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Eddie Daniels and Roger Kellaway - "Just Friends" on Resonance Records

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


Some of us have been around the Jazz World long enough to remember when pianist extraordinaire Roger Kellaway first joined the Clark Terry - Bob Brookmeyer Quintet in the early 1960s and rocked and rumbled his way through a history of Jazz piano during some of his fascinating and fun solos.

And when he moved to the Left Coast, we continued to follow his electronic adventures on the Spirit Feel Pacific Jazz LP he made with a monster quartet made up of multi-reed and woodwind player Tom Scott with Chuck Domanico on bass and Johnny Guerin on drums.

We also dug him with cellist Edgar Lustgarten in The Roger Kellaway Cello Quartet which also highlighted the talents of guitarist Joe Pass.

In the decade of the 1980’s Roger’s duo album with bassist Red Mitchell, his quartet LP with guitarist Jim Hall, and his work on select recording with Paquito D’Rivera allowed for a continuing appreciation of his many talents both as a performer and as an arranger composer.

In 1991 we were thrilled to have a chance to hear him play solo piano on Volume 11 of the Concord Jazz series recorded in the wonderful acoustic confines of the Maybeck Recital Hall in Berkeley, CA.

More recordings with Red Mitchell, Ruby Braff as well as additional solo piano on Soaring and Live at The Jazz Standard populated the 1990s and early 2000s.

Along the way, I was particularly impressed with a recording that Roger made with clarinetist Eddie Daniels in 1988 for GRP -Memos from Paradise: The Music of Roger Kellaway.

Eddie Daniels blew us all away [pun intended] when he joined the Thad Jones Mel Lewis Orchestra during its maiden voyage in 1966 on tenor saxophone.
A single clarinet solo recorded with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis orchestra, "Live at the A single clarinet solo recorded with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis orchestra, "Live at the Village Vanguard" garnered sufficient attention for him to win Downbeat Magazine's International Critics New Star on Clarinet Award. This conversion to clarinet was not new, for Eddie began clarinet at age 13 and received his Masters in Clarinet from Juilliard. “Winning numerous Grammy awards and nominations, Eddie Daniels revolutionized the blend of Jazz and classical.”

The latter synthesis culminated in Breakthrough a 1985 GRP recording that Eddie made with The London Philharmonia Orchestra on which he played exquisite clarinet interpretations of C.P.E. Bach, J.S. Bach and Jorge Calandrelli’s Concerto for Jazz Clarinet and Orchestra.

Throughout the decades of the 1980s and 1990s, I collected all of Eddie’s GRP albums including, Nepenthe, Blackwood, To Bird With Love, This Is Now, Benny Rides Again [with vibist Gary Burton] and Under The Influence.

But I kept coming back toMemos from Paradise: The Music of Roger Kellaway because of the affinity I heard in the musical personalities of Eddie and Roger. They just clicked so well together. It didn’t hurt, too, that the rhythm section was made up of Eddie Gomez on bass and Al Foster on drums. Reams of well-deserved accolades have been accorded Eddie’s work on bass but I’ve always considered Al to be one of the most underrated and unappreciated drummers in Jazz; impeccable time and superb colorist, he is an extraordinarily sensitive accompanist.

Imagine how delighted I was when Chris DiGirolamo of Two For the Show Media informed me of EDDIE DANIELS & ROGER KELLAWAY Just Friends: Live At The Village Vanguard which was released on Resonance Records Deluxe CD & Digital Editions on September 29, 2017.

Here’s Chris’ press release in which he describes how, when and why the recording was made and its distinguishing features. At the conclusion of Chris’ media release you’ll find a video produced by Resonance Records that contains a graphic description about this historic recording.


Resonance Records is Proud to Present
EDDIE DANIELS & ROGER KELLAWAY
JUST FRIENDS: LIVE AT THE VILLAGE VANGUARD
Previously unheard recording from clarinetist Eddie Daniels & pianist Roger Kellaway joined by Buster Williams on bass and Al Foster on drums
Recorded live at the historic Village Vanguard on November 26, 1988
Vital addition to the Daniels/Kellaway discography includes 20-page booklet with vintage photos, essays by Resonance producers George Klabin and Zev Feldman, jazz writer John Murph, plus interviews and reflections from Daniels, Kellaway and Buster Williams

Deluxe CD & Digital Editions Available on September 29, 2017

Los Angeles, August 2017 — Resonance Records is proud to announce the release of Just Friends: Live at the Village Vanguard, a spirited never-before-heard live recording by clarinetist Eddie Daniels and pianist Roger Kellaway featuring bassist Buster Williams and drummer Al Foster. Recorded by Resonance Records founder George Klabin in the front row at the storied Village Vanguard in Greenwich Village, New York City in late 1988, Just Friends is a revelatory meeting of two jazz masters, with one of the best imaginable rhythm sections, deep in dialogue on a set including the venerable standard “Just Friends” and two original pieces each by Daniels and Kellaway.
Klabin received permission from the band to record on this Saturday night of their weeklong run at the Vanguard, and came prepared with a high-quality cassette recorder and a single Sony stereo microphone. “I just placed the mic on the table facing the band, hit ‘record’ and let it run. It was as simple as that,” Klabin recalls in his liner note essay. “The tape sat in my personal collection ever since I recorded it. Nearly three decades later, in 2016, I pulled it out and listened to it. Immediately I was transfixed again. I decided to send digital copies to Roger and Eddie for their enjoyment.” Discussions ensued. Klabin got the go-ahead from all four quartet members and began laying plans for this remarkable DIY recording to finally come to light. The album cover photo is by the legendary jazz photographer William Claxton, with interior images by Tom Copi and Richard Laird, all beautifully assembled into the CD package by longtime Resonance designer Burton Yount.

Never intended for commercial release, Klabin’s recording is nonetheless notable for its clarity and intimacy. It also documents a significant period in the Daniels-Kellaway relationship, born from a suggestion by Jack Kleinsinger that they perform together for his beloved “Highlights in Jazz” concert series some years before the Vanguard date. By now, Daniels and Kellaway have documented their inventive partnership as a duo on a number of recent recordings including Live at the Library of Congress, Duke at the Roadhouse: Live in Santa Fe and A Duo of One: Live at the Bakery. They’d also recorded in various ensemble contexts years ago on such albums as To Bird With Love and Memos from Paradise: The Music of Roger Kellaway. Now with the release of Just Friends, the historical record of this special musical bond is even more complete. The lyricism, swing and sheer unpredictability that Daniels and Kellaway bring to the date, as to every encounter, is truly stunning — not least on the abstract rubato intro of the nearly 20-minute-long title track. The presence of Buster Williams and Al Foster, who had never before worked as a rhythm section with these two co-leaders, only adds to the music’s spontaneity and spark.
And yet, as John Murph observes in his liner notes, Just Friends is “Not only a fascinating musical snapshot of Daniels’ early years playing with Kellaway, it introduces the larger jazz world to rare compositions penned by the two.” Kellaway’s fiercely uptempo but strikingly multifaceted “The Spice Man” is something the pianist hasn’t revisited and doesn’t intend to (“I just don’t want to play that fast”). His “Some O’ This and Some O’ That” reveals a Thelonious Monk influence, perhaps Art Blakey as well, in its driving shuffle feel and dazzling solos. Daniels’ contributions, the gorgeous ballad “Reverie for a Rainy Day” and the Mozart-inspired “Wolfie’s Samba,” are also rarities, never again performed by the clarinetist.
Just Friends also offers a window into a particular period in jazz history, when Daniels was a “roving studio rat” on multiple reeds who had logged many hours on the Vanguard bandstand with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra. Williams, as noted in his booklet interview, had just begun working with Kenny Barron in the supergroup Sphere, as well as the Timeless All-Stars featuring Cedar Walton and others. Al Foster, still in the midst of his long Miles Davis association, was also playing with the likes of Joe Henderson, John Scofield and more. Kellaway, with sideman credits including Wes Montgomery, Oliver Nelson, Clark Terry, Sonny Rollins and Herbie Mann, was recording sporadically but always superbly as a leader, bolstering the case for himself as one of the most compelling if overlooked pianists in jazz. Just Friends adds to our understanding of this elusive but important figure.
Adding to the auspiciousness of Just Friends is the fact that Bill Evans ’Some Other Time: The Lost Concert from the Black Forest, a landmark Resonance release from 2016, won top honors for Historical Album of the Year in the annual DownBeat, JazzTimes and Jazz Journalists Association (JJA) critics polls. As Nate Chinen of WBGO.org remarked in a story this April about Resonance’s efforts tying in to the annual Record Store Day, the label has built a one-of-a-kind profile with its deluxe historical releases, including recent items by Wynton Kelly, Wes Montgomery, John Coltrane and Jaco Pastorius. “Each release is a gem,” wrote Chinen, and Just Friends certainly upholds that lofty standard.
Track Listing:
1.     Some O’ This and Some O’ That (9:32)
2.     Reverie for a Rainy Day (5:37)
3.     Wolfie’s Samba (9:09)
4.     Just Friends (17:47)
5.     The Spice Man (15:57)
Resonance Records is a multi-GRAMMY® Award-winning label (most recently for John Coltrane’s Offering: Live at Temple University for "Best Album Notes") that prides itself in creating beautifully designed, informative packaging to accompany previously unreleased recordings by the jazz icons who grace Resonance's catalog. Headquartered in Beverly Hills, CA, Resonance Records is a division of Rising Jazz Stars, Inc. a California 501(c) (3) non-profit corporation created to discover the next jazz stars and advance the cause of jazz. Current Resonance Artists include Richard Galliano, Polly Gibbons, Tamir Hendelman, Christian Howes and Donald Vega. www.ResonanceRecords.org
For more information please contact:
Chris DiGirolamo at Two for the Show Media:
Tel: (631) 298-7823 — Email: Chris@twofortheshowmedia.com
 



Paramaribop

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


Music by Anton Goudsmit, Efraim Trujillo, Jeroen Vierdag and Martijn Vink

A few years ago a friend in Holland sent me a radio broadcast of bassist Pablo Nehar’s tentet that was recorded in performance at the 1996 Jazzmarathon annual festival which took place in October 13th in Groningen, The Netherlands.

It was my first introduction to a style of Jazz that some refer to a “Paramaribop,” which derives its name from blending “Paramaribo,” the capital of Suriname, with “Bebop.”

By way of background, Suriname is located in the northeast corner of South America and was for many years ruled by the Dutch as Dutch Guiana.

Paramaribo’s culture became a blend of native Indians, Dutch traders and colonists, merchants and traders from other European countries, and West African slaves. Musically, the city became a melting pot of styles similar to that which had occurred in New Orleans at the turn of the 20thcentury.

New Orleans’ culture was similarly a blend that was largely created by the early, colonial French and Spanish Catholics, Creoles from the West Indies and Spanish America, European white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants and West African slaves.

Jazz would emerge from the interactions of these cultures in early 20th century New Orleans.


Juan Pablo Nahar was born in Paramaribo, Suriname in 1952 and started the practice of music at an early age.

Eventually moving to Holland, he studied both privately and at conservatories, and also spent some time in New York studying Jazz with Frank Foster the legendary tenor saxophonist and composer-arranger with the Count Basie Orchestra.

Upon his return to The Netherlands, Pablo organized workshops at Bijlmer Park Theater in Amsterdam that resulted in concerts of the fusion music then being experimented with by musicians of Surinamese and Antillean origin who lived in that area of the city.

In 1981, along with drummer Eddie Veldman, Pablo co-founder the now legendary Surinam Music Ensemble which pioneered the development of "Paramaribop,” a unique combination of Afro-Surinam Kaseko/Kawina rhythms and the abstract and more complex harmonies of Bebop. 

A number of young, Dutch Jazz musicians worked in Pablo Nahar’s groups and subsequently went on to become great supporters of Paramaribop.

Among them are guitarist Anton Goudsmit, tenor saxophonist Efraim Trujillo, bassist Jeroen Vierdag and drummer, Martijn Vink.

While all of these players have made a huge footprint on the Dutch Jazz scene in other contexts – the New Cool Collective, the Metropole Orchestra and Big Band, the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw, the Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra, Nueva Manteca, small groups headed by reed players Tinke Postma and Benjamin Herman - they formed a group in 2005 which has since become known as The Ploctones, which plays a style of music that has a deep allegiance to Paramaribop.


Nominally led by guitarist Goudsmit who was  awardedthe VPRO-Boy Edgar Prize for 2010 as the best Jazz musician in Holland, all four musicians are very skilled players with technique and ideas to burn.

In his Volksrant review of their first CD Live Op Het Dak  [VPRO Eigenwijs–EW 0578],Koen Schouten described the group this way [please forgive the Dutch-English tone as an online translator was used]:

“A group with a rare solidity, determination and flexibility. A genuine four-headed monster.

Whether it concerns a rhythmic tour de force, a fun idea or a tearjerker, the quartet always sounds solid and the group members never cease to surprise each other. The changes and shifting times are whizzing past our ears.

With his ardent and passionate guitar playing the versatile and innovating Anton Goudsmit developed into a musical chameleon without losing his recognizable and characteristic style. His miscellaneous compositions are the base of poetic improvisations and flashy power performances.

A critic of the British ‘Guardian’ described Goudsmit as: ‘the kind of musician that makes you wonder where the fire escape is’.

He graduated cum laude at the Amsterdam Music Conservatory in 1995 and today he can be reckoned as one of the most influential guitarists of the
Netherlands.

Jeroen Vierdag is a strong and creative bass player who lifts the band up to a higher level with his driving groove and great virtuosity, competing with his 6-string colleague. He’s been around in the field of pop, jazz, Latin and Brazilian music.

Martijn Vink is an extremely passionate drummer with a peerless technique. One moment he raises the roof and the next he colors and refines with the subtlety of a musical box. He is the regular drummer of the internationally renowned Metropole Orchestra and collaborated with many jazz giants like Pat Metheny, Herbie Hancock and John Scofield.

Tenor saxophonist Efraim Trujillo stands out in hectic compositions as well as in a more ambient repertoire due to his open and dynamic playing. Because of his abundance of experience and ability to do anything with his instrument he renews and upgrades the music he plays and makes a concert of this group a special experience for the audience and the band members, time and again. Trujillo played with Courtney Pine, Benny Bailey, Steve Williamson and Bootsy Collins among many others.”

Since 2010, the quartet has adopted a new name – The Ploctones – and you can learn more about them on their website – www.ploctones.com/

See what you think of Paramaribop as Anton, Efraim, Jeroen and Martijn perform their version of it on a tune entitled Boom-Petitwhich servesas the soundtrack to the following video.

One thing is certain, Paramaribop is sure to move your ears in a different direction.

Pee Wee Russell: A Singular, Scintillating & Shuddery Style


© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


CHARLES ELLSWORTH "PEE WEE" RUSSELL
Born: St. Louis, Mo., March 27, 1906
Died: Alexandria, Va., February 15, 1969
Musician - Legend - Jazz Original

“Dry facts, as on a tombstone. But looking deeper, one finds a tumultuous 63 years of bohemian life, crowded with agonies, friendships and loyalties, drinking, much wandering, life-long physical problems, and even romance. And running through this chaotic landscape a vitalizing river of music - jazz music. In his lifespan it evolved from ragtime into the varied styles of the 'modern" Sixties. He lived and played through just about all of it, and in doing so had a clear influence on the music itself. He's now a legend: ole shy, backing-away Pee Wee, with the rumbling, many-toned speaking voice - and a clarinet sound to match it!”
Joe Muranyi, Jazz clarinetist

“Pee Wee Russell was an odd-duck of a clarinetist who in his idiosyncratic way foreshadowed some of the innovations of modern jazz. His playing at times seems "off" in the way that some of the earliest jazz sounds almost otherworldly with its unique tones and timbres. Russell’s expressive slides and dips pre-figure the likes of the later Lester Young, and in our day Lee Konitz, especially when his playing became more voice-like, and the expectations of others seemed to matter even less. It seems the better Russell played the more idiosyncratic he got. Pee Wee was a natural odd duck.”
 – Mike Neely www.allaboutjazz.com

 “Pee Wee Russell had the most fabulous musical mind. I've never run into anybody who had that much musical talent.”
- Gene Krupa, Jazz drummer and Bandleader

“Russell’s music was never quite what it seemed.”
– Gary Giddins, Jazz author

“Jazz is only what you are.”
– Louis Armstrong

Trumpet players and trombonists talk about mouthpieces, saxophone players talk about reeds, guitarists and bassists talk about strings and drummers talk about sticks and brushes.

These are the devices that make the instruments they play make sounds so each in their own way is curious about how to alter, or improve, or make easier, the production of that sound.

Of course, this is an oversimplification of the elements involved in playing an instrument, but you get the idea.

For me, the “ultimate quest” had to do with improving my brushwork. Using sticks came naturally as I suspect it does for most drummers, but brushes were hard work. They were the ultimate riddle.

Progress was slow for me and I was always looking for ways to enhance the way I played brushes.

When he was on the West Coast for a brief time, I got to know drummer Ron Lundberg, who really helped me refine some aspects of my brushwork.

But it was to be a short-lived learning process for after having gigged and recorded with Barney Kessel in California, Ron left to go back to New York where he played with pianist Marian McPartland’s trio and later with vocalist Mose Allison.


Caught up in my own thing, I lost track of Ron until one day in late 1962 when the postman delivered New Groove: The Pee Wee Russell Quartet [Columbia LP CL 1985; CS 8785]. There was Ron on the cover standing behind a Ferrari “Testa Rosa” along with Marshall Brown [valve trombone and bass trumpet] and bassist Russell George. Pee Wee Russell was seated behind the wheel of this beautiful, white sports car.

The album was a gift from Ron [whose playing on it is outstanding] and it was my first – I know that this is hard to believe – introduction to Pee Russell, whose playing can only be described as ineffable.

Having been “corn fed” a steady “clarinet diet” of Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Woody Herman, with some Buddy de Franco thrown in for dessert, I had no idea of what to make of the sound that came out of Pee Wee’s – was it a – clarinet?

And yet, at the same time, I was totally captivated and mesmerized by it and I became a instant fan.

This LP opened the door for a journey back through time as I sought out Pee Wee’s earlier recordings. Discovering these was like riding in a time-machine through the history of Jazz.

Eventually I would come to view Pee Wee’s playing as the ultimate Jazz achievement – one of singularity or originality. But for the life of me, when it comes to Pee Wee’s clarinet style, I’ve never been very good at describing what I heard on that record or since. Scintillating and shuddery are the best I can do.

Thank goodness then for the likes of Nat Hentoff, Bill Crow and Whitney Balliett who not only come to my assistance with apt and well-informed descriptions of Pee Wee’s playing, but who also do so from the standpoint of being among those who knew him personally.


For those interested in a more comprehensively detailed biography of Pee Wee and his discography, the definitive treatment appears to be Robert Hilbert’s Pee Wee Speaks [Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1992, Studies in Jazz #13]. Mr. Hilbert’s work begins with a previously undocumented first recording session of 16-year-old Russell in 1922, and ends in 1968 with a Mississippi riverboat party shortly before his death. The discography includes all of his known commercial recordings worldwide as well as much new information on film soundtracks, private recordings, broadcasts, and concerts.

Pee Wee also shares a chapter with his long time running mate trombonist Jack Teagarden in Richard Sudhalter’s well-written and wonderfully informative Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contributions to Jazz: 1915-1945 [New York: Oxford University Press, 1992].

In his work, the late Mr. Sudhalter posits and interesting observation about Jack and Pee Wee:

“… Both soon became stylists as easy to recognize as they were difficult to imitate, and their inimitability presents students of jazz history with an intriguing conundrum.

Neither Teagarden nor Russell left a major stylistic progeny. Neither exerted the kind of direct and diversified influence on subsequent jazz players so notable in Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Benny Goodman, Charlie Parker, Roy Eldridge – and, above all, Louis Armstrong.”

Perhaps some answers to this puzzle can be found in the following excerpts about Pee Wee. 


Nat Hentoff, Jazz Is, [New York: Limelight Editions, 1991, pp. 12–13].

“Pee Wee Russell, who played jazz with every inch of his thin, elongated body and thereby appeared to be made of rubber as he stretched and twisted during a solo, had a sound unlike that of any other clarinetist in jazz. He made the clarinet growl, rasp, squeak (most of the time deliberately), and then suddenly the horn would whisper, sensuously, delicately, promising even more swirling intimacies to come. And never, ever, was it possible to predict the shapes of what was to come.

One night, in the late 1940's, a student from the New England Conservatory of Music came into a jazz room in Boston where Pee Wee was playing, went up to the stand, and unrolled a series of music manuscript pages. They were covered, densely, with what looked like the notes of an extraordinarily complex, ambitious classical composition.

"I brought this for you," the young man said to Pee Wee Russell. "It's one of your solos from last night. I transcribed it."

Pee Wee, shaking his head, looked at the manuscript. "This can't be me," he said. "I can't play this."

The student assured Pee Wee that the transcribed solo, with its fiendishly brilliant structure and astonishingly sustained inventiveness, was indeed Russell's.

"Well," Pee Wee said, "even if it is, I wouldn't play it again the same way - even if I could, which I can't."”


Bill Crow, From Birdland to Broadway: Scenes from a Jazz Life [New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1992, pp. 149-153]

Pee Wee Russell

Gerry Mulligan's quartet often played at George Wein's Storyville in the Copley Square Hotel. In the basement of the same hotel, Wein also had a room called Mahogany Hall, where he featured traditional jazz with musicians like Vic Dickenson and Pee Wee Russell. During one year's-end engagement, George wanted to combine both bands in a jam session upstairs at Storyville to welcome the new year. Gerry offered to write an arrangement of "Auld Lang Syne" for the occasion.

Gerry finished the arrangement and called an afternoon rehearsal on the day of New Year's Eve. Pee Wee Russell was worried about reading the music and made suffering noises. He sounded fine, but continued to worry. That night, the musicians from Mahogany Hall came up to jam a few tunes with us before twelve o'clock, and as the hour approached, Gerry called for his chart, but Pee Wee's part was missing. Though we were disappointed, there was nothing we could do. Midnight was upon us. We had to fake a Dixieland version of "Auld Lang Syne." As we left the bandstand afterwards, there on Pee Wee's chair I saw the missing part. The crafty bastard had been sitting on it all the time.

Pee Wee and I were both early risers, so I often met the tall, cadaverous-looking clarinetist for breakfast in the hotel coffee shop. He was talkative at that hour, but it took me a while to catch everything he said. His voice seemed reluctant to leave his throat. It would sometimes get lost in his moustache, or take muffled detours through his long free-form nose.


Pee Wee's playing often had an anguished sound. He screwed his rubbery face into woeful expressions as he simultaneously fought the clarinet, the chord changes, and his imagination. He was respectful of the dangers inherent in the adventure of improvising, and never approached it casually.

Pee Wee's conversational style mirrored the way he played. He would sidle up to a subject, poke at it tentatively, make several disclaimers about the worthlessness of his opinion, inquire if he'd lost my interest, suggest other possible topics of conversation, and then would dart back to his original subject and quickly illuminate it with a few pithy remarks mumbled hastily into his coffee cup. It was always worth the wait. His comments were fascinating, and he had a delightful way with a phrase.

His hesitant and circuitous manner of speaking, combined with his habit of drawing his lanky frame into a concave position that seemed to express a vain hope for invisibility, gave me a first impression of shyness and passivity. I soon discovered that there was a bright intelligence and sense of humor under that facade. Also there was a determined resistance to being pushed in any direction Pee Wee didn't want to go.

I'd heard stories of the many years Pee Wee had spent drinking heavily while playing in the band at Nick's in Greenwich Village. Like many of the musicians of his era, Pee Wee had considered liquor to be an integral part of the jazz life. Over the years, the quantity of booze that he put away eventually wore him down so badly that once or twice he was thought to have died, when in fact he was just sleeping. His diet for years was mainly alcohol, with occasional "meals" that consisted of a can of tomatoes, unheated, washed down with a glass of milk. On the bandstand he always looked emaciated and uncomfortable.

A friend told me that the only time Pee Wee ever came to work sober in those days was once when his wife, Mary, thought she was pregnant. That night Pee Wee arrived at Nick's in good focus, didn't drink all night, and actually held conversations with friends that he recognized. A couple of days later, when Mary found out her pregnancy was a false alarm, Pee Wee returned to his old routine, arriving at work in an alcoholic fog, speaking to no one, alternately playing and drinking all night long.

His health failed him in 1951. Pee Wee was hospitalized in San Francisco with multiple ailments, including acute malnutrition, cirrhosis of the liver, pancreatitis, and internal cysts. The doctors at first gave him no hope for recovery, and word had spread quickly through the jazz world that he was at death's door. It was reported in France that he had already passed through it. Sidney Bechet played a farewell concert for him in Paris.

Eddie Condon described the surgery that saved Pee Wee's life:

"They had him open like a canoe!”

Condon also was quoted as saying, "Pee Wee nearly died from too much living."

At any rate, Pee Wee miraculously rallied, recovered, and limped back to New York. When they heard of his illness and that he was broke, musicians in California, Chicago, and New York gave benefit concerts that raised around $4,500 to help with his medical expenses. Louis Armstrong and Jack Teagarden visited his hospital room in San Francisco and told him about the benefit they were planning. Pee Wee, sure that he was expressing his last wish, whispered, "Tell the newspapers not to write any sad stories about me."

After Pee Wee recovered, he completely changed his life style. He began eating regular meals, with which he drank milk and sometimes a glass of ale, but nothing stronger. He began to relax more and, at the urging of his wife, Mary, tried to diversify his interests.

"I haven't done anything except spend my life with a horn stuck in my face," he told a friend.

He began to turn down jobs that didn't appeal to him musically, staying home much of the time. For a while Mary wasn't sure she knew who he was. She said she had to get used to him all over again.

"He talks a lot now," she told an interviewer. "He never used to. It's as if he were trying to catch up."

After our first sojourn together in Boston, I played with Pee Wee on a couple of jobs with Jimmy McPartland in New York. And, since my apartment in the Village was not far from the building on King Street where Pee Wee and Mary lived, I saw him occasionally around the neighborhood, usually walking his little dog Winky up Seventh Avenue South. We'd stroll along together and chat about this and that while Pee Wee let the dog sniff and mark the tree trunks.

Once in a while Pee Wee would invite me over to the White Horse Tavern for a beer. He'd tell me stories about growing up in Missouri or playing with different bands in Texas or Chicago, but I was never clear about the chronology. I got the impression that he remembered life in the '20s and '30s with much more clarity than he did the '40s.


One summer afternoon I invited Pee Wee to accompany me for a swim at the city pool between Carmine and Leroy streets. He gave me an excruciatingly pained look.

"The world isn't ready for me in swim trunks."

Pee Wee surprised everyone in 1962 when, in collaboration with valve trombonist Marshall Brown, bassist Russell George and drummer Ron Lundberg, he began to use some modern jazz forms. Marshall pushed Pee Wee into learning some John Coltrane tunes and experimenting with musical structures he hadn't tried before. He made the transition with the same fierce effort with which he'd always approached improvisation, and the group made some good records.

Marshall, a so-so soloist who had been a high school music teacher, was tremendously enthusiastic, but was a terrible pedant, though a good-natured one. He couldn't resist taking the role of the instructor, even with accomplished musicians. Pee Wee told an interviewer, "Marshall certainly brought out things in me. It was strange. When he would correct me, I would say to myself, now why did he have to tell me that? I knew that already."

Mary Russell commented, "Pee Wee wants to kill him."

"I haven't taken so many orders since military school," said Pee Wee.

One day Pee Wee told me that he and Mary were moving out of their old apartment. A new development had been built between Eighth and Ninth avenues north of Twenty-third Street where several blocks of old tenements had been torn down. The Russell’s had bought a coop apartment there. Around the same time, Aileen and I moved into an apartment building on the corner of Twentieth Streetand Ninth Avenue, so I was still in Pee Wee's neighborhood. I would bump into him on the street now and then.

In 1965, Mary came home one day with a set of oil paints and some canvases on stretchers. She dumped it all in Pee Wee's lap and said, "Here, do something with yourself. Paint!"

He did. Holding the canvases in his lap or leaning them on the kitchen table as he painted, he produced nearly a hundred paintings during the ensuing two years, in a strikingly personal, primitive style. With bold brush strokes and solid masses of color he created abstract shapes, some with eccentric, asymmetrical faces. They were quite amazing. Though he enjoyed the praise of his friends and was delighted when some of his works sold at prices that astonished him, he painted primarily for Mary's appreciation. When she died in 1967, he put away his brushes for good.

With Mary gone, Pee Wee went back to drinking, and his health began to slowly deteriorate. In February 1969, during a Visit to Washington, D.C., he was feeling so bad that he called a friend and had him check him into AlexandriaHospital. The doctors shut off his booze and did what they could to restore him to health, but this time he failed to respond to treatment. After a few days he just slipped away in his sleep.

The Jerseyjazz Society keeps Pee Wee's memory alive with their annual Pee Wee Russell Memorial Stomp, and there have been occasional showings of his paintings at art galleries. And, of course, there are still the records, reminding us of how wonderfully Pee Wee's playing teetered at the edge of musical disaster, where he struggled mightily, and prevailed.”

Whitney Balliett, American Musicians: 56 Portraits in Jazz [New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1986, pp. 127-135]

Even His Feet Look Sad

“The clarinetist Pee Wee Russell was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in March of 1906, and died just short of his sixty-third birthday in Arlington, Virginia. He was unique-in his looks, in his inward-straining shyness, in his furtive, circumambulatory speech, and in his extraordinary style. His life was higgledy-piggledy. He once accidentally shot and killed a man when all he was trying to do was keep an eye on a friend's girl. He spent most of his career linked-in fact and fiction-to the wrong musicians. People laughed at him-he looked like a clown perfectly at ease in a clown's body-when, hearing him, they should have wept. He drank so much for so long that he almost died, and when he miraculously recovered, he began drinking again. In the last seven or eight years of his life, he came into focus: his originality began to be appreciated, and he worked and recorded with the sort of musicians he should have been working and recording with all his life. He even took up painting, producing a series of seemingly abstract canvases that were actually accurate chartings of his inner workings. But then, true to form, the bottom fell out. His wife Mary died unexpectedly, and he was soon dead himself. Mary had been his guidon, his ballast, his right hand, his helpmeet. She was a funny, sharp, nervous woman, and she knew she deserved better than Pee Wee. She had no illusions, but she was devoted to him. She laughed when she said this: 'Do you know Pee Wee? I mean what do you think of him? Oh, not those funny sounds that come out of his clarinet. Do you know him? You think he's kind and sensitive and sweet. Well, he's intelligent and he doesn't use dope and he is sensitive, but Pee Wee can also be mean. In fact, Pee Wee is the most egocentric son of a bitch I know."


