Category: Music History

Foundation Funding for Jazz

9/27/2019

Photo credit: Adobe Stock/Voloshyn Roman

In my book Ellington at the White House, 1969, I present a summary of foundation and government funding of the arts over the 1985–2011 time frame:

Reproduced from Ellington in the White House, 1969, IM Press, 2013.

I didn’t provide a breakdown of this support by musical category (jazz, classical, for example). The data for those categories is available at the Foundation Center in Washington, DC,* but coaxing the information out of the files, while straightforward, is inordinately time/labor intensive.

Nonetheless, I was able to obtain jazz and classical funding for selected years, which I share below.

Summing up, foundation financial support for jazz, while slow to develop, exhibited significant growth beginning in the 1990s and on through the first decade of the new century. Annual outlays that once totaled less than $100,000 in the 1970s, grew to $500,000 in the late 1980s, then to $1.5 million in the 1990s, and finally to as much as $15 million in the first decade of the twenty-first century.

A hundred or so years after its humble birth, jazz had finally received its just due in a currency understood by everyone.

Looked at another way, foundation monies that more or less kept pace with government support in the early years finally broke away in the mid-1990s, becoming four or five times greater. Jazz had thus become, like classical music, a principality of grants and commissions, prompting pianist Mulgrew Miller to declare jazz “interview music”—shorthand for the process of obtaining funds for musical projects by answering grant givers’ questions.

But now that jazz is bona fide “interview music,” is it receiving its fair share of foundation largesse? The amount of foundation monies given to symphony orchestras in two relatively recent years, 2003 and 2005, was $156 million and $180 million, respectively. Both nearly 12 times more than jazz received in those years. Twelve times!

While it may not be desirable to compare apples to oranges, the European apple must taste a lot sweeter to foundations than the American orange. If the comparison is made to classical music as a whole (including individual and ensemble projects and opera), and not just to the symphony orchestra component, the funding differential would be some 20 times greater. America’s classical music, it would appear, is still . . . classical.

With these facts in hand, the way forward for advocates of America’s own music is to champion for the arts in general and the performing arts specifically, while making the case that jazz has a way to go before it reaches an equitable share of the foundation pie.

*Coda
The data on foundations is based on my research (both off-line and online) of materials available at the Foundation Center, Washington, DC, which are now available at Candid, the successor entity to the Foundation Center, located in New York City.

Coda Coda
The information provided and the conclusions drawn above are out of date by some eight years. I share this data with the hope someone will pursue an update. Overwhelmed by current projects, I cannot do so. However, I will provide research tips and collected materials to someone interested in so doing. Contact me if you’re interested.

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One from the Heart: An Underappreciated Movie Soundtrack, Part 2

8/31/2019

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Tom Waits 2011. Photo: Fresh on the Net.

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As we learned in part 1 of this blog, director Francis Ford Coppola put the score for the Heart musical in Tom Waits’s hands. The “beyond” singer-songwriter then tapped former collaborator Bones Howe, and together they assembled an all-star cast of Hollywood musicians, mostly jazz guys, notably trumpeter Jack Sheldon, tenor saxophonist Teddy Edwards, and drummer Shelley Manne.

None of the film’s stars—Terry Garr and Frederick Forrest, who play uncertain lovers Frannie and Hank, or Nastassja Kinski and Raul Julia, who play their prospective lures—sing. Instead, like a Greek chorus of sorts, Waits voices Hank (as does trumpeter Sheldon) and surprising choice Crystal Gayle voices Frannie (tenor sax man Edwards does as well, instrumentally).

Here are the songs, start to finish.

“Opening Montage: Once upon a Town/The Wages of Love”
After a piano intro, Crystal and Tom trade vocal statements on the establishing “Once upon a Town.” They harmonize the closing line, and against expectations, their sweet-and-sour, honey-and-sandpaper voices blend perfectly. Arranger/conductor Alcivar had taken advantage of his Hollywood budget to hire more musicians (than he would have on a typical Waits project) to create a Nelson Riddle–like lush string ambient to surround the singers.

Tom and Crystal pair again with this advice—“Don’t Spend Your Wages on Love”—backed by a big swing band (orchestrated by Alcivar) that features a driving sax solo by Teddy Edwards. This contrasting medley of Gayle/Waits duets sets the film’s story in motion.

