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.

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.

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. ​
​

The two Contemporary albums Way Out West, with Sonny Rollins (tenor saxophone), Ray Brown (bass), and Shelly Manne (drums), and Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section (the Miles Davis rhythm section) proved that West Coast jazzmen could play with East Coast jazzmen (as if there had been any doubt). The former album (five stars, DownBeat) reaffirmed Sonny Rollins as the premier tenor saxophone improviser of the day, while the latter (also five stars, DownBeat) confirmed Art Pepper as the premier improvising stylist on the West Coast. ​​

​Art Pepper Meets and subsequent albums also confirmed Pepper as one of the few unique voices on alto saxophone since Charlie Parker.
​

Other albums on the Pacific Jazz and World Pacific labels, featuring artists like Pepper Adams, Manny Album, Chet Baker, and Gerry Mulligan, also received excellent reviews in DownBeat. West Coast jazz—cool or California Hard—was a fad that ceased to exist only in the minds of a few influential critics.

In the DownBeat Critics Poll that year, West Coast or cool school musicians still ranked highly—Jimmy Giuffre (#2 combo), Gerry Mulligan (#1 baritone saxophone), Stan Getz (#1 tenor saxophone), Lee Konitz (#1 alto saxophone), Shelly Manne (#1 drums), Barney Kessel (#1 guitar), and Tony Scott (#1 clarinet). The year-end Readers Poll showed little difference, except that cool-schooler Paul Desmond inched out Konitz on alto saxophone.

And it bears mentioning that the first Monterey Jazz Festival was held in 1958—the West Coast answer to the Newport Jazz Festival, which began in 1953.

In part 4 of this blog series, we'll see how the East Coast jazz musicians respond to the new West Coast “cool.”
​

In the first part of this blog series, we looked at two of the four jazz innovators who came to the fore in 1958—Miles Davis, John Coltrane. Here, we move on to the other two: Thelonius Monk and Ornette Coleman.

THELONIUS MONK
Thelonius Monk, a jazz icon dedicated to his art, finally received his long-overdue recognition in 1958. Monk, who today is regarded as a major composer almost on a par with Duke Ellington, languished in obscurity until 1957. This lack of recognition stemmed in part from the loss of his cabaret card in 1951 due to a questionable drug charge, which prevented him from working in New York City (the jazz capital of the world and his hometown). The neglect was also the result of his highly personal approach to the piano, misunderstood by many musicians and critics alike.

But his recordings didn’t go totally unrecognized. A handful of New York critics consistently championed his work. In 1957, after regaining his cabaret card, Monk played at the Five Spot Café in lower Manhattan six nights a week to capacity crowds. Musicians and critics began to spread the word.

Here was a pianist whose approach eschewed the modern and embraced the traditional, an unabashed melodist—albeit, a quirky one—who embellished and extended the melody like jazzmen of the past, yet sounded “far out,” more modern than modern. Here was a pianist not easily copied or understood at first hearing. As the jazz world soon learned, Monk’s music consisted of more than idiosyncratic, dissonant melodies.

The Five Spot gig was but a prelude to Monk’s discovery as a major jazzman. Some say “rediscovery” because of his early 1940s contributions to bebop, but the truth is that very few Americans had ever heard of him prior to 1958. Monk was profiled in DownBeat that year in an article headlined “Finally Discovered” and was awarded first place on piano—for the first time—in both the Critics and Readers Polls.

With Monk’s discovery, Riverside, his recording company since 1955, heavily promoted his early albums and recorded new ones, often with jazz greats, no doubt to confirm his newfound position within the jazz tradition. In 1959, Monk showcased his music in a big-band setting at a memorable Town Hall concert.

Three years and many club dates later, he signed with Columbia, where he recorded eight well-publicized albums over the next seven years. Monk’s transformation from underground genius to jazz icon was celebrated in 1964 when he appeared on the cover of Time, joining Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington, and Frank Sinatra as the only jazzmen to be so honored.

His 40-some composition legacy, which he essentially completed before his public discovery in 1958, equals that of any 20th-century composer.


ORNETTE!
Ornette Coleman also came to prominence in 1958 with an album on the small Contemporary label entitled Something Else! The LP sounded like some quirky brand of bebop and received neither general critical nor popular acclaim, although the DownBeat reviewer gave it four and a half stars.
​

​

Has there ever been a year in jazz like 1958? Jazz was literally in the air—on radio, TV, and the silver screen.

Four jazz icons came to prominence that year. Record bins overflowed with numerous recordings that would become enduring jazz classics. Public awareness of jazz was near an all-time high due to the notoriety of the beatnik jazz subculture, the popularity of West Coast jazz, and the musicality of household-name jazz musicians like Basie, Brubeck, Ellington, Fitzgerald, Getz, Shearing, and Sinatra.

And jazz was big business for the first time since the 1930s.

Four icons—Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk, and Ornette Coleman—came to the fore in 1958, each to a different degree of public recognition and critical acclaim. They not only changed the direction of jazz forever but now rank among the handful of true jazz innovators who preceded them: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, Earl Hines, Jelly Roll Morton, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, and Lester Young, to name the most prominent.

