FRANKLIN GELTMAN presents k IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK ANDALL'S ISLAND hi H estiva

AUGUST 21-22-23

Friday at 8:30 Saturday at 8:30

DIZZY GILLESPIE & ORCH. and 16 pc. ORCH. SARAH VAUGHN QUINTET QUINTET ALCOHN • ZOOTSIMS QUINTET DAVE BRUBECK QUARTET RAMSEY LEWIS TRIO JIMMIE SMITH TRIO CHRIS CONNOR BILL HENDERSON QUINTET QUINTET JOHNNY RICHARDS & ORCH. and 10 pc ORCHESTRA

Sunday at 7:30

MILES DAVIS SEXTET MODERN QUARTET AHMAD JAMAL TRIO & ORCHESTRA

TWILIGHT JAZZ: Friday & Saturday at 7:30 — Sunday at 6:30

p\aVeCl- " kw Vork W»

,\eeveo*a\^_Thea

^etfR . easy u s s0 *e e^^'J U ^ ^ V^s ever seen-

backdrop;^ to

HFREE PARKING FOR 10,000 CARS

ALL SEATS RESERVED Mail order now for choice seats— $4.50; $3.60; $2.75; $2.00 Please enclose self-addressed envelope to: Randall's'isfarid'Jazz Festival—Dept7~56,""353" W. 67th St., N.Y. 19, N.Y. MANHATTAN: COLONY, 52 St. E. Broadway; RECORD SHACK, 125 St.; MODERN MUSIC, 2426 Sr. Cone. (Opp. Loews Paradise) 49 E. 170; B'KLYN: BIRDELS, 540 Nostrand; LONG ISLAND: TRIBORO, 89-29 165 St., Jamaica: MANHASSET MUSIC, 451 Plandome Rd., Manhasset; WHITE PLAINS: ANDY & DICKS, 117 Martine Ave. ' , J LETTERS

In Defense of Srott But I think you were asking for some lp of Brown and of the band and of the music

I was very surprised and hurt when I ideas. How about "An Experimental Sym• played was based on the sideman's view of things.) read Bill Crow's review of Tony Scott's posium of Radical Departures in .Modern Scene recording in the June Jazz" (none of the performers is allowed William Russo issue of The Jazz Keview. Here, in the mag• to play a single phrase which cannot be New York, New York azine I have considered the finest in the immediately identified on a jazz field, T found in the guise of a musical record, and all tunes should be based on What Does the Arranger Know? review a personal, perhaps vicious, attack chord structures of the works of Porter directed at Tony Scott. and Gershwin)?; "The Bucolic " Bill Russo's review of the Lunceford (he's astride a John Deere 730 diesel trac• records in the January Jazz Review was I could defend Tony hy mentioning the tor in the middle of a field of oats in central honest and motivated by sympathy, but it many artists, /nyself included, who would Nebraska). We all know that covers of Ip's still missed the point of the Lunceford not he where they are today if it were not featuring West Coast musicians must de• band. It is an arranger's view, valid to a for his enthusiastic faith and help; or his pict these men within a few feet of the degree, but touching only the fringe of firm stand on racial tolerance which has pounding surf—-or even in it. So what the subject. cost him much he could ill afford; or his, would be better than using West Coasters I believe, unsurpassed hospitality to jazz I heard the Lunceford band a few times on this lp and on the cover have them lovers and musicians visiting New York. in person. I realize that we tend to look storming ashore from an LCI in full marine But we all know that one can paint the back and think things were better than raider rig, carrying their instruments in• picture of any person according to one's they were, but I also heard Ellington, stead of rifles? own leanings. Bill Crow's deep understand• Teddy Hill, and Edgar Hayes in person, Bill Fogarty ing of 's introverted style and they did not leave the same impres• Prairie Village, Kansas might have been as easily applied to sion, so I don't think my attitude is pure Tony's outgoing style, but for a personal romanticism. I am not claiming that the preference. What Does the Sideman Know? Lunceford band was better than Ellington- In the past few issues several swipes ton's, but I expected a certain degree of After reading further. I find that Bill's have been taken at Marshall Brown. The brilliance from Ellington. Lunceford was review of The Metronome Yearbook in the International Band, which he formed and a shock. There are lessons to be learned same issue contained some extremely nega• directed, and his own musical abilities from Lunceford, and it is a pity that only tive viewpoints. Perhaps this is his style. have been dragged over and over the coals. the superficial aspects of the band have The careless handling of journalistic re• been used in the numerous "re-creations." The band was a good band. Whatever sponsibility, however, can do much to affect problems it had were connected with the To begin with, the Lunceford band, al• the lives of those exposed thereby. I could nature of the project and particularly with most more than any other, found the secret not let this incident pass without represent• the limitations of the players themselves, of pleasing several audiences at once with• ing my reaction. who had difficulty in ensemble playing (no out, except in a few instances, lowering European band player gets our musical standards. To the dancers it was a background) and in their improvising. fine dance band; to the people who went Marshall took the talents of these men to see a show it was a good theatrical Sell That Thing and got remarkable results. He is a splen• spectacle; to the jazz fan it was a good I'm your man if you need lp ideas, but did musician; he has better ears than most jazz group. I don't think any other band you seem to be missing the point. It's not jazz soloists; he has training in getting succeeded so well in engaging diverse audi• just the idea for the content of the record things out of people; his experience is ences. I am concerned with it as a but rather how it matches the cover art . . . wide and covers a considerable period of from a jazz viewpoint and, leaving out El• and I'm certain we're running out of our time; he knows music. Whatever criticism lington and Henderson, I don't think it was supply of naked girls. (Which gives rise can be made of the International Band, I equaled. to a rather unpleasant thought: Has jazz don't feel that criticism of Brown is ac• The Lunceford style was really the Sy curate or fair. come its full cycle? In its New Orleans Oliver style, I suppose—a story goes that beginnings the art form was used to pe*ddle And to ask the men in the orchestra Sy Oliver used the same sort of scores with scantily clad young ladies; today scantily how they feel about their leader is the Zack Whyte, but that band never recorded clad young ladies are used to peddle jazz.) height of absurdity. (Much of the criticism (Continued on page 42) 's Last Interview A week before his death Lester Young was interviewed by Francois Postif in ; the interview will appear in English for the first time in the September issue of The Jazz Review with a Lester Young discography by Erik Wiedmann.

Anthropologist Ernest Borneman re-examines the origins of jazz and the relation of jazz to the musical traditions of Europe and . He introduces new material on the influ• ence of the Arabic musical tradition on the Spanish tinge in jazz and on the importance of the Spanish tinge in New Orleans jazz. His findings suggest radical rethinking on jazz history.

Quincy Jones tells why big bands can find work again, and describes his new seventeen piece band which has recorded for Mercury and will go on the road in the fall.

Soprano saxophonist Steve Lacey begins the INTRODUCTIONS series, writing about playing with 's group and with the big band, about his musical ideas, and his future plans. Sidney Finkelstein analyses the relation of musical elements based on speech inflections to elements based on rhythmic patterns in jazz. Gunther Schuller reports on jazz in Indiana, and on at the University of Indiana. Irwin Hersey surveys the long recording career of the band. Record reviews include Dick Katz on three Tatum lps, Martin Williams on a King Oliver re-issue and the - - Law• rence Brown Porgy and Bess, Max Harrison on the band, H. A. Woodfin on three Feldsted "Mainstream" recordings, J. S. Shipman on Champion Jack Dupree, and Mimi Clar on gospel singers. Paul Oliver reviews Sam Charters' Jazz New Orleans 1885-1957, and Bill Crow reviews the Downbeat record review collection. And the monthly features: The , Reconsiderations, Jazz in Print, and the first monthly news report. New Contributors

Nesuhi Ertegun is head of the jazz division of , and has. CONTENTS: VOLUME 2, NUMBER 7, AUGUST, 1959. lectured on jazz at the University - - — 6

of Southern . by Nesuhi Ertegun

Gabriel Gersh, a free-lance writer, \ g|ind Lemon Jefferson 9 has appeared in Commonweal, !i -x ki I i by Paul Oliver Christian Science Monitor, New Lead• er, and Christian Century, among Conversation with James P. Johnson, part III 13 other publications. by Tom Davin Chuck Israels is a bassist who has Britain's Skiffle Intelligensia 16 recorded with Cecil Taylor. He re- by Gabriel Gersh

cently graduated from Brandeis Uni- g|ues 18 versify, and is now in Paris, where he REVIEWS: RECORDINGS is rumored to be playing with Bud powe|| by Chuck Israels 19 Sheldon Meyer, as an editor at the by Bill Crow 20 Oxford University Press, has been by Bill Crow 21 responsible for the publication of 21

Marshall Stearns' The Story of Jazz, UL ARMSTRONG by Mimi Clar 22 and^ several forthcoming books on by Martin Williams 22

Ismel Young and Leonard Feldman were among the founders of the by Frank Driggs and by Martin Williams 23 Jazz Review. by Bill Crow 24 Editors: Nat Hentoff JELLY ROLL MORTON by Guy Waterman 24 Martin Williams by Chuck Israels ..... 25 Publisher: Hsio Wen Shih SONNY STlTT by Martin Williams .. 26 Editorial Assistant: Margot Wolynski by Bill Crow 26 Production Manager: Lois Ehrenwerth THE GOSPEL CLEFS by Mimi Clar 27 Advertising Manager: Dick Joseph THE ROBERTA MARTIN SINGERS by Mimi Clar 27

tu i D • I I. i .I i RECONSIDERATIONS: The Jazz Review is published by the Jazz Review, Inc., Box 128, Village YOUNG by Maitland Edey 28 Station, New York 14, New York. REVIEWS: BOOKS Entire contents copyright The Jazz JAZZMEN by Sheldon Meyer __ 30 Review, Inc., 1959. MUSIC '59 by Bill Crow . 32

Unsolicited manuscripts and illusrra- JAZZ |N PR|NT by Naf Hentoff 34 tions should be accompanied by a NEWS AND VIEWS: stamped self-addressed envelope. „L,~n n ...... u u ji i KNOB: jazz twenty- hours a day 37 Contributions will be handled with ' reasonable care, but the Jazz Review bY Mimi Cl°r can take no responsibility for un- The 39 solicited manuscripts or illustrations. by Ralph Berton

