Category: Jazz Musicians

That Anniversary Year 2019: Celebrating Four Jazz Centenarians

12/31/2019

Left to right: Nat King Cole, George Shearing, Al McKibbon, and Herbie Nichols

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.

Nat King Cole

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:

[Nat and [his pal, trumpeter Harry “Sweets“ Edison] were at a [Dodgers baseball] game in August 1956 and they were overjoyed when [their] team . . . won, so much so that they had to let off steam by playing. Four calls were then made, first to Cole’s producer Lee Gillette to arrange for studio time at the Capitol Tower, and then to three regular members of his working trio, guitarist John Collins, bassist Charlie Harris, and drummer Lee Young. Upon arrival at the tower, Cole, Edison, and the trio quickly and exuberantly laid down five masters on songs they already knew very well.[3]

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.”

George Shearing/Al McKibbon

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:

In ’49, Shearing formed his famous quintet–a unique blend at the time of piano, vibes [Marjorie Hyams], guitar [Chuck Wayne], bass [John Levy], and drums [Denzil Best]. It became one of jazz’s biggest attractions. The quintet’s tight arrangements were based on the locked-hands style of Lionel Hampton’s pianist, Milt Buckner. Its formula, easily atomized, but less easily executed at fast tempos, featured the piano voiced in four-part chords. The right hand’s top, or melody voice, was doubled by the left hand within an octave. The vibes played in unison with the upper melody, the guitar with the lower.[4]

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]

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:

I used to sit down with Shearing and sing melodies to him. He would play them on the piano and develop an arrangement. He was blind but he could see my ideas, my dream. Shearing said he loved my harmonic concepts. He allowed me to compose, to create.[9]

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.

Herbie Nichols

A belated shout-out to a most deserving pianist-composer: Herbie Nichols. Jazz critic Gary Giddins writes:

[While] an incontestably modern and unique voice, and despite his own fabled persistence, he was only able to document four tunes for Savoy (1952), two albums for Blue Note (1955–56), and one for Bethlehem (1957) . . . He wrote over a hundred songs, but only 30 were recorded by himself, another three by Mary Lou Williams, and one by Billie Holiday.[11]

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]

NOTES

Jazz Birthday Calendar, 1919.
Frank-John Hadley, “30 All-Time Favorite Jazz Vocal Recordings,” DownBeat magazine, June 2004, 48.
Will Friedwald, The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums (New York: Pantheon Books, 2017), 69–75.
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.
Raul Fernadez, Latin Jazz: The Perfect Combination (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2002), 82.
Ibid., 83.
Ibid., 82–85.
Ibid., 83, 77, 82.
Ibid., 76.
Ibid., 82.
Liner Notes, Gary Giddins, Herbie Nichols--The Bethlehem Years, Bethlehem Records, LP, BCP 6026, 1976.
Herbie Nichols, “Rightful Honor,” DownBeat Magazine, August 2017, 36.

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Portrait of an LP-Era Jazz Fan: Part 2

11/28/2019

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A sample from Edward Faine's jazz LP collection.

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.

Wynton Kelly Trio | Smokin’ at the Half Note | Verve

For Wes Montgomery, 1966 was a breakout year. The most influential jazz guitarist since Charlie Christian, Montgomery was known for his thumb plucking and innovative approach to playing two notes at the same time an octave apart.

Interestingly, the year Montgomery crossed over to the pop market with his R&B hit “Goin’ out of My Head,” he recorded what I (and many others) believe to be his best jazz album with the Wynton Kelly Trio (Miles Davis’s rhythm section at the time).

From the opening 13-minute “No Blues” to “Unit 7” to “Four on Six,” the Kelly Trio mirrored Montgomery’s insistent drive throughout. Smokin’ indeed!

Sonny Rollins | East Broadway Run Down | Impulse!

Rollins surprised many with his 20-minute title track featuring his tenor and extracted mouthpiece, along with John Coltrane’s rhythm section bassist Jimmy Harrison and drummer Elvin Jones with trumpeter Freddie Hubbard (on one track).

At the time, many people thought Sonny was about to join “New Wave” pioneers Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry because of the use of just a mouthpiece. But, no, it was Rollins simply saying he could play free if he wanted to, and this was the way it should be done. I agreed, wishing he had done more of it.

Bud Powell | Bud in Paris | Xanadu

Here is recorded proof that pianist Powell’s abilities were still intact well into the last decade of his life. Maybe not on a par with his superhuman playing of the 1940s, but mighty close.

This album presents the cream of his performances between 1959 and 1961, including a driving duet with expat tenor man Johnny Griffin on “Idaho” and “Perdido,” both of them grunting their own throaty comments as the music swirls and swoops. Bud, in a trio setting with bebop drummer Kenny Clarke, essays his own compositions—“John’s Abbey” and “Buttercup”—showcasing his firm touch and unceasing swing at both medium and up tempos. This is a historically significant album.

Kip Hanraahan | Conjure | American Clave

Kip Hanrahan, not exactly your well-known jazzer, has taken a rather eclectic approach to music, regularly assembling diverse groups of Latin, rock, folk, and jazz musicians (and poets) in the studio and recording them for his own American Clave label.

Conjure contains a track with a most unlikely title—“The Wardrobe Master of the Universe”—sung by folk artist Taj Mahal, a bouncy tune that received extensive airplay on my home stereo. The ensemble, with Carla Bley on piano, sets up an infectious Latin-popping groove from the get-go. After Mahal’s vocal, David Murray enters with the most concise R&B, jazz, funky avant bop solo imaginable, all over his horn top to bottom—that was obviously improvised, but so perfect you’d think it had been scored and then woodshedded for years!

Hampton Hawes | Spanish Steps | Black Lion

Post-bop pianist Hawes recorded a lively set in Paris accompanied by the two expats Jimmy Woode (bass) and Arthur Taylor (drums). Two tracks stand out, the Hawes-composed jazz waltz “Sonara” and the lovely Richard Rodgers ballad “My Romance.” The former, buoyed by a loose and fluid rhythm section, is the most infectious jazz waltz ever recorded, bar none.

The lengthy “My Romance” is a Hawes favorite, a ballad that can be played as such or at a medium tempo. He does both here and even adds a ringing block chord segment. Simply gorgeous. There is, as far as I know, no better jazz piano instrumental treatment of this song.

Oscar Peterson | “Satch” and “Josh” | Pablo

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.

Loft Jazz Artists | Wildflowers 1–5 | Douglas

Seldom in jazz history has a new jazz movement been so thoroughly documented as on the Wildflower series. Thirty-two performances by 60 new wave musicians were recorded at the loft home of saxophonist Sam Rivers over seven May nights in 1976.

The music resulted in five separately issued LPs played by a veritable who’s who that included Hamiett Bluiett, Charles Brackeen, Anthony Braxton, Marion Brown, Dave Burrell, Anthony Davis, Ola Dura, Julius Hemphill, Fred Hopkins, Oliver Lake, Byard Lancaster, George Lewis, Jimmy Lyons, Ken McIntyre, Roscoe Mitchell, David Murray, Sonny Murray, Sam Rivers, Henry Threadgill, and Abdul Wadud.

Please forgive the mostly unrecognizable name list—none were household names at the time, even in the jazz community. But that is the point here: this was the first assemblage of wildflowers intent on adding yet another branch to the growing jazz tree.

George Shearing | Latin Escapade | Capitol

As percussionist Chano Poso was to Mario Bauza and Dizzy Gillespie, Armando Peraza was to pianist George Shearing on this historic latin jazz album. Peraza was featured on congas and other percussive instruments at every Shearing quintet performance for over 12 years.

My young jazz ears, tuned to odd time signatures and ethnic rhythms from the get-go (don’t know why), delighted in listening to the rhythmic sounds of Armando on this LP, as well as at five Shearing club performances I attended from 1955 to 1961.