MILES AHEAD . . . WAY AHEAD
First and foremost, 1958 was the year of trumpeter Miles Davis. Record bins were filled by his prodigious output since his return to jazz in 1954, including his second full-scale masterpiece Walkin’. That album spawned the funky, hard bop jazz of the late 1950s and 1960s, much as his first masterpiece, Birth of the Cool, launched the “cool” West Coast jazz of the 1950s.

More importantly, record bins held the recorded work of his first great quintet: Paul Chambers (bass), John Coltrane (tenor saxophone), Red Garland (piano), Philly Joe Jones (drums), and, of course, Miles himself (trumpet). In terms of impact, these recordings—five albums in all—can be compared to Louis Armstrong’s classic small-group Hot Five and Hot Seven performances of the late 1920s. Miles’s quintet defined anew the potential for small-group jazz and expanded the emotional range from unbridled joy (Judy Garland) to fierce drive (Coltrane) to alternating complex sorrow and crisp rapture (Miles), often in the course of a single tune.

​In my opinion, the grandest assemblage of jazz musicians at the White House occurred on the night of Duke Ellington’s 70th birthday, April 29, 1969, when President Nixon awarded Duke the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor (as discussed in my book Ellington at the White House 1969).

​But others claim that President Carter’s South Lawn gathering some nine years later, billed as the first White House jazz festival, tops the Duke event by a country mile.

​​Frankly, it’s hard to disagree: Carter’s introductory speech and the gasping, jaw-dropping lineup of jazz stars were exemplary.

On June 18, 1978, Carter stepped up on the specially erected stage on the South Lawn of the White House and—facing the 800 people gathered before him (musicians and their families and invited guests)—gave the most enlightened and heartfelt speech by any US president on America’s own music. And he did so extemporaneously:

This enlightened, heartfelt speech electrified all who heard it that day, either on the South Lawn or on the radio, or read it the next day in a newspaper or a month later in a magazine. President Carter’s five-minute speech first touched on a cornerstone of jazz—the blurry line creative musicians walk between freedom and discipline and, by extension, between instinct and theory, individualism and collectivism, improvisation and composition, voice and technique.
 
He next touched on two of the several reasons that slowed acceptance of jazz as an art form in this country—namely, racism and a musical elitism that categorized jazz as roadhouse or speakeasy entertainment.

But it was Carter’s personal recollection of his early jazz experiences that piqued the most interest. In fact, to many, it came as a shock: Jimmy Carter?! The peanut farmer from Georgia known to be a classical devotee (by those in the know) or maybe a Southern rock enthusiast (by those not in the know)—was a jazz fan? And an avid one at that! Who knew?

And the lineup of talent on the South Lawn that memorable day was beyond “Wow!” From the daughter of bluesman W. C. Handy and 90-year-old pianist Eubie Blake to avant-gardists Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor, and everyone in between. Here’s a full list:

The country was denied the opportunity to learn just how much of a jazz fan Carter really was when he didn’t win a second term in office. His book White House Diary hit the shelves in 2010, and I quickly purchased a copy to see if he had expanded on his fascination with jazz. Sadly, the president from Plains had surprisingly little to say about the indigenous art form that best represented our country.
​
He acknowledges “the big event held on the South Lawn” as “the best party we’ve ever had—the Newport Jazz Festival twenty-fifth anniversary. About 800 people came, and we had a collection of jazz musicians that was really remarkable.”

​But that’s it, except for the anecdotes about himself and his daughter: “I went on stage with Dizzy Gillespie, and joined him in a rendition of ‘Salt Peanuts.’ It was a high point in my life when the New York Times complimented my singing,” and “Amy performed on the violin, which was a real hit.”[2]
​

​Regarding a jazz concert in the East Room featuring Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, and Earl “Fatha” Hines, the president tells us: “It brought back old times when I was an avid jazz fan.”[3] Is it possible that the former chief executive was only a fan in his youth, his interest waning as he grew older, subsumed by his burgeoning love of opera and symphonic music?
 
The president’s ardor for the European import is abundantly clear in White House Diary as he rhapsodizes about classical performers who came to the White House—pianist Vladimer Horowitz, opera singers Roberta Peters and Leontyne Price, and cellist Slava Rostropovich—and takes forays with First Lady Rosalynn to hear classical expositions at the Kennedy Center and Metropolitan Opera.

​He also tells us (which many knew at the time): “In the inner White House office, we established a high-fidelity sound system, and for eight or ten hours a day I listened to classical music.”[4]
​

So which was the best jazz happening at the White House? The Ellington tribute in 1969? Or the Carter South Lawn jazz festival in 1978?

We have the music for the first event available from Blue Note Records in 1969 All-Star White House Tribute to Duke Ellington. Not so the latter. NPR recorded the music but has not released it. So what’s the hold up?

1. Recording courtesy of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum.
2. Jimmy Carter, White House Diary (NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), 136, 202.
3. Ibid., 136.
4. Ibid., 12.