On a gently raining Saturday afternoon last No• vember, Nesuhi Ertegun arrived at the chaos of the Bard College Jazz Festival to take part in a panel discussion. No one had remembered to tell him in advance that the subject of the discussion was to be "What is a Jazz Singer?" But a few minutes later he extemporized the most lucid and meaningful analy• sis I have yet heard of the elusive creature, that has eluded the traps of two generations of jazz critics. The text of his remarks, transcribed from a tape of the panel discussion, is printed in full below. —H.W.S. THE JAZZ SINGER If there is such a thing as a jazz singer, the jazz singer should have certain typical characteristics and I think we should find out first what these are. Wha<: is necessary? What kind of equipment, technique, background is necessary for a singer to be a jazz singer ? I think a very brief historical summary would be in order at this stage. Gary Kramer just touched on, and I think made, a very important point; that is the very close connection between instrumental and vocal forms in jazz. The earliest tradition of folk music in America, as we all know, is a vocal tradi• tion, which goes to the 18th century and perhaps before. We don't have very much factual informa• tion because nothing was written, nothing was ob• served and, of course, nothing was recorded, unfor• tunately, so we're guessing. It's all guesswork. But we know that , work songs, blues, various photo by Don Hunstein, courtesy . Creole forms of music, various play songs and so on preceded the beginnings of instrumental jazz. We know also, that (again, this is more or less arbitrary, and I'm just bringing these points up as starting points) the earliest instrumentalists began to play in the South, specifically in New Orleans. by Nesuhi Ertegun There is a theory currently in vogue, which is especially defended By my friend Leonard Feather, who is not here today, that jazz did not begin in the South and New Orleans but happened all over America somehow at the same time, which from the little I know on the subject is quite wrong. Jazz did begin in the South, and specifically instrumental jazz began in the city of New Orleans, no other place. The time was in the 1880's, 1885, around there, when the first Negro appeared on the street of New Orleans. Now, this is important for us, because what came im• harmony, a tremendous ear, and a tremendous sense of mediately before those people was a century-long vocal time. I come back to the sense of time; very important. Un• tradition. So that when the player in New Orleans, less you have very strong and a sense of say in 1890, approaches his instrument, he brings all his rhythm, you cannot be a jazz singer. And the voice, you knowledge into it and all his knowledge is vocal. Therefore, must understand, the voice of the jazz singer is completely you can say that he sings into his instrument. And that's the same, the same terms are relevant as applied to the tone why the sounds, the sonorities of jazz are very close to the of a trumpet player or a player. It has to be just sounds of the human voice. I'm sorry we don't have any that personal, that stylized and that much an expression of records to play. I know of a record, rather obscure, with Leo a completely individual kind of emotion. So range is not Watson and , called . An extra• important; pleasing voice is not important. What is im• ordinary record. It's extraordinary, among other things, for portant is to be, this is kind of mysterious, but to be within one thing: you don't know at times when Leo Watson stops the feeling of jazz. Whereas some people do it with the to sing and when Vic Dickenson starts to play. The sound , or or trumpet or something, you can do it with of the trombone and the singer are so close, not only the your voice . . . very difficult and that's why there are few, sound but the phrasing, the sense of time are so close that actually very few, great jazz singers. Now, in my opinion, they kind of become one almost. Therefore, the earliest the great body of great singing, of great jazz singing occurs instrumentalists, if we can put it into simplified terms, actu• within the limits, if there are such limits, of blues singing. ally sang into their instrument and that's why the sounds Blues and church, gospel singing and blues singing. If you are so close. They did not have .the kind of Western Euro• were to ask me who the greatest jazz singer today is, de• pean training or at first technical mastery of the instrument, pending on my mood I might answer Mahalia Jackson, for or in any sense perfect-pitch, perfect intonation and so on. instance. She's certainly one of the great singers. Now she'd All that comes later. And is not really as important in my be horrified if you would tell her that she was a jazz singer opinion as a lot of people think. So here we have this tre• because she thinks that that's sinful and bad and so on. mendous connection between jazz and vocal music. There• But the techniques she uses are identical with those of fore he who is a jazz instrumentalist, if he has any voice , Ma Rainey, etc. So we have a tremendously at all, is ipso facto a jazz singer. And that's why there are vast body of what starts as folk singing and later becomes many people, for instance Jack Teagarden who sing and urban blues singing, which is very much with us today. And play the same way. Louis Armstrong sings and plays the in this category there are many, many people who are ig• same way. This is our first clue. nored by all of us jazz lovers (and I presume most of us are jazz lovers) because we think, "Well, he sings rock and I'm trying to bring out what differentiates the jazz roll," whatever that means. It is in that "horrible category" singer from people who have another kind of background. that many of the great singers of our time are singing. To Now what is the vocal equipment that is necessary to be a mention just a few names, , . jazz singer? Do you have to have a voice that is three Now I don't know how many of you know Muddy Waters, octaves in range? Obviously not. Some of the very great jazz But Muddy Waters is, believe me, one of the greatest singers had a very small range. There was a very famous singers of our time. A very funny thing happened. There blues singer, Chippie Hill, who had one of the narrowest was an English impresario, who came to visit America this ranges not only among singers but also among non-singers. summer, who came to my house. I was playing some records And yet within" these very narrow confines she was able to and I played him some records of Muddy Waters, and he express tremendous amounts of emotion and communicate was so impressed that he engaged Waters to make a concert them. So you see that this again sets apart the jazz singer tour of England. So, if these people are exposed properly from someone who has to sing opera. If you can't make there is a tremendous audience possible for them. But that's those notes in opera you can't sing that opera. While in jazz not our subject. singing you find your own notes and you make your own notes. That kind of freedom is basic. Next point, do you Now outside of this tradition of church and blues sing• have to have an especially pleasing voice; a pleasing sound ? ing, there are very few jazz singers and there our lines of Again in the European sense, does it have to be a pretty separation become very vague. I am just going to present voice? Well there is no voice probably (don't misunder• the questions to you and we can discuss the answers later. stand me because I admire these people at least as much as Someone like ; now many jazz musicians tell you if not more) on first hearing there is no voice as ugly me he's a great jazz singer. Others don't think so. So where as Louis Armstrong's voice when it hits you. It's a strange is the line? We know that is a jazz singer. thing. That this voice can become a beautiful musical instru• But is a jazz singer ? Certainly she's a terribly ment is a kind of miracle at first. And yet, once you fall good singer. "Well that's your opinion; she was but she under the charm of that kind of singing, you don't think of isn't any more," somebody will say. And, I'm not really those things any more. For instance, among all the jazz interested in that. That's not the point. singers that I'm familiar with, the only exception I know is If from these disconnected things I've said to you, you who has a beautiful voice ... a beautiful have some idea that the jazz singer has to have a different controlled voice. And that, again, is not the most important kind of equipment, that's about all we can accomplish be• aspect of her talent, because she has a tremendous sense of fore the discussion. BLINDLEMON JEFFERSON bv Paul Oliver ^ thickset, bulletheaded man weighing around 180 pounds, his head held alertly on his broad shoulders so that his ears could detect the gathering of a crowd that his sightless eyes could not see: Blind Lemon Jefferson. Short in build yet stocky and compact, in Sam Price's words "a chunky little fellow," he was a familiar figure in the streets of Dallas, Texas, for more than a score of years, his tapping stick, his big guitar, his broad-brimmed black hat making him a memorable character. But he is remembered today less for his appearance than for his importance as one of the greatest of the folk blues singers. Po' Joe Williams, who used the pseudonym King Solo• mon Hill on the Paramount label and called himself "Blind Lemon's Buddy" remembered that the singer's real name was Jefferson Lamoore, but in the course of usage his surname was forgotten and the Christian name perpetuated. "Bright" of skin color and sightless, he was known in the Texas towns as "Blind Lemon" Jefferson and so his name appeared on the record labels. Of his origins, little that is definite is known. Aaron "T-Bow" (later "T-Bone") Walker believed that he came from the Texas port of Galveston, born there perhaps in 1883; Samuel B. Charters has elicited the information that he was born nearer Dallas, raised "outside Corsi- cana" in the neighboring county of Navarro. Wherever he was born. Blind Lemon made his name and his home in Dallas. In 1900 Dallas had a Negro population of less than ten thousand; the figure doubled in a score of years, and it was during these years of considerable expansion that the blind blues singer was to be heard on the street corners and in the saloons, hollering his folk songs and rattling his begging cup. "Blind Lemon an' me was runnin' together for 'bout eighteen years roun' Dallas, Texas ..." said Huddie Ledbetter—Leadbelly—on one occasion Leadbelly settled in Rockwall County, east of Dallas when he married his first wife, Lethe, at the age of eighteen. May, 1918, saw Leadbelly charged with the murder of Will Stafford, and that December he was sent to jail with a thirty-year sentence. The " 'bout eighteen years" was perhaps a slight exaggeration, but he must have shared his life with Lemon from early in the century. This he confirmed at his famous last session recorded by Frederick Ramsey, when he discussed the provenance of Careless Love. "White people's version is Love, Oh Love, Oh Careless Love, but down in Louisiana we sing it, See What Careless Love Have Done. Now to my ideas, what 1 think is true, Blind Lemon was the first man to put out that record of Careless Love . . . since then ... he was the first man that did it. Because him and me was sing• ing it in 'round Dallas, Texas. That was in 1904, you know. Him and me was in the same field about the same age. Yeah, that was a old field song—old when you was young." Blind Lemon's stay in Dallas must have been close to twenty-five years in duration, broken at intervals by his tours to other states. In age he was probably only a little older than Leadbelly: "Him and me was buddies," said Leadbelly on more than one occasion, implying a relation• ship of close friendship rather than that of blind singer and "lead boy," though he guided the blind man. ". . . he was a blind man an' I used to lead him aroun'. When him an' me was gwine to the depot, we'd sit aroun' and Then he would turn the tambourine over, and crying, used to talk to one another. . . ." "Help the blind, help the blind" in his shrill boy's voice, While they waited for the incoming trains and fresh would beg coins from the assembled gathering. So pop• visitors to Dallas to whom they would sing, Leadbelly ular was his playing that it was possible for him to make learned and profited from their association. Often Lead• as much has $150 over a week end. Where Lemon was to belly would play mandolin or "windjammer"—accordion be heard, there was always a crowd. When Jimmy Rush• —while Lemon would play his Hawaiian guitar and sing. ing was an itinerant pianist and singer playing the town• Much of their time was spent on the "barrelhouse circuit" ships of the Midwest and South, he listened to Jefferson —wandering from saloon to gin mill, singing for food whenever he could. Short in stature himself, he could and drink and for the coins of the patrons. But at other not see the stocky, blind singer, but the clear, shrill voice times they would beat their way southwards to the wide- that could be heard for a couple of blocks guided him to open town of Groesbeck, or to the equally rough haunt the spot, and the crowd that gathered around him was of the tougher Negro elements, Silver City on the route large enough to halt the traffic. to Fort Worth. In spite of his blindness, Blind Lemon was an inveterate As the Texas and Pacific train came through, Lead• gambler, relying on the witnesses that stood about him belly would help his blind companion onto the steps and to ensure that he was not swindled by a crooked dealer. into the coach. "I'd get Blind Lemon right on," he said. He drank heavily and was a strong man, capable of "We get out two guitars; we just ride . . . anything. defending himself better than most persons similarly We wouldn't have to pay no money in them times. We afflicted. His blues were fierce and violent, and get on the train, the driver take us anywhere we want to recalls that he would drink heavily for several hours and go. Well we jes' get on and the conductor say: 'Boys, sit returning to his Dallas home would lie on the bed with down. You goin' to play music?' We tell him 'Yes.' We his guitar and shout his blues into the night air. Blindness jes' out collecting money; that's what we wanted—hitch had given him acutely developed senses in other respects, some money. So we set down and turn the seats over you and Sam Price avers that he was able to tell if any drinks know. He sit in front of me, and I'd sit down there and had been taken from his whiskey bottle when he was we'd start." absent, by shaking the bottle. If there was any missing, By their playing and singing they hitched free rides he said, Jefferson would thrash his wife. This appears to to the townships, not only on the trains but in the buses be the only reference to a wife, and it would be of con• also. "We go to Silver City out there too. We alius go to siderable interest to know if in fact the singer was Silver City. When we got on the bus we Silver City bound married, and what became of the woman. first. There's a lot of pretty girls out there, and that's Whether Jefferson Lamoore had been blind all his life what we Iookin' for. We like for women to be aroun' is a matter of conjecture. "I ain't seen my sugar in three cause when women's aroun' that bring mens and that long weeks today . . ." he will sing; or "Want to talk bring money. Cause when you get out there, the women to my baby in South Carolina who looks like an Indian get to drinkin' . . . that thing fall over them, and that squaw"—his blues have many visual references. A photo• make us feel good and we tear those guitars all to pieces." graph of Lemon once seen by the writer used to hang on Blind Lemon lived a full life in spite of his handicap the wall of a Memphis barbershop and written across it and he was as popular as the tough and handsome Lead• in a firm hand was the legend, "Sincerely yours, Blind belly with the women of Silver City. "That was me and Lemon Jefferson." Sam Price, who knew him well, argued Blind Lemon's hangout. We had twenty-five—thirty girls that he needed no leading. It was Price who was largely apiece out there . . . have a good time! They be around responsible for the blind singer's appearance on record. ... it was a killer I'm telling you!" As a young man, the pianist from Honey Grove, Texas, In the familiar districts Blind Lemon's sense of direc• was a record salesman in R. T. Ashford's Dallas store, tion was uncanny to those who watched him. He could and he recommended Blind Lemon to the Paramount find his way without a lead boy to act as his "eyes" but company representative. It has been often rumored that when he was traveling he welcomed assistance. Sang his first records were cut in the rug department of a Leadbelly: Dallas store—perhaps Ashford's—but whether these were Me and Blind Lemon, goin' to ride on down, test recordings made for the consideration of the Para• Catch me by the hand—oh baby, mount company, or whether they were his initial sides, Blind Lemon was a blind man. it is difficult to say. The first coupling made, though not He'd holler—"Catch me by the hand"—oh baby, the first released, was Old Rounder's Blues and Begging "And lead me all through the land." Back, which was cut in May, 1925, some eight months When Leadbelly's fracas caused him to be sent to jail, and some 450-odd matrices away from the next title, Blind Lemon employed young boys to lead him around Got the Blues, made in February, 1926. It is possible, as was customary among the blind blues and gospel therefore, that these two tracks were cut in Dallas, and singers. Aaron Walker, not even in his 'teens—he was winning the approval of the Paramount directors, caused only sixteen when he made his first record for the Blind Lemon to be brought to . Columbia "race" series—acted for some time as Lemon's Got the Blues is exemplary of Blind Lemon's art, and "eyes" and learned much of his guitar playing from the the brilliant accompaniment, with its rapid arpeggios and blind man. So. too, did Josh White, whose childhood from rippling phrases produced by dexterous "hammering on," the age of seven was spent in the bitter schooling of marks it as one of his finest recordings as well as among traveling with many of the blind beggars. Jefferson, he his first. Here are to be found, fresh and hitherto un• remembered, would get up late in the day, and around recorded, the folk verses that have been the stock-in-trade noon, when the crowds in the streets were thickest, would of many a lesser singer. take up his stand on a particularly busy intersection and commence to holler from the street corner. While he You can never tell what a woman's got on her mind, sang and played his guitar, Josh White would accompany [twice] him on his tambourine, tapping it in rhythm against his You think she's crazy about you and she's leaving all knee until a good and appreciative crowd had collected. the time. Ain't so good-Iookin', teeth don't shine like pearls, Judge he sentenced me to be hanging till I'm dead. Ain't so good-lookin', teeth don't shine like pearls, The crowd round the courthouse, an' the time is goin' But that lyin' disposition'!! carry her through this fast [twice] world. Soon a good for nothin' killer is goin' to breathe So commenced a remarkable series of recordings which his last. preserve the blues in its folk form at the point of transi• It would seem that Blind Lemon made casual trips to tion from the field holler to the street corner and the Chicago to make his recordings, and it is possible that barroom floor. There are many echoes of the past tradi• he returned at intervals to Dallas. A significant gap ap• tion in these blues, as in the comparatively early Shucking pears in his recording career in 1927, which was followed Sugar, where the phrase is interpolated inconsequentially by such recordings as Hangman's Blues together with a within the verses: considerable number of items, among them Lockstep I've got your picture an' I'm goin' to put it in a frame Blues, 'Lectric Chair Blues, Blind Lemon's Penitentiary I've got your picture, I'll put it in a frame—shuckin' Blues, Prison Cell Blues and others which are related to sugar prison themes. Such morbid material would appear to Then if you leave town I can find you just the same. have a somewhat limited market, but Blind Lemon sings The voice crying "shucking sugar" seems to die away with the conviction born of personal experience, and one as the memories of the plantation shucking parties were cannot help but speculate whether the blind man had even then disappearing. Among his recordings are songs spent a period in jail prior to these recordings. During which have a long folk ancestry, such as See That My the years of his recordings, Blind Lemon's fame spread. Grave Is Kept Clean, which is the old white folk song He was soon a well-known figure in Chicago as well as Two White Horses in a Line sung to a tune closely related in his native Texas, and the proceeds from his records to Careless Love. But the majority of his recordings are made him, for a brief period, relatively wealthy. Accord• his own blues, relating his experiences without malice or ing to Aletha Robinson, however, he remained a rough bitterness; blues that tell of the life of a blind beggar in and untamed character, who, she maintains, tore his food hard times: apart with his bare hands and never used a knife and I stood and almost bust my head fork. But it would seem unlikely that the fingers that I stood on the corner and almost bust my head played the Spanish and Hawaiian guitar with such dexter• I couldn't earn enough to buy me a loaf of bread. ity would be incapable of such manipulation; unlikelier My girl's a housemaid and she earns a dollar a week, still if the signature on his photograph was genuine. On My girl's a housemaid and she earns a dollar a week, the label of Lemon's Cannon Ball Moan appeared a scroll I'm so hungry on payday, 1 cain't hardly speak. with the words "Blind Lemon Jeffersons' [sic] Birthday Now gather round me, people, let me tell you true facts. Record" and a portrait taken from the previously men• Now gather round me, people, let me tell you true facts. tioned photograph, which in the original was three-quarter That tough luck has struck me and the rats is sleepin' length. The sightless eyes still look proud, the dull features in my hat. are strong but not arrogant, and the bearing of the thick• And there are blues that tell of the miseries of others set man is erect—far removed from the emaciated figure of his race: that appeared on the sleeve of a Riverside long-playing Water in Arkansas, people screamin' in Tennessee, record—the blues-singing beggar of popular fancy. Oh—people screamin' in Tennessee; Lemon Jefferson's fame spread throughout the colored If I don't leave Memphis, backwater be all over po' me. world, and a visit by the singer was long remembered: Children standin', screamin' "Mama, we ain't got no remembered by Horace Sprott a quarter of a century home! after the singer, with Richard Shaw to guide him, had Oh—we ain't got no home!" traveled through Alabama; remembered with pride by Papa says to the children, "Backwater left us all alone." "Red" Willie Smith when he told Harold Courlander how Paramount surfaces obscure many of the qualities of he had played in Blind Lemon's traveling folk band in Blind Lemon's work, and it is only the single coupling Alabama; remembered by Adam Booker in Texas in con• issued by Okeh: Black Snake Moan/Match Box Blues versation with Sam Charters: "He was about the best that does justice to his singing and playing, as compari• we had." son with the Paramount recordings of the same titles Frequently Blind Lemon Jefferson's blues are termed bears eloquent witness. Repeated performances of his blues ''primitive," and in the anthropological sense of being are rare in his work, and the two sets of masters for unlettered and untutored, they are. Aesthetically, too, they Lock Step Blues and Hangman's Blues are therefore of may be considered the "primitive germ," in Parry's considerable interest, both issued as Paramount 12679. phrase, -that fertilizes the seed of music. But though there The earlier version of Hangman's Blues (20751-2) is the is not a trace of sophistication in Blind Lemon's singing more dramatic, the guitar accompaniment with its rapid or playing, there are subtle qualities of rich individuality pulsations like the racing circulation of a frightened man, that fortify the development of jazz music, as a young being intensely affecting. The later version (20816), sherry is fortified by the blends that precede it. Blind though better recorded, does not quite measure up to the Lemon's blues have a primitiveness that is in no way former, and the added spoken phrase adds relatively little, synonymous with crudity, but his blues were undoubtedly though this, and the slight differences in the words, give strong meat: full-flavored and rare without garnishings a valuable indication of the extent to which the singer or fussy trimmings; the savor of the the barbecue rather improvised his blues for recording purposes. In either than of the chef's cuisine, making the gorge rise in sensi• version it is a grim and stark blues: tive stomachs, but relished by those who delight in chitter• The mean ole hangman is waitin' to tighten up that lings and hog's maws and pigfeet. . . . noose, [twice) On his best recordings, and those best recorded, Blind Lord, I'm so scared, I'm tremblin' in ma shoes. Lemon's voice is clear, and the notes of his guitar have Jurymen heard my case and said my hands was red a pristine quality. Deceptively simple though some of his Jurymen heard my case and said my hands was red discs may appear on first hearing, he had a remarkable gift of phrasing and the technical accomplishment to give the blues, he would seem to be a strange subject for a the fullest expression to his ideas. Though he was a street sermon, except for the purpose of pointing a moral. But singer, he did not have to shout: he had a way of pitching the Reverend Dickenson knew his congregation and he his voice high, of calling out his words so that they could spoke in terms that they could understand. "The world be heard at a considerable distance. At times he would ... is in mourning over this loss," he said, but the world declaim his blues with an emphasis that brooked no as a whole had never heard of Blind Lemon Jefferson, denial, but at other times his voice had sad, tragic tones nor heard his voice. It was the Negro world, compact and that nonetheless never descended to self-pity. Even when largely separate in those years when the clouds of the the words of his blues told of trivial things, of irrespon• depression were breaking over the , to which sible parties and reckless drinking, there was always an the preacher referred, though as a sincere member of the underlying pathos that betokened not only the plight of Church he knew that the loss extended far beyond the one blind man, but that of all members of his people. boundaries of race. To the world, Blind Lemon was not For his hearers his records had a deeper significance than a big man, an educated man or a great man, but within that indicated by their literal meaning alone. Jefferson the Negro world, as Reverend Dickenson knew, the blues had the unassumed ability of the natural artist to be able singer was valued and loved, for he spoke to them who to give the greatest range of expression to his chosen were members of his race. media: his voice had considerable light and shade which "Is there harm in singing the blues?" asked Reverend he used to advantage, at times striking the note that he Dickenson in one sermon; and he made the earthy stand• required with unerring accuracy and at other times ard of the blues singer, Tight Like That, the subject of soaring up to it through the course of his syllables. He another address to his congregation. He once recorded would permit his natural vibrato to swell and fade, cause what he called The Preacher s Blues but now he was his words to gain in effect through every nuance of in• speaking of one who had "preached the blues." flection, introducing the subtlest rhythms by fractional "Let us pause for a moment and think of the life of our suspensions in the timing of his phrases. beloved Blind Lemon Jefferson who was born blind. It is Throughout, his guitar amplified his mood without a in many respects like that of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Like note of inessential decoration. Behind his voice he gener• Him, unto the age of thirty he was unknown, and also like ally played a simple rhythm, occasionally in a different Him in the space of a little over three years this man and time to that in which he was singing but miraculously his works were known in every home." In making a com• meeting at the close of the sung phrase which would be parison that might seem even somewhat blasphemous on carried on instrumentally without a break. He picked his first hearing, the preacher was in fact dwelling on coinci• strings in rapid arpeggios of beguiling facility, the word• dental details. He was in no way suggesting that the blind less utterances of his guitar eloquently amplifying the blues singer was of similar stature to Christ, nor that he lines that he sang. In his work there is no rancor, but was in any way a spiritual being. But at the same time there is no diminution of brutal facts, no sentimentality, while recognizing Blind Lemon's vices as well as his either. Starkly dramatic, stripped of all superfluities, virtues, he could pass no word of censure, for: cruelly beautiful as the Texas landscape, Blind Lemon's "Again 1 refer to our text: I believe that the Lord in recordings burn their way to the hearts of his bearers. Blind Lemon Jefferson has sown a natural body and will They spring from the oil wells, they are rooted with the raise it a spiritual body. When I was informed of Lemon's cane, grown with the cotton, and they lie with the dust of death, I thought of our Lord Jesus Christ as He walked the Dallas sidewalks. down the Jericho road and saw a man who was born Blind Lemon Jefferson died on the streets of Chicago blind. And His disciple said: 'Master, who did sin? Did in 1930 from a heart attack, leaving behind him a legacy this man sin or his parents, that he is a man born blind?' of personal blues that peeled the onion of his soul as Peer And Jesus Christ answered, "Neither did this man sin nor Gynt was incapable of doing. His uncompromising blues his parents sin but that I may be manifested in him.' " were the irrepressible outpourings of a true folk artist, So Emmett Dickenson came to the concluding para• and he was sadly mourned. graph of his sermon as he drew from the life of Blind "I take my text from First Book of Corinthians, fifteenth Lemon Jefferson the lesson that he believed lay within it: chapter, forty-fourth and forty-fifth verse, which reads as "Lemon Jefferson was born blind and was cut off from follows: 'It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual the good things of this life that you and I enjoy; he truly body; and so it is written that the first man, Adam was had a cross to bear. How many of us today are crying made a living soul and the last man Adam was made a about the crosses we are to bear: 'Oh Lord, this is too quickening spirit.' " hard for me; Oh Lord, I have a pain here and an ache It was the Reverend Emmett Dickenson who was there, and Oh Lord, my life is miserable to lead. Blind preaching. His voice was not that of the "straining Lemon is blind. As Lemon died with the Lord, so did preacher," hoarse and gasping; he spoke simply and he live." warmly, in softly enunciated words that carried the con• The whole man still eludes us, but the Reverend Dick• viction of utterance that was sincere. He continued: enson's sermon gives more than a little indication of the "My friends, Blind Lemon Jefferson is dead, and the importance of Blind Lemon Jefferson to the Negro world world today is in mourning over this loss. So we feel that of the twenties, whose members bought his records and our loss is Heaven's gain. Big men, educated men and listened to his blues; revealing a character, proud, devoid great men, when they pass on to their eternal home in of self-pity in spite of considerable handicaps: loved and the sky—they command our respects. But when a man esteemed in spite of his personal foibles and defects of that we truly love for the kindness and inspiration they behavior—a man in whom was "sown a natural body" [sic] have given us in our uppermost hearts pass on to with human weaknesses and appetites, but a man whose their rewards, we feel that there is a vacancy in our hearts sins did not put him past redemption and whose example that will never be replaced." in his honesty, his self-examination, his forthrightness of Blind Lemon Jefferson, a blues singer and a singer of purpose, blues singer or no, could be raised in death "devil songs" was dead. As the devil's advocate singing "a spiritual body." Conversations with James P. Johnson by Tom Q. What was Willie Smith like in his young days? A. Willie Smith was one of the sharpest ticklers I ever met—and I met most of them. When we first met in Newark, he wasn't called Willie The Lion—he got that nickname after his terrific fighting record overseas dur• ing World War I. He was a fine dresser, very careful about the cut of his clothes and a fine dancer, too, in addition to his great playing. All of us used to be proud of our dancing—Louis Armstrong, for instance, was con• sidered the finest dancer among the musicians. It made for attitude and stance when you walked into a place, and made you strong with the gals. When Willie Smith walked into a place, his every move was a picture. Q. You mean he would make a studied entrance, like a theatrical star? A. Yes, every move we made was studied, practiced, and developed just like it was a complicated piano piece.

Q. What would such an entrance be like? A. When a real smart tickler would enter a place, say in winter, he'd leave his overcoat on and keep his hat on. too. We used to wear military overcoats or what was called a Peddock Coat, like a coachman's: a blue double- breasted, fitted to the waist and with long skirts. We'd wear a light pearl-grav Fulton or Homburg hat with three buttons or eyelets on the side, set at a rakish angle over on the side of the head. Then a white silk muffler and a white silk handkerchief in the overcoat's breast pocket. Some carried a gold-headed cane, of if they were wearing a cutaway, a silver-headed cane. A couple of fellows us >d to wear Inverness capes, which were in style in white society then. Many fellows had their overcoats lined with the same material as the outside—thev even had their suits made that way. Pawnbrokers, special ones, would give you twenty or twenty-five dollars on such a suit or overcoat. They knew what it was made of. A fellow belittling an• other would be able to say: "G'wan. the inside of my coat would make \ou a suit." Hut to go back . . . when you came into a place you had a lhrec-wa\ pla\. \»u never took \our overcoat or hat off until \ou were at the piano, first you laid your cane on the music rack. Then \ou took off \our over• coat, folded it and put il on the piano, with (he linirg showing. You then took oft vour ha', before the audience. F.pcIi tickler had his own gesture for removing his hat with a little flourish: that was part of his attitude, too. You took out vour silk handkerchief, shook it out and dusted off the piano stool. Now. with vour coat off. the audience could admire vour full-back, or box-back. suit, cut with very square shoulders. The pants had about fourteen-inch cuffs and broidered clocks. Full-back coats were always single-breasted, to show Eubie Blake courtesy Record Research. your gold watch fob and chain. Some ticklers wore a horseshoe ticpin in a strong single colored tie and a gray shirt with black pencil stripes. We all wore French. Shriner & Urner or Hanan suit for $11.75—with broadlap seams (% in.), a finger• straight or French last shoes with verv pointed toes, or tip coat, shirred in at the waist with flared skirts, patch patent-leather turnup toes, in very narrow sizes. For pockets, five-button cuffs and broad lapels. instance, if vou had a size 7 foot, you'd wear an 8' • -> Up on 153rd Street there was a former barber named shoe on a very narrow last. Thev cost from twelve to Hart who had invented a hair preparation named Kink- eighteen dollars a pair. No-More, called "Conk" for short. His preparation was If you had an expensive suit made, vou'd have the used by all musicians—the whole Clef Club used him. tailor take a piece of cloth and give it to you. so that You'd get your hair washed, dyed and straightened; you could have either spats or button cloth-tops for vour then trimmed. It would last about a month. shoes to match the suit. Of course each tickler had his own style of appear• Some sharp men would have a suit and overcoat made ance. 1 used to study them carefully and copy those of the same bolt of cloth. Then they'd take another piece attitudes that appealed to me. of the same goods and have a three-button Homburg There was a fellow name Fred Tunstall. whom 1 men• made out of it.' This was only done with solid-color tioned before. He was a real dandy. I remember he had cloth—tweeds or plaids were not in good taste for formal a Norfolk coat with eighty-two pleats in the back. When hats. he sat down to the piano, he'd slump a little in a half There was a tailor named Bromberger down on Car• hunch, and those pleats would fan out real pretty. That mine Street, near Sheridan Square in the old 15th Ward, coat was long and flared at the waist. It had a very who made all the hustlers' clothes. That was a Negro short belt sewn on the back. His pants were very tight. section around 1912. He charged twenty-five to fortv He had a long neck, so he wore a high, stiff collar dollars a suit. that came up under his chin with a purple tie. A silk Another tailoring firm. Clemens & Ostreicher, at 40th handkerchief was always draped very carefully in his Street, and 6th Avenue, would make you a sharp custom breast pocket. His side view was very striking. Tunstall was very careful about his hair, which was a set of modulations, very offhand, as if there was noth• ordinary, but he used lots of pomade. His favorite shoes ing to it. They'd look around idly to see if they knew any were patent-leather turnups. chicks near the piano. If they saw somebody, they'd His playing was fair, but he had the reputation of start a light conversation about the theater, the races or being one of our most elegant dressers. He had thirty-five social doings—light chat. At this time, they'd drift into suits of clothes—blacks, grays, brown pin stripes, ox• a rag, any kind of pretty stuff, but without tempo, par• fords, pepper and salts. ticularly without tempo. Some ticklers would sit side• Some men would wear a big diamond ring on their ways to the piano, cross their legs and go on chatting pinky, the right-hand one, which would flash in the with friends near by. It took a lot of practice to play treble passages. Gold teeth were in style, and a real this way, while talking and with your head and body sharp effect was to have a diamond set on one tooth. turned. One fellow went further and had diamonds set in the Then, without stopping the smart talk or turning back teeth of his toy bulldog. There was a gal named to the piano, he'd attack without any warning, smash• Diamond Floss, a big sporting-house woman, a hot clip• ing right into the regular beat of the piece. That would per and a high-powered broad, who had diamonds in knock them dead. all her front teeth. She had a place in Chelsea, the west A big-timer would, of course, have a diamond ring thirties, in the Tenderloin days. he would want to show off to some gal near by that he wanted to make. So he would adjust his hand so that Q. Where did these styles come from, the South? the diamond would catch her eye and blind her. She'd know he was a big shot right off. A. No, we saw them right here in New York City. A lot of this was taught to me by old-timers, when They were all copied from the styles of the rich whites. thev would be sitting around when 1 was a kid and only Most of the society folks had colored valets and some playing social dance music. 1 wasn't a very good-looking of them would give their old clothes to their valets and fellow, but I dressed nice and natty. I learned all their household help. stuff and practiced it carefully. Then we'd see rich people at society gigs in the big In the old days, these effects were studied to attract hotels where they had Clef Club bands for their dances. the young gals who hung around such places. Ed Avery, So we wanted to dress good, copied them and made im• whose style 1 copied, was a great actor and a hell of a provements. ladies' man. He used to run big harems of all kinds of Q. Please tell me more about the great ticklers' styles. women. After your opening piece to astound the audience, it A. As I was saying, when I was a young fellow, I was would depend on the gal you were playing for or the very much impressed with such manners. I didn't know mood of the place" for what you would play next. It might much about style, but I wanted to learn. I didn't want be sentimental, moody, stompv or funky. The good to be a punk all my life. player had to know just what the mood of the audience In the sporting world of gamblers, hustlers and tick• was. lers, the lowest rank is called a punk. He's nothing. He At the end of his set. he'd always finish up with a hot doesn't have any sense; he doesn't know anything about rag and then stand up quickly, so that everybody in the life or the school of the smart world. He doesn't even place would be able to see who knocked it out. know how to act in public. You had to have an attitude, Every tickler kept these attitudes even when he was a style of behaving that was your personal, professional socializing at parties or just visiting. They were his pro• trade-mark. fessional personality and prepared the audience for the The older Clef Club musicians were artists at this kind artistic performance to come. I've watched high-powered of acting. The club was a place to go to study these actors today, and they all have that professional ap• glamorous characters. I got a lot of my style from tick• proach. In the old days they really worked at it. It was lers like Floyd Keppard, who I know in Jersey City, designed to show a personality that women would ad• Dan Avery, Bob Hawkins, Lester Wilson, Freddie Tun• mire. With the music he played, the tickler's manners stall, Kid Sneeze, Abba Labba, Willie Smith and many would put the question in the ladies' minds: "'Can he others. do it like he can play it?" I've seen Jelly Roll Morton, who had a great attitude, Q. The high-style clothes you described seem to have approach a piano. He would take his overcoat off. It disappeared in recent years. How did it happen? had a special lining that would catch everybody's eye. So he would turn it inside out and, instead of folding it, A. Well, full-back clothes became almost a trade-mark he would lay it lengthwise along the top of the upright for pimps and sharps. Church socials and dancing classes piano. He would do this very slowly, very carefully and discriminated against all who wore full-back clothes. very solemnly as if that coat was worth a fortune and They would have a man at the door to keep them out. had to be handled very tenderly. So. in self-defense, the hustlers had to change to English Then he'd take a big silk handkerchief, shake it out to drape styles, which were rumored to be worn only by show it off properly, and dust off the stool. He'd sit down pansies and punks. then, hit his special chord (every tickler had his special trade-mark chord, like a signal) and he'd be gone! The Q. Don't tell me that those sharp hustlers frequented first rag he'd play was always a spirited one to astound church socials? the audience. A. Oh, yes. Some of the toughest guys would even Other players would start off by sitting down, wait attend Sunday school classes regularly, just to get next for the audience to quiet down and then strike their to the younger and better-class gals there. They wore the chord, holding it with the pedal to make it ring. square style of pinch-back coats and peg-top pants and Then they'd do a run up and down the piano—a scale would even learn hymns to impress a chick they had or arpeggios—or if they were real good they might play their eye on. They were very versatile cats. ^Britain's Bkxiilt inUlltg^n^ta