Joe Harriott/John Mayer | Indo-Jazz Suite | Atlantic

Yet another time signature mash-up—the first time in history Western musicians (all from the UK by the way) and Indian musicians played together from a written score. Improvising by both sets of musicians took place, especially by alto player Joe Harriott, who played his own brand of free jazz.

Not all fans and critics took to the fusion, but I did. Maybe a little stilted at times, but always exciting and swinging. As Mayer proclaimed, “World Music began here,” and who is to say otherwise.

Bennie Green | Blows His Horn | Prestige

A trombonist most prominent in the ’50s and ’60s, Green was not really a skilled technician. He often relied on a satchel of repetitive licks, but what licks and what a sound, a blues-drenched Tommy Dorsey sound, less vibrato than Dorsey, with a smooth, high-register wail that split the differences between swing, R&B, and bebop. Though many of his albums are out of print, you can still find this early outing. No other like him, ever.

Dizzy Gillespie | Dizzy’s Party | Pablo

In the 1970s Gillespie hooked up with producer Norma Granz on his newly formed Pablo label. After several pairings with jazz masters from his era, Diz implored Granz to put aside all these “history” recordings and let him record something “modern.”

The result: Dizzy’s Party, a hip-shaking Latin jazz album for funk fans, with two electric guitars, drums, and Brazilian percussion to support trumpet and saxophone. Granz should have released a single from what he called Dizzy’s dance album. I saw the band twice, and it was a party.

Curtis Counce | More Bounce with Curtis Counce | Contemporary

The West Coast–based Counce group was one of the great quintets of the 1950s: Curtis on bass; the underrated Carl Perkins on piano; Frank Butler, the cleanest, most impeccable sounding drummer of the era; and two journeymen, Harold Land on tenor sax and Jack Sheldon on trumpet.

Bounce is their standout album. The best track: “Stranger in Paradise” from the Broadway show Kismet. The band never swung harder than on this medium tempo romp, but the standout solo belongs to Sheldon, who overcame his technical limitations (obvious on the other tracks) to produce a perfectly logical and memorable solo.

Had Sheldon played at this level consistently, he would have been a household jazz name, along with other notable middle-register trumpeters like Chet Baker, Miles Davis, and Art Farmer.

Monk Tribute | The Way I Feel Now | A&M

Here is yet another eclectic album where rock, pop, and jazz musicians pay tribute to Thelonius Monk. The Carla Bley track features her 15-piece big band with guest Johnny Griffin on tenor saxophone doing their version of Monk’s quirky “Mysterioso.”

The cut begins with the band in full force sounding like a tool and die shop clanking away at full capacity and melds into a gorgeous contrasting counter theme, a Johnny Griffin solo, a routine but faux ending, a piano trio interlude featuring Bley, and then the REAL ENDING, which is what makes this track so memorable—the band laying down sumptuous chords as Griffin soars up and down his instrument sounding like a baritone, tenor, and alto all rolled into one.

The finale makes me think of other rousing endings: Stravinski’s Sacre Du Temps and Mousorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.

Charles Sullivan | Genesis | Strata East

Most jazz fans haven’t heard of New York–based trumpeter Charles Sullivan. Few records to his name, that’s for sure, but on this one, there is a magical moment, a 30-second coda to “Now I’ll Sleep,” a song with a rather depressing lyric sung by a young Dee Dee Bridgewater.

As the song seemingly ends, the recording engineer switches to reverb (the click is heard), and Sullivan switches from trumpet to flugelhorn for a lilting improvised duet with Ms. Bridgewater. Dee Dee’s wordless vocal intertwines around Sullivan’s rich line, first mirroring then contrasting—like a double-helix strand of DNA.

On the same album, another magical duet, this time with pianist Onaje Allan Gumbs on “Good-Bye Sweet John,” a musical interlude repeated three times with increasing volume and bravura—a china-lovely chamber piece evoking simultaneous feelings of sadness and triumph. Countless times I’ve returned home, slapped on the disc, and dropped the needle to hear these two romantic snippets.

Grachan Moncur III | New Africa | Actuel

One of the first trombonists to explore free jazz, Moncur presided over a recording session with a to-die-for lineup: altoist Roscoe Mitchell, drummer Andrew Cyrille, pianist Dave Burrell, and tenor Archie Shepp. One track is transcendent, the 12-minute “When,” the reason why this album should be in every fan’s collection, whether a free jazz devotee or not.

After stating the riff-like theme, Moncur improvises variations on his riff before passing the baton to Mitchell, who in turn elaborates on the trombonist’s excursions. With his Texas R&B roots in mind, Shepp expertly weaves among his predecessor’s instrumental statements.

Excellent solos all, but what makes the frontline commentary delicious is the rhythmic underpinning: Burrell’s steady vamping piano and Cyrille’s churning cymbals produce a recognizable forward motion. In simpler words, this tune swings!

Several decades ago, I hosted a radio program for several months and my opening theme song was “When.”

David Amram | Havana/New York | Flying Fish

In the second half of the 1970s, former President Carter, seeking a thaw in US-Cuban relations, sent jazz, rock, and salsa musicians to Cuba to jam with their Cuban counterparts, often producing collaborative recordings. This LP, organized and produced by multi-instrumentalist David Amram, is one such effort, and it’s a fine one.

Most prominently, it introduced two unknown and exciting Cuban jazz voices—trumpeter Arturo Sandoval and saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera–—to the American public. Soon after, while on tour, both Arturo and Paquito defected to the US, began touring and recording albums of their own, and became US citizens. Arturo Sandoval received the Medal of Freedom from former President Obama in 2013. Viva our cultural exchange programs!

Roland Kirk | 3-Sided Technicolor Dream | Atlantic

What to make of The Case of the 3 Sided Dream in Audio Color (full title)—a double LP with side 4 blank, three-minute-long Kirk-spoken ramblings between tracks, two versions of three songs, and Kirk’s usual accomplished playing of two to three instruments at once? Sounds quirky, but it’s not.

With contributions from keyboardists Hilton Ruiz and Richard Tee, baritone saxophonist Pat Patrick (on holiday from Sun Ra), and drummer Steve Gadd, it’s downright groovy, possibly Kirk’s most broadly accessible album.

The Piano Choir | Handscapes | Strata East

No question, here is a jewel produced by a seven-member jazz piano choir (Stanley Cowell, Nat Jones, Hugh Lawson, Webster Lewis, Harold Maybern, Danny Mixon, and Sonelius Smith).

Recorded live in concert, this two-LP album captured a seemingly unimaginable and otherworldly aural experience. Or as Phyl Garland of Ebony described it, “The torrent of sound springing from70 fingers is so powerful and majestic as to be unlike anything one has ever heard.” The sound produced, especially on the lengthier, driving all-hands-on-deck numbers, is orchestral. On other no less enjoyable tracks, there is at least a sense of familiarity—a theme statement followed by sequential solos by each choir member as in Monk’s “Straight No Chaser.” A stunning album.

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.

John Handy | At Monterey Jazz Fest | Columbia

A standout live performance by altoist John Handy and his unusual group: violin (Mike White), guitar (Jerry Hahn), bass (Don Thompson), and drums (Terry Clark).

It’s hard to say why this music is still so fresh and mesmerizing. It was novel, for sure, violin and alto, and guitar, but hey, this was the mid-’60s, novelty had been in vogue since the late ’50s. Sounded wonderfully alien to me, peculiar jazz harmonies some said, yet grounded in familiar jazz rhythms. Hard driving with group cohesiveness at its core, this was a memorable, one-of-a-kind performance.

Carla Bley | Escalator Over the Hill | JCOA

The Jazz Composers Orchestra Association (JCOA) was formed by Michael Mantler and Carla Bley to give avant-garde jazz musicians an opportunity to play large, extended compositions normally not economically or artistically viable.

