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Jazz Book Collection

10/26/2022

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Left to right: Duke Ellington (1954), Miles Davis (1955), Louis Armstrong (1955). Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons
In the fall of 2019, I profiled my jazz LP collection (see October / November blogs) and in the summer of 2022, my jazz CD collection (see May / June / July blogs).

​Hence, it is only logical and reasonable that I do the same for my music book collection: 709 books strong, with 441 jazz books and 268 non-jazz books (pop, rock, Broadway, other).

Here I present the jazz books, the first of which I purchased in 1965, and the bulk of them I acquired during the 1970–2000 time frame. My acquisition strategy, I hasten to add, was not based on any predetermined notion that focused on, for example, a specific jazz artist or style. Nope, if it was a jazz book, I bought it, pure and simple.

To convey a sense of my overall jazz collection, I list books below in several categories. For the most part, these books center on the life and music of the titular artist, as opposed to a period in jazz (like the ’30s) or a specific sub genre (like hard bop) or a region in jazz (like Kansas City).

What three artists topped the most-books list?

Duke Ellington     15
Miles Davis           13
Louis Armstrong  11

​Not much of a surprise there. But how about those artists who played the instrument most symbolic of jazz—the saxophone?

​Alto/Soprano Saxophone
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  • ​Bird: The Legend of Charlie Parker, 1962
  • Bird Lives!: The High Life of Charlie (Yardbird) Parker, 1977
  • Bird: The Legend of Charlie Parker, 1977
  • Treat It Gentle: Autobiography of Sidney Bechet, 1978
  • Music Was Not Enough by Bob Wilbur, 1988
  • Ornette Coleman: A Harmolodic Life, 1992
  • Ornette Coleman: His Life and Music, 1999
  • The Art Pepper Companion: Writings on a Jazz Original, 2000
  • Joe Harriott : Fire in His Soul, 2003
  • Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond, 2005
  • Footprints: The Life and Work of Wayne Shorter, 2007
  • Sugar Free Saxophone: The Life and Music of Jackie McLean, 2012
  • Bird: The Life and Music of Charlie Parker, 2013
  • Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker, 2013
  • Walk Tall: The Music and Life of Julian Cannonball Adderley, 2013
  • Rabbit’s Blues: The Life and Music of Johnny Hodges, 2019

Tenor Saxophone
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  • Bud Freeman: You Don’t Look Like a Musician, 1974
  • Chasin’ the Trane: Music and Mystique of John Coltrane, 1975
  • Coltrane: A Biography, 1975
  • John Coltrane by Bill Cole, 1976
  • Sonny Rollins: A Journey of a Jazzman, 1983
  • Coleman Hawkins by Burnett James, 1984
  • Stan Getz: A Life in Jazz, 1996
  • Open Sky: Sonny Rollins and His World of Improvisation, 2000
  • A Love Supreme: John Coltrane’s Signature Album, 2002
  • I Walked with Giants: The Autobiography of Jimmy Heath, 2010

Women in Jazz
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  • His Eye Is on the Sparrow: An Autobiography by Ethel Waters, 1951
  • Lena by Lena Horne and Richard Schickel, 1951
  • Kings of Jazz: Bessie Smith, 1971
  • Big Star Fallin’ Mama: Five Women in Black Music by Hettie Jones, 1974
  • Bessie by Chris Albertson, 1974
  • Billie's Blues: Billie Holiday's Story, 1933–1959, 1975
  • Billie Holiday Anthology: Lady Sings the Blues, 1976
  • Mother of the Blues: A Study of Ma Rainey, 1981
  • High Times Hard Times: Anita O’Day, 1981
  • American Women in Jazz: 1900 to the Present: Their Words, Lives, 
    and Music
  • Billie Holiday by Burnett James, 1984
  • Ethel Ennis: The Reluctant Jazz Star: An Illustrated Biography, 1984
  • Sassy: The Life of Sarah Vaughan, 1994
  • Marian McPartland's Jazz World: All in Good Time, 2003
  • Miss Peggy Lee: A Career Chronicle, 2005
  • Fever: The Life and Music of Miss Peggy Lee, 2006
  • Is That All There Is?: The Strange Life of Peggy Lee, 2014
  • Queen of Bebop: The Musical Lives of Sarah Vaughan, 2017
  • Shall We Play That One Together: The Life and Art of Jazz Piano Legend Marian McPartland, 2020
  • The Lady Swings: Memoirs of a Jazz Drummer, 2021

Piano
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  • ​The Stardust Road by Hoagy Carmichael, 1946
  • Mister Jelly Roll: The Fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Creole and “Inventor of Jazz,” 1956
  • Kings of Jazz: Fats Waller, 1961
  • Jelly Roll Morton Kings of Jazz by Martin Williams, 1963
  • Sometimes I Wonder: The Story of Hoagy Carmichael, 1965
  • They All Played Ragtime by Rudi Blesh, 1971
  • Raise Up Off Me by Hampton Hawes, 1974
  • Too Marvelous for Words: The Life and Genius of Art Tatum, 1974
  • Ain’t Misbehavin’: The Story of Fats Waller, 1975
  • Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow, 1976
  • Selections from the Gutter: Jazz Portraits from “The Jazz Record”
    by Art Hodes and Chadwick Hansen Hodes, 1977
  • Scott Joplin: The Man Who Made Ragtime, 1978
  • Music On My Mind: The Memoirs of an American Pianist, 1978
  • Fats Waller: His Life and Times, 1979
  • Eubie Blake by Al Rose, 1979
  • Jazz Piano: A Jazz History, 1982
  • Oscar Peterson by Richard Palmer, 1984
  • Jelly Roll Morton's Last Night at the Jungle Inn: An Imaginary Memoir, 1984
  • Nat King Cole by James Haskins, 1984
  • Stride, the Music of Fats Waller, 1985
  • John Lewis by Thierry Lalo, 1991
  • It’s About Time: The Dave Brubeck Story, 1996
  • Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings, 1998
  • The World of Earl Hines (The World of Swing; Volume 2), 1999
  • Oscar Peterson: The Will to Swing, 2000
  • Glass Enclosure: The Life of Bud Powell, 2001
  • Marian McPartland's Jazz World: All in Good Time, 2003
  • The Fifty Greatest Jazz Piano Players of All Time: Ranking Analysis and Photos, 2005
  • Taylored for Jazz: The Life and Music of Billy Taylor, 2008
  • Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, 2010
  • Duke Ellington: At the Piano, 2013
  • The Jazz Life of Dr. Billy Taylor, 2013
  • Herbie Hancock: Possibilities, 2014
  • Shall We Play That One Together: The Life and Art of Jazz Piano Legend Marian McPartland, 2020
  • Straighten Up and Fly Right: The Life and Music of Nat King Cole, 2020
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Portrait of a CD Era Jazz Fan: Part 4

7/30/2022

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The Faine jazz CD collection. 


Continuing from part 3, here are five more personal favorites from my collection of jazz CDs.

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Charles Lloyd | Passin’ Thru | Blue Note

Saxophone/flute player Charles Lloyd burst onto the California jazz scene in the mid-1960s on the strength of (1) albums Dreamweaver (1966) and Forest Flower (1967) featuring his first great quartet Keith Jarrett (piano), Cecil McBee (bass), and Jack DeJohnette (drums), and (2) the group’s appearances at Bill Graham's youth-filled Fillmore clubs.

After several years of pop adulation Lloyd entered into a period of (what should we call it) semi-retirement.


​Lloyd’s real resurgence began in the 1990s when he signed onto the ECM label, recording sixteen albums with them followed by a stint with Blue Note into 2020, recording five albums.