No jazz musician has ever played with the same daring and nakedness and intuition. His solos didn't always arrive at their original destination. He took wild improvisational chances, and when he found himself above the abyss, he simply turned in another direction, invariably hitting firm ground. His singular tone was never at rest. He had a rich chalumeau register, a piping upper register, and a whining middle register, and when he couldn't think of anything else to do, he growled. Above all, he sounded cranky and querulous, but that was camouflage, for he was the most plaintive and lyrical of players. He was particularly affecting in a medium or slow-tempo blues. He'd start in the chalumeau range with a delicate rush of notes that were intensely multiplied into a single, unbroken phrase that might last the entire chorus. Thus he'd begin with a pattern of winged double-time staccato notes that, moving steadily downward, were abruptly pierced by falsetto jumps. When he had nearly sunk out of hearing, he reversed this pattern, keeping his myriad notes back to back, and then swung into an easy uphill-down dale movement, topping each rise with an oddly placed vibrato.

By this time, his first chorus was over, and one had the impression of having passed through a crowd of jostling, whispering people. Russell then took what appeared to be his first breath, and, momentarily breaking the tension he had established, opened the next chorus with a languorous, questioning phrase made up of three or four notes, at least one of them a spiny dissonance of the sort favored by Thelonious Monk. A closely linked variation would follow, and Russell would fill out the chorus by reaching behind him and producing an ironed paraphrase of the chalumeau first chorus. In his final chorus, he'd move snakily up toward the middle register with tissue-paper notes and placid rests, taking on a legato I've-made-it attack that allowed the listener to move back from the edge of his seat.

Here is Russell in his apartment on King Street, in Greenwich Village, in the early sixties, when he was on the verge of his greatest period. It wasn't a comeback he was about to begin, though, for he'd never been where he was going. Russell lived then on the third floor of a peeling brownstone. He was standing in his door, a pepper-and-salt schnauzer barking and dancing about behind him. "Shut up, Winkie, for God's sake!" Russell said, and made a loose, whirlpool gesture at the dog. A tall, close packed, slightly bent man, Russell had a wry, wandering face, dominated by a generous nose. The general arrangement of his eyes and eyebrows was mansard, and he had a brush mustache and a full chin. A heavy trellis of wrinkles held his features in place. His gray-black hair was combed absolutely flat. Russell smiled, without showing any teeth, and went down a short, bright hall, through a Pullman kitchen, and into a dark living room, brownish in color, with two day beds and two easy chairs, a bureau, a television, and several small tables. The corners of the room were stuffed with suitcases and fat manila envelopes. Under one table were two clarinet cases. The shades on the three windows were drawn, and only one lamp was lit. The room was suffocatingly hot. Russell, who was dressed in a tan, short-sleeved sports shirt, navy-blue trousers, black socks, black square-toed shoes, and dark glasses, sat down in a huge red leather chair. "We've lived in this cave six years too long. Mary's no housekeeper, but she tries. Every time a new cleaning gadget comes out, she buys it and stuffs it in a closet with all the other ones. I bought an apartment three years ago in a development on Eighth Avenue in the Chelsea district, and we're moving in. It has a balcony and a living room and a bedroom and a full kitchen. We'll have to get a cleaning woman to keep it respectable." Russell laughed - a sighing sound that seemed to travel down his nose.


"Mary got me up at seven this morning before she went to work, but I haven't had any breakfast, which is my own fault. I've been on the road four weeks-two at the Theatrical Cafe, in Cleveland, with George Wein, and two in Pittsburgh with Jimmy McPartland. I shouldn't have gone to Pittsburgh. I celebrated my birthday there, and I'm still paying for it, physically and mentally. And the music. I can't go near 'Muskrat Ramble' any more without freezing up. Last fall, I did a television show with McPartland and Eddie Condon and Bud Freeman and Gene Krupa and Joe Sullivan-all the Chicago boys. We made a record past before it. They sent me a copy the other day and I listened halfway through and turned it off and gave it to the super. Mary was here, and she said, 'Pee Wee, you sound like you did when I first knew you in 1942.'  I'd gone back twenty years in three hours. There's no room left in that music. It tells you how to solo. You're as good as the company you keep. You go with fast musicians, housebroken musicians, and you improve."

Russell spoke in a low, nasal voice. Sometimes he stuttered, and sometimes whole sentences came out in a sluice-like manner, and trailed off into mumbles and down-the-nose laughs. His face was never still. When he was surprised, he opened his mouth slightly and popped his eyes, rolling them up to the right. When he was thoughtful, he glanced quickly about, tugged his nose, and cocked his head. When he was amused, everything turned down instead of up-the edges of his eyes, his eyebrows, and the corners of his mouth. Russell got up and walked with short, crab-wise steps into the kitchen. "Talking dries me up," he said. "I'm going to have an ale."

There were four framed photographs on the walls. Two of them showed what was already unmistakably Russell, in a dress and long, curly hair. In one, he was sucking his thumb. In the other, an arm was draped about a cocker spaniel. The third showed him at about fifteen, in military uniform, standing beneath a tree, and in the fourth he was wearing a dinner jacket and a wing collar and holding an alto saxophone. Russell came back, a bottle of ale in one hand and a pink plastic cup in the other.

Isn't that something? A wing collar. I was sixteen, and my father bought we that saxophone for three hundred and seventy-five dollars." Russell filled his cup and put the bottle on the floor. "My father was a steward at the Planter's Hotel, in St. Louis, when I was born, and I was named after him - Charles Ellsworth. I was a late child and the only one. My mother was forty. She was a very intelligent person. She'd been a newspaperwoman in Chicago, and she used to read a lot. Being a late child, I was excess baggage. I was like a toy. My parents, who were pretty well off, would say, You want this or that, it's yours. But I never really knew them. Not that they were cold, but they just didn't divulge anything. Someone discovered a few years ago that my father had a lot of brothers. I never knew he had any. When I was little, we moved to Muskogee, where my father and a friend hit a couple of gas wells. I took up piano and drums and violin, roughly in that order. One day, after I'd played in a school recital, I put my violin in the back seat of our car and my mother got in and sat on it. That was the end of my violin career. 'Thank God that's over,' I said to myself.

I tried the clarinet when I was about twelve or thirteen. I studied with
Charlie Merrill, who was in the pit band in the only theatre in Muskogee. Oklahomawas a dry state and he sneaked corn liquor during the lessons. My first job was playing at a resort lake. I played for about twelve hours and made three dollars. Once in a while, my father'd take me into the Elks' Club, where I heard Yellow Nunez, the New Orleansclarinet player. He had a trombone and piano and drums with him, and he played the lead in the ensembles. On my next job, I played the lead, using the violin part. Of course, I'd already heard the Original Dixieland Jazz Band on records. I was anxious in school-anxious to finish it. I'd drive my father to work in his car and, instead of going on to school, pick up a friend and drive around all day. I wanted to study music at the University of Oklahoma, but my aunt-she was living with us-said I was bad and wicked and persuaded my parents to take me out of high school and send me to Western Military Academy, in Alton, Illinois. My aunt is still alive. Mary keeps in touch with her, but I won't speak to her. I majored in wigwams at the military school, and I lasted just a year. Charlie Smith, the jazz historian, wrote the school not long ago and they told him Thomas Hart Benton and I are their two most distinguished non-graduates." Russell laughed and poured out more ale.

"We moved back to St. Louis and I began working in Herbert Berger's hotel band. It was Berger who gave me my nickname. Then I went with a tent show to Moulton, Iowa. Berger had gone to Juarez, Mexico, and he sent me a telegram asking me to join him. That was around the time my father gave me the saxophone. I was a punk kid, but my parents-can you imagine? - said, Go ahead, good riddance. When I got to Juarez, Berger told me, to my surprise, I wouldn't be working with him but across the street with piano and drums in the Big Kid's Palace, which had a bar about a block long. There weren't any microphones and you had to blow. I must have used a board for a reed. Three days later there were union troubles and I got fired and joined Berger. This wasn't long after Pancho Villa, and all the Mexicans wore guns. There'd be shooting in the streets day and night, but nobody paid any attention. You'd just duck into a saloon and wait till it was over. The day Berger hired me, he gave me a ten-dollar advance. That was a lot of money and I went crazy on it. It was the custom in Juarezto hire a kind of cop at night for a dollar, and if you got in a scrape he'd clop the other guy with his billy. So I hired one and got drunk and we went to see a bulldog-badger fight, which is the most vicious thing you can imagine. I kept on drinking and finally told the cop to beat it, that I knew the way back to the hotel in El Paso, across the river. Or I thought I did, because I got lost and had an argument over a tab and the next thing I was in jail. What a place, Mister! A big room with bars all the way around and bars for a ceiling and a floor like a cesspool, and full of the worst cutthroats you ever saw. I was there three days on bread and water before Berger found me and paid ten dollars to get me out." Russell's voice trailed off. He squinted at the bottle, which was empty, and stood up. "I need some lunch."



The light outside was blinding, and Russell headed west on King Street, turned up Varick Street and into West Houston. He pointed at a small restaurant with a pine-paneled front, called the Lodge. "Mary and I eat here sometimes evenings. The food's all right." He found a table in the back room, which was decorated with more paneling and a small pair of antlers. A waiter came up. "Where you been, Pee Wee? You look fifteen years younger." Russell mumbled a denial and something about his birthday and Pittsburgh and ordered a Scotch-on-the-rocks and ravioli. He sipped his drink for a while in silence, studying the tablecloth. Then he looked up and said, "For ten years I couldn't eat anything. All during the forties. I'd be hungry and take a couple of bites of delicious steak, say, and have to put the fork down-finished. My food wouldn't go from my upper stomach to my lower stomach. I lived on brandy milkshakes and scrambled-egg sandwiches. And on whiskey. The doctors couldn't find a thing. No tumors, no ulcers. I got as thin as a lamppost and so weak I had to drink half a pint of whiskey in the morning before I could get out of bed. It began to affect my mind, and sometime in 1948 I left Mary and went to Chicago. Everything there is a blank, except what people have told me since. They say I did things that were unheard of, they were so wild. Early in 1950, I went on to San Francisco. By this time my stomach was bloated and I was so feeble I remember someone pushing me up Bush Street and me stopping to put my arms around each telegraph pole to rest. I guess I was dying. Some friends finally got me into the FranklinHospital and they discovered I had pancreatitis and multiple cysts on my liver. The pancreatitis was why I couldn't eat for so many years. They operated, and I was in that hospital for nine months. People gave benefits around the country to pay the bills. I was still crazy. I told them Mary was after me for money. Hell, she was back in New York, minding her own business. When they sent me back here, they put me in St. Clare's Hospital under an assumed name-McGrath, I think it was-so Mary couldn't find me. After they let me out, I stayed with Eddie Condon. Mary heard where I was and came over and we went out and sat in Washington Square park. Then she took me home. After three years."

Russell picked up a spoon and twiddled the ends of his long, beautifully tapered fingers on it, as if it were a clarinet. "You take each solo like it was the last one you were going to play in your life. What notes to hit, and when to hit them-that's the secret. You can make a particular phrase with rust one note. Maybe at the end, maybe at the beginning. It's like a little pattern. What will lead in quietly and not be too emphatic. Sometimes I jump the right chord and use what seems wrong to the next guy but I know is right for me. I usually think about four bars ahead what I am going to play. Sometimes things go wrong, and I have to scramble. If I can make it to the bridge of the tune, I know everything will be all right. I suppose it's not that obnoxious the average musician would notice. When I play the blues, mood, frame of mind, enters into it. One day your choice of notes would be melancholy, a blue trend, a drift of blue notes. The next day your choice of notes would be more cheerful. Standard tunes are different. Some of them require a legato treatment, and others have sparks of rhythm you have to bring out. In lots of cases, your solo depends on who you're following. The guy played a great chorus, you say to yourself. How am I going to follow that? I applaud him inwardly, and it becomes a matter of silent pride. Not jealousy, mind you. A kind of competition. So I make myself a guinea pig-what the hell, I’ll try something new. All this goes through your mind in a split second. You start and if it sounds good to you, you keep it up and write a little tune of your own. I get in bad habits and I'm trying to break myself of a couple right now. A little triplet thing, for one. Fast tempos are good to display your technique, but that's all. You prove you know the chords, but you don't have the time to insert those new little chords you could at slower tempos. Or if you do, they go unnoticed. I haven't been able to play the way I want to until recently.


Coming out of that illness has given me courage, a little moral courage in my playing. When I was sick, I lived night by night. It was bang! straight ahead with the whiskey. As a result, my playing was a series of desperations. Now I have a freedom. For the past five or so months, Marshall Brown, the trombonist, and I have been rehearsing a quartet in his studio - just Brown, on the bass cornet, which is like a valve trombone; me, a bass, and drums. We get together a couple of days a week and we work. I didn't realize what we had until I listened to the tapes we've made. We sound like seven or eight men. Something's always going. There's a lot of bottom in  the group. And we can do anything we want soft, crescendo, decrescendo, textures, voicings. What musical knowledge we have, we use it. A little while ago, an a. & r. man from one of the New York jazz labels approached me and suggested a record date-on his terms. Instead, I took him to Brown's studio to hear the tapes. He was cool at first, but by the third number he looked different. I scared him with a stiff price, so well see what happens. A record with the quartet would feel just right. And no 'Muskrat Ramble' and no 'RoyalGarden Blues."'

Outside the Lodge, the sunlight seemed to accelerate Russell, and he got back to King Street quickly. He unlocked the door, and Winkie barked. "Cut that out, Winkie!" Russell shouted. "Mary'll be here soon and take you out." He removed his jacket, folded it carefully on one of the day beds, and sat down in the red chair with a grunt.

"I wish Mary was here. She knows more about me than III ever know. Well, after Juarez I went with Berger to the Coast and back to St. Louis, where I made my first record, in 1923 or 1924. 'Fuzzy Wuzzy Bird,' by Herbert Berger and his Coronado Hotel Orchestra. The bad notes in the reed passages are me. I also worked on the big riverboats - the J. S., the St. Paul - during the day and then stayed at night to listen to the good bands, the Negro bands like Fate Marable's and Charlie Creath's. Then Sonny Lee, the trombonist, asked me did I want to go to Houston and play in Peck Kelley's group. Peck Kelley's Bad Boys. At this time, spats and a derby were the vogue, and that's what I was wearing when I got there.

Kelley looked at me in the station and didn't say a word. We got in a cab and I could feel him still looking at me, so I rolled down the window and threw the derby out. Kelley laughed and thanked me. He took me straight to Goggan's music store and sat down at a piano and started to play. He was marvelous, a kind of stride pianist, and I got panicky. About ten minutes later, a guy walked in, took a trombone off the wall, and started to play. It was Jack Teagarden. I went over to Peck when they finished and said, 'Peck, I'm in over my head. Let me work a week and make my fare home.' But I got over it and I was with Kelley several months." Russell went into the kitchen to get another bottle of ale. "Not long after I got back to St. Louis, Sonny Lee brought Bix Beiderbecke around to my house, and bang! we hit it right off. We were never apart for a couple of years-day, night, good, bad, sick, well, broke, drunk.


Then Bix left to join Jean Goldkette's band and Red Nichols sent for me to come to New York. That was 1927. I went straight to the old Manger Hotel and found a note in my box: Come to a speakeasy under the Roseland Ballroom. I went over and there was Red Nichols and Eddie Lang and Miff Mole and Vic Berton. I got panicky again. They told me there'd be a recording date at Brunswick the next morning at nine, and don't be late. I got there at eight-fifteen. The place was empty, except for a handyman. Mole arrived first. He said, 'You look peaked, kid,' and opened his trombone case and took out a quart. Everybody had quarts. We made 'lda,' and it wasn't any trouble at all. In the late twenties and early thirties I worked in a lot of bands and made God knows how many records in New York. Cass Hagen, Bert Lown, Paul Specht, Ray Levy, the Scranton Sirens, Red Nichols. We lived uptown at night. We heard Elmer Snowden and Luis Russell and Ellington. Once I went to a ballroom where Fletcher Henderson was. Coleman Hawkins had a bad cold and I sat in for him one set. My God, those scores! They were written in six flats, eight flats, I don't know how many flats. I never saw anything like it. Buster Bailey was in the section next to me, and after a couple of numbers I told him, 'Man, I came up here to have a good time, not to work. I've had enough. Where's Hawkins?'

"I joined Louis Prima around 1935. We were at the Famous Door, on Fifty-second Street, and a couple of hoodlums loaded with knives cornered Prima and me and said they wanted protection money every week fifty bucks from Prima and twenty-five from me. Well, I didn't want any of that. I'd played a couple of private parties for Lucky Luciano, so I called him. He sent Pretty Amberg over in a big car with a bodyguard as chauffeur. Prima sat in the back with Amberg and I sat in front with the bodyguard. Nobody said much, just 'Hello' and 'Goodbye,' and for a week they drove Prima and me from our hotels to a midday radio broadcast, back to our hotels, picked us up for work at night, and took us home after.

We never saw the protection-money boys again. Red McKenzie, the singer, got me into Nick's in 1938, and I worked there and at Condon's for most of the next ten years. I have a sorrow about that time. Those guys made a joke of me, a clown, and I let myself be treated that way because I was afraid. I didn't know where else to go, where to take refuge. I'm not sure how all of us feel about each other now, though we're 'Hello, Pee Wee,''Hello, Eddie,' and all that. Since my sickness, Mary's given me confidence, and so has George Wein. I've worked for him with a lot of fast musicians in Boston, in New York, at Newport, on the road, and in Europelast year. III head a kind of house band if he opens a club here. A quiet little group. But Nick's did one thing. That's where I first met Mary."


At that moment, a key turned in the lock, and Mary Russell walked quickly down the hall and into the living room. A trim, pretty, black-haired woman in her forties, she was wearing a green silk dress and black harlequin glasses.

"How's Winkie been?" she asked Russell, plumping herself down and taking off her shoes. "She's the kind of dog that's always barking except at burglars. Pee Wee, you forgot to say, Did you have a hard day at the office, dear? And where's my tea?"

Russell got up and shuffled into the kitchen.

"I work in the statistics and advertising part of Robert Hall clothes," she said. "I've got a quick mind for figures. I like the job and the place. It's full of respectable ladies. Pee Wee, did I get any mail?"

"Next to you, on the table. A letter," he said from the kitchen.

"It's from my brother Al," she said. "I always look for a check in letters. My God, there is a check! Now why do you suppose he did that? And there's a P.S.: Please excuse the pencil. I like that. It makes me feel good."

"How much did he send you?" Russell asked, handing Mrs. Russell her tea.

"You're not going to get a cent," she said. "You know what I found the other day, Pee Wee? Old letters from you. Love letters. Every one says the same thing: I love you, I miss you. just the dates are different." Mary Russell, who spoke in a quick, decisive way, laughed. "Pee Wee and I had an awful wedding. It was at City Hall. Danny Alvin, the drummer, stood up for us. He and Pee Wee wept. I didn't, but they did. After the ceremony, Danny tried to borrow money from me. Pee Wee didn't buy me any flowers and a friend lent us the wedding ring. Pee Wee has never given me a wedding ring. The one I'm wearing a nephew gave me a year ago. Just to make it proper, he said. That's not the way a woman wants to get married. Pee Wee, we ought to do it all over again. I have a rage in me to be proper. I don't play bridge and go to beauty parlors and I don't have women friends like other women. But one thing Pee Wee and I have that no one else has: we never stop talking when we're with each other. Pee Wee, you know why I love you? You're like Papa. Every time Mama got up to tidy something, he'd say, Clara, sit down, and she would. That's what you do. I loved my parents. They were Russian Jews from Odessa. Chaloff was their name. I was born on the lower East Side. I was a charity case and the doctor gave me my name, and signed the birth certificate - Dr. E. Condon. Isn't that weird? I was one of nine kids and six are left. I've got twenty nephews and nieces." Mary Russell paused and sipped her tea.

"Pee Wee worships those inch brows. Lucky Luciano was his dream man.”

"He was an acquaintance," Russell snorted.

"I’ll never know you completely, Pee Wee," Mrs. Russell said. She took another sip of tea, holding the cup with both hands. "Sometimes Pee Wee can't sleep. He sits in the kitchen and plays solitaire, and I go to bed in here and sing to him. Awful songs like 'Belgian Rose' and 'Carolina Mammy.' I have a terrible voice."

"Oh, God!" Russell muttered. "The worst thing is she knows all the lyrics."

"I not only sing, I write," she said, laughing. "I wrote a three-act play. My hero's name is Tiny Ballard. An Italian clarinet player. It has wonderful dialogue."

"Mary's no saloon girl, coming where I work," he said. "She outgrew that long ago. She reads about ten books a week. You could have been a writer, Mary."

"I don't know why I wrote about a clarinet player. I hate the clarinet. Pee Wee's playing embarrasses me. But I like trombones: Miff Mole and Brad Gowans. And I like Duke Ellington. Last New Year's Eve, Pee Wee and I were at a party and Duke kissed me at midnight."

"Where was l?" he asked.

"You had a clarinet stuck in your mouth," she said. "The story of your life, or part of your life. Once when Pee Wee had left me and was in Chicago, he came back to New York for a couple of days. He denies it. He doesn't remember it. He went to the night club where I was working as a hat-check girl and asked to see me. I said no. The boss's wife went out and took one look at him and came back and said, 'At least go out and talk to him. He's pathetic. Even his feet look sad."'

Russell made an apologetic face. "That was twelve years ago, Mary. I have no claim to being an angel."

She sat up very straight. "Pee Wee, this room is hot. Let's go out and have dinner on my brother Al."

"I'll put on a tie," he said.”





Pee Wee Russell: Part 2



© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“[With] Russell’s music … there’s a danger in patronizing his home-made approach to playing and he was inconsistent, but his best music is exceptional.” – Richard Cook & Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, Sixth Edition.

“Pee Wee Russell’s ballad playing is one of the glories of Jazz. Gary Giddins, Visions of Jazz. [paraphrase]

At first hearing, a Pee Wee Russell solo tended to give the impression of a somewhat inept musician, awkward and shy, stumbling and muttering along in a rather directionless fashion. Upon close inspection, such peculiarities – the unorthodox tone, the halting continuity, the odd choice of notes – are manifestations of a unique, wondrously self-contained musical personality, which operated almost entirely on its own artistic laws.” Gunter Schuller, The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz, 1930-1945. [paraphrase]

“Some have suggested that Russell’s eccentric style of improvisation defies description. Not true. … Yet, whether his music is viewed as a Delphic utterance laden with secret meanings, an expression of eccentricity, or simply a style built around various limitations, Russell ultimately succeeded where it counted most: in attracting a devoted following, one that lived vicariously through his embrace of the unorthodox. For those fans who became part of the cult of Pee Wee, there was no other clarinetist half so grand.” Ted Gioia, The History of Jazz.


Richard Sudhalter, in his Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contribution to Jazz, 1915 – 1945 [New York: Oxford, 1999] offers a number of excellent observations about the evolution of Pee Wee’s style.

One point Sudhalter stresses about Pee Wee’s approach to Jazz was that he had a tremendous affinity for the blues. And yet, ironically, “if there is any single figure that helped shape Russell’s musical outlook directly in those early years it was Bix Beiderbecke, a musician clearly without much noticeable affinity for the blues.” [p. 711]

“Russell clearly found something compelling in Bix, a set of governing aesthetic principles that stayed with him, and in later years he called the short-lived cornetist ‘one of the greatest musicians who ever lived. He had more imagination and more thought than anybody else I can think of … Everything he played I loved.’” [p. 712]


In his early years, Pee Wee’s style was also compared to another of his short-lived compatriots, clarinetist Frank Teschemacher. Sudhalter’s opinion of this comparison is

“To be sure, both men phrased in an angular manner favoring a gritty, ‘non-legit’ tone and technique … and used pitch in unconventional ways.  But recorded evidence suggests that any similarities between them is no more than a nexus, an intersection of two individual trajectories.

By the time of Teschemacher’s death in 1932, …. records made between 1928 and 1932 …. Show more polished technique, introduction of a liquid, almost Jimmy Noone-like tone, increased regularity of phrasing, more ‘Conventional’ pitch sense.

Russell, by contrast, seems in the same years to be moving in the opposite direction. Where his sound and approach on his first records are balanced, even Bix-like, in their symmetry and sense of order, he very soon began a process of what can almost be termed deconstruction.

His work on records from 1928 on, in fact, conveys the sense that he is systematically dismantling that sense of order, then reassembling the pieces according to some new inner imperative.”[p. 712; paragraphing modified; emphasis mine].

To paraphrase Sudhalter, it would seem that the evolution of Pee Wee’s style of clarinet playing went through a number of metamorphoses ranging from one of capturing the inner spirit of Bix with his clear tone and poised phrasing to a later vocabulary that included a wide range of squawks and growls, cries and whispers. [p. 713]

What we also see evolving in his style over the years is more assertiveness and individualism or as Sudhalter describes it:

“punching, trumpet-like attacks alternating with sotto voce mutterings; raps and growls; lightning shifts of dynamics and tonal texture; a rubber-band stretching of pitch and rhythmic emphasis; and, perhaps above all; a keening quality rare in hot solo work of the time [c. 1925-1935], white or black, as different from the majesty of Bechet and Armstrong as from the thoughtful symmetry of Beiderbecke.” [p. 717]


Pee Wee Russell: Jazz Original [Commodore CMD-404] contains, according to clarinetist Joe Muranyi, recordings that represent “ …  a creative high point in of Pee Wee’s middle years. Muranyi continues, in his excellent insert notes, to offer a number of compelling reasons why he holds this opinion of these Commodore recordings.

 In the jazz world he was popular and well-known - in 1942, '43 and '44 he'd even won the Down Beat poll as best clarinetist. Quite an achievement for a guy some considered a drunken clown. He had a lifelong battle with the bottle, that's for sure, and so did many of the guys he ran with - Eddie Condon and his "Barefoot Mob," the barrelhouse crowd that appears on these records. Pee Wee wasn't musically defeated by alcohol. In some strange way, he might have used it. Sober, he was a good musician, musically schooled. Early on, he read well enough to work in saxophone sections. But he was a quiet, shy person, and possibly drinking dulled his inhibitions and freed him to create. In any case, something drove him into unusual musical channels, where his ear and his own feelings were his only guide.

Luckily, Pee Wee was a natural and it all worked out. But the eccentric aspects of his style are often explained away by saying that he drank too much. I know that’s wrong, that the truth is that Pee Wee’s music speaks for itself – and yes, he did drink.

Teagarden, Bobby Hackett, Bud Freeman, and Russell form a musical ‘murderer's row’  of soloists on several numbers here recorded under the nominal leadership of Eddie Condon. Their collaborations are not at all dated; the background arrangements (uncredited, but very possibly by Hackett) are subtle and the recording balance is particularly helpful to Pee Wee. His two spike-y choruses on “Love Is Just Around the Corner’ place him in front of the band in a sort of loose ensemble/solo mode that's just right, and his half chorus on ‘Embraceable You’ still lives!

Pee Wee's explorative mind is documented on two differently detailed versions of a traditional style blues, ‘Serenade to a Shylock’ (that was the now-forgotten slang term for the pawnbroker in whose shop many instruments spent much of their time). The clarinet accompaniments behind Jack's vocals are quite dissimilar, and Take 2 boldly uses the major seventh and flat five - notes that would first be used this way in modern jazz around 1941, and this is 1938!

Later in Pee Wee's life it become an axiom that he had been ill-served by Dixieland and the Condon crowd. Well, I don't think so. The music on this CD can serve as a good definition of Dixieland. A rousing, collectively improvised ensemble is a perennial source of joy, and Charlie was the best of clarinetists for that. As in all jazz, the style is as good as the practitioners, and our man was among the greatest Dixieland players - as well as being more, lots more. Without giving a single thought to it, he had a foot in both worlds, although he never lost his Dixieland feel. He had already been a ‘modern’ stylist in the Twenties, and had he stayed with Condon-type groups all his life (as in a way he did), he would have ended up with the some degree of recognition - for he brought his modernism to his Dixieland work.

 The trio and quartet sessions feature Russell's magnificent blues playing. The date with Joe Sullivan and Zutty Singleton harkens back stylistically to the Twenties. “The Last Time I Saw Chicago” is a delicious blues and when Pee Wee plays in the low register, with Zutty press-rolling and Joe tremoloing a la Earl Hines, all is righteous! Among the later quartet sides we find three versions of something basically titled ‘D. A. Blues’ (although the last take earns a slightly different title, presumably because of its different tempo) that bring everything to an appropriate close. Pee Wee's chalumeau choruses after Jess Stacy's piano solos are hair-raising journeys into a surrealistic subterranean world of the blues. By the third try, Russell has really wormed to his task and starts with a remarkable chromatic phrase, using the flat and major seventh, the ninth, the sixth and the augmented fifth intervals([!). Quite melodic, it swings, too. It's in his full-bloom sotto voce mode. He even plays games with the phrase that was to become his "Pee Wee's Blues." On other tracks in this compilation, if you pay close attention, you can hear him use this sequence in many ways.

… Russell was a master of mood … and was most effective on slow ballards and blues, using a sub-tone that tapped a deep emotional wellspring. It was his greatest achievement, quite a contribution to the voice of jazz clarinet.

We’re in another world with him, a kind of slow-moon minimalist universe. It’s akin to a particularly forceful speaker who lowers his voiced to a hushed tone so he can whisper his story even more effectively.

Pee Wee Russell was an innovator, and an appreciation of his rugged individuality … is an acquired taste. He doesn’t just blow the horn and express himself with conventional good notes and tone. No, he often chooses to use the tone itself as a means of expression: he’ll growl, squeal or drop down into a croaking, spooky, sewer-pipe lower register; or he’ll hum one note while blowing another, resulting in a third note with an unholy life of its own – and another kind of growl. …

His choice of notes and rhythm could be quite unconventional. His red (and blue) notes mostly resolve nicely and, if analyzed, can be explained as the upper notes of a chord – as in bebop. But sometimes he misses and gets involved with a glaring red note; such a moment to me is part of his charm. Man this barrelhouse cat takes chances.

Pee Wee was a great ear player and he was always seeking.  In essence, the search was his style.”


