there a couple Let me say that when a sophisti• to the feeling of a whole than some for his particular attention. From cated art deriving from the folk other, so one sequence of steps will his vantage point he may see won• aspires to a major position it will give a greater over-all impact than derful things, or he may get only only be successful if the folk art some other. While in one instance tantalizing glimpses of something from which it sprang had itself al• we are working with the arrange• terrific; but altogether the impact ready developed far beyond a sim• ment of large blocks of integrated of the music and the beat of hun• dreds of feet provide him with a completely satisfying experience. the name by spanking his bottom a The difficulties start when a single couple of times, although the dance dancer or a single couple is taken is said to derive from wading in deep from the crowded floor and exhibited mud at low tide. Then there is on a stage where the poor indi• Truckin' which is nothing more than vidual or the couple must start a walking dance in which the dancer dancing and continue long enough bends and straightens his legs as to satisfy the spectators. As soon as he walks. Combined with the Suzy-Q the dancer is removed from his it makes, when done by comedian dance-floor to a stage the spectator Pigmeat Markam, an extremely fas• feels he can demand a kind of cinating dance. All of these steps performance he never expected to had music written in their name and witness when he was a by-stander in were featured in musicals. the dance-hall. Though the dance Although the Charleston was done may be precisely the same as it was as a couple dance in ball-rooms, it on the dance-floor, something is wasn't until the Lindy Hop came missing. But with a band, granted it along that we arrive at what has be• played in a concert hall as well as come a permanent national dance. it did in the dance-hall, we would With its many highly integrated steps find that it still had lost none of its —a necessity for a "led" couple original impact. In fact even on the dancing with break-away—we have a far-removed medium of records it popular dance on which many vari• still reveals all of its old dance-hall ants have been grafted, such as the glory of invention and playing style: style deviation of the jitterbugs, the nothing is missing. The dancer, how• detached attitude conjured up by ever, rightly finds that he must bop music in the Apple Jack, or the arrange; also he usually feels the Rock 'n' Roll dance that has been necessity of injecting an over-dose sweeping the country. of showmanship (in fact he is likely The Lindy Hop is the only dance to seem inept if he doesn't). which has both cross-rhythms and Whereas the band, without changing more than two time values. Besides anything in its performance, with• the steps which are synchronized stands the change to the other side with the musical phrases in the of the foot-lights (or to a record), Lindy, there are steps which cross the dancer has to cater (and I be• the rhythm of the music in the same lieve he should) to what is expected fashion as polyrhythms in music. of a "presentation." Here the op• The extra time value, besides that tional dictates of a choreographer of the commonly used slow and must come in, and with the steps quick steps, is found when the dan• and talent at hand, create a pres• cers do a double-quick two-step in entation which, while showing off place of one slow step. We get cross- the dancers' abilities, projects some rhythms in the Foxtrot and the Pea- feeling of over-all unity. This is the body as a result of the breaking of constant preoccupation of dance the tight hold music had on dance production and of the choreographer during the nineteenth century. Then who uses strictly dance material. all steps were tied down by the tyr• (There is also a choreography of anny of the musical first beat. When miscellaneous material not neces• ragtime came along with eighth-note sarily dance in nature, which is an• and sixteenth-note beats between other matter.) the two main quarter-note beats (2/4 time), dancing in common time was After presenting these theories, let liberated. Interjected notes tend to me mention the long line of steps mitigate the power of the strong first derived from Negro dancing. None down beat thereby acquiring a near is over two bars long. More than equal stress between these down two bars are called combinations. beats, a procedure that led to the Out of what may be hundreds of character of popular 4/4 time. With steps a few, for one reason or an• syncopation and cross-rhythms in other, have been taken up, though the music of ragtime, the main beat they may not necessarily merit the became definitely 4/4 time. Dancers special esteem they enjoy. The started to sway from side to side in greatest step was the Charleston; it a jog trot (two-to-a-bar) in the rag is truly generic in character. When dances that preceded the Foxtrot. All done to a Charleston rhythm in the feeling for bar lines had vanished. music it could be infinitely varied This led eventually into the One Step without losing any of the quality that and later into the Peabody. For a we sense to be Charleston. Its step short while the Foxtrot was a matter was but one bar long. Next came the of four steps to the bar in the quick Black Bottom, which consisted of a stepping fashion of