The bulk of these albums feature Lloyd’s second great quartet (also known as the new quartet) Jason Moran (piano), Reuben Rogers (bass), and Eric Harland (drums). The best of which, in my opinion, is the highly entertaining Passin’ Thru (2017).

The album opens with Lloyd’s composition “Dreamweaver,” also recorded by his first quartet. The second quartet’s take is longer (by six minutes) and more complex, as Tom Jurek wrote:

​"The version commences with a modal, post-Coltrane intro as the saxophonist explores tones and space before the drummer Harland checks into its groove, one that touches on the blues, folk music, a pop-style chorus and gospel before moving off to explore Eastern modalities, post-bop, and (some) dissonances before circling back to its lovely melody."

​The following tracks reflect the various genres and styles mentioned above, singularly and collectively.

“Nu Blues” is a be-boppin’ swinger by the Jason Moran Bop Trio. Moran is rollin’ the keys like Bud Powell, Rogers is Ray Brown or Oscar Pettiford walkin’ the bass, and Harland is bebop originator Kenny Clarke keepin’ time on his ride cymbal, kickin’ the bass drum, and adding his own polyrhythmic textures. Tenorman Lloyd joins the Trio and its throwback time to a 1950s Norman Granz Jazz at the Philharmonic concert battlin’ it out with Flip Phillips and Illinois Jacquet.

Well, that’s the way I heard it.

“How Can I Tell You” is about as close the new quartet could get to a late-night slow dance dreamy ballad. Moran’s (almost) cocktail piano and the drummer’s use of brushes sets the mood for the leader’s lyrical saxophone offering to the song’s inspiration, singer Billie Holiday.

On “Tagor” Lloyd stirs the bluesy stew prepared by his rhythm mates with his Eastern sounding flute. At the start Moran strums the piano strings like a guitar, Rogers adds a Motown melodic bass line, and the drummer drives “Tagor” forward with a snare and hi-hat attack.

At the mid-point, with no loss of drive, Moran moves to the keyboard to pound out a funky chording interval over a rock-and-roll backbeat. Start to finish this is a hand-clapper.

The title track opens with unaccompanied bass and then, boom!, the band takes off with a high energy up-tempo dance-like excursion into bop. Moran’s piano and Lloyd’s tenor solo engage Roger’s and Harland’s rhythms with startling athletic lyricism.

Bordering on playful and/or novelty, “Passin’ Thru” is a crowd pleasin’ groove.

The album closes on a respectful note with “Shiva’s Prayer.” A beautiful unaccompanied piano piece by Moran, with lovely arco bass playing by Rogers, and soft drums by Harland.

Then quiet.

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Sonny Sharrock | Ask the Ages | Axiom

Scott Yanow in his ultimate guide to the great jazz guitarists opined, "Sonny Sharrock was the first truly avant-garde guitarist in jazz. . . When Sharrock burst on the scene in the mid-1960s, he was not only free in his choice of notes but in . . . his use of feedback and distorted sounds. He preceded Derek Bailey and Jimi Hendrix. During an era when few jazz guitarists even acknowledged rock, Sharrock was playing explosive solos that made him the Pharoah Sanders of the guitar.”

Interesting, then, that he would pair up with saxophonist Sanders, along with bass player Charrette Moffet and drummer Elvin Jones in 1991 to record Ask the Ages, the consensus definitive and most essential album of Sharrock’s career.

This is unquestionably a free jazz album, how could it not be with Sonny Sharrock, Pharoah Sanders, and Elvin Jones ripping it up as if it was 1965.

Yet it is something else again, appealing and accessible to a wide range of music fans. Proof of this can be found on google: type in “rateyourmusic.com Ask the Ages,” select the top entry, and read the 45 reviews, and you’ll see what I mean.

Ask the Ages has six original Sharrock compositions: two scorchers “Promises Kept” and “Many Mansions,” two mellow and melodic “Who Does She Hope to Be” and “Once Upon a Time,” and two in-betweeners, “Little Rock” and “As We Used to Sing.” It is the mellow tunes (and secondarily the in-betweeners) that make this album so appealing with “Who Does She Hope to Be” generally favored over “Once Upon a Time.”

But for my money, the latter is the exceptional track. 
           
While each instrument is heard in “Once Upon a Time,” it is the collective daresay “symphonic” — like sound that matters.

Sonny’s guitar, chording Hendrix-like and soloing at the same time (dubbing may have been involved); Pharoah’s tenor sax, offering a repetitive hummable figure; and Elvin’s non-stop striking of his drums with mallets, yes, with mallets not sticks or hands, creating a rhythmically throbbing pattern. Occasionally, Sonny spices the group’s malleting stew with a memorable Santana-like guitar line.

​Overall, a never-to-be forgotten, compelling track.


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Frank Sinatra | Live in Australia 1959 | Blue Note

While Sinatra’s time capsule albums are Wee Small Hours in the Morning, Songs for Swinging Lovers, Only the Lonely, and a few others, the “Jazziest” is Frank Sinatra with the Red Norvo Quintet Live In Australia 1959.

A rare album where Frank sings his well-known fan favorites, not as originally recorded with a large studio orchestra, mind you, but backed by a small jazz combo live.


​From Will Friedwall’s liner notes:

 “He just melted into it . . . He took responsibility (like a conductor) he beat off the group and everything, he did his own thing, and the band played great for him . . .  [Alto/flute] player Jerry Dodgion elaborated: the informal format also encouraged Sinatra to vary both the program and the arrangements themselves . . . He could be different every night which is more in keeping with a jazz group.”
​
Some might argue that Sinatra’s performance with Count Basie’s band captured live in Las Vegas tops that in Australia 1959.

​For me, Ol’ Blue Eyes' best live album is Australia 1959.

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Frank Sinatra | The Concert Sinatra | Reprise

In the entire recording oeuvre of Frank Sinatra there is nothing like The Concert Sinatra, an album of extended performances by Frank and a 73-piece symphony orchestra arranged and conducted by Nelson Riddle.

The recording features eight tunes (lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein on all but one.) These are not the vocal offerings of familiar Sinatra poses, the finger-snappin’ swingin’ bachelor or the down-and-out sad sack propped against the lamppost.

No, this is the full-voiced light classicist in the manner of contemporaries Todd Duncan, Howard Keel, Gordan McRae, or (almost) Paul Robeson.
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In other words, Frank gets as close as an American pop singer can to the bel canto style.

On no other album does Sinatra reveal such strength in his lower register and overall dynamic range. This album is in a class by itself. Discussions of what category it belongs to: jazz, pop jazz, pop, or Broadway — are irrelevant.

​It’s simply incandescent.

No male interpretive singer of the 20th century other than Frank Sinatra could have pulled this off.


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Wilson and Adderley | Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley | Capitol

I bought this CD for two reasons: one, my fondness for the classic Adderley Quintet (Cannonball (Alto), brother Nat (Cornet), Sam Jones (Bass), and Louis Hayes (Drums) with Joe Zawinal (Piano); and two, my piqued curiosity after I read an article in Downbeat magazine in 2004, listing the best jazz vocalist albums chosen by 73 jazz singers (21 male, 52 female).[1] At the top, number one, was the album Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley originally recorded in 1961.

After multiple listenings, I came around to understanding the record’s appeal to the Downbeat singers, helped along by Nancy Wilson’s statement in the album’s liner notes that she considered her vocals on the album “as a sort of easy-going third horn.”[2]

Jazz singers (all singers?) in particular desperately want to be a thoroughly integrated member of the band — not off to the side or out front, but in the mix. And that, in fact, was what Nancy was in this instance and what the DownBeat singers heard and no doubt wished for themselves.