by Gabriel Gersh Down a dusty curve of bare board stairs in the eastern, cheaper part of Soho, past a homely canteen selling cakes and cokes to teenagers, the visitor pauses to give his name, address, and 3s.6d. ($.50) to a bored boy in jeans. Beyond the rows of big-eyed girls and bespectacled young men in thick grey sweaters stands a little stage from which in the semi-darkness emanates the heavy, bumpy beat of skiffle. The men on the stake have open shirts and sometimes beards of an archducal splendor; the girls wear their hair long. In the seats close by sit intimates, the wives and mistresses, the enthusiasts with suburban skiffle groups of their own and a public schoolboy in corduroy pants, long legs propped in an attitude of afternoon re• pose, calmy reading a book. The rub-a-dub noise and the bawling fade, to applause. "This really sends them, I guess?" a middle-aged man in the audience asks, nervously jocular. "No, that's a jazz term," he is reproved. As if to show the difference, the group breaks into the folksong-style Kisses Sweeter than Wine. A skiffle group, in its British meaning, is a band to accompany the single singing guitarist, or more rarely banjoist; they give him exaggerated rhythmic support on a variety of instruments—other guitars, a bass to thump and a washboard to strum, rattles, drums, whistles, anything you like so long as it looks as if it had been assembled from a rubbish-dump. Also the skifflers support the soloist by singing in harmony, if they can. Four or five skiffle clubs, with about eight or ten in• dependent blues or folksong singers, form the intelli• gentsia of skiffle. Far from being elated by the success of their art, they are disturbed because "commercial• ism," their accepted foe, has triumphed; and they them• selves are making money out of it. Artistic integrity is ruffled. From outside they are attacked, too; hardly a week passes without some denigration of skiffle in the musical magazines—"Teddy-boy jazz" thev call it. Those other intellectuals who clambered on the jazz revival wagon a little while ago have been the first to throw stores at the next popular music that came along. This next popu• lar movement was skiffle, and soon it will be dead, they proclaim.

This opinion is shared by the musical world in general, for craft as well as cash reasons. The musicianship of most skifflers is limited; few can read music, their re• pertory is small and unimaginative. How can they hope forever to live off the musical output of Leadbelly, whose Louisiana mumble has been imported whole into British Dora was quickly promoted skiffle? To the Circle she rose in a dream But skiffle refuses to die, A year ago there were only But who should she see but her Stanley about twenty groups around London. Now there are With the girl who sold ice cream. nearer 400, with one to ten groups in every English- He chucked her up speaking center from Glasgow to Cape Town. Sales of For a Wall's cup. guitars have broken all records; shops in Surbiton dis• Scotland still has real ballads being written, and they play them hanging in rows like so many turkeys for are charmingly sung in London by Nancy Whisky, the Christmas. You can buy washboards, lagerphones and only girl leader of a skiffle group. all the paraphernalia of a down-and-outs' band. Skiffle Dr. Hasted's periodical, Sing, republishes for the has taken by storm the youth clubs and the public groups lyrics and music from sources as varied as schools, and the Army has carried it to . Last Foweles in the Frith, which originated in the thirteenth summer two skiffle groups offered a no-passport excur• century, to Nkosi Sikelele Afrika, though the richest ma• sion, ten groups on board and two hours in France, for terial is still American. Hasted himself, a tall, gentle 40s ($.60). "Rock across the Channel," said the adver• don with a somewhat ambiguous personality— he lec• tisements. Another group meets at weekends in Chisle- tures in atomic physics and is a strong supporter of hurst Caves, advising its audience to bring their own Moscow Youth Festivals—stands in a unique avuncular candles. relationship to the skiffle movement, rather like Hum• The remarkable thing is that in an age of high-fidelitv phrey Lyttleton's to . Hasted's leadership is sound, long-players and tape-recorders, the young should not so much musical as philosophical; he is the defender decide to make their own music. It is indeed fantastic. of the faith. It is therefore with some shock that the What are they to do with all those guitars when the skiffle world has heard the latest news, that Hasted has craze goes? bought a piano and is turning to jazz. It takes a worried man Already, therefore, skiffle is developing as many sepa• To sing a worried song. rate streams and rivulets as British jazz. First there are The skiffle intelligentsia have some ideas about this. those who seek to wed it to the wide folksinging tradi• They want to extend the range of skiffle lyrics to the tion, especially to a revived British folksong. Next come whole field of folksong and ballad, using British as well the skiffle purists, who like to play nothing but genuine as American material. "Folksong has been dead in Eng• Leadbelly and early Lonnie Donegan, with a compara• lish cities for many years," says Dr. John Hasted, of tively relaxed beat. But in most public places, the newly London University, who runs one of the most enterpris• opened Skiffle Cellar in Greek Street, Soho, for instance, ing clubs. "We want to rebuild a living, urban, folk- cheerful catholics open their arms to everything that music. It will take a long time." Skifflers with any pre• comes. Here, down the usual dusty stairs in a disused tensions go out and "collect" surviving folksongs in the night clubs with plaster stalactites hanging from the field. Best-known sources are the Irish gypsy songs of ceiling, a platform is provided for the hundreds of little Margaret Barry, who sings in a pub in Camden Town, suburban and provincial groups, making the journey to and the amorous ballads of eighty-three-year-old Charlie London to seek fame. These groups mix it all in—folk• Wills, of Dorset. There are others in unexpected places. song, blues, fiddle and jug music, "pops," sentimental "We collected The Bold Irish Navy from a pub in South ballads and calypsos. Here. too. the usual chastened Norwood," says Russell Quaye, leader of another group. audience is joined by a new element or ornate Teddies Skiffle clubs also sing contemporary ballads. Few are and their girls, who cannot sing or play, but can dance good. One of the most prolific ballad-writers, young Fred wonderfully. So dance they do, on sagging boards and Dallas, has started a new club at a pub in Walton-on- concrete at the back of the club, to skiffle and everything Thames. He did so by advertising in a local newspaper else that comes. for amateur musicians. Accordionists, pianists, guitarists, 'The newer skiffle groups do not distinguish between singers, and people with no experience at all—eighteen skiffle and rock 'n' roll, submerging them all in the same turned up. His biggest difficulty was to get them to sing breathless din; if a folksong or a calypso achieves com• without an American accent. mercial popularity, it is included in the repertory too. Parodies like Piccadilly Line and Stanley and Dora The going may be a bit rough, but as Louis Armstrong Were Lovers—the tragedy of a movie usher and a Teddy- said some time ago, "They're all folksongs. I ain't never boy—are popular: heard a horse sing." SHINE ON MOON Shine on, shine on, sweet harvest moon shine on, And th' way you' shinin', you won't be shinin' long. Now tell me, pretty mommo, which-a-way do that red, Red River run? And she reaches from the Atlantic Ocean, clean down to the risin' sun. Now the big boat, she's up the river, settin' way out on a bank of sand, If she don't soon strike the water, I do swear the boat will never land. [Ah, let's play one now, Peetie] Now the river, she's gone to risin', and spreadin' all over the land, And she reaches from Memphis, clean down into the lock [?] and dam [?] Now my woman, she's got a mouth, just like a lighthouse on the sea. Every time she smiles, she th'ows her bright light on po' me. Now my woman, she's up the river,- Lord, and she won't come down. Said I b'lieve to my soul, that my good gal is water bound, She's water bound. (Sung by Kokomo Arnold on Decca 7390A. Transcribed by J. S. Shipman.)

NOBODY IN MIND Ain't nobody in mind, the Blues No one woman ever worried me, Cause love ain't nothin But a lot of misery. Give a chick a dollar, Next time you gotta give her five. Well, the chicks ain't out for nothin, Boys, but a line of jive. Ain't nothin inside, And the worst is to come they say. Boys, it's tough enough already N Without bein' worried this way. Give a chick a dollar, Next time you gotta give her five. Well, the chicks ain't out for nothin, Boys, but a line of jive. Ain't nobody in mind, I'm carefree sleepin' by myself, Cause the woman I was lovin' She's sleepin'with somebody else — Sleepin' with somebody else. (Traditional. As sung by Joe Turner on Emarcy MG 36014. Transcribed by Bill Crow.)

J RECORDINGS GERRY MULLIGAN: What is There to Say? Columbia CL1307. Mulligan, baritone sax; , trumpet; Bill Crow, bass; Dave Bailey, drums. What Is there to Say; Just in Time; News from Blueport; Festive Minor; As Catch Can; My Funny Valentine; Blue- port; Utter Chaos. Art Farmer is the strongest soloist in the group. His playing throughout the record is graceful, swinging, and full of variety. Art is a real impro- viser. He gives the impression of con• stant spontaneity, so that his solos have a sense of unity that doesn't exist in the work of many jazz players. Art has a talent for doing the un• expected without sounding forced or unmusical. His rhythmic conception is relaxed and flexible, so much so that the others in the group often sound a little corny in comparison. Occasionally, Art's phrases sound in• complete, as if he had dropped one train of musical thought in favor of a new one, lending a moving, par- lando, conversation-like quality to his playing. Mulligan's playing doesn't quite match Farmer's for consistent inter• est and swing. He achieves a nice symmetry by frequent use of parallel phrases and sequences but this is sometimes at the expense of inven• tiveness. His occasional really con• vincing phrases are sometimes mar• red by a sluggish articulation that prevents the rhythmic accuracy that is necessary for really swinging play• ing. His conception is sometimes a little "Modern Corny." In spite of these problems, some of which are aggravated by the inherent problems of the baritone sax, Gerry does per• form well here—especially when he plays fill-ins and counter melodies. Many jazz musicians play by in• voluntary and instinctive reactions to the musical situation. They play solos built from a vocabulary of predeter• mined figures, many of which could be substituted for any other without but hardly ever adds much to clean under the close scrutiny of an disturbing the construction of the the over-all sound of the group. He unusually good recording job. solo. Their music is like wallpaper; seldom improvises fill-ins or back• The tunes on the album are varied it may have unity of style but not of ground figures and seems content to enough with two good blues heads form, for it has no beginning, middle, keep time. In listening to this record, by Mulligan, one in -Vj time in which or end. This kind of playing never 1 often caught myself trying to im• the rhythm section gets stuck in 1, produces outstanding jazz, because agine what a drummer with the free• improves when it goes into :)\ but purposiveness is necessary for real dom and imagination of Philly Joe still sounds stiff and uncomfortable. artistic expression. Neither Gerry nor Jones could do to fill out the texture Gerry sounds waltzy and a little ricky- Art sound like this kind of mechani• of the group and add another im• tick; Art. a little better in spite of the cal player. They are both expressive, provising instrument to it. Perhaps rhythm section, and Bill plays a good but the range of expression of the this is Gerrv's choice—it is certainlv solo. The ballads are good and Jus! quartet as a whole is limited by a few a limitation. in Time is nicely done with the rhy• problems. Bill Crow, too. is overly steady. thm section almost getting off the The biggest fault in these perform• His beat is unvarying in time or vol• ground. As Catch Can is too fast for ances is their lack of dynamic variety. ume, which to some musicians is a everyone's comfort. Utter Chaos has In bringing the dynamic level of the great recommendation. But this is a excellent first-half choruses by both group down t > that of the bass. Gerrv group with an open sound and room Gerry and Art. though they each bog has excluded i'le possibility of taking for everyone to exercise a great deal down a little when they come to the full advantagf of the other instru• of freedom harmonically and rhy• bridge of the tune and neither ments in the louder part of their thmically. Isn't that why Gerry elimi• finishes as well as he started. There dynamic rang( . with the result that nated the piano in the ? are some effective exchanges here be• tween the two horns—an example of the group seldom manages to generate Ostensibly the piano was dropped in Mulligan's clever fun. much excitement. (Jerry says in his order to extend the range of expres• excellent and brief liner notes that he sion of the other players—so that One last impression. Most jazz and his group had fun making this thev wouldn't be tied down to one players seem to be either relaxed (Art record and that he expects his audi• harmonic conception. Unless how• Farmer I or intense (Mulligan and ence to have fun listening to it. Main• ever, full advantage is taken of the Bill Crow ) by nature, and this seems ly as a result of the limited dynamic fact that the piano is absent. Gerrv to affect their time conceptions. Bill range, I didn't find the kind of fun would do well to put it back for more and Gerry are almost always on top here that Gerry's comments led me variety in the sound of the group. of the beat, and Gerry sometimes ner• to expect. The fun Gerry is best able The point is that there's a need for vously clambers just a little ahead of to direct into his music is a reserved, an intricate and highly interesting ac• it. Art, on the other hand, slips off sophisticated kind of fun in which companiment in this group—to match the back end of the beat in a consist• cleverness plays a bigger part than the improvising of the horns and to ently relaxed manner. Seldom does free swinging excitement. sustain the interest of the listener. one player develop a flexible ap• Another stylistic element of Gerrv's Bill and Dave do not really provide proach to this problem so that he group that limits its range of expres• this, either as a result of their own may play either way. according to the sion is the inflexibility of the rhythm taste, or at Gerry's request. Lest this situation and the particular mood of section, especially the drummer. Dave seem too harsh a criticism, let me the music. Bailey is very steady throughout the add that Bill's playing is accurate and —Chuck Israels