The JCOA tapped the likes of trumpeter Don Cherry, trombonist Grachan Moncur III, violinist Leroy Jenkins, pianist Cecil Taylor, trombonist Roswell Rudd, and trumpeter Clifford Thorton to each create lengthy compositions to record. The best-known project, however, remains the massive opera Escalator over the Hill, produced by Michael Mantler, book by Paul Haines, music by Carla Bley.

Encapsulated in a three-LP box set with illustrated playbill, Escalator was performed by some 40 well-known American and European new wave musicians with contributions from pop stars Jack Bruce, Linda Ronstadt, and Viva. Although not designed for wide audience appeal, this monumental work stands as a defining artifact of that overly ambitious and optimistic decade, the 1960s.

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.

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Portrait of an LP-Era Jazz Fan: Part 1

10/29/2019

3 Comments

Photo credit: Adobe Stock/creativenature.nl

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:

29:
23:
19:
19:
16:
15:
13:
9:
9:

Trumpeter Miles Davis
Saxophonist Art Pepper
Saxophonist Charlie Parker
Pianist Abdullah Ibrahim
Keyboardist/bandleader Sun Ra
Tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp
Trumpeter Don Cherry
Pianist/composer Andrew Hill
Art Ensemble of Chicago

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:

8:

7:

6:

5:

Anthony Davis, David Murray, Henry Threadgill

Dizzy Gillespie, Wayne Shorter, Red Garland, Marion Brown, Stan Getz, Ran Blake, Charles Mingus, Roscoe Mitchell

Modern Jazz Quartet, Arthur Blythe, Bill Evans, John Coltrane, Art Farmer, Oliver Nelson, Don Pullen, Chico Freeman, Oliver Lake, Thelonious Monk, Mal Waldron

George Russell, Sonny Rollins, Muhal Richards Abrams, Lester Bowie, and Jack DeJohnette

Not every jazz enthusiast will recognize all the names above, but that would also be true for me if I checked out another person’s collection.

Based on the information above, I can see that 50 percent of my LP collection consists of multiple buys (5 and above) from 36 artists. Further, over a thirty-year period beginning in 1954, I was a fan with eclectic tastes, preferring a diverse mix of—shall we say—traditionalists (Parker, Gillespie, Pepper) and avant-garde musicians (Shepp, Art Ensemble, Pullen).

But this is not the whole story.

What about the rest of my collection, the remaining 50 percent that consists of four, three, or fewer per artist, representing a number of singular, transcendent one-of-kind albums?

I'll examine those in my next blog.

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Book Review: “Help!” by Thomas Brothers

6/30/2019

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LISTEN TO PODCAST

Brothers devotes one half of his book to Ellington, the other half to the Beatles. My review concerns only the former. The author concludes the Ellington section thus:

At age twenty-seven, the failed composer discovered a new way to generate music by extending material from his soloists through framing and conceptualizing, nipping and tucking, harmonizing, and arranging and enhancing with contrast and form. . . . [He got] the best of their arranging ideas, the best of their editing, the best of their creative use of timbre, and the best of their fully framed compositions.

And he didn’t give them credit.

As Brothers documents, with but a few exceptions, Ellington did not write the songs, instrumentals, and extended pieces we associate with him—some 1,500 copyrighted pieces. He borrowed fragments or fully formed melodies from his sidemen without giving them credit.

He poached from nearly everyone in the Ellington camp, from Bubber Miley, Otto Hardwick, Barney Bigard, Johnny Hodges, Cootie Williams, Ben Webster, Rex Stewart, Juan Tizol, Lawrence Brown to Billy Strayhorn.

And, yes, that would mean some of your favorite songs—“In a Sentimental Mood,” “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” “I’m Beginning to See the Light”—and many more were written by someone other than Duke.

And that goes for your favorite instrumentals, like “East St. Louis Toodle-O,” “Black and Tan Fantasy,” and “Cotton Tail”—way too many to mention here. For the complete story, I highly recommend Mr. Brothers’s well-researched and well-written book.

This is not to say that Ellington never composed anything of value on his own. He did, for example, the famous three-part introduction to “Mood Indigo,” “Solitude,” and “Amad” and “Depk” in the Far East Suite, but as Brothers makes clear, Duke’s compositions were the exception to the rule.

In addition, according to Brothers,

Noncrediting was part of Ellington’s ecosystem for sustained big-band success. First, it would have cost him massive streams of revenue [from lost song royalties], and second, it would have undermined his carefully managed image as a composer-genius unique in the sprawling field of jazz.

So why did his bandsmen all go along with it?

Security.

Ellington’s band was not only the most stable over those 40-plus years, but also—for most sidemen—the highest paying. Ellington’s ecosystem, as Brothers makes clear, included “giving raises and privileges to musicians who supplied their melodies, riffs, and pieces. . . . [Duke] preferred to keep the fluid dynamics of interactive creativity in the shadowy background.”

And for the most part, carping aside, his silent partners went along with it. A steady, well-paying job in a world-class orchestra was worth it.

The collective Ellington output remains unscathed; all that changes by the revelations in Help! is how we view Ellington. He is no longer the genius composer but the genius collaborator. Sadly, a lesser category with diminished importance and cachet than the former.

And it must be said, the new revelations do not tarnish in the least Ellington the conductor, pianist, talent scout, entertainer, agent, mastermind, and advocate.

An interesting exercise would be to assume that Ellington was the composer of every piece of music associated with his name. And then compare and rank the entire output with that of his American composer peers George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Virgil Thomson, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Aaron Copland, Harold Arlen, Richard Rodgers, Hoagland Carmichael, and anybody else you would want to name.

I would rank the collective Duke at the top along with Gershwin and Rodgers.

As for Duke being, as is often said, jazz’s finest composer, does he now take a lesser place to Jelly Roll Morton or Fats Waller or Charles Mingus or John Lewis or anybody else?

All that can be said for certain, using contemporary terminology, is that Duke was CEO, COO, CFO, and President of Marketing and Public Relations of Ellington Inc. for over four decades.

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According to Brothers, “Ellington’s career inevitably divides into two parts—before Strayhorn and after”—that is, before Strayhorn joined Ellington in 1939 and afterward.

But there was a third part—after Strayhorn’s passing in 1967 and before Ellington’s death in 1974—a seven-year period during which the maestro produced at least three major works: The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse, Latin American Suite, and New Orleans Suite.

Brothers did not evaluate or discuss this period, a shortcoming that could be addressed in the forthcoming paperback edition.

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It is my hope that Brothers’s in-depth look at collaboration in the Ellington realm will encourage other scholars to do the same for Duke’s peer composers mentioned above—George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, et al. Only then, can we reach a final judgment on Ellington’s compositional identity and practices.

To find out more about Thomas Brothers’s book Help!: The Beatles, Duke Ellington, and the Magic of Collaboration, click here.

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50th Anniversary of the Ellington Birthday Tribute

4/29/2019

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The White House tribute to Ellington began with Nixon reading the Medal of Freedom citation. Credit: Ollie Atkins, National Archives.

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One of the grandest events ever held at the White House occurred 50 years ago on Duke Ellington’s seventieth birthday, April 29, 1969. It began with a banquet in the State dining room, followed by a ceremony in the East Room, where Duke received the Medal of Freedom from President Nixon, who then, at the piano, accompanied guests in a joyous rendition of “Happy Birthday.”

Next up, a 90-minute concert by jazz all-stars playing 27 Ellington tunes. This was followed by a jam session (guests, military, all stars) that lasted until two in the morning. A summary of this stellar event excerpted from my White House jazz book The Best Gig in Town appears below.

ELLINGTON ALL-STARS BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE*
On the evening of April 29, 1969, President Nixon awarded the Medal of Freedom to Duke Ellington—the first time in United States history anyone in jazz had been so honored. To pay tribute to the maestro, a stunning array of jazz greats assembled in the East Room of the White House (another first) and performed twenty-seven Ellington songs in a ninety-minute concert.

This stellar evening will undoubtedly be remembered as one of the most glittering in the history of the White House.[1]

Both Ellington and jazz had to travel a decades-long journey to have their music heard at the presidential mansion. Born at the turn of the twentieth century in New Orleans and its environs, jazz spread slowly at first and then caught like wildfire in the 1920s as it swept through major cities, including Washington, DC. Yet one spot in the nation’s capital remained impenetrable to this new music for forty years.

Starting in the 1930s, Ellington took steps to bring jazz to the White House, arranging an audience with President Hoover in 1931. Despite being publicized in the newspapers, the meeting never took place. Three years later, Duke tried again, this time with the Roosevelts, but he was politely rebuffed.

It took nearly three more decades for jazz to make its first appearance: President Kennedy invited the Paul Winter Sextet to perform at the White House in 1962, following their overseas tour. But still no Duke. Then finally, in 1965, during Lyndon Johnson’s tenure, Ellington and his orchestra were invited to give the final performance at the White House Festival of the Arts on the South Lawn. At age sixty-six, he had at last arrived.[2]

Hopes for the jazz precedent set by Johnson, some people feared, would not carry forward under Nixon, who was not known by any stretch of the imagination to be a jazz aficionado. Happily, their fears were unfounded.

As to who initially conceived the idea of a White House party for the maestro on his seventieth birthday on April 29, 1969, all evidence points to his public relations man, Joe Morgen, Duke’s representative for more than twenty years.

After laying the groundwork for this singular event with his Washington contacts, Morgen was distressed to learn that Ellington was cool to the plan. In his memoir, Duke’s son Mercer discloses that his father’s reluctance to accept stemmed from his concerns about allying too much with one political party. “Joe insisted and insisted until ultimately [sister] Ruth indicated that she wanted the party to take place. Then Pop agreed to it.”[3]

Willis Conover. Wikimedia.

To produce a concert of such importance, the White House chose someone with connections, organizational skills, and stewardship: Willis Conover. For the previous fourteen and a half years, as a consultant to the State Department, Conover had broadcast music twice daily, six days a week, worldwide, via the Voice of America.

He was well known to President Nixon—and to the world—as the voice of American music, the voice of jazz. In short order, Conover assembled an all-star band for the Ellington tribute, consisting of a four-piece rhythm section and a six-horn front line, complemented by two singers, three guest pianists, and a conductor.

When the big night arrived, the guest of honor, accompanied by his sister, Ruth, stood with President and Mrs. Nixon in a reception line to welcome the quests. After the banquet in the State Dining Room, everyone moved en masse to the East Room, where Nixon presented the Medal of Freedom to Ellington. Much to the audience’s surprise, the president sat at the piano and led everyone in singing “Happy Birthday.”

It was now time for the concert. As master of ceremonies, Conover introduced the Ellington songs—from “Take the ‘A’ Train” to “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” to “It Don’t Mean a Thing”—performed by such jazz giants as Dave Brubeck, Earl “Fatha” Hines, J. J. Johnson, Gerry Mulligan, and Clark Terry. The audience responded with booming applause throughout the evening.[4]

Mary Mayo singing the familiar “Mood Indigo” backed by trombonist J. J. Johnson. Credit: Ollie Atkins, National Archives.

At the boisterous jam session that followed the concert, guests danced to the music of marine, all-star, and guest musicians, including jazz notables Dizzy Gillespie, Marian McPartland, and Willy “the Lion” Smith. The party lasted until sometime after 2 a.m.

Ellington and Willie “the Lion” Smith sharing a piano bench at the jam session following the all-star concert. Credit: Harvey Georges, Associated Press.

The excitement of Duke’s birthday bash no doubt influenced Nixon to schedule subsequent jazz soirees. At some point, after listening to the featured musicians that night, he told Leonard Garment, “If this is jazz, we should have more of it at the White House.”[5]

This singular White House jazz event reverberated throughout the jazz arts community like none other before. It was about recognition, about respect, and about honor. It reverberates still.

Ellington’s tribute also had an enormous impact on the African American community and on the millions worldwide who viewed a USIA documentary of the event (a White House first) and listened to radio broadcasts over Voice of America on Willis Conover’s daily jazz program.

Jazz critic Leonard Feather, one of the after-dinner guests, later wrote this about the evening:

It would have been easy to write off the whole affair cynically as a political ploy. True, it redounded to the president’s benefit . . . nevertheless, what took place that night transcended questions of either politics or race. . . .

Respectability was the name of the game, and respectability is what Ellington, more than any other man living or dead, had brought to jazz in his music, his bearing, and his impact on society.[6]

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*Excerpted from The Best Gig in Town: Jazz Artists at the White House, 1969–1974.

To learn more about the tribute, read Ellington at the White House, 1969. Packed with details and photos, it not only covers that amazing evening, but also presents a history of early jazz at the White House.

NOTES

For a full account of the Ellington tribute, including details about the jazz all-stars and the music performed during the concert, see Edward Allan Faine, Ellington at the White House, 1969 (Takoma Park, MD: IM Press, 2013).
A short clip of the Paul Winter Sextet at the White House on November 19, 1962, is available for viewing here under “Count Me In.” The sextet was, in fact, the first entertainment of any kind filmed at the president’s mansion; Harvey G. Cohen, Duke Ellington’s America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 498–99.
Mercer Ellington with Stanley Dance, Duke Ellington in Person: An Intimate Memoir (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978), 186.
The recording of the all-star concert is available on CD: Duke Ellington 1969: All-Star White House Tribute, Blue Note, 2002.
Terence M. Ripmaster, Willis Conover: Broadcasting Jazz to the World (Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, 2007), 142.
Leonard Feather, From Satchmo to Miles (New York: Stein and Day, 1974), 57.

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Armstrong and Ellington: Two Masters of Modernism

3/30/2019

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Louis Armstrong (left, 1953) and Duke Ellington (right, 1954)

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Thomas Brothers in his biography Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism draws an interesting parallel between two landmark jazz recordings: Armstrong’s West End Blues (1928) and Duke Ellington’s Black and Tan Fantasy (1927).

Compositionally, the two are near identical, and the Pops biographer suggests Ellington may have had a hand in West End Blues, although there is no direct evidence for such.

Brothers characterizes Armstrong’s West End Blues as resembling “a ‘fantasy’ or a ‘rhapsody,’ a type of piece that makes no pretense of integrating the parts into a coherent whole but, rather, offers delight in the unpredictable unfolding of different sound images, one after the other.”

He would have characterized Duke’s piece in the same way. Brothers further suggests (tongue in cheek, perhaps) that if Armstrong had been interested in crafting an image of himself as a composer (as Ellington certainly did), he would have named his opus West End Fantasy.

The structural similarity in the compositions, however, in my opinion, did not require a direct or indirect influence one way or another. It resulted from a common understanding the two composers had about the music they were creating—one with more variety and discontinuity than the unity and coherence prevalent in the then dominant Eurocentric music and one with an African foundation that came out of an American experience.

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Armstrong would become the central figure in the history of jazz for his solo playing and singing. Ellington would become its finest composer. His musical creations often used “the unpredictable unfolding of different sound images, one after the other” to the consternation of his critics, but to the delight of his many fans.

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Book Review: The Fifty Greatest Jazz Piano Players of All Time

2/28/2019

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Oscar Peterson, Munich 1977. Ranked number 1 in Gene Rizzo's list of the greatest jazz piano players of all time.