The album is doubly interesting because it is not entirely a vocal album, five of the 12 tracks are instrumentals by the quintet (every one outstanding) especially Cannon’s alto solo on the trumpet warhorse “I Can’t Get Started” and the brothers cookin’ on “Teaneck,” but it is the seven Wilson tracks that caught the ears of the DownBeaters.

Highlights for me are the gentle cornet playing by Nat behind Wilson on “Save Your Love for Me” and Nat’s tune “The Old Country;” and Cannon’s bopish swinging sax duet with Nancy (and Nat) on “Never Will I Marry” and “Happy Talk.”

Sam Jones bass is superb, especially on “A Sleeping Bee.”


NOTES

  1. “Singers” All-Time Favorite Vocal Jazz Albums, DownBeat, June 2004, 48.
  2. Ron Grevatt, original liner notes, Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley, Capitol Records, 2004, Compact Disc, CDP 077778120421.
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Portrait of a CD Era Jazz Fan: Part 3

6/28/2022

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The Faine jazz CD collection.


Continuing from part 2, here are more personal favorites from my collection of 440 jazz CDs. 

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Roswell Rudd | MALIcool | Soundscape

Most often identified with the jazz avant-garde of the 1960s, trombonist Roswell Rudd, together with West African (Malian) musicians, formed a cross-cultural ensemble to create an original sound neither jazz nor traditional African.

​The result: MALIcool.

​Rudd’s usual thick trombone sounds, growls, smears, and boozy blats along with his warm tone dances its way among the sonic wonderland of Malian instruments — kora (12-string harp), ngoni (plucked lute), balaphone (Afro vibes), guitar, bass, and djembe (hand drum). 

After reconciling the two musical systems (7-tone open form with 12-tone closed form), arrangements for the most part were deliberately sparse, leaving room for everyone to improvise.

The album’s songs could not have been more varied: Thelonious Monk’s “Jackie-ing,” a traditional Welsh folk song, a re-imagining of Gershwin’s “Summertime,” and Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” and several African traditional numbers.

A close listen to the album’s ten tunes, specifically to the strings (kora, ngoni, and guitar) will let you know where country blues came from, ditto the balafon, where swing-era vibist Lionel Hampton came from.

John Ephland of DownBeat magazine wrote: “Jazz purists will no doubt scoff at this meeting of musical souls. No matter how you slice and dice it, this music, modest at times, is still a ballsy bit of panache, a marriage of seemingly disparate worlds into something that works.”

​I agree, besides, most jazz purists did not scoff. Released in 2002, MALIcool made it onto various Top Ten lists of the year.


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John Hollenbeck | Songs I Like a Lot | Sunnyside

Drummer/arranger John Hollenbeck has put together a stunning album with cohorts Gary Versace (piano/organ), Kate McGarry and Theo Beckman (vocalists), and the 16-piece Frankfort Radio Big Band (five winds, four trumpets, four trombones, three rhythm — drums, electric and acoustic guitar, and bass.)

After a first listen, you will like Hollenbeck’s songs too, starting with the majestically arranged “Wichita Lineman.” The Jimmy Webb classic begins with a softly picked guitar line over a clarinet/flute chorus.

The crystalline pure voice of McGarry sings the first verse. An instrumental interval precedes Beckman’s take on the second verse before a rhythmic chording of piano, flute, and winds support a lengthy electric guitar solo.

The prominent role Hollenbeck assigns to the guitar here is perhaps a tribute to Glen Campbell’s and Wrecking Crew regular Carol Kaye’s guitar playing on the original hit version. Additional instruments and the vocalists enter the fray, a new but related melody develops, and the guitar makes a final statement before the coda: a gorgeous instrumental passage with voices in harmony and flutes a flutter.

John Kelman (All About Jazz) concluded: “It’s a song that’s been covered many times before but never so cinematically.”

Next up: “Canvas” by English singer-songwriter Imogen Heap from her 2009 album Ellipse.

The track begins with a riffing guitar followed by an instrumental statement of the melody. McGarry enters alone and then is doubled by Beckman giving voice to rather a singular melody that leads to a magnificent trombone solo. Hollenbeck’s drumming is persistent throughout, upping the tempo and the song’s energy at the close.

John Kelman again hits the nail on the head when he wrote, “If Wichita Lineman” is cinematic then Hollenbeck’s arrangement of Webb’s ‘The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress’ is positively IMAX.”

The arranger’s take on this lesser-known Webb tune is a sprawling 14-minute wall of compelling sound. The piece begins with just McGarry’s voice and piano before a layer of flutes and winds softly insinuate themselves into the arrangement.

The tempo picks up,  and then guitar, drums and other instruments join in, piano becomes more dominant, volume steadily builds, drums more active. McGarry and Beckman join in, build, build, voices ooohing and aaahing.

Then a cooldown led by a lone clarinet before the entire orchestra climbs back up the aural staircase to greet a tenor saxophone solo at the top.

Beckman re-enters voicing the melody. McGarry joins him as the full orchestra roars into a symphonic ending with wind instruments mirroring the violins. Trust me, this is better heard than read.

“Man of Constant Sorrow,” whew!

The traditional folk tune’s tempestuous intro — low growly brass and winds and Hollenbeck’s tumultuous drums — 
lead to a second section of quick-strummed acoustic guitar and Beckman’s delivery of “Sorrow’s” first verse with McGarry’s repeating last line.

A killer lengthy tenor sax solo follows as Hammond organ punctuates the never-wavering strumming and drumming. Beckman sings the second verse.

McGarry repeats the last line as before. Alto sax solo follows, other instruments join in, low horns and organ chug away along with Hollenbeck’s constantly churning drums.

Beckman sings the final verse, and with McGarry, sings the last line “Meet you on that golden shore” 10 times! For the coda, organ, full orchestra, drums, vocalists go crazy, or as one critic put it, “Go Dixieland in the sixth dimension.” In other words, go free, like maybe Charlie Haden and the Liberation Orchestra.

Who could have imagined such an ending for a circa 1900 mountain folk song? John Hollenbeck, that’s who.

Free jazz originator Ornette Coleman’s “All My Life” originally sung by Indian singer-songwriter Asha Puhli in Coleman’s Science Fiction (1972) album is given a much different treatment by Hollenbeck.

Vocal honors to Kate McGarry, and what a lovely melody it is. At the outset, she sings over simple
piano accompaniment before the orchestra enters with a paraphrase. McGarry continues on with light orchestra backing, passing the baton to the band for a round of overlapping solos.

Then, with busy drums underneath, singer and orchestra carry the melody together, with the latter becoming progressively more dominant. The song ends with multiple instruments soloing.

Through it all, Ornette’s attractive melody is never far from listeners’ ears.

“Fall’s Lake,” a song from the indie-electronic artist Nubukazu Takemura featuring clarinet and distorted-sounding vocalists is not as interesting as the others. Too arty.

Hollenbeck’s song “Chapel Falls” closes the album in a relaxed mood. It starts with a repetitive piano figure underneath a sing-songy melody that is subsequently repeated by various sections of the band creating an ear-catching soundscape.

​In essence, a mid-tempo toe-tapper, a good closer.


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Bruce Hornsby | Camp Meeting | Legacy

This is not, repeat not, a novelty album — far from it.

Pop/country singer-pianist Hornsby can indeed play jazz piano, especially in the company of heavyweights Christian McBride (bass) and Jack DeJohnette (drums).