According to Mr. Sudhalter, “Pee Wee’s later career was a time of fulfillment and exploration, and for many fans and critics, rediscovery: enough so to almost warrant a chapter of its own.… Reluctant to spend the rest of his days in the lockstep of ‘That’s a Plenty’ and ‘RoyalGardenBlues,’ the clarinetist reached into new areas – new repertoire and, in many cases, new musical companions. …

Suddenly it seemed, Pee Wee Russell was the man of the hour, who had always been ‘modern.’ For the 1957 TV show ‘The Sound of Jazz,’ he played the blues in duo with Jimmy Giuffre, whose low-register clarinet style owed much to Russell but lacked its unpredictability and complexity. He recorded such numbers as Billy Strayhorn’s ‘Chelsea Bridge,” John Coltrane’s “Red Planet,’ and the old bop standard ‘Good Bait’ … in a quartet with arranger and valve trombonist Marshall Brown [New Groove: The Pee Wee Russell Quartet , Columbia LP CL 1985; CS 8785].

The new Pee Wee mania reached its peak in 1963, when jazz impresario George Wein paired the clarinetist with Thelonious Monk at the Newport Jazz Festival … and at one concert he played a clarinet duet with Gerry Mulligan who afterwards commented that Russell ‘was inclined to be further out – harmonically and melodically than I am … He was fearless, I never thought of him [strictly] as a clarinet player – it was more like a direct line to his subconscious.’ [emphasis mine].

Let’s conclude this excursion into Pee Wee Russell’s “Land of Jazz” – one that we earlier described as singular, scintillating and shuddery –  with the following summary from Richard Sudhalter [paraphrased]:

“Admiration of Russell’s work centered on three qualities: his highly expressive and frequently un-clarinet-like tone; his free and defiant rhythmic sense and, perhaps, above all, his ceaseless daring. His playing was immediate, warm, musically intelligent and naturally swinging.

His inimitable ways represent the highest form of creativity available to a jazz improviser. Far from being ‘eccentric,’ ‘maverick’ or ‘idiosyncratic,’ Pee Wee belongs at the very center of stylistic distinction.

Perhaps the ultimate tribute is to try and imagine Jazz without him.”

You can checkout Pee Wee's distinctive style of clarinet playing as well as Ron Lundberg's exquisite brush work on the following video montage which is set to Moten Swing and which also features Marshall Brown on valve trombone and Russell George on bass.


Curtis Amy - Testifyin’ Texas Tenor

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


That Texastenor sound is a phenomenon in itself. David “Fathead” Newman, Don Wilkerson, Booker Ervin, James Clay, King Curtis and WiltonFelder were some of its major exponents to emerge in the fifties. As different as their styles were, they shared a rich, hard, vibrato-less sound and a clear, deliberate articulation.

The sound is strong, sure and prideful, but with an underlying vulnerability. It's pas­sionate. … Cannonball Adderley described it as ‘a moan inside the tone.’ …”
- Michael Cuscuna, 1997

One could certainly add the name of Curtis Amy to the above list of Texas Tenor saxophonists.

Soul and Funk were the big, new discoveries of a number of Jazz record companies in the early 1960s. With their heavy backbeats and simple melodic refrains, the soulful and funky Jazz styles appealed to a wider audience, particularly those who liked their Jazz laced with a heavy dose of rhythm and blues.

The origins or “roots” [an “in” word for those times] of soulful and funky Jazz supposedly were to be found in their connection to the religious music that was sung and played in southern Baptist and Pentecostal churches. Music, as well as, prayer was one means of penitence, or, in the parlance of the times, testifyin or signifyin’ one’s spiritual allegiance.

Bluesy albums set to a boogaloo beat were another by-product of this era of Jazz commercialism and words like “funky” and “groovy” and “soulful” were plastered all over LP covers.

It was a fun music to play, especially if you were a drummer. Nothing complicated. Music played at slow-to-moderate tempos, with melodies mainly derived from 12-bar blues and lots of rim shots or two-beat shuffles tapped out on the snare and bass drums.

The vocal epitome of this style of music was “brother” Ray Charles whose tambourine-totting background singers were always there to show the audience where to clap their hands or stomp their feet on the second and fourth beats of every bar of the music.

But, hey, even Jazz musicians have to eat and pay the rent and the popularity of Soul and Funk provided lots of gigs until the dramatic rise of Rock ‘n Roll took things in a different direction in the 1960s.

Tenor saxophonist Curtis Amy came to prominence during this era and the titles of some of his recordings – The Blues Message, Meetin’ Here, Way Down, Groovin’ Blue, - are reflective of it.

Texas tenorman Curtis Amy had a long and distinguished career as a jazz artist, studio musician and  record executive. During his years with Pacific Jazz, he recorded six superb albums that revealed an artist who constantly challenged himself as an improviser and as a composer.

With the exception of Katanga which was issued as a limited edition CD in 1998 by Blue Note as part of its West Coast Classics series [CDP 94580], none of Amy’s output for Pacific Jazz was reissued digitally until Michael Cuscuna and his team at Mosaic Records collected all six of the Amy Pacific Jazz LP’s and put them out as a 3-CD Mosaic Select boxed-set in 2003.

Here is the text from mosaicrecords.com announcing this set.


The Bluesy Drive of a Great TexasTenor.

“There’s nothing quite like the mournful cry or the bluesy drive of a great Texas tenor saxophonist. Curtis Amy was of the same generation as Booker Ervin, David Fathead Newman, James Clay and Wilton Felder, but his time in the jazz spotlight was brief. Amy had a beautiful sound and a style that was both muscular and lyrical. Although he had a long and successful career in his transplanted home of Los Angeles, much of it was spent doing high profile studio work and working with his wife, the extraordinary Merry Clayton.

During his years with Pacific Jazz (1960-63), he recorded six superb albums that revealed an artist who constantly challenged himself as an improviser and as a composer. After The Blues Message and Meetin’ Here, two soulful collaborations with organist Paul Bryant, he moved into more textured hard bop surroundings, fronting sextets with varied instrumentation. He and Frank Butler co-led Groovin’ Blue, which features Carmell Jones and Bobby Hutcherson. Way Down includes Roy Ayers, Marcus Belgrave, Victor Feldman and valve trombonist Roy Brewster among others.

Tippin’ On Through was recorded live at the Lighthouse with Ayers and Brewster among others. Amy’s final album for the label Katanga is regarded as his masterpiece; it featured the legendary trumpeter Dupree Bolton as well as Ray Crawford and Jack Wilson. From the furious be-bop of the title tune to the lament "Lonely Woman" to the hypnotic, extended performance of "NativeLand", Amy's work as an improviser and composer is at its zenith. Trumpeter Dupree Bolton, who made an impressive debut on Harold Land's "The Fox" three years earlier, is absolutely dazzling with a brash attack, formidable chops and very original ideas.

Although he made two more albums (in 1966 and 1994) and recorded with Gerald Wilson and Onzy Matthews, the six albums that he made for Pacific Jazz – all contained in this Mosaic Select set represent his greatest legacy. Amazingly, five of them make their appearance on CD for the first time.”

Thomas Conrad offered the following review of the Mosaic Select: Curtis Amy set in the May 2004 edition of JazzTimes.


© -Thomas Conrad, JazzTimes, May 2004, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“For all those who have regarded Mosaic boxed sets as the gold standard among jazz reissue programs, the recently introduced Mosaic Select series requires some spirit of compromise. The seventh release in the series, for example, provides only six short paragraphs of current retrospective on the career of tenor saxophonist Curtis Amy. In a "real" Mosaic collection, we would have gotten a full-size catalog, an extravagance of session photos and a new in-depth essay by a leading Amy authority with voluminous discographical data. In this three-CD set, we get only the undistinguished original liner notes.

But if the Select series is budget-challenged, it is also free to go where big Mosaic boxed sets cannot-for example, to artists whose recorded output is sparse, and/or whose appeal is limited to (in Mosaic founder/producer Michael Cuscuna's words) "a relatively small but discerning audience."

Case in point, Curtis Amy. He came out of Houston, Texas-a fact that is announced with his entrance on the very first track of disc one, "Searchin'." After Paul Bryant's plaintive prologue on Hammond B3, Amy emerges with a huge, long, braying wail, a sound that only emanates from one (Lone Star) state.

Unlike the other great Texas tenors who came up in the '40s and '50s (Illinois Jacquet, Arnett Cobb, Booker Ervin, David "Fathead" Newman, et. al.), Amy went west. He settled in Los Angeles in 1955, became active on the L.A. scene and recorded six LPs for Richard Bock's Pacific label between 1960 and 1963. All six are here, and only one of them, Katanga!, has ever been previously reissued on CD. Between 1963 and 1994, Amy recorded only once under his own name. During these years he played in L.A. big bands, toured with Ray Charles, and worked as a studio musician, record company executive, and actor. He died at the age of 72 in 2002.

Amy was more than just a special player. He was a commanding figure with a big, blustering sound and chops to burn, a teller of definitive tales of the soul. The first two albums represented, The Blues Message and Meetin' Here, with the little known Bryant, are examples of the tenor/organ combo genre as powerful as anything that ever came out of New York. Amy could testify with anyone, and he was also an exceptional ballad interpreter ("Come Rain or Come Shine,""Angel Eyes").

The progress of these six albums moves from deep blues grooves to more textured and sophisticated-but still soulful-approaches. Along the way, a door is opened to a subset of West Coast jazz much earthier than the famous "cool school," while still reflecting a sunnier environment than that of East Coast hard bop. Amy surrounds himself with some of the best players of that time and place, like Carmell Jones and Dupree Bolton and Frank Strazzeri and Frank Butler. But his own clarion, assertive voice always dominates.

The collection culminates in what Michael Cuscuna calls "Amy's masterpiece,"Katanga!. It is indeed an album where everything magically works, from inspiration through execution. Pianist Jack Wilson and guitarist Ray Crawford use their allotted space beautifully, and Amy, in a stunning purity of tone, introduces his new instrument, soprano saxophone. But Katanga! will always be remembered as the last documented appearance on record of trumpeter Dupree Bolton, one of the most mysterious and tragic figures in the history of jazz. Bolton could spit fire and turn the flames into music on a level approaching Clifford Brown. But after Katanga! he disappeared into prisons, institutions and a life on the streets.”







Jack Brownlow: A Hometown Favorite


© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


Every town has one.

Whether its Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Reno or Seattle.

Somewhere in these cities, there is an exceptional Jazz musician who is mainly known only to those familiar with the local Jazz scene.

For whatever reason, these local Jazz musicians don’t travel, preferring to stay close to home while working the occasional club date, party or benefit.

Every so often, a group of local admirers cobble some schimolies together and produce a compact disc to put on display their local favorite’s talents.

These fans know that their player is special and want portable accessibility to the music while at the same time doing their bit to document it for posterity.

Until the advent of e-commerce, the “distribution” of such recordings often consisted of making it available for sale on a card table that was staffed by someone before and/or after gigs or performances.

When you’ve listened to a lot of Jazz, you can usually tell when someone is special.

You hear it first in the phrasing and with the ready expression of ideas while soloing.

Jazz soloing is like the geometric head start in the sense that you never catch up.

When you improvise something it’s gone; you can’t retrieve it and do it again.

You have to stay on top of what you are doing as Jazz is insistently progressive – it goes forward with you or without you.

People who can play the music, flow with it. Their phrasing is in line with the tempo, the new melodies that they super-impose over the chord structures are interesting and inventive and they bring a sense of command and completion to the process of creating Jazz.

These qualities help bring some Jazz musicians to national, if not, international prominence. Deservedly so.  It’s not easy to play this stuff.

We buy their recordings, read articles about them in the Jazz press and attend their concerts and club dates.

But throughout the history of Jazz, be it in the form of what was referred to as “territory bands,” or local legends who never made it to the big time or recorded, or those who only played Jazz as a hobby, word-of-mouth communication somehow managed to inform us of the startling brilliance of these locally-based musicians.

Such was the case with pianist Jack Brownlow who for many years was one of the most highly regarded Jazz musicians in the greater-Seattle area.

The eminent Jazz author, Doug Ramsey, first brought Jack Brownlow to my attention in 1999 when he hipped me to the fact that Jack’s trio would be appearing at Seattle’s Jazz Alley to commemorate the release of its Jazz Focus CD Suddenly It’s Bruno [JFCD 031].

I was living in Seattle at the time, and little did I know it, but Bruno [Jack’s nickname] and I were neighbors as we both resided in the GreenLake suburb of the city.


Listening to Jack Brownlow play Jazz that evening was a memorable experience.

He reminded me of Nat King Cole, Paul Smith, George Shearing and Bill Evans, all of whom are piano stylists in the sense that their technical ability, or as some call it today, their “pianism” is implied rather than stated.

Jack plays “pretty” piano; the instrument’s sonority rings true. There’s a lot going on in the music, but you’re not overwhelmed by it. He guides the music where he wants it to go and in so doing takes the listener with him on a melodic musical journey.

His knowledge of harmony is huge, but here again, much like Jimmy Rowles, it’s understated. Jack hints; he alludes; he creates impressions. He frames the original chords with substitutions and augmentations, but he doesn’t hit-you-over-the-head while doing so.

To my ears, a key underpinning of Jack’s style is his strong rhythmic sense. He is able to play so lightly while weaving in and out of his inspired solos because of his absolutely centered sense of time. He always knows where he is in the music.

Doug Ramsey wrote the following insert notes to Suddenly It’s Bruno and has graciously allowed us to reprint them on these pages.

They contain a wonderful overview of the career of his friend and a gifted pianist who over the years became a hometown favorite of many Jazz fans in the Seattle and Washington-state area.

© -Doug Ramsey, copyright protected; all rights reserved. Used with the author’s permission.

Suddenly it's Bruno

“Well, not quite suddenly. Jack Brownlow has been playing his inventive melodic lines and exquisite harmonies since he was a boy in the 1930s. At 12, he discovered that he could play any song in any key, without written music, an inheritance from his mother. He studied formally, but when he demonstrated to one of his piano teachers that certain Chopin sonatas needed harmonic improvements, she decided she had taken him as far as she could. His development accelerated. In his teens he was a professional pianist, working in his home town of Wenatchee, Washington, and occa­sionally in Seattle, across the Cascade mountains.

Following his days as a Navy musician in World War Two, Jack spent four months in Kansas City. Most of his play­ing there was at Tootie's Mayfair, a club where Charlie Parker and other KC heroes had worked a few years earlier. As in Bird's day, the experience was intense and the hours were long, from 10 in the evening until 4 a.m. Later in 1945, Brownlow and his service friend Jack Weeks, the bassist and composer-arranger, lived in Los Angles. Working out his Local 47 musicians union card, be spent six months playing around California—mostly at the Big Bear resort in the mountains above Los Angeles—with Weeks and the prominent dance band of his father, Anson Weeks. With an addi­tional six-months hiatus in Wenatchee, he completed the union waiting period and returned to LA., immediately find­ing work with dozens of players prominent in the yeasty post-war Southern California jazz community. Among them were Lester Young, Lucky Thompson and Boyd Raeburn. With Raeburn's trailblazing big band he played piano when
Dodo Marmarosa was otherwise occupied and is heard on some of the bands radio transcriptions.

In late 1946, Weeks enrolled at MillsCollege for the opportunity to study with the modernist French composer Darius Milhaud. Another young veteran named Dave Brubeck made the same choice. Brownlow considered going to Mills, but he returned to Wenatchee, went into the printing business with his father, married and raised a family. Bruno——his nickname ever since a neighbor's child pronounced Brownlow that way—never gave up his night gig. He played for dances, in taverns, in clubs, in concerts. He accompanied singers and wrote instrumental and vocal arrangements. The lack of sleep was compensated by steadily deepening musical skills. Soon, musicians who worked with Bruno or heard him in the Pacific Northwest circulated word about him, as had Navy musicians and his LA. colleagues.


Ray Blagoff, later a lead trumpeter in name bands and the Hollywood studios, was with Jack at the Farragut Naval base in ldaho. 'We were all in awe of his ear,’ Blagoff says. 'He could play anything in any key. We met shortly after I reported to Farragut. ‘I told him I'd like to play I Had the Craziest Dream" in E. He didn’t 't bat an eye, and I was thrilled because no one had ever been able to accompany me in that key. I told him I had learned the tune from the Harry James record. He said Harry James recorded it in E-flat and my turntable must have been running at the wrong speed.’

His uncanny ear was matched by harmonic acuity and an accompanying gift of melodic inventiveness. Musicians who heard him were impressed. Those who worked with him were astonished. They included the violinist Joe Venuti, whose cantankerousness equaled his brilliance. On their first meeting, Venuti tried his famous trick of derailing the accompanists by changing keys every few bars without warning. Every time he turned left, Bruno and his protégé, bassist Jim Anderson, were on him like flypaper. After Venuti got over his frustration at not being able to instigate one of the train wrecks that gave him so much pleasure, they all settled in and played a great gig.

Bruno moved to Seattle in 1965 and dedicated himself totally to music for the first time since his Los Angeles days. He became a fixture at America’s Cup and, for years, at Canlis, the elegant restaurant high above LakeUnion. Usually, he played alone. Occasionally he was joined by Jim Anderson or another bassist. Canlis patrons with sophisticated hearing, among them George Shearing and Alan Hovhaness, were treated to chords and melodic patterns light years beyond what they might have expected as a background for dining. After dinner, the serious listeners joined the cocktailers clustered around the piano.

Musicians serious about developing in harmony, improvisation and repertoire have always found in Jack a wise and will­ing teacher. On his nights off and frequently during the day, the music room of Brownlow’s house, Chateau Bruno, became a workshop for developed and developing musicians. Over the years, they have included trumpeters Randy Brecker and Jay Thomas, guitarist John Stowell and bassists Clipper Anderson, Rufus Reid, Dean Johnson, Andy Zadrozny and Gary Peacock They studied informally with Bruno, as did saxophonist Don Lanphere when he was growing up in Wenatchee

At a party at my house in New York in the early 1970s, the alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, hearing Brownlow for the first time, said, "If I played piano, that's how I'd want to play it.' Paul did not have his horn along. He tried to persuade Bruno to extend his East Coast stay so that Desmond could round up bassist Ron Carter and a drummer for some sessions. Brownlow had to get back to Seattle. The results of what would have been an intriguing partnership must be left to the imagination.

In the mid-1990s, Jack reached the saturation point as a restaurant pianist. He ended the nightly job at Canlis and put himself once again on the jazz market. Work materialized almost at once at clubs in Seattle. The pocket conservatory in his living room saw increasing activity, as the city's latest crop of young jazz players showed up to learn and jam. Bassists are particularly attracted to Bruno's harmonic wisdom. There have been so many of them that if there is ever a Jack Brownlow Big Band, it is likely to be Bruno and 15 bass players. In 1996, his first album, Dark Dance appeared as a CD on the Bruno label. He and Clipper Anderson appeared as a duo at the Bumbershoot Jazz Festival in Seattle in 1997. Musical director Bud Shank featured The Jack Brownlow Trio at the Jazz Port Townsend Festival in 1998… .

Bruno became a Seattle institution soon after he established himself in the city in the 1960s. Fans and musicians spread his name far beyond the Pacific Northwest. For years they urged him to record. When he finally did, it was for a label [his own] with virtually no distribution. Now, after five decades of exquisite music-making, Suddenly It’s Bruno takes him to a wider audience and matches his accomplishments to his legend.”



Francesco Cafiso – Ciminiera Verdi [Green Chimneys]

© -Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.





Some young, Jazz players use a lot of notes in their solos.


This tendency seems to be a part of the joys of first expression; the thrill of discovering that you can play an instrument and play it well.


Kind of like: “Look what I’ve found? Look what I can do? Isn’t this neat?”


Another reason why these young, Jazz musicians play so many notes is because they can.


They are young, indiscriminately so, and they want to play everything that rushes through their minds, getting it from their head into their hands almost instantly.


Their Jazz experience is all new and so wonderful; why be discerning when you can have it all?


If such abilities to “get around the instrument” were found in a young classical musician romping his or her way through one of Paganini’s Caprices, they would be celebrated as a phenomena and hailed as a prodigy.


Playing Paganini’s Caprices, Etudes, et al. does take remarkable technical skill, but in fairness, let’s remember that Paganini already wrote these pieces and the classical musician is executing them from memory.


In the case of the Jazz musician, playing complicated and complex improvisations requires that these be made up on the spot with an unstated preference being that anything that has been played before in the solo cannot be repeated.


But often times when a Jazz musician exhibits the facility to create multi-noted, rapidly-played improvised solos, this is voted down and labeled as showboating or derided as technical grandstanding at the expense of playing with sincerity of feeling.


Such feats of technical artistry are greeted with precepts such as “It’s not what you play, but what you leave out” as though the young, Jazz performer not only has to resolve the momentary miracle of Jazz invention, but has to do so while solving a Zen koan at the same time ["What is the sound of the un-played note" or some such nonsense].


Alto saxophonist Francesco Cafiso plays lots of notes in this interpretation of Thelonious Monk’s Green Chimneys [ciminiera verdi, in Italian].


At only 28 years of age, its hard to believe that he has this much talent [he was only 17 years old when this was recorded].


Monk’s music ain’t easy.


The eminent tenor saxophonist John Coltrane once said that losing one’s way in Monk’s music is like stepping into an empty elevator shaft.


As you will hear in this example of extemporized Jazz at its very best, Francesco never loses his way – not for a moment.


Oh, and he plays a lot of notes, too.

Dizzy Gillespie: Serious and Showy - A look back at one of the most influential trumpeters of the 20th century.

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


It is impossible to fully assess the footprint that John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie left on the path forward of Modern Jazz in the second half of the 20th century.

But the editorial staff at JazzProfiles is doing its best to comprehend as much of it as possible through its numerous postings about Diz on these pages.

Here’s another attempt to acknowledge Dizzy’s significance, this time with the aid of John Edward Hasse.

Mr. Hasse is curator emeritus of American music at the Smithsonian. His books include “Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington ” (Da Capo) and “Discover Jazz” (Pearson).

The following appear in the Oct. 21, 2017 edition of the Wall Street Journal.

“In 1985, as a newly arrived music curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, I was given virtual carte blanche to collect as I wished. What should I seek first? I decided to invite one of jazz’s foremost living innovators—Dizzy Gillespie—to donate his previous “bent” trumpet. I mailed him that request, but heard nothing. After a few months, a colleague who knew him advised, “Get his wife, Lorraine, involved.” So I wrote essentially the same letter to her and figured she might not respond, either. Three days after mailing the letter, a big UPS box arrived. Inside was her husband’s last trumpet. I think she wanted it…out of the

Several months later, Dizzy himself came to formally present the instrument to the museum and drew over a dozen reporters and TV crews. The charismatic Gillespie filled the air with electricity, alternately reminiscent, wise and witty. As the event was winding down, a tall British reporter asked, “Mr. Gillespie, 500 years from now, what will that trumpet be saying?” Gillespie deadpanned, “Five hundred years from now, that trumpet…ain’t gonna be saying nothin’!”


I silently disagreed, for at the Smithsonian his trumpet will be telling stories for centuries; in fact, millions have already seen the trumpet on display there.

John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie was born Oct. 21, 1917, in Cheraw, S.C., the son of a weekend bandleader. Spending two years performing in Philadelphia, he earned the nickname “Dizzy” for his humorous antics. In 1937, he was drawn to the jazz magnet of New York, where he apprenticed in the big bands of Teddy Hill, Cab Calloway and Earl Hines, practiced obsessively, and joined in jam sessions.

In 1940, he met the 20-year-old alto-sax sensation Charlie Parker. They bonded immediately and, over the next few years, invented a new paradigm: music with asymmetric rhythms, rapid-fire tempos, fast-moving and complex chord progressions, and virtuoso improvisations using multiple scales and altered tones. This music—which much of the public found radically different, puzzling, or off-putting—was intended more for listening in small nightclubs than for dancing in big ballrooms, as had been swing music. By 1945, the new style—known as bebop or bop—was fully formed, as heard on such Gillespie recordings as “Shaw ’Nuff” and “Hot House.”

While playing trumpet in Calloway’s band, Gillespie learned about Latin rhythms from his Cuban-born bandmate Mario Bauzá and became a proponent of fusing American jazz with Afro-Cuban rhythms and percussion, on such pieces as “Manteca” and “Night in Tunisia.”

Gillespie developed an unmistakable trumpet style — rich with drama, bravura, humor, technique, and melodic and rhythmic invention — that set him far ahead of his contemporaries. Even today, his torrid cascades of high notes dazzle the ear. He also composed and collaborated on a number of jazz standards such as “Groovin’ High,” “Anthropology” and “Salt Peanuts.”
His impact was enormous. He was one of the most influential trumpeters of the 20th century, taking his distinguished place in the lineage of jazz trumpet royalty that began with Joe “King” Oliver, Louis Armstrong and Roy Eldridge. Gillespie affected virtually every trumpeter who came after him.

Gillespie attracted attention with his beret, goatee, horn-rimmed glasses, and, when playing, froggy cheeks. From 1951 on, a 45-degree-uptilted bell on his trumpet gave him further visual identity. A bandmate fell on his horn, bending it, and Gillespie found that he liked the sound projection. From then on, each of his trumpets was custom-made with an uptilted bell.

Beneath the showy surface, however, he was dead serious. “Men have died for this music. You can’t get no more serious than that.” Yet, as he said, “If I can make people laugh, and if that makes them receptive to my music, I’m gonna do it.” Unlike his contemporary Miles Davis, Gillespie embraced showmanship and charmed audiences with his ebullient humor, funny routines, and comic dancing.

Beginning in 1956, the U.S. State Department sent Gillespie on goodwill concert tours to Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa. Insisting that ordinary people—not just VIPs—be admitted to his performances, he disarmed anti-American skeptics and won fans wherever he went, even among people who didn’t know jazz.

In his later years, he became an elder statesman of jazz, a champion of the tradition, and an advocate for global musical exchange. He formed his United Nation Orchestra in 1988 to bring together musicians from North and South America. In 1989, he traveled to 27 countries to give 300 performances. Struck by pancreatic cancer, he died in 1993.

The long roster of musicians Gillespie mentored over several generations includes pianist Billy Taylor, trombonists David Baker and J.J. Johnson, saxophonists James Moody, Phil Woods, Jimmy Heath and Paquito d’Rivera, and trumpeters Arturo Sandoval and Jon Faddis.

The list of musicians Dizzy has inspired is much, much longer.ß

Gerald Wilson - Then and Now - [1918-2014]

© - Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.




"The story of West Coast big bands from the 1950s, especially those featuring black leaders, was largely one of neglect. …

Despite the excellence of his earlier ensembles, [Gerald] Wilson’s recording career was, except for a few brief interludes, deferred until the 1960s.”

 – Ted Gioia, West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California, 1945-1960


The “Then and Now” subtitle for this JazzProfiles feature of 91-year old Gerald Wilson is correct, even though the more accustomed phrase is "Now and Then." Explanation to follow.

Thanks to the very same high school trumpet playing friend who dragged me all over Hollywood and the Sunset Strip [The Summit, The Sundown Club and The Seville] in the late 1950’s to hear what has since become know as the Terry Gibbs Dream Band, I also got to hear the 1960’s version of the Gerald Wilson Orchestra that recorded for Pacific Jazz during that period.


Only this time around we were students in college and the venues had changed to Shelly’s Manne Hole, The Memory Lane Supper Club, a Local 47 Musicians Union Picnic for members and their families [we were both card carrying members of that AFL-CIO affiliate] and Marty’s on the Hill on Slausen Avenue in Los Angeles.

In those days, my buddy worked at the Benge Trumpet Factory on Victory Blvd. in Burbank, CA and many of the Hollywood studio and West Coast Jazz players had a preference for Elden Benge’s exquisitely crafted trumpets.
As a result, my friend got to meet the likes of Al Porcino, Ray Triscari, John Audino, Stu Williamson and Frank Huggins, all of whom became his heroes and all of whom played Benge trumpets at one time or another as members of Terry Gibbs’ big band; hence the reason for of weekly “pilgrimages” to hear them perform.

In the 1960s, the group of Benge playing trumpeters was broadened to include Jimmy Zito and Jules Chaikin and they along with Al Porcino and Ray Triscari formed Gerald Wilson’s trumpet section [usually with either Freddie Hill and/or Carmel Jones in the Jazz solo chair] of Gerald’s Orchestra; hence the reason for the musical equivalent of a “new place of worship.”


There were no Jazz classes in those days; no university Jazz curriculums; no band camps; no instructional videos; no Master classes: if you wanted to learn how to play Jazz at the highest level, you practiced every day, listen to records and then went to the clubs and the concerts to observe and listen to how the pros did it.

Before I heard him perform with Buddy Collette’s quintet at Jazz City in 1958-59, I had no idea who Gerald Wilson was. After listening to him play for the first time, I thought he was a Jazz trumpet player with a modest tone who meshed nicely with Buddy’s alto sax and flute. Buddy’s quintet at that time also included Al Viola on guitar, Wilfred Middlebrooks on bass and Earl Palmer on drums.
That was my first “Then” experience with Mr. Wilson. It was soon to be followed by my first “Now” occurrence as he seemed to come-out-of-nowhere to lead a roaring big band that issued 8 LPs on the Pacific Jazz label in the 8 years from 1961-1969!



How could it happen that a musician with the unpretentious abilities I had heard Mr. Wilson display as a trumpet player with Buddy Collette transform himself into the principal arranger and composer of one of the most striking sounding big band that I have ever heard – then or now!?

And this “Then and Now” cycle has been a part of my travels with Mr. Wilson’s music ever since as I’ve worked my way backward and forward with the music that he has made, and continues to make, over his long and distinguished career.

It boggles the mind to think that it has been 70 years since Mr. Wilson joined the Jimmie Lunceford band in 1939 as a trumpet soloist and an arranger. Having been born in Shelby, Mississippi on September 4, 1918, Mr. Wilson was only 21 years old at the time that he took on these awesome responsibilities with one of the top big bands in the country.
As Mr. Wilson recalls: “When I got a chance to join them, I was thrilled to death. The Jimmie Lunceford band was at the top of the heap at the time and they could outdraw everyone. They had such creative arrangements by Edwin Wilcox, Sy Oliver and Eddie Durham, and their musicians were very good. I made my first arrangements for them, “Yard Dog Mazurka” and “Hi Spook.”Aside from the unbridled confidence of youth, the reason for this self-assurance was that Mr. Wilson knew from an early that he was going to be a musician. As a result of this awareness, while living in Detroit, he studied harmony and orchestration at Cass Tech in addition to working on his trumpet chops. So when the call came to become a member of the Lunceford band, he was ready, much to the amazement of all concerned.