a fox, but this small combination lasting two bars gave way to dancing single steps in which the dancer played up to consisting of two-to-a-bar together ing" feeling of the continual break• do to jazz music. All of tv, movie and with two-steps, as in its present away and return was broken up. The musicals are loaded with this type state. But the previous step-and-mu- routine was like the development of of dance. The days of the good old sic identity was completely broken a symphony or one of the alternate dance-man with his pocket-full of down, opening the way to cross- strains used by a jazz band. Inter• steps now seems a golden era of the rhythms, of steps taking one and a polation give a special lift to the stage dance. half bars. This freedom was never original theme when return is made The jazz dance, other than tap, has attained by Cuban dancing, but was to it. The same kind of lift is given had very few eminent representa• characteristic of the Tango through the dance when the couples return tives on the stage. The best and its own course of development. from the routine to the right-turn among the earliest were the Berry This complete breakdown of adher- break-away. Using the routine was Brothers—Ananias, James and War• ance to the first musical beat made the first sign in the Lindy Hop of ren. The whole act was built around possible the introduction of cross- creating a counter-section of a dif• the extraordinary ability of Ananias rhythms in the Lindy. Whereas many ferent character, something to set Berry. Aside from his technical pro• of the cross-rhythms possible in the off the original Lindy Hop to greater ficiency his strut itself was mar• Foxtrot are due to the aimless mean• advantage. velous—and it was quite a feat to dering of the dancers, in the Lindy The Big Apple was another set dance, build a composition around the few the presence of cross-rhythms was done in circular formation, in which possible ways of strutting. But The a matter of precise steps, either defi• the dancers either followed a given Berry Brothers did, and their dance, nitely cross-rhythmic or definitely procedure or responded to the com• Papa De Da Da, was the greatest of mono-rhythmic. A polyrhythmic char• mands of a caller. It was a sort of its kind. Another famous dancer was acter between music and dance is square-dance in the round. Earl "Snake Hips" Tucker, the orig• clearly felt when the 3-count {IV2 Another couple dance which had a inator of the snake hips dance, a bars) step is being used while with short life was the Shag, a 3-count title inadequate to describe the won• the use of the 4-count (2 bars) step dance (IV2 bars). A description derful thing Earl Tucker made of it. the dance is coordinated with the makes it sound like a lot of hopping, His was a loose-jointed body which musical phrases. but when it was danced well it be• together with his great ability as a dancer made this dance with its And so with this rhythmic freedom came actually a smooth dance which short pantomime sequence impos• and the aforementioned double- at the same time retained the strong sible to imitate. Very often a dancer quick two-step which, by the way, beat of solid hopping, the smooth• will capitalize on a special gift, also came about in the Mambo and ness being achieved by the gentle which, incorporated into his artistic was called the Cha, Cha, Cha, we ar• swaying bodies above the quick foot creations, make his dancing unique. rive at a highly developed folk-popu• work. It is always fatal for even the greatest lar dance. With a variety of steps in Sadly enough, out of this whole dancers to attempt what they are couple position and a short space dance mania, this sweating it out not cut out to do—that is, physically during the break-away for individual night after night all over the country, fit to perform. invention, the Lindy becomes a most plus the presence on the scene of complete dance, incorporating in it• innumerable great dancers, all con• There were many other teams who self any number of other steps. tributing their own style and per• depended on either excellent comedy These steps were adaptable to the sonal invention, none of it developed or excellent dancing (tap or other• widest range of tempos. Of course into the professional stage-dance. wise) to show themselves off, but the Lindy Hop, like any other great Stage dancing with its pocket-full of except for the great comedy acts, no dance, possessed its own highly sig• musical comedy steps remained un- dancers ever possessed the great• nificant style and stance. Style and enriched by the Lindy Hop. While ness of the Berry Brothers or Snake stance went beyond the mere deport• teams explored the possibilities of Hips Tucker. ment of any great exhibition dancers, the Waltz, Polka, Tango, Rumba, Tap dancing, a category within jazz, whether Spanish (gypsy or classical) Mambo and what not, nobody ex• has a complete academy and many or our own ballroom performers. plored this really great dance for talented dancers, who, with nowhere Although all great Lindy dancers what it could contribute to the stage. to turn and lacking the imagination possess a style and distinction of Under the aegis of Herbert White the to foster Negro non-tap dancing, their own, within this style there is best dancers of the Savoy Ballroom found themselves sucked into the complete freedom of movement, were