“Is There Any Way out of This Dream?”
Next up, a lovely waltz, a song form Waits had used several times before. This infectious jazz quartet waltz features great brushwork by drummer Manne. Crystal reflects upon the ways in which Frannie’s life has fallen short of expectations and captures the vague discontent that suffuses the film. “Summer is draping its feet / I feel so incomplete / Is there any way out of this dream?”

“Picking Up After You”
Waits biographer Jacobs succinctly stated:

The film’s core story is set out in the duet “Picking Up After You,” which is as trenchant a breakup song as Waits has ever recorded. It is essentially a full-length musical argument. Each singer casts blame, identifies the other’s unbearable habits, vents anger, yet the melody all of this is couched in is so sweet and tender that the potential for healing seems to exist even as the rift widens. [1]

As the love combatants express their growing disdain for each other, trumpeter Sheldon pokes musical fun–a trumpet growl here, a mocking wah wah there—before both singers triumphantly conclude: “Someone I’ll Pick Up After You.”

“Old Boyfriends”
This lament, piercingly sung by Crystal, and backed by good electric guitar work by Dennis Budimer with bass and drums, makes romantic disappointment palpable. Waits originally wrote it for himself, but sung by a woman, it takes on more power. “In a drawer where I keep my old boyfriends.”

“Broken Bicycles”
Tom, backed only by piano and drums, reminisces about the discarded accoutrements of youth, asking, “Somebody must have an orphanage for all these things nobody wants anymore,” like broken hearts and busted relationships. Tom has said that Coppola shot a separate scene with despondent Hank in the junkyard. They tried “Bicycles” against the scene, and it worked and stayed in the film. Sounds of chirping crickets and a distant train whistle enhance the song’s nostalgic pull.

“I Beg Your Pardon”
Tom’s lovers’ plea for forgiveness and reconciliation is set in an expanded combo with vibes and harp, on top of an orchestral string cushion. “I’ll give you Boardwalk and Park Place and all of my hotels.” This time the horns are allocated significant solo space, and Sheldon and Edwards admirably exploit the resource.

Both solos are gems, with Teddy effectively using his tenor’s high register to sound alto-like. The horn men improvise simultaneous phrases as the song fade.

“Little Boy Blue”
The spell of sadness is broken by a medium up-tempo jazz romp, organ by Ronnie Barron, finger snapping by someone, as Waits (as Hank’s conscious) prods the moping Hank to get off his ass and get out in the world. Accept it. She’s gone.

“Instrumental Montage: The Tango/Circus Girl”
Thrilled at the opportunity to do a tango, Waits (or his piano sub Pete Jolly) pounds out some heavy, weird Elton John chords on piano, drummer Larry Bunker kicks the hesitant Latin rhythm as Gene Cipriano on tenor sax raucously boils away in dramatic Argentine fashion. A good time was had by all.

The tango fades off into what can only be described as a circus oom-pah band complete with accordion, harmonica, brass, and reeds. If Coppola wanted a break from the film’s sustained plaintive mood, he certainly got it.

“You Can’t Unring a Bell”
This spoken- word chant, with grunts and throaty laughs, over a walking bass and wildly played tympani by Victor Feldman, reminds one of Tom’s earlier word jazz raps. Yet, in retrospect, this might be Tom’s first step into the percussive, odd instrument realm of his second period. Surprisingly, it comes smack dab in the middle of the most sentimental music he has ever recorded.

“This One’s from the Heart”
This one’s simply gorgeous. Tom and Crystal muse on the splendor and the suffering the character’s relationship encompasses; they know that without each other, life is mundane and colorless and needs to be tempered with the occasional stiff drink.

Sheldon’s trumpet shadows Tom’s vocal offerings while Teddy’s sax accompanies Crystal’s. Sheldon’s insinuating trumpet reminds one of Harry “Sweets “ Edison, whose Harmon-muted trumpet commentary was so prevalent on classic Sinatra records. Producer Howe remembered:

Toward the end, Tom started getting cold feet, saying, “Well you know, [Crystal’s] really vanilla and all.” I said, “Tom, you know something? Everybody knows what great lyrics you write. But nobody knows the great melodies you write because you just don’t do them justice. You have somebody who really sings those melodies so you can hear them.” [2]

Howe had it absolutely right. “This One’s from the Heart” was recorded at the last session along with the score’s other centerpiece “Picking Up After You.”