In his own, non-ostentatious way, Mr. Wilson has never ceased to amaze ever since.
The reason for my unawareness of Mr. Wilson’s substantial, earlier career in Jazz until I “discovered” him in the late 1950s and 1960s on the Los Angeles Jazz scene could be chalked up to my overall youthful naiveté coupled with my relative newness to Jazz.

And yet, I wasn’t the only Jazz fan who thought that after Mr. Wilson left the Lunceford band in 1942 that he toiled in relative obscurity until his Jazz career was re-launched thanks largely to the records of his 1960s big band that Richard Bock at Pacific Jazz put out.
In looking back to the “then” portion of Mr. Wilson’s musical journey from when he left Lunceford to the re-formation of the 1960s version of his orchestra, Mr. Wilson was hard at work on the vibrant Los Angeles Jazz scene. He also led a band in San Francisco during this period as well as touring with and writing for a number of famous Jazz performers including Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Billie Holiday.Thankfully this hitherto obscure period in Mr. Wilson’s career is richly detailed in an Oral History Project under the supervision of Steve Iosardi and UCLA. The project has been published under the title of Central Avenue Sounds: Jazz in Los Angeles [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998] and the book is authored collectively by the project’s principal interviewees, including Mr. Wilson.The editorial staff at JazzProfiles thought that reading Mr. Wilson’s description of what it was like to be a part of the Jazz World in Los Angeles during and after the 2nd World War would provide a unique look at a time in the history of Jazz that would never come again.It also provides a captivating look at the vibrant musical world that Mr. Wilson created for himself and how what blossomed in his music in the 1960s when I first really became aware of it is really a natural extension of his continued growth and development that has made him one of the Giants of Jazz.

Part 2 of the piece will begin with a retrospective of Mr. Wilson’s career by the imminent Jazz writer – Doug Ramsey – and then follow with an in-depth look at the more significant recordings in his discography.




© Copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Gerald Wilson
“Trumpeter, composer, arranger, and educator, Gerald Wilson has been at the top of his profession since joining the Jimmie Lunceford band in 1939 at the age of twenty. He has performed with and written for most of the top bands, including Count Basie and Duke Ellington, as well as Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Woody Herman, and Billie Holiday. The Gerald Wilson Orchestra has been a mainstay for decades and is still performing and recording.

Gerald's talent for composing and arranging has taken him beyond the jazz field. He has written and scored for films and TV shows. His compositions have also been performed by the Los Angeles, Israel, and New York Philharmonics.

A long-time educator, Gerald has been a faculty member at several southern California universities. He is currently on the faculty at UCLA, where he teaches a course on the history of jazz. He has also been a musician in residence at colleges and universities throughout the country. Of the many awards that have come his way, one of the more recent is a National Endowment for the Arts American Jazz Masters Fellowship.

Gerald was born in Shelby, Mississippi, on September 4, 1918. His mother, Lillian Wilson, was a schoolteacher at the Shelby Grammar School a position she held for some forty years.”

“My mother was educated and she graduated from Jackson College, which is now Jackson State University. She was also a musician. She played piano. She taught some of the early classes in music in Shelby. And then she also played in the church. So I got my beginning in music with my mother, who started all of us. The Wilson kids, my brother [Shelby James Wilson] and sister [Mildred Wilson] - we all got a start in music very young. So being around music all my life, it was easy for me to pick up on it and begin to like it.

My sister was a fine classical pianist. I had already heard her play compositions by Mendelssohn, Paderewski, Rachmaninoff, Mozart, Beethoven. In my early days I knew of these composers, besides being interested in the music of the day, which was jazz coming out of New Orleans. When I was a child around five or six, I was already hearing Jelly Roll Morton and King Oliver and Papa Celestin. Before I left Shelby I already knew of Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines and Duke Ellington and Jimmie Lunceford. I was already listening to jazz before I left Mississippi.

I left Mississippi at the end of the eighth grade because there was no other place to go there. So I went to Memphis. I attended Manassas High School, where Jimmie Lunceford had once been a teacher. I started trumpet lessons there with Mr. Love, who was one of the pioneer music teachers of Memphis. But I had started playing trumpet before I left Shelby, only because it was a shiny instrument, I guess. I really should have stayed on the piano. It is the master instrument to my mind, because it has everything there.

Then my mother arranged for me to study in Detroit-had friends there from Shelby. When I started attending school in Detroit in 1934, mostly all of the schools were integrated. And besides, they had such a great music department where I attended, Cass Technical High School, which is one of the greatest music schools in the world even to this day. So I enrolled there, and I stayed in Detroit for five years, where I studied.


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I played in the area with different orchestras and different musicians. I learned so much playing with members of McKinney's Cotton Pickers, members of bands that had been led by Don Redman and Benny Carter. And many of the fine bands they had in Detroit: Stutz Sanderson's band, Gloster Current, Harold Green, Bob Perkins-these were all bands that were very musical. It was a place to really learn about music.

Gerald remained in Detroit for five years, until 1939, when a wire arrived from Jimmie Lunceford, the leader of perhaps the most popular black band in the country. Sy Oliver - Lunceford's long-time arranger, composer, and trumpeter - had left to join Tommy Dorsey, and Gerald was asked to take his place.

Jimmie Lunceford had been to our school, Cass Tech, to hear our jazz band, and he had met me there. However, I had people in the band that knew me because I used to hang around the band every time they would come to Detroit, which would be two or three times a year. Sy would sit me up on the bandstand beside him at the Graystone, just let me sit there. I knew Eddie Tomkins and Paul Webster and Willie Smith and Joe Thomas, Earl Carruthers, Dan Grissom.

I received a wire asking me if I would like to join the Jimmie Lunceford band. I said yes. I just went down the next morning, picked up my ticket, some money, on the train, and I went to New York. Then, from that time on, I was on top because they were on top. They were not a struggling band. They were on the very top. June Of 1939. They were at the height of their fame. But the Lunceford band went higher after Snooky Young and I joined the band. He came six months after I did. We stayed there almost three years.


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We made the film Blues in the Night here in Los Angeles for Warner Brothers in 1941. We played the Casa Mañana in 1940, the Paramount downtown, the Shrine Auditorium, where they had so many people they had to stop the dance. We were the biggest draw in the United States at that time, the Jimmie Lunceford band.

I was twenty-one years old. But you must remember, we were coming up at a different time. I was coming up out of Cass Tech. I could already read music, I could already write music. I was already into the modern things going around at that time in jazz because I was an aficionado besides. I had already met Dizzy Gillespie in 1938. 1 already knew Lester Young and Count Basie. So this gives you an idea of what we had to draw on as young musicians. You're right there with people that are doing it, and they're doing the very best.

The Jimmie Lunceford band, besides being an outstanding musical organization, had everything else. They had made it to the top. They knew what the top was supposed to be. Our costumes would take half of this room we're sitting in here to hold them. If we did seven shows, we changed seven times, from top to bottom. So you can see what kind of an organization the Jimmie Lunceford band was. But they were strictly on their music. They were a tough band to reckon with. You had to be really tough to get past us. [laughter] Yes. We would really tell you the real deal. You can go and listen to our records now. That proves it. Go and listen to their records today, and you will see how far ahead they were at any time during that period. The first number that they recorded of mine, "Yard Dog Mazurka," is just as vibrant today as it was then, and just as modern. You can see how far ahead I was.

My harmonic techniques at that time were very far ahead. When I left Detroit from Cass Tech, they were barely into four-part harmony. I'm still the only person that's very deep into eight-part harmony. I'm an orchestrator and an arranger and composer. That's my business. Of course, I'm one of the innovators of that. Much of my stuff you have to use if you're in modern music. If you're in orchestral music, you must use some of my inventions. Colleges don't even know what we're talking about here. They have an idea of what we're talking about, but they don't really know. I know all of the people that teach at colleges. We know what they do. They're not out here, they're not competing in the world. We know how much they know.

My band today is far ahead. I don't have just a band. I have an orchestra, really. A band is a commercial business. I'm not in it for the commercial business. I'm a musician. The music is what is important to me. That is my central drive. That is really what it's all about with me. I know that I have one of the greatest bands in the world. I don't know anybody in jazz today that would want to come up against me in writing. If he does, he's a strong man, and he's got a tough row to hoe. [laughter] And I don't know any you can find out there who will tell you that he wants to go up against me. And if you do, tell him to come on. [laughter] But that's not for an egotistical purpose. That is what I have done. I have studied all my life. I'm still studying.


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Seduced by Sunshine
In February Of 1940 1 came to Los Angeles with the Jimmie Lunceford band. We had just finished playing a week at the Regal in Chicago, and we boarded the train there. By the way, it was like eighteen degrees above when we left. We had a Pullman and everything. Big-time band. I'll never forget that day in February. As I looked out the window of my bunk in the sleeper, I see this beautiful sunshine. We were somewhere like San Bernardino. And I said, "Well, this is going to be the place for me." [laughter] And when I got to Los Angeles and I saw how pretty it was, I said, "This will be my home." I was very impressed with Los Angeles. I made up my mind that day that I was going to live in Los Angeles.

I got off the train there at Union Station. They had a parade for us. This is how big we were. They had a parade from the station to the Dunbar Hotel, where we were going. to stay. Snooky Young and I, we didn't follow along with the parade. We were just milling around at the station and looking around. The parade was moving on, and there was this white guy who came up to us and said, "Are you guys with the Jimmie Lunceford band?" We said, "Yeah. We play with the Lunceford band." He introduced himself. "My name is Carlos Gastel." He managed Stan Kenton, he managed Benny Carter, he managed Nat King Cole. Later. Right then, he was just booking some little dances, so he had been the booker for us at a dance at the Glendale Civic Auditorium. So he was just looking for some guys in the Lunceford band to talk to. He had missed Jimmie, but he offered to drive us to the hotel, which he did. He drove us up Central Avenue to the Dunbar Hotel, where we registered. That was my first day in Los Angeles.

Central Avenue. I didn't think about it as anything so special other than the fact that it's where I can stay. It's the only place I can sleep. [laughter] Having been everywhere in the United States, I had seen all the black streets. Central Avenue is like Saint Antoine in Detroit or like South Park in Chicago or like 125th Street in New York or like Central in Cleveland. So at that time I didn't realize what it would mean to me later. Los Angeles would become my home, and Central Avenue would become an integral part of me.

The Dunbar was a very fine hotel, coffee shop, bar, dining room. The rooms were impeccable. The Nelson's, who owned it and ran it, saw to it that you had to be right on top of everything. You couldn't come in there with a lot of loud behavior. So it was a place of class. I enjoyed staying there. And it was near everything. It was right in the center. A couple of doors down was the Alabam; a couple of doors from that was the Downbeat; across the street was the Last Word; over here on the other side was the Memo; the Five and Ten was there; down a few blocks, Dynamite Jackson's; the Lincoln Theatre was up a few blocks. All of these places - the Elks. This is all Central Avenue. This was our place to go.


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The first job we played was the Civic Auditorium in Glendale. Our next date was at the Shrine Auditorium down on Jefferson. Packed and jammed. Couldn't get in, there were so many people. And then we played a return engagement there before we left. But then we played the Paramount Theatre downtown for a week. We even went to the Casa Mafiana out in Culver City, where we played for six weeks. That was located on Washington Boulevard right out near the Helms Bakery. It was the old Sebastian's Cotton Club and was a big place. It would hold about, oh, I'd say fifteen hundred or two thousand. Then we'd stay here while we'd play San Diego. And we may go to Bakersfield, Fresno-because we'd play everywhere.

During this first trip, I went into the Alabam. It was a beat-up club. I said, "Why would anybody want to come in here, anyway?" [laughter] And I went in. But I heard some fine musicians that night. I went in and I heard Marshal Royal, his brother Ernie Royal, Lloyd Reese. Reese was playing trumpet and alto sax. [laughter] He was playing both of them and was recognized as being one of the finest musicians around the country. They were all playing with Cee Pee Johnson's band.

They had little groups playing at different clubs. Lorenzo Flennoy and his trio. A lot of trios around. Lee Young, Lester's brother. They had their group. They were working with Billie Holiday at the Trouville, which was in Hollywood. The Memo Club-they'd have some kind of maybe a piano player, a trio, a duo, or something like that. That was across the street from the Dunbar, like catty-corner. Lovejoy had a place where they used to have jam sessions. Upstairs place on Vernon Avenue and Central. All the guys would go there to jam-Art Tatum, the heavies. Duke's band came in town while we were here one time. I saw Jimmy Blanton, and he was up there jamming.

There were bands around Los Angeles. There was George Brown's band, Phil Carreon, and other groups that were playing at different clubs around. Of course, Red Callender-he was very popular at that time. He was a fine bass player. He was playing with Lee Young's group, Lester Young had joined them, and they were playing with Billie Holiday out at the Trouville.

So it was a lot of musical things going on during that period. Benny Carter was in town with a band. Les Hite had a band. Lionel Hampton formed his band in '40. I think it was '40. We were all talking down in front of the Dunbar there with Dexter Gordon, Illinois Jacquet, Ray Perry - this kid with Chick Carter's band. Dexter was very young. He was just joining Lionel's band.

We played our first engagement here in 1940. We came back again during the early part Of 1941. And this time, I believe we played the Orpheum Theatre. We made a movie for Warner Brothers, Blues in the Night. We were in that movie with Lloyd Nolan, Richard Whorf, Rosemary Lane, and Elia Kazan. We played the Casa Manana, because that's where Ray Heindorf, who was one of the music directors at Warner Brothers, used to come to see us every night.


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Wartime
I left the Lunceford band in April 1942. It was the time of World War II. I was 1-A, and I knew I was going to be called soon. I wanted to spend a little time kind of relaxed. I'd been with him a long time and needed a little time to kind of get ready for the service. And that's what I did. I came here.

But I didn't go for a while, so I went with Les Hite. I stayed with him for about six months. We played a long engagement at the Wilshire Bowl, which had become the Louisiana Club. The Wilshire Bowl was a fine nightclub that changed its name in the early forties to the Louisiana Club. It was on Wilshire near the Miracle Mile. But the Miracle Mile was nothing but open space in there. We played there for like two or three months. Every night. Big show. Big, big, big chorus line, big acts, big-time acts. All white acts, like the Rio Brothers and different kinds of singers. They had a black band, though; we were the black band. Mingus played with us there. And then Snooky was in the band. He joined Les Hite, too. He moved out to the coast, and he moved in.

Les Hite was always recognized as having a good band. He had good music. I did a lot of writing for him while I was in his band, and Gil Fuller did a lot of arrangements for him. He had been successful, and he knew how to front a band. And he was very popular. We toured, we played all up the coast here. Finally, he just gave it up. After all those years, he probably just really got tired of it.

And then we went with Benny Carter. Our whole trumpet section from that band, we just went into Benny's band one night. We were tough. In fact, those four trumpets-we also went out and played the music for the special dance that the black dancers did in This Is the Army with this huge orchestra, Warner Brothers orchestra. And the four trumpet players were black: it was Snooky Young, myself, a fellow named Jack Trainor, and another kid named Walter Williams. We were the only trumpets in the band. But we guaranteed that we could play anything. [laughter] We could play anything you had between the four of us. We handled it all. So we went into Benny's band one night. And from that night on, his band was lifted from here to here. Do you understand what I'm saying? From here to here. [laughter]

J. J. Johnson was in the band. They had Teddy Brannon and Bumps Myers. Oh, he had some good guys. He had Shorty Horton, J. J., "Big" Matthews, trombone. These were guys right out of New York. That was the trombone section. And he had Kurk Bradford. We had taken him from Les Hite's band.


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We went on back up the coast with Benny. Then we were playing at Hermosa Beach, a place called Zucca's Terrace. It was right in front of the Lighthouse. Upstairs. Benny played out there a couple of weeks, I think. I was drafted, inducted, while I was there. I was inducted into the navy. It would have been probably June of 1943. June, maybe July. In fact, some of the guys in the band took me to the induction center down on Main Street. I thought I was going to be rejected, but they took me. [laughter]

Anyway, I was off to the navy, which was a fine experience, by the way. I was lucky. I got in the ship's company band at Great Lakes. It's just about, I'd say, thirty-five or forty miles from Chicago. We were very privileged people. We lived in Chicago. Come at eight in the morning and leave at four in the evening unless you were performing that night. And then whenever you finished, you could go. In fact, I never slept another night on the base after I got out of boot camp.

My friend Willie Smith from the Lunceford band was there. Clark Terry was there. It was a band of fine musicians, so it was a great experience. It was good for me because it was another chance to just study and do music, because we did music all day. That was it. We played for things: graduation, we played for happy hours, we played for colors. Then we had our jazz band. And we broadcast every week, every Saturday night, over CBS, so it kept us busy. A lot of writing. We had some fine writers there: Dudley Brooks, who was from Los Angeles, a great writer. He
worked out at MGM, many of the studios. He was a fine pianist. He also did a lot of work with Elvis Presley.

So it really was a fine time at Great Lakes, because all I had to do was write and play. It gave me a great chance to study, experiment all of the experiments you wanted because we had like five trumpets in the band, five trombones, French horn, six reeds. That's the jazz band I'm talking about. Of course, our marching band was very large, and we did everything. They had handpicked all of the musicians.

But anyway, I only spent a year in the navy. I had a very bad sinus infection, so I had a medical discharge.

Then I came back to L.A. Oh, that was about July or August of 1944. When I got back, Central was getting into full swing. The Lincoln Theatre - they were starting to have stage shows every week. Before it was mostly movies. They had a pit band, they had acts, chorus girls, and they would change the shows every week. They had some great performers there like Pigmeat Markham, Bardu Ali. Bardu was the leader of the band, too. By the way, let me tell you some people that were playing in that band. Charles Brown, the great blues singer. He played piano. Yeah, he's a fine piano player. And Melba Liston was playing trombone in the band. She was very young. About sixteen or seventeen. Floyd Turnham, fine alto player that had been with Les Hite.


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Bardu, he was a performer. He was like a straight man, and he would direct the band. He had been in New York, and he did the same thing in New York. He had a brother, also, who was in show business. He was a dancer. They used to call him the Beachcomber. And that was his deal. He was a showman.

The Alabam was now really looking good, had been remodeled. Curtis Mosby had it. Curtis was a nice man. He had been in the business. You know, he was a musician and had a band. And he had fixed the club up real nice. They were having regular shows in there. The Downbeat was coming on the scene. Across the street, the Last Word was happening then. In all, there were a lot of things going on now on Central Avenue and things were looking good. They were really looking good. You could tell that things were in good shape, because you could tell by how the clubs looked-real nice clubs, nice acts playing in the club, nice groups.

I played in the Downbeat with Lee Young during that period, Lee Young and one of the Woodman brothers. We called him Brother Woodman. He's the one that plays sax and the trumpet. And Joe Liggins was the piano player, and I was the trumpet player. In fact, we were the first people to do "The Honeydripper." Joe Liggins wanted us to do his number, "The Honeydripper," which later became a nationwide hit.

So Central was looking real good. The Dunbar was still nice. All the bands still came there. Duke and Count, Jimmie Lunceford. Joe Morris owned the Plantation. Oh, a beautiful club. Large place. They'd have shows, acts. I finished out an engagement with Billie Holiday with my band, which was a little later on. It was in '45. And Shepp's Playhouse was not on Central, but it was on First and Los Angeles, where the New Otani Hotel is. I played more than one engagement there.

From the Plantation to the Apollo

I organized my band in October of 1944. I was not really ready yet to form my band, but the opportunity came. Actually, I was going to join a band. I did a lot of work during that period with Phil Moore as trumpet player. I made many recordings with Phil on his own records. And he was also Lena Horne's musical accompanist and director, and I did all of her dates with Phil. He worked at MGM all the time. He did work for Nathaniel Schildkret. It's like ghostwriting. I've never seen his name on the screen. They did him really a bad deal. I kicked because they didn't put my name in Where the Boys Are and the other movies that I scored for. I kicked. That was even in the late fifties. But this guy was already writing music for MGM and other studios, too. Not only him - Calvin Jackson wrote many scores at MGM, many. I'm not speaking like one or two or three. I'm talking like ten or fifteen. Heavy, heavy scores, you know.

So I was very busy when I first got back from the navy. But, as I said, the opportunity came for me to get my band. From the time that I was ten years old, I knew that I was going to be a bandleader. I knew that. And I knew that I was going to be a bandleader that wrote music for my band to play, because I was already a great admirer of Duke Ellington. And listening to their records and listening to them on the radio, I knew that I was going to be a bandleader and I was going to be an orchestrator, an arranger, composer.


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So my opportunity came, and I didn't let it pass. Herb Jeffries wanted to have a band, so he asked me to form his band. And I did. And things were going so good for Herb, I guess, that at that time he really didn't have time to be fronting a band. So there I was with the band. So Leonard Reed, who was the producer at Shepp's Playhouse, booked us in there. So that's how I got started with the band.
It was very good, because we broadcast two or three times a week over the radio. Had a fine show there. They had chorus girls and acts. And they had a lounge there, too, which was downstairs. It was like a bar. And Eddie Heywood's band was there while we were there, the band that had such great success with "Begin the Beguine," which was a big hit record for him and his band. That was in 1945. And we also played the Orpheum Theatre that year together, Eddie Heywood and I. We played a lot of things, a lot of dances and club dates over at the Elks Auditorium, which is on Central Avenue.

Now, my band, we were all from California. We had some fine players. We had Melba Liston; Jimmy Bunn was on piano, a fine young artist; Henry Green, who later became the mainstay drummer with the Treniers. We had some fine trumpeters: Snooky Young came with my band; we had Jack Trainor, who had been with Hite's band and Benny Carter's band. So we really had a fine band.

Melba was a fine trombone player. She was such a good trombone player, she could play it all. She could play lead, she could play solos, too-usually play it better than the guys. She joined my band in 1944, so she was maybe about seventeen. She was with my band when it disbanded, and she was with all of my other bands at that time. Really a fine musician. Still a fine musician. She's one of the finest writers that I've ever heard. In fact, I recorded a couple of her arrangements in 1945. I had another girl in my band too. Her name was Vivian Fears. She was a fine pianist. I had picked her up in Chicago. She had been playing with Fletcher Henderson's band. She was from Saint Louis. Another fine pianist, played real great jazz.

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I played at the Plantation, which was on Central but way out in Watts. It was a large place with a lot of tables and chairs and a dance floor. It attracted big crowds, all different kinds of people, but you must remember that the bulk of the people that came there were black. And all the big bands played there: Count Basie, Jimmie Lunceford, Erskine Hawkins, Earl Hines, Billy Eckstine. Billie Holiday sang there - I played there with Billie Holiday. I finished out the engagement she had there when Billy Eckstine left. As I say, it was a very, very nice place, a very nice place. Joe Morris owned it.

And also I played with my big band at the Downbeat club. I was the first big band to ever play in the Downbeat. I think it was owned by Hal Stanley, whom I knew very well, and Elihu McGhee. Now, Hal Stanley was also at one time managing Kay Starr. Hal was managing Kay when I worked at the Casbah Supper Club as a trumpet player with Benny Carter.

The Downbeat was a small club. I'd say it would maybe seat 125 people. As you walk in, to your left there's this fine bar. You'd walk around, and you could stand at the end. Because I remember when I played there, Art Tatum used to come in every night and stand right over there to hear my band. He loved my band. He would come in every night. He wanted me to play some of my numbers that at that time were considered to be far ahead, because I was already using harmonies that no other bands were actually utilizing. I was deep into six at that time. Yeah, deep into six-part harmonies. Anyway - we're getting technical here now - but yeah, you'd see that bar and then the tables and chairs. And the bandstand was in the center of the building over on the right side, and there were tables all out from there.

We played all kinds of things and throughout the West over the next couple of years. We went to New York in 1946. We played the Apollo Theatre, and we were sensational there. I followed Duke Ellington at the Apollo, and Jimmie Lunceford followed me. So we were in top company. But we were very good. At that time we had recordings. I had about, oh, I'd say twenty or twenty-five sides by that time. I recorded my first recording date in 1945 on the Excelsior label. That's Otis Rene's label, the same label that Nat King Cole was on at the time. So my records were going very good. I had a couple of mild hits.

We left the Apollo, went to Pittsburgh, and then we went on into Chicago and we played there at the El Grotto for ten weeks. They built the whole show around my band. Marl Young, who's now on the board at the union [Local 47], he came in and subbed in my band for a few nights while we were in Chicago. This is before he came to L.A. I did six weeks at the Riviera in Saint Louis with Ella Fitzgerald. Joe Williams was my singer. And we packed this club - it would hold about twelve hundred people-every night for six weeks. And to really top it off, they had a special night there, I remember, where Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong battled my band. [laughter] And people were lined up around the corner.

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Walking Away from It

While I was in Saint Louis, I realized that I had already hit the top. I was already on top now. It was getting to be that way. My time was getting so that I would hardly have any time. The band was very popular. I had these weeks already signed with Louis Jordan, and then Eddie "Rochester" Anderson wanted me to tour with him. So everything was happening. I realized that I had hit the top too soon. I was not even near where I wanted to be as a musician, and I knew this. And, of course, when I said this to people, they said, "Well, what's wrong with the guy?" They just don't understand what you're trying to say.

Anyway, I made up my mind during the engagement in Saint Louis. I realized that this was not it. This was not it. And, of course, many people thought I was making a very big mistake, especially my booking office. I made up my mind that I was going to disband and return to Los Angeles, and I did just that. I paid off my men, and we came back to L.A., and I disbanded.

And then I started working with Phil Moore again, other people around town. I still had a lot of work to do musically. I started writing for a lot of people and studying, just studying and writing and playing just doing all kinds of stuff, and studying, as I said, studying very hard. I studied the classics, Stravinsky, Shostakovich,, Prokofiev, Khachaturian,, d'Indy, Bartok, Manuel de Falla, Villa-Lobos. I'm looking for everything. I'm looking for music to broaden my knowledge of music. I wasn't studying them to be classical. I was studying them to broaden my knowledge so that I could broaden my jazz. But as far as jazz writers, who was I going to study with? I was just about one of the best then and I knew it. Of course you're going to say, okay, there's a guy bragging. But I was doing it.

So I'm studying. I played with Benny Carter, with his small group. We played eight weeks out on Figueroa near Manchester at the Casbah with Kay Starr. Then we went into the Million Dollar [Theatre] with Nat King Cole. I played the Avedon Ballroom with Nat King Cole. That was downtown on Spring Street, right in back of the Orpheum Theatre. Fine ballroom. All the bands played there. And after that, I joined Count Basie in 1948, at the end Of 1948. But in between this time, I'm making recordings and playing all kinds of record dates, blues dates with people, artists, writing arrangements for different people, rhythm and blues, too. I was doing it all. So in 1948, about near the end of the year, Snooky Young had to leave to go back east, so I joined Count Basie.

Well, here was another opportunity. Here's Count Basie's band, and I was already writing. In fact, I made my first arrangement for Duke Ellington in 1947 that they recorded here on Columbia Records. So my first orchestrations for Duke Ellington [ "You've Got to Crawl Before You Walk" and "You're just an Old Antidisestablishmentarianismist" ] were in 1947, which came off very well. Billy Strayhorn and I were great friends. He's one of my-I would say, a mentor, because he is one of the few people that actually helped me. That was way back in the early forties. You know, showing me things, how to do some things. Anyway, that started an association with Duke for me. He actually wanted me to join his band. Duke asked me to join his band the minute I got back from disbanding my band, at the Dunbar Hotel. [laughter]

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Anyway, Count Basie needed someone to fill in for Snooky until Snooky would come back. He was supposed to come back right away. But I ended up leaving town with the band. They were at the Lincoln at the time. I played the Lincoln Theatre with him, and I left with him. I stayed with Count until way up into-that was '48, '49. 1 returned to Los Angeles in '49. So I did a lot of writing for Count during that period. I wrote a whole show, a theater review, for him. I did some other stuff for him that we played on dances. And when we went to New York, we did some recordings for Victor. I did most of the writing for all of the dates.

The Amalgamation

So when I got back in '49, Central Avenue was still hopping. And the union, of course, that's when they were getting into the amalgamation. So Buddy Collette and Red Callender-you know, they were my friends, my dear friends. And I remember they asked me to go with them and get in on the amalgamation thing. I joined their group. And I remember we went out to Los Angeles City College that first night that I went with them. We went out getting white musicians to sign the petition.

Hey, you know, I was from Detroit. There's no segregated unions in Detroit. And besides, what we were going for, I'm really for. So there was no problem there. So I joined their group and then I left, went back with Basie and finished out the year, '49, with Basie. In fact, I was with Basie when he disbanded. Nineteen fifty. So I stayed in New York, and I worked with Illinois Jacquet, and then I joined Dizzy Gillespie's band. I was with Dizzy when he broke up to get his small group. So big bands were folding. I went out on a tour with Billie Holiday. And then, after that, I came back to Los Angeles -that was 1950 - and did some things around town here, played, and then I -decided to do a show. I wrote a show called the "California Frolics Revue." We presented it at the Riverside Rancho. We were rehearsing at the union, over at 767.


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Anyway, while I was doing this rehearsing, I said to Buddy, "How are things going with the union?" He said, "Well, we're not doing too much right now." So I took it upon myself- I had a friend of mine, I ran into him, he was a lawyer. His name is Calvin Porter, still in business here. He was a friend of mine from Detroit when I was going to school. So I ran into him one night, we were just talking. And I said, "You know what? Calvin, I'm with a group of people. We're trying to get these unions amalgamated. We've been getting petitions signed and trying to get it going."

So he said, "Well, it sounds to me like there's something you're not doing. Obviously, the people who are in power at the union are running the union just as they want to, because there's nobody to stop them. First you've got to go in there and get this thing on the floor at the union. You slip in there on a day, on a general meeting, but you don't let them know you're coming. You go in. You will say, 'I move to make a motion that there will be a special meeting called for the specific purpose of discussing the amalgamation of Local 767 to Local 47."'

I immediately told Buddy what we had to do. We immediately got in touch with everybody that was concerned with the movement and people that we knew would be for the movement. But we didn't have too much to worry about, because my band was already big enough to outvote them-the band that we were rehearsing upstairs. So we went about it exactly like that. The next general meeting, they didn't know what was happening. All of a sudden, all of these people come walking in. We picked up people in automobiles.