The trio tackles familiar themes from the jazz songbook — “Solar” (Miles), “Giant Steps” (Coltrane), “Straight No Chaser,” (Monk), “Un Poco Loco,” (Powell), “We’ll Be Together Again,” (Fischer/Lane), and two Hornsby originals. The album’s standout track is his “Camp Meeting”: a slow-building churchified romp worthy of FM radio play. The interplay between pianist and bassist is extraordinary.

Jazz Times critic Steve Greenlee commented, “The music stretches and contracts, it races, it gallops and It rumbles. It sounds like Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea and Bill Evans, all of them and none of them.”

​Precisely, it sounds like Bruce Hornsby.


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Andrew Hill | Passing Ships | Blue Note

In my opinion, the uniquely gifted Andrew Hill (1931–2009) never received his due as a jazz composer or pianist beyond the narrow jazz critical elite.

Regarding the former, people are quick to name Duke Ellington, Billy Stayhorn, Tadd Dameron, Charles Mingus, John Lewis, Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Benny Golson, Wayne Shorter for example, but never Andrew Hill.

Similarly, when bop and post-bop pianists are discussed, people will offer up the likes of Bud Powell, Horace Silver, Mal Waldron, Paul Bley, Cecil Taylor, and Carla Bley but never Andrew Hill.

This, even though he recorded 51 mostly highly rated albums (31 as leader featuring top-flight musicians) and even though he received many prestigious awards, for example DownBeat Hall of Fame, NEA Jazz Master, Jazz Journalist Association Lifetime Achievement, and the first Doris Duke Foundation Award for Jazz Composers. Andrew, it appears, was about as famous as Whistler’s father.

One last sad note, in Whitney Balliett’s voluminous 880-page Collected Works: A Journal of Jazz 1952–2001 there is not one mention of — you guessed it — Andrew Hill.

As for me, I fell in love with his 1960s Blue Note LPs (Black Fire, Smokestack, Judgement, Point of Departure, Compulsion) and one, Passing Ships, recorded in 1969 that was belatedly released on CD 34 years later.

Andrew surrounded himself with rhythm (Ron Carter, bass, Lenny White, drums) and six horns: (Woody Shaw and Dizzy Reese, trumpets), (Julian Preister, trombone), (Bob Northern, french horn), (Howard Johnson, tuba and bass clarinet), (Joe Farrell, soprano and tenor, and other winds) — a nonet performing seven original compositions.

This is a personal favorite even though it has obvious flaws. The recording and mixing are sub-par and Andrew’s arrangements for large ensemble are, while ambitious, sloppily executed at times (perhaps due to inadequate rehearsal time).

Andrew compensated for this by, as always, his appealing quirky, idiosyncratic compositions and outstanding soloing by everyone, especially Farrell, Shaw, and himself. Listen to the first tracks “Sideways,” “Passing Ships,” Plantation Bag,” and “Noontide.”

​Ask yourself whether anyone of these compositions could make a hard bop playlist along with tracks by hard boppers Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Lee Morgan, Benny Golson, Jackie McLean, Donald Byrd, Bobby Timmons or Cannonball Adderley. You bet, most would, especially “Plantation Bag.”


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Andrew Hill | Live at Montreux | Freedom

Live at Montreux (1975) is an excellent introduction to Andrew the solo pianist starting with the jagged, jaunty and delightful “Snake Hip Waltz” followed by the darker but still accessible “Nefertisus.”

The longest track on the album is the abstract and challenging yet entertaining eighteen-minute “Relativity.”

The pianist’s stylistic influences — stride, boogie-woogie, post-bop, and avant-garde are on full display. The album concludes with Andrew’s five-minute sketch of the melodic contours of Duke Ellington’s supreme contribution to the American hymnal “Come Sunday.”

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Portrait of a CD-Era Jazz Fan: Part 2

5/31/2022

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The Faine jazz CD collection.

​In part 1 of this blog series, I wrote about my collection of 440 jazz CDs I acquired from the mid-1980s to the present — the CD Era — noting that 124 of them consisted of multiple buys from 16 artists: 14 from trumpeter Miles Davis down to five each from saxophonists Cannonball Adderley, Ornette Colman, Chico Freeman, Charles Lloyd, and pianist Keith Jarett and Mal Waldron.

Starting here in part 2, I discuss in some detail personal favorites from the collection in no particular order.
​

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Ella Fitzgerald | Ella in Berlin/Mack The Knife | Verve
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​William F. Lee’s Jazz Singers Biographical Dictionary claims Fitzgerald was considered by many to be the finest female jazz singer of all time.

Taken at face value (ignoring those who considered her a pop singer) evidence for “the finest female jazz singer ever” can be found in her famous “Song Book” albums where she recorded definitive studio orchestra versions of the American Songbook composers Berlin, Gershwin, Arlen, Ellington, Kern, Mercer, Porter, and Rodgers and Hart. But even more important are the many concert/nightclub stage recordings where her highness is backed by a small jazz combo.

In this regard, one only has to look no further than the best of the lot, Grammy-winning Ella in Berlin backed by the Paul Smith Quartet. Ella’s assured sense of rhythm and close rapport with the musicians is evident throughout, on the slow ballads as well as the virtuoso scat numbers. The program is superbly varied.

Thirteen songs equally divided between slow, medium, and up-tempo numbers.

​Gershwin’s “Summertime” is sung straight with minimum vibrato, while his “Lorelie” is a slow tempo swinger.

On “Our Love Is Here to Stay” (Gershwin again) and personal favorite “Gone with the Wind” her instrumental phrasing comes to the fore, leaving little doubt that she is an ambrosial class singer; at times stuttering a word into three or four syllables, speeding up or slowing down a line, creating new interesting melodies while still paying homage to the source.

But it is “Mack the Knife” and “How High the Moon” that elevate this album to precious metal status, and likely entry into the Library of Congress National Recording Registry someday. Ella’s “Mack” surpasses both the Louis Armstrong and Bobby Darin versions. Hard to believe because she forgets the lyrics at the outset but continues by making up her own whimsical lyrics as she goes along, picking them out of the air — wonderin’ what’s the next chorus to this song now, somethin’ ‘bout cash, trash, you won’t recognize it, it’s a surprise it — even mentioning the prior Darin and Armstrong recordings, scatting a delightful imitation of Satch.

This four-minute lighthearted musical improvisation, believe it or not, won best song by a female at the 1960 Grammy Award.

And to think, the next song, the last one in the concert, topped Ella’s rendition of “Mack.” Her take on “High the Moon” is a masterclass in scatting. Few jazz singers, male or female, have come this close to perfection, considering that the racehorse tempo of “Moon” is sustained over seven minutes.

The Paul Smith Quartet deserves high praise for the stellar support throughout, especially pianist Smith and drummer Gus Johnson.


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Keith Jarrett Trio | Somewhere | ECM
​

Keith Jarrett is one of the most widely admired jazz pianists on the planet — primarily known for his Koln Concert album, the best-selling solo album in jazz history.

The Koln did the trick for most, but for me, it was his Standards Trio albums with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette.

Beyond reproach are the trio’s renditions of songs from the Great American Songbook (like “Blame It On My Youth,” “Body and Soul,” and “I Thought About You”) and the jazz repertory (“Woody ‘n You,” “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be,” and “Oleo”).

Especially beyond reproach are the occasional compositions of their own, typically mesmerizing trance-inducing vamps that for me were always an album highlight (like “The Cure,” on the The Cure, “Sunprayer” on Tribute One, and “U Dance” on Tribute Two). Perhaps the best of these  appears on the 2013 album Somewhere.