PEPPER ADAMS: 10 to 4 at the 5- and warmth. Timmons, though handi• yet. What he lacks in accuracy of ex• Spot. Riverside RLP 12-265. capped by a dreadfully out of tune ecution is certainly offset by the Adams, baritone sax; , night-club piano, plays with energetic powerful feeling he generates. I hope trumpet; , piano; Dour ease, achieving his broadest expres• that as he becomes more at ease with Watkins, bass; , drums. 'Tis, You're My Thrill, The Long Two/ sion on bluesy numbers. In fact every his conception that he will begin to Four. Hastings Street Bounce, Yourna. one on the album plays the hell out exercise a little more taste in his This is the first chance I've had to of the blues. choice of counterrhythms as accom• listen to Pepper Adams at any length. always sounds good. paniments. On Doug's bridge on He plays with good time, good con• I like his lines, his sound, his solos, Yourna especially Elvin steps all over trol of his fingers, and a vigorous time, intonation. He provides an ex• the soloist, weakening rather than approach. I like his choice of notes cellent anchor for Elvins drumming strengthening the rhythmic character in general, but I don't find his tone which is a percussive tapestrv that of the solo. lovely, particularly not on sustained implies the basic pulse instead of The tunes are all enjoyable, and notes. spelling it out. When Elvin has it the musicians sound interested in The group playing with him here working for him, the effect is excit• playing them. I liked Hastings Street is uniformly good. A number of me• ing, but when he loses control of it. Bounce best because of the way every• diocrities are present here that surely there can be a lot of confusion about one feels the thing together and sus• would have been edited out of a stu• where "one" is. On his solos the basic tains the feeling. The only disappoint• dio date, but such imperfections do pulse is often so well disguised that ment was 1 oure My Thrill, a beauti• not detract from the fundamental ex• I find it necessary to count carefully ful tune made even more beautiful for cellence of individual and group per• to keep track of him. Some times he me by the memory of Billie Holiday's formance. does hang himself and commits met• version of it. Pepper understands the I like Donald Byrd's playing. His ric errors, but such slips are perfectly melodic and harmonic , tone is appealing, his ear and im• understandable. He's developed a but his bleak, mooing tone makes his agination work well together, and his complex rhythmic conception that he sustained notes unbearable. doesn't have completely under control general expression is one of vitality —Bill Crow GENE AMMONS: Blue Gene. Pres• phrase he tries comes off beautifully; tige 7146. his own personality is sharply etched in his playing. Ammons, tenor sax; Idrees Suliman, trumpet; Pepper Adams, baritone sax; Mai Pepper plays good choruses on all Waldron, piano; Arthur Taylor, drums; four tunes, displaying a somewhat Doug Watkins, bass; , conga. fuller tone than he had on the last Blue Gene; Scamperin'; Blue Greens 'N album of his that I reviewed. His Beans; Hip Tin. blues conception stands up well with When I hear the blues played this Ammons and Suliman, though he well I wonder how got presses a little too much at times. The so popular. Practically the same ele• various combinations of the three ments are present in both conceptions horns in ensembles and riffs are rich except for the all-important difference in tonal color and rhythmically that the feeling here is loose, free, powerful. and human; in the popular concep• Mai Waldron plays his best cho• tion of rock and roll it is tight, hard, ruses on the medium grooves. He mean, and mechanical. The popular• plays the up-tempo blues well enough, ity of the violent form hasn't affected but lets his enthusiasm run away with the approach of the musician who some like it hot... his time just enough to unsettle it. loves the warmer, more expansive ... but everybody likes blues, but it has certainly encroached Doug, A. T., and Ray Barretto on his income. swing together simply and effectively. The feeling that the conga adds is no Poll-winner KessePs modern jazz per• Gene and Idrees sound beautiful. improvement on what Philly Joe gen• formances of great tunes of the '20s Both have a stror g, sure feeling for erally does all by himself, but it is from the hit movie — / Wanna Be Loved the blues. They produce big sounds tastefully present. It doesn't detract By You„ Stairway To The Stars, Sweet and love to swing right in the middle from the unity of the section, and it Sue,Runnin' Wild, Sweet Georgia Brown, Down Among The Sheltering Palms, I'm of the time. Idress is one of those agrees with the feeling of the rest of Thru With Love, Sugar Blues, By The players who either does everything the group. Doug's choruses are well Beautiful Sea — with all-stars Joe Gor• right or everything wrong, and this played and well recorded. don, trumpet; , clarinet, alto date was one of his right days. Every and tenor saxes; Jimmie Rowles, piano; —Bill Crow Monty Budwig, bass; and Shelly Manne, drums! M3565 Monophonic, 4.98; S7565 CHET BAKER: // Could Happen to in this respect), and which doesn't Stereophonic, 5.98 at dealers everywhere. You: Chet Bakei Sings, Riverside come within an ice-age mastodon's Wgm CONTEMPORARY RECORDS RLP 1120. tusk of most of the notes aimed for? |SSI 8481 melrose place, los angeles 46, calif. Baker, trumpet & vocals; , Why were the songs taken in such piano; George Morrow or , bass; high keys; at least lower pitches or Danny Richmond, might cover up a few of Baker's abys• drums. mal vocal deficiencies. Do It The Hard Way; I'm Old Fash• ioned; You're Driving Me Crazy; It Could About the only positive statement Happen To You; My Heart Stood Still; to be dredged up for Chet is that he The More I See You; Everything Happens phrases well, because he is (and To Me; Dancing On The Ceiling; How should remain) a musician. Songs Long Has This Been Going On; Old Devil Moon. like Do It The Hard Way contain softly scatted interludes, in which Apropos of Chet Baker's dual role Chet reproduces many of his instru• as trumpeter-singer, the liner'quotes mental stylistic devices; however, his BAY AREA an "old axiom" that says "Every jazz• lack of vocal equipment makes one man who's worth his salt, no matter wish he'd played those choruses rather what horn he plays, is a singer." I than sung them. The few excursions might counter this saying with a few taken in brass by Baker are O.K. as other "old axioms" like "You can't "romantic jazz." carry an egg in two baskets;" "Little Backing by Kenny Drew, George boats should keep near shore;" Morrow, Sam Jones, Philly Joe Jones, "Never spit into the wind;" "You Danny Richmond is excellent. Drew can't drive a railroad spike with a accompanies very well and plays tack hammer;" and, especially, "The some pretty and easy-swinging chor• steam that blows the whistle will never uses. Their work clearly exemplifies BELIEVE IT OR NOT, turn a wheel." how a good jazz group can push Criticizing Baker's "singing" is as anyone into a presentable perform• MR. RIPLEY unfair a game as commenting on a ing context, and how more often But There Are Hundreds Of Jazz four-month-old baby's lack of co• than not it is the musicians, not the Discs Available in England Which ordination because he can't walk. singer, who make a vocal number Cannot Be Obtained In The States! How can one speak critically of an what it is. All Available To American Collec• anemic voice which sounds like a Any musician giving a perform• tors Through England's Premier boiled owl trying for out-of-reach ance on an instrument equivalent to Mail-Order Service—At Best Ex• high notes or which wanders in a Baker's vocal daubs would not remain port Prices Too! key totally different from that in two minutes on the stand, let alone which his accompanist plays (You re be allowed to record. Write For Details:- AGATE & CO. LTD. dept. JR Driving Me Crazy is the •worst track —Mimi Clar 77 Charing Cross Road, London W.C.2. England LIL ARMSTRONG: Satchmo and earned from jazz with which to buy Lil recreates the feeling of the Me, Riverside RLP 12-120. "ice cream and clothes." whole era with vivid historical anec• Lil Armstrong's first-hand accounts Lil's own background follows the dotes and humor. The extraordinary of the "fabulous Chicago jazz era" familiar pattern. She played piano clarity of the record plus minimum and of Louis Armstrong are by now and organ in church as a child. Her interruption of Lil's talking gives the common knowledge: the well-known family disapproved of jazz, but her listener the feeling of being in on or episode of Jelly Roll Morton's teach• mother finally allowed her to buy conducting the interview himself. ing Lil a lesson in the music store; sheet music of popular tunes. After The brief narrative portions either Lil's bewilderment at the New Orleans working in the music store awhile, bridge gaps between subjects by fill• Creole Jazz Band's idea of "key"— she got a job with the New Orleans ing in historical data or ask leading "You hear two knocks, start play• Creole Jazz Band in a "nasty, filthy, questions. The writer found the ques• ing;" Louis' appearance when he first dirty, vulgar, no-good cabaret" as her tions that were phrased in the third hit Chicago — his 'New-Orleans-style mother termed it; and, since she was person a bit awkward and approach• clothes and hairdo (he wore bangs); still a minor, had to sneak to work. ing travelogue style, but others for Lil's management of Armstrong — Within three weeks her mother dis• whom the record was played dis• sharpening his appearance, getting covered the deception, which at first agreed. The interrogation is-so fleet• him to quit Oliver and, later, Hender• was successfully explained away as a ing that to belabor such a point is son. "school exhibition." needless. Robert S. Green edited the material and wrote the continuity. She also mentions a few items not Of course a great part of the story so frequently pointed out: how Hon- revolves around Louis, and from Lil Lil's recording makes a good addi• tion to the as yet not too extensive ore Dutrey was always buying prop• we get a picture of him as a highly collection of jazz lore such as the erty; how Freddy Keppard tried to talented individual who perhaps was records Jelly made with Alan Lomax, cut Louis one night and how Louis not fully aware of the extent of his and the letters of and "got him" ("If you want to hear ability and how best to exhibit and King Oliver. Why doesn't someone Louis play, just hear him play when promote that ability. Louis, at the make a documentary with Louis him• he's angry.") ; how Lil assuaged point he met Lil, was in need of direc• self, a la the Morton records, with Armstrong's fears of missing high F's tion and management, and Lil was the music interspersed between narration at the nightly Vendome shows by ad• "little ole girl" who took it upon her• and comments? Why not, for that vising him to hit G's at home; how self to provide such guidance. "I matter, more such documentations of Lil wasn't too enthusiastic about jazz hope he [Louis] doesn't hear this other "jazz greats" while they are still itself but liked the atmosphere sur• record," Lil laughs as she reveals her available? rounding the music and the money strategy,"—hear all my tricks!" —Mimi Clar

BUSTER BAILEY: All About Mem• to teach. The more gigs and records cal ideas and with good swing. He phis. Felsted FAJ 7003. they get, the better, but if the earlier plays about two-thirds of Memphis Tracks 1, 3, 6: Bailey, clarinet; Herman "New Orleans revival" showed any• Blues with an expressive use of its Autrey, trumpet; Vic Dickenson, trom• thing, it showed that to commit one's melodies and with a feeling of warm bone; Hilton Jefferson, alto; Red Richards, self to a school or style is not to com• and pensive nostalgia that is very piano; Gene Ramey, bass; Jimmy Craw• ford, drums. Tracks 2, 4, 5, 7: Bailey; mit one's self to art or to good music. compelling. And some of the things Richards; Ramey; Crawford. I wasn't there, of course, but what he does on Memphis show that sense Bear Wallow; Hahon Avenue and Ga- I think I know tells me that these of capricious light comedy which he yoso Street; Sunday Parade; Beale Street titles may be about Memphis but the can usually call on. Blues; Memphis Blues; Chicksaw Bluff; On the other hand, on tracks like Hot Waler Bayou. style of this music has more to do Hilton Avenue and Bluff he does not Since this is another of the Felsted with circa 1936. And Red Richards is later than that. seem to be using melodic ideas but jazz series, perhaps a pause for some simply toying and doodling around explanation is in order. There is a Buster Bailey feels very deeply that with notes and, although his time is new species of moldy fig in this world he is a musician who was forced by good, playing with little swing. The who says that jazz was corrupted, not conditions and prejudice to play jazz. compositional approach of Vic Dick• when it left Storyville in 1915, but Probably "feels" is the wrong word; enson, especially on his very good when it fell by Minton's in 1940. The knows is better. One thing is cer• solos on Bear Wallow and Parade is more militant proclamations of this tain: his presence in jazz groups has the starkest kind of contrast, as is the position come, of course, from Panas- had a deep and wide effect since the quickness of Red Richards' mind in sie in France, Stanley Dance and twenties. He was one of the earliest introducing real ideas on the up• Albert J. McCarthy in England, and musicians in jazz to come to wide tempo Hot Water. I would say it has an American cham• attention who had a firm legitimate Fast tempo also does in almost pion in Tom Scanlon. Mr. Dance says training on his instrument and he everyone else on Parade, and since "swing" won't do as a term for the played in jazz groups as if he had it. I happen to admire the underrated style he stands for, and coined a If he had done nothing else, he did Hilton Jefferson so much, I am par• term which has an irony he could show countless jazzmen how much ticularly sorry that his fingers sound hardly have intended, "mainstream." they needed to know about their in• a bit out of practice here. A little over a year ago, Mr. Dance struments and about one of the musi• If anyone wants to know what I was sent to New York by British cal traditions they were adopting and meant by "Harlem circa 1936" above, Decca to record more "mainstream remolding into this new music. Herman Autrey's riff-style "jive" jazz." This series is the result. There are some tracks here which, trumpet might be the best answer. No doubt these musicians "of the I think, show what Buster Bailey can My admiration for the accompani• thirties" (as the phrase goes) are do best in jazz. Bear Wallow is a ments of Ramey and Crawford runs neglected, and many of them have slow blues on which he plays a solo high indeed. much art to Qffer and many lessons which has a continuity built on musi- —M. W. BUDD JOHNSON: Blues A La Mode. because Budd, perhaps consciously, rblue note1 Felsted FAJ 7007. plays and sounds quite like him, al• THE FINEST IN JAZZ Charlie Shavers, trumpet; Vic Dicken• though retaining his own ideas and son, trombone; Budd Johnson, tenor sax- lines. The feeling catches Charlie, too. L SINCE 1939 I arranger; , baritone sax; Bert Keyes, piano-organ (or , Destination Blues has something piano) ; , bass; , for those oriented to modern jazz. UP! drums. Budd's solo flows and displays his BOTTOMS _ THEOSOUNDS Foggy Nights; Leave Room in Your feeling and intimacy with current Heart For Me; Destination Blues; A La -•^, PIANO Mode; Used Blues; Blues by Five. trends. Charlie and Vic each have ANDREW SIMPKINS, BASS Budd Johnson has been an impor• good moments, and the rhythm is BILL DOWDY, DRUMS tant figure on the jazz scene for over even and strong. thirty years but especially since he A La Mode is another piece with took charge of 's bands as modern touches and has some good director and principal arranger be• Ray Bryant piano, modern and in• ginning in 1939, and following teresting. Budd's second solo has through in a similar capacity with touches of both Bird and Prez, while 's great bop band in Charlie has excellent control, and Joe 1945 and on the 52nd Street scene as Benjamin's full bass tone keeps the well. Budd fits in everywhere, in any rhythm moving. band and in any record session. This Used Blues actually could be split lp should help a lot in putting him into a 45 rpm single, because it Bottoms Up. The latest by the Three Sounds. You will enjoy this hard-swinging young back where he belongs, both as a builds two successive climaxes, the group that has a fresh sound and down-to- first leading up to Bert Keyes's organ earth feeling. Sit down and relax to writer and prodigious soloist. Besame Uucho, I Could Write a Book. Those used to the thick tone he solo, with Budd displaying a very Jinnie Lou. Love Walked In, etc. had in the Hines days will be some• deep tone on his solos. Both Charlie BLUE NOTE 4014 what surprised to hear how light his and Vic have good solos, and Keyes's tone is here. This lp really captures organ work is effective particularly his sound beautifully, and the others on his fill-ins toward the close of this rise to the occasion with equal in• track. spiration. Charlie Shavers hasn't Blues by Five has, as the notes played as well on record in quite point out, some very interesting solos some time, casting off the clown role by Ray Bryant wherein he recalls the and playing some well-constructed spirit of Earl Hines, and some awful• and thoughtful solos on all the tracks. ly good fours by Charlie and Budd, All the titles are by Budd, and the and Jo mixes it up at the end and lp kicks things off with a rocking keeps his good time, better here than medium blues set against harbor on many of the recent records he's sounds and is quite effective. Charlie made. The writing here is modern has a nice muted solo here, as does and interesting, as it is on all the Vic Dickenson. tracks. You might call the second title, a This lp is definitely recommended. DIZZY REECE lovely ballad, a memorial to Prez, —Frank Driggs Blues in Trinity. Dixzy Reece, trumpeter from Kingston, Jamaica, got together with Donald Byrd & on their Euro• BUDD JOHNSON: Blues A La Mode. melodies and slight heads, his chief pean trip to produce this wonderful session. Six tunes, including four originals by Oizzv Felsted FAJ70O7. function is as soloist. Reece. Tracks 1, 3, 5: Johnson, tenor; Charlie One would have to be frigid indeed BLUE NOTE 4006 Shavers, trumpet; Vic Dickenson, trom• not to find his solo on Nights com• bone; Al Sears, baritone; Bert Keyes. pelling, but most of Johnson's play• FINGER BLUE NOTE 4008 piano and organ (track 5) ; Joe Benjamin, PO, N bass; Jo Jones, drums. Tracks 2, 4, 6: ing here reflects a deep love of Lester W!T HTHE HORACE SILVER QUINT Johnson; Shavers; Ray Bryant, piano; Young. He has caught aspects of it Benjamin; Jones. that few others have, and his harder Foggy Nights; Leave Room In Your tone remains his own, but, except per• Heart For Me; Destination Blues: A La haps on Used Blues, he does not show Mode; Used Blues; Blues By Five. the flow that several others have, nor If you don't know about Budd the over-all cohesion. Johnson, you should; the respect he Charlie Shavers swings on Nights commands is large, widespread, and but hardly at all elsewhere; he just certainly deserved. He has been, ably throws out those flashy phrases. among other things, behind-the-scene Again, Dickenson is the best soloist, organizer-musical-director for many and some of the personal witty things an important band, and his career has he does against that trite uptown- covered every scene from Kansas barroom electric organ on Used Blues FINGER POPPIN' WITH City in 1927 through Armstrong (he are delightful. I think maybe Vic THE HORACE SILVER QUINTET and joined together I Dickenson, like , plays Just back from triumphs in France, Ger• through early bop. He directed Earl today better than he ever has—and many, Italy and Holland, Horace guides his Hines' wartime band and later Bill) new quintet through eight new originals. I'd rather hear him than . . . well, With Blue Mitchell, , Eugene Eckstine's. a lot of trombonists. Taylor, . BLUE NOTE 4008 His chief functions have been as Ray Bryant and Joe Benjamin— 12" LP, List $4.98 composer-arranger and musical direc• those ringers—certainly play well. Complete Catalog on Request tor. Here, although he contributed —M. W. 47 West 63rd St., New York 23 BLUE MITCHELL1: Big Six. River• courage, and his feeling for keeping accompany other soloists without any side RLP 12-273. the time swinging. insistence on co-composing their Mitchell, trumpet; , trom• Fuller's tone is fat when he has his solos. Philly takes care of much busi• bone; , tenor; Wynton slide centered on the pitch he's play• ness all the way. He has a wonder• Kelly, piano; , bass; Philly ing, but he often makes fine tuning ful instinct for keeping the swing Joe Jones, drums. adjustments with his lip rather than alive on everyone's choruses. Blues March; Big Six; There Will Never Be Another You; Brother 'Ball; Jamph; his slide, robbing his tone of some of Wilbur is very strong in the sec• Sir John; Promenade. its resonance. He's a very good solo• tion, but his choruses here, though ist. Both he and Griffin are less effec• an accurate sample of his approach Blue Mitchell plays beautifully tive in ensemble. Many of the tunes to solo playing, give little indication throughout this album. His concep• begin and end with the band sound• of the tremendous choruses he is tion is full-bodied and energetic and ing like a small tired group in a strip capable of playing. I've heard him he maintains an inner calm that per• joint and only begin to express the give similar ideas so much more po• mits strong feeling to flow into his musical interest of the musicians on tent feeling; this must have been an playing without any overtones of the blowing choruses. The short off day for him. hysteria or violence. He makes a Promenade is written out entirely I like Blue's gentle ballad treatment clear, ringing sound that sometimes and the result resembles an effort by of There Will Never Be Another You, becomes wonderfully mellow. Occa• the Salvation Army rather than a a tune that is usually raced through sionally it changes abruptly, as if the jazz band. by jazz players for blowing the bell had suddenly been removed from The rhythm section is marvelous. changes. He has written a couple of his horn, and becomes shallow and Wynton has a magnificent touch and the tunes himself, good straight- pipy. This may be the horn, or he rhythmic feel that is always present. ahead originals. 's may have gotten off-mike in these in• His solos are strong personal state• March is interesting, and Fuller's stances, it's hard to tell. But his affec• ments and he is able to genuinely Jamph (I guess that title had to show tion for rich tonal quality is obvious. up sooner or later) is a pleasant photo by Larry Shustak, courtesy Griffin is also an energetic player, minor vehicle. Big Six is such a thin• but the forcefulness with which he ly disguised Limehouse Blues that it plays seems to be somewhat inhibited would have been more sporting to by the pinched quality of his tone. have credited William Boone, Jr. with His basic sound is more that of an the rather than the com• alto than a tenor sax. He creates the position. His Promenade, is actually illusion of a bigger sound with hard• a rather nice little hymn, and, as I ness, giving the impression that he's say, would be done more justice by driving a column of air throvJgh a horn men who have a better feeling small opening with such violence that for ensemble playing. it shatters. I like his imagination, —Bill Crow