As the meeting got started and things were moving, I held up my hand to make a motion. I stood up and made it to the president-Leo McCoy Davis was his name-and I made that motion. "I would like to make a motion that a special meeting will be called for the specific purpose of discussing the amalgamation of Local 767 to Local 47." 1 was talking with Bill Douglass recently, who recently was the treasurer here [at Local 47]. He says he seconded it, but I don't remember. I thought it was Percy McDavid. It could have been Bill.

Now, what did this do? This enabled the amalgamation people to be able to go in and then vote their people into the Local 767 leadership, where Bill Douglass, I believe, became the vice president. Now, the reason I'm getting into this is because this has all been forgotten. I don't remember seeing Marl there that day, and I don't remember seeing Benny Carter there that day. I didn't remember Benny into it at any time until later, because we all wanted Benny to be with us. We wanted Marl because of his ability and his legal background at the time. But that was the day that happened.

I fought for the amalgamation. When I sit here [at Local 47] tonight, I know that I am the one that made the motion for the first special meeting called for the amalgamation of Local 767 and Local 47. 1 know that I said those words because I found out what to do to give us another spur in that movement, although you never heard of it. That was an important battle in the battle.

And then, later, after that show that I did, I got a job with the Joe Adams Show on KTTV, and my band was working that. Buddy was in it, and Red Callender was my assistant on it. I was the music director for the show. We were on TV every week with the Joe Adams Show. And I played a benefit to raise money to support the amalgamation movement at the Humanist Hall on Union Avenue. And you couldn't get in the place that day.

Then I left. I went to San Francisco, so I don't remember how they went on from there. I went to San Francisco, where I stayed for a couple of years. I had a band up there before I came back in 1954.

Those were the years that the Avenue really declined. By the time I got back in 1954, things had moved. The Oasis was the big thing. It was on Western Avenue. When I got back the blacks had gotten over to Western Avenue and over in there, Exposition and Figueroa. And Central Avenue, I guess, just kept declining. The theaters were gone, the Lincoln and all of that stuff was kind of just going down, and it was not happening anymore. Everything had moved west.


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"There's no place like Central Avenue."

Central Avenue was a place where my people lived. So the point is that Central Avenue was just like 125th Street in New York, that's where all the black people were. They couldn't go any other place. Where were they going to go? They could work at a couple of places out here, but they couldn't go in the front door. So they were all there together, just like that. They had to stay here, they had to live here. Duke Ellington: you'd catch him right there at the Dunbar. Count Basie, right there. [laughter] We all had the same thing in New York. No different in New York.

Central has a lot to do with me. You must remember that I organized my first band here. It was here that I had a chance to determine which way I wanted to go, and I had inspiration here. As I say, Phil Moore was one of my biggest inspirations as a writer. And Calvin Jackson, who later moved here. I didn't mention it, but Calvin Jackson also wrote arrangements for Jimmie Lunceford when I was with Jimmie Lunceford's band. That's when he was just a freelance piano player and writer around New York. He later joined Harry James. Wrote a lot of stuff for Harry James. Then he went to MGM and did so much work over there for them. But all these people were here. And the other people were coming in and out all the time. Count's band was coming in and out. In fact, I rehearsed my first number with Count Basie here at the Aragon Ballroom when they were playing out there on the beach-Venice somewhere-another ballroom that blacks couldn't even go into.

Central is just as important as 125th Street in New York City, or South Park in Chicago, Cedar Street, I think, in Pittsburgh. They all have it. All of the cities have a street. It's the street where the black people live. And I think it's important to Los Angeles, no matter what color you are. And it was very important to the music, jazz, because it was a place where it lived. And everyone came there, all of the biggest. You don't come any bigger than Duke Ellington. You don't come any bigger than Jelly Roll Morton. He died here. He's right out there in the Calvary Cemetery on the Eastside here.


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So jazz is very important in Los Angeles, and Central Avenue - There's no place like Central Avenue. Because I'd rather come here. When I got here that beautiful day, and there was this beautiful street with a beautiful hotel to stay in, the Dunbar, which I didn't have in New York City They didn't have a decent hotel for you to stay in there. But Los Angeles had the Dunbar Hotel and had that nice street, beautiful street. That's all I can say about it.

I would like to see a lot of my people into this [music] today. I'm not seeing that. In fact, I'm seeing less and less as I go about the United States lecturing on orchestration and composing and arranging. And I look up in a class of a hundred, and I only see one black, or I see no blacks. Two weeks ago, at the Grove School of Music, I lectured to the arranging class, and there was not one black there. That disturbs me. Where are we going to be, then? What are we going to do? Will there be one day that there will be no more?

But I'm talking about these things because I'm trying to explain to you what music, jazz, means to me and my people. Where are my people now? I'm a member of the board of governors of NARAS [National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences], the Grammy people, for the second time. I had two nominations. I have two first-place Down Beat [magazine] awards. I have many awards. But where are my young people that are coming up to carry on the thing for these people? We are a people here. As much as we can be swallowed up, we are still a people. Where are we going? What are we doing? These are the things I'm thinking about now.”

…. To Be Continued in Part 



© - Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


“Gerald has an uncanny harmonic sense which produces quite an emotional experience.” 
– Richard Bock

“Wilson’s writing leans toward thick, textured sounds in which the arrangements are as prominent as the soloists.” – Ted Gioia
“Your first ten years are thrown away. If you did pretty good for those ten years, you’re just starting.” 
- Gerald Wilson to Pete Watrous

“Writing is easy for me now. Writing is just a memory anyway – you just remember everything you learned and just put it down.”
- Gerald Wilson to Jon Garelick




“The legacy of Gerald Wilson and the Monterey Jazz Festival are closely linked. From his first visits to Monterey in the early 1960's playing and hanging out with Diz and Monk to his commission pieces for our 25th, 40th and now 50th anniversary, Gerald's spirit has infused the festival with his unique brand of artistry, humanity and pure, swingin' fun. Gerald Wilson and the Monterey Jazz Festival have helped create a vibrant and long-lasting west coast musical spirit. It's a great partnership and we are honored to be associated with him!” 
--Tim Jackson, General Manager, Monterey Jazz Festival

“Playing with Gerald Wilson is always such a joy and an inspiration, as is hearing the results. … you'll also discover Gerald Wilson the person ... intelligent, wise, full of joy and classy, just like his compositions.” 
--Jon Faddis
“Gerald Wilson is one of the greatest composers and arrangers living today. Monterey Moods, is another example of his genius.” 
--Kenny Burrell
“Gerald Wilson's longevity with his creativity alone gives testimony to his value as an international treasure.” 
--Hubert Laws

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No doubt one of the reasons that for many of us the Gerald Wilson Orchestra of the decade of the 1960's seemed to appear fully formed from out of nowhere was due to the scarcity of available recordings that featured earlier variants of his orchestra.

Jazz fans should all give thanks to the advent of the compact disc, because it has helped bring forward some of the exciting, earlier recordings from Mr. Wilson’s Orchestra
.
Thankfully, too, Richard Bock of Pacific Jazz Records and Albert Marx of Discovery/Trend Records stepped in to prevent this scarcity from spreading further with a veritable explosion of Mr. Wilson on record in the 1960's.

Longevity has not diminished Mr. Wilson’s creative powers and this along with his accumulated body of work has afforded him a stature that has resulted in a number of recordings that continued to document his work well into the first decade of the 21st century.

This 2nd portion of the feature on Mr. Wilson will spend time with reviews of some of these recordings - “Then and Now?”
It will also delve into Mr. Wilson’s treatment of melody, harmony, rhythm and texture that combined to make his composing and arranging styles so distinctive.

Before doing so, let’s turn to Doug Ramsey’s always informative and insightful insert notes to The Complete Pacific Jazz Recordings of Gerald Wilson and His Orchestra [Mosaic MD5-198] for a brief review of the salient features of Mr. Wilson’s career.

© -Doug Ramsey/Mosaic Records; used with permission; copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“The great lead trumpeter and soloist Snooky Young left Count Basie in 1944 to join a new band Gerald Wilson had formed in Los Angeles. "Everybody thought I was crazy for leaving Basie to go with Gerald," Young said on a National Public Radio Jazz Profiles program, "but it was a friendship thing. I wasn't aware of doing anything crazy and I didn't, because it was very good for me to play with Gerald's first band. We went on to New York and played the Apollo Theater, and for a young, new band, we did a lot of big things."

If Young was gambling, he hedged his bet with inside information. From the days when they sat together in the Jimmie Lunceford trumpet section, he knew the 26-year-old Wilson's abilities as a player and a composer-arranger. Wilson's early work for Lunceford sent advance notice of a writer who brought a new kind of harmonic richness to big band arranging. Musicians across the country took notice, as did an 11-year-old fan who said the Lunceford band was what made him decide in 1941 to become a musician. "There were two tunes that Gerald Wilson wrote for that band that just laid me out," pianist and composer Horace Silver said on Jazz Profiles. "They were on the same record, flip sides. One was called In SPOOK. The other was called YARD DOG MAZURKA. The arrangements and the melodies knocked me out."

Silver was not alone in his admiration. In 1946, Ray Wetzel purloined the essential elements Of YARD DOG MAZURKA to make INTERMISSION RIFF for the Stan Kenton band.

The few recordings of Wilson's 1944-1947 band make it plain that the notice and excitement it caused were justified. Pieces like CRUISIN' WITH CAB, DISSONANCE IN BLUE and his arrangement of Dizzy Gillespie’s GROOVIN' HIGH establish that this young leader achieved a canny balance between the proven values of swing and the challenging innovations of bebop. The band was a hit in Los Angeles in its debut engagement of two months at Shepp's Playhouse, followed by a run at the Orpheum Theater, then dates in San Francisco, Oakland, Denver and at New York's Apollo Theater. At the Apollo, Wilson and his men followed Duke Ellington. The Daily News wrote, "A young band from California opened at the Apollo today, and you wouldn't know that Duke Ellington had closed."

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There was something new and unusual in the density of Wilson's chord voicings, particularly in the brass section. In an oral history inter-view for the MAMA archives, Wilson said of his work in those years, "My record of GROOVIN' HIGH (1945) proves that we were the most adventurous orchestra of the year. No other bands were into what we did. My players were all playing bebop. My pianist, Jimmy Bunn, was on Charlie Parker’s LOVER MAN session. We had an arrangement of OUT OF THIS WORLD that I reharmonized the structure for - I used all alternate chords. If the [original] chord was B-flat minor, I used the alternative, D-flat major. About everything was alternate. Also, I used a couple of tempo changes."

And yet, Wilson's use of ideas - known in 20th-century classical music but rare in jazz - attracted listeners who might have been intimidated by a band like Boyd Raeburn's that was taking such notions a step or two further. It was not out of the question to mention Wilson's band in the same breath as Basie's, Ellington's, Herman's and Kenton's. Although the economic indicators were not good for continuation of he big band boom, it may be that Wilson had the talent, leadership ability and charisma to carry him through the hard times that caused most of the nation's big bands to fold by the end of the decade. He signed a three-year contract with Mercury Records. His band recorded with Dinah Washington, broke all attendance records in St. Louis on a tour with Ella Fitzgerald, was set to tour for 15 weeks in a package with Louis Jordan's phenomenally popular band. After less than three years as a bandleader, Wilson was at the top.

He thought he had gotten there too soon. In 1947, he disbanded. "I decided when I closed with Ella that I was going to have to study some more. I wanted to be able to write anything," he told Jazz Profiles. "I wanted to be able to write for the symphony orchestra; I wanted to write for the movies; I wanted to write for television. I wanted to be able to do it with great speed, great accuracy, and that's what I did. But I didn't stop playing."

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Wilson holed up with scores, analyzing works by Stravinsky, Debussy, Falla, Ravel, Kabalevsky, Khatchaturian, Bartok. In a prodigy of self-teaching, he absorbed the techniques of those classical masters. He would apply their lessons for all the years of his long career. He achieved each of his goals, including works for symphony orchestra, motion pictures and TV, but especially writing prolifically for big bands, his own and others. Half a year into his study exile, he got a call from another leader asking him for help. It was Duke Ellington. He wrote for Ellington off and on for most of the rest of Duke's life, and occasionally filled out the trumpet section when Ellington needed an additional horn. Later in 1948, he joined Count Basie, playing and writing. "That was study, too," he says, "sitting where swing really happened. That great rhythm section was really the common denominator for swing." After Basic disbanded in 1949, Wilson joined Dizzy Gillespie's big band. For Basic he wrote the lovely ballad KATY and with Basie composed ST. LOUIS BABY. For Gillespie he arranged GUARACHI GUARO, which became influential in the development of Latin jazz in the '40s and had a second life when Cal Tjader adapted it in the '50s. During all of that extracurricular activity, Wilson continued studying and preparing for his next steps.

Before long, Gillespie Joined the parade of disbanders, forced out of the band business by changing economics, tastes and culture. Billie Holiday's manager asked Wilson to put together a big band to back the singer on a tour. Johnny Coles, Philly Joe Jones, Melba Liston, Willie Cook and a number of other fine musicians were among his players. Despite the quality ingredients, the venture did not go well. Crowds were small. "We were out on the road not making any money," Gerald says, "and Melba and I wound up feeding the guys and paying their rent and we went broke." He returned to Los Angeles.

In 1950, Wilson was music director for an L.A. television musical variety program than ran for six months. He arranged and conducted, but was never shown on the screen. Through the 1950s that was typical television policy regarding black musicians. In 1951, Gerald and his wife Josefina moved to San Francisco. His band in the Bay Area included trombonist Bob Collins, pianist Cedric Haywood, and two saxophonists, Jerry Dodgion and Jerome Richardson, who would become mainstays of the New York jazz scene in the late '50s and early '60s.

Back in Los Angeles in 1954, Wilson put together a band, in what was the beginning of what he describes as his commercial period, which lasted for most of the '50s. "I was doing a lot of writing in those days for shows, at the Moulin Rouge in Las Vegas and other places, and for rhythm and blues artists, Jackie Davis among others. My deal in those days was mostly writing and orchestrating. The big band worked whenever we had an engagement."

Richard Bock, president of Pacific Jazz records, had a roster of some of the most prominent musicians in what had come to be called the West Coast Jazz movement. They included Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Bud Shank and Bob Gordon. Bock did not have a big band on his label.
"I knew Dick Bock and had followed his work," Wilson told me. "The first time I approached him about recording, in 1953, was at a Billy Eckstine record date I was visiting. And there were other occasions through the '50s when I ran into him and brought it up. He explained that, for various reasons, it was hard to record a big band. But in 1960, he called me. He had set up a deal through Albert Marx to record me."

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Wilson was under contract to Marx, the president of Discovery and Trend Records. Bock recorded the successful series of Gerald Wilson albums for Pacific Jazz, but Marx owned the records. As they do today, Wilson's sidemen constituted a cross section of Los Angeles jazz players, black and white, youngsters and veterans, from the studios and the clubs. They had in common the musicianship Wilson could quickly observe and sometimes sense in a potential member. His leadership is based on mutual respect and his magnetism, not on strictness. He has more in common with Ellington and Herman than with disciplinarians like Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and Buddy Rich. Trumpeter Bobby Rodriguez, who has played for Wilson in recent years, talked on the NPR program about the first time he saw Wilson in action.

"The way he moved his hands, the way he grouped the guys together, his ability to talk, his ability to laugh, make the audience have fun. It was his whole impact, not just the 18-piece orchestra, but his person."
"I don't have any pep talks with my men at all," Wilson says. "We hardly rehearse, unless we're going to make a recording date. Maybe we'll run it over once or twice, not like these bands that rehearse every week. The music's there and it's always going to be a certain quality. I don't get angry at the guys when they miss a note. It doesn't bother me. jazz, to me, has to be loose. You can't be tight. When you get too tight in jazz, it isn't making it. Same thing with Duke Ellington. He let his band be relaxed, be loose, take it easy. Nobody gets excited here. You're late? Okay, so you're late. Let's play."….

Wilson’s writing is absolutely up to date, or a bit beyond, while observing the eternal blues truths.

And so it remains in performances by his orchestras of the ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s and a new century, in the ears, hearts and minds of his listeners, and in tangible form in the nation’s capitol. In 1996, the Library of Congress honored Wilson’s lifetime achievement by establishing a Gerald Wilson archive. Generations of musicians, scholars and admirers will be able to study a comprehensive collection of his compositions, arrangements, orchestrations and recordings….”

Before moving on to a review of some of the recordings in Mr. Wilson’s discography, perhaps an effort might be made at identifying those characteristics that make his style so distinctive.

In this regard, it might be helpful to keep the following distinction by author Mark Gridley from his Jazz Styles: History and Analysis in mind:

“By comparison with all other big bands, the Wilson band achieved a groove that more closely resembles hard bop. The moods were funky and earthy, as though Wilson had created a big-band equivalent to the organ/tenor sax combos that were common at inner city taverns during the 1950’s and 1960s.” [p. 291]

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Also helpful is the following representation by Ted Gioia from his West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California, 1945-1960 which bears repeating from the opening quotations to this piece:

Wilson’s writing leans toward thick textured sounds in which the arrangements are as prominent as the soloists. Some have traced a Kenton influence in his work …” [p. 142].

Both Gridley and Gioia focus on the “texture” of Mr. Wilson’s music.
As we shall see, a number of other writers in their reviews of Mr. Wilson’s recordings also stress the “texture” of his music as something that makes it so unique and so appealing.

But what is a musical definition of “texture” which joins with melody, harmony and rhythm [meter] as a fourth building block used to create a musical composition?

Ironically, of these four basic musical atoms, the most indefinable yet the one we first notice is – texture.

Texture is the word that is used to refer to the actual sound of the music. This encompasses the instruments with which it is played; its tonal colors; its dynamics; its sparseness or its complexity.

Texture involves anything to do with the sound experience and it is the word that is used to describe the overall impression that a piece of music creates in our emotional imagination.

Often our first and most lasting impression of a composition is usually based on that work’s texture, even though we are not aware of it. Generally, we receive strong musical impressions from the physical sound of any music and these then determine our emotional reaction to the work.

Beyond the texture or sound of his music and the lasting physical and emotional impact it can create, Mr. Wilson’s music is also heavily rhythmic – the most visceral and fundamental of all the musical elements.

Music takes place in time and like many great composers, Mr. Wilson uses rhythms and the relationships between rhythms to express many moods and musical thoughts.

He uses rhythm to provide a primal, instinctive kind of foundation for the other musical thoughts [themes and motifs] to build upon.
This combination of powerful, repetitive rhythmic phrases and the manner in which he textures the sound of his music over them provides many of Mr. Wilson’s compositions with a magisterial quality.

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Another of Mr. Wilson’s great skills as a composer is that he never seems to be at a loss for the new rhythms that he needs to create musical interest in his work. He is a master at using the creative tension between unchanging meter and constantly changing rhythms and these rhythmic variations help to produce a vitality in his music.
In his use of melody, Mr. Wilson’s approach to composing, arranging and orchestrating appears to have much in common with the Classical composers of the late 18th and early 19th century [Mozart & Beethoven as examples] in that he relies on a series of measured and balanced musical phrases as the mainstay of much of his work.
And like these Classical composers, Mr. Wilson is also careful not to let one musical element overwhelm the others: balance between elements is as important as balance within any one of them.

Mr. Wilson obviously places a high value on melody in his writing as his themes have a way of finding themselves into one’s subconscious and staying there a la – “I can’t get this tune out of my head.”

This is in large part because Mr. Wilson’s melodies are actually easily remembered short phrases, generally four or eight bars in length and these are often heard in combination with other similar phrases to fashion something akin to a musical mosaic with individual pieces joining together to create a musical whole.

Mr. Wilson crafts little melodic devices that are wonderful examples of the composer’s art. And he has learned over the years to base his compositions out of the fewest possible melodic building blocks because if there too many melodies, or for that matter, too many rhythms and too many different chords in a piece, the listener can get confused and eventually bored.

And on the subject of chords, the building blocks of harmony, here Mr. Wilson’s approach involving multi-part harmony is more akin to modern composers such as Debussy, Bartok and Stravinsky than to those of the Classical period.

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Mr. Wilson pioneered the application of 8-part harmony to Jazz writing for big bands. Turning again to Doug Ramsey’s insert notes to the Mosaic set of Mr. Wilson’s Pacific Jazz recordings, he explains that “I asked the composer and orchestrator Jeff Sultanoff about the use of eight-part harmony in jazz and Wilson’s role in it. Sultanoff said:
“As Gerald defines it, it means that in an eight-part brass section, all parts are different, no doubling octaves and such. He was probably the first to do this, although other arrangers had tried similar things. I can think of Pete Rugolo as an immediate example, but he did not start doing it until 1946, whereas Gerald claims that he was doing it as early as 1945. I can also think of Ellington and Strayhorn who did not voice ensembles in the “standard” way. There are isolated examples of it in Eddie Sauter and Bill Finegan’s work, but I don’t recall anyone doing it on a regular basis before Gerald.”

While it is always challenging at best to attempt to describe music in words, this overview of Mr. Wilson’s use of the four musical atoms – rhythm, melody, harmony and texture – may be helpful to listen for as we now turn to a review of selections from his discography.
As was noted earlier, the advent of the compact discs has once again made available music by artists who were recording before the advent of the 33 1/3 rpm long-playing album and/or who were recording for very small and relatively obscure labels [Excelsior and Black & White!].

Although, Mr. Wilson’s first recordings fall into both of these categories, many of them can now be found on three CD reissues: [1] Gerald Wilson and His Orchestra 1945-46 [The Classic Chronological Series #976], [2] Gerald Wilson and His Orchestra 1946-54 [The Classic Chronological Series #1444]; Big Band Modern [The Jazz Factory JFCD 22880].

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The movie writer and actor Les Carter was quoted in Arnold Schenker’s insert notes to Gerald Wilson and His Orchestra 1945-46 as saying:

“Gerald does all things well. He is a craftsman in every way. He hand picks the musicians carefully, he selects the material, and then he bolsters the band and the audience with his own enthusiasm and exuberance. Gerald is a total musician. He touches all bases, and like a good a good director he is the man in charge.”

Three of the highlights on this CD for me are Mr. Wilson’s arrangements of Groovin’ High, Cruisin’ with Cab and One O’clock Jump, all of which indicate the very innovative direction his big band arranging was taking at this early date.

And Richard Cook and Brian Morton offer these observations in their Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD:

“After a short stint in the Navy at the end of the Second World War, the talented trumpeter and composer decided to form his own band. It was a progressive outfit … [with a] faintly experimental air … [and] these early recordings are full of interest.

Although he features as a trumpeter on Duke’s “Come Sunday” his main role is as arranger, turning in crisp, intelligent charts which anticipate the work of later years. There is already a signature Wilson sound: slightly dark, over-toned, regular without being robotic. … Even when the sound is less than pristine, the content I always involving.”

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And here is Michael Nastos excellent and comprehensive review of Gerald Wilson and His Orchestra 1946-54 as written for www.allmusic.com:

After leaving Detroit and arriving in Los Angeles, Gerald Wilson formed his first big band in 1944. By 1946 he was firmly established as a fine trumpet player, arranger, and composer, and was developing a style fit not only for modern jazz, but also eventually film scores. The dramatics apropos for both formats is evident on this second installment of Wilson's chronological recordings for the Classics reissue label, culled from recordings originally on the Black and White, United Artists, Excelsior, Federal, King, and Audio Lab labels.

There are five different mid-sized orchestras with musicians from L.A., all quite literate and displaying different areas of expertise, and Wilson writes with each player's individual sound in mindOf course they work as a unified whole, and you get to hear a lot of Wilson's trumpet work.

The Black and White sessions from 1946 have the band swinging very hard on the happy bop-bop "Et-ta," while hoppin' and barkin' for "The Saint." The opposite slow side is shown on "Pensive Mood" and the sad, dreary "The Moors." These tracks feature then-young trombonist, composer, and arranger Melba Liston, who of course would go on to great acclaim. Recordings from 1947 for United Artists and Excelsior feature vocalist Dan Grissom, showcased on two ballads, displaying a large range and somewhat effeminate style, and there's a finger-snappin' group vocal with Grissom, Liston, and Trummy Young, "Va-ance," that approaches the territory of the Modernaires.

Four more for Excelsior in 1949 reveal Wilson moving into film noir, hinted at by the spy movie piece "Dissonance in Blues" from the 1947 cuts, but more pronounced here. Wilson is assertive on his horn, and ramps up the dramatic tension on the stairstep motif of "The Black Rose" while also offering an expanded version of "Guarachi-Guaro," the second section infusing expansive oboe and flute. Here the outstanding West Coast alto saxophonist Buddy Collette also enters the fray.

Jumping up to 1954, Wilson offers up three two-part pieces all prominently showcasing the exotic vibrato flute sound of Bill Green — the hot and spicy "Mambo Mexicano," dynamic up-and-down desert dune caravan-ish "Algerian Fantasy," and slow-as-sunset "Lotus Land." These are much more provocative, but in addition, the band is loaded with all-stars like trumpeter Clark Terry, trombonist Britt Woodman, tenor saxophonists Paul Gonsalves and Teddy Edwards, and a very young Jerry Dodgion on alto sax. These cuts use pronounced world music elements in a way that Duke Ellington hinted at, and all are exuberant and levitating. The remaining pieces are the contradictory titled hard bopper "Romance," Khachaturian’s famous Spanish classical ballad "Bull Fighter," and a different "Black Rose" (unknown author) than the one written by Wilson heard earlier on the CD. This collection really drives home how this group, unique unto itself, was able to stretch stereotypical big-band jazz and take it into a new arena, fueled by the vast imagination of Gerald Wilson. The only unsolved mystery: un-attributed credits about various clearly audible Latin percussionists who are never identified.”

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Writing in his insert notes to Big Band Modern, Matias Rinar offer the following comments on the significance of the recordings and its music:

This release presents an ultra rare LP by the Gerald Wilson orchestra for the first time ever on CD. Although he recorded innumerable sessions as an arranger and as a trumpeter, this is the only studio session recorded by Wilson under his own name between 1947 and 1961, when he began a long term recording contract with Pacific records. The only exceptions to this are two short vocal sides that were also cut in L.A. in 1954, for the small label called "Hollywood", under the title "Linda Hayes accompanied by Gerald Wilson and his orchestra".

What makes "Big Band Modern" even more interesting is that six of the eight tunes on the album were composed by Wilson himself. The two remaining pieces were written by contemporary European composers. "Lotus Land" belongs to the eccentric English composer Cyril Scott (18791970), who was known as a poet and occultist, in addition to his work as a composer. A dear friend of Percy Grainger, Scott's music was admired by Debussy, Stravinsky and Richard Strauss. Originally written for the piano, "Lotus Land" is Scott's most famous piece, arranged here by Wilson for his big band. Aram Khachaturian's "Bull Fighter" is the album's only other composition not written by Wilson. A Russian composer of Armenian origin, Khachaturian (1903-1978) was one of the leading soviet composers of his time, along with Prokofiev and Shostakovich…..

Considering the dearth of Wilson’s recordings with his own band during this period, the 1950 concert recorded in San Francisco – which is included on this release as a bonus – is, without a doubt, an essential addition to Wilson’s recorded legacy, an extremely important discographic discovery. In fact, this concert has never been previously released on any format.

Of the concert's seven tracks, three of them - "Sea Breeze" and both versions of "Hollywood Freeway" - are compositions by Wilson, performed by his band with the addition of several superlative guest stars. Alto saxophonist Sonny Criss ... shines on the first version of "Hollywood Freeway", while the three tenor guests - none other than Stan Getz, Wardell Gray and Zoot Sims can be heard here in top form on the second one. The four standards are showcase pieces for the tenor soloists. We are fortunate to add two new performances to Wardell Gray's short discography. He plays here on "Nice Work if You Can Get It" and "Indiana". "Out of Nowhere" is a feature for Stan Getz (notice the way he quotes "Broadway"!). "It Had to Be You" is Zoot Sims' solo feature, but it is unfortunately incomplete at the tune's climax, because the original recording machine ran out of tape! However, Zoot can be heard well on the last orchestral tune.

Beyond the mentioned little inconvenience, the excellent sound quality of this concert is surprising. It was originally recorded in Stereo, which was a completely new technology in 1950. Together, both of these very rare sessions cover an interesting gap in Gerald Wilson's career, preceding the true gems that would come in the following years.”

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And now we come to the bonanza that are the 1960s recordings by Mr. Wilson on the Pacific Jazz [8] and World Pacific [2] labels, all 10 of which have all been collected and reissued with superbly remixed audio quality as The Complete Pacific Jazz Recordings of Gerald Wilson and His Orchestra [Mosaic MD5-198].

As has already been alluded to but bears repeating nonetheless, one shudders to think of what would have been the case for Mr. Wilson’s recording career had it not been for the perspicacity of Richard Bock and Albert Marx, the President of Discovery and Trend Records.

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Between 1961 and 1969, ten albums – eight on Pacific Jazz and two on World Pacific – were recorded and issued under Mr. Wilson’s name [those Pacific Jazz LPs involving his work with trumpeter Carmell Jones and pianist/vocalist Les McCann are not included in the Mosaic set].
Ironically this gushing forth of recording activity for Mr. Wilson and his orchestra in the 1960s was occurring when the number of big bands was an ever-dwindling number. However, since Mr. Wilson chose to populate his orchestra with professionals musicians whose main livelihood was derived from work in the Hollywood studios, thus limiting it to local appearance and recordings, he was never subjected to the rigors of trying to make it on the road with his 1960’s orchestra.
Fortunately for Mr. Wilson, there was still enough of a big band Jazz market in existence in the 1960s and his exciting orchestra’s recordings did very well in terms of overall sales.

Here are two compendiums of the Mosaic The Complete Pacific Jazz Recordings of Gerald Wilson and His Orchestra. The first is by C. Andrew Hovan writing in www.allaboutjazz.com:

“Even with the reissue boon that has resulted in so much obscure music seeing the light of day, certain artists have not fared well when it comes to the availability of their work. Dick Bock’s Pacific Jazz imprimatur falls under the Blue Note/Capitol umbrella, but past reissues have seemed to focus on “cool school” items with sets from Chet Baker, Bud Shank, and Bill Perkins being the norm. Hard bop artists such as Curtis Amy, Paul Bryant, Frank Butler, The Jazz Crusaders, Charles Kynard and Gerald Wilson have been much less represented in the entire scheme of things. In Wilson’s case, out of the ten albums he made during his stay with Pacific Jazz, only two have ever been reissued on CD in the United States. This sad state of affairs is certainly put right with Mosaic’s new packaging of the entire output of Wilson’s Pacific Jazz sides as a leader, although the terrific sessions he arranged for Les McCann and Carmel Jones are not included here and will hopefully see their own reissue at some later date.