​Jarrett’s reading of the Leonard Bernstein–Stephen Sondheim “Somewhere/Everywhere” theme appropriately begins gentle and sublime, then at the five-minute mark of the 19-minute extravaganza, it gets “reconstructed and reshaped . . . into the driving, hypnotic improvisational ostinato coda Jarrett calls ‘Everywhere,’ with breathtaking chord voicings, forceful middle-register bass flourishes, and awe-inspiring tom-tom and cymbal work by DeJohnette; the track’s conclusion is drenched in royal gospel and regal blues” that fades into the distance, a chance for the audience to catch its breath before erupting into a rush of explosive shouts and applause.

The stage mic captures a round of laughter from the trio, as if to say, “How the hell did we pull this one off!”


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Chico Freeman | Spirit Sensitive |
​India Navigation


On Spirit Sensitive saxophonist Chico Freeman lends his pure sound and articulate relatable improvisations to 10 memorable songs composed by the following:

Great American Song Book composers Vernon Duke “Autumn In New York,” and Rodgers and Hart “It Never Entered My Mind,” as well as seven jazz musician composers: Thad Jones “A Child Is Born,” pianists Duke Ellington “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” and Horace Silver “Peace,” bassist Cecil McBee “Closer to You Alone,” guitarist Luis Bonfa “Carnival,” singer Patti Austin “You Don’t Have to Say You’re Sorry,” and tenor saxophonist John Coltrane “Lonnie’s Lament” and “Wise One.”

All the jazz songs (save for those by Coltrane) have lyrics and are a testimony if you will, to their euphoniousness.

Freeman plays tenor on all of the above, except for “You Don’t Have to Say.” Chico is sensitively supported by bassist Cecil McBee, pianist John Hicks, and drummer Billy Hart, although the drums appear to be improperly recorded, the only flaw on the album.

Drum issue aside, this is one of the most beautifully realized albums. It starts with quality material and proceeds with masterful interpretations.

Perhaps I am overly biased in my opinion here, largely because (truth be told) my absolute favorite song is Patti Austin’s “You Don’t Have to Say You're Sorry,” and my favorite instrumental version is by Chico Freeman.

I first took notice of Austin in 1976 upon the release of her first album, End of the Rainbow, with the self-composed “You don’t have to say you’re sorry / but I sure do wish you would.”

​I have played the song numerous times over the years and bought the album for friends. Chico plays it on soprano saxophone with minimal but perfectly placed jazz flourishes.

​Tearfully gorgeous. Ms. Austin, I’m certain, would agree.                 


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Darcy James Argue | Infernal Machines |
​New Amsterdam


Spring 2009 saw the release of Infernal Machines by Darcy James Argue, composer/conductor of an 18-person swing-size big band called Secret Society (five winds, five trumpets/fluegelhorns, four trombones and four rhythm — drums along with acoustic and electric piano, guitar and bass.)

​But Glen Miller, Tommy Dorsey it was not, nor was it ’50s Stan Kenton, ’60s Don Ellis, or even ’90s Maria Schneider. But what was it?

No ordinary big band album, that’s for sure. But critics loved it, though some struggled a bit to describe it.

To me, Machines offered a cornucopia of sounds, some familiar, some not, some loud, some soft, floating above shifting rhythms with an overall steady pulse.

Karl Ackerman (All About Jazz) said it more succinctly: “The sound is both complex and nuanced at the same time.” He also said, “Each influence blends seamlessly into the next without disrupting the content of the piece” — in effect, “a blending of new classical, indie rock and jazz.”

Larry Blumenthal (Wall Street Journal) described the band as “elegant in its combination of disparate influences from distorted electric guitar to magisterial wind instrument arrangements to minimalist rhythms.”

I concluded that Argue’s writing reflected the whole of contemporary music, as he sees it, into big band music for today.

Machines is art music created by an exceptionally talented composer/arranger executed by extraordinary competent musicians that remains as fresh and revolutionary today as when it was recorded. Argue’s debut album therefore belongs in every jazz fan's collection.

​It telleth the future.

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Portrait of a CD-Era Jazz Fan: Part 1

4/25/2022

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Adobe Stock/.shock
I profiled my collection of 640 jazz LPs in my blog “Portrait of an LP-Era Jazz Fan: Part 1.”

Below is my collection of 440 CDs (early 2022). 

​As with my LP collection, I fell in love with the music of an eclectic mix of jazz musicians. Similarly, I purchased multiple albums by my jazz favorites as shown below: 
Frank Sinatra
16
Miles Davis
14
Duke Ellington
13
Charles Mingus
12
Henry Threadgill
8
Steve Lacy
7
Thelonious Monk
7
Andrew Hill
6
Abdullah Ibrahim
6
Modern Jazz Quartet
6
Cannonball Adderley
5
Ornette Coleman
5
Chico Freeman
5
Keith Jarrett
5
Charles Lloyd
5
Mal Waldron
5
Interestingly, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Henry Threadgill, Andrew Hill, Abdullah Ibrahim, and Chico Freeman also ranked highly on the LP album list. Frank Sinatra and Duke Ellington CDs got an additional boost in support of books I authored, namely Duke Ellington at the White House, 1969, and The Best Gig In Town: Jazz Artists at the White House, 1969–1974.
​
Twenty-eight percent of my CD collection consists of multiple buys from the 16 artists above.

The remaining 72 percent consists of four, three, or fewer CDs per artist and include a number of singular, transcendent, one-of-a- kind albums, some of which I’ll examine in detail in my next blog.
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Another Happy Musical Accident from John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman

9/16/2021

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​On the basis of the John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman album (Impulse!, 1963), music historian Will Friedwald concluded:
​
Hartman is a great singer, beloved of fans, critics, and, perhaps, more importantly, entire generations of singers, most of whom have never heard more than six tracks by him [from the Coltrane& Hartman masterpiece album].[1]
​
In Serendipity Doo-Dah Book One, I discussed how the “My One and Only Love” track from the above album came about as an accidental lapse by Hartman on the first run-through. The singer was so transfixed by Coltrane’s tenor sax solo that he completely forgot to come back in for his vocal at the close of the recording, which necessitated a do-over, resulting in the classic performance now known by everyone.[2]

​Another happy accident took place on that date as well. On the ride out from Manhattan to Rudy Van Gelder’s studios in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, to record the six planned selections, the driver turned the car radio on, and there was the voice of Nat King Cole singing Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life.” 

Upon hearing the song, Hartman exclaimed, “Man! This is one of the great tunes of all time.”

Coltrane responded, “Do you know it?”

He did. 

“Lush Life” was the second tune recorded that day, and not surprisingly, it was a classic, an archetypical reading that used the Cole version as a template in terms of tempo and overall format.[3]

John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman became the one recording that exposed the most people to Strayhorn’s lovely song, all because the car radio was tuned to the right station.

CODA
Coltrane certainly knew “Lush Life”—he had recorded an instrumental version for Prestige in January, 1958, released on his album Lush Life three years later.
​

NOTES

  1. Will Frieidwald, The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums (New York: Pantheon Books, 2017), 163.
  2. Edward Allan Faine, Serendipity Doo-Dah: True Stories of Happy Musical Accidents (Takoma Park, MD: IM Press, 2017), 75–6.
  3. Will Friedwald, The Great Albums, 166–7.
​​
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1958: The Best Year in Jazz, Part 7

11/30/2020

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JAZZ SCORES BIG
Ever since the 1930s, jazz has been a staple of the silver screen, spotlighted in countless nightclub scenes, musicals, and film biographies. However, jazz was not used to score feature films until the early 1950s. Two notable examples are Clash by Night (1952) and The Wild Ones (1954). In 1958, more feature films had integral jazz scores than ever.

Not surprisingly, West Coast jazz dominated such film soundtracks, as in 
Hot-Car Girl (Cal Tjader), I Want to Live (Gerry Mulligan), Kings Go Forth (Pete Condoli), Sweet Smell of Success (Chico Hamilton), T-Bird Gang (Shelly Manne), and Touch of Evil (Henry Mancini). 


Two films produced and distributed in France in 1958 not only broke new ground but set the standard for jazz-scored feature films for years to come. And Miles Davis was the talent behind one of them, Elevator to the Gallows (known in the US as Frantic).

Miles and his small group improvised the score to 
Gallows while watching shots of the film, one of the few times in western cinema history since the silent era this had been done for a feature film. This was also the first time Miles recorded modal (or near-modal) music; the 10 musical segments produced were based neither on written themes nor harmonic patterns.
​
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The other groundbreaking French film of 1958, No Sun in Venice (US title), contained an exquisite jazz score written by John Lewis and played by the Modern Jazz Quartet. Each tune, memorable in its own right, perfectly mirrored the screen visual, making it one of the finest motion picture jazz scores ever written.

Although the film was not widely seen in the US, the soundtrack album received five stars in 
DownBeat and sold well. The Venice tunes became a constant in the MJQ concert repertoire for the next three decades.


The following year West Coast jazzmen provided the score for the 12th remake of Tarzan, removing once and for all any doubt that jazz was suitable background music for feature films.

Finally, 1958 was the only year that the long-running Newport Jazz Festival was ever featured in a documentary, Jazz on a Hot Summer’s Day.
​


JAZZ HITS TV WITH A BANG
Of all media in the 1950s, television with its various biases was the least likely to present jazz. True, variety and game shows featured jazz-like show bands, and jazz players appeared occasionally on the Ed Sullivan and Steve Allen shows or, perhaps, on Sunday morning, but that was about it. The TV picture began to change in 1958.

In the summer of that year, a national trial run was given to the West Coast-produced TV show Stars of Jazz, which headlined both West Coast (Stan Kenton) and East Coast (Billy Taylor) musicians.

That autumn, a big breakthrough came in the form of 
Peter Gunn, a jazz-fan detective who hung around a jazz club called Mother’s. Scored by Henry Mancini and played by West Coast musicians, Gunn was the first TV series in which jazz was fully integrated with the dramatic action. 


The Peter Gunn theme even became a hit single! Not surprisingly (and fortunately for jazz fans) the show spawned imitations. Count Basie rushed into the studio to record a jazz theme for M-Squad, and a year later Duke Ellington did the same for Asphalt Jungle, another big-city crime TV series.

JAZZ ON THE ROAD . . . AND CAMPUS
This was the year of the Dharma Bums and the beatniks, the year Jack Kerouac eulogized the “raw wild joy” of jazz in On the Road. Thousands of teenagers sported sunglasses, wore black, toted bongos, and bought jazz albums for the first time.

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Coffeehouses sprouted next to college campuses, where students sipped espresso and listened to poetry readings accompanied by jazz. The beatnik movement briefly legitimized the marriage between poetry and jazz. Chicago deejay Ken Nordine captured the passing fad on the best-selling LP Word Jazz for MCA (three stars, DownBeat).

For the first time since the 1920s (the flapper era) and the 1930s/1940s (the big band era), jazz was once again the music of a popular youth rebellion.


For all the above reasons, jazz was big business for the first time since the 1930s. More jazz records were sold than ever, club dates and concert tours were on the upswing, and jazz was on radio and TV and at the movies.

​The stage was set for a general jazz revival in the early 1960s. Jazz had recovered from its late 1940s/early 1950s doldrums and survived the initial shock of rock and roll.


By any measure, 1958 was quite a year for jazz, one of its finest ever.
​


1958 CLASSIC RECORD ALBUMS 
​
Relaxin’
Miles Ahead
Something else
Milestones
Soultrane
Brilliant Corners
Monk’s Music
Something Else!
You Get More Bounce
Way Out West
Meets the Rhythm Section
For Real!
Grooveyard
All Morning Long
Six Pieces of Silver
Sonny’s Crib
Blue Lights
K. Burrell with J. Coltrane
Freedom Suite
Sermon
Getz/Johnson-Operahouse
Roy, Dizzy and Sweets
My Fair Lady
West Side Story
Such Sweet Thunder
The Atomic Mr. Basie
Sing a Song of Basie
Come Fly with Me
Duke Ellington Songbook
Lady in Satin
Brubeck in Europe
Concert by the Sea
Muted Jazz
Burnished Brass
But Not for Me
I Want to Live
No Sun in Venice
Peter Gunn!
Word Jazz
Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Cannonball Adderley
Miles Davis
John Coltrane
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Ornette Coleman
Curtis Counce
Sonny Rollins
Art Pepper
Hampton Hawes
Harold Land
Red Garland
Horace Silver
Sonny Clark
Kenny Burrell
Kenny Burrell
Sonny Rollins
Jimmy Smith
Stan Getz/J. J. Johnson 
Eldridge/Gillespie/Edison
Andre Previn/S. Manne
Manny Albam
Duke Ellington
Count Basie
Lambert-Hendricks-Ross
Frank Sinatra
Ella Fitzgerald
Billie Holiday
Dave Brubeck
Erroll Garner
Jonah Jones
George Shearing
Ahmad Jamal
Johnny Mandel
Modern Jazz Quartet
Henry Mancini
Ken Nordine
​Prestige
Columbia
Blue Note
Columbia
Prestige
Riverside
Riverside
Contemporary
Contemporary
Contemporary
Contemporary
Contemporary
Contemporary
Prestige
Blue Note
Blue Note
Blue Note
Prestige
Riverside
Blue Note
Verve
Verve
Contemporary
Coral
Columbia
Roulette
ABC-Paramount
Capitol
Verve
Capitol
Columbia
Columbia
Capitol
Capitol
Argo
United Artists
Atlantic
RCA
MCA
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1958: The Best Year in Jazz, Part 6

10/19/2020

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VOCALISTS LEAD THE WAY
At various times during its history, jazz has surfaced to broad public awareness. The late 1950s was such a time, especially for jazz vocalists such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, and the Four Freshmen.

It is difficult to imagine today that Frank Sinatra was the premier male jazz singer of the 1950s. The 1950s Sinatra is not to be compared with the later Sinatra of Las Vegas, “My Way,” and “New York, New York” fame, just as the 1960s Louis Armstrong of “Hello Dolly” fame is not to be compared with the 1920s Armstrong.

Between 1954 and 1961, Sinatra recorded a series of classic LPs for Capitol with orchestrations mostly by Nelson Riddle or Billy May. 


These recordings, now collected on 15 CDs, rank among the great musical works of the American 20th century along with the Armstrong Hot Fives and Sevens of the 1920s and the Miles Davis recordings of the 1950s. No male singer before or since has ever interpreted the classic Broadway and Hollywood tunes of the 1930s and 1940s—the so-called standards—with such sensitivity and swing. 

Sinatra influenced jazzmen like no other singer before or since. When he recorded a song, it soon entered the jazz repertoire, that of Miles Davis, for example. During this period, Sinatra never compromised his musical integrity by playing down to the public, and he thereby brought jazz to a wider audience.