formed into Whitey's Lindy Hop• tap convention curriculum. As an ac• opening the way to great bodily in• pers. They danced in movie houses, cessory to singing, clowning, or even vention. in motion pictures, and in Broadway other types of dancing, tap gives a Out of the Lindy Hop or in conjunc• musicals; they were featured at the definite punctuation to the rhythm, tion with it came what the dancers New York World's Fair. But nothing but although its academy is thorough called "the routine." These routines really came of all this and the Lindy and complete it tends to undermine were a matter of changing from the Hop was never integrated into show a dancer's inquisitiveness because couple position as led by the male business. of the fund of material it presents to a team position (such as is done While the great Lindy Hoppers stood him with. It is precise and fun to do, on the stage). Steps done in this po• on the side lines, a new breed of but its charge is always that of sition naturally had to be set and dancer, fortified with ballet and mod• astounding virtuosity, which, once learned. Each couple made up its ern dance training, took over show seen, continually diminishes in in• own routine or used that of others. business and danced to some form terest and bears little repetition. The dance allowed for the use of the of jazz music. The new dance has Without the personality of a Bill entire step gamut of their repertory. none of the style, refined or not, of Robinson, accepted tap procedure With the introduction of the new ma• the Negro dance. With its few move• has become pretty dull. terial the dance took on an entirely ments derived from jazz it became a different character from the couple choreographer's idea of what dancers dance of the Lindy Hop: the "swing• with ballet or modern training should these condtions, it is not surprising shied away from undertaking jazz that there was virtually no jazz books when there was such bitter THE criticism. feuding within the field itself. Until Conditions through much of the some level of objectivity and reason• 1930's were no more propitious for able critical standards could be STORY jazz. The Depression had hit pub• established, most publishers prefer• lishes hard, and no one was willing red to stay away from the subject. to risk anything on so chancy a Still, a few had taken a chance and OF field as jazz. In the mid-thirties, some were rewarded with works help came from an unexpected which made important contributions source—Europe. In the course of to the study of jazz. SMI two years, three books The first of these important jazz written in French appeared on the books appeared in 1939. It was American scene. Charles Delaunay's Jazzmen, and its principal authors BOOKS Hot Discography (the first jazz ref• were Frederic Ramsey and Charles erence book) brought together valua• Edward Smith. Jazzmen attempted to ble information about the early jazz set down in print the record of jazz's IN sessions. The other two books were beginnings in New Orleans and its by Robert Goffin and Hughes Panas• spread north in the 1920's. Ramsey sie. It was Panassie's book, Hot Jazz, and Smith sought out important AMERICA the prototype of the jazz writer of the early figures, and much of the story 1930's. He and his kind were not cri• is told in the words of these men. tics, but sometimes gushing enthusi• Part of the book suffered from the 1935-55 asts. Panassie did, however, posses Panassie faults—gushy writing, too an ability to express himself, a great boosting of Dixieland and New fresh enthusiasm for the music, Orleans jazz, formlessness. SHELDON MEYER and, occasionally, a sensitive ear The importance of Jazzmen cannot and a perceptive view of the subject. be overestimated, though. It was the Because he took jazz seriously, he first substantial work of research represented an important advance. in the field. As researchers, its Hot Jazz was written partly out of authors brought professionalism into enthusiasm for white jazz of the jazz writing, and most of the worth• 1920's. Later, when he had heard while jazz books which followed more of the Negro jazz of the same have been extensions of their ap• period, Panassie fell for it and in proach. Rudi Blesh's Shining Trum• The Real Jazz, in 1940, he con• pets (1946) investigated the New demned music he had previously Orleans background and the blues praised. His latest book, Guide to tradition in the same well-docu• Jazz (1956), carries the view to ab• mented fashion but suffered from surdity as he castigates the entire Blesh's violent prejudices for the bop movement for "not playing traditionalist position and against jazz." It is a sad commentary on most jazz after 1928. the jazz writing of the 1930's to At the other end of the spectrum was call this wildly opinionated man an Barry Ulanov's A History of Jazz in important pioneer critic, but prob• America (1952) which recorded This is a tale with a few high spots ably only Robert Goffin and Otis much valuable information about and far too many lows. Jazz, during Ferguson were of equal importance the swing and bop movements but much of its sixty-odd years of ex• in the pre-war period. All three were made some foolish statements istence, has been hampered by im• a superior sort of jazz fan, and it about New Orleans jazz. Of the gen• maturity and neglect on the part of is to their credit that they aroused eral histories, the best is probably both critics and book publishers. If interest in the serious study of jazz. Marshall Stearns' The Story of Jazz book publishers are johny-come-late- Jazz books have remained under (1956), which covers jazz's roots and lies to the field, so are critical the cloud of the Panassie approach development, sometimes in too standards which make jazz writing for the better part of two decades. peremptory fashion but is, a decided significant. Jazz is now enjoying a This type of criticism reached its improvement on previous jazz his• boom, but it was not ever thus— depths in the 1940's in the battles tories in that it does not take sides and it is my purpose to show how between the "moldy figs" and the for or against any particular school. jazz has fared at publishers hands. "progressives," with both camps Several more limited studies have The 1920's may now be called "The spending most of their tirpe sniping followed Jazzmen's approach. Rudi Jazz Age," but as far as public ap• at the other and madly boosting Blesh and Harriet Janis in They All preciation goes, the label is a mis• their own enthusiasms. One im• Played Ragtime thoroughly research• nomer. The public thought of jazz portant jazz history declared that ed the long-neglected ragtime move• in terms of Paul Whiteman, George Louis Armstrong's work degenrated ment. Equally important was Alan Gershwin, and Ferde Grofe. True badly after the early Hot Five re• Lomax's job of editing the Library jazz could be found mostly only cordings, while another history dis• of Congress Jelly Roll Morton re• on the "race" labels of record com• counted New Orleans and treated cordings and interviews. These, pub• panies or in clubs deep in the Negro as the apex of jazz's lished as Mister Jelly Roll (1949), districts of big cities, and as such, development. form the most revealing portrait of was the property of the unsophisti• a jazz artist found between book cated plus a few initiates. Under It is little wonder that publishers covers. Finally, rising above all other Book publishers differ little from able to write effective English, and books in the Jazzmen tradition, is other purveyors of public taste. They some of them have the knowledge Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff's Hear are attracted to subjects because of music theory that made Hodeir's Me Talkin' To Ya (1955), which they are talked about even if they book unique when it appeared. The pieced together in intelligent fashion know Iittle about them. A few pub• best writers have critical standards statements and remarks by jazz fig• lishers are able to recognize good and are able to write without bias ures forming a consecutive record jazz books and others know where for or against any particular school of jazz's development. to go for advice but, over the years, of jazz. In addition, there is a grow• Indirectly, Jazzmen had one bad in• many publishers simply have been ing public in this country for such fluence. It focused attention on the had. They have allowed writers to writing. The next few years might "jazz epic"—that is, the off-told convince them to bring out books see the publication of many sig• story of how jazz originated in for which there is not only no need, nificant books on jazz. Africa, got its formal start in New but which are distinctly second-rate. I use the word "might" because Orleans and progressed up to the The result has been a flood of jazz there is no guarantee this will hap• Miles Davis of 1949. histories, reference books, and an• pen. More jazz books are being pub• No study of jazz has seemed com• thologies. The anthologies have had lished because the subject itself is plete without much of this detailed an especially evil effect, preserving "hot," and unfortunately, there is recital. If every study of American for posterity magazine pieces of the the possibility that jazz will be over- life had to include a resume of 1930's and the 1940's which should published. Too many second-rate American history, no reader would have been buried. Such palming off books, and books covering the same stand for such belaboring of the of the mediocre cannot help but areas, are being published. Both obvious. Jazz writers, however, do hinder jazz's attempt to get a publishers and writers should de• not seem to believe their readers serious hearing. clare a moratorium unless they have capable grasping all this without an• The remarkable thing, of course, is something original to contribute to other force-feeding session, and it that despite the cavalier treatment the field. There are many topics is therefore little wonder that jazz which the publisher (with his jazzy which demand attention but have has not been taken seriously in titles and avant-garde jackets) and not yet received it. In some areas, many circles. the writer have given the jazz pub• research will have to be started soon It is a sad fact that jazz had often lic, good jazz books have appeared if material is not to be irretrievably been its own worst enemy as far as and have sold reasonably well. I lost. publication is concerned: bad writ• say "reasonably well" because, with There are three general areas which ing, poor critical standards, faction• two exceptions, the most popular should prove especially fruitful for alism—all have hurt. Perhaps the jazz books have, at most, sold fifteen book topics. One is the roots and de• most damaging blow to jazz's drive thousand copies. Only two jazz velopment of jazz. This includes in• for acceptability has been the link books have sold more, both of vestigation of the influence which with vice which jazz has had in the them publishing "naturals." Leonard produced jazz as a distinctive music public eye. There have always been Feather's form, the social background of the lurid elements in jazz, particularly (1955) filled a void in jazz publish• Negro leading to jazz, and the his• in the early days when so much of ing as a reference work to which tory of the music forms that make it was played in "tenderloin" dis• the neophyte could turn for a quick up jazz—a book, for example, on the tricts. Jazz has outgrown most of knowledge of jazz and which the development of the blues. Another this, yet countless people still relate more serious student could have on area is the story of jazz's creators. it to liquor, drugs, and prostitution, hand to verify certain points. Orrin No one has yet written a satisfac• and look upon jazz musicians as Keepnews and Bill Grauer's Pictorial tory jazz biography, but the material rather disreputable characters, and History of Jazz (1955) sold well, is there—colorful, dramatic, humor• like or dislike them and their music despite the poor quality of the il• ous, sometimes tragic. Finally, there for the wrong reasons. Publishers lustrations, because big picture is the job of musical analysis which frequently insist on emphasizing the books usually find a good market. Andre Hodeir began. This means sensational aspects of books about It should surprise no one to learn moving away from the treatment of jazz as was done with Billie Holi• that jazz books have often had wider jazz as folk music and applying the day's life story, Lady Sings the Blues acceptance in Europe than in Amer• apparatus of serious musical criti• (1955), an important social and jazz ica. A good American jazz book is cism to the subject. document all but ruined by its lurid almost assured publication in Eu• It remains to be seen whether writ• handling. Often, the writers them• rope, and books such as Stearns' ers and publishers are up to the selves contribute to this false im• and Ulanov's histories and Hear Me task which has been set for them. pression. In 's bio• Talkin' To Ya have appeared or will Great progress has been made in graphy Really The Blues, author appear in half a dozen European the past decade, but there is much Bernard Wolfe constructs Mezzrow countries. This represents a kind of still to be done. Without a good as a great "character"—always in reverse lend-lease arrangement, for library, jazz will never attain the and out of jail, on or off the "stuff," significant jazz publishing began in importance it might otherwise have but lovable and indestructible. the 1930's with European writers, Phonograph records have preserved No one can deny that a number of and there have been outstanding ex• jazz performances for us and will jazz musicians have been involved amples since—particularly Andre continue to do so; but only in book in vice and dissipation, and this Hodeir's vastly important attempt to form can jazz find the analysis and must be taken into Account when analyze jazz's structure and sig• searching criticism which is so portraying the individual jazzman. nificance, Jazz: Its Evolution and necessary for the development and It should be kept in its place, how• Essence. Now, however, American serious acceptance of any art. Jazz ever, and not be allowed to inter• writers and readers seem to be deserves the same attention that fere with the study of jazz as an art. catching up. Today's jazz critics are other, older arts have had. RECONSIDERATIONS/Fats Navarro

Double Talk, The Skunk, Boperation, is the versions of Sweet Georgia delay, and then play the first few Lady Bird (alternate take): Brown cut by each in 1947; Nav• notes of the phrase faster than or• Blue Note 1531-32 arro's on Counterpoint 549, Mc- dinary. This "spitting notes" tech• Sweet Georgia Brown: Ghee's on Crown 5004. The overall nique of his can be heard in the Counterpoint 549. effect of McGhee's playing in that last few bars of Dextrose with Dexter Jumping For Jane, Half-Step period was much like Dizzy's (his Gordon on Savoy. His double-timing Down Please: Victor 1017. most important modern influence) was also remarkable. Most musicians Dextrose: Savoy 9003. and Roy Eldridge's. He emphasized aren't too concerned about what Boppin a Riff: Savoy 9012. a hot legato swing and played with they play in a double-time passage; Move: Dial 212. considerable originality. Though Fats they use it for surprise or shock and was a more thinking musician, some are preoccupied with when to use it to the best effect, as a drummer During the past few years various of McGhee's musical vocabulary got is concerned with the right time to comments on the work of Fats Nav• into Fats. One can note it in the drop a bomb. The composition of arro have seemed to me grossly un• similarity of the Georgia Brown solos; the phrase in their double-timing is fair and inaccurate as estimates of especially the long descending runs of less importance to them, and his style and achievement. I shall in the bridge. many times the passage may be use the records listed above to show In many ways his conception is dia• merely running up and down scales various aspects of his style. They all metrically opposed to Gillespie's in key. But Fats maintained the seem to me to illustrate his origin• who, like many swingmen usually same high level of invention that he ality and uniqueness. employed a "running the changes" did on slow blues and ballads where H. A. Woodfin in The Saturday Re• style of improvisation. The success he had more time to think. A per• view, Don Gold in Down Beat and of his solos depend upon the emo• fect example of this double-time Leonard Feather in a booklet called tion and freshness of melodic in• skill can be heard on the alternate Jazz published by Pacific Press have vention with which he played. Some• take of Lady Bird. all said something to the effect that times Gillespie is lazy and plays No matter what his personal frustra• Fats was a man with a great talent stock phrases, though these are usu• tions, his time and technique were who died before he had a chance to ally phrases he invented himself; always near-perfect. In one of his explore that talent and to develop a much of the work he has done for longest solos, Boppin' a Riff, he can really original style. (Gold's state• Granz has been quite uneven in be heard effortlessly building to a ments may influence newly inter• quality. Fats, on the other hand, was fantastic peak, a double-time pas• ested jazz fans along the wrong much more concerned with form. In sage that otherwise only a trumpet paths. Metronome's "deuces" rated many ways he was a more self-con• player of Diz's technique could exe• most of the sides in Bird's Koko, scious musician than Dizzy is. cute. Incidentally, his short lines on Billie's Bounce, Now's the Time ses• Navarro has been accused of "lack• this passage seem to show a kind of sion three stars—remember that ing Diz's fire." Most musicians lack quizzical sense of humor not usually Feather called Ulanov and himself, Diz's fire, but this alone does not attributed to him. two of the "deuces", among the first make them inferior. They feel differ• to understand modern jazz). But I was ently and express themselves differ• Occasionally Fats could create sav• extremely disappointed to read Bill ently. Fats was a real classicist, a agely, as on Move, but the bulk of Crow's review of Fats in The Jazz type of classicism represented in the even his up tempo work was relaxed Review (December, 1958), since most swing period by men like Benny and thoughtful. His lip was as good of Crow's work has been perceptive. Carter, and Lester as Gillespie's but he used the upper To quote Crow, "Much of his con• Young. register more tastefully in the con• cept is frankly taken from Dizzy text of his playing. Gillespie's work of the same period." Listen to two of his lesser known but great solos, Half Step Down Finally, if Fats were only a copy of Not so, if one listens closely to Fats. Diz he couldn't have had the influ• Fats was certainly an individual mu• Please and Jumping for Jane with Coleman Hawkins. They are both ence he did. He certainly marked sician and none of his influences Clifford Brown's long stacatto lines. dominated him. Like Bud Powell he short, but they are gems. His tone is fuller and broader than Diz's, his His playing also affected two lesser listened to many sources and incor• known but fine trumpet players, Joe porated them into his own style. Ad• phrasing less hurried and more sta- catto. The level of melodic invention Gordon and —as well as mittedly Dizzy was an influence but the early works of Art Farmer. And so was his section partner in his on these two sides was high even for him; there is not a cliche to be —listen to his solo Andy Kirk days, Howard McGhee, on Royal Roost (Victor) 3046 to hear and Charlie Shavers whose sound found. He was remarkably concien- tious in this respect, like a good how close Dorham's playing was to and attack he dug. (Shavers is, I Fats'. believe, a distant cousin.) housekeeper who pounces on dirt The McGhee influence on Navarro the minute she sees it. But, he It is impossible to say whether Fats can be readily seen in the sides they could make common-property licks Navarro's work would have evolved cut together for Blue Note, Double sound like he created them; he had he lived. But by 1950 his style Talk, The Skunk, Boperation. Another would play a stock blues phrase and was mature, and his contribution to interesting reference for comparison it would come out Fats. One device jazz trumpet playing large. he sometimes used to do this was to Harvey Pekar The Jazz Knob at the center of the dial in Los Angeles

FM 98 W KNOB i CHKT l'.\KK5-

The genius of modern music The Cannonball express is This most popular and im• The master of the cool West is represented on Riverside providing some of the warm• aginative piano star offers Coast trumpet tones has an• by ten varied, exceptional est, most dynamic, swinging something really different on other haunting, melodic win• LPs. His latest is a sparkling jazz of today in his swift rise his Riverside debut: the wild• ner in his latest: quintet album featuring Thad to the top. He's at his soaring est flute-section sound! BILLY Plays the Best of LERNER Jones: FIVE BY MONK BY FIVE best on CANNONBALL TAKES TAYLOR WITH FOUR FLUTES AND LOEWE (RLP 12-307; also (RLP 12-305; also Stereo LP CHARGE (RLP 12-303; also (RLP 12-306; also Stereo LP Stereo LP 1152) 1150) Stereo LP 1148) 1151) RIVERSIDE