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With experience as an arranger for Jimmy Lunceford behind him, gifted writer and bandleader Gerald Wilson set up his own big band in 1944 and has actively maintained an ensemble of some kind or another ever since. By the time he hooked up with Dick Bock and Pacific Jazz in 1961, Wilson had already become one of the most distinguished composers and arrangers of his era. Unfortunately, the mere fact that he resided on the West Coast meant that he was not as well known to record buyers of the time as Count Basie or Duke Ellington. You Better Believe It is notable for the appearance of organist Groove Holmes, soon to become a major seller for Pacific Jazz in his own right. “The Wailer” and “Blues For Yna Yna” are particularly choice on this memorable maiden voyage.

The first of many tributes to matadors (bull fighting being one of Wilson’s favorite pastimes), “Viva Tirado” makes its appearance on Moment of Truth. The homage scheme reaches its ultimate fruition on Portraits, with pieces dedicated to matador Paco Camino, master musician Ravi Shankar, composer Aram Khachaturian, and jazz great Eric Dolphy. Soloists Joe Pass, Teddy Edwards, and Jack Wilson play prominent roles in all three of these aforementioned quintessential albums.

Giving a jazzy update to pop material of the day was not uncommon during the ‘60s. Duke Ellington, of course, made an entire album of his own version of the score from “Mary Poppins.” Wilson was also ingenious enough to handle such challenging assignments, although the closest he ever got to an entire album of pop-inflected material was on Feelin’ Kinda Blues. Even here though, Wilson’s integrity as an arranger comes shining through on such unlikely numbers as the Beatles’ “Yesterday” and James Browns’ “I Feel Good.”

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The Golden Sword, from 1966, is one of the best Wilson albums of the entire Pacific Jazz lot and it features the “Latin tinge” that Jelly Roll Morton often spoke of, with bullfighting and Mexican motifs also exploited to their fullest. “Carlos” is another tribute to a bullfighter, in this case being Carlos Arruza. Other highly attractive pieces include “Blues Latinese” and “The Feather.” Never content to stay too long in one area however, it was back to more traditional forms for the next set which documented a few evenings from the bands’ stay at Marty’s On The Hill in Los Angeles. Trumpeter Charles Tolliver, a truly inventive talent who has yet to receive his dues, makes his debut with the band on this occasion and his own early masterpiece, “The Paper Man,” is part of the program.

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The final threesome of Wilson albums for Pacific Jazz ( Everywhere, California Soul, and Eternal Equinox ) carries us through to the end of the ‘60s. Occasional pop material figured into the mix, such as “Light My Fire,” “Aquarius,” and “Sunshine of You Love,” yet Wilson’s ability to transcend material (Oliver Nelson was another genius in this department) insures that each of these albums has more than enough valuable music to make for an easy recommendation. In short, the entire body of work as presented in this collection is worthy of rediscovery, not just those known entities. In addition, prominent artists to play a part in these closing sets include Bobby Hutcherson, Roy Ayers, Bud Shank, and Anthony Ortega

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For devoted Mosaic followers the usual packaging remains constant; a 12 x 12 box houses the five compact discs and a 20-page booklet. In addition to a complete discography and session-by-session annotation by writer Doug Ramsey, there are a wealth of photos from such photographers as Ray Avery, Woody Woodward, and Francis Wolff.”
And the second compendium of the Mosaic The Complete Pacific Jazz Recordings of Gerald Wilson and His Orchestra is by Harvey Pekar which appeared in the JazzTimes [April, 2001].

“These are among the finest of all large ensemble jazz recordings of the past 50 years, and Gerald Wilson is a great big-band composer/arranger/leader, although he has not received enough credit for a couple of major reasons. He came to the fore after the end of the big band era, and his outfits did not tour. Hopefully, this five-CD set will refocus attention on his major accomplishments.

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From 1939 to 1942, Wilson not only played trumpet with Jimmie Lunceford, but also wrote charts for him, including "Yard Dog Mazurka," some of which was incorporated into "Intermission Riff," and "Hi Spook." During World War II he played in Willie Smith's Great Lakes Naval Training Station Band, and by the time he was discharged or shortly thereafter had assimilated a lot of bop into his writing style, as his earliest (1945 and 1946) big-band discs indicate. His recordings as a big bandleader were infrequent, however, until this series of LPs he cut for Pacific from 1961 to 1969.

The bands Wilson wrote for at that time were Los Angeles-based, post-bop all-star units containing top echelon section players and soloists including trumpeters Carmell Jones, Conte Candoli, Charles Tolliver and ace lead player Al Porcino, woodwind men Teddy Edwards, Harold Land, Walter Benton, Joe Maini, Jimmy Woods, Bud Shank, Buddy Collette, Anthony Ortega and Jack Nimitz, pianists Jack Wilson and Jimmy Rowles, guitarist Joe Pass, vibists Roy Ayers and Bobby Hutcherson, bassists Leroy Vinnegar and Jimmy Bond and drummers Mel Lewis and Frank Butler. The first album Wilson made with Pacific featured the work of organist Richard "Groove" Holmes, and it's a tribute to his ability as an arranger that he uses Holmes very sensitively, so that a nice balance is maintained between his playing and the rest of the band.

Wilson's compositions here reflect his wide range of musical interests. There are a number of blues of various sorts here, including his well-known blues waltz "Blues for Yna Yna." Wilson often wrote in 3/4 meter. "Aram" is interesting partly because of the inclusion of a taste of 4/4 in this mainly 3/4 composition. It keeps listeners on their toes.

There are also Spanish and Latin American influences here, as heard on "Viva Tirado,""Latino,""Paco" and "Teri," during which Wilson employs Pass playing acoustic guitar. There are many references in Wilson's music to things Mexican, including compositions dedicated to bullfighters in that country. Spanish composer Manuel DeFalla influenced "Caprichos," and there's also an adaptation by Wilson of a DeFalla theme, "Chanson du Feu Follet." Modal selections include Wilson's original "Patterns" and versions of "Milestones" and "So What." When Wilson's band wants to lay back its ears and swing, it does so with the best of them, as on "Emerge,""Eric" and "Perdido." And if you dig lovely ballads, try "Josefina,""El Viti" and a very nice cover of "'Round Midnight."

Wilson's arrangements are uniformly rich and full of contrasts. On "El Viti" he employs eight-part harmony for brass. The quality of the solos is consistently high. Not only is Wilson's band full of fine improvisers, they play with constant inspiration. Many are familiar to knowledgeable jazz fans, but a few aren't. Pay particular attention to the alto-sax work of Anthony Ortega, who played Charlie Parkerish solos in 1953 when he was with Lionel Hampton, but continued to evolve and improve his chops into the 1960s. Here his work may have a general similarity to Eric Dolphy's, but is quite original and full of imagination and surprises.”

To conclude this odyssey into Mr. Wilson’s musical world let’s turn to three of his more recent recordings: [1] Theme for Monterey - 2003 [2] New York New Sound - 2003 and In My Time 2005.

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As Kirk Silsbee explains by way of background in his insert notes to Theme for Monterey[MAMA Foundation MMF 1021]:

“1963 was a momentous year for the Monterey Jazz Festival. Modern Jazz, in the form of Miles, Monk, Mulligan and the Modern Quartet, studded the bill. Clearly, the Monterey Jazz festival had come of age. Jimmy Lyons, the festival’s founder, had already presented the best of the remaining jazz orchestras from the Golden Age: Duke, Basie, Woody, Harry James. Now Lyons would indulge his own special passion, big band music, in an important way.

Gerald Wilson, at the cutting edge of jazz orchestration, was given the dominant big band forum that weekend in September. The Los Angeles bandleader whose musical lieutenants included Teddy Edwards, Harold Land, Jack Wilson and Joe Pass, would give the jazz world a message: the future is this way.

Riding on the success of its Pacific Jazz albums, the Gerald Wilson Orchestra delivered an object lesson in the possibilities of big band music. Demanding time signatures, multiple key changes, intricate harmonies and, above all, swing, were explored in a new and exciting way. Louis-Victor Mialy, reviewing the Festival for the Paris-based Jazz magazine, viewed Wilson’s showing as the most exciting thing he’d seen since Dizzy brought his orchestra to France in 1948.”

Echoing the tone of Mr. Silsbee’s remarks is this review of the recording which appears in Richard Cook and Brian Morton’s The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD:

Wilson was a natural choice for the keynote new work at the 4oth anniversary Monterey Jazz Festival. Prestigious as such a commission is, no one could have expected a piece of such grave and joyous brilliance as Theme For Monterey. At more than three quarters of an hour, it has a scope and simplicity of purpose which few contemporary players would have dared, and yet repeated listening reveals a whole raft of subtle ideas, personal and musicological references. The 'encore' pieces, 'Summertime' and the brief bop exercise of Anthropology, offer just a glimpse of how a Wilson band attacks repertory material. Both arrangements were premiered at the Library of Congress in recognition of its archiving of Wilson's work.

The real interest lies in his suite of original themes. 'Lyons' Roar' is a dedication to Monterey Festival maven Jimmy Lyons; the main soloists are trumpeter Oscar Brashear, tenors Carl Randall and Randall Willis, and guitarist Anthony Wilson, who probably gets more space on the disc than he strictly deserves. It also features pianist Brian O'Rourke, who is the most effective presence of 'Cookin' On Cannery Row' and 'Spanish Bay.' The set is very nearly hijacked by the very first track, an exquisite thing called 'Romance', which highlights the bright, expressive soprano of Scott Mayo.”

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As the album title makes obvious, Mr. Wilson was off to New York in 2005 to record New York New Sound [Mack Avenue Records MAC 1009] or as Harvey Siders explains it in his insert notes:

“For this album, the only non-laid back resident of L.A. was in a New York state of mind, and came up with a session that sounds like it was written by a cat half his age. Between the jet-propelled bookends of ‘Milestones’ and ‘Nancy Jo,’ are outstanding examples of Gerald’s thick-textured wide voicings providing plenty of stretch-out room for such stellar soloists as Jimmy Owens, Trumpet, Luis Bonilla, Trombone, Jesse Davis, Alto Sax, Jimmy Heath, Tenor Saxophone, and Kenny Barron, Piano.

Dig some of the highlights. ‘Blues for Count’ was suggested by Basie. Gerald told me: ‘Bill said: “Write it real soft then let it get loud,” ‘so I let it build from a triple pianissimo to a triple fortissimo.’ It makes the explosion at the end – a raucous, free climax – all the more effective. Check out Clark Terry’s “double” Trumpet solo, alternating between muted and open playing. Sounds like he’s beside himself. …
Coltrane’s ‘Equinox’ has a mesmerizing, repeated rhythmic figure that Wilson and especially the soloists use as a launching pad. Benny Powell, the first of four Trombone soloists, manages to “slide” in a quote from “Why Don’t You Do Right.” …

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Another participant, pianist Rene Rosnes, summed up the leader’s charisma most eloquently: ‘If I were to watch a silent film of Gerald conducting, I would still be able to experience the swing of the music, his presence is that powerful.”

For In My Time, also issued in 2005 on Mack Avenue Records [MAC 1025], Wilson returned to Manhattan to lead an all-star big band through the ten tunes featured on “In My Time.” The centerpieces of the project are the three selections--“Dorian.” “Ray's Vision at the U,” and “Blues For Manhattan”--that comprise the suite titled “The Diminished Triangle.” “ ‘The Diminished Triangle’ is the study of diminished chords,” explains Wilson. “We have three diminished chords which add up to 12 different notes, and all musicians study the 12 tones. By using the diminished triangle many different ways, one can get a lot of different harmonic sounds. This suite gave me the opportunity to use a lot of eight-part harmony.”

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Josef Woodward’s JazzTimes review of the album noted:
Commissioned by The California Institute for the Preservation of Jazz, and supported by a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and marshaled by Cal State Long Beach educator Ray Briggs (for whom “Ray's Vision at the U” was named), “The Diminished Triangle” was debuted at Cal State L.A. on April 2, 2005.

Every selection on “In My Time” is filled with a sense of exhilaration, dense and distinctive harmonies, and stirring solos. “Sax Chase,” which in the 1980s was known as “Triple Chase,” showcases Wilson's talents as an arranger, and features stirring saxophone solos from Ron Blake, Steve Wilson, Kamasi Washington, Gary Smulyan and Dustin Cicero. On “Blues For Manhattan” Wilson explained that he utilized five-part harmony for the sax section, so that each player is performing a harmony of the melodic line without any doubling. One of the highlights on “Lomelin,” written for the great bullfighter Antonio Lomelin, is a dramatic trumpet solo from Jon Faddis. As evidence that Wilson’s music is inherently connected to his life, “AEN” is named after his son, guitarist Anthony Wilson, and for his two grandsons, Eric and Nicholas, while “Musette,” which includes a beautiful guitar solo from Russell Malone, was named after a poodle given to Gerald's three daughters. Also on this memorable project are Wilson's “Jeri” (named after his first-born daughter) and reworkings of Miles Davis'“So What” and Cole Porter’s “Love For Sale.” “I originally wrote an arrangement for 'Love For Sale' in 1953, using Jerry Dodgion on lead alto. 52 years later, I got to use him again on the new version.” Among the other soloists heard from along the way are trumpeters Jimmy Owens, Sean Jones and Jeremy Pelt, trombonist Luis Bonilla and pianist Renee Rosnes.

“The musicians in the band were really into the music and they are brilliant players,” enthused Wilson. “They are at home everywhere they are, in every bar of music.”

The same can be said for the veteran bandleader.”

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Interviewed in 2004, Mr. Wilson had this to say which will serve as some closing thoughts to this profile:

"There's a few more things I want to do. The sound of my band is the harmonic structure that I use and I have a theory that I call eight-part harmony theory. They don't have it yet in the universities either. That is the use of eight different notes instead of four. Most bands are playing four-part harmony - a little five-part, a little six every now and then, but basically four parts. Now with my theory, you'll be able to write and use eight different notes. In other words, when you hear my brass shout down on eight different notes, it's going to wipe you out right quick, because there's so much in jazz. We have twelve tones to use in music. If you're just using four and five, what are you going to do with the other seven? There are other notes there. And everything is compatible on the piano. I do that to demonstrate to my classes. I just go and hit every note I can get my elbow and my hands and my arms on and hit them all at once. And then you hear the greatest chord you ever heard in your life. But you can't write that, you know, so you try to get as near as you can. My theory will be out in a new book that's coming out in about a year from now. My theory will be there and they'll have it, if there are young writers that would like to advance in harmony, they'll get a chance to see right there how to do it. It's there.”

Amazingly, Mr. Wilson was there “then” in 1939 when he joined Jimmy Lunceford’s band; he died in 2014 - 75 years of unending, Jazz creativity.

Through his hard work and dedication, Mr. Wilson has evolved into a Jazz composer-arranger sui generis.





"What Is Jazz" - From Jazz Americana by Woody Woodward

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


“Frenchmen call it Le Jazz Hot. If you want a hot argument, just ask two
or more jazz enthusiasts to define it for you.”


“The jazz musician begins as such. He does not simply graduate to it as his taste dictates. Jazz is there from the beginning of his musical awareness.”          
- Woody Woodward


The record label that was the California equivalent of Blue Note Records during the post world War II years was Pacific Jazz. It was established by Richard Bock in the early 1950s, initially to record the new Gerry Mulligan - Chet Baker Quartet


In the case of Pacific Jazz, Richard Bock was blessed at the outset to have the brilliant photographic work of William Claxton form the basis for most of his album cover art.  Ray Avery, a contemporary, once said of Claxton work: “Some of us take photographs of Jazz musicians, but Bill does much more than that: he is an artist with a camera.”


In fairness, Dick Bock’s Pacific Jazz label gave Bill Claxton a place to learn and practice his art as a photographer so the creative purposes of each were well-served through their business relationship.


Acknowledgement should also be made of the skills of Woody Woodward, who designed many of the Pacific Jazz covers, and without whose logistical and technical contributions, Dick Bock’s Pacific Jazz would have been even more disorganized, and of Dotty Woodward, the firm’s accountant and the person who managed the royalties for the musicians and composers.


Thanks to a close friend who is pretty much the unofficial historian of all things Pacific Jazz [and all things West Coast Jazz, too], I recently learned that Woody Woodward was also somewhat of a Jazz historian and the author of Jazz Americana: The Story of Jazz and All Time Jazz Greats from Basin Street to Carnegie Hall.


Jazz Americana was published in 1956 in a 6.5” x 9” magazine format by Trend Books and sold for 75 cents. Fortunately, I was able to track down a fairly serviceable copy at a reasonable price and I thought it would be fun to share some excerpts with you.


Let’s begin at the with Chapter 1 - What Is Jazz - which Woody subtitles: “Here It Is! The First Good Definition of Jazz”


Despite this imposing assertion, Woody put a great deal of thought into his definition of what Jazz is including, what it isn’t.


In many ways, it is one of the more coherent and cogent definitions of Jazz that I’ve ever come across, one that is especially helped by the clear and direct writing style in which it is presented.


In retrospect, given when it was written, Woody’s definition of Jazz stands the test of time and holds up very well.


See what you think.


“ I find myself confronted with the task of writing an entire book on a subject that hasn't even the advantage of an adequate definition. In 50 years, all the articulate and learned men whose opinions and observations have been placed before the public have failed collectively to produce a generally accepted definition for the common everyday word jazz. A more compatible relationship between jazz and its public might have been achieved sooner if it had been possible to offer the inquirer a useful definition. So little agreement has existed on informed levels that the question, "What is jazz?", too often remains unanswered. In its place comes a thin, superior smile and a condescending shrug — inferring, "... if you don't know what it is I can't tell you." Small wonder that the public has been so often confused, especially when one considers that there have been as many personal concepts as there are experts. As might be expected this leads to a great many misconceptions about jazz, made worse by the cliquish groups "in the know" who seemed quite satisfied to keep the whole business about jazz a mystery.


Time has shown us that the public has been a great deal more willing to accept jazz than they've been given credit for and jazz musicians considerably more interested in being accepted then they’ve been given credit for. The jazz musician wants very much to have his music understood and be respected as a professional. In the main, he believes this can be done without subverting his integrity. This has been made difficult for him since most of the media of mass communications - radio, television, motion pictures, and the written word  -have consistently caricatured him as an inarticulate ne'er-do-well. A typical motion picture approach shows the jazzman, after years of struggling, at the heights of achievement when his jazz concerto is presented in Carnegie Hall. This is usually showcased by a hundred-piece symphony orchestra with the composer conducting, especially sobered for the occasion. Being allowed on the stage of a concert hall is symbolic of his emancipation from so coarse and useless an existence as being a jazz musician. The inference is, "See, jazz musicians aren't so bad after all. They even read music and wear formal clothes."


This is rather a negative approach and reveals almost nothing of the nature of jazz; however the movies are not alone in promoting the Big Fable. On highly dramatic New York television plays or Hollywood films, it is currently very fashionable to play jazz records behind any act of violence. The slick magazines' preoccupation with anthropology, antiquated jazz slang, and endless intellectual dissertations, while less damaging, add to the confusion. It is something of a testimony to the taste and good sense of the public that people are presently supporting jazz in the manner to which it is unaccustomed. Despite the difficulty of getting much in the way of intelligent information on jazz from the usual sources, the public and jazz are getting together. This is something of a testimony to the strength of the music and the men who make it. Not so long ago sentiments were so strong in camps of the cultists that none could condone the existence of the others. Each group imposed confining limitations on the jazz of its choice. Each maintained his jazz was the true jazz. Dixieland People scorned Swing People, Swing People fought verbal battles with Bebop People, and Beboppers depreciated both. In the past few years, jazz has begun to emerge from this fog of music prejudice. Visibility could be improved but the haze is lifting; today Louis Armstrong, Count Basie and Dave Brubeck can stand side by side, offering their art to all whom will listen.


Be it Dixieland, Swing, or the embracing horns of the .Mulligan Quartet, to a steadily increasing hundreds of thousands, jazz is a new found source of pleasure, a multifaceted, infectious music as calm and organized as a Bach fugue, as extroverted and exciting as the Mardi Gras.


I mentioned the absence of an adequate definition of jazz. This is not to say that none has been attempted. A few have found their way into print, some of them rendered by knowledgeable men. However, nearly all that have come to my attention have been more in the way of a description. One of the best of these was written by Wilder Hobson for the 1956 ENCYCLOPEDIA   BRITANNICA.  As it contains several thousand words, Hobson's offering is not useful in the normal dictionary limitation of perhaps 50 or 60 words. Be that as it may, I recommend it to all concerned with the subject.


A better example of what's available might be a typical dictionary definition. Webster's New School and Office Dictionary, ordinarily a source of accurate definitions, says:"JAZZ (jaz) noun—Negro term for syncopated music or ragtime played discordantly on various instruments: a boisterous dance to such." This definition is very misleading. It infers that jazz is played unharmoniously, and implies that it is the product of a number of instruments presumably played simultaneously. It further suggests that jazz is attended by dancing. While any or all of these conditions may be present in jazz, none are required.


Jazz is not exclusive to the Negro. Many other races have produced and supported it. Jazz does not have to be discordant . . . and rarely is. The playing of jazz need involve no more than one musician. He may be the soloist in a large orchestra which features no other jazz musicians, or a lone musician playing in an empty ballroom.


Barry Ulanov, former editor of Metronome, an excellent magazine with a strong dedication to jazz, has referred to "freshness, profundity and skill", as important requisites for good jazz. These are qualities that may separate the mediocre performance from the outstanding, but this phrase is not helpful in defining jazz, as all three qualities may be absent from a performance and yet be jazz.


One problem Is that jazz does not fall within the confines of definite form like the symphony which is traditionally presented in four movements, or the fugue which utilizes its moving melodic lines in a predetermined manner. Jazz is without movements and is not constructed like a fugue. Jazz. musicians may use these devices but they are not peculiar to the medium. The closest we come to this in jazz is in the case of the blues, where a 12 bar tune is involved, using a specific set of chord progressions. However this is not form in the strict sense. It is rather a framework on which to drape a series of improvisations. The elements of form, so far as classical music is concerned, involve the traditionally-accepted manner of presenting music in a particular way. While a jazz composer may avail himself of these forms, the use of them actually has nothing to do with jazz itself. It's simply another way of presenting and expanding jazz.


Another element that further complicates matters is the fact that the jazz musician is not required to produce what might be termed a standardized tone or sound from his instrument. In classical music, each instrumentalist strives to produce a standard or uniform sound; a trumpeter from Paris, France, will produce a quality of sound almost the same as a trumpeter from Indianapolis, Indiana, assuming that each has had the advantage of similar training. With slight exception, there is only one way to play the instrument correctly, by classical standards. The very nature of jazz encourages the individual to express himself differently, though the musician may have the technical background to play in the classically accepted manner.


If jazz is not dependent on definite form and uniform sound, as with classical music, in what manner are we able to detect its existence? How are we able to separate jazz from all other types of non-classical music? I should preface this by mentioning that very few qualified sources have ever agreed completely on the important elements of jazz. However there are several components arrived at more frequently than any others. These are: (1) improvisation, (2) a rhythmic conception exclusive to jazz, and (3) a range of sounds distinguished by individuality. The disagreement between the experts is not whether or not the above elements are important, but to what degree each should exist in relation to the others. Some feel that improvisation is the most important and that rhythm and sound are lesser things. Others believe that rhythm plays the dominant role, and so forth. At any rate, it's the balance of all three elements that constitutes the individual style of a jazzman. It is the existence of these three elements and the way in which they are combined that separates jazz from other music.


IMPROVISATION


Improvisation is the ability of a musician to "make up" a tune in a spontaneous fashion, or to play a series of variations on a melody without consulting written music, and without prearrangement. Generally a specific set of chord changes are agreed upon in advance by the participating musicians. This establishes a format and a sequence, but allows the freedom necessary for improvisation. Often several musicians improvise simultaneously, producing counterpoint, a second melody line sympathetic to the first.


This has been a common practice since the very beginning of jazz. Early New Orleans bands frequently utilized three improvisational lines at the same time; the trumpet played the melody, the clarinet played an obligato or second line, and the trombone punctuated rhythmically or produced a series of tones very close to the chords. The results were similar to the melodic styles of the barbershop quartets so far as the harmonics were concerned.


Because of this collective improvisation, a performance was produced that could never be completely duplicated even though a group of jazzmen might play the same tune many times during their association. This is also true today. Even at a recording session, where a piece of material is played six or eight times in a row in an effort to get the best performance, the collective improvisation produces a wide variety of renditions to choose from.


Improvisation is not limited to jazz. Almost any skilled musician is capable of making up a tune as he goes along. A knowledge of the chord progressions of a tune and familiarity with the melody is sufficient to enable a musician to embellish the composition. Improvisation to some degree exists in most popular musics. It is also employed in classical music occasionally, particularly when showcasing a soloist with an orchestra; certain parts of the orchestrated composition provide for this.


In the Seventeenth Century, improvisation was more common than in today's classical music. In Bach's and Mozart's time, it was quite frequently used in chamber music. The elements of improvisation can be taught but, for the most part, it is instinctive rather than learned. Since improvisation plays a major role in his music, the spontaneous improvisation of the jazz musician is quite unique and manifests itself differently; when two or more jazz musicians improvise together, a rapport can be established that finds a parallel nowhere else in the world of music.


THE RHYTHMIC CONCEPTION


The rhythmic conception in jazz is perhaps its most unusual feature. Generally, a syncopated beat is used in 4/4 time. Like improvisation, 4/4 time and syncopation are not limited to jazz; 4/4 time is common to most American and European music and syncopation is found in almost all musics to some extent. However, its occurrences outside jazz are in a more formal manner, occurring in a regular pattern and on the same beats of every bar. In jazz, the musician plays unexpected accents with great freedom, syncopating in an irregular manner. He often plays with no strict adherence to time value at all, other than tempo; some play right on the beat, some behind the beat, and some anticipate or play a little ahead of the beat. It's not uncommon to hear a soloist demonstrate all these rhythmic variations within the course of a single chorus. He may enter the chorus anticipating, then fall behind the beat or produce any other combination of time values. This particular ability seems to be the one element that can't be taught. It can be developed if the latent ability is present, but in its accepted usage it is a native talent. The musician either possesses the ability to generate this rhythmic force or he fails completely to play with a jazz pulse.


THE JAZZ SOUNDS


The sounds of jazz are the most difficult to describe and are perhaps the easiest of the three basic jazz elements for non-jazz musicians to affect. Jazz sound is distinguished by the absence of regulation. It is a broad unconfined sound that can be likened to the human voice; each voice possessing a timber not entirely like any other. Jazz sound is a personal utterance, carrying with it the peculiarities of the individual. Almost any sound an instrument is capable of producing, within the realm of good taste, is acceptable in jazz.


Despite this, a characteristic does exist; the general absence of a "legitimate" attack. The jazz musician tends not to hit a note right on pitch. He is inclined more to slur or slide up to a note then slide on to the next without much more than passing through the pitch. Of course, when the need to hold a note occurs, the jazz musician, like all other, holds to proper pitch.


As was mentioned before, a classical musician must produce a sound traditionally associated with his instrument. Most of the music he plays is written and orchestrated in such a way as to take advantage of the sound his instrument customarily produces. Any marked deviation from this is very undesirable. In jazz the same instrument seldom sounds the same. One musician might play with a light vibrato-less tone, another dynamically, with a robust strident tone. The myriad of sounds that lies between these two extremes are as numerous as the musicians playing jazz. Even with a large jazz orchestra of i5 or 20 men, where group compatibility is essential, it's the combined styles of the men involved that give each orchestra its characteristic sound. The same arrangements, under the direction of the same leader, will never sound quite the same if different musicians are involved.


A  DEFINITION


Any attempt to define jazz must be arbitrary; the absolute is not found in this medium. It must be further realized that any useful definition of jazz must encompass all styles and concepts within that medium from the very beginning to the present, with the additional capacity to include and anticipate all that jazz may produce in the future. With this in mind, and the further knowledge that the definition I offer here, may fail to meet universal acceptance (as the many attempts that preceded it) I submit the following definition for jazz:


JAZZ (jaz) n. a native American music, a popular art form, begun by the negro, originally influenced by African and Caribbean rhythms and popular musics available to the negro around the turn of the twentieth century. A product of the instantaneous rather than the premeditated, characterized from the beginning to the present by three basic elements: Improvisation, a unique time conception, and a range of sounds distinguished by their individuality.


The 1956 jazz picture encompasses such a wide range of styles and means of presentation that it is far more difficult for the layman to recognize jazz than it was 20 or 30 years ago. In 1926, jazz meant pretty much the same thing to everyone; there were fewer styles then and these were closely related. Ten years later the Swing Era was well underway and big dance bands were gaining prominence. Still, the situation remained uncomplicated. Whatever jazz acceptance went with the dance bands was mostly for the soloists. To most people, jazz still meant Dixieland.


By the end of World War II the big bands had received recognition. They took their place alongside earlier jazz developments. At the same time, a number of brilliant young jazz musicians were busy shaping a whole new approach which came to be known as Bebop, Progressive, and several other confusing names. From the standpoint of jazz activity, this movement was to overshadow all but three or four of the most firmly entrenched big bands. The Swing Era had come to a close and in it's place there was a return to small groups and a re-emphasis on improvisation.


In 1956 we have access to the accumulation of more than 50 years of individuality. Today, it's possible for us to hear in concert, club, or on record, all the styles in the Dixieland Tradition from the turn of the century through the Twenties; the products of the Swing Era; and the multitude of jazz concepts that developed following the second World War.


It scarcely seems possible that these many jazz styles are more than slightly related —  yet, they are. All result from steady and continual evolution. None could have developed without that which preceded it. Jazz draws always from its heritage. Honest and spirited mainstream jazz never loses its luster and appeal. Because jazz is so much a product of the moments during which it is played, it undergoes constant change as the moments pass into days and the days into years. This is why jazz of different decades seems so unrelated. Today's jazz is minutely different from last week's jazz. It is a reflection of the life and times contemporary with its performance. The past can never be completely recaptured, even by those who were among the molders of jazz past. Even men whose concepts have matured, whose styles have crystallized, arc subject to the changing times.