In 1958 Sinatra added the joyful Come Fly with Me and Come Dance with Me albums and the somber Only the Lonely to the classic Capitol series. Each record received rave reviews and sold very well.

Once again, 
DownBeat readers and critics voted Sinatra Top Male Jazz Vocalist, a position he held longer than any other male singer. Disc jockeys voted Sinatra’s singles “Witchcraft” and “All the Way” Best Songs of the Year.

No doubt about it, Sinatra was at his peak in 1958, as popular with the public as with the specialized jazz audience.


At the same time, Ella Fitzgerald had been recording a series of composer songbooks for the Verve label, interpreting the works of Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer, and Rodgers and Hart.

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To many people, Fitzgerald’s songbooks are the equivalent of Sinatra’s Capitol series. Her 1958 offering, the Ellington Songbook, a four-LP collaboration with the Duke, earned five stars in DownBeat.

As usual, she won the Top Female Jazz vocalist in
DownBeat, an honor she held for eighteen straight years. During her career, she also won eleven Grammys, more than any other female jazz singer.


Other female singers also were on the scene in 1958. Cool jazz singers Chris Conner, June Christy, and Julie London all had sizeable popular followings. Anita O’Day, with several mid-1950s recordings on Verve, was featured at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival—a sign of her successful comeback.

New jazz singers Nina Simone and Mose Allison were heard on jazz radio programs and some juke boxes but had not yet made their marks with the general public.


Significantly, 1958 was the year of Billie Holiday’s last two studio recordings, both with orchestrator Ray Ellis. The first, Lady in Satin, was reported to be one of Holiday’s favorites but received mixed reviews from critics. The DownBeat reviewer, struck by the album’s bittersweet qualities—the life-worn voice of Holiday against lush strings—awarded it five stars.

Others criticized the incongruity of the lush musical setting for her croaking voice. Whatever the ultimate judgment of the Holiday/Ellis recordings, they represent the last testament of one of the greatest singers jazz has ever known.


INSTRUMENTALISTS NOT FAR BEHIND
Jazz instrumentalists had broken through to the general public as well. Dave Brubeck’s name was almost synonymous with jazz in 1958. He rode the crest of the West Coast wave higher and farther than any other jazzman and, in the end, transcended the genre.

His rather unique quartet that contrasted his full, bombastic piano with the dry martini sound of Paul Desmond’s alto, along with his popularity on college campuses and the backing of Columbia, all contributed to his success.


A surprise success with the public was the Modern Jazz Quartet: John Lewis (piano), Milt Jackson (vibes), Percy Heath (bass), and Connie Kay (drums). They played formal arrangements of classical music forms—fugues, concertos, and the like—and dressed in concert-hall attire.

But when they wanted to, they swung harder than any other group around. Arrangements aside, they were a swinging bebop group that endeared themselves to fans and critics alike. 


The MJQ won both the readers and critics DownBeat polls for Best Combo in 1958. Nonetheless, jazz purists roundly criticized them for taking on airs of classical musicians and pandering to concert hall audiences. This was mostly a matter of appearances, however. The MJQ swung!

And in time, the quartet became the longest-running musical group with no personnel changes in jazz history.


One issue the author may wish to address comes in part 8 regarding the Modern Jazz Quartet. He writes, "And in time, the quartet became the longest-running musical group with no personnel changes in jazz history." The group did have an early personnel change, from Kenny Clarke to Connie Kay on drums. I’m sure the author knows this and means that AFTER that change, they were the longest-running group with no changes, but he might want to make that clearer.
​


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Three other artists—Erroll Garner, Jonah Jones, and George Shearing—all had albums at the top of the charts through 1958. Unique, rhythmic piano stylist Erroll Garner broke through on the strength of his Columbia recording Concert by the Sea, which remains a continuous seller even to this day.

Jonah Jones, a swing-era trumpeter and the Herb Alpert of his day, struck gold by playing a happy, easy-listening brand of jazz. George Shearing, an accomplished pianist, found public acceptance through his quintet’s smooth blend of piano, vibes, and guitar.

The sound was easy and melodious, with Shearing keeping his piano solos to a minimum. Both Jones and Shearing recorded for Capitol, a company with deep pockets to rival Columbia.


Towards the end of 1958, the small Chicago label Argo released But Not for Me, by pianist Ahmad Jamal, which became an instant hit with the public. Jamal, known to jazz musicians and revered by Miles Davis, had a spare brand of swinging jazz that the critics labeled “cocktail piano.”

The album received only two and half stars in 
DownBeat but the airwaves carried several tracks from the album, most notably “Poinciana.” Jamal’s version of this tune remains definitive.

There is not a piano player alive who doesn’t either quote from the Jamal treatment when playing the song or botches his own version because Jamal’s version is so overwhelming. Jamal went on to prove his jazz mettle to critics and enjoys a reputation today as a singular stylist in the mold of Erroll Garner.

​

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1958: The Best Year in Jazz, Part 5

9/28/2020

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As in any year, the jazz mainstream held steady as fads and trends ebbed and flowed (see part 3 and part 4 of this 1958 blog series). Swing-era stalwarts including Harry “Sweets” Edison and Roy Eldridge (trumpets), Louis Bellson (drums), Benny Carter (alto saxophone), and Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster (tenor saxophones) released new recordings on the Verve label to a waiting jazz public.

So did the bebop masters of the 1940s: Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet), Stan Getz (tenor saxophone), J. J. Johnson (trombone), and Sonny Stitt (alto saxophone). 


Of the several outstanding mainstream albums that year, two on the Verve label stand out. The first album brought swing-era trumpeters Roy Eldridge and Sweets Edison together with bebop trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie (four and a half stars, DownBeat), while the second paired bebop trombonist J. J. Johnson with the cool tenor saxophone of Stan Getz (five stars, DownBeat).

Beneath the mainstream and surface trends, other obscure musicians toiled according to their own lights to reinvigorate the music. In time, the jazz public would recognize musicians such as Charles Mingus (bass) and Cecil Taylor (piano).


JAZZ COVERS BROADWAY
In 1958, jazz players discovered Broadway and Hollywood musicals in a big way. More jazz versions of shows appeared in record stores that year than any other year before or since. To be sure, jazz musicians had plumbed show tunes since the very beginning of the Great White Way, but they had never devoted an entire album to the tunes from a single show until the late 1950s.

It all began with the surprise smash recording in late 1957 of a jazz version of My Fair Lady by Andre Previn (piano), Shelly Manne (drums), and Leroy Vinnegar (bass) on Contemporary. A classically trained and noted writer of film scores, Previn was a surprisingly good jazz pianist—Bud Powell (sort of) with a romantic tinge.

Previn later conducted the Pittsburgh and other symphony orchestras, but in 1958 he was the star of the best-selling jazz record in history, surpassing the previous top seller, Brubeck’s
Jazz Goes to College recorded in 1954. Previn’s My Fair Lady was at the top of the monthly jazz charts all through 1958, falling no lower than fourth. 


Although it was eventually surpassed in sales by Miles Davis’s Columbia recordings, My Fair Lady astonished the recording industry. The tuneful score and the popularity of the stage play and movie helped, as did the tasteful drumming of Shelly Manne, but the album’s smash status was well deserved; a darn good jazz trio record (five stars, DownBeat).

Understandably, a rash of similar recordings followed. Previn/Manne released four other show tune albums--Li’l Abner and Gigi in 1958, followed by Pal Joey and West Side Story.