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As stated on the book jacket of The Fifty Greatest Jazz Piano Players of All Time :

Jazz journalist Gene Rizzo surveyed the best, most original minds in the music industry as to who are the greatest jazz pianists of all time. They based their rankings on several qualities including skill, originality, and influence. . . . The book also ranks the next twenty selected [pianists], profiles the top ten women, and alphabetically lists all players considered.

The book, in fact, lists the 70 greatest jazz pianists of all time. The top 50 are ranked (Oscar Peterson is number 1, Keith Jarrett number 50), and the next 20 are listed alphabetically. Mr. Rizzo does not reveal the identity (or the number) of his surveyed “most original minds,” a major failing for a jazz book.

Jazz fans expect transparency. For example, in its annual, long-running Critics Jazz Poll, DownBeat jazz magazine identifies the critics by name, as does all such magazines with similar polls.

In a brief forward, Mr. Rizzo characterizes the results as racially and demographically diverse. An interesting observation, I suppose, but why make such a statement? It smacks of experimental bias and suggests a planned outcome. If all 70 greats were black, so be it; if half were black, so be it; if 30 were septuagenarians, let the chips fall where they may.

Rizzo further says, “With apologies to the women’s movement, there is only one female entry [Mary Lou Williams at number 47],” and then ranks the top10 women players in a separate category. But jazz piano playing is not professional sport. Women are just as capable as men on the keyboard. Why rank women separately? In the recent 2013 DownBeat Critics poll, for example, Jane Ira Bloom is ranked fifth, Anat Cohen sixth among their peers on soprano saxophone. Anat Cohen, Nicole Mitchell, and Regina Carter all came in first on their instruments, clarinet, flute, and violin, respectively.

Maria Schneider ranked second in the Big Band, Arranger, and Composer categories. On piano, Geri Allen tallied seventh, Hiromi 15th. The polls in DownBeat, Jazz Times, and other jazz magazines do not separate the sexes by instrument (except vocalist for obvious reasons). So Mr. Rizzo, what’s with this “separate but equal” women’s category with its implied inferiority? (Mary Lou Williams and Marian McPartland are listed in the top 70 greats and the top 10 women).

The book also provides a list of jazz piano players that were considered for the main body of the book before they were consigned to the status of honorable mention. Trouble is, the “honorable” list has 158 names—how credible is that! It’s hard to imagine how the “original jazz minds” considered 236 pianists before granting 158 of them an honorable mention. Sorry, Mr. Rizzo, your “honorable” list is simply not credible; it’s a cop-out list. I imagine you saying to a pianist who didn’t make the top 70, “Oh, hey, don’t fret, you made honorable mention.”

As with any lifelong fan, my jazz antennae quivered as I read the book hoping to find mention of my personal favorites, those who occupy a special place in my heart and in my record collection. I found many. But there were significant others completely missing, not even given an honorable mention:

Muhal Richard Abrams••	Onaje Allan Gumbs
Ran Blake•	Andrew Hill••
Paul Bley•	Abdullah Ibrahim••
Dave Burrell•	Joachim Kuhn
Jaki Byard•	Les McCann
Stanley Cowell•	Myra Melford•
Marilyn Crispell•	Don Pullen••
Harold Danko	Hilton Ruiz
Anthony Davis••	Lalo Schifrin
Tadd Dameron	Horace Tapscott

The above pianists weren’t considered! In my book, some are top 70 candidates (•), some top 50 (••). So what happened here? Did the “original jazz minds” have a large hole in their jazz sieve? Could there be some explanation?

Many of the above pianists came of recording age during the early dark decades for jazz (1960s, 1970s). Many recorded for obscure labels (still do). Many spent more time overseas than on US shores. Many are not solid swingers in the mode of an Oscar Peterson or Gene Harris (Number 12). Many were (and still are) outcasts, new thinkers, avant-gardists.

Many are less derivative than they are original. But so are several of the pianists listed in the book. So I’m stumped. Lacking the identity of the “original jazz minds,” I can go no further.

Now to the most egregious error: pianist Cecil Taylor was consigned to honorable mention. I, like many others, consider Taylor’s music difficult, devoid of swing perhaps, its beauty often lost in a barrage of sound. But his talent is undeniable. He has forged a dramatic percussive style like no other in the history of jazz, a style that has already influenced many, if not whole cloth, in snippets and swaths.

His is a unique voice, and in jazz that counts for a lot, trumps mechanical skill by a mile. As tenor saxophonist Bud Freeman said in Jean Bach’s film A Great Day in Harlem, “A hundred years from now, we’ll hear more of [quirky clarinetist] Pee Wee Russell’s playing than of Benny Goodman’s, who was truly a great artist.” Maybe, maybe not, but the point is well made. In jazz, voice or individual sound matters as much as or more than technical mastery of one’s instrument. Cecil Taylor has both.

One last point: noted jazz critic Len Lyons in his book The Great Jazz Pianists (Quill, 1983) listed and profiled 27 greats that included Cecil Taylor and three from my above list of unmentionables (Ran Blake, Paul Bley, and Jaki Byard). Okay, that was 32 years ago, and Mr. Lyons is only one “original jazz mind.”

To bottom line here, I would bump six pianists from Rizzo’s top 50, all excellent, mind you, but nonetheless derivative—namely, Andre Previn (number 7), Dick Hyman (32), John Bunch (35), Al Haig (44), Derek Smith (45), and Ralph Sharon (46)—in favor of singular voiced, overlooked innovators Anthony Davis, Muhal Richard Davis, Andrew Hill, Don Pullen, Cecil Taylor, and the songful Abdullah Ibrahim.

It bears mentioning that Muhal Richard Abrams and Andrew Hill came in sixth and 10th in a recent DownBeat Hall of Fame voting. Cecil Taylor, of course, has been a member of the Hall since 1975, not to mention his NEA Jazz Master award in 1990.

My mother always said, “If you say something bad about somebody, make sure you say something nice as well.” In that spirit, Mr. Rizzo’s accompanying profiles of the 50 greatest, as well as the top 10 women pianists, are insightful and informative without bogging down in the usual biographical detail.

Reservations aside, the book is recommended for long-term fans as well as novices. Aficionados can compare their own greatest list with Rizzo’s, slip some old albums on the player and rediscover an old friend or two; even reconsider a keyboardist previously dismissed. After all, favorite lists are fun (at least for the fans). Would you, for example, rank relative newcomer Benny Green number 6 and Herbie Hancock number 42?

For those just coming to the music, Rizzo’s recommended CDs for pianists on the list would be a wonderful way to enter the world of jazz piano, which would likely lead to other artists on (and off) the list, and a lifetime of musical pleasure.

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Looking Back 50 Years: Notable Jazz Albums of 1968

12/31/2018

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Photo: Adobe Stock / JB

In the Jazzman of the Year category in the December 1968 DownBeat Reader’s Poll, magazine readers singled out, in order, vibraphonist Gary Burton, trumpeter Miles Davis, composer Duke Ellington, drummer Buddy Rich, and trumpeter Don Ellis. With a few exceptions, that sounded about right.

Gary Burton

Gary Burton not only represented a new voice on an instrument few in jazz opt to play, but also put forth a new concept on what he chose to play in a combo setting, as evidenced by his four albums in circulation that year: Duster (1967), Lofty Fake Anagram (1967), A General Tong Funeral (1967), and In Concert (1968).

The vibist’s two-handed, four-mallet approach spun soft, dreamy aural chords that separated him from his forebears on the instrument: Lionel Hampton, Red Norvo, Milt Jackson, and Bobby Hutcherson.

Conceptually, Burton chose to synthesize jazz and rock (even country at times), becoming one of the first jazz players to do so, though not as aggressively as later groups Miles Davis, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Mwandishi, Return to Forever, Lifetime, and Weather Report, giving these Johnny-come-lately outfits permission to use rock beats and distorted guitar in a jazz performance.

The guitarist on Tong Funeral is rising star Larry Coryell. Overall, the album comes across like a soundtrack to a theatrical performance, no doubt influenced by pianist Carla Bley, who would later expand on this construct in her epic Escalator over the Hill (1971).

Miles Davis

The Miles Davis Second Great Quintet—sidemen saxophonist Wayne Shorter, pianist Herbie Hancock, Bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Tony Williams—continued apace with the previous year’s stunning Miles Smiles album by releasing Sorcerer and Miles in the Sky.

Both received top-rated reviews in DownBeat. The leader once again won top honors in the trumpet and combo categories in both the DownBeat critics and readers polls. Moreover, the trumpeter’s frontline star players also issued notable albums of their own.

Wayne Shorter

Wayne Shorter received DownBeat’s top rating for Adam’s Apple, a quartet effort backed by his totally telepathic and adventurous piano partner, Herbie Hancock, along with bass and drums. The album is known for its compositions—“El Gaucho,” for example—but especially for the jazz standard “Footprints.”

With this release, the idea began to build in the jazz community that Shorter was much more than a soloist—indeed, a composer of merit likely to join the ranks of John Lewis, Charles Mingus, and Duke Ellington.

Herbie Hancock

Herbie Hancock’s Speak Like a Child, an experimental, slithery abstract combining of flugelhorn (Thad Jones), bass trombone (Peter Phillips), and alto (Jerry Dodgion), did not move the needle at the time.

Today, however, this album with its interesting, simple melody sound clouds has gained an appreciative audience. Another way to put it: Miles Davis had his Birth of the Cool, and Herbie had his Speak Like a Child.

Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington and his orchestra followed their 1967 outstanding Far East Suite with a homage to Duke’s composing and arranging partner Billy Strayhorn: And His Mother Called Him Bill.

Far East Suite is my number one favorite, And His Mother, featuring all Strayhorn tunes, is my number two. In my opinion, Duke’s mid-1960s band is the equal of the maestro’s famed late ’30s/early ’40s Webster-Blanton band and deserves a name unto itself. Perhaps Ellington’s Second Testament band? Nope, that name’s taken by the Basie aggregation.

The reason why it’s so difficult to come up with a proper moniker is that it had not one or two but numerous outstanding soloists at or near their peak: Paul Gonsalves (tenor), Johnny Hodges (alto), Harry Carney (baritone), Jimmy Hamilton (clarinet), Cootie Williams (trumpet), Rufus Jones (drums), and, of course, Duke Ellington (piano). Band nickname aside, And His Mother is the Ellington ’60s band at its peak—the same could be said for altoist Johnny Hodges.

As Nelson Riddle was to Frank Sinatra and as Lester Young was to Billy Holiday, Billy Strayhorn was to Johnny Hodges. Stray’s compositions brought out that special, sensuous Hodges sound. As singer/author Lillian Terry recently put in her book Dizzy, Duke, Brother Ray, and Friends, “Heavens, when he blows those long, languid notes . . . it’s an actual caress!”

Yes—as on Hodges’s tribute to Strayhorn on “Blood Count,” “After All,” and “Day Dream,” the latter a late-at-night, sob-in-your beer favorite. The flip side of the Hodges coin—the bluesy side—Billy knew all too well, as illustrated on “Snibor,” “The Intimacy of the Blues,” and “Acht O’Clock Rock.”

Buddy Rich

Buddy Rich and his big band remained hot throughout the year with both the jazz public and DownBeat readers, who awarded the drummer a second place finish in the Album of the Year category for his appropriately titled The New One.

Don Ellis

Riding high on his 1967 breakout year, Don Ellis received 1968 Album of the Year honors for Electric Bath from DownBeat readers. Critic Harvey Siders, who awarded the album five stars, described Ellis’s chart for his orchestra as nervous, frenetic, and exciting—unconventional meter, the acoustic incense of Eastern rhythms added by “now” twang of sitars, tape loop delays, and sometimes abrasive clash of quarter tones.

Other critics heard it differently and did not characterize the band as exciting. Magazine subscribers sided with Siders.

Rahsan Roland Kirk

Multi-instrumentalist Rahsan Roland Kirk—tenor saxophone, manzello, stritch, flute, and other assorted instruments, like the oboe played individually or two or three at a time—released The Inflated Tear, another energetic carnival of sound, and one of his best albums of the ’60s.

John Coltrane

John Coltrane, who passed in 1967, took his place in the upper echelons of jazz immortals, alongside Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, and Charlie Parker.

Two of Coltrane’s albums, the now classic Impressions and Om, were reviewed in DownBeat in 1968; the former received five stars, the latter four. The torchbearers, the tenor men closest to him stylistically and personally, forged ahead with new albums: Albert Ayler (In Greenwich Village), Pharoah Sanders (Tauhid), and Archie Shepp (In Europe).

Aretha Franklin

Lastly, singer Aretha Franklin passed in August of 2018. Fifty years ago, DownBeat published a feature article on Aretha. In its Reader Poll issue, the Queen of Soul finished second to the one and only Ella Fitzgerald in the female singer category. For a magazine primarily focused on jazz, this was high praise indeed.

In my book Serendipity Doo-Dah Book One, I included a short piece on Ms. Franklin, covering her rise to prominence when she switched to Atlantic Records in 1967 and her recovery from her mid-career slump in 1977. Read it here.

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That Anniversary Year 2018: Celebrating Four Jazz Centenarians

12/19/2018

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Photo: Adobe Stock / Dmitriy Shipilov

The 100th anniversary birthday calendar for this year is chock a block with 18 total centenarians, oldest to youngest as follows:

Money Johnson, Marian McPartland, Sir Charles Thompson, Howard McGee, Sam Donahue, Peanuts Hucko, Hank Jones, Rusty Dedrick, Eddie Jefferson, Arnett Cobb, Ike Quebec, Jimmy Rowles, Gerald Wilson, Tommy Potter, Jimmy Blanton, Bobby Troup, Joe Williams, and Jimmy Jones. (1)

I will single out four, each with a Duke Ellington connection, three of whom performed at the White House tribute to Duke Ellington on his 70th birthday on April 29, 1969.

Jimmy Blanton

Jimmy Blanton, who was just 21 when he joined Duke in 1939, was the first modern bassist. He had a big tone and unshakable time and was the first jazz bassist capable of “melodic” improvising. Blanton stayed with the band until late 1941 (he died in 1942).

In that brief time, according to Whitney Balliett,

Ellington starred Blanton and his instrument in concerti like “Jack the Bear” and “Bojangles” . . . as well as the highly unconventional duets that he recorded with Blanton—“Pitter Panther Patter,” “Mr. J.B. Blues” . . . his big tone and easy, generous melodic lines mov[ing] like rivers through every record they did together . . . His phrasing was spare and his silences were as important as his notes. He adopted a hornlike approach to his instrument—that is, he no longer just “walked” four beats to the bar but also played little melodies . . . Blanton’s accompanying was forceful; he pushed the band and its soloists by playing a fraction ahead of the beat . . . which lifted the band and made it swing. (2)

Now known as the Blanton-Webster band, Ellington’s orchestra of 1939–1941 is thought by many to be his best ever.

Marian McPartland

Newly married to trumpeter Jimmy McPartland and freshly settled in the US from Great Britain, the aspiring jazz pianist acquired her first gig at the Embers nightclub in New York City. As scary as that was for the British expat, it was but a prelude to her opening at the 52nd Street Hickory House steakhouse in 1952, affording her the opportunity to mingle and play piano for numerous jazz greats—to both learn from them and gradually gain their acceptance.

One of the first reviews she received as a jazz pianist at the Hickory House was by Leonard Feather in DownBeat magazine: “Marian McPartland has three strikes against her, she’s English, white, and a woman.” (3) Ten years hence, by the time her trio’s weekly stint at the Hickory was over, Marian had gained a measure of respect for her talents.

Her career for the next 10 or so years or so continued apace, performing at concerts and clubs, traveling extensively, and making one or two records every year.

Marian is probably best known for her Piano Jazz radio show that aired on NPR starting in 1978, where she interviewed and performed with hundreds of jazz (and some pop) singers, pianists, and other instrumentalists, continuously for 23 years. It won the coveted Peabody Award in 1984, the ASCAP–Deems Taylor Award in 1991, the New York Festivals Gold World Medal in 1988, and the Gracie Allan Award in 2001, presented by the Foundation of American Women in Radio and Television.

McPartland was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), received a Lifetime Achievement Award from DownBeat magazine, and a Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Award. (4)

Not too shabby for a white English woman, eh, Mr. Leonard Feather?

As a lifelong admirer and friend of Duke Ellington, Marian was a shoo-in to be invited to perform at the maestro’s White House tribute on April 29, 1969. The Nixon administration went out of their way to make sure she did. They provided a limousine to shuttle her between the White House and her gig at nearby Blues Alley in Georgetown, managing to get her to the East Room in time for the late night jam session after the all-star band concert.

Duke greeted his Hickory House friend upon her arrival, and, fearing Willie “the Lion” Smith would monopolize the keyboard all night long, Duke urged Marian to take her turn at the grand piano. Once she was on the riser, the Lion said to her, “I suppose you want to play.”

“Yeah, I’d like to,” Marian responded, moving in a little.

“Okay,” Willie said as he walked off in a sulk. Ellington stood nearby chuckling to himself.

After a decent interval at the keys, McPartland zipped back to Blues Alley, where she greeted her guests with, “Sorry I’m late. I’m also doubling at the White House.” (5)

Hank Jones

A member of the famous jazz family that includes brothers Thad (cornet) and Elvin (drums), Hank Jones grew up listening to virtuoso pianists Earl Hines, Fats Waller, and Art Tatum. But like so many of his generation, Hank embraced the bebop style in the 1940s, though perhaps less so than his contemporaries.

From there, he became a Jazz at the Philharmonic mainstay (1940s), an accompanist for singers like Ella Fitzgerald (1950s), a CBS staff musician in New York City (1960s–70s), and the pianist on a thousand and one record dates. By then, his style had coalesced

Unlike most modern pianists, Jones constantly uses his left hand, issuing a carpet of tenths, little offbeat clusters, and occasional patches of stride. Jones’ solos judge, and they rest far above the florid, Gothic roil that many jazz pianist have fallen into. (6)

But his velvet-touch, cloudlike chords that seem to drift one into the other are what linger in the mind long after he has finished playing. He remains preeminent among the “soft touch” pianists to whom he could be compared: George Shearing, Marian McPartland, and Bill Evans.

From the 1970s on, although Jones freelanced as before, he became widely regarded as the dean of jazz pianists through his recordings in the trio format—for example, Great Jazz Trio with bassist Ron Carter and drummer Tony Williams—and his duos with pianists Tommy Flanagan and John Lewis, bassist Charlie Haden, and guitarist Bill Frisell.

His rise in stature is evidenced, in part, by his NEA Jazz Master Award in 1989, his 19th-place finish in Gene Rizzo’s book The Fifty Greatest Jazz Piano Players of All Time (Hal Leonard, 2005), and his career-topping National Medal of Arts award bestowed by President George H. W. Bush in 2008. (7)

Along with guitarist Jim Hall, bassist Milt Hinton, and drummer Louis Bellson, Hank was a member of the all-star rhythm section that backed the all-star front line at Duke Ellington’s 70th-birthday celebration at the White House: trombonists Urbie Green (“I Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good) and J. J. Johnson (“Satin Doll”), altoist Paul Desmond (“Chelsea Bridge”), baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan (“Sophisticated Lady”), trumpeters Bill Berry and Clarke Terry (“Just Squeeze Me”), and the whole band on a raft of Ellington tunes.

No solos for Hank. Nonetheless, the pianist chorded the patented opening vamp Duke had crafted many years before on “Satin Doll,” and the East Room crowd reacted immediately—they knew what was coming—and trombonist Johnson delivered the familiar melody. (8)

Joe Williams

His versatile baritone voice made Joe Williams one of the signature male vocalists in jazz annals, responsible for some of the Count Basie band’s main hits in the 1950s: “Alright, Okay, You Win,” “The Comeback,” and what would become one of his most requested tunes, “Every Day.” The classic Count Basie Swings and Joe Williams Sings (Verve) album from that period was ranked 17th all-time favorite jazz vocal album by jazz singers in a DownBeat magazine June 2004 poll.

Starting in the 1960s, Williams was a vocal soloist fronting various piano trios. He continued to expand his range, becoming a superior crooner and exhibiting a real depth of feeling on ballads. Recognition of this growth came in 1974 when Joe won DownBeat’s Critics Poll as best male vocalist—winning nearly every year thereafter for more than a decade. His stature as a polished and complete singer came in 1993 when he received the NEA Jazz Master Award. (9)

At the Ellington White House tribute, Joe sang three songs backed by the all-star band, starting with “Come Sunday,” which Gary Giddins has rightly crowned the Duke’s supreme contribution to the American hymnal. The spiritual theme was first introduced in 1943 at Carnegie Hall in Black, Brown, and Beige, Ellington’s first voyage into extended composition.

Williams loved singing Ellington songs and included at least one in nearly every performance. In his repertoire for some time, he sang “Sunday” at an earlier Ellington tribute in the summer of 1963 in New York City and again on record in 1966: Presenting Joe Williams: Tad Jones/Mel Lewis (Blue Note).

Mahalia Jackson’s rendering of this lovely hymn is unsurpassed. But on the male side of the ledger, no one has come close to matching the depth and poignancy that Williams has lent to the song. One of the critics in attendance the night of the tribute, Leonard Feather, characterized Joe’s version as “deeply moving.” Critic Morgenstern concluded, “Williams [is] singing as movingly as I’ve ever heard him.”

William’s brought the same amount of conviction and richness to “Heritage,” also known as “My Mother, My Father” as he did to “Come Sunday.” He sang slowly and thoughtfully, with the feel of an elegy. According to Doug Ramsey, there wasn’t a dry eye in the East Room when he finished.

As with “Come Sunday,” Williams would revisit “Heritage” in a studio date for Fantasy Records accompanied by the Cannonball Adderley Quintet (Joe Williams Live) and again, memorably so, at Duke’s funeral on Memorial Day 1974.

A swinger from the satirical musical of 1941 of the same name, “Jump for Joy” closed out the All-Star band concert in truly joyous fashion. Joe’s caramel baritone perfectly enveloped the song’s gospel ardor and secular esprit. He had previously recorded “Jump” in 1963, and must have sung the song a hundred times after that 1963 studio date.

Whether it was this past familiarity with the tune, or Joe’s and the band’s sensing the concert finish line, Joe was out front but still solidly “in the pocket” for an all-out swinging climax to the concert. (10)

NOTES

Jazz Birthday Calendar, 1918.
Whitney Balliett, Collected Works: A Journal of Jazz 1954–2001 (New York, St. Martin’s Griffin, 2002), 478–79.
Marian McPartland, Marian McPartland’s Jazz World: All in Good Time (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 1.
Ibid., 166.
Edward Allan Faine, Ellington at the White House, 1969 (Takoma Park, MD: IM Press, 2013), 138.
Balliett, Collected Works, 837.
Faine, Ellington, 60.
Ibid., 93–133.
Ibid., 66–67.
Ibid., 126–30.

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Native Dancer: A Tribute to 2018 Kennedy Center Honoree Wayne Shorter

11/30/2018

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Wayne Shorter. 2006. Photo credit: Tom Beetz.

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When most jazz fans think of Wayne Shorter, they are likely to conjure up one or more of his Blue Note albums (e.g., Juju), and/or one or more of his Miles Davis albums (e.g., Miles Smiles), and/or one or more of his Weather Report albums (e.g., Heavy Weather). My first thoughts, however, run to Native Dancer, that hybridized, outlier collaboration with musicians from Brazil. When the LP came out in 1975, I bought six copies and gave five to friends—I loved it that much.

Wayne had featured several Brazilian rhythm tracks on previous albums. Still, as Shorter biographer Michelle Mercer wrote,

No one was prepared for the deeply affecting sound of Wayne’s Native Dancer recording. It was unlike any Brazilian music most Americans had ever heard. The record’s first few notes introduced a voice, one that had to be the most potent falsetto on the planet [belonging] to Brazilian pop star and composer Milton Nascimento [to which] Wayne married jazz to Milton’s melodies in a kind of holy union that made other Brazilian jazz efforts of the time [Jazz Samba, Getz /Gilberto] seem like one-night stands. (1)

Having first learned of Nascimento from jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, Wayne covered one of the singer/songwriter’s tunes on a Blue Note album in 1970. Inevitability, one often realizes, dictated a shared recording date. With his Portugese wife Ana Maria’s encouragement, Wayne arranged to have Milton and two musical associates stay at his house in Malibu where they lived, and worked for two weeks, going to the studio to record Native Dancer on September 12, 1974.

Shorter recognized that if you have a one-of-a-kind singer, one who had assimilated the bossa nova of his fellow countrymen, along with the Gregorian chants of his remote Catholic church in the hinterlands, into a self-styled alto yodel (some called it) or his female voice (Milton called it), then a hybrid album—not a jazz album, not a Brazilian album—but a hybrid should be made. And that’s what Wayne did.

Along with him and Herbie Hancock, there were three Brazilians:

Milton, Wagner [Tiso], and Robertinho [Silva]. There were also two players from the pop scene, Dave McDaniel, a bassist with Joe Cocker, and Jay Graydon, a guitarist, producer, and songwriter. There was Dave Amaro, [Brazilian singer] Flora Purim’s guitarist, on a couple of tunes, and [husband, percussionist] Airto [Moreira] on most of them. The engineer was Rob Fabroni, who had worked with The Band and other rock groups. And finally, Jim Price, a multi-instrumentalist who had worked with the Rolling Stones, produced the record. (2)

The album opens with “Ponta De Areia,” a singsong, nursery school melody over an unusual 9/8-meter sung by Milton in his liquid, instrumental-like wordless falsetto voice. Heard underneath is a shadow piano melody by Herbie. The other singer on the date, Wayne, enters smoothly on his soprano saxophone, repeating the childlike melody before he joins Milton in a duet. “Ponta” ends as it begins except for Waynish obligatos underneath.

Perhaps fearing the first-track exotica might be a bit much for first-time listeners, Wayne follows “Ponta” with his own composition, “Beauty and the Beast.” A solid toe-tapper that begins with hesitant, funky block chords by Herbie that segues into a strong, melodic statement by Wayne, then alternates back and forth between the two as the tune continues; ostensibly one is “Beauty,” the other, Beast.” At song’s end they are one in the same.

Nascimento sings “Tarde” clearly, softly, yet another display of his tremendous vocal range. For this luxurious mood piece, Wayne pulls out his first instrument—tenor sax—and plays a romantic solo over a Hammond organ cushion. Milton reenters with a sweeping, wordless falsetto behind Wayne’s tenor excursions, pauses for a spell, then returns with an even higher-pitched falsetto.

Hancock later remarked, “After Wayne soloed, when Milton would come back in, you couldn’t even tell it was a voice. Because when Wayne played, it sang, and Milton’s singing has an instrumental quality to it.” (3)

Milton begins “Miracle of the Fishes” wordlessly, wailing away, then slips in some lyrics along with the wail as Wayne, on tenor again, joins in with gusto. The free-spirited pair soar off together, not so much as an energetic vocal/sax duo, but more like a saxophone cutting contest that might take place on the fringes of avant jazz. The backup musicians (organ, guitar, drums, percussion) are exceptional in this unrestrained, up-tempo romp.

Shorter is back on soprano for the lovely ballad “Diana,” named for the newborn daughter of Flora Purim and Airto, ably supported by pianist Hancock.

Nascimento wrongly titled “From the Lonely Afternoons”—should have been “Lovely” or “Happy.” The singer-songwriter sails a wordless vocal over the band’s jumping, finger-snapping groove that compels Wayne on tenor to spread a Coltraneish flurry of notes over the head-bobbing musical stew. At the close, other voices (members of the band?) join Milton before Wayne declares “Good Afternoon.”

Critic Howard Mandel, who awarded Native Dancer five stars in DownBeat magazine, was especially enamored by the saxist’s homage to his wife “Ana Maria,” writing, "A lovely line is offered again and again with the slightest embellishment, gradually blossoming into a large, encompassing circle that Hancock laces with sweeping and graceful runs.” (4)

As revealed by Shorter biographer Mercer:

Milton sang “Lilia” with wordless vocals [as he did on several others], which was for him a style born of necessity and perfected under pressure. Under Brazil’s military dictatorship in the sixties and seventies, the ruling regime monitored pop music, censoring anything seemingly rebellious . . . When Milton recorded [an album] in 1973, the censors denied clearance on several of its songs. His record company asked him to write new lyrics. But Milton didn’t want to play the military’s editing game . . . So Milton protested by singing without words, using his voice in an instrumental role. (5)

And did he ever on “Lilia.” A trebly “LaLaLaAyeAyeAyeYa-eeea” wail over a bouncy organ-piano-guitar broken 5/4 meter rhythm–his “alto yodel almost indistinguishable from Shorter’s airily ethereal soprano sound, which draws the song to a climax by ringing out one tone against a shifting rhythm bed.” (6) Whew!

Wayne’s soprano settles into a gentler approach on Hancock’s introspective “Joanna’s Theme,” which closes the album. The four non-Nascimento tunes on the recording—this one, plus “Diana,” “Ana Maria,” and “Beauty and the Beast”—are collectively gorgeous and belong on this intriguing album, largely because of the uncanny similarity between the principal soloists’ voices.

This album has little precedent (that I can think of). Jazz musicians have worked with vocalists from the very beginning, but mostly in a backup role, and either way, too. Instrumentalists backing up the vocalist, or the opposite, singers backing up the front line instruments. For example, choral groups have backed up trumpeter Donald Byrd, pianist Andrew Hill, and guitarist Kenny Burrell.

As for the other way around, we can turn to, of course, Duke Ellington and “Creole Love Call,” the Ellington composition best known for its vocal by singer Adelaide Hall. It was the first 100 percent nonverbal scat vocal in jazz. (7) Duke followed up on the use of the human voice as an instrument, especially on “Mood Indigo,” with its famed tri-part opening. In recent times, soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy would often use the voice of wife, Irene Aebi, along with the other frontline instruments.

Simply put, Native Dancer is one of the greatest albums of the late 20th century; and for this alone, Wayne Shorter deserves to be a Kennedy Center honoree.

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NOTES

Michelle Mercer, Footprints: The Life and Work of Wayne Shorter (New York: Jeremy Tarcher/Penquin, 2007), 164.
Mercer, Footprints, 169.
Mercer, Footprints, 173.
Howard Mandel, Wayne Shorter, Native Dancer review, DownBeat magazine, 1965.
Mercer, Footprints, 171.
Mandel, Native Dancer Review, DownBeat.
Ann Powers, Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black & White, Body and Soul In American Music (New York: Dey Street Books, 2017), 27.

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