But how do we distinguish between that which is jazz and that which is not? At what point does a musician cross the threshold into jazz? The answer lies in this basic premise: if the musicians involved are jazz musicians and the material being performed does not require the participants to subvert their musical identity, then the product is jazz. This is in direct proportion to the number of jazz musicians participating. If five members of a 15-piece band are not jazz musicians, then the performance suffers to that degree.


The composition being played can be a waitz, mambo, foxtrot or anything else that allows the jazzmen to apply their art. Structurally, it can be a 12 bar blues, a popular tune or a fugue. In short, a jazz composition can be anything that does not require the jazzmen to sacrifice their individuality.


Because of the need to preserve the basic jazz elements, certain approaches to composing and arranging are more conducive to the medium than others. The material must be compatible with the musicians involved to be successful. This has led to a whole new field within jazz — that of composing and arranging material especially for jazz.


This began during the late Twenties when musicians realized a need for more challenging material and a larger framework for their improvisation. Then, too, the emergence of larger bands required more organization than the five- and six-piece groups that preceded them. The use of arrangements was the answer to these problems and grew from the same needs for individual expression that brought jazz forth. Composition and jazz could not be better suited. All jazz musicians are endowed with the ability to compose, though not all possess the technical knowledge to write their compositions. They compose whenever they improvise. The difference between those who actually write and those who are unable, is the ability to organize music on a more extensive scale — not the lack of compositional talent.


The one thing that remains unchanged is the fact that jazz musicians are required to play jazz. It cannot be produced by others.


This seems to be a rather obvious factor; however, a widespread misconception is that virtually any young musician associated witli a dance band is a jazz musician. Since jazz has become so much an integral part of American popular music, most popular musicians and singers display some jazz influence. Obviously, mere influence does not make a jazz musician. The jazz musician begins as such. He does not simply graduate to it as his taste dictates. Jazz is there from the beginning of his musical awareness.”          

West Coast Jazz Box

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


“There was something special about the West Coast jazz scene of the Fifties and early Sixties. Those of us privileged enough to have lived through that era — to have heard favorite musicians holding forth at the Lighthouse, the Haig, the Black Hawk, or Zardi's (or later, at places like the Jazz Workshop, the Renaissance, or Shelly's Manne-Hole) — tend to smile broadly whenever someone's comments or a snatch of music conjures up that scene.” 
- Bob Gordon, author Jazz on the West Coast


Because I was “there” and had a professional involvement with it as a musician, I often get asked about what recordings to buy that feature the West Coast style of Jazz which existed mainly in California from 1945-1965.


My recommendation is pretty straightforward - West Coast Jazz Box: An Anthology of California Jazz - a 4 CD collection that was issued by Fantasy in 1998 [4CCD-4425-2].


The musical selections in the set are a comprehensive representation of all facets of the styles of West Coast Jazz that were played during this twenty year period and the following booklet annotations about the music by Bob Gordon, author of the definitive Jazz on the West Coast, and by the boxed set’s producers Ralph Kaffel and Eric Miller are unsurpassed in providing a brief synopsis of this “moment in time” in the history of Jazz.



Bob Gordon


“I may as well own up to this at the beginning: there is no general agreement upon the definition of the term "West Coast Jazz." The phrase has been bandied around for over four decades now, but as with many a catch phrase, it seems to mean pretty much what a given speaker wants it to mean. Like the word "jazz" itself, most everybody has a vague idea of what the term encompasses, but when it gets down to particulars, the arguments begin. So if you've already glanced at the listings for this album and decided that a particular performance doesn't fit your idea of West Coast Jazz, not to worry: you'll probably enjoy it anyway, whether or not you believe it's truly West Coast Jazz.


My personal preference for such a definition has always been: "That music produced by jazz musicians residing at the time on the West Coast."This seems to me the only definition inclusive enough to include the entire scene, from Dexter and Warden's Central Avenue duels, to musicians like Dave Brubeck, Gerry Mulligan, and Shorty Rogers, to the experiments of Ornette Coleman.


As to the origins of the term, nobody — to my knowledge, anyway — has ever taken credit (or accepted blame) for coining the phrase. When it first came into general use, the vocal wars between the boppers and moldy figs were beginning to wind down, and it's possible the trade journals felt the need for a new cause celebre to boost circulations. This cynical view, however, fails to acknowledge that in the first half of the Fifties, at least, there did seem to be certain stylistic differences between much of the jazz being produced in California and much of the jazz emanating from the East Coast. (I've emphasized "much" in both cases because many musicians from both coasts stubbornly refused to fit into their assigned pigeonhole.)


Basically, the differences were these: many of the West Coast musicians took their inspiration from such "cool" influences (there's another one of those damned terms) as Lennie Tristano and the Miles Davis Birth of the Cool band, while the mainstream of jazz in New York City could easily be recognized as a direct descent of bebop. As long as one remembers that such generalizations are generalizations — that there was cool jazz being played in New York and fire-breathing bebop being performed in Hollywood — the distinction can be useful. In any case, by the end of the decade, such differences became ever less apparent.


The musicians, of course, were loath to be so pigeonholed. Shelly Manne can be heard on a "live" recording introducing the members of his working band—one of the hottest units on either coast at the time—as a "West Coast Group." Shelly then goes on (in a native New Yorker's accent that he was never quite able to shake) to list the hometowns of his musicians: Joe Gordon (Boston, Massachusetts), Richie Kamuca (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), and Monty Budwig (Nyack, New York), gleefully saving Victor Feldman (London, England) for last. Rarely has a musician's disdain for such labels been as forcefully, if tactfully, expressed.
And yet, and yet...


There was something special about the West Coast jazz scene of the Fifties and early Sixties. Those of us privileged enough to have lived through that era—to have heard favorite musicians holding forth at the Lighthouse, the Haig, the Black Hawk, or Zardi's (or later, at places like the Jazz Workshop, the Renaissance, or Shelly's Manne-Hole)—tend to smile broadly whenever someone's comments or a snatch of music conjures up that scene. This set should bring back fond memories for those already familiar with West Coast jazz, and perhaps it will provide some feeling for the ambiance of the period for those to whom the term is just a phrase remembered from the jazz histories.”


Ralph Kaffel 1998
I've wanted to assemble this compilation of West Coast jazz classics for many years now, but something always came up to dislodge it from its place on the year's release schedule.


The publication of Robert Gordon's Jazz West Coast (1986) and Ted Gioia's West Coast Jazz (1992) served as pointed reminders to quit procrastinating and get down to business. This year, we did.


Eric Miller and I finally decided that nothing would keep us from making this long rumored project a reality. Eric, Bob Gordon, and I — each with our own personal favorites — were responsible for selecting the contents. My own criteria were simple: to pick the tracks which not only had made a musical impact, but were solid sellers that enjoyed substantial radio play. For example, I still remember vividly the excited anticipation of initial releases by artists like the Chico Hamilton Quintet and Hampton Hawes, or the latest from the Lighthouse All-Stars, following their previews on KNOB-FM (the "Jazz KNOB" in Long Beach).


At this point I must confess to more than a little "partisanship" with respect to this music. My first job in the record business, circa 1956, was as a salesman for California Record Distributors in Los Angeles, a wholesale distributor owned, as it happened, by Contemporary Record's owner Lester Koenig. Richard Bock's Pacific Jazz Records was one of the distributor's most important labels. I always looked forward to attending the recording sessions at Contemporary's Studios (actually, the warehouse) on Melrose Place and at Pacific Jazz Studios on Third Street.


Koenig and Bock were very different personalities with unique approaches to recording and running their businesses, but I had the same great admiration for both of them and for the music they were producing.


Acquiring the Contemporary catalog in 1984, therefore — and keeping it in print, for the most part — was a major thrill for me on a personal level, as was the ability to work with Dick Bock on a few projects in the 1980’s, an association unfortunately brought to a halt by his untimely passing.


I'm sure that Lester and Dick would have enjoyed The West Coast Jazz Box, made possible to a large extent by their passion for the music.”


Eric Miller 1998


“Los Angeles had a vibrant jazz scene in the 1950s and '60s. I hung out a lot at Sam's Record Shop (the Birdland of jazz stores) at 5162 West Adams Boulevard, and Sleepy Stein did his KNOB-FM jazz show from just behind Sam's storefront windows.
Within 20 blocks of this store (and my house) were located some two dozen jazz clubs, where many of the artists in this collection played. The clubs included the It Club, the Zebra Lounge, the Parisian Room, and the Intermission Room.


Norman Granz presented his Jazz At The Philharmonic concerts twice a year in L.A. His artists included Ella, Oscar, Hawk, Pres, and Art Tatum, to name just a few. Sundays were my days for the Lighthouse, in Hermosa Beach, when I could borrow the car.


The bustling Hollywood club scene included Shelly's Manne-Hole, the Renaissance, Donte's, and Gene Norman's Crescendo and the Interlude.


Beside Contemporary and Pacific Jazz, great jazz was produced and recorded by the fledgling Hifijazz label under the direction of David Axelrod; Nocturne Records, co-owned by musicians Harry Babasin and Roy Harte; the aforementioned Normans, Granz and Gene; and the Tampa, Andex, and Mode labels.


Some 400 miles to the north, jazz was just as active in San Francisco, with its pioneering Fantasy Records — whose roster included Dave Brubeck, Gerry Mulligan, Cal Tjader, and Vince Guaraldi — as well as live jazz at the Black Hawk, the El Matador, the Jazz Workshop, and many more.


All things considered, I appreciate those years more and more with the passage of time, and see them as the "52nd Street days" of West Coast Jazz.”


The following video includes images and graphics from West Coast Jazz Box: An Anthology of California Jazz [Fantasy 4CCD-4425-2] as set to the track from the boxed set by alto saxophonist Lennie Niehaus performing Whose Blues with Jack Montrose, tenor sax, Bob Gordon, Baritone sax, Monty Budwig, bass and Shelly Manne, drums.

"Mama Jazz" - Ella Fitzgerald at 100: A Review of Leslie Gourse's "The Ella Fitzgerald Companion"

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


“Nobody probed to find out anything definitive or accurate about the childhood struggles of the young woman. Nobody realized that Ella’s hardships had forged her character as a loner and thoroughly committed musician in a brilliant and original American art form. Nobody seemed to realize that as a singer she was a genius, and certainly nobody predicted she would develop into a virtual flag of American popular music.”

“Given her inexhaustible inventiveness, and a range of nearly three octaves, she moved easily from a bluesy growl up into the stratosphere— with astounding clarity all the way. Ira Gershwin spoke for many composers when he said: "I never knew how good our songs were until I heard Ella Fitzgerald sing them." Her famous Songbook recordings of Gershwin, Porter, Kern and Rodgers and Hart are masterworks. Having excelled in nearly every noteworthy period of the modern jazz era, Miss Fitzgerald set a timeless standard. Young fans in Italy named her "Mama Jazz." That she was.
- Leslie Gourse, Jazz author


I am a big fan of compilations.


When used as a noun in English, “compilation” means the action or process of producing something, especially a list, book, or report, by assembling information collected from other sources [i.e.: assembling previously separate items].


It is a technique that I use frequently to put together the blog features that are displayed on these pages so as to give the reader a fuller view of the Jazz topic or musician that’s being profiled.


One analogy that comes to mind is going out to dinner and ordering a bunch of starters or appetizers as the main meal; you get a variety of tastes this way instead of one main entre.


Another form of comparison is when you load up the CD changer or Mp3 player with a variety of music and then select “Random Play” to achieve a broader sampling of the music instead of listening to just one artist perform.


More specifically, as part of my celebration of the centenary of the birth of Ella Fitzgerald [1917-2017], a woman who young Jazz fans in Italy affectionately call “Mama Jazz,” I have queued up selections from the many Songbooks that Ella recorded for Norman Granz’s Verve label in the 1950s and early 1960s..


For those who may be unfamiliar with these compilations, they include selections from many of the Great American Songbook master composers including Duke Ellington [3 CDs], Harold Arlen [2 CDs], Cole Porter [2 CDs], George and Ira Gershwin [3 CDs], Rodgers and Hart [2 CDs], Irving Berlin [2 CDs], and single CDs of the Johnny Mercer Songbook and the Jerome Kern Songbook.


All of them feature Ella primarily with big bands with the music arranged and conducted by Nelson Riddle, Paul Weston, Buddy Bregman, Billy May, Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington.


The assemblage of so much talent boggles the mind and let’s not leave out the beautiful conditions under which the recordings were engineered at the newly constructed Capitol Records recording studies on Vine Street, a block or two up from Hollywood Blvd, and the brilliant work of the many studio musicians who made these arrangements a musical reality.


Which brings me to Leslie Gourse’s The Ella Fitzgerald Companion: Seven Decades of Commentary. First published in 1998, two years after Ella’s death, Leslie’s book is a compilation “... of articles, interviews and reviews that originally appeared in a variety of publications” which are divided into five [5] sections:


Part One: Spring Is Here: The Early Years
Part Two: How High The Moon - On Her Own, Recording With Decca, 1939-55
Part Three: Everything I’ve Got - Norman Granz and the Songbooks, 1955-65
Part Four: How Long Has This Been Going On?, Living Icon, 1966-80
Part Five: Evening Star - Last Years. 1981-96


The list of contributors is a dazzling array of literary Jazz luminaries that includes Henry Pleasants, John S. Wilson, Leonard Feather, Len Lyons, Gary Giddins, Francis Davis, Will Friedwald, John Tynan, Ralph J. Gleason, Bill Coss, Stanley Dance, Earl Wilson, John Edward Hasse, Dom Cerulli and Nat Hentoff.


At the time of its writing, Leslie Gourse had written about Jazz for almost three decades. She edited The Billie Holiday Companion (1997) for Schirmer Books and is the author of Straight, No Chaser: The Life and Genius of Thelonious Monk (1997). Her articles have been in several newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, the Village Voice, the Chicago Tribune, Down Beat, Harper's Bazaar, and many others.


Leslie explains how she went about developing her compilation in the following Introduction to her book.


"The only thing better than singing is more singing," Ella Fitzgerald toid May Okon, author of "She Still Gets Stage Fright," published in the Sunday News in New York on September 8, 1957. Ella went on: "What greater honors could come to a gal like me than being invited to sing at the Newport Jazz Festival and the Monte Carlo Gala, as I was this year— and having an Ella Fitzgerald night at the Hollywood Bowl (with Duke Ellington's band) as I did last July 20th?"


Ella Fitzgerald had been winning top honors in the music polls for twenty years by then, beginning with first place as a vocalist in the first Down Beat magazine poll in 1937. The next year, 1938, she had her first million-record seller, "A Tisket, a Tasket." Although her career went through ups and downs in the 1940s, she was still referred to as "The First Lady of Song" in several places that decade and in a headline in the New York Times by 1951. In the mid-1950s her career took a mighty upward swing. By 1953 she had firmly secured the management of jazz impresario Norman Granz, founder of Jazz at the Philharmonic. He had at first ignored her, considering her to be a pop singer, not a jazz artist, but he revised his opinion, and his eventual alert attention to details of her bookings, her public image, and her private problems and his decision to have her record collections — songbooks — of the country's greatest popular composers beginning in 1956 made her a superstar.


But the hefty singer, who was about one hundred pounds overweight for most of her adult life and who shook visibly and twined her fingers round and round self-consciously when she performed at Royal Albert Hall in London as late as 1954, never really learned to take her stardom and prestige completely for granted. Sometimes she mentioned a nightmarish incident that had happened when she was sixteen years old. She had been competing in an amateur show in Harlem, when she and her accompanist went in different musical directions. The pianist played the wrong chords. Ella started singing out of tune and then fled the stage, while the audience booed and hooted. She always referred to the incident as if it had happened the day before.


Every reporter who met Ella noticed immediately how unprepossessing and innocent she seemed. She asked other celebrities for their autographs—and then wondered if they minded. She marveled when anyone wanted her autograph or when a head waiter picked up a check in a restaurant for her.
She was so shy and complex that it was the rare writer who obtained permission to interview her.


One night in 1954 backstage at Basin Street East, a jazz club where she was performing in New York, she told New York Post columnist Murray Kempton: "The other night I was so nervous. This is home. If you flop at home, where do you go after that? Then Benny Goodman came in. You know, with a musician, he will notice something. And Benny is not the kind to come back and say 'Gee Sis, you were crazy' when you know you weren't. And I was hoarse that night." Kempton mumbled that, of course, Benny Goodman wouldn't have noticed. "I don't know," Ella said. "He didn't come back to the dressing room afterward."


Kempton called the resulting column simply "She," describing her as a kid though she was nearly forty and celebrating her nineteenth year in the entertainment field though she had been singing professionally since her teens. "She stands with those great arms, that self-deprecating smile, severely frontal in the Byzantine fashion, the mother, the little sister . . . the hope of us all ... a cultural force, a permanent tradition, a great river. ..."


At this time Norman Granz was taking over the helm of Ella's career. Granz had been wanting to sign Ella exclusively to Verve for a long time. He finally acquired the leverage when Decca wanted to release an album including artists under Granz's authority; Granz agreed to let Decca use those artists if Decca would release Ella from her contract before it ran out. Decca did it. Ella signed with Granz in December 1955, and she was poised on the threshold of a great surge forward in her career.


Kempton's article appeared during one of Ella's engagements at Basin Street East in 1954. Gathered to salute Ella were representatives of leading European jazz magazines including Jazz Hot of France and Musica Jazz of Italy; Ella's fellow singers Pearl Bailey, Eartha Kitt, and Harry Belafonte; trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie; and other stars from Broadway, broadcasting, jazz, and the record industry. Congratulatory telegrams and cablegrams poured in from around the world. Ella received eighteen awards plus a plaque from Decca Records in honor of her 22 million dollars in record sales. Still in her future were the extraordinary years with Verve.


Ella went on to even greater acclaim. She won thirteen Grammys — the most for any jazz singer — and had one of the longest recording careers in history. Among her few rivals were Frank Sinatra and bandleader Benny Carter. She placed first in the critics' and readers' popularity polls of music magazines more often than any other singer. She even won a Grammy for a recording in 1990, when she was seventy-two years old, and her voice quavered, her vibrato quaked, her intonation wobbled uncertainly, and her once peerless sense of time wavered. She won in part because her name was still magical for the judges; no other female jazz singer had ever achieved her international fame. Most pop and jazz singers always say the greatest influences in their lives have been Ella and Louis Armstrong. Even Billie Holiday usually ranks after them.


The people who compile encyclopedias of the most important women and African-American women always select for inclusion Ella, and only Ella, among all the great jazz singers. In 1991 she ranked among the most notable African-American women in a book of that name. In 1993, Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia featured her as the "First Lady of Jazz." In the section called "The Visual Arts" in the book Women of Achievement: Thirty-five Centuries of History, Ella shows up in the niche between the legendary, inspirational Italian actress Eleonora Duse and Britain's prima ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn. If it is at least in part true that people are known by the company they keep, then Ella Fitzgerald achieved recognition as an uncontested immortal. In 1996 she was chosen for a profile in the December 19 magazine section of the New York Times, which saluted the great people who had died that year.


Yet less was known about her than any other jazz singer. Few celebrities in any part of the entertainment world had more misinformation written about their private lives than Ella Fitzgerald. Perhaps only Thelonious Monk among all the jazz stars seemed as cloaked in mystery as Ella.


In the early years of her career, with her successful 1938 recording of "A Tisket, A Tasket" (three years after her first recording, "Love and Kisses," with bandleader Chick Webb), jazz criticism was a young art. Reporters assigned to write about her tended to poke fun at her and portray her as lacking in intellect. She was overweight, homely, girlishly ebullient, and Negro — all attributes that tended to make her fair game in those days for a writer looking for a way to write a flashily entertaining story. Nobody probed to find out anything definitive or accurate about the childhood struggles of the young woman. Nobody realized that her hardships had forged her character as a loner and thoroughly committed musician in a brilliant and original American art form. Nobody seemed to realize that as a singer she was a genius, and certainly nobody predicted she would develop into a virtual flag of American popular music. Even critic and contributor to Metronome magazine George T. Simon, who recognized her as a talented singer and wrote an item about Ella when he first heard her with Chick Webb's band at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem in the 1930s, said he could never have foretold how great she would become.


Undoubtedly her feelings were hurt by the slights of the 1930s and early 1940s, when reporters depicted her as simple and childlike. They had no idea she had spent some no-doubt terrifying days as a street urchin and that her first marriage and her early romances (and some of her later affairs, too, according to rumor) were with slick hustlers. Her second marriage, to bassist Ray Brown, would last little more than five years, ending in divorce in August 1953; but that alliance was a casualty of their careers and does not reflect on their fine characters.


In 1949, Ebony magazine featured her as a star to be reckoned with. Little, however, was written about her private life. Her family history remained shadowy, for Ella divulged little, and what she did reveal, she tinkered with to make the facts more palatable to herself. Her manager, Norman Granz, and his staff, colleagues, and friends tended to shield Ella from interviews. Leonard Feather, whose career as an eminent jazz critic developed as Ella matured into a legendary singer, became her friend; to the degree that any writer established an intimate relationship with her, he was one of the few writers granted the opportunity to write about her with information gleaned in personal interviews. Even Edward R. Murrow, visiting Ella in her home in Los Angeles for his popular CBS show "Person to Person," discovered very little about her life behind the scenes. She had a niece and nephew with her on that show, but their names were not revealed, and neither was the identity of their mother, Ella's half sister, Frances, with whom, until Frances's death in the 1960s, Ella remained close and enjoyed, in the words of Stuart Nicholson, "one of the few enduring relationships" of her life.

Neither Ella nor Norman Granz ever published her memoirs or biography. They seemed to shy away from the very idea of a book or even articles about her life, although Ella once said she had thought about a book. But one day when a writer happened by chance to get Ella on the telephone at her house, she said in a shrill voice, "Call the office," and hung up fast.
When Ella was old and ill, a few tentatively probing articles and book-
length biographies were written about her — without her cooperation. For most of her life, the best information came from a handful of critics who knew her fairly well or from musicians who observed her closely when they traveled with her.


Another reason for the lack of books about Ella was that her life lacked controversy, or anyway publicized controversy. It was actually a rather dull life compared with the lives, times, and antics of such stars as Frank Sinatra or Sarah Vaughan or Miles Davis or Rosemary Clooney. Ella never hit a photographer — well, not hard anyway, and not until her later years. And she never had a true nervous breakdown, although she did begin suffering from exhaustion in middle age, when she sometimes sang different concerts in two different cities on the same day. American publishers gauged correctly that the public would never make a run on the bookstores to buy the story of Ella Fitzgerald's life.


Not until Stuart Nicholson published his Ella Fitzgerald: A Biography of the First Lady of Jazz in 1994 — the first major biography of Ella — did some of the folklore swaddling and obfuscating the facts of Ella's life begin to evaporate. Nicholson included so much documented factual material about her childhood, plus a wonderful discography by jazz historian Phil Schaap, that the book currently stands as the most authoritative biography about her. Nicholson's book is, for the most part, used as a criterion for accuracy, and virtually everything written about Ella before it appeared must be revised.


Ella told columnist Earl Wilson that she had been in the second year of high school — not A.W.O.L. from an orphanage — at the time that bandleader Chick Webb hired her, and Wilson let her claim go at that. About sixty-five years later, Nicholson's biography would reveal that she had been such a truant in high school that the authorities had plucked her out of her aunt's apartment in Harlem and sent her to an orphanage, from which she was indeed A.W.O.L. when she met Chick Webb. She was living by her wits, running numbers, dancing and singing for pennies in the streets of Harlem, wearing rags and men's shoes, and avoiding going back to her aunt's house because she was afraid the authorities might find her and ship her back to the hated "orphanage." And it becomes clear that so much misinformation dogged Ella's footsteps throughout her career because she purposely avoided telling people what really had happened. Perhaps she instinctively understood the old maxim popularized by the legendary African-American baseball player Satchell Paige: "Don't look back, your past may be gaining on you."


She continued to work into her seventies, even though she couldn't see
or walk very well, being beset by myriad illnesses. Some people thought she was a pitiful sight, hobbling onto stages, but the majority viewed her as an American heroine. Why did she keep going? As Jimmy Rowles, a pianist and accompanist who worked with her regularly for a while, told me, "I don't know what she would do without music. When she walks down the street, she trails notes." Rowles also recalled amusing tales about the way she concentrated on her repertoire and found new songs to sing wherever she went, even when she was traveling on airplanes. She always kept her road manager, Pete Cavallo, hopping to find sheet music.


Now that Ella has died, and because she was so close-mouthed, it seems unlikely that some details will ever come to light. But it's possible to speculate that Ella sang, with such joyousness in her sound and style, in part because, by singing, she could tame the memories of her early hardships and keep them at bay. The attitude she took in her singing made her a whole person and enriched the rest of us.


Murray Kempton aptly provides the keynote for this book. His writing reflects the reverence that Americans felt for Ella. The much-esteemed journalist and interpreter and commentator on American politics and culture, Kempton had been assigned to Rome, where he had been disturbed by encounters with some American tourists and by their peculiar values and lack of appreciation — or perhaps simply their innocence — of art and culture. Ella Fitzgerald saved the day for him. And so he wrote about her in "The Americans" in the New York Post on June 25, 1959:

. . . And yet there is an America to which I shall come home and I am grateful for the hope and memory of it to Ella Fitzgerald. She was here this spring . . .


She sang the cruel and demanding bop songs, and those survivals of the '20s, the most sophisticated work in the book, which she has made her special province. And then, unconscious of trying something more, absolutely unaffected, she put her hands together and sang Bess's part of the "You Is My Woman Now" duet from Porgy, which before I had always thought was a man's song.


It is, of course, the song of a loser, or a chippie, who has begun to feel the wonder of possible redemption, the tender of a second chance. I could not believe then that anything Violetta sings in Traviata is any wiser and more beautiful; after two months I do not believe it yet.


The lights were of the careless sort one expects at jazz concerts. She lowered her head and barely spoke these lines, and her face between speech and silence had those harsh lights on it; and there was a sudden
alteration of all ideas of a peace and beauty. That is the face of America. Grant Wood is already only quaint—a withered newspaper photograph— because he never saw that face. If we had a blessed Angelico, that is the face from which he would have worked. She was a child from the colored schools of Newport News when Chick Webb took her on to sing swing songs; she has no education except what she got there, as cruel a school as Palermo; she has never had a coach except her own interior.


Most of the literature about Ella Fitzgerald consists of reviews and previews of her performances. This book reprints a portion of those pieces and also includes those rarer pieces that address Ella's personal life and views. Sometimes the "facts" about her early life vary from piece to piece. It is my hope that this collection of articles in which she talked freely to her interviewers face-to-face will bring Ella vividly to life for the reader.


[Although I doubt that it was available to Leslie’s book due to the timing of its writing, I would also recommend to you that no overview of the literature on Ella Fitzgerald would be complete without the inclusion of Gene Lees’ “The Sweetest Voice in the World: Ella Fitzgerald “ which appears in his compilation - there’s that word again - entitled The Singers and The Song.


Should you find yourself with some spare time on your hands during the 100th anniversary of the year of the birth Ella Fitzgerald, you couldn’t do better than spending some of it by listening to Ella’s Songbooks [most of which are available on YouTube] and reviewing the wonderful selections about her life and music lovingly as compiled by Leslie Gourse in her wonderful tribute to “The First Lady of Song” - The Ella Fitzgerald Companion: Seven Decades of Commentary.

Phil Woods and The European Rhythm Machine

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


"Mr. Woods was one of the leading alto saxophonists in the generation that followed Charlie Parker, who had set an imposing new bar for the instrument while defining the terms of bebop. Rigorous, complex and brisk, bebop’s stylistic language would be a constant for Mr. Woods throughout his prolific career, as both a leader and a sideman.

For much of that career, he was a sought-after section player in big bands because of his ability, unusual at the time, to read sheet music with as much breezy authority as he brought to his solos. He recorded with the composer-arrangers Oliver Nelson, Michel Legrand and George Russell, among many others, and helped the trumpeter Clark Terry establish his Big Bad Band.

... Mr. Woods often declared, with a touch of self-deprecation, that he was more a stylist than an innovator."
- Nat Chinen, New York Times Obituary

Most Jazz fans didn't realize the significance of Phil's Paris-based quartet which he - with purposeful motive - called the "European Rhythm Machine [ERM]." [Some US based Jazz critics were very dismissive of the ability of European rhythm sections to swing and labeled them everything from plodding to flimsy.]

When I first posted this piece about the group to my blog, Phil wrote to thank me for my efforts in "putting it together; now my kids believe me when I tell them that all this really did happened." [Phil has a son, three stepdaughters and a grandson.] The ERM got constant and quite ecstatic coverage in the European Jazz press but not so much in the geocentric US Jazz publications.

Mike Zwerin, the late Jazz musician/writer who was based in Paris for many years, claimed that Jazz went to Europe to live. In the main, I think he was referring to expatriates such as drummer Kenny Clarke, pianist Bud Powell, tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon and a number of other Jazz musicians who went to Europe in the 1950s and 1960s and set up residence there.

Paris also had a resuscitating effect on Phil Woods, because, as he explains in the following excerpt from his interview with Jazz columnist Steve Voce, after a very active career on the New York Jazz scene in the 1950s with Dizzy Gillespie's Big Band, the George Wallington's Quintet and a quintet he co-led with alto saxophonist Gene Quill, Phil spent most of the 1960s in the studios and teaching.

The 1968-1972 experience with his European Rhythm Machine brought Phil back into the Jazz Life and after a brief interregnum in California upon his return, he moved to Delaware Gap in Pennsylvania where he formed a quartet in 1974 and had his own group for over 40 years! [ Phil died on 9/29/2015].

"I spent a lot of time teaching between 1964 and 1967 and then in March 1968 I moved with my family to Paris. The jazz opportunities in Europe were good at that time. I formed the European Rhythm Machine almost as soon as I arrived. with George Gruntz on piano, bassist Henri Texier and drummer Daniel Humair. Later Gordon Beck took over on piano. We stayed together for four years. It was an experimental group and an innovative part of my life. [Bassist would take over for Henri Texier from 1971-72.]

As you say there were some periods of my life when I felt more creative than others. The ebb and flow of any evolutionary part of living is like that. You can't always be full out with the Creative thing.




You have to have time sometimes to ponder just where you're at. I hadn't recorded or played any jazz for years and suddenly I was in Europe and had a band and I was playing major festivals. I was even invited to play Newport."