All photos courtesy of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum.

​In a previous blog, I discussed a jazz concert sponsored by the Kennedy White House that was held at the Sylvan Theater on the Washington Monument grounds on the night of August 28, 1962. A gathering of mostly government summer interns heard the classic Brubeck Quartet followed by singer Tony Bennett and his trio. Columbia Records, with prominent producer Teo Macero on hand, recorded the music and belatedly released Bennett/Brubeck: The White House Sessions, Live 1962, on Columbia CD in 2013. 

But surprise, surprise, there was another jazz group on the bill that night—the Newport All-Stars—led by jazz festival impresario and pianist George Wein. In fact, they opened the show, and Columbia recorded them as well but did not release the music. The sounds the interns heard that balmy summer night are now available to the public, thanks to the staff at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC (more on this later). 

A swing Dixie outfit, the Newport All-Stars had been in existence since 1956 under the tutelage of George Wein. Over the years, numerous talented musicians have cycled on and off the roster. But during the 1958–1963 period, the core slots remained rather stable: George Wein (piano), Pee Wee Russell (clarinet), Ruby Braff (cornet), and Marshall Brown (valve trombone), supported by a pickup bassist and drummer, as was the case for the Kennedy-sponsored gig. 

At the time, according to New Yorker critic Whitney Balliett, Wein’s group represented a type of jazz that was rapidly disappearing—relaxed, emotional, unpretentious, and of no school, firming the heart and brightening the eye.[1]

Pianist Wein was a swing stylist somewhere between Fats Waller and Teddy Wilson (Balliett again), though still comfortable in a bebop setting. His playing always amazed and exceeded expectations, especially for one burdened with the managerial complexities associated with staging festivals.

Clarinetist Pee Wee Russell’s playing was, well, a poet’s delight. From Balliett: “hopefully eccentric, squeaks, coppery tone, querulousness, growls, and overall hesitancy—most original stylist in jazz.”[2] And from another, writer/pianist Dick Wellstood, “crabbed, chocked, knotted tangle of squawks with which he could create such woodsy freedoms, such an enormous roomy private universe.” Nonetheless, all would agree that Pee Wee Russell could also coax pure and gentle notes from his instrument when he wanted to.[3] 

Cornetist Braff took a pre-Bebop approach to improvisation, perhaps using more embellishment and vibrato than modernists, similar to his idol Louis Armstrong. Overall, he was a relaxed melodist, unique like his frontline companion, and should have been much better known.

Trombonist Brown had earned his festival wings with Wein back in 1958, when he worked his tail off to form the International Youth Band, which performed at Newport. The venture ultimately failed, done in by too many negative critical reviews. A later attempt at establishing a youth band made up of American high school kids succeeded, thereby reinforcing his exemplary leadership and teaching skills.[4]

As a trombonist, Brown never ranked at the top of the jazz polls, his reputation based on being a solid ensemble player. Wein once commented, “Marshall played decent valve trombone, although he never really had a trombone lip.”[5] 

The rhythm section for the Kennedy gig consisted of Washington, DC, natives Billy Taylor Jr. on bass—yes, the son of famous pianist Billy Taylor—and Eddie Phyfe on drums. 

The evening’s mostly youthful audience may not have been familiar with the Newport All-Stars and their brand of “rapidly disappearing” jazz. Their appearance occurred largely because three months prior, Rhode Island Senator Claiborne Pell, a former Newport Jazz Festival board member, invited the All-Stars to play a concert in the rotunda of the old Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. 

The All-Stars played a lunch-hour show on Monday June 18 to some 500 senatorial staff members. It was the first such concert in the rotunda; the occasion was noteworthy enough to prompt the distribution of an AP Wire Service photo across the country. The next morning the All-Stars appeared on the NBC Today Show[6], and the Washington Post featured a front-page photo with the following caption:
​

​Wein and the boys followed their historic rotunda rendezvous with a series of appearances leading up to the 1962 Newport Jazz Festival, where Senator Claiborne Pell delivered the festival’s opening remarks on July 6. 

The remainder of July and early August, Wein busied himself with establishing the inaugural Ohio Valley Jazz Festival outside Cincinnati, and on the festival’s last day, August 26, he joined the All-Stars on stage.[8] Two days later, after opening remarks by Rhode Island’s tireless Senator Pell, the band mounted the Sylvan Theater stage to perform for hundreds of summer interns (some with their parents) gathered on the Washington Monument grounds.
​

​The band played six tunes, a well-paced mix of swing-era standards, four up tempo, one change of pace, and a Pee Wee special. Wein announced the title of each tune:
​

Solos were plentiful on the up tempos numbers with Kansas City style riffs backing the soloist.