“Take Me Home”
During that final session, Waits recalled:

Toward the end, Francis said, “Everything’s so sad, we need something with hope in it.” That’s when “Take Me Home” came about. The musical idea came early on, but the words were some of the last ones I wrote. I tried to sing it and it sounded real soppy, so I gave it to Crystal. I sat down at the piano, played it three or four times for her, then she cut it. I liked the way she did it. [3]

The song is a gentle call for reconciliation, an acknowledgment that no one is perfect and that only through the eyes of love do our flaws become invisible. Coppola got more than he bargained for. Backed sparingly by Waits’s piano, Crystal movingly sings, “Take me home, you silly boy / Put your arms around me / I’m so sorry that I broke your heart.”

“Presents”
This is a pretty little thing, a coda of sorts, an instrumental paraphrase of “Take Me Home” that features celeste, glockenspiel, harp and bass, only a minute long. The musical story has come full circle.

Despite its considerable charm, Heart was unable to overcome its wafer-thin story and less-than-magnetic appeal of its male leads, sinking at the box office and taking Coppola’s American Zoetrope studio with it. While the film itself was almost universally panned, few had a bad word to say about the soundtrack. An Oscar nomination in 1982 proved the point, but Waits’s score lost out to that year’s box office sensation Victor/Victoria.

The soundtrack LP was released in 1982 (over Tom’s objection that it was too “commercial Hollywood”) as Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle Sing Music from One from the Heart (Sony), and on CD in 1989, neither release causing much excitement. Finally, in conjunction with a new DVD release of the movie in 2004, the soundtrack was returned to the stores, complete with a couple of never-released bonus tracks.

The ultimate tribute to the score is the number of times Heart’s songs have been recorded by others. As of 2019, “Broken Bicycles” had been covered nine times; “Take Me Home,” six; “Little Boy Blue,” four; “Is There Anyway out of This Dream?” and “Old Boyfriends,” each twice; and “I Beg Your Pardon,” You Can’t Unring a Bell,” and “This One’s from the Heart,” once.

Listen to the new CD/DVD, and maybe you’ll agree that nobody can write a more heartbreaking ballad than Tom Waits.

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NOTES

Jay S. Jacobs, Wild Years: The Music and Myth of Tom Waits (Toronto: ECW Press, 2006), 107.
Ibid., 108.
Ibid., 109.

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One from the Heart: An Underappreciated Movie Soundtrack, Part 1

7/30/2019

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Tom Waits. 2013. Photo: Andreas Lehner.

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Tom Waits is an American trans-genre original, a category unto himself, neither pop folk nor alternative contemporary nor rock (although he has won Grammys in all three). Maybe he’s jazz. The arc of his career suggests as much—always experimenting. DownBeat magazine deposits him in the beyond category—that sounds about right.

The voice alone is beyond category and, despite best efforts by journalists over the years, beyond accurate description. It has been variously characterized as a scabrous rasp, garbage crusher, low growl (like Satchmo without the joy), smashed foghorn, bullfrog croak, hungover whisper, hemorrhage, cross between a mellifluous baritone and a heavy equipment breakdown, and born old smoking.

Waits himself has said, “My voice is still a barking dog at best.”

As his fans know only too well, Waits career comes in two parts: the early years (the “complacent years,” as Tom has called them) through 1982 and everything thereafter (the “adventurous years”). No one would disagree with Tom here. Critics have called this later music disembodied ham-radio, savage-yard symphonies, lunatic cabaret, taxonomically confounding vaudeville, and stone-age blues.

But the early years—the years when we first got to know him—were anything but complacent. Sorry, Tom, but many of your fans respectfully disagree. Except for the first album, Closing Time (Elektra, 1973), the music from this period is a mélange of jazz, heart-throbbing ballads, and neo-beat poetry.

As the New Yorker magazine said in 1976, his soulful serenades reflected a Kerouac/Bukowski–like landscape

that is bleak, lonely, contemporary: all-night diners, cheap hotels; truck stops; pool halls; strip joints; Continental Trailways buses; double-knits; full-table rail shots; jumper cables; Naugahyde luncheonette booths; Foster Grant wraparounds; hash browns over easy; glasspacks and overhead cams; dawn skies “the color of Pepto-Bismol.” His songs—mostly blues—are not everybody’s cup of Instant Nestea, but they range from raunchy to beautiful. [1]

Almost all of his songs relied on pretty melodies, and some were unabashedly romantic. Go back and listen to his early albums, The Heart of Saturday Night (Elektra, 1974) through to Heartattack and Vine (Asylum, 1982). There are one or two love songs on each and every one—songs that wife Kathleen Brennan would call grand weepers (as opposed to grim reapers, the flip side of the Waits coin).