“Phil Woods: a majestic instrumental voice, a fertile and very lucid imagination, a forceful swing. I do not see an altoist today who could equal him, at least from the point of view of instrumental command. To his triumph were associated the three Europeans who now constitute probably the strongest rhythm section on the Old Continent.”
- Arrigo Polillo, Musica Jazz, Milan


“In Phil Woods’ music, everything bears the same signature, his own. The cleanliness dazzles, the rhythmic and melodic happiness blooms in all simplicity.”
- Jean-Pierre Binchet, Jazz Magazine, Paris


“Phil Woods possesses eveything, the sound, the ideas, the swing, the power, the ease. Phil Woods: a monster.”
- Michel Delorme, Jazz Hot, Paris


“In Barcelona, The Phil Woods Quartet triumphed and one will remember for a long time this homogeneous group, creators of an original Jazz with an extraordinary contexture.. Phil Woods lavished an inventivesness, a sensitivity and an admirable instrumental mastership. All works presented constituted an homage to the cult of musical beauty.”
- Alberto Mallofre’, La Vanguadria, Barcelona


My apologies for the “quality” of the translations that form the lead-in to this piece, as well as for the translation to following insert notes by Jean-Louis Ginibre from Phil Woods And His European Rhythm Machine: Alive and Well in Paris [Toshiba-EMI Limited TOCJ-5960].


I wanted to stay as close to the writing in the original languages of Italian, Spanish and French in which they were published and this is the best I could do. The press excerpts and recording notes tend to be a bit overstated and perhaps over-enthusiastic, but this was typical of the excitement that alto saxophonist Phil Woods generated amongst European Jazz audiences and press when he moved to France in 1968 and caused quite a stir by using European players to form the rhythm section in his quartet - The European Rhythm Machine.


I’ve been listening to Phil Woods play alto saxophone for almost 60 years, and in my opinion he has never played like this before or since.


All Jazz musicians have resting places, or licks that they fall back on while they wait for more original ideas to form in their minds so that they can move forward in their improvisations.


Phil has his share of tricks and licks, but you’d never know it by the way he plays on The European Rhythm Machine recordings that were issued from about 1968 to 1972.


Unleashed from the restrictions of working primarily in a studio environment by his move to Europe and the reception that he received there, his playing is rich with a fresh inventiveness that is characterized by improvised phrases that seem to leap out of his horn.


In the forty years or so since the European Rhythm Machine disbanded, I have become so accustomed to Phil leading his own quartet or quintet, that I didn’t realize that the ERM is the place where it all began in terms of fronting his own group on a regular basis.


Up to this time, Phil’s bands were largely formed for recording purposes or for the odd gig in and around New York, but he made his living working in the studios.


When he couldn’t take it anymore, he accepted an invitation to come live in Paris and form his own group.


The invitation involved Jean-Louis Ginibre, who was the editor of the Paris-based Jazz Magazine, and his wife, Simone, who was forming an entertainment management business.


Here are Jean-Louisinsert notes for the Japanese CD reissue of the European Rhythm Machine’s first recorded appearance which took place at 1968 Montreux Jazz Festival.


“Bologna, Barcelona, Paris, wherever they appear, Phil Woods, George Gruntz, Henri Texier and Daniel Humair provoke enthusiasm. The space devoted to these notes would not be sufficient to reprint the eulogistic comments that they have aroused in Europe since that day of April 27, 1968 when they formed as a regular unit.


For the fans of the European Continent, Phil Woods was, until now, a sideman of quality capable of “taking care of business” in every circumstance be it with Thelonious Monk, Benny Goodman, Dizzy Gillespie or Quincy Jones.


Now, everyday, he proves that he is a leader of exception and the best altoist of today.


For Phil Woods, the fact that he has left the United States is sort of a liberation.


Indeed, it was not a lack of work that made him leave the country. A remarkable reader and lead-alto, he could have lived at ease in the studios where the hits and jingles are recorded.


But for him, this comfort was nothing but servitude and left him feeling very unsatisfied. So he left the United States in 1968 with his family, in part to get away from the studios, to forget the atmosphere of violence that reigns today in the United States, but mostly to achieve his vocation which is to play Jazz.


Europe has welcomed him with open arms and Phil has wanted to show his gratitude in honoring his reputation as a Jazzman and the art that he defends.


When, for some American musicians, our Continent is nothing more but a parade ground where one can afford to lose many a battle, Phil has wanted to win them all and he has understood for this he needed to have by his side trained me in perfect communion of feelings and ideas.


So soon after he arrived in Paris he formed a quartet with Gruntz, Texier and Humair, a rhythm section of the highest quality.


Immediately, the four musicians found a basis of understanding and since then have not ceased to provoke the admiration of the fans by their perfect mutual understanding, their inventiveness, their musicality, their swing, their “joie de vivre”  and their rage to play. …


There are albums, there are albums more conservative, but there are few albums that are so simply beautiful.” - Jean-Louis Ginibre, Redecteur en chef, Jazz Magazine, Paris


The background as to how and why the European Rhythm machine was formed are contained in these insert notes by Leonard Feather, the esteemed Jazz author and critic, from the first European Rhythm Machine LP which was issued on MGM Records as Phil Woods and His European Rhythm Machine at The Montreux Jazz Festival [SE-4695]



“When Philip Wells Woods left the U.S. of A. in the spring of 1968 to become a Paris-based expatriate, there were those who said: ‘Why is he giving it all up? He's got it made!’


At a superficial glance it would have seemed that way. Phil Woods had established himself so firmly in jazz, earning his credentials with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Quincy Jones and Oliver Nelson, that he had been able financial stability that goes along with the willingness to move into new and lucrative areas.


He was accepted in studio circles, gaining the relative become an anonymous sideman. He had a lovely home in New Hope, Pa., an acre of land, a wife, four children. Unlike so many who become expatriates, he wasn't bugged by any scarcity of work. Still, he was sitting at home one day when the moment of truth hit him. ‘Chan, let's go,’ he said!


Very soon it began to happen after he had planted roots in Paris. Jean-Louis Ginibre, editor of Jazz Magazine, became a good friend; Simone Ginibre, his wife, became Phil's manager. The European Rhythm Machine, a permanently organized entity, soon was in such demand that in a climactic irony, the group was invited to play the 1969 Newport Jazz Festival. He stayed in town long enough to record the superb Round Trip album with Johnny Pate's help (Verve V6-8791), then headed back for his adopted home. He stays busy writing compositions and arrangements for European TV and radio stations (yes, they still have live radio on the Continent), and gigging at clubs and festivals with his still very much together quartet.


An engagement at the Montreux Jazz Festival proved particularly felicitous in terms of the general ambiance and the peak level of performance achieved by the group. The Swiss gala has proven lucky to several American jazzmen. In 1969 an album recorded there by the Bill Evans Trio (Verve V6-8762) was awarded a Grammy by NARAS as the best jazz combo record of the year. Recently a Montreux performance by Les McCann and Eddie Harris has become the top-selling jazz LP in this country. Perhaps now it is Phil Woods' turn to triumph.


It was in Paris, between cross-Continent hops in the fall of 1968, that I heard this luminous quartet for the first time, at the Club Cameleon. There was no time to hear any other music in town, but the brief encounter with the Rhythm Machine made the visit worthwhile. The Cameleon is a small cave, with room for perhaps 75 amateurs du jazz, but their number was well counterbalanced by their enthusiasm. The group feeling among the men that night is captured even more overwhelmingly in the Montreux recording.


Pianist George Gruntz, who is just a few months younger than Phil, was born in Basel, Switzerland and has worked with numerous other Americans—Donald Byrd, Lee Konitz, Roland Kirk, Dexter Gordon. As a composer (his works include several jazz symphonies and chamber pieces) he is represented here by the opening track, Capricci Cavaleschi, which after a brief thematic exposition gives extended solo opportunities to all hands. Henri Texier, the only Frenchman in this France-based combo, offers astonishing evidence of his flexibility, wealth of ideas and technical finesse. Daniel Humair is the man who set to rest for all time the false alarms
could swing with the best of the Americans. Born in 1938 in Geneva, Humair has visited the U.S. several times, most notably with the Swingle Singers.


In an interview with Lars Lysted for Down Beat, Phil once remarked: ‘I’m  an old bebopper, and Bird didn't play total reality. He just played music as it was to him then. That's enough.’ The unregenerate second-generation bopper is completely at ease in this new concert version of I Remember Bird. (Originally, on a big band date which Oliver Nelson and I put together, it was converted into a memorable concerto for Phil, on the first volume of Encyclopedia of Jazz in the '60s (Verve V6-8677). Phil plays it a hair faster here and provides more room for everyone to stretch out.


The Oakland-born Carla Bley is a composer and pianist who has become to the avant garde what Mary Lou Williams was to the swing era. Her Ad Infinitum gives the Rhythm Machine a chance to operate at a high level of abstraction, soon after the hauntingly melodic main theme has been established. Despite Phil’s sworn allegiance to the memory of Bird, it is evident here and elsewhere that the impact and influence of Coltrane and other seminal figures of the 1960s could not have been lost on him. Similarly Gruntz reflects some of the new pianistic forces of the past decade, Herbie Hancock among them.


Finally, speaking of Hancock, the set ends with Herbie's own composition Riot. This version, paradoxically, is far more suggestive of the title than Hancock's own treatment, though there is an element of turmoil in both. Humair, though he
acknowledges that his primary influences were Elvin Jones, Philly Joe Jones and Roy Haynes, is a figure of total authority here both as soloist and rhythm section component. As for Phil, one can only gasp at the range of emotions and
variegated and eminently satisfying performances. "A majestic instrumental voice, a fertile and very lucid imagination and forceful swing. I do not see which altoist could,
today, equal him, at least from the point of view of instrumental command." Those words, part of a review by Arrigo Polillo in the Milan magazine Musica Jazz and are an exact reflection of my own feelings about Phil Woods.


If you are not yet among the converted, this document of a memorable  Montreux rendezvous should bring you around to Pollilo's way of thinking and mine.”   - Leonard Feather



Phil offered his own thoughts about gigging with The European Rhythm Machine in these notes from their Phil Woods and his European Rhythm Machine at The Frankfurt Jazz Festival Embryo LP: [Stereo/SD 530] [in this 1971 performance, Gordon Beck had replaced George Gruntz on keyboard]:


“The Machine and I will always remember Frankfurt. The evening concert was very long and consisted of mostly free-jazz German groups. Originally we had planned on recording but, after the mid-day rehearsal, I felt it was not the place. The hall did not sound right and the ambiance in general was not conducive to a live album. So I thought! After the first five minutes or so of Freedom Jazz Dance, I suddenly realized that it was going to be one of those evenings when everything works. And, after the first free connecting link to Ode A Jean-Louis, I knew that everybody else felt the same way. We now employ the non-stop technique and try to join all of the material into a suite. It's more demanding on an audience (though certainly not as demanding as a totally free group) but we believe that people who are familiar with the group and know its ingredients will enjoy following each step in the collective improvised recipe.


Three basic ingredients:


1— The Audience


We've discussed this and agree that, after the first few bars, we knew and felt the communication with the audience was well established. Perhaps it was the relief at not being the recipients of hostility but, once the rapport was there, all concentration and energy went into the making of the music.


2—The Acoustics
We could hear each other fantastically well. This is the biggest problem about playing the way we do; we must be able to hear each other and react or the result is forced. In Frankfurt the conditions were as near perfect as it is possible.


3—The Piano


Gordon said that as soon as he touched the keyboard he knew that the concert was going to be a bitch. Show me a happy piano player and I'll show you a happy band.


Many thanks to the fine people who present the Frankfurt Festival. Horst Lippmann and Fritz Rau (Horst Lippmann supervised this recording) and the engineers. But above all I must mention Simone and Jean-Louis Ginibre, without whose encouragement and help all this would not have been possible.” - PHIL WOODS


There is also more from Jean-Louis Ginibre about Phil and the ERM in these notes from  Phil Woods and his European Rhythm Machine at The Frankfurt Jazz Festival.


All those who have followed attentively the evolution of jazz and its men have known for some time that within Phil Woods lies part of the future of jazz. Phil and His European Rhythm Machine triumph in clubs, concert halls, the most famous festivals. Praised in Montreux, Newport, Bologna, Carthage, Frankfurt, Berlin, Barcelona, Scandinavia, France, they conquer each day new audiences and make friends wherever they play. Phil and his men create between the audience and themselves affectionate rapport and establish passionate bonds. They communicate. They diffuse their "joie de vivre", their rage to play, their enthusiasm and their faith in modern art.


Phil Woods was born twice. The first time in Springfield (Mass.), in 1931, the second time in Paris (France) in 1968. The man who was the companion of Gene Quill, the sideman of Dizzy Gillespie and Benny Goodman, the lead-alto of Quincy Jones and Oliver Nelson, died to be reborn better. When he set foot on the earth of France, Phil Woods opened his eyes and discovered that many people were ready to have faith in him.


Musicians looked at him with admiration, an agent gave him a helping hand with enthusiasm, jazzfans listened to him with fervor. And, thanks to this audience, this agent, these musicians and, of course, his talent, Phil Woods managed to avoid the trap befalling many American jazzmen who come to settle in Europe: becoming a local musician, an American expatriate playing here and there with whichever rhythm section is available in each city. Phil Woods' new life began in Paris on April 28th, 1968. On that day, Phil was due to open in a small club, the "Cameleon". His manager had booked aroundhim what she thought would be the ideal rhythm section for him: pianist George Gruntz, bassist Henri Texier and drummer Daniel Humair. Two Swiss and one Frenchman.


From the first moment the contact was established. A mutual understanding, an identical faith, a similar sensitivity united them. They decided to remain together and to form a steady group. Quickly, the whole of Europe was informed of the existence of this new group to which, in order to give it its own personality, a name was given: PHIL WOODS AND HIS EUROPEAN RHYTHM MACHINE. The communion was such between the four men that the style of the group continually evolved. New outlooks were discovered and new trails cleared. George Wein, passing thru Paris, heard the group and asked them to participate in the Newport Jazz Festival.


After playing there, in July 1969, George Gruntz had to leave the group because of other commitments. Phil saw only one man in Europe capable of filling the chair: an Englishman, Gordon Beck. Phil contacted him and Gordon accepted eagerly. With this new element, the Machine started off again better than ever. It accelerated and the evolution went on. Success, too. London, Rome, Belgrade, Warsaw, Palermo, Molde. New victories, new successes. The U.S.A. began to be moved. And it was from America that came the most unexpected, the most tremendous, the most unbelievable of encouragements. In 1970, Down Beat published the results of its polls. In the Critics Poll, Phil was voted No. 1 alto (Established Talent Category) and his group was voted first of the combos (Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition). A few months later, in the Readers Poll, Phil came second behind Cannonball Adderley. In 1969, he was fifth! They say that no one is a prophet in his own land and Phil had to move to Europe to be admired by the Americans. When he lived there, he was a musician among many others, a little better considered than most but that was all.


The music speaks for itself. No need to describe it, to comment on it, to be more explicit. Allow me, however, to make a personal remark: Phil Woods is, for me, the greatest alto-player alive. His group is the best in Europe and, in the United States, I only know of two others capable of competing with it. Phil Woods and His European Rhythm Machine will live very long. A long road opens in front of them, a road spread with traps at times but with many triumphant moments.” -  JEAN-LOUIS GINIBRE Editor of "Jazz-Magazine" PARIS


When I started this piece on Phil and The European Rhythm Machine I could barely find any mention of it in any of the major Jazz research tomes, although I must admit that my canvassing of The Literature was by no means exhaustive.


I am not a Jazz authority or scholar; if anything, I am a compiler [sometimes, a not too discerning one, although I try to be accurate about what I post]. I collect information on Jazz topics that interest me and then “cut and paste it” to form many of the features that appeared on JazzProfiles.


It is my effort at developing an anthology of information all in one place for those readers who wish to have a more in-depth look at the musician being profiled on the blog.


With this in mind, there follows a lengthy interview that Phil gave to the English Jazz writer and critic, Les Tomkins, in 1969 about how the European Rhythm Machine came into existence, an excerpt from Phil's 2010 interview with Marty Nau for the Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Project on the same subject, as well as two, additional reviews of recordings made by Phil and the ERM.


We close with our usual video that provides you with an example of the music of the group, in this case, the version of Freedom Jazz Dance that was recorded at the 1969 Montreux Jazz Festival.



Breaking Out of The Studio: Phil Woods as told to Les Tomkins


Pennsylvanian alto saxophonist, clarinettist, bandleader and composer Phil Woods talks to Les Tomkins in 1969 about his quartet The European Rhythm Machine, running a music camp and playing across Europe.


Interview : 1969


Source: Jazz Professional/National Jazz Archive
“It feels good to be playing, I must say; I enjoy this rhythm section very much. Having worked with them almost a year makes a difference. It's becoming a little more instinctive, some of the things we do. The level of creation and rapport is a lot higher. A good feeling, one that I've sorely missed.


When I was in London a year ago, I got some correspondence from a lady, the wife of the editor of a French magazine, who was just beginning to get into personal management. She flew over to London during the Ronnie Scott engagement, asked me what my plans were, and said that she knew a very good rhythm section.
Would I be interested in going into the Chameleon in Paris and seeing how it developed from there? The individuals were more or less hand-picked for me. I'd known Daniel Humair ten years ago; George Grunz I knew a little bit as a pianist, but not personally, and I didn't know Henri Texier, the bass player, at all. So I had a ready-made group. I don't think I could have done it by myself. I wouldn't have known where to go, in the first place, to find this calibre of player. Daniel and Henri are from Paris, but George is from Basle, Switzerland-I would never think of looking there.


We've been to the Barcelona Festival; we did a Norwegian tour, Stockholm, a few gigs in Brussels, a tour of the South of France, radio and television in Italy. The only place we haven't hit yet is Germany, and I think that's forthcoming. We've kept quite busy; mostly festivals and concerts, which is essentially where all the work is anyway. Not so much clubs.


Clubs are difficult in the cities because they can't afford the transportation. That's why there's that perpetual thing of doing a single and working with the house rhythm section. Sometimes, in the face of economic tribulation, I have to go out and work with the local musicians. Gradually the quartet is catching on, though. I think we'll be working more and more. I hope so. We're playing at the Montreux Festival. And we go to Newport this year; that should be a good boost for us.
Our conception? Well, we're not teenagers, by any means; we've all been playing for quite a few years. The youngest member is Henri Texier, who's 23. We cover all of our own individual musical backgrounds within the group context. Free collective, but very tight; we're quite aware of form. We use freedom when the tune or the emotion of the moment calls for it. We're not free jazz players, but I don't think I'm a pure bebopper either. I've taken all the elements that have made up my musical experience.


We play some new and some older pieces. If I do a ballad, I play it a different way. We try to get as much variety as possible within the jazz quartet form. Because the instrumentation is such that there's not too much you can do; so you have to rely upon the texture of the tune itself.


I remember there was some criticism last year when I was here with the British rhythm section, asking how come I couldn't find a new format other than solo, solo, bass, fours and out. But there's no other possible way you can do it with a quartet. I mean, you could start with a bass solo but in the interests of musical sense, you can either vary the solo format by having the piano go first, or maybe a little group improvisation. You don't have too much colour to work with; it's the variety of your material that kind of offsets that.


On a ballad, I may be the only soloist. We have several fairly extended pieces, where everybody has the chance to get deep. It's a varied book; it covers just about every situation, I think. Everybody in the group has contributed, which makes it a good thing.


Why the name European Rhythm Machine? We had to call it something and I didn't want to just call it the Phil Woods Quartet. And I'm quite proud of the rhythm section; I just like people to know that there are some European swingers. The gap is narrowing. That's a bunch of nonsense about: "Oh well, they don't swing." Maybe that was true thirty or forty years ago.


The rhythmic thing has always been the criticism that you've heard. There were no drummers in Europe, and so forth. I think that's fast dating; the musical level is fantastic, as you know, with people like Dave Holland, Gordon Beck.


And they sound marvellous, by the way. I must put a plug in for the Gordon Beck Trio, which was my rhythm section last year. They've made fantastic development; I can hear it, especially in Cordon. Tony Oxley has certainly mellowed. And Jeff Clyne is, as always, solid as a rock; he's broadened even more. It's a delight for me to hear them again, and they're all very nice cats.


I like Europe very much. Naturally it's given me the chance to do what I've always wanted to do, and I'll be forever grateful for that. European audiences are very astute. I'm quite content. The family is well- adjusted; the children are all very fluent in French, attending French schools. My French is creeping along; my wife is doing very well. And we like the living, although France right now is a little shaky politically; but we still love the country very much. That's part of the whole world picture; France is going through the throes of economic troubles. I'm not really qualified to speak of politics of my own country, let along the one where I'm a guest. But sometimes it gets a bit unsettled there. I arrived right in the middle of the May riots; the week I opened in the Chameleon was when it began. Fantastic. But it's worked out well. I'm quite pleased.


My reason for leaving the States was that I wanted to play, essentially. I felt the only way I could do this would be to just sever all ties with my image. Which had been cultivated for me; I tried not to contribute to it, but it was unavoidable that I be labelled a studio musician. It was just inevitable for it to happen.


And I never considered myself a studio man at all. Most of the work I did then, even in the studios, was in a jazz- orientated vein, if you check the records. I did my share of the commercial things, television jingles and whatever, but it was usually for the jazz- based writers who would ask for me. I mean the schlocky contractors didn't want to hire a jazz alto player. I was used as a jazzman within the studio scene, but as far as getting any gigs outside of that scene, I was considered more studio than jazz.


A lot of times people would say: "Well, he's so busy in the studios he wouldn't take a gig in a jazz club." You know, and they wouldn't even call, just figured they'd get a "No". Actually, I'd have been only too glad to do it.


I was very dissatisfied and bored with what I was doing. I felt: "This is not what I set out to do." And I never feel that I tossed the towel in. It was just circumstances. Also it says something for the state of jazz in my country; perhaps the state of jazz all over. I know the same trap occurs in Europe. You have your session musicians that are labelled the same way, and some of them are fine jazz players. It's right back to trying to make a dollar or a pound playing music; it's very difficult.


That's why I consider myself quite fortunate to be able to keep the quartet going. I'm also getting opportunities to do some writing, which I've always been very interested in. The one thing I want to do is more teaching; I haven't started any yet. I'll be doing some clinics in Europe; I did one here with the London Youth Jazz Orchestra. Eventually I intend to get into that.


My school back home went on for five summers. Before I left it had been sold as a remedial reading camp for backward children. It just became financially unfeasible to maintain. We had an administrative staff, the people that owned the school. I was Music Director, generally responsible for the co-relating of the different departments. Like, I'd work with the ballet department if we were doing a jazz piece with some dancers. It wasn't exclusively my camp, although it became more of a jazz camp, because we got a little publicity out of the fact that a jazz musician was teaching. But not enough to keep it going, which was truly a shame.
It was absolutely marvellous while it lasted, a fantastic experience for me and my whole family. Because we only lived a mile from the school out in Pennsylvania, amid an estate of lovely scenic woods. You'd visit the school and over here you'd see some kid with a tenor under the apple tree, practising some Pres licks or something, while some other kids over there would be dancing. We had all of the performing arts represented. Very exciting.


Towards the end we developed quite a few good players. In fact, I'm quite proud of one young man; his name is Richie Cole. He's now playing lead alto with the Buddy Rich band. I get a bigger kick out of seeing his name in print than I do my own. It's a good feeling to see an ex-student of mine, still only around 18 making it like that. He’s very talented and I'm sure you're going to hear more from him. Without the school, it's possible that this kid might not be there today.
So if only one had come out of it, it's worth it.


Section and lead playing is something you can teach to a certain extent but it's a deep experience which must be shared by the kid within working circumstances. This is what the school supplied- we worked on ensemble and big band sound- I mean, we played free pieces. I gave the kids free rein to play the music they wanted to. I wasn't about to tell them: "Well, you'd better learn all your Bird licks or you won't get a gold star." Play what you want, but let's play correctly, as musicians, with a professional level of performing. …”


Marty Nau 2010 Interview with Phil for the Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Archive


[Phil Woods]“[Late 1960s] The record business had changed completely, you know, it was now you know the three cretins with an ewee [electronic wind instrument], a lot of guitars. It changed and the gigs were falling apart. And so I remember I said to Chan [Phil’s wife], “Let‟s go to Europe, let‟s go back,” because we spent that year, ‘59 and ‘60, in Europe and we loved it being based in Paris.


So I said, “I can‟t make the studio scene anymore. I want to play jazz,” you know. So, we packed up our matching luggage, our 24 cardboard cartons [MN chuckles] and uh I, I had a gig I had two weeks at Ronnie Scott‟s club in London and then I had a couple of German workshops. In those days, they each the radio orchestras would have would bring in a not a big bands but famous players from all the different countries and they put together a special project. I had a couple of those. So, we uh we flew to England and did Ronnie Scott‟s and then we were actually heading for Amsterdam because we didn‟t think we could afford Paris.


And, in fact, I bought a Fiat 1500 for delivery in Amsterdam, and um when I  was working in Ronnie Scott‟s, a guy by the name of uh Jean Louis Ginibre, who was the editor of Jazz magazine in Paris, came to London, heard I was in London, knew who I was, and said, “You know, you‟ve got to come to Paris.” And I said, “Well, we‟re thinking of …” He said, “Come to Paris.” He says, “My wife‟s going to start booking. Simone Ginibre, who became George Wein‟s right-hand lady, girl Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, started booking. But I was her first client. So we went to Paris and drove around the Arch of Triumph with Jean Louis and Simone Ginibre and we went to Paris and he put a band together for me which was Daniel Humair on drums, Henri Texier on bass and George Gruntz on piano, became the European Rhythm Machine.
[Marty Nau]: Later, uh replaced by Gordon Beck,
[PW]: Replaced by Gordon Beck and Ron Mathewson replaced Tex. But we always had Daniel on drums.


Man, you know, from playing jingles and all that stuff all of a sudden I‟m playing every major festival in Europe, you know, because of Jean Louis‟ influence and Simone booking us. I man, right off the bat we started recording for Pathé the French label, did a thing called “Alive and Well,” it was received very well and man I was off and running man five years of you know headlining and stuff, ….”

The full, 66-page text of Phil's interview with Marty about all aspects of his career can be located via this link: 

BBC Review. Peter Marsh. 2003. Phil Woods And His European Rhythm Machine: Alive and Well in Paris [Toshiba-EMI Limited TOCJ-5960]


“In 1968 alto player Phil Woods gave up a promising career as a sideman and studio musician to move to Paris, in the belief that Europe was a much healthier place (both politically and culturally) to be a jazz musician.


Strangely, he was right. Within a month or two he'd hooked up with a band who'd all go on to be important European jazz artists in their own right; pianist George Gruntz, bassist Henri Texier and drummer Daniel Humair. A storming set at the 1968 Newport Festival suggested this was a band to be reckoned with; though visiting American jazzmen usually worked with local pickup bands while in Europe, this was a different kettle of fish. The ERM stayed together for five years (with only two personnel changes) and arguably produced the altoist's finest and most exploratory work.


Woods, a self confessed 'old bebopper', was deeply in thrall to the work of Charlie Parker, but the ERM's remit included nods to the emergent avant garde. On this date (recorded in 1969) they cover tunes by Carla Bley and Herbie Hancock; though Woods was publicly distrustful of free jazz (he famously dismissed Anthony Braxton's music in a Downbeat blindfold test) he was obviously attracted to the possibilities of improvising over more expansive structures. Hancock's "Riot" provokes an electrifying solo from the altoist that recalls Eric Dolphy's elastication of bebop language.


Pretty much everything here is taken at an alarmingly high tempo. Woods' bebop sensibilities are intact, but he rarely resorts to merely recycling old licks; or if he does, he stitches them together in new ways. More crucially, his tone never suffers at speed; where other altoists get screechy, Woods' tone remains satisfyingly fruity, each note deftly articulated.


Humair is equally dazzling; there's some of Elvin Jones' polyrhythmic approach at work, coupled with the effortless complexity of Roy Haynes. And (aided by Texier's flowing, inventive lines) he swings too; Woods noted ruefully that Humair's abilities were accepted with some surprise by American audiences (obviously unused to the notion that any European musicians could be worth their time).


Later editions of the band with Gordon Beck at the keyboard would take Woods into more exploratory pastures, flirting with electric instruments and rock rhythms, but this Montreux set is second generation bebop of the highest order. Recommended.”


Review of Phil Woods and His European Rhythm Machine [Inner City IC 1002]by Michael G. Nastos for www.allmusic.com


“In 1970, when Inner City Records was just getting off the ground, Phil Woods was in Europe enjoying himself, and collaborating with musicians who were definitely feeling the spell of the Miles Davs  groundbreaking jazz fusion epic Bitches Brew. While always a staunch straight-ahead bebop player,Woods decided to mix it up a bit and incorporate elements of funk, rock, and free improvisation, much to the likely chagrin of his listeners.


In fact, a vitriolic letter printed on the back cover from an unidentified fan residing in Chicopee Falls, MA, rips Woods for abandoning melody, criticizes his titles, and actually threatens him with physical violence should he ever show up in his town. Woods gives his terse reply, but as cynical as this discourse is, it could all have been whipped up by Woods to deflect any detractors to his "new thing." Truth be told, the music here is inspired and focused, even if it is not what devotees might expect. British electric pianist Gordon Beck (who took over for original keyboardist George Gruntz), French acoustic bassist Henri Texier, and Swiss drummer Daniel Humair are all extremely talented musicians, who alongside the excitable Woods forge strong bonds in amalgamating this modern jazz into a personalized sound.


Bookended by really long jam-type pieces, the album also retains a certain amount of arranged and complex melody lines. The opener, "Chromatic Banana," is the piece that caused the letter-writing fan's consternation, and in the hilarious liner notes, Woods offers listeners a chance to win one in simulated plastic. Musically, it moves fast from 6/8 to free to 5/4, 4/4, and 7/8 meters in pre-fusion rock-funk modes, with the alto and Varitone-modified sax of Woods wheezing, wailing, improvising, and eventually vocally scatting.


Beck's "The Day When the World..." has a folkish intro on the Hohner electric piano, moves from a steady rock beat to a poppish tune, and concludes with introductions of the band members by one of the leader's children in English and French. A combo track of Beck and Woods, "The Last Page/Sans Melodie" starts as a pleasant ballad, then quickens to a bop and rock pace with Woods on a Varitone clarinet. The most straight jazz-oriented cut is also contributed by Beck: "Ultimate Choice" is a fleet bