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Ella Fitzgerald: The Accidental Singer

11/25/2022

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Ella Fitzgerald performing at the Helsinki Culture Hall in Helsinki, Finland. April 1963. Credit: Wikipedia

​Is it possible that singer Ella Fitzgerald’s career was the result of a happy musical accident? You bet. Read on.
           
It was 1934, and 16-year-old Fitzgerald found herself backstage at the Harlem Opera House, nervously shifting from one foot to the other as she waited to take part in an amateur contest as a dancer.

She hoped to dance professionally one day, and this was her first opportunity to strut her stuff. Behind the curtain, Ella peeked at the audience. She noticed with alarm that another dance act  was onstage.

Uh-oh.
           
By then it was too late for Ella to bow out. The emcee was calling her name, telling the seated crowd that she was going to tap dance for them. 

As the band started playing, her limbs felt like rubber, and she was too petrified to move. The emcee whispered, “Do something.”

Ella’s mind raced. What could she do other than dance? She thought about the music she heard on the radio and the records her mother had around the house. The Boswell Sisters just might work. She began to sing one of their tunes: “Judy.” The band knew the song and began to accompany her.

Her voice grew stronger and more confidant.

When the song ended, the theater erupted into cheers.

​Ella offered another Boswell song, and after she finished singing, the audience applauded wildly. The emcee announced she had won a $25 prize.
           
Soon after, Ella decided to become a professional singer. Her six-decade career traversed the big band swing era, the subsequent bebop era, and beyond.[1]
           
But ask yourself, had the act ahead of Fitzgerald been anything other than dance—a comic, a ventriloquist, a gymnast, a singer even—would Ella have become, as Peggy Lee said at the Kennedy Center Honors, “the greatest jazz singer of our time," or as Bing Crosby said, “Man, woman, or child, Ella is the greatest singer of them all.”[2]

​Serendipity Doo-Dah!

NOTES

  1. ​Bud Kliment, Ella Fitzgerald: Singer (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1969), 16–19.
  2. Kliment, Ella Fitzgerald, 12, 14.
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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.
​
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
​
​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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​All Jazz Roads Should Lead to the Birchmere

2/28/2022

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Birchmere, 2006. Photo: Rudi Riet from Washington, DC.
The Birchmere nightclub in Alexandria, Virginia, is one of the most famous musical spaces in America. Birthed some 50 years ago, the club has occupied three locations, all in Alexandria. Its current spot on Mount Vernon Avenue has 100 tables that seat 500 people, each with clear sightlines to the stage, set with menus and signs on the tables to remind people to keep quiet during the performance.

Ticket prices are reasonable, and there is ample free parking. Artists are likewise treated with respect in a comfy greenroom: a separate dressing room with a washer and dryer.

The Birchmere premiered as a bluegrass music club, and its history evolved into diverse entertainment, which is an understatement: can you believe bluegrass, country, western, folk (both European and American), rock, blues, R&B, gospel, funk, Celtic, zydeco, pop, and jazz (the focus of this blog)?

The Birchmere presents one or two artists just about every night of the week to mostly sold-out crowds. In sum, an iconic room with an excellent sound system that facilitates the connection between artists and the audience.

In their book, All Roads Lead to the Birchmere: America’s Legendary Music Hall, authors Gary Oelze (original and current owner) and Stephen Moore (musician, writer) devote a chapter to jazz that they call “Jazz Hands.”

​The chapter profiles the 12 artists listed below. Biographical information is provided, along with a photograph taken at the club, an anecdote or two about their experience, and audience reaction. Another list is provided (names only) of artists who have appeared at the hall over the years.

Any jazz fan scanning the lists of artists below would likely conclude “pretty damn good, especially for a club that’s not a jazz club per se”:
​
Joe Sample (Keyboards)
Tuck and Patti (Guitar and Singer)
Chick Corea (Keyboards) [3]
McCoy Tyner (Keyboards)
Ottmar Liebert (Guitar) [20]
Herb Albert (Trumpet) [5]
Ramsey Lewis (Keyboards)
Herbie Hancock (Keyboards)
George Duke (Keyboards)
Dweezil Zappa (Guitar) [4]
Jean Luc Ponty (Violin) [2]
Candy Dulfer (Saxophone) [6]

Note: [  ] number of times at Birchmere

Other jazz artists who appeared at the Hall over the years include Gato Barberie (saxophone), Hugh Masekala (trumpet), Blue Note 75 All-Stars (tribute band), Jeff Lorber (keyboards), Kenny G. (saxophone), Najee (saxophone), Pieces of a Dream (jazz fusion), Preservation Hall Jazz Band (DixielandDixieland), Rachel Ferrell (singer), Robbin Ford (guitar) among many others.*

While jazz was not the dominant musical genre played at the Birchmere by any means, it was fairly represented. A decent mix of known stars and up-and-comers could count on their performances being well advertised on the club marquee, in well-placed newspaper ads, on the radio, and in recent years on the internet to followers numbering in the hundreds of thousands.

The result: well-attended shows and an uptick in name recognition. The latter is not to be overlooked. Birchmere attendees are known to be a mite more open-minded than most fans—they will attend an event outside their genre comfort zones simply because if it’s at the Birchmere, it has to be good. Not bad for a music hall not necessarily known as a jazz club.

A gig at the Birchmere is a resume-topper second only to Madison Square Garden and a few other performances spaces. In an era when jazz is not as popular as it once was—dropping from 13 percent in recorded music sales in 1960 to 1 percent today—thank goodness, the road to America’s Legendary Music Hall is still open and well-paved.

CODA
I highly recommend the referenced book below. No matter your specific musical preferences, you’ll come across numerous artists and songs that helped define your life one way or another. Moreover, I guarantee you’ll learn interesting facts about artists and songs you never knew before.                                                                              ​

​*Gary Oelze and Stephen Moore, All Roads Lead to the Birchmere: America’s Legendary Music Hall (St. Petersburg, Florida: Booklocker.com Inc., 2021), 395–403.

​

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Jazz Events at the LBJ White House

12/22/2021

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Duke Ellington at his first East Room appearance on March 27, 1968. Photo credit: LBJ Presidential Library, Robert Knudsen.
​​John F. Kennedy was the first president in modern White House history to sponsor jazz events. The first was a concert featuring the Newport Jazz All-Stars, Dave Brubeck Quartet, and the Tony Bennett Trio assembled on the Washington Monument grounds (Sylvan Theater) on August 28, 1962; and the second, a concert by the Paul Winter Sextet in the East Room on November 19, 1962.[1]

The jazz ice was broken. America’s musical poor sister was finally recognized. 

It was up to the successor president, Lyndon B. Johnson, to act on the jazz precedent set by JFK. And did he ever!

As if to make up for the long oversight, the Johnson administration hosted 16 jazz events during its 62-month run. Jazz had finally received its just due by a president and first lady whose musical tastes would not be described as refined but who believed it their duty to showcase the widest possible range of artistic expression at the nation’s showroom.

LBJ invited such notable jazz luminaries as Duke Ellington, Stan Getz, Sarah Vaughan, Charlie Byrd, and Dave Brubeck. See more details below:
​
JAZZ EVENTS AT THE JOHNSON WHITE HOUSE
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​LBJ made up for the decades of official neglect of America’s premier jazz composer by inviting Ellington and his orchestra to give the final performance at the White House Festival of the Arts on June 14, 1965. 

On an erected stage on the South Lawn, Duke presented sections of what would become his Far East Suite, followed by selections from his tone statement on the African American plight in America — Black, Brown and Beige (1943), featuring the lovely hymn “Come Sunday.” 
​
He closed out the concert with an Ellington 12-hit-song medley that included “Solitude,” “Sophisticated Lady,” “I’m Beginning to See the Light,” and “Caravan.”
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​Duke Ellington at President Johnson’s Festival of the Arts on June 14, 1965. Members of the orchestra: Duke Ellington (p), Rufus Jones (dms), John Lamb (b), Cat Anderson (tp), Ray Nance (tp), Cootie Williams (tp), Lawrence Brown (tb), Buster Cooper (tb), Chuck Connors (tb), Paul Gonsalves (ts), Jimmy Hamilton (cl), Johnny Hodges (as), Russell Procope (as), and Harry Carney (bs). Photo credit: LBJ Presidential Library, Robert Knudsen. Photo credit: LBJ Presidential Library, Robert Knudsen.
From the sound recording available at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC, here is a transcript of the event:

Opening Remarks by Dancer Gene Kelly
Historians tell us jazz began in New Orleans, and some historians tell us it began at a certain spot called Congo Square, a dusty lot down there. That may be so, I really don’t know, but I know it’s a long road from Congo Square to Carnegie Hall, and a longer musical way still.

But jazz made it, riding on the well-tailored coattails of Duke Ellington some twenty-two years ago. He and the great artists of his ensemble took Lady Jazz out of her off-the-racks cotton dress and put her in a long velvet gown.

​Ladies and Gentlemen, if there had never been a Duke Ellington, jazz would have had to invent him. So it’s with pride I present the Duke.

The Duke Ellington Orchestra
“Take the ‘A’ Train” 
[Applause follows.]

Duke Ellington Introduction
Thank you very much, Ladies and Gentlemen. That’s a warm welcome. Our first selection we would like to do is a result of our visit to the Far East a year and a half ago; we went to the Far East for the State Department on a cultural exchange program. And, of course, it was a tremendous inspiration to us all on being exposed to the beauty and enchantment of the Orient.

​And so as a result, we wrote a suite of numbers. We would like to play some of them now. We would like to say this is being done also in gratitude for the great people of the State Department Foreign Service office, who guided us so magnificently through the tour. It is called “Impressions of the Far East”:

The Duke Ellington Orchestra
“Amad” feature for Lawrence Brown (tb)
“Agra” ballad feature for Harry Carney (bs)
“Bluebird of Delhi” feature for Jimmy Hamilton (cl)
[Applause follows.]

Duke Ellington Introduction
Thank you. And now we would like to go from “Impressions of the Far East” to “Black, Brown and Beige,” which of course was done originally in 1943, and hasn’t really been done until this year in our concert appearances. This is our tone parallel to the history of the Negro in America. 
Tonight, we should like to do a suggestion of the work song theme and the spiritual theme, and a development of the two into a sort of montage. “Black, Brown and Beige”:

The Duke Ellington Orchestra
Work theme
Spiritual “Come Sunday” theme feature for Ray Nance (v) and Johnny Hodges (as)
Work and spiritual theme montage for trumpet, Harry Carney (bs), and Lawrence Brown (tb)

Lady Bird Johnson Wrap-Up
May I thank all the artists who have made this a rich, full, varied day for us all. It’s been wonderful. And now I’d like to have you all go to the tents for a bit of refreshment. I expect some of you need a hot cup of coffee. Perhaps you’d like to view the art in the garden and the east corridor. Thank you all. 
[Applause follows.] 

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​Lady Bird Johnson thanked Ellington and his orchestra at the close of their formal set following the daylong celebratory Festival of the Arts on June 14, 1965. After the First Lady departed, Duke addressed the crowd remaining on the South Lawn: “We have a request for several of the things we have written and we’d like to play some of them for you.” With that, Duke and the band offered a medley of Ellington song hits. Photo credit: USIA World (newspaper).
Duke Ellington Encore Introduction
I hate to impose on you like this, Ladies and Gentlemen, but we have a request for several of the things we have written and we’d like to play some of them for you that have become popular here. 

The Duke Ellington Orchestra
​
“Solitude”
“I’ve Got It Bad” feature for Johnny Hodges (as)
“Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” feature for Duke (p)
“In the Mood”
“I’m Beginning to See the Light” (uptempo)
“Sophisticated Lady” feature for Harry Carney (bs)
“Caravan” (uptempo)
“The Opener” (uptempo feature for Paul Gonsalves [ts], Buster Cooper [tb], and Cat Anderson [tp])
“Things Ain’t What They Used to Be”

Total time: 44:44 minutes.

NOTES

  1. This and subsequent text is excerpted from Edward Allan Faine, Ellington at the White House, 1969 (Takoma Park, MD: IM Press, 2013), 24, 25, 32, and 211–214.
​
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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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