One from the Heart corked the early-period bottle in 1982. This movie and soundtrack album, like no other in the Waits oeuvre, illuminates the romantic facet of the Waits diamond. Tom got a huge assist from two unlikely sources—film director Francis Ford Coppola and the serendipitous, genre-busting addition of country singer Crystal Gayle, who, with her pure country voice, limned Waits melodies better than he could himself and, in duets with Tom, wedded that tear in her throat with the gravel in his.

In the spring of 1980, Waits learned that director Coppola, who had just released Apocalypse Now, wanted him to score his latest film, a romantic trifle about Hank (Frederick Forrest) and Frannie (Terri Garr), a couple whose relationship had soured. They drift apart and wind up in the arms of exotic new partners (played by Nastassja Kinski and Raul Julia), but of course get back together again.

This lover’s tango is set against the glowing backdrop of a Las Vegas Strip that Coppola had constructed on a studio soundstage at a horrendous cost (the same studio where Michael Powell had shot his fantasy The Thief of Baghdad—Coppola’s favorite film—40 years before). Francis did not conceive of Heart as a traditional Hollywood musical; none of the stars would actually sing.

He wanted a kind of running lyrical explanation to move the story forward. Waits would write songs that expressed the inner feelings of the characters; Tom would sing Hank and (initially) Bette Midler would sing Frannie. It was Waits’s duet with Midler on Foreign Affairs (Elektra, 1977) that inspired Coppola’s vision: a lounge operetta with piano, bass, drums, strings, jazz horns, and vocal commentary.

Waits had contributed songs to films before, Stallone’s Paradise Alley and Altman’s A Wedding among them, but Heart was an offer he couldn’t refuse. Coppola had put the entire score in his hands and told him: “Anything you write that deals with the subjects of love, romance, jealousy, breakups can find its way into the film.”

Waits elaborated:

There was never any gospel script. There was a blueprint, a skeleton . . . Before I started writing anything, I met Francis in Las Vegas. In a hotel room, he took down all the paintings from the walls and stretched up butcher paper like a mural. Then he sketched out sequences of events and would spot, in very cryptic notations, where he wanted the music. I was able to get an idea of the film’s peaks and valleys. [2]

Waits first enlisted long-term collaborator Bones Howe, who had produced and managed sound on his first six albums. Together they assembled an all-star cast of Hollywood musicians, mostly jazz guys they had worked with before—notably, trumpeter Jack Sheldon, tenor saxophonist Teddy Edwards, and drummer Shelley Manne.

Today “legendary” often appears before Sheldon’s name; due in part to his prominent long-running gig on the Merv Griffith Show and his own network TV show, Run Buddy Run. But it is his signature trumpet sound—lyrical, mid-range, striving—that has brought him accolades. His playing is sometimes mistaken for the early-career, romantic excursions of trumpeter Miles Davis.

Teddy Edwards, a saxophonist in the mold of Dexter Gordon (but mellower) simply got better as he got older, and was playing at his peak at the time of the Waits recording.

Widely admired for his crisp, precise sound and his ability to create a colorful tonal palette from his drum kit, Shelly Manne was a favorite of Waits, particularly for his drum work behind Peggy Lee on “Fever.” Manne played drums on two previous Waits albums, and their collaboration on “Pasties and a G-String” and “Barber Shop” are word-jazz classics.

Jazz pianist/vibist Victor Feldman and organist Ronnie Barron, who had appeared on Waits most recent album, came along for the ride, as did Waits newcomers—jazzmen all—vibraphonist Emil Richards, drummer Larry Bunker, and pianist Pete Jolly, who would man the piano chair so Tom could concentrate on his singing. Lastly, as he did on two recent Waits albums, Bob Alcivar arranged and conducted the string orchestra.

But Heart’s female voice proved to be elusive. Midler wasn’t available. Then God intervened. Kathleen Brennan (who later became Waits's wife) suggested country singer Crystal Gayle, the younger sister of Nashville legend Loretta Lynn. Crystal had 10 albums to her credit and had broken out nationally with her crossover mega hit in 1978: “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue” (eventually, astonishingly, one of the 10 most performed songs of the 20th century).

Her voice was undeniably sumptuous (but soulless some said) and seemingly at odds with Waits's grizzled growl and the urban squalor of his whiskey-soaked compositions.

This didn’t faze Kathleen. She’d recently heard Crystal’s rendition of the Julie London standard “Cry Me a River” off her 1978 release When I Dream (United Artists Records) and was impressed with the strength and purity of the young singer’s voice.

Check out next month’s blog—part 2—for a list of Waits’s 12 songs in this most underappreciated movie soundtrack, along with the reasons for the film’s disappointing failure at the box office.

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NOTES

James Stevenson, “Blues,” The New Yorker, December 27, 1976, anthologized in Mac Montandon, Innocent When You Dream: The Tom Waits Reader (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2005), 20.
Jay S. Jacobs, Wild Years: The Music and Myth of Tom Waits (Toronto: ECW Press, 2006), 105.

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Book Review: “Help!” by Thomas Brothers

6/30/2019

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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.

CODA
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.

CODA CODA
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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Royalty Thieves

5/30/2019

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Photo: Adobe Stock/Luaeva

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Back during the recording industries salad days—pre-Napster, pre-streaming—when LPs and CDs were still king of the hill, label companies routinely screwed recording artists out of their royalties from album sales. Dorothy Carvello in her recent tell-all book, Anything for a Hit, reveals how one major label, Atlantic, scammed its musician roster and, by implication, how the other big labels did as well. [1]

Under the guise of the so-called “free goods” clause in their artist contracts, the royalty thieves conducted their dirty business in broad daylight using three methods.

1. CUTOUTS
For those who remember LP jackets with sliced corners—cutouts—found in bargain bins probably never gave a thought as to how they got there. Well, when a label had an album with weak sales performance, they would cut a corner off the album covers or punch a hole in them and give the unsold albums to an intermediary for pennies on the dollar, who would then sell them to retailers.

In turn, the stores would sell them at a discount (relative to list price) and give a percentage to the label, who would pocket the money (sans store share, of course)—but nothing to the artist.

2. OVERRUNS
When the pressing plant pressed more LP jackets or CD plastic covers than records, the label would order more vinyl or disc plastic to slip into the jacket or box. As before, overruns went to the bargain bins.

And guess who pocketed the money? In this instance, however, these were top sellers by big name artists, not low-selling flop remainders. Much, much more lucrative, and the artists didn’t get a dime.

3. CLEANS
According to Carvello, the worst offense was selling “cleans,” albums meant strictly for promotional purposes and often so designated. The promotional cleans were capped by a certain number per the artist contract.

But labels pressed a lot more—who’s to know how many—and funneled them to retailers who sold them at full price. All parties (label, distributor, retailer) got their share except the artists—again, no royalties. [2]

With the above in mind, what is the royalty situation today for artists, where some 85 percent of industry sales are by digital downloads of one sort or another, paid streaming subscriptions being the largest component of the total at 47 percent? [3]

If anyone knows, please let me know.

CODA
Ms. Carvello’s book is a frank, insider account of the music biz in the late 1980s to early 2000s. She was the first female A&R executive at Atlantic Records and one of the first at RCA and Columbia. Based on her book, many music business executives of the time were totally oblivious to the woman’s movement that began in the late 1960s and its demands for respectful treatment in the workplace.

Absent a #MeToo movement, Ms. Carvello nonetheless survived to tell the tale and set a path forward for women to contribute to the music industry.

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NOTES

Dorothy Carvello, Anything for a Hit: An A&R Woman’s Story of Surviving the Music industry (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2018).
Ibid., 57–59.
“The Story of the Music Industry in One Chart,” Rolling Stone, July 2018. See my take on this article here.

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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.

CODA
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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When Did the Popular Singer-Songwriter Era Begin?

1/31/2019

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Johnny Cash (1955), Peggy Lee (1950), and Hank Williams (1951). Wikimedia Commons.

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The Great American Songbook (GAS) era that lasted some 40 years is pretty well defined, at least at the start. As song historian Ben Yagoda wrote:

[Jerome Kern’s] 1914 song “They Didn’t Believe Me”—with its stately, lingering melody; its 4/4 melody that could go fast or slow, syncopated or straight; and its simple, conversational (“and I’m certainly going to tell them . . .”), resonant lyrics by Herbert Reynolds—has been credibly nominated as the first modern American popular song. (1)

Some have suggested that the syncopated vitality of Irving Berlin’s “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” published in 1911 might be the better choice, but let’s stick with the consensus 1914 song by Jerome Kern.

The GAS era end date is less settled, not so clearly defined; one could pick 1957 as well as 1967. One thing for certain, however, the Songbook era overlaps the next big musical epoch—the Singer-Songwriter (SS) era—which many claim began in the early 1960s with the arrival of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, or with the advent of Bob Dylan.

Now before we go any further, the SS era spoken of here is in the realm of popular music and not the less-celebrated niche genres (folk, blues, hillbilly, or gospel), from which many eventual popular artists emerge. That being said, I’ve always thought that the SS era should have an earlier start date. Consider the list of prominent singer-songwriters below:

1924 Fats Waller 400
1933 Johnny Mercer 68
1941 Matt Dennis 20
1941 Peggy Lee 103
1947 Hank Williams 140
1951 Fats Domino 8
1955 Chuck Berry 20
1955 Buddy Holly 35
1955 Johnny Cash 32
1956 Roy Orbison 6 1956 Little Richard 8
1957 Paul Anka 12 1957 Sam Cooke 9

1957 Neil Sedaka 11
1957 Paul Simon 16
1959 Bobby Darin 14
1959 Marvin Gaye 1
1959 Willie Nelson10
1959 Smokey Robinson 4
1959 Allen Toussaint 7
1960 Loretta Lynn 1
1961 Carla Brooks 1
1961 Jackie DeShannon 2
1961 Curtis Mayfield 1
1961 Bob Seger 1
1961 Stevie Wonder 1 (2)

The number before the name is the year of the artist’s first published song; after the name is the number of songs published prior to 1962. Many—if not all—of the above singers you will recognize because they were and are still popular and accomplished too, not a slouch among them.

Every singer on the list has been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. So to my point, based on the above, do we have a quorum of quality singer-songwriters so can we say something along the following lines?

The Great American Songbook era began in 1914 and lasted for some 40 years before giving way to the Singer-Songwriter era in the mid to late 1950s.

For respected rock critic Robert Christgau, the issue is closed. The date is 1955, the year both Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly wrote and recorded their first song. Christgau wrote:

[Chuck Berry] established rock and roll as a songwriter’s medium. Some in his cohort wrote a fair amount, others barely at all. But it was Berry in particular who presaged Buddy Holly, the ’50s’ second great songwriter–cum-great-performer. Between them they established the artistic template of ’60s rock, where self-written material was a prerequisite. (3)

Case Closed.

So what constitutes the primary difference between these two periods? As Ben Yagoda put it,

It would have been unthinkable for a Jack Lawrence or a Richard Rodgers to get onstage or behind the microphone and sing one of his songs. The old-time tunesmith was a scriptwriter, fashioning notions and emotions for someone else (a singer/actor) to declaim. But people like [Willie] Nelson and [Otis] Redding were following a different path, one blazed by [Hank] Williams, by bluesmen like Robert Johnson, by Woody Guthrie, by Chuck Berry, and by [Buddy Holly], a bespectacled, guitar-playing, hiccupping kid out of Lubbock, Texas. . . . The mere act of declaiming your own music and words added some exciting new element to the musical mix, and would only gain more power with the years (4)

Simply put, and exceptions aside, in the GAS era, it took two people (a melodist and a lyricist) to write a song for someone else to sing. In the following era—and again, exceptions aside—it took but one person to write a song and sing it.

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NOTES

Ben Yagoda, The B-Side: The Death of Tin Pan Alley and the Rebirth of the Great America Song (New York: Riverhead Books, 2015), 36.
Singer/songwriter stats from various books and online sources.
Robert Christgau, Is It Still Good to Ya?: Fifty Years of Rock Criticism, 1967–2017 (Durham, Duke University Press, 2018), 162.
Ben Yagoda, The B-Side, 246.

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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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One from the Heart: An Underappreciated Movie Soundtrack, Part 1

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Book Review: “Help!” by Thomas Brothers

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

When Did the Popular Singer-Songwriter Era Begin?

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Looking Back 50 Years: Notable Jazz Albums of 1968

Gary Burton

Miles Davis

Wayne Shorter

Herbie Hancock

Duke Ellington

Buddy Rich

Don Ellis

Rahsan Roland Kirk

John Coltrane

Aretha Franklin

That Anniversary Year 2018: Celebrating Four Jazz Centenarians

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Marian McPartland

Hank Jones

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