JELLY ROLL MORTON: The King ensemble in Steamboat Stomp. Of illustrations of Jelly playing behind of New Orleans Jazz. RCA Victor. course there is also the magnificent others: behind Ory on Smokehouses LPM-1649. backing he provides for the second Blues, behind the ensemble on Steam• Grandpa's Spells; Original Jelly Roll riff chorus of Dead Mans Blues. boat Stomp, behind the three Blues; Jungle Blues; The Pearls; Beagle on Sidewalk Blues, behind the banjo Street Blues; Kansas City Stomp; Shoe George Mitchell never recorded as Shiners' Drag; Black Botton Stomp; well as he did on these sides. Here and later behind the front line on Steambat Stomp; Doctor Jazz: Cannonball he is an incomparable lead trumpet Cannonball Blues, and behind Simeon Blues; Sidewalk Blues; The Chant; Dead for the idiom—forceful, economical, on Doctor Jazz. Note on Smokehouse Man's Blues; Smokehouse Blues; Georgia Blues how he begins to break in on Swing. driving. He solos well on Steamboat Stomp, Cannonball Blues, and the Simeon unobstrusively about halfway These are the classic Red Hot Pep• stop-time opening chorus of Side• through the clarinet solo, then builds per numbers. Since personnel in the walk Blues. up more and more so that the be• Red Hot Pepper group changed from ginning of the piano solo is accom• top to bottom in different recording Omer Simeon, the only man in the plished without a ripple. whole group who ever moved beyond sessions, it is fortunate that more The six numbers with other person• New Orleans jazz successfully, is than half of these numbers involve nel are not nearly as successful, save the most productive grouping: the equally at home here, with the right for some good moments. (I have al• Ory-Mitchell-Simeon front line and tone and spirit. He shines particularly ways been fascinated by Jelly's solo the St.-Cyr-Lindsay-Hilaire rhythm on The Chant and Doctor Jazz. on Georgia Swing, the phrasing in section. Jelly Roll is in all his many-sided bars 7-11.) It is interesting that Kid Ory is in his idiom here, more glory—as leader, arranger, composer, Johnny Dodds and Jelly, both great so than in front of his own bands, part of the powerful rhythm section, jazz individualists and both good at since his New Orleans ensemble trom• soloist, and (what is the most lumin• working within the framework of this bone is not called on for solo work ous facet of his creativity) his piano too often. What trombone solos re• as an ensemble or supporting melody size band, never could create well to• main, with a few delightful excep• instrument. Jelly in this last-named gether—or, to be more exact, always tions, are weak points in these num• capacity is at his height in smaller clashed badly when playing together. bers. Ory in the ensemble work is units, particularly clarinet trios, since Nothing on this record is quite as splendid. Dig especially the final cho• he there occupies this role almost ex• disastrous as their trio Wolverine ruses in Black Bottom Stomp, the clusively. But in these Red Hot Pep• effort, however. first chorus in Doctor Jazz, or all the per numbers, there are magnificent —Guy Waterman SONNY ROLLINS: Newk's Time. time with more intricate embellish• Blue Note 4001. ments, then improvises freely for a JAZZ/HI FI NOTES Sonny Rollins, tenor sax; , while, He then returns to the theme from CONTEMPORARY RECORDS, INC. piano; Doug Watkins, bass; Philly Joe for a moment, continues with new Jones, drums. material, and again returns with a producers of Tune up; Asiatic Raes; Wonder Jul! CONTEMPORARY RECORDS Wonderful!; The Surrey with the Fringe longer statement of the original GOOD TIME JAZZ on Top; Blues for Philly Joe; Namely theme. There is one more short free CR COMPOSERS SERIES CALIFORNIA RECORDS You. section and a brief return of a frag• ^ SFM (Society for Forgotten ment of the theme. Roughly, it looks Music) • <*TSREO RECORDS As Gunther Schuller has pointed like this: A A B A C A D A. All this out. Sonny Rollins is one of the few happens with a quality of spontaneity We've just celebrated our 10th modern jazz soloists who uses me• not suggested by this formal analysis. anniversary. Our Good Time Jazz label began operations May 1949 lodic development in his improvisa• This kind of well-formulated solo is with the first Firehouse Five Plus a natural development in the work of tions. He often takes fragments of the Two session, and the FH5 + 2 still melody of the tune he is playing and any skilled improviser. The rondo is records exclusively for GTJ! builds a whole solo using these frag• not the most sophisticated of musical In 1951 we started the Con• ments as the thematic material. A i forms, and it is certainly one of the temporary label to do modern its best this style results in a solo easiest to improvise, but this is not classics (we still do them), and in that has a certain recognizable melo• the reason it turns up here in Sonny's 1953 began recording modern jazz. dic relationship to the original tunc. playing. It is a form that is part of Our first exclusive CR recording stars were Shelly Manne and Bar• Sonny, like the later Lester Young. our musical environment, and any• ney Kessel, and we are happy to one who grows up in the Western Ahmad Jamal and others, approaches report they have just signed new each tune as a unique musical chal• world cannot help but be influenced long-term recording contracts. lenge. Not only are the harmonic by what he hears. Under ideal cir• The big news this month is that changes retained, but certain other cumstances his improvising will na• Shelly Manne & His Friends are important elements of the song per• turally fall into some familiar form. back with a new album, Bells Are meate his best improvisation. Un• Doug Watkins and Wynton Kelly Ringing. The Friends are Andre Previn and . Anyone like Prez, however, it is not the mood perform superbly here in their sup• who digs Shelly & Friends' My of the original tune that Sonny re• porting roles. They are both crafts• Fair Lady will certainly want this creates, rather it is a development of men of the highest caliber. Philly Joe latest collaboration. (Contem• some musical nuggets suggested by Jones matches Sonny in musicality porary M3559 & Stereo S7559). the original melody which Sonny re• drive, and inventiveness throughout On Good Time Jazz, The Fa• peats and develops, creating a for- the record, but in Blues for Philly mous Castle Jazz Band of Port• malistic design of great intricacy. Joe everyone outdoes himself. Doug land, Oregon, comes up with 12 Of the tunes recorded here, those seems to be the kind of bass player happy and hi-fi perform• ances of tunes featured in the which supply him with the most in• who can get together with almost new Danny Kaye picture, The teresting melodic material result in anybody, and Wynton is a strong Five Pennies. Four new tunes and the best improvisations, Blues for pianist with an approach similar to eight old favorites: My Blue Philly Joe being the best example. Kenny Drew's. Heaven, Indiana, Ja-da, That's Sonny chooses to ignore the good Namely You is humorous and also A Plenty, etc. (Good Time Jazz melodic material in Wonderful! shows Wynton off to good advantage. M12037 & Stereo S10037). Wonderful! in favor of some arpeg- Tune up is less successful because it Sonny Rollins, the "colossus" of giated figures which chase up and is a monotonous sequence of cadences the tenor sax, is back for his sec• ond Contemporary album, this down delightfully all over the range in descending keys without any the• time with the top stars who record of the tenor. Only in the fours with matic material for Sonny to develop. for CR: Shelly Manne, Barney Philly Joe does he begin to take ad• There is one serious drawback to Kessel, , Leroy vantage of the interesting melody. the complete enjoyment of this rec• Vinnegar, and Characteristically, in Surrey Sonnv ord. The indiscriminate mixing of (on one tune). Naturally the takes one element of the song, the microphones I with and w ithout elec• album is called Sonny Rollins & monotonous droning on the dominant tronic echo) is a negation of the con• The Contonporary Leaders. Sonny picked eight tunes, all standards. note, and toys with this throughout cept of ''fidelity." This particular re• It's a must for Rollins fans. the improvisation which is done with• cording technique sets up a situa• Our latest issue of the GTJ & out bass or piano. He retains the tion in which the rhythm section CR NEWS, now in its fourth year, motive of repetition of the dominant seems to be playing up close in a is being mailed to 85,000 friends note without the character and mood dead room, and the horn player throughout the world. It will keep that this repetition had in the orig• sounds as though he were playing in you posted on our new releases inal, where it was used as an imita• an empty gymnasium. Not only is and the doings of our artists. It's tion of horses' hooves. Only at the this unfaithful reproduction, it's un• free! Simply mail the postage- paid card from any of our factory- tag end of the does Sonny musical. sealed . suggest this extramusical element Sonny's sound is warm, masculine, Our records are available at that makes the original version so and vital; sometimes raucous and record stores everywhere. Nation• charming. squeaky, but never as harsh as he ally advertised manufacturer's If Blues for Philly Joe is not sounds here. The echo chamber ac• list prices are $4.98 for all our 12" Sonny's best improvisation, then it centuates the dissonances produced monophonic albums, and $5.98 for surely reaches a level of achievement by the upper harmonics in each tone all our stereo albums. of which he can well be proud. His of the sax. This results in an un• solo is, without stretching the im• pleasant effect seldom heard in a live agination, very nearly a true rondo. performance or in a clean recording. Editor, GTJ & CR NEWS He states the theme twice, the second PUBLISHED BY CONTEMPORARY RECORDS, INC. —Chuck Israels 8481 Melrose Place, los Angeles 46, California : The of more and more of his less original Sonny Stitt. Roost LP2230. Parker alto style. The result may be Stitt, alto (tracks 2, 4, 9, 11) and tenor one style and a more personal one (other tracks) with unidentified piano, for Sonny Stitt. Good. bass, drums. Happy Faces; Am I Blue; I'll Be See The theme of Motherless Child is You; When You're Smiling; In A Little stated with passion and some beauty, Spanish Town; Them There Eyes; Back but Stitt seems to throw it away In Your Own Backyard; Foot Tapper; otherwise, with little variation. Shad• Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child; Shadow Waltz; Wind Up. ow Waltz (played with a rhythm I'd Since one of the talents that Stitt better call "Latinized for lack of has is one that keeps ideas coining a better description) is likewise brief• so constantly and in such variety, ly tossed off with little more than a maybe the programming of so many statement of melodic line. tracks (even for a quartet date) There are some good things, I wasn't such a good thing. There may think. The very wonderful way that be an lp that catches him in that de• Stitt reorganizes the melody of Back• vastating tour de force of length yard against a rhythm in "two" with without monotony (and without re• such apparent casualness and ease is sorting to tricks) that can cut almost something to hear. And it takes quite anyone down, but I haven't heard it, a player to weave his way in and out and I have often heard him do it of complexities with such sureness as before an audience. Stitt does on his Wind Up. Stitt can play, we know, but the And what's the big secret about THE MOST news here is particularly on Am I who those other guys are? They sure Blue and Backyard, where his more kept a tough pace, rhythmically and original tenor style shows that it is emotionally. IMPORTANT absorbing and really assimilating —M. W. JAZZ RELEASE BASIE REUNION. Prestige 7147. knows the Basie tradi• OF THE YEAR , tenor; Buck Clayton tion well, and generally does a thor• and , ; Jack Wash• ough job. It is his bolting ahead that ington, baritone sax Nat Pierce, piano; Freddie Greene, guitar; Eddie Jones, bass; often unsettles the time, however. His Jo Jones, drums. best control is of relaxed time and Blues I Like to Hear; Love Jumped Out; consequently his best choruses appear John's Idea; Baby Don't Tell On Me; on the up-tempo John's Idea. The Modern Jazz Quartet Koseland Shuffle. The simple friendly tunes are all At Music Inn Volume 2 Shad Collins plays the most inter• 1937-1940 Basie. Some of them sound ATLANTIC 1299 esting solos on this album. Buck thin because of the missing parts, GUEST ARTIST: Sonny Rollins sounds good, but this is certainly not and this problem was certainly not Side One 1. Medley: Stardust an example of his most inspired work. solved by pouring on the echo. The I Can't Get Started ensembles, especially the faster ones, Lover Man Both trumpeters have rich tones and 2. good time. get so muggy because of such me• 3. Midsbmmer Paul Quinichette plays some very chanics that the effect of the simple Side Two 1. Festival Sketch nice notes and generates a good time swinging figures is all but lost. Com• 2. Bags' Groove pare this recording formula (I in• 3. Night In Tunisia feeling, but I don't like his tone, a rough imitation of Lester's that is clude recent records of the Basie predominantly a kazoo-like buzz. band) with Count's Columbia record• Jack Washington's sound is heavily ings of the forties. Though the fidelity

Here s,he quartet's fee LP in ab„ul about reedy, but this seems to be caused was not "high" in those days, I find a year recorded "live" at the Music by rustiness (the liner notes indicate I can clearly hear the bass, the guitar, 'nna,Le„o,,Mass..,astvearPresent that he plays mostly alto nowadays) and the inside parts in all the sec• at ha, session was innovator Sonnv tions. And the beauty of cleanly Roll,™ on the tenor „. Our micro• rather than by intent. He plays some played attacks and releases is not im• phones eaught him as he appeared as strong choruses, despite occasional guest artist with the Modern Jazz spots where his impulses seem mo• paired by exaggerated echo, though Quartet on Night In Tunisia and mentarily interrupted by his awk• there is a nice live ring to the sound Bags Groove. An exciting record that wardness with the instrument. of the instruments because the rec• you II want to hear again and again The rhythm section gets into a ords were made in a large, acoustical• good groove most of the way, Greene ly favorable hall. and Ed Jones having the most re• I continue to resent having to listen laxed control. Jo Jones still plays with Write for complete free LP catalogue to music through an artificial wall of a remarkably good feeling, most of and stereo disc listing. false echo. It's like trying to look at the time but gets a little loud and a painting through sunglasses. If wild behind some of the ensembles. "fidelity" in sound is the goal, the TLANTIC The way he plays sticks on his hi- recording industry gets farther away RECORDING CORP. hats is tremendous, but his control of every year in their monaural jazz the heavy ride cymbal leaves much 157 West 57th St., N. Y. 19 releases. to be desirecL —Bill Crow THE GOSPEL CLEFS: Savoy MG Down from their characteristic slow 14023. contexts into speeded-up romps. SHELLY MANNE & HIS FRIENDS Leon Lumpkins, Rev. Huston, Enoch Steel Away "jazzes" successfully, but ANDRE PREVIN & RED MITCHELL Franklin, Louis Johnson, Jeo De Loach, Go Down, with a chugging accom• modern jazz performances of songs from Robert Byrd, Raymond Andrews. paniment, loses its character as well BELLS ARE RINGING Steal Away; Wings of a Dove; The Lord Saved Me; Rise Up and Walk; Go Down as the meaning of its text as a" result Go Down; Why; Open Our Eyes; Big of the acceleration. Wheel; How Long Has It Been Since You In waltzes like Wings of a Dove Prayed; His Truth Is Marching On; Roll Billows Roll; Book of Revelations. and Why, the Gospel Clefs tend to get static and overly repetitious, due The liner describes the Gospel Clefs in part to their hitting climaxes near as "seven Christ-minded men . . . the beginning of the tracks, which recognized as champions in the high• affords no contrast of suspense for ly competitive gospel singing world." the listener. Also wearying is the Elsewhere such expressions as "hit heavy accompaniment which pounds the coveted stardom mark overnight," out all beats with the heavy force of "the hottest gospel group on records," children playing tom-toms Indian "great from the day they first sang style [The Lord Saved Me) or which together in a rehearsal" are used to accents beat one too persistently laud the efforts of the Gospel Clefs. throughout. "collaborative genius at work!" All this may be very true, but the Wings of a Dove, beginning "If I press-agentry jargon employed here, had the wings of a dove, Wings that ... say the Bells Are Ringing authors, while fine for promoting rock and could take me where I want to go, I Comden and Green, of Shelly Manne, roll groups or for Ozzie telling Har• would fly through the ozone and Andre Previn and Red Mitchell's mod• riet about Ricky, strikes me as a little way, way, way out into space. But ern jazz transformation of the Bells out of character for a gospel organi• no, no, no, no, I couldn't find a hidin' score. A great addition to the best- zation. The notes sound as if they place," is reminiscent of a blues selling Manne/Previn "Broadway Goes were written by Laura Reed, a world• verse that goes: ly-minded preacher in Langston If I had wings, like Nora's to Jazz" series on Contemporary: My Hughes's book Tambourines to Glory, [Noah's | faithful dove— Fair Lady, Li'l Abner, Pal Joey & Gigi. to rope in all sinners as quickly and Had strong wings, like Nora's profitably as possible. faithful dove, Monophonic M3559, $4.98 or Stereophonic S7559, $5.98 The Gospel Clefs are essentially I would fly away, to de man I WBM CONTEMPORARY RECORDS a funky group, most at home and I would fly away, to de man I ISSI 8481 melrose place, los angeles 46, calif. most convincing in numbers with a love. businesslike waddle. An Art Blakey Leon Lumpkins, Rev. Huston, bass drum pattern (like that used on Enoch Franklin, Louis Johnson, Joe Bye-Ya with Monk) helps lift the De Loach, Robert Byrd, and Ray• best track, His Truth Is Marching mond Andrews make up the Gospel On, out of the Salvation Army musi• Clefs. Andrews' (?) voice is a sur• Subscribe to cal catalogue into a soul-stirring prise— it's a high soprano, like a shout. The Clefs have reworked sev• woman, not falsetto. Hear him on JAZZ-HOT eral numbers rhythmically, convert• Roll Billows Roll. ing Steal Away and Go Down Go —Mimi Clar The famous French review 1 year (11 issues) : $5.00 THE ROBERTA MARTIN SING• My Soul, in which verse is like a ERS: Grace, Savoy MG 14022. small sermon in itself building each Certainly Lord; Grace; I Can Make It; time to an exultant "Rock me!", and Jazz Review, Box 128 Ride On King Jesus; Talk About a Child; He's All Ready Done What He Said Write to: He'll Make You Happy; I Found Him; He Would Do are further enhanced Village Station, New York 14, N. Y. Rock My Soul; God Specializes; He's All Ready Done What He Said He Would Do; by skipping brush patterns on the recent back issues available now Back to the Fold. snare drums. The male soloist and female chorus engage in an anti- phonal ping-pong in Talk About a The Roberta Martin Singers of Child, as they trade phrases rapidly Chicago form a closely knit group of back and forth. The swing created gospel singers. The four female is easy and effortless, as though the voices blend cohesively with the process were second nature to them. single male voice, as the Singers pre• The waltzes — He'll Make You Records shipped anywhere sent forthright renditions of various Happy, I Can Make It, Grace, Back gospel songs. to the Fold—and the slower pieces moocRn music - Dept. j Though a dignified and self-con• retain some of the vitality of the 627 N. KlNGSHIGHWAY tained organization, the Roberta rhythm numbers; they never lack in ST. LOUIS 8. MO.. U.S.A. Martin Singers are not lacking in interest. The snare drum brushes add ALL RECORDS REVIEWED IN JAZZ REVIEW vitality. And they know how to swing, to Back to the Fold. Individually, the AVAILABLE THRU US—OUR SERVICE IS FAST as its very evident on Rock My Soul, All records shipped are factory fresh. Send for Singers' voices are of a fine quality details on bonus offer of LP«. Talk About a Child, Ride On King and may be heard to full advantage Foreign Orders Welcome. Jesus, He's All (sic) Ready Done MAMMOTH LP SALE—FREE CATALOGUES on the slow tracks. $1.00 Deposit On CODs-No CODs Overseas What He Said He Would Do. Rock —Mimi Clar YOUNG LOUIS ARMSTRONG. are free from these faults; in the slow, with breaks between each Riverside RLP 12-101. others, you listen for the isolated chorus (by Oliver, Dutrey, Dodds, Alligator Hop; Krooked Blues; I'm Go• moments which have remained good: and Evans). Except for the breaks, ing Away to Wear You Off My Mind (with a note, a phrase, sometimes a whole it is all relaxed ensemble work. Oliver King Oliver's Creole Band) ; Mandy, Make Up Your Mind (with Fletcher Henderson chorus. Because of its age, this set plays a series of strong, simple varia• Orchestra) ; Jelly Bean Blues; Countin' the inevitably has its share of these fail• tions with the power and feeling that Blues (with Ma Rainey) ; Terrible Blues; ings which may unfortunately close set him above his contemporaries. He Santa Claus Blues; Of All the Wrong the ears of somebody who hasn't is muted on the last two choruses. You've Done to Me; Nobody Knows the Way I Feel This Morning; Cake Walking built up the necessary tolerance, or Louis is clearly audible, easy to fol• Babies From Home (with Red Onion Jazz at least patience. I say unfortunately, low, playing a fine second part with Babies) ; The Railroad Blues (with Trixie because this album has moments little runs and fill-ins. Smith). which rank with the best jazz of any The third Oliver track, I'm Going period, though none of it was re• Away to Wear You Off My Mind is These old sides are of some im• corded later than early 1925. Pre• one of those early recordings where portance historically, as repetition of dictably, most of the moments are low fidelity is a really serious handi• a couple of familiar truisms will Louis', a few Oliver's. cap, and where grouping the musi• make clear. First truism: Few men in cians around the recording horn any art make a contribution import• The album includes three tunes by seemed to be a pretty hit-or-miss ant enough to affect the entire future Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, one by operation. What is salvageable of of that art. Jazz has had its few: Fletcher Henderson, two by Ma the music is mostly Johnny Dodds, Louis, Prez, Bird, Dizzy, and not Rainey, one by Trixie Smith, and who is not as good here as elsewhere, many others. Louis is the first in line, five by the Red Onion Jazz Babies. and brother Baby on wood blocks. chronologically at least. Second tru• In spite of the fact that Louis plays There is a terrible piano solo by Lil ism: Just about everybody, including a subordinate role, two of the Oliver Hardin. Oliver can be heard fairly the great innovators, begins by play• tracks, Alligator Hop and Krooked steadily, though dimly, and he is ing like an admired predecessor, or Blues, are more consistently satisfy• hard to follow. Only a note here and several of them. ing than any other performances on there of Louis. The tune itself is a When you compare a man's later the album. This is partly because pleasant one ,as it should be with its playing with that of his elders, you there is less bad playing, partly poignant title, but there is no reason find out what, if anything, he has because the group has such a superior for including it in a set under Louis' added. Louis's prime elder was Joe ensemble technique. In addition, name. Oliver, Louis' early development out Johnny Dodds is far preferable to The Henderson track is Mandy, of (or on) Oliver's style is what this Buster Bailey, who is the clarinet on Make Up Your Mind. Louis and Hen• album gives us. Riverside has in• most of the other tracks. Oliver, of derson each have a chorus; Coleman cluded three tracks by the Oliver course, is the dominant figure on his Hawkins has three breaks; otherwise band in this set. Whatever their own records. He is in good shape it's all ensemble. Not the blowing en• reasons were for doing so, it ends up here and plays very well. On Alliga• semble of the Oliver band, but written a wise decision, as we can compare tor Hop, taken moderately fast, Louis section work, and the writing is un• the two trumpeters side by side, hear is barely audible; Oliver plays a speakably bad throughout. Louis is how much Louis owes to Oliver and straight, simple lead until the final audible in the trumpet section, though just how much he added himself. two choruses (after an unremarkable not playing lead; his chorus is in a Dodds solo) when he begins to shout Listening to records of very early clipped, abreviated style less effective, magnificiently. On the final chorus musicians can be more of a chore for me, than most of his work on the he reaches up and plays a couple of than a pleasure, and I don't mean the rest of the album. Maybe the tune very impressive ideas. You can hear low fidelity. An inept sense of time, held him down. Louis' beginning in these phrases of unintentionally wavering pitch, and The Red Onion Jazz Babies are two Oliver's. embarrassingly bad ideas mar the quintets, having Louis, Lil, and Bud• majority of early records to some de• Krooked Blues is not a blues, but a dy Christian (banjo) in common. On gree or other. There are those that pleasant 16-bar tune, moderately Terrible Blues, Santa Claus Blues, and Of All The Wrong You've Done towns who tended to be more raggy, by Beatty and Todd in a style recall• to Me, they are joined by Buster ricky-ticky, and less "soulful." ing burlesque and barbershops. Bailey and Aaron Thompson (trom• As a group, of course, the New Louis is first-rate throughout. Charlie bone). Nobody Knows the Way I Orleans men lost this superiority by Irvis is an effective trombonist, slip• Feel This Morning and Cake Walking by the middle of the twenties, but pery but gutty. He preceded Nanton Babies from Home, only in the sense that they were with Ellington and is one of the first I soprano only) and joined by a host of others who were sources of Ellington's fondness for (trombone) complete the group. Bus• beginning to reach their level. And mut^d brass. Listen to Louis on the ter Bailey is often inadequate, sub• even during the early thirties nobody first half of the chorus following the ject from time to time to all the ills was cutting Louis and Red Allen. vocal, then turn back and listen to mentioned above. Thompson is com• These two, though in some ways far Oliver on the last chorus of Alligator petent but dated. Terrible Blues is a removed from the styles of Bunk and Hop. good performance in spite of medi• Oliver, retained much contributed by The remaining three tracks are ocre sidemen because Louis is so fine. the older men and built on the origi• vocals, two by Ma Rainey: Jelly Bean Oliver is his model in the ensemble, nal styles rather than diverged from Blues and Countin' the Blues; one but to Oliver's style he has added a them I compare them with Joe Smith, by Trixie Smith: Railroad Blues. subtler sense of time, a more imag• Beiderbecke, Jabbo Smith, Bubber The accompanying players are out inative structure to his lines, and the Miley, and other fine players out• of the Henderson band; the horns expert use of hesitations and grace side this tradition). And strangely are Louis, Bailey, and trombonist notes completely foreign to Oliver's enough, listening to the Louis and Charlie Green who is solid and has playing.^ Allen of this later period, Bunk, with a sense of humor. Ma Rainey's sing• Louis' time and tone might derive his delayed attack and relatively ing is somber with only slight from Bunk Johnson to some degree. subtle time, comes to mind as supply• vibrato. She sounds as though she Though denying him as a teacher, ing roots as strong as, or stronger could command a lot of volume; the Louis did express an early admira• than, Oliver's. old recording techniques probably tion for Bunk, and the recorded The point of this digression is that didn't do her justice. Her phrasing evidence shows elements in Louis' Louis was not just a genius who is a little repetitious and dull rhyth• playing (chiefly time and tone) sprung newborn from the brow of mically, especially next to Louis which were like Bunk rather than King Oliver, but the peak of an es• whose time is always so fine. Trixie Oliver. Bunk's status, both as an tablished and varied tradition of Smith has a lighter, higher voice influence and as a player, has been which Oliver was only a part, though with a somewhat wobbly vibrato. She made hard to express fairly because a major part. has Ma Rainey's faults without Ma's of the quantities of undeserved Terrible Blues also includes a depth. praise and equally undeserved scorn chorus by Louis which is one of his Louis is least effective on Countin that have been heaped on him, and earliest totally successful solos. It is the Blues where he talks with a mute also because he recorded only during in this solo that he is conceptually in Oliver fashion. His horn is open the forties, making judgments about farthest from Oliver in this album. on /e//y Bean and Railroad Blues, his earlier work open to legitimate Oliver's solos (and Louis' with the both of which have beautiful open• question. His good records (unfor• Oliver band) had been in the- en• ings. Of all the tracks in the album, tunately a small minority of the ones semble lead style; they hadn't varied it is Railroad Blues on which Louis I have heard) like Down By the their phrasing just because they hap• sounds most like Oliver. Except for Riverside, show a trumpet with much pened to be taking a solo. Like most the unmistakable vibrato, it could be in common with the early Louis, and pre-Louis New Orleans trumpeters, Oliver on the eight-bar introduction. his contemporaries. Oliver sounds more, comfortable in Louis even closes up his tone a little To continue this digression, the the ensemble and is most effective and gets a bit of Oliver's acid sound. point has been forcefully and cor• there. In this solo, Louis' organiza• On his chorous he is more char• rectly made, by Leonard Feather tion and climaxing are, as far as I acteristic of himself, but it is not and others, that jazz was not born in know, something completely new and an example of his best work. the beginnings of his great contribu• New Orleans alone, that the music These records are typical of Louis tions as a soloist. His two breaks was the product of the entire as he was the year or so after he left later in the record revert to the (though predominantly southern) Oliver. They are valuable both for Oliver style, which is no real loss, as American Negro scene, To say this their moments of beauty and for the Oliver was excellent at short, simple is one thing; it is not to say (as has informtion they supply about the de• breaks. been maintained as a corollary) velopment of the first great soloist. that the New Orleans players and The same remarks apply to Louis' It seems to me that Louis' greatest the New Orleans contribution were ensemble work on Santa Claus Blues contribution was rhythmic. Oliver no more remarkable than those of and Of All the Wrong. On the latter, had swung before him, but not con• other cities. Questions of taste creep Louis has a muted solo over stop sistently; Louis swung almost every in here, as well as questions of his• chords which doesn't quite come off. note he played. In a way, the pres• torical accident (i.e., who just hap• Nobody Knows is entirely a vocal ence of lesser musicians in this al• pened to be recorded), but the by Alberta Hunter under the pseu• bum is a blessing; we are so used recorded remains seem to indicate donym Josephine Beatty. Louis and to hearing Louis' rhythmic contribu• that of all the very early trumpeters, Bechet function as unobstrusive ac- tion in all the players that followed say those recorded before 1925, the companients; neither has much to him that we take them for granted. best New Orleans men like, say, do, and Bechet is a little repetitious. When we hear them here alongside Oliver, Ladnier, and Louis were Alberta Hunter's singing does not men who didn't have the advantage more advanced and have worn better impress me. Cake Walking Babies is of having absorbed Louis' example, over the years than those from an excellent driving performance we can be more properly impressed. Louisville, New York, and other hideously marred by a duet vocal —Maitland Edey REVIEWS: BOOKS Jazzmen, edited by Frederic Ramsey, od's limitations, a limitation in jazz portant—not those who had become Jr., and Charles Edward Smith. scholarship as a whole: personal popular, by and large—they hoped (Harcourt, Brace, 1939.) Harvest reminiscences form one of the few to channel the interest in jazz en• Books, 1959. primary sources we have in recon• gendered by the swing craze and to The first important book written structing jazz history, yet by their counteract the misconceptions which about jazz is now back in print in very nature they cannot be very ac• had come with it. paperback and everyone who does curate and hardly can be taken as a The basic theme of Jazzmen is the not own a copy is urged to buy one. reliable basis for substantiating facts. old familiar "jazz myth" of how it On the twentieth anniversary of its Again, in the New Orleans music all began in New Orleans, came up publication, the book's historical im• chapter of Jazzmen, the events of the river when Storyville was closed, portance remains undimmed, even Buddy Bolden's legendary career are flourished in gangland Chicago, of though parts of it have dated and largely put forward as fact, although the early twenties, and then moved to other parts now appear of question• many details have never been veri• the Tin Pan Alley world of New able interest. fied. Such stories are colorful and York, where it was corrupted and have a place in reconstructing jazz's Jazzmen was the first book to take from where it also extended, in past, but they cannot be treated as jazz criticism out of the hands of the diluted form, to the world at large. fact. impressionists and enthusiasts like It is impossible to guess how much It is interesting that much as the Hughes Panassie and Otis Ferguson the dissemination of the "jazz myth" editors emphasize how they are ap• and place it in the hands of writers was accomplished by this book—cer• plying historical methods to their who were scholars and researchers. tainly a good part of it. The myth study, Jazzmen is not so much an Sooner or later someone would have still has some validity, but we now epoch-making book as it is a transi• used historical investigation to put know that the story of jazz is not so tional one—with one foot back in jazz in perspective—indeed people wonderfully simple. Jazz was being the intensely personal, rhapsodic such as William Russell had made a played in other places in these world of Panassie and Robert Goffin start before Jazzmen appeared—but periods, and it is too bad that the and the other placed adventurously it is to Ramey and Smith's credit interviewers who so zealously cov• ahead in the relatively objective, fac• that they convinced Harcourt, Brace ered New Orleans and Chicago did tual world of Hear Me Talkin to Ya to put this conception between book not wander off the trail and hunt for and They All Played . Partly covers, and that they secured com• evidences elsewhere. The material was this was due to the choice of con• petent people to write the chapters. certainly there for the taking, and tributors, for Otis Ferguson and The result vindicated their judgment, every once in a while there are allu• Wilder Hobson were squarely in the not only in the popularity of the book sions in the book which indicate an Panassie line. But its was also partly (which has gone through several awareness that it existed. due, I feel, to a confusion or in• printings) but also in the fact that The book's theme predetermined decision of purpose on the part of virtually all serious jazz books since the material it would include. For the editors. For instance, each of the their time have used their methods example, there is coverage of New four sections of the book—New Or• and drawn on their research. Orleans in the Storyville period, of leans, Chicago, New York and "Jazz New Orleans white jazz, of King fn their introduction the editors Today"—is prefaced by several pages Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, of the make clear that they are attempting in italics, which are supposed to set blues, and of such individuals as to do something which has not been the time and place for the articles Louis Armstrong and Bix Beider- done before. In the late thirties it to follow, and these essays are im• becke. In many other ways the book was a new tack. pressionist criticism with a venge• is indisputably a product of its time. In preparing Jazzmen we have had a ance, almost embarassingly so. (In• Attitudes and events of the late very definite purpose in mind: to relate the story of jazz as it has unfolded about deed they may not have seen their thi rties dominate the selections and the men who created it, the musicians equal until the the-mid-fifties when the omissions in the text. Boogie- themselves. . . . For it is the musicians, several unrestrained critics got off woogie is given too much attention, the creators of jazz, who have actually their chests what Charlie Parker's probably because the boogie craze been most neglected while critical battles have been fought. We feel their story, death meant to them.) Since co-editor had been set off just before by the heretofore untold, is of major value. Smith wrote these they must be there 1938 Carnegie Hall concert of Albert Ramsey and Smith searched out by design, yet it is difficult to rec• Ammons, Meade Lux Lewis, and Pete the musicians themselves, interviewed oncile them with the editors' avowed Johnson. On the other hand, there them, checked the results against purpose in their general introduction. is no chapter on a more important sources, followed with a second in• Nor does 'he book's main thesis piano movement—the Harlem stride terview to clear up doubtful points, stand up so well twenty years after, school. We may be more aware of the stride school's significance than and made the results available to although it has unquestionably had a people were in 1939, but certainly their contributors. One major coup major impact on determining what and James P. Johnson resulted from this method: the dis• Americans think about jazz. Ramsey were well known, and both of them, covery of Bunk Johnson in a Louisi• and Smith were evangelists in a way: • and many lesser figures, were very ana rice field, and his remarkable they were trying to tell the unknow• •much available to the interviewers. comeback. Much of the chapter on ing and the unbelieving about the New Orleans music seems to have true faith. By telling the story of The book also seems to have a bias been based on Bunk's recollection. jazz's development through the lives against the musicians most prominent This fact points up one of the meth• of the musicians who were really im• in its own day. Almost every rnusi- cian who is highly praised, or is to cover. What did it cover, and how sell treats almost every boogie woogie given much space, made his reputa• relevant is what it did for us today? pianist in sight, probably on the tion before 1930, while those who In its defense is Frederic Ramsey's theory that, while the Ammons-John- became well known afterwards are chapter on King Oliver and the son-Lewis combine made the news at virtually ignored. As an example, the Creole Jazz Band, really a portrait Carnegie Hall, there were many other Austin High Gang and Red Nichols' of Oliver's carrer, and as such is fine boogie woogie players equally Five Pennies each have a chapter in probably as fine a biographical study worth attention. Charles Edward the book—a prodigal waste of space as any jazz critic has written. It is a Smith also contributes a sympathetic, in terms of the climate today. How• model of how the traditional methods well-constructed piece on the Austin ever, to explain this bias does not of the biographer—research, under• High Gang. excuse it—not that we would expect standing of the subject, and a lucid These essays are the sum total of people writing in 1938 to be aware writing style—can be used in jazz the first two sections in the book— of the revolutionary importance of criticism. Ramsey was greatly aided New Orleans and Chicago. The level Lester Young or Roy Eldridge, but by three things: a warm, attractive is high. One is left with the conclu• they certainly reveal their prejudices subject in Oliver; a dramatic, color• sion that the editors' hearts were in by failing to give proper due to Cole• ful story which ends unhappily; and this part of the book but not in the man Hawkins and, to take an earlier a remarkable series of letters which Oliver wrote to friends and relatives. remaining two sections. Certainly the "transitional" figure, Earl Hines. Ramsey lets these letters tell much quality falls off badly, and the post- The late thirties were, of course, of the story of Oliver's decline and Chicago period of jazz is quite in• the era of the big bands and also one final illness, and they are moving adequately represented. The New- of the few times when jazz really documents, especially the poignant York section is given over in its en• had some impact on the nation's final one to his sister, which tears tirety to Wilder Hobson and Otis consciousness. The editors of Jazz• at one's heart, even at third or Ferguson, with every uneven results. men seem to go out of their way to fourth reading. Ramsey paints an Hobson devotes his attention to the ignore the swing tradition, probably unforgettable picture of the Creole impression that Fletcher Henderson's because they were trying to counter• Jazz Band and through it makes us band made on him when it played act it. One major result is that big know and love Oliver as a man. Al• at a Yale party. He summons up a bands are all but ignored in the book. together, a remarkable essay. vivid picture of this incident, but to This places an impossible limitation call it adequate coverage of Harlem on the book's effort to cover jazz jazz and the big-band tradition would Only slightly less excellent are sev• history, because it means an un• be ludicrous. eral other chapters. William Russell deniable great figure—Duke Elling• and Stephen W. Smith contribute a ton—is not given his proper place solid essay on New Orleans music. Otis Ferguson's essay on the Five (he gets a page and a half). The other Its discussion of the Storyville days Pennies is couched in the hardboiled, great bands and leaders receive the has been a major basis for subse• John O'Hara idiom which was de same treatment (Fletcher Henderson quent writing about this period. rigueur for magazine pieces about does slightly better than Duke in the Charles Edward Smith writes a good the popular arts in the thirties—and book). chapter on white New Orleans— is still exploited today by such people Leaving aside these omissions, maybe a little too long but it gives as George Frazier. Once you have re• which may be explained by the edi• fascinating glimpses of the Original covered from the shock of the chap• tors' purposes and prejudices, we Dixieland Jazz Band and that strange ter title itself and you have deter• still come face to face with one which figure, Leon Rappolo. William Rus• mined to swallow the "hep" writing can be explained on neither ground sell on Louis Armstrong still ranks style, you find some worth-while and which seems all the more amaz• as the best single piece on the sub• things, for Ferguson was about the ing when we consider their approach. ject, even though it largely ignores best of the impressionist jazz writers. The figure of Jelly Roll Morton Louis' days with Earl Hines. Russell There is an accurate appraisal of the moves in and out of the narrative gives a perceptive analysis of Louis' styles of Red Nichols, , and in tantalizing fashion, but at no point trumpet style, though. Somewhat less Jack Teagarden, and a just assess• are his contributions discussed. It is satisfactory, but still quite good, are ment of their limitations. And even possible (although unlikely) that a number of other chapters. better, a genuinely effective evocation none of the contributors to Jazz• of the uneasy world of New York men had heard of the Library of E. Simms Campbell's coverage of musicians in the twenties, with the Congress recordings, but there were the blues consists almost in entirety frantic chasing after big money and still ample proofs of Jelly Roll's of a long interview with Clarence the artistic frustration. stature available. Certainly many of Williams, which roams in somewhat the musicians who were interviewed slapdash fashion, over a great deal The final section, "Jazz Today" must have attested to it, and there of ground, ft is hardly a serious (1939), is a bouillabaisse which were recordings. Jelly Roll surely de• challenge to the earlier essay by never mixes. Wilder Hobson again served a chapter, and so does the Abbe Niles. Edward J. Nichols begins it, with another fragmentary ragtime movement behind Jelly Roll, does a more than adequate job on account, this time of 52nd Street in although the editors may have left it 's career, although the late thirties—a piece which con• out on the assumption that ragtime George Avakian's more thorough tains bits and pieces of impressions should not be judged part of the jazz study has since supplanted his work. of musicians in the jazz club—the tradition (I might add it also avoided William Russell's discussion of whole thing highly inconsequential. the problem of explaining how Seda- boogie woogie suffers by comparison Then follow two essays—one by lia, Missouri, and Charleston, South with Russell's pieces on Jimmy Yan• Ramsey on Chicago, the other by Carolina, fitted into the New Or• cey, Meade Lux Lewis, and Cripple Smith on New Orleans—which take Clarence Lofton—much more con• leans legend). the writers back to the scenes of centrated and analytical studies. Rus• So much for what Jazzmen failed jazz's eariler triumphs. Ramsey's ac- count is really a period piece now— is an erudite bibliographical essay on for the book to be brought down full of information about who is jazz criticism since its beginnings, through the bop and cool periods, playing where in Chicago in 1938, still interesting reading for anyone but, as I have indicated, it would be probably only valuable because it curious about the misconceptions more useful if it included pieces on pinpoints what was happening in a which arose about jazz. Perhaps Morton, the Harlem pianist, Elling• specific jazz area at a specific time. these two essays were included to ton, and other big bands. Also, in the Smith's essay stands up better, for it "round out the picture" about jazz, light of what we have learned since, is dipped in nostalgia (the title is but I can see no excuse for either a chapter on the Southwest—Kansas "Land of Dreams"), and Smith is of them in a book with this title and City tradition culminating in Count good at conjuring up memories. The purpose. Basie—would be most welcome. The best pages in the chapter are the This paperback is identical to the book's value as a definite work on brief profiile of (in• original. Apparently the editors and jazz before 1940 diminishes as one serted to show that, although jazz is publisher have been content to let the ticks off each one of these omissions. virtually dead in New Orleans, it is book stand as an historic document, However, I suppose it is ungrateful still alive in other places I. When rather than to attempt the difficult to ask for more instead of being satis• one sees how brilliantly Smith cap• job of bringing the book up to date fied with what we have. For Jazzmen tures Webb, one is doubly sorry that in terms of the knoweldge of this can still stand on its own, both as a he and Ramsey did not give the same day. The first two parts can stand book which has had an impact on treatment to such people as Basie, on their own in this way, but the our thinking about jazz, on the direc• Lunceford, Hawkins, and others. final two are largely filled with what tion jazz writing has taken, and as a The last two chapters seem aimed we would charitably consider period book with important articles on the at opposite audiences. Stephen W. pieces. It is most unfortunate that New Orleans and Chicago periods. Smith's "Hot Collecting" could have the editors did not throw out most, It is one of the very few books which come straight out of Esquire, a popu• if not all, of these and substitute new has contributed substantially to our lar treatment of a phenomenon of the artciles which could carry the story understanding.of jazz as an art. As thirties. On the other hand, Roger down to 1940. It would certainly such,- it deserves to be read. not be either practical or desirable Pryor Dodge's "Consider the Critics" —Sheldon Meyer

Music '59 Published by Maher music. His comments do not make he is interested in good music and Publications (Down Beat). his point of view clear, but indicate good writing about it, he should have that he is leery of defining his own taken this opportunity as a reviewer tastes. In his news-tidbits section I to analyze the quality of the material Down Beat has turned out a pretty find the remark that "Pablo Casals, at he was given to review. He attempts good yearbook. The events of 1958 81, performed once again in public to rescue his article from the dryness are well covered in two sections: a after suffering a heart attack and a of a straight list of authors, publish• diary of musical news arranged marriage, in that order," impudent, ers, titles, and contents by borrowing monthly, and a summary of jazz ac• frivolous, and lacking good taste. His the opinions of other critics (Orrin tivity during the year arranged re• reference to the New York Philhar• Keepnews, Philip Elwood, Ralph gionally. The sections covering the monic's tour of South America con• Gleason, The New York Times). East and Midwest contain good fac• tains an accidental pun that will Martin Williams has selected a basic tual reporting with a moderate amuse the devotees of the hip idiom: library of Ips for the beginning jazz amount of editorial comment. The "Bernstein and Dimitri Mitropoulos listener. The monumental task of se• Los Angeles area section is written . . . were able to report on returning lecting some eighty-odd records out in a breezier style that reads pleasant• that no U.S. musician was stoned, as of the fantastic catalogue of avail• ly but sometimes borders on ambi• Vice President Richard M. Nixon had able material has been done with taste guity: ". . . flirted awhile been earlier." and understanding. Individual prefer• with cellist in a quasi-jazz Leonard Feather avoids making ences will certainly insist on additions group. . . . the new -Bill critical comment in his article "Jazz to this listing, but none of the records Holman quintet fought for breath." Literature: 1958," on the grounds listed should be omitted. Martin's An article by Bob Rolontz gives a that he refuses to involve himself in commentary presents the logic of his concise survey of the artists and re• the current rash of "criticism of jazz selections and points out related pertoire of the popular field. David criticism," claiming that "no repu• works, unavailable 78's and the exist• Sachs's review of the year's music on table critic would stoop to such ence of unreleased masters that would Broadway includes perceptive critical depths." I wonder if he ever read the more fully round out the list. remarks. His statement that "the score searing remarks that George Bernard Martin's presentation of the role by Leroy Anderson (Goldilocks) was Shaw and George Jean Nathan aimed of the small group in jazz (a separate considered pleasant but unexciting" at their colleagues while they were article) is clear and interesting. His would have been clearer if he had writing regular columns of criticism. writing style approaches professorial identified the source of opinion. In Personally, I'm glad to see a few stodginess at times, but his informa• the remainder of his article Mr. Sachs writers commenting on criticism as tion, observational accuracy, and takes full responsibility for his own well as music, and I intend to con• strong point of view ring truly views. tinue to do so myself. The standards through it all. The classical field has been re• of criticism and writing could bear John S. Wilson's report on the jazz viewed rather inadequately by Don being elevated a little. compositions of 1958 is nicely done. Henahan. He poses a number of ques• If Leonard dislikes critics com• He takes an interesting look at what tions from several possible points of menting on each other's work because Duke Ellington has been producing view but takes none as his own. His he feels his position as an authority latelv. as well as at the extended main subject is the dilemma of the on jazz is in jeopardy, he may have works of George Russell. Manny Al- critic rather than the character of the some grounds for uneasiness. But if bam, Dick Gary, , John Mandel, and some others. recklessly with their only source of Spout Them Blues, are pleasantly en• income. At the same time, Brown tertaining satire, though not a patch "The Hollywood Vine" by John minimizes the quantity and quality of on the masters of this style (Benchley, Tynan covers the use of jazz in the really excellent writing being done Perelman, Cuppy). I wish the author music industry. at a time when there is so little de• or authors had identified themselves. In "The Trouble With Big Band mand for it. Hiding behind pseudonyms and Jazz" Marshall Brown does a lot of In the fiction section of this book throwing bad jokes! Shame on them. generalized complaining about the there are four short stories about jazz The article on high fidelity gives cliche-ridden conservatism in current musicians, the best of which is Robert a comprehensive rundown on stereo big-band writing, without mentioning Eskew's Time of the Blue Guitar. The rigs, stereo broadcasting, tape car• whose writing in particular he means. characters are fairly believable, and tridges, new types of enclosures, and Let's see . . . some of the big-band he has a pretty good idea for a story. other electronic goodies. The setups writers who were active last year were His strongest point is his ability to used by Louis Armstrong, John Ham• Manny Albam, , Ernie handle the argot of the musician with• mond, Leonard Feather, and Roy Wilkins, , Bob , out duplicating the lack of definitive Eldridge are described, and there is Gil Evans, George Russell, , expression inherent in the genuine a glossary of a few hi-fi terms. John Mandel, Nelson Riddle, Charles idiom, where vocal inflection is sub• The honorary title "Jazz Spokes• Mingus, Jimmy Giuffre, Teddy stituted for choice of meaningful man of the Year" and an editorial Charles, Michel LeGrand, Ellington- words. Through the first-person nar• round of applause is given Father Strayhorn, , Med Flory, rative of a jazz drummer, the author Norman O'Connor for his speaking , Lennie Niehaus, Benny creates sharp imagery, action, and and writing on jazz topics. "Best Jazz Golson, John Graas, Dick Cary, Bill good development of his story. His LPs of 1958" lists five albums that Husso, John LaPorta, John Benson conclusion is weak. The clarity with were selected by the Down Beat re• Brooks, , Harry Arnold, which he has exposed his central viewing staff; they are all good Bill Potts, and others I can't think character, the fast-talking band lead• choices. of or don't know. Now, Brown writes, er with dreams of glory who destroys "Today's top arrangers and compos• a creative group feeling with his The transcript of a panel discus• ers are not arranging or composing. greediness, is diminished with the au• sion on KLAC, Los Angeles (Shelley They are merely manipulating thor's mystic-romantic conception of Manne, Pete Rugolo, Ben Pollack, cliches." And farther on, "We are liv• his gifted guitarist and the drummer- Gene Norman, Leonard Feather), is ing in the era of the interchangeable narrator. He makes an effort for entertaining, and there is some in• arranger." I find these statements poignancy that is unsuccessful prin• dication of the various points of view, difficult to reconcile with the work of cipally because he has concerned him• but the subject, "Which Way is Jazz the men listed above. self more with this result than with Going—Forward, Backward, or Side• being true to the lives of his char• ways?" doesn't stimulate much mean• Much of what Marshall Brown says acters. ingful comment because of its essen• about the current overworking of the Dogs Don't Always Eat Dogs, by tial meaninglessness. Feather ex• Basie idiom is valid as far as it goes. Ed Sachs, is a pleasant little college presses himself clearly when speak• There is a demand for that sort of farce about some vaudeville types ing. Pollack and Manne are an inter• writing now, and several writers are who happen to be musicians. You esting pair: two generations of strong making a living filling that demand. Gotta Gel Lucky, by Leonard Feather, opinion. Rugolo's complaining that It is a workable, aesthetically satisfy• is a rather clumsily contrived story jazz is going nowhere and crying for ing musical form, and certainly the about a traveling musician who ghosts the good old days gives me a pain. most jazz-oriented one that has be• trumpet solos for the band leader and The photography throughout the come popular. His complaints about tries to run off with his girl. A dull, book is very good. In my copy the Basie cliches are naive. Whether the pointless tale with a "surprise" end• reproduction could have been better. form is taken from Basie, Bird, Monk, ing that might take a seven-year-old Most of the plates are sprinkled with Alban Berg, or Montana Slim, a fig• unawares. white specks, and in places you can ure becomes a cliche by virtue of its Frank London Brown's A Way Of see where dirt has built upon the mechanical, unmeaningful use. It is Life is ugly, sticky, and false. I resent printing surface, causing little white- true that the three one-measure ex• being hauled through a detailed ac• ringed black spots. The pictures I amples that Brown submits are often count of the hawking and blood-spit• like best are Charles Stewart's shots played with banality, but these are ting of a dying, music-hating, tuber• of Gerry Mulligan and Anita O'Day, such elementary rhythmic figurations cular wreck, in order to view the Tony Scott's , Don Hun- that it would be pointless to eliminate blessings of a deathbed conversion to stein's shots of Brubeck, Garner, them from use in jazz. It would be an appreciation of Sonny Stitt's play• , and Duke, and more valuable for musicians to con• ing. This sort of tripe is bad enough uncredited shots of John Mandel, centrate on eliminating the attitude in its original form (the dying sinner Igor Stravinsky, and . The that causes the cliche, rather than the repentant, the dying drunkard sign• use of prints from the Art Institute figure that has become one. ing the pledge) without dragging of Chicago as facing plates for the Brown's article does not point out jazz into it. The maudlin melodrama short stories in the fiction department the real trouble with big-band jazz, disguises the basic lie, which is that was a lovely idea. Unfortunately, the which has more to do with money life and beauty can revive a dead prints suffered terribly in the process than lack of talent or creative drive. man. Dead is dead. If you're worried of reproduction, so that familiarity Financial impasses prevent many ex• about saving life, protect it in chil• with the originals is in this case a cellent writers from doing their best dren and lovers, where there's enough disadvantage. Possibly the choice of work. Others who have found a suc• of it to make the effort worth while. drawings or paintings done in black cessful formula for earning a living The two humorous pieces, Ferris and white would have been wiser. with their skill hesitate to experiment Wheels Again and / Saw Cookie —Bill Crow JAZZ IN PRINT by Nat Hentoff