Applause from the largely student audience was respectful—if not overly generous—after individual solos and at the conclusion of a song, and then at the close of “Pee Wee’s Blues,” it was lengthy and loud, no doubt helped along by George Wein’s initial setup that promised a historic moment: “Pee Wee’s going to play the blues on the Washington Monuments grounds!” Drummer Eddie Phyfe also drew a huge ovation at the finish of his drum break on “Saint Louis Blues.”[9]

Thanks to the splendid work of Library of Congress staff, especially Bryan Cordell of the Music Division (Recorded Sound), the Newport All-Stars segment once lost has now been found. The entire Kennedy White House 1962 Sylvan Theater concert can now be heard at the Library.
​

Take a listen if you can, and I’m sure you will agree that the All-Stars proved to be an excellent opening act for jazz headliners Brubeck and Bennett, whose hit tunes (“Take Five”) and (“I Left My Heart in San Francisco”) were well received by the youthful summer crowd.

As previously mentioned, fans can listen to the Bennett/Brubeck segments on a Columbia CD. Additionally, George Wein and the core group recorded in studio on October 12, 1962, which is available on George Wein & the Newport All-Stars LP/CD (Impulse).

​

CODA
There were only two Kennedy White House jazz events, the one described above and the other by the Paul Winter sextet for 10- to 19-year-old children of diplomats and government officials held in the East Room on November 19, 1962. 

Interestingly, we have the music for both concerts, the former on Columbia CD (Bennett/Brubeck) and at the Library of Congress (Newport All-Stars), and for the latter, on Living Music CD (Paul Winter Sextet, Count Me In, 1962 & 1963).

There was only one other White House jazz event for which we have the music: President Nixon’s birthday extravaganza for Duke Ellington in the East Room on Blue Note CD: 1969 All-Star Tribute to Duke Ellington. 

And that’s that! 

How about all the other jazz events? For Presidents Johnson, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and the others? Isn’t it about time the music at the People’s House (as George Washington called it) is released to the people?

1. Whitney Balliett, Collected Works: A Journal of Jazz, 1954–2001 (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2002), 174.
2. Ibid., 76–77.
3. Robert Hilbert, Pee Wee Russell: The Life of a Jazzman (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), xiii.
4. George Wein with Nate Chinnen, Myself Among Others: A Life in Music (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2004), 184–86; 194. 
5. Ibid., 183. 
6. Ibid., 233.
7. Photo caption “Joint’s Jumping on the ‘Hill,’” photographer Vic Casamento, Washington Post, Monday, June 18, 1962, page 1. 
8. George Wein, Myself Among Others, 432–35; Robert Hilbert, Pee Wee Russell, 241.
9. George Wein comments, tunes played, and crowd reaction transcribed by the author from the audio: White House Jazz Seminar, Sylvan Theater, White House, 1962-08-28 (digital ID: 2603586), Library of Congress, Washington, DC.​

​

The most notable jazz event of 1969—and one of the most notable in all of jazz history—was the Duke Ellington gala held at the White House on April 29. This six-hour event included a banquet, a 90-minute concert of 27 Ellington songs performed by an all-star jazz ensemble, and a jam session with dancing. Hundreds of guests attended the celebration, during which President Nixon awarded Duke the Medal of Freedom.
 
This was the first time the award was given to an African American and the first time it was given to a jazz musician. This gesture, at a time when jazz was not yet fully recognized as an art form, set the jazz arts community abuzz like never before. Not only did the medal go to the most respected, honored, and accomplished jazz musician in over four decades, but it was as if the award had gone to jazz itself, bestowed at the highest level of government. Greater recognition was bound to follow, and it did.
 
Jazz received its first federal grant in 1969, which grew tenfold over the next five years and also set the stage for jazz to receive significant grant money from reluctant foundations for the next ten years. Shortly thereafter, jazz was accepted as a fully recognized American art form.
 
And it all began at the Ellington tribute in the spring of 1969, well described by jazz critic Dan Morgenstern: “Though there were moments of appropriate solemnity, the tenor of the evening was one of cheerful warmth and friendly informality, set by the president himself.”

More in-depth information can be found in my book Ellington at the White House, 1969, and the recorded concert can be heard on All-Star White House Tribute to Duke Ellington, Blue Note (2002). 
​

The “Year of Duke” continued. His orchestra came in first in DownBeat magazine’s critics and readers polls, and he topped those polls in the composer and arranger categories as well. Moreover, his album And His Mother Called Him Bill was voted the year’s best by critics and the year’s fourth best by readers.[1]
 
Mother Called Him Bill is the maestro’s homage to his long-term composer-companion, Billy Strayhorn, who passed in 1967. The record is notable for its celestial tracks by altoist Johnny Hodges, particularly in “Blood Count,” “After All,” and “Day Dream,” the latter a late-at-night, sob-in-year-beer favorite. Stray’s compositions brought out that special, sensuous Hodges sound. As singer Lillian Terry recently put it, “Heavens, when he blows those long, languid notes . . . it’s an actual caress.”
 
The flip side of the Hodges coin—the bluesy side—Billy also knew well, as illustrated by “Snibor,” “The Intimacy of the Blues,” and “Acht O’Clock Rock.”[2]
 
In the year 1969, DownBeat fairly embraced the avant-garde movement while also fully embracing rock. Regarding the former, reviews of new thing musician albums were well represented and, generally speaking, highly rated (there were exceptions, like altoist Lou Donaldson’s scorching article declaring it was a bunch of noise made by amateurs[3]).
  
For example, albums by Gunter Hamphill, John Carter and Bobby Bradford, Don Cherry, Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Simmons and Prince Lasha, Albert Ayler, Roscoe Mitchell, and Joseph Jarman were all received. And, oh, the movement’s founding father, Ornette Coleman, was entered into the DownBeat Hall of Fame in 1969.
 
DownBeat had tippy-toed around rock in years past but dove deep into the music in 1969. Besides establishing a regular column for the first time (by Alan Heilnman), the magazine featured articles about the following rock musicians and groups, as well as reviews of their albums: Tim Hardin, Steve Miller Band, George Benson, Mike Bloomfield, Bob Dylan, Mothers of Invention, Blood, Sweat and Tears (BST), Ten Years After, and Chicago.[4]
 
The Newport Jazz Festival followed suit, inviting a slew of rockers to perform, including BST, Lighthouse (a BST clone), Ten Years After, Jethro Tull, Jeff Beck, Mothers of Invention, Sly and the Family Stone, and James Brown. In one respect it worked—the festival drew a larger crowd. But it wasn’t a jazz crowd; it included a sizable number of youthful, rowdier fans (think Woodstock), resulting in a host of security problems. Impresario George Wein concluded, “The kids destroyed the event and the experiment was a failure.” The Newport town council concluded, “No rock next year.”[5]
 
It was also the year of Miles Davis. DownBeat readers voted him jazzman of the year and best trumpeter and combo leader. They also voted his albums Filles de Killimanjaro (FDK) and In a Silent Way the year’s best and third best, respectively.[6]

While not fully appreciated at the time, these two stepping-stone albums represented Miles’s first breakaway from the hard bop aesthetic (and his occasional romantic excursions) that had begun with Walkin and continued from the first great quintet (Round Midnight) and sextet (Milestones and Kind of Blue) to the second great quintet (Miles Smiles and E.S.P.). His breakaway sound would soon be labeled jazz fusion, jazz rock, or electric Miles (Bitches Brew).

Interestingly, neither FDK nor In a Silent Way stirred much controversy at the time of their release—that would come later.

Paul Tingen notes the following regarding the FDK tracks:
​ 

“Filles de Killimanjaro” and, to a lesser extent, “Toot de Suite” indicate for the first time a real integration of folk and rock influences, and no one got upset—many people enjoyed it. DownBeat readers loved FDK and selected it as their favorite album of 1969.

The quintet that recorded FDK consisted of Miles on trumpet, Wayne Shorter on sax, Chick Corea on piano, Dave Holland on bass, and Tony Williams on drums. (Replace Tony Williams with drummer Jack DeJohnette, and this group would have been called Miles’s “Lost Quintet,” a quintet that never made a studio recording). 

Cook and Morton describe In a Silent Way, the second stepping-stone album, as a collage using “found objects” put together with a view to the minimum details and coloration required to make an impact—the “found objects” being British guitarist John McLaughlin, Austrian pianist Joe Zawinul, whose “In a Silent Way” became a centerpiece of the album, and Columbia producer Teo Macero, who stitched repeats of certain recorded live studio passages back into the fabric of the music, giving it continuity and a certain hypnotic circularity. 

In effect, three new players of electric instruments (Chick Corea on piano, Joe Zawinul on piano and organ, and John McLaughlin on guitar) joined four members of the second classic quintet (Miles Davis on trumpet, Wayne Shorter on soprano sax, Herbie Hancock on electric piano, and Tony Williams on drums) to give the band a sound completely unlike any previous incarnation.[8] 

Producer Teo Macero’s post-production role was crucial to the outcome (quite unusual for jazz at the time). Teo edited two hours of recorded music and trimmed it with Miles to 27 minutes of original music. He then expanded it to 38 minutes (to fit two sides of a 12” LP) by repeating certain sections.[9]

Cook and Morton praise In a Silent Way as a beautiful album, touching and centered. The title piece and “Shhh/Peaceful” are among the most atmospheric recordings in modern jazz.[10] 

In a Silent Way became an important forerunner of ambient music. Not certain what to make of the album, the DownBeat reviewer awarded it three and a half stars.[11]

Another 1969 album of note featured the venerated Modern Jazz Quartet. Released on Beatles label Apple Records in 1968, Under the Jasmin Tree featured the lengthy three-part suite “Three Little Feelings” and “Exposure,” both poised structured fare with swinging elements, as well as two surprises: “The Blue Necklace” and “The Jasmin Tree,” both based on the Afro-Moorish rhythms of Morocco, with drummer Connie Kay and bassist Percy Heath front and center. 

On “The Blue Necklace,” a very active Kay rang his triangle, shook his jingle bells, and tappety-tapped his snare’s skin and rim alternately, and at times simultaneously, while Heath plucked a high-note, clave-like rhythm on his bass. 

On “The Jasmin Tree,” Heath held the bottom with a steady boom-boom-boom as Kay maintained a clack-clack-clack, sock cymbal clucking away underneath, a triangle keeping the pulse on top (instead of a ride cymbal), and—the coup de grâce—a tambourine gospel shaking that sounded like the quick one-two hand claps of a church choir.

​In the middle of this throbbing stew, John Lewis on piano and Milt Jackson on vibes twined their way through a folk-like ditty, stating the melody, comping, and soloing, first one then the other, back and forth. 

About three-quarters of the way through, the gospel-ish rhythm came to a halt, and a new but related melody (Moroccan folk song) was introduced, played in unison by piano, vibes, and bass. Following this interlude, it was back to the Moorish church, and the tune concluded as it began. 

DownBeat magazine awarded five stars to this welcome departure from a much-revered group, which, by the way, also played the White House in 1969.[12]

1. Critics Poll, DownBeat magazine, August 21, 1969; Readers Poll, DownBeat magazine, December 25, 1969.
2. Edward Allan Faine, “Faine Favorites: Top 10 Alto Sax Albums,” Jazz Blog, August 31, 2018. 
3. Lou Donaldson, scorching review of new thing music, DownBeat magazine, February 1969.
4. All issue review of both avante-garde and rock music coverage, DownBeat magazine, January 9–December 25, 1969.
5. Coverage of Newport Jazz Festival, DownBeat magazine, August 21, 1969.
6. Readers Poll coverage of Miles Davis, DownBeat magazine, December 25, 1969.
7. Paul Tingen, Miles Beyond: The Electric Explorations of Miles Davis, 1967–1991 (New York: Billboard Books, 2001), 46. 
8. Richard Cook and Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 7th ed. (NewYork: Penguin Books, 2004), 408–409. 
9. Tingen, Miles Beyond, 60.
10. Cook and Morton, Penguin Guide, 66.
11. DownBeat magazine, October 1969.
12. Edward Allan Faine, The Best Gig In Town: Jazz Artists at the White House, 1969–1974 (Takoma Park, MD: IM Press, 2015), 27–32. ​

The 100th anniversary jazz birthday calendar for 2019 has three fewer than for 2018—15 total centenarians, oldest to youngest as follows:

Herbie Nichols, Al McKibbon, Israel Crosby, Snooky Young, Buddy Morrow, Nat King Cole, Mercer Ellington, Lennie Tristano, Benny Harris, Ella Johnson, George Shearing, Art Blakey, Anita O’Day, Hall Singer, Babs Gonzales.[1]

Below, I spotlight four jazz legends from this group.
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Of all Nat King Cole’s signature songs and classic albums, there is one album that is almost universally adored in the jazz community (sadly, less so with the general public), and that is, as Gene Rizzo characterized it, the eternally hip After Midnight (1957).

In the June 2004 issue of DownBeat magazine, a diverse group of 73 jazz singers (21 men, 52 women) were asked to name their top all-time favorite jazz vocal albums. The top 30 were listed; Midnight placed 12th. (Johnny Hartman and Frank Sinatra, the only higher-placed male singer albums, 2nd and 6th, respectively).[2]

In song historian Will Friedwald’s opinion, Midnight is a masterpiece, one of the great jazz vocal albums of all time, and I agree. Interestingly, and surprisingly, it is the only one of Cole’s original albums where he both sang and played piano all the way through. Moreover, his performance was never more free, or loose, like a man on a lark at a jam session with nothing to prove. Friedwald has told us how this gem came about:
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The first session was completely spontaneous with Cole, his standard rhythm section and baseball buddy Edison, the most recognizable trumpet voice in jazz—only one note and you know it’s Sweets. Nat played and sang songs already in his repertoire “Sweet Loraine,” “It’s Only a Paper Moon, “Route 66,” and “You Can Depend on Me.” 

The songs had been previously recorded in other contexts, of course, and here they were expanded with more and longer solos—jam session style—exactly what Cole wanted. Nat and producer Gillette were delighted with the results and decided to turn the pianist’s impromptu jam into an album project—12 more songs over three more sessions, each with a different guest soloist.

Next up, Willie Smith, a swing era alto saxophonist second only to Duke’s Johnny Hodges. For this session, Cole edged off his jam session perch a touch and recorded newer material: “Don’t Let It Go to Your Head,” “You’re Lookin’ at Me,” and “I Was a Little Too Lonely (And You Were a Little Too Late),” the latter written by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston, the tuner pair responsible for Nat’s breakout hit “Mona Lisa.” The session ended on a jam session favorite with Nat and Willie stretching out on a finger-snapping “Just You, Just Me.”

For the third session, Cole wanted a Latin tinge and brought in Cuban percussionist Jack Constanzo and Ellington boneman Juan Tizol, composer of “Caravan,” which they dutifully played and followed it with the perfect companion piece “The Lonely One.”

Constanzo sat out while Cole and Tizol delivered the best slow ballads on the album: “Blame It on My Youth” and “What Is There to Say.” Freidwald rhapsodized: “Cole has never been more convincingly romantic, and he’s brilliantly supported by both Tizol and his own piano playing. As an interpreter of great love lyrics, the King takes a royal back seat to no one.”