Then came the onslaught:
Gigi again (Shorty Rogers), Kismet (Mastersounds), The Music Man (Jimmy Giuffre), Porgy and Bess (Miles Davis), South Pacific twice (Chico Hamilton and Tony Scott), West Side Story twice (Manny Album and Oscar Peterson), and a host of other Broadway albums recorded by the Australian Jazz Quartet, Dick Marx, and others.

Every year has its fads, and this one belonged to 1958.


THE ATOMIC MR. BASIE
On top of everything else that happened in 1958, after a near decade-long decline, big bands surged back to popularity on the brass of the Count Basie and Duke Ellington orchestras.

Duke’s resurrection (he almost disbanded his orchestra of three decades in 1955) occurred around midnight on July 7, 1956, at the Newport Jazz Festival when Paul Gonsalves (tenor saxophone) took twenty-seven driving choruses on “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue,” causing a near rhythm riot among the 10,000 people in attendance.

Captured on vinyl by Columbia, the Newport recording received five stars in
DownBeat. 


The event was magical, almost mystical, a 1950s Woodstock that catapulted Duke and his band into the national limelight. Within weeks Duke was on the cover of Time, and whenever he was asked his age in later years, he would say only, “I was born in 1956 at the Newport Jazz Festival.”

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In 1957, his compositional skills rejuvenated, Duke premiered A Drum Is a Woman on television and recorded Such Sweet Thunder, a series of musical vignettes based on Shakespearean plays (five stars, DownBeat), and a musical portrait of Ella Fitzgerald.

In 1958, in the midst of his revival, Duke and his band toured Europe for the first time in eight years. The following year saw several more Ellington compositions and his first major film score for 
Anatomy of a Murder.


Duke was back! And so was the Count!

Basie’s comeback, unlike Duke’s, was not mercurial. After reforming his big band in 1953, his popularity steadily grew on the strength of hits such as “April in Paris,” with its “one more once” tag ending; and also “Shiny Stockings,” “Corner Pocket,” “Everyday and Alright, Okay, You Win,” the latter two with vocals by blues singer Joe Williams.

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America was ready when The Atomic Mister Basie exploded on the scene in 1958.

This album, the first of 20 on the Roulette label, and many say the best (
DownBeat said four-and-a-half stars at the time), featured tunes written by a single arranger, Neal Hefti. Three of the tunes, “The Kid from Redbank,” “Whirly Bird,” and “Li’L Darlin’,” became staples in the Basie book for years after. 

​The Atomic band of 1958 was a powerhouse of talent to rival any band in jazz history, including Basie’s classic Kansas City band of the late 1930s.

His 1958 band had four trumpets: Joe Newman, Thad Jones, Snookie Young, and Wendall Culley; three trombones: Henry Coker, Benny Powell, and Al Grey; five saxes: Marshall Royal, Frank Wess, Frank Foster, Charlie Fowlkes, and either Billy Mitchell or Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis; and the rhythm section of Basie (piano), Freddie Green (guitar), Eddie Jones (bass), and Sonny Payne (drums). 

This band exhibited ensemble power, precision, discipline, and dynamic control rather than the freewheeling, barrier-breaking soloists of the classic late-1930s Basie band. The Count himself said, “I have never bragged on anything, but the band I had [in 1958] was one I could have bragged on.”

Basie followed the successful Atomic with an album entitled Basie plays Hefti. He also benefited by Sing a Song of Basie, the sleeper LP of the year by the vocal group Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. LHR took scat singing to new heights by vocalizing meaningful lyrics to Basie tunes, ensemble passages and solos alike.

This record garnered a five-star 
DownBeat award and further heightened interest in the band. It came as no surprise, then, when DownBeat readers voted Count Basie and Miles Davis Jazz Personalities of the Year and elected Basie into the magazine’s Hall of Fame.


While other big bands languished in 1958—Stan Kenton’s, for example—the success of the two premier big bands paved the way for a general big band revival in the early 1960s.
​
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1958: The Best Year in Jazz, Part 4

8/18/2020

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In part 3 of this 1958 blog series, we saw that 1958 gave rise to the “cool” West Coast–style jazz, a response to the blues-oriented East Coast style. That led to a reaction from many East Coast musicians, who favored a harder approach.

FUNKY HARD BOP GAINS TOEHOLD 
Hard bop was the very antithesis of the West Coast cool style. It emphasized solos, all but discarded arrangements, and adopted blues and gospel devices.

The small independent labels Blue Note and Prestige chronicled hard bop much the same way Contemporary and Pacific Jazz did the West Coast style. Blue Note had such contract artists as Art Blakey (drums), Kenny Burrel (guitar), Sonny Clark (piano), Lee Morgan (trumpet), Hank Mobley (tenor saxophone), Horace Silver (piano), and Jimmy Smith (organ).

Prestige had Donald Byrd (trumpet), John Coltrane (tenor saxophone), Art Farmer (trumpet), Curtis Fuller (trombone), Red Garland (piano), Jacky Mclean (alto saxophone), Art Taylor (drums), and Mal Waldron (piano).

Contracts were as loose as the music and allowed musicians to record on either label, which they often did.

Taken together, the Blue Note and Prestige recordings shared a common sound: a loose, rough-hewn, raw-edged, dark sound that celebrated individual over collective expression. While most of the musicians knew each other and often played together, they were not, for the most part, members of working bands.

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​Hence, many albums documented blowing sessions, where soloists improvised at length on the harmonic pattern of the theme. Typically, the musicians recorded only two or three tunes per 20-minute side; even one per side was not uncommon.

​For all the hoopla in the trade press about hard bop rescuing the heart and soul of jazz, most of these albums received so-so three-star ratings in 
DownBeat.

​Four- and five-star ratings were rare. Sonny Clarke’s albums on Blue Note--
Sonny’s Crib, for example—always contained vital music but never received high marks, at least not from DownBeat reviewers.

​Five albums in particular characterized the best of the hard bop movement in 1958. The first, 
All Morning Long on Prestige—led by Miles Davis pianist Red Garland, with John Coltrane (tenor saxophone), Donald Byrd (trumpet), and Prestige house drummer Arthur Taylor—devoted one side to the title track and featured good solos all around (four stars, DownBeat).

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Guitarist Kenny Burrell recorded two minor gems, Blue Lights, with a stable of hard-boppers on Blue Note (five stars, DownBeat), and another with John Coltrane on Prestige (five stars, DownBeat), and Horace Silver added Six Pieces of Silver to his gospel-tinged hard bop library on Blue Note (five stars, DownBeat). 

​Lastly, Sonny Rollins recorded Freedom Suite on Riverside (four stars, DownBeat) with Oscar Pettiford (bass) and Max Roach (drums), which surpassed his Way Out West album on Contemporary.

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While the hard boppers found their jazz audience in 1958, they had not yet broken through to the general public, except perhaps for Horace Silver, who was the only hard bopper to appear at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival. No hard bop album finished in the top 20 jazz album sales for that year. ​
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​The first bop organist, Jimmy Smith, recorded and released albums faster than any musician alive, stocking record bins with his sixth through ninth albums for Blue Note that year. In a few short years, he would be known nationally for his hit recording of the title song of the movie Walk on the Wild Side.

​In 1958, the terms “funky” and “soul” appeared regularly in DownBeat articles to describe the R&B, gospel-tinged hard bop of musicians like Art Blakey and Horace Silver.

​This music sowed the seeds of the funky, hard bop soul music of the early 1960s, which propelled hard bop musicians to prominence and made household names of Cannonball Adderly, Art Blakey, Ramsey Lewis, Lee Morgan, Les McCann, Bobby Timmons, and Jimmy Smith, among others.
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