Bernard P. Gallagher, who pub• America for Jazz Journal, quotes reviewing space in magazines and lishes a newsletter in the magazine Kenneth Tynan on New York drama newspapers is devoted to pop al• field, had this to say about criticism, critics in The Observer: ". . . they bums. "Milt Gabler, Decca artist & as quoted in the February 4 Variety: reveal an alarming critical tendency repertoire chief, pointed out that the ". . . Watering down of editorial to care only about whether a show great majority of dailies and the product is a blight of magazine pub• is good or bad of its kind, while mags are passing over the disc in• lishing today. The middle position making no distinctions of value be• terest of the average consumer for too often means no position. Lack tween kinds." Like some jazz writers the more esoteric stuff in the classi• of editorial vigor is especially evi• Worth subscribing to is Drum, cal, folk, spoken word, children and dent among trade magazines. Fear of Private Mail Bag 2128, Lagos, Ni• jazz field." criticism is stifling. One publishing geria or Box 1197, Accra, Ghana What nonsense. What does one say company has a clear cut policy of or 15 Troye St. Johannesburg. The about the fifth , the tenth "no negative reporting.' A strong in• February 1959 issue has an article Jonie James, the eighth Four Aces dustry has strong critics. It is self- on , the Ghana drummer album? The product is shallow, so defeating to silence critics. It is also who spent some time in America and why waste space on it? Would Gab• death for any publication to back who is much interested and involved ler have the book reviewers balance away from hard-hitting issues." in jazz. their space so that best-selling his• Steve Roper, one of the worst torical romances get the bulk of their The March issue of Sam Ulano's drawn and plotted of all the comics, attention? Drum Files contains a rhythm dic• went on a "jazz" kick recently with An interesting quarterly news• tionary, among other features. . . . a tabloid approach to jazz-and-nar- letter, The World of Music, is pub• Writes Bjorn Fremer of the Scandi• cotics and a use of jazz argot that lished by the International Music navian Record Co.: "Sonny Rollins makes Robert Ruark look hip. My Council, Unesco House, Place de . . . played at the Club Nalen here favorite line was: "Hey man! Take Fontenoy, Paris VII, France. It's one in Stockholm for three days and he a two-bar rest and fill me in! Like dollar a year. ... A valuable classi• was a big hit. No jazz musician so I got eyes that say you're from Uncle cal magazine is the quarterly Music far has received ovations like Sonny Candy-Pants." Sounds like Pee Wee & Letters, edited by the late Eric and his trio. . . ." Charles Delaunay Marquette. Blom, 44 Conduit Street, London W. is expanding his book on An article on Blind John Davis by 1. ... If you read Polish, there's a Reinhardt and has collected much David Mangurian in the January monthly, Jazz, edited by Joseph Bal- new material. . . . With reference to 1959 Jazz Report. It says Davis re• cerak, Gdansk. Waly Jagiellonskie 1, a previous point, Mimi Clar writes cently taped two and a half hours Poland. . . that from 1926-42 there were only with Studs Terkel for the Library four articles on Negro folk music in Dr. Earle Davis of of Congress. Whom else has Studs the Journal of American Folklore sends an article on New Orleans sur• taped? Will the records be made . . . and about the same number geon-jazzman-historian Edmond Sou- available? And what happened to from 1888-1925. . . . chon from the February 5 New the long taping session Bill Randle England Journal of Medicine. It had with Big Bill? Lead music section story in the gives Souchon's history as a doctor Stanley Dance, now writing from March 4 Variety is that not enough and jazz follower. EVERGREEN REVIEW March, 1959, Jazz Journal re• Issue #8 just out, featuring works by: prints two BBC interviews with Duke Save $2.00 by Ellington. Duke was talking about jack kerouac writing for specific men in the band: subscribing now "... I was amazed at the way this boris pasternak thing turned out anyway in the be• ginning, because I think that if I had to the lively magazine e. e. cummings never met these people my writing would have been altogether different. with the biggest names| william saroyan And I am sure that if I had never anthony c. west met The Lion certain influences in modern literature wouldn't have been absorbed, and alien glnsberg James P. Johnson . . .A lot of ar• ranging is done over the telephone Horace gregory [with Strayhorn] . . ." Humphrey Lytellton asked him his secret of arthur adamov keeping a band together for so long. paul goodman "Well, you've got to have a gim• mick, Humphrey. The one I use is and others, plus to give them money." He later said: The Evergreen Gallery, a new illustrated sec• "I don't think I ever wrote myself tion on contemporary art. Edited by Barney into anything, anyway. I'm an ob• Rosset and Donald Allen. $1 per copy. server, I think. I've seen a lot of people and witnessed them in many EVERGREEN REVIEW, Dept. R87, 64 University PI., N.Y. 3 Please enter my subscription beginning with the cur• different things, you know, both per• rent volume No. 8 (Send no money; you will be billed later.) petrating some of these good deeds • EIGHT ISSUES, $6 • FOUR ISSUES, $3.50 and also enjoying some of the . . . (You save $2) (You save 50c) (Canadian and Foreign subscriptions: Eight issues, suffering." Same issue has some re• $7: Four issues, $4) flections on by Benny Green, and a Clifford Brown Name. discography by Jorgen Grunnet Jep- Address. sen. There's also a good account by Jerome Shipman of "Reverend Gary City .Zone State. Davis in Boston." Too bad Shipman didn't interview him. It's amazing that so little about jazz appears in the journals. Tristam P. Coffin noted in Midwest Folklore, 8 (1957):" . . .one is amazed that most folklorists go on largely ig• norant of jazz—Merriam, Hoffman [Dan], Ball [John] and a few others to the contrary." Signs of the Times; An article on by Don Nelsen in the Sunday magazine section of the New York Daily News . . . Three articles in The Sunday Times (Lon• don) starting February 15 devoted to Fifty Basic Jazz Records selected and with commentary by Foreign Editor Iain Lang. ^ The January Jazz Notes (now available at $1.20 a year and ten cents a copy at P.O. Box 55, Indi• anapolis 6, Indiana) has an inter• view with James P. Johnson by Alan Lomax from a 1938 Library of Con• gress recording. It's the first in a "Sources for Jazz Study" series that the magazine is planning. From Punch: R. G. G. Price on Kingsley Amis: "Mr. Amis, Beau Amis, spends his time among the delicate discriminations of literary criticism and the even more delicate discriminations of jazz criticism." In the June Nugget, there's a light• January Matrix. (Is Victor eaer go• February 14-20 issue of the CBC ly written sketch of , ing to make those available again?) Times, Pacific Regional Schedule, "Gentleman of Jazz," by Eli Waldron The most repellent headline I've has a cover feature on Bob Smith, and Seymour Krim. While not a ever seen on a jazz magazine was on the invaluable jazz force in Van• "depth" piece, it comes closer to the cover of the April 2 Down Beat: couver. He has a regular series on catching Bud than any article I've "Bechet Plays Like A Pig," Says the CBC. yet seen: "There are four basic pre• Michel Legrand. Is this to attract CBC-TV had a Timex-sponsored cepts you must observe if you wish readers? For whatever reason, who• all-star Canadian jazz show Febru• to score with the world. One, use Wall ever was responsible for putting the ary 20 with , Georgie St. Cologne—in this way you will line on the cover was singularly Auld ( Toronto), Peter score with women. Two, use Yard- tasteless. As for Legrand, a man who Appleyard, Mike White's Imperial ley's Shaving Cream—in this way, writes like an electronic computer Jazz Band, etc. Reports Bob Fulford, clean-shaven, you will score with the obviously cannot understand—let literary editor and art critic of the general public. Three, change your alone feel—what Becht was doing. Toronto Star and a perceptive jazz socks daily—here you score with The April HiFi Review has a spe• observer: "The musicians were han• earthworms and all the good people cial insert by John Wilson, "The dled in much better taste than on who work underground. Four, always Jazz Panorama." It's a conventional any of the hour-long shows in the walk into the sun—now you score history of jazz that is very weak on United States; except . . . The Sound with the Sun People." origins, goes through the up-the- of Jazz . . .The musicians decided James Baldwin, reviewing Selected river-from-New-Orleans changes, ig• their own seating , Poems of Langston Hughes, in the nores the eastern seaboard and south• vetoed mikes that would get in their March 29 New York Times Book western traditions, and otherwise is way, were allowed to suggest camera Review: "Hughes, in his sermons, a very capable summary of what is shots. But the show was finally hamp• blues and prayers, has working for rapidly becoming outdated jazz his• ered by the lack of really serious him the power and the beat of Negro toriography. musicians. In Toronto it sometimes speech and Negro music. Negro According to a pamphlet from seems to me that jazz is mainly speech is vivid largely because it is Sabena (Belgian World Airlines) played by studio men who have a private. It is a kind of emotional Rex Stewart is heading an Interna• very settled (maybe bourgeois is the shorthand — or sleight-of-hand — by tional Jazz Junket to Europe from word) approach to both life and art means of which Negroes express, not July 11 to August 8 ... A New York —for them jazz is mainly an exciting only their relationship to each other, Post roundup story by Sally Ham• hobby." but their judgment of the white mond on the "significance" of the The first Washington Jazz Jubilee, world. And, as the white world takes popularity of Peter Gunns "jazz" reviewed in the July issue of Jazz over this vocabularly—without the score: Explained theorist George Review, was covered by Winzola Mc- faintest notion of what it really Simon "Jazz is a masculine art. It Lendon and Tony Gieske for the means—the vocabularly is forced to has robustness. It has guts. And Washington Post. Heads on the Mc- change. The same thing is true of Peter Gunn is a he-man." Lendon story were: Too Little Toe- Negro music, which has had to be• Jazz for Tarzan? Tapping: Jazz Hits Sour No!e With come more and ^more complex in Added Marshall Stearns: "A pri• the Uninitiated. Over Gieske's story: order to express any of the private vate-eye crime drama is a typically It Took 'The Lion' To Quiet Them. or collective experience. . ." American idiom. So is jazz. Here we "I don't care where we go," said one Coda, a monthly at $1.20 a year have the fusing together of two woman to her party, "as long as I continues to improve. Editor is John idioms that are indigenous to our can hear a melody" Andrew Tully Norris, P.O. Box 87, Station 'J', American culture. There was bound in the New York World Telegram: Toronto 6, Ontario. In the March to be an impact." "Defense Secretary Neil McElroy and issue, there's an interesting Norris Mike Hammer, won't you please Mrs. McElroy are under some sus• account of New Orleans today. The come home. picion. They had tickets but they news section reveals that Sam Char• Pianist Fran Thorne, one of the didn't show up. Afterward, their ters has recorded Lightning Hopkins organizers of the late Great South daughter, Bitsy, explained that her for Folkways Records. Mack Mc- Bay Festival, is in Italy to study folks wanted to stay upstairs in their Cormick meanwhile has recorded and compose for two years. He suite and listen to President's Eisen• Lightning in Texas for Tradition played a concert in Massa sponsored hower's speech on the crisis. Records. An account of Lightning by by the Fulbright Association of 'THIS was easier to understand?' Charters will be published soon in Tuscany in co-operation with TJ.S.I.S. cracked a Democrat." The Jazz Review. There's also a good The program consisted of his own Worth getting is the April Holi• article on King Records and the Variations on a Duke Ellington day, an all-Africa issue. gospel albums available on that label Theme, Aaron Copland's Four Piano Slashing review of the Steve-Allen as well as a blues set with Champion Blues, Thome's suite for two , —Leonard-Feather The Jazz Story Jack Dupree and . etc. by Ralph Gleason in the March 15 For a catalogue, it's King, 1540 Enough money has been raised in San Francisco Chronicle. Head is Brewster, Cincinnati, Ohio. advance orders so that the Labor How Can Allen Do a Thing Like The is still being pub• Education Division of Roosevelt Uni• This?: ". . . It's one of the most lished by The New Orleans Jazz versity can publish Songs of Work horrendous efforts to grab a buck Club. For information, write Jo and Freedom by Joe Glazer and that an industry where profit is the Schmidt, 2417 Octavia Street, New Edith Fowkes by June. For informa• main motive has ever produced." Orleans 15, Louisiana. tion, write Frank McCallister, Roose• Gleason then points out and corrects Walt Allen has discographical ad• velt University 430 S. Michigan some of the historical misinforma• denda on the Label "X" series in the Avenue, Chicago 5, Illinois. tion. r

News and Views by Mimi Clar

KNOB: Twenty-four Hours of Jazz a Day

You name it, and KNOB, Los Angeles' musicians were very well schooled and compromise between a steady diet of "after all-jazz FM station, broadcasts it. Briefly, knew what they were doing. The musician midnight" jazz or jazz for musicians and the program schedule- of KNOB maintains of twenty-five years ago was a little more critics, and variety. After all, KNOB is a a policy of one hour of Dixie in the morn• deep into the jazz feeling than the average commercial enterprise and like any com• ing; "Jazz for Housewives" from eleven musician of today. I think that years ago mercial enterprise strives to succeed finan• to four; another hour of afternoon Dixie; the guys were a little bit more sincere cially (Bowen feels as the station gains an hour or so of Latin jazz; and then, to about their jazz." funds, it can do more to live up to the quote station owner Sleepy Stein, "at night Another afternoon, Buddy De Franco, personal ideals of the station directors). we wail." Red Mitchell, and Andre Previn got to• In order to attract as many listeners gether. They discussed why jazz clubs are Special programs on Saturday and Sun• as possible, both Bowen and Stein insist no longer successful (they charge too much day are Bob Kirsteins "Jazz Archives," a that the "variety approach"—jazz for house• for what Previn calls "water on the sort of musical history lesson in jazz (one wives, Latin jazz, dinner jazz—is para• rocks") ; jazz on TV ("Stars of Jazz is a Saturday various sides from the entire mount, that they cannot have sixteen good program") ; pianoless rhythm sections Riverside "History of Classic Jazz" package straight hours of . The programming (Andre, Buddy, and Red still like the old filled the morning's show) ; "Swing Street" is planned to conform to the tastes of the sound of piano, bass and drums; they feel —big bands and music of the Swing Era; listening majority at various times of the the lack of a complete rhythm section over• and Howard Lucraft's coverage of foreign day: housewives listen at certain hours; burdens one instrument) ; arrangers (it jazz sides. On Sunday, Buddy's brother, students at others; some people listen was agreed that Neal Hefti can do any Pat Collette's "Jazz Goes to Church" starts while they work (mechanics, merchants, a style, that his arrangements come off as the schedule with ; and (until studio animator friend of Bowen's) ; others good musically as the style in which they he became head of his own all-jazz FM tune in after work from about six to eleven are written will allow; Neal was quoted station in San Francisco) Pat Henry pre• P.M. After midnight, anything goes, and as maintaining that an arranger has good sided over a most rewarding Sunday show the funky and far-out material may be orchestration technique when he can finish that included an hour or so of taped "Jazz aired. two arrangements on the bus) ; intellectual Conversations" with three visiting jazzmen. jazz (De Franco: "I think jazz should Stein believes that the average jazz Since "Jazz Conversations" are one of the never be too mental; it should be balanced listener listens to jazz because it sounds highlights of the KNOB week for me, as by psyche and soma." Previn: "I agree better to him than any other kind of music, well as for many of the musicians around with Buddy; the first and foremost thing is without actually realizing it's jazz. Musi• town, I will elaborate on some of the sub• time and swinging; the rest will take care cians and critical jazz listeners, he con• jects covered in several representative ses• of itself."). tends, are in the minority. Sleepy named sions. A discussion among Sonny Rollins, According to Wes Bowen, former pro• his own dentist, who pipes KNOB music Jimmy Giuffre, and re• gram director for the station, there isn't into his offices, as a representative of the garding the urgency of spirit needed to enough really good jazz—the kind that average jazz listener: the dentist didn't play jazz and the amount of musical edu• sounds good ten years later—to rill sixteen know Sleepy owned the station and was cation necessary to the contemporary jazz• or seventeen hours of air time per day. surprised to discover the music he liked so man, led Sonny to remark that "The older Therefore, KNOB must make some sort of well was called jazz.

AUGUST 37 r However, KNOB personnel try to main• Originally an A channel (a local station tain good taste in whatever they do, a covering one city or town only with a since Sleepy believes above all else in power limit of 1000 watts maximum de• honesty or "not playing something bad and pending on the height of the transmitter), saying it's good." "Jazz for Housewives," KNOB's present frequency comes over a B for instance, gives listeners the best in that channel, which is unlimited in the West; class of prettier, milder jazz. The "House• that is, it serves an entire area rather than wives" show repeatedly builds to musical a specific city. KNOB obtained the last peaks and then descends: Sinatra and Ray available B channel in Los Angeles. Bryant might start a portion of the pro• The station's application for 79,000 gram and would gradually work up to watts has come through. It had been oper• , Modern Jazz Quartet, and ating on 3,400 watts. Other future plans finally, Sonny Rollins. Theoretically,, the include the purchase of multiplexer oscil• housewives will sit through Rollins because lator for stereo; the possibility of a record they know they can expect more Sinatra label; and the search for more serious later on; conversely, jazz fans will wait programs about jazz—shows in which the through for Monk. However, if music can be discussed by people qualified listeners tune in KNOB to hear Sinatra to talk about music (Stein feels there is a followed by Doris Day followed by Dick scarcity of such people).

Maltby, Stein doesn't want them; they Stein also hopes to find six or seven should be listening to AM radio, as far as more stations in any big jazz market in the he's concerned. country. Sleepy defines a good jazz market The KNOB audience is a satisfied one; as a cosmopolitan city and a city support• listeners rarely send in requests for special ing a large Negro population (Stein asserts numbers for they are confident of eventually Negroes to be the most faithful listeners to hearing their favorites. That the audience jazz programs). Of prospective cities, the is also loyal was demonstrated last year, number-one jazz market is New York; num• when scores of KNOB's records were stolen. ber two, Chicago; number three, San Over one hundred people phoned to offer Francisco; four, ; and others are the loan of records from their collections. Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. Stein, a fugitive from AM radio ("I quit The problem hampering Sleepy's develop• because I was forced to play junk"), origi• ment of new stations is now that KNOB nally did a show on KNOB when Ray has money to buy new channels, not enough channels remain available in the country Torian, also a jazz partisan, owned the to buy. If and when the new stations station. Sleepy originally intended to work materialize, Sleepy would like to stage for Ray in turning KNOB into an all-jazz concerts in the towns where the stations station. Torian, instead, cut Stein in as would be located and start a magazine of part-owner. Eventually Sleepy became the his own or tie in with one. sole owner, though Torian is still associated with KNOB, as president of the company In voicing my personal opinion as a and chief engineer. Sleepy Stein critical KNOB listener, I classify myself as KNOB went on the air in August, 1957, a member of the minority audience that contrast to the time early in KNOB's jazz with an all-jazz policy. A nationwide search Stein spoke of earlier in the article. Al• career when one night-club owner insisted for a transmitter was just one of the hassles though I am aware of my minority status, Sleepy should pay him for allowing his that occurred before the initial all-jazz and although I sympathize with KNOB's club to be advertised. (This club owner KNOB broadcast. After canvassing the programming problems, its variety ap• now runs a burlesque place.) Oddly United States for the right transmitter, enough, Stein says he has a harder time proach and quest for an ever-widening they finally tracked one down to Roanoke, selling FM than the idea of an all-jazz audience, I cannot help becoming a trifle Virginia, with only a few days remaining station. Sponsors fear that the audience impatient with some of the music catering until air time. A huge van lugged the for FM is not yet large enough to warrant to the housewives that is frankly commer• apparatus to Los Angeles; on its arrival, buying FM time; the possible lack of re• cial. engineers had to overhaul it completely. ception worries them more than the range I prefer "after midnight" jazz which, gen• The transmitter was made ready for broad• of appeal of jazz. erally speaking, is ignored during the day, casting duties with very little time to spare. At present in Los Angeles 48.7 per cent even at KNOB. This approach doesn't devi• The station opened with Sleepy doing of the 3,000,000 homes with radios (or ate too much from the prevailing AM at• the shows, announcing, and writing copy, about 1,500,000 homes) have an FM set— titudes toward jazz. I should like to know himself. Then free-lance djs pitched in, one of the highest percentages of FM what happens to people who supposedly doing shows for nothing at the outset. In listeners in the nation. Though New York listen to jazz after midnight—do they hi• the beginning when there was no Latin has the largest FM audience, Los Angeles bernate during the day? Surely there must disc jockey at KNOB, Sleepy, the only one has the most stations. Twenty-four FM sta• be some who, like myself, cannot always around who spoke Spanish, dubbed him• tions operate in the Los Angeles area; of stay up late enough to catch the shows in self "El Dormido" ("The Sleeper" or "The these stations, KNOB has, as of this writ• the wee hours and would therefore like Sleeping One") and proceeded with a Latin ing, the third largest Los Angeles FM their after-midnight jazz the following program. audience. morning. (Is after-midnight jazz "indecent" Nowadays, commercials for record stores, The all-jazz policy is the only thing during sunlit hours?) car dealers, stereo equipment, magazines, "new" about, the station, for KNOB has Despite my reservations, what a joy it is markets and even plumbing, dart unob• been on the air for ten years and is Los to turn on the radio any hour of the day trusively in, and out of the day's music, in Angeles' oldest independent FM station. and hear jazz, even near-jazz. r

i

There is surely no need at this date for me, or anyone, to defend the phonograph. Without it, 99 per cent of the jazz we know would most likely never have been created at all, and most of the rest would have been irretrievably lost. It could never have been disseminated through the world as it has, nor indeed through the United States; in fact, it is hard to picture its development as it might have been (or not been) without the instrumentality of the recording. But the fact remains that watch• ing musicians create music is a total ex• perience of which the highest fi can never capture more than a frac• tion.

Some penetrating thinker, probably my• self, once observed that growing up is, among other things, a matter of coming to appreciate certain platitudes. The ones I have just voiced were brought sharply home to me all over again the other night when I heard Al Cohn and at the Half Note, a little jazz club at the corner of Hudson and Spring Streets in New York City.

The Half Note has a right to be called a jazz club if any joint ever had, and deserves a review all to itself in any pub• lication devoted to the interests of jazz. The joint itself could hardly be less pre• tentious. A modest bar & grill establish• ment on one of downtown Manhattan's bleaker intersections, surrounded by vast loft buildings and forgotten tenements on the approaches to the Holland Tunnel, it was for many years "Frank and Jean's," one of those neighborhood Italian restau• rants run by the whole family, where Papa or Mama (or both) do the cooking, the boys and girls wait on you, and the eldest sons throw out the drunks. New Yorkers who know their New York have for a generation treasured these landmarks of photo by Bob Adelman the older city for their low prices, modest repertory of Neapolitan dishes and wines, by Ralph Berton and the relaxed, unmechanized, what's- your-hurry atmosphere.

The first thing my eye lighted on when I walked into the room was the name "Bechstein" on the piano. That was a trust• worthy augury of respect for music and musicians, a deep respect without ostenta• tion on the part of the guys who run the place, a couple of otherwise very ordi-

AUGUST 39

r1-

nary Italian-American boys who are neither pass up some great ones, but you can't even though he had no sight, you know— intellectuals nor musicians, just two fellows have everything." Ninety-nine per cent of like he'd play a few chords on one and named Mike and Sonny Canterino who their customers, they have found by cau• tell you, 'That's a Knabe,' or a Mason have always dug jazz and were in their tious experiment, are modern-jazz listeners or whatever." Finally the Bechstein was own way quietly determined to work it into exclusively so, although the Canterinos discovered. "The price was two grand—but the fabric of their lives. themselves have no period prejudices, mod• he was really satisfied." On August 8. It was only when Mike came back from ern jazz is all you'll get at the Half Note. 1958, the long courtship reached a happy the navy—incidentally with some unex• They always hire a musician directly, never ending: Tristano opened at the Half Note pected bar and restaurant experience—that through an agent. "To us, it's like a for what was to be the longest holdover he and Sonny felt old enough, at last, to musician is important enough so we feel engagement in its career so far, thirteen persuade their old man to let them annex like we oughta go to him personally and solid weeks—and their biggest draw as a long-coveted empty store next door and talk it over with him. You call up a bookin' well. Lennie had no contract with them convert the whole place into a jazz spot. agent, it's like a cold thing. We could be beyond the initial four-day gig, and was No one had any spare money, so the just anybody. We like to get to know him." free to walk out any time; but he stayed, Canterinos had to do every bit of the labor How they feel about musicians is suffici• and everyone was happy all around. The with their own hands—designed the new ently indicated by their relations with Canterinos think he's the most. All during layout so that the bandstand, back of the . his engagement there they called for and delivered him in a car, every night. Tris- bar, would cut through between the bar• Lennie had been in what seemed a rather tano's re-engagement at the Half Note on room and the clubroom proper, broke down embittered retirement since 1954. Talking February 10 of this year, along with Konitz the intervening wall, did all the construc• with and Warne Marsh, who and Marsh, fulfilled a long-nursed project tion, wiring, plastering, and painting, and both played at the Half Note, the brothers of the Canterinos—to reunite these three meanwhile personally blanketed various Canterino were struck with the idea of in a combo for the first time in ten years. sections of New York City with leaflets talking Tristano into playing in public and posters announcing the new arrival; again. At first the two sax men were their The juke box at the Half Note looks lumber and materials were bought with casual and unofficial ambassadors. In the like any other juke box, but it doesn't borrowed money. summer of 1958, after several months of sound like most others. The first night I On opening night, of course, they were cautious soundings of their mentor, they was there the nearest thing on it to a com• still feverishly trying to finish the work; ventured to bring the Canterino boys out mercial item was a Sinatra record. The Sonny was still plastering part of the room to Lennie's home in Jamaica, Long Island. others featured people like Ahmad Janial, when Randy Weston climbed onto the They came bearing gifts: "I'd cook up a Lee Konitz. , Thelonious, Stan stand for the . That was in Septem• big mess of ravioli, and the sauce—you Getz, Count Basie, , Cannon- ber of 1957. know, I wouldn't, like, put the sauce on, ball Adderley, the MJQ, Sonny Rollins, The Half Note was not an instantaneous so I'd put it separate like, and give the , etc., etc. kids instructions how to heat it up before success. "Plenty of Saturday nights," Mike There is no cover, and the minima are, they're ready to eat it.'" Frank Canterino, told me, "we hadda run out at two A.M. so far as I know, the lowest in town: the boys' father, explained. "They kep' and borrow enough bread to pay off the $1.50 at the bar, $2.00 at tables on week takin' things like that out to Lennie's musicians, that first year. We're still payin' nights; on week ends (Friday and Satur• house, and, you know, got to know him back." But they persisted, kept a finger day) the minimum at tables is $2.50 and that way." on the pulse of jazz record sales, and did is good for both food and liquor. Food their best to get the right names in the includes an assortment of Italian dishes "At first," Sonny said, "Lennie wouldn't right month, and managed to cling tenaci• including hero sandwiches, all varieties of even talk about playin' anywheres. He ously to their taut shoestring. Things are pasta with various sauces, veal Parmigiana, didn't appreciate the way he'd been pushed "wonderful" now; week ends bring in more meat balls, etc. Sandwiches are a dollar; around by night-club owners. I don't business than the place will hold, and even veal Parmigiana is the costliest item, $2.50. wanna mention no names. But he really week nights are "pretty good"; the place Drinks go from $.75 for domestic wine to felt the whole thing of playin' in clubs is substantially solvent, and trade increases $1.40 for a brandy Alexander; rye and gin was no good for the musician." week bv week. That thev still have to are $.85, Scotch and CC $1.00. And the present only "names" is, be it said, looked With Marsh and Konitz egging on from waiters don't push you. upon by both Canterinos with regret. the rear and the Canterinos coaxing from While I was standing at the bar with "There's so many great guys who could the front Lennie was induced to come and Al Cohn one night, Sonny Canterino use the gig," says Mike. "You think I have dinner at the Half Note, just to sit leaned over and said, "Hey. Al—wasn't haven't got good friends who I'd like to and listen. He never would sit. even with that one of Warne Marsh's lines you were put in for a week at a time? But we can't his boys. But he did remark—it was the just playing?" Al looked blank. "Not that afford it—yet." sign of thaw—that the atmosphere was un• I know of," he replied. Mike, his brother In their need to go for the names, usually cozy and homelike, not like a club joined us. "Yeah, Al—the thing Warne though the Canterinos have soberly elected at all. And the first real crack in the ice calls Background Music. Sonny and me to avoid certain names—either because appeared when Tristano decided one after• both jumped when you began playing it." they knew they couldn't afford them with• noon (there was no one in the place but Al had never heard the Marsh thing, and out raising their tariff, which they have the owners) to try "a few songs" on the said he'd have to dig it sometime. consistently refused to do, or because the piano. They helped him up onto the stand. "How long have you fellows been digging names happened to belong to musicians Lennie played a little, then complained jazz?" I asked. "We always dug it," Mike notorious for goofing off. "In our book, that the action was very stiff. He suggested said. "Like, I mean, when we were growin' nobody's big enough to disappoint people they get a different piano (this was only up—it was just music, to us. We always who come to listen to him," Sonny said a $1,300 Steinway grand). They suggested thought about music in terms of jazz, you to me. "We don't want no sick people in he come with them and help pick one. know?" He thought a moment, and added, here, who might maybe play one set and Together they went to the showroom. "I guess that's prob'ly why we stood with then you don't see 'em for two nights. Tristano tried one piano after another and, it in this place. There was times we And from the time we opened we never according to Sonny, "he knew what every thought we'd have to give up. But now— had no trouble with a.musician. We hadda single piano was—he'd name it right off well, I'm glad we stood with it." (Continued from page 3) selection of titles on the whole—Lunceford Stric'.ly Instrumental (Decca 4340). I don't them. The swing of the band was always has been served badly by his reissues—in• know the recording date and this item in• there, but whereas Basie featured a style cluding some of the most ephemeral num• terests me only because Billy Bauer was a that elevated the swing to the point where bers made at a time when the band was member of Wald's band at least as late one could never miss it unless one were past its best. (But despite the lack of major as 1941. Could this be an early example deaf, Lunceford utilized it as a necessity soloists that I have mentioned, it is inter• of Bauer's work? but did not feel it necessary to drive it esting to note how individual the band Has anyone checked 's home in the same fashion. sounded as against Basie today, when a 1953 recordings for Clifford Brown? I have Humor was never far from the surface— similar position prevails.) I doubt if any nothing by Hampton for that year and have even on the dreariest pop complete with a technically equipped studio men could take never heard whether or not Brownie soloed Dan Grissom vocal—and it is instructive a piece of rubbish like Organ Grinder's with the band. to note the contradictory band passages Swing and do with it what Sy Oliver John W. Miner once the vocal was over on so many records and the Lunceford band did. The technique Oshkosh, Wisconsin —contradictory in the sense that while the may be there, but the spirit is a different In the April issue, Max Harrison men• vocal was in the accepted sentimental pat• one. tions some of the 1944 Cootie Williams re• tern of the day, the band passages were It is this that caused the Lunceford cordings with . I would like to often ([iiite the opposite in mood. Also, on band itself to collapse in the end, for it is add that on Blue (i.e., Royal) Garden such a pop number as Linger Awhile, some not often realized that Lunceford himself Blues, Powell plays an excellent solo (two of the most interesting scoring (in this case was re-creating in the last few years of the twelve-bar choruses) that show traces of a fine use of three trumpets) can be found. band. The effects, high-note exhibitionism, Billy Kyle as well as pointing strongly to is quoted as saying that etc. that originally were used with humor Powell's later style. Lunceford would have loved to have taken and were never taken seriously began to In the same issue, Ira Gitler points out musicians like Conrad Gozzo and Pete be used with deadpan gravity. It is no acci• that on Miles Davis' "Milestones" there Candoli on the road, while Mr. Russo says dent that the first Kenton band sounded are themes with old titles. How• that man for man the musicians in the like the latter-day Lunceford, for Lunce• ever, there is also an old theme with a new May band are superior to those Lunceford ford himself lost his own individuality title: Sid's Ahead was originally recorded used. This shows a lack of appreciation of when he began to copy the worst aspects in 1954 by the Davis Quartet for Blue Note the subject. Gozzo and Candoli may be all of the "progressives" of his day. (BLP 1502) under the title Weirdo. This around better technicians to the Lunceford If he had lived, he might even have is a very close paraphrase on Walkin', by men (one wonders if this is so why Candoli ended up like a rather poor Kenton. the way. needed a four-bar help-out to take the solo Albert J. McCarthy Finally, in a review of 's that Paul Webster managed quite ably on St. Ives, England his own on the original version of For "All Mornin' Long" lp, Mimi Clar men• Dancers Only), but as personalities they More on Missing Moderns tions the effect of the rhythm section stress• ing the first three beats of the measure fall well below their opposite numbers in My belated thanks to you for continuing and leaving the fourth silent. But there is the Lunceford band—Paul Webster and with the extremely interesting "Missing nothing new under the sun: this (rather Eddie Tompkins. The strength of the Moderns" feature (Jazz Review, No. 1) problematic) device goes all the way back Lunceford band was based on the indi• and I trust that we may look forward to to King Oliver's 1923 Dippermouth Blues vidual members of the band as personal• more of the same from time to time. ities, and, as is so often the case in jazz, (accompaniment to clarinet solo) and is Checking casually through my records the sum total was greater than the score used in many later versions of this theme. I have come up with two items which may one would get by considering each man on Erik Wiedemann be of interest and one which bears a little his own. Gozzo and Candoli may be fine Copenhagen, Denmark further investigation. musicians, but I have yet to hear any 1) There is a bop-influenced trumpet A Note for Miles strength of personality in anything they solo on 's 1945 recording of In the April Jazz Review, I ran across play. They, of course, live in an era of The Major and the Minor (Majestic 1056). a letter from Ira Gitler in which he ex• conformity in jazz, and their playing re• I suspect it may be "Little Benny" Harris. pressed some surprise about Miles Davis' flects that fact. Such men, excellent in a also made this session and Columbia album, "Milestones," saying that Hollywood studio group as they might be, could be responsible for the solo on the the title tune . . . didn't sound the same represent the antithesis of what Lunceford reverse, All On. If this is indeed Harris, as the song by that name that Miles re• needed in his band. One might as well say Bill Martin missed this item in his dis• corded with Charlie Parker in the forties. that would have been cussion of early Harris solos in a Record It seems to me that quite a few jazz re• better than Paul Webster by virtue of his Changer article, Vol. 14, No. 9, 1956. viewers have expressed puzzlement about ability to play higher high notes, but the 2) Charlie Mingus plays a brief intro• this record, and if I may, I would like to point is that as a personality it is ludicrous duction on Bob Mosely and His All Stars clear up the whole mystery. to think of him in the Lunceford band. record of Baggin the Boggle (Bel-Tone Too many musicians today, technically The situation is this: someone at Colum• 751), recorded in 1945, and is also heard flawless though they may be, sound like bia goofed with the label and the liner prominently on the flip, Voot Rhythm. In• musical machines, and their music comes notes. The group never plays Milestones cidentally, dig also the last few notes on out that way. There were only two major here! The tune that is called Milestones the second title. is fea• soloists in the Lunceford band—Willie on this record is a line called Sid's Ahead. tured on both sides, if one regards this Smith and Trummy Young—and yet com• On Side 1, the track that is called Sid's sadly underrated tenorist as a modern or pared to so many of today's soloists people Ahead on the record is not that at all, but transitional figure. Feather's Encyclopedia like Joe Thomas. Sy Oliver, Ted Buckner. Weirdo. In addition, Dr. Jackie was mis• of Jazz is, of course, in error when it states etc. sound outstanding. They were not, of spelled. that Mingus "made record debut with course, but by virtue of a certain indi• I just hope Miles reads this, because it Hampton in 1947 album on Decca." viduality they almost convince one to the seems to me he himself was unaware of contrary. 3) This may be a bit far afield but this mix-up! there is a brief, conventional swing guitar Zita Carno The lp Russo was reviewing was a poor solo on Jerry Wald's (of all people!) Bronx, New York Coming Issues of the Jazz Review Feature

Jazz Books in America by Sheldon Meyer

Bill Evans by Nat Hentoff

Don Redman by Frank Driggs

The State of Dixieland by Dick Hadlock

Wilbur Ware by Bill Crow

Art Blakey by Zita Carno

The Jazz Dance by

Jimmy Yancey by Max Harrison

Ella Fitzgerald by Bill Russo

Chet Baker by Roy Eldridge

Horace Silver by Martin Williams

The Jazz Review must raise subscription prices in September. Take advantage of the present low prices by subscribing now. The Jazz Review is $.50 a copy. One year's subscription (I 2 copies) is $4.50. Two years subscription is $8.00. Add $1.00 per year for foreign postage.

Name

Address

City Zone State.. .

The Jazz Review, Village Station, P. O. Box 128, N. Y. 14, N. Y. RIVERSIDE

continues to mean great albums by top jazz

names and by exciting new stars you'll want to discover for yourself.

And most new Riverside LPs are available in both brilliant

monaural Hi-Fi and the dynamic

full sweep of STEREO.

THELONIOUS MONK Orchestra

The most sensational new T ll "'• fl Cannonball Takes Charge: sound of the year. First fi!!iii!'lf!|;i big-band versions of Monk's The newest album by the inimitable music, recorded brightest alto star is a at the . joyful swinger showcasing (RLP 12-300; him with top rhythm backing also Stereo IP 1138) (P. Heath, Kelly, etc.). (RIP 12-303; also Stereo LP 1148)

Much Brass: Brass and blues are the : themes of this most unusual PHILLY JOE JONES BIG BAIMO SOUNDS fhree-brass LP featuring Most exciting of today's Nat's brilliant and drummers in a distinctive rollicking . LP of rich big sounds: with (RLP 12-301; Cannonball, , also Stereo LP 1143) Golson, Mitchell, etc. (RLP 12-302; also Stereo LP 1147)

The Unique THELONIOUS MONK A great trio album (with Kelly Blue: WYNTON KELLY Blakey, Peftiford) now WYNTON KELLY strikingly repackaged to A really deep-down pianist commemorate the fact that comes into his own in Monk means "the stamp of this earthy trio and authority" in jazz. sextet excursion to the (RLP 12-209) heart of the blues.

(RLP 12-298; St also Stereo LP 1142) f