The last session’s four tracks featured the “sainted collaboration” (Friedwald’s term) of Nat with grand swing era violinist Stuff Smith. They teamed up on a laid-back “Some-times I’m Happy,” “I Know That You Know” at race-horse tempo, with ripping piano-violin exchanges, a moderately swinging “When I Grow Too Old to Dream,” and a relaxed treatment of “Two Loves Have I.”

At the time of its first release, Midnight was a one-of-a-kind album, and it has remained as such. Nat King Cole never worked with a small jazz combo of that variety again.

CODA
Comments accompanying the Midnight 12th-place finish:

Grady Tate: “We know he is a genius at the piano but what he does vocally is unbelievable. One can understand each and every word he sings and the phrasing is impeccable. Nat set such a high standard for male singers.”

Tuey Connell: “The juxtaposition of the bop-leaning piano playing and his conversational delivery entices and challenges the listener at the same time.”

John Pizzarelli: “An amazing combination of spontaneity and arrangement. Everybody’s contribution from Lee Young’s drumming and John Collin’s guitar to Sweet Edison’s trumpet and Stuff Smith’s swinging violin perfectly compliment Nat’s swinging ease.”
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​Born blind in London, England, young George began pecking out tunes on the piano at age three. His handicap and precocious talent led to formal training in classical piano and theory. He rejected university scholarships in favor of working in neighborhood pubs that soon expanded to engagements at top London supper clubs, and guest spots on BBC radio. 

During WWII, Shearing met American jazz musicians (e.g., Fats Waller, Coleman Hawkins) while they were touring. They assured him of great success in the US. George crossed the pond to New York City, where he began to attract attention on the beboppin’ 52nd Street. ​

​Gene Rizzo, author of The Fifty Greatest Jazz Pianists of All Time—who ranked Shearing ninth—continued the story from there:

The initial lineup responsible for the unique “Shearing Sound” recorded for Discovery, Savoy, and MGM. The result—the nigh impossible—a hit jazz record: the immensely popular “September in the Rain,” which sold over 900,000 copies![5] Other not-as-popular singles followed, “I Remember April,” for example. 

George continued to soak up the sounds of bebop piano masters Bud Powell and Hank Jones, and the newly arrived Latin rhythms (Latin jazz). He got his first taste of Latin music at the Club Clique in midtown Manhattan when he played opposite the Machito orchestra. He later reminisced: “The sounds were incredible, the rhythm complex, the bass lines were so interesting. I wanted to record Latin music, but the opportunity did not appear until I met bassist Al McKibbon, who knew the roots of Afro-Cuban music.”[6]
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Detroit-born Al McKibbon—who shared the same birth year with Shearing—moved to New York in the 1940s. In 1947 he joined Dizzy Gillespie’s big band and played with Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo. Al learned the fundamentals of Afro-Cuban drumming from Pozo and played on the original recording of Dizzy’s “Manteca.”

Later he participated in the recording Birth of the Cool with Miles Davis. Particularly adept at blending Latin rhythms with straight jazz, McKibbon was at the heart of the Shearing Quintet from 1951 to 1958.[7]

In September 1953, the George Shearing Quintet, which now included Cal Tjader on vibes, Belgian-born ”Toots” Theilemann on guitar, Bill Clark on drums, Al McKibbon on bass, Catalino Rulon on maracas, and Candido Camero on bongos, recorded an album for MGM. Shearing was not pleased with his piano performance. McKibbon suggested he listen to the recordings of Noro Morales and Joe Loco so he could learn to ad-lib the Cuban montuno. 

Shearing later said, “My ears became attuned to the authentic Afro-Cuban music thanks to AL McKibbon, the Machito orchestra, and Armando Peraza and Willie Bobo.” It was the Afro-Cuban whisperer McKibbon who suggested Shearing hire Peraza, who was regarded as a true virtuoso, unequaled as a bongo player and capable of amazing solos on conga drums. 

Peraza joined the Shearing band in 1953, an association that would last eleven years.  McKibbon declared, “When Armando came into the band, that was a new day.”[8] 

​Indeed, as Peraza later recalled:
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Shearing recorded a number of memorable albums of jazzed-up boleros and mambos. The first one with Peraza and McKibbon, Latin Escapade (1956), sold 80,000 copies, a milestone for Latin jazz! Other albums followed: Latin Affair (1958), Mood Latino (1961), and Latin Rendezvous (1962).[10]

These albums contributed to the general acceptance of the music, along with the quintet’s appearances at jazz clubs, supper clubs, college campuses, and spaces generally off-limits to other jazz groups.

​Between 1956 and 1963, I attended five shows: three in Cleveland, Ohio (two at the Modern Jazz Club, one at Public Hall) and two in Columbus, Ohio (one at the Kontiki Polynesian Restaurant, the other at a downtown hotel). Each set featured a Latin segment with Armando Peraza front and center. 

Besides being an outstanding classical and bebop-influenced jazz pianist and the leader of an instantly recognizable, one-of-a-kind jazz quintet, George Shearing deserves plaudits for his early contribution to, and promotion of, Latin jazz, a genre that would attain significant popular status in the 1960s and beyond.
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​A belated shout-out to a most deserving pianist-composer: Herbie Nichols. Jazz critic Gary Giddins writes:
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Pianist Frank Kimbrough marveled: “It’s bizarre. He wrote twice as many tunes as Thelonious Monk, yet he’s always been famous for being unknown.”
 
Well, perhaps not so much now. Nichols was inducted into the DownBeat Hall of Fame in 2017, more than five decades after his death from leukemia.[12]

1. ​Jazz Birthday Calendar, 1919.​
2. Frank-John Hadley, “30 All-Time Favorite Jazz Vocal Recordings,” DownBeat magazine, June 2004, 48.
3. Will Friedwald, The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums (New York: Pantheon Books, 2017), 69–75.
4. Gene Rizzo, The Fifty Greatest Jazz Pianists of All Time (Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Corporation, 2005), 35–36. See also additional confirming source: Len Lyons, The Great Jazz Pianists: Speaking of Their Lives and Music (New York: Quill, 1983), 98–100.
5. Raul Fernadez, Latin Jazz: The Perfect Combination (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2002), 82.
6. Ibid., 83.
7. Ibid., 82–85.
8. Ibid., 83, 77, 82.
9. Ibid., 76.
10. Ibid., 82.​​
11. ​Liner Notes, Gary Giddins, Herbie Nichols--The Bethlehem Years, Bethlehem Records, LP, BCP 6026, 1976.
12. Herbie Nichols, “Rightful Honor,” DownBeat Magazine, August 2017, 36.

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In the first part of this blog series, I talked about the collection of 640 jazz LPs I acquired in the 1954–1984 time frame and how I discovered that half of them consisted of multiple buys from 36 artists—30 from trumpeter Miles Davis down to 5 each from saxophonists Chico Freeman and Oliver Lake.

Here, I look at the remaining half of my collection and discuss several of the singular, transcendent albums. They're listed in no particular order.

Oscar Peterson | “Satch” and “Josh” | Pablo
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The “Satch” and “Josh” are none other than Oscar Peterson and Count Basie. Two dissimilar pianists could not have been found on the planet to cut a duo record, backed by a superb rhythm section: Freddie Green (guitar), Ray Brown (bass), and Louis Bellson (drums).

​Peterson’s technique is complex and prolific. Basie’s is simple and sparse. Peterson is arabesques, fluttering appoggiaturas, and grace notes, and Basie is bare bones. And does it ever work. Why? Despite differences, they both share an atomic sense of time and a fathomless understanding of the blues. In fact, 6 of the 10 songs on the album are jointly composed blues, and the rest are standards. A more delightful, one-of-a-kind record is not to be had. 

Woody Herman | Woody Herman–1963 | Phillips

Following on the heels of the big band revival of the late 1950s led by Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Maynard Ferguson, Herman launched the Fourth Herd in 1963, one of several bands he fronted over his musical career.

This latest edition featured aggressive soloists (Bill Chase, Sal Nistico, Phil Wilson) and current jazz standards “Watermelon Man” (Hancock), “Better Get It in Your Soul” (Mingus), and “Days of Wine and Roses” (Mancini). I saw this flat-out exciting aggregation at Basin Street East in New York City on my honeymoon.

 
These are but a tiny few of the exceptional treasures from my jazz LP collection. Nonetheless, I think you’ll agree with my conclusion from part 1: Over a 30-year period beginning in 1954, I was a fan with eclectic tastes, preferring a diverse mix of traditionalists (Powell, Green, Gillespie) and avant-garde musicians (Grachan Moncur III, Loft Jazz Artists, Carla Bley).
 
Thank you for accompanying me on my trip down memory lane. 

From 1954 to 1984, I acquired 640 jazz vinyl LPs before switching over to the more convenient CDs to stay current with the music I enjoyed most. Only recently, with the help of Mike Petillo, did I give a sense of order to my collection by arranging the LPs alphabetically by jazz artist on the online resource discogs.com.

There it was, right before my eyes, my collection history as a young man, a lot of which I had forgotten, largely because as of late, I had only sporadically selected an LP or two every so often to play. Now, thanks to discogs.com, I could take a nostalgic jazz trip down memory lane.

Of course, I remembered that I was the sort of aficionado who would fall madly in love with a particular artist’s music and then snap up every subsequent album he or she produced, whenever and wherever I could. And perhaps, not too much of a surprise, as can be seen below, Miles Davis tops the list with 29 LPs.

​Looking at the rest of the top nine, I discovered a number of—what shall we call them—experimentalists, new thing, new wave, avant-garde musicians. 

Obviously, I fell in love with the music of an eclectic mix of jazz people:

In addition to the above top nine favorites, I greatly admired other choice artists but purchased fewer of their LPs, numbering in the 8 to 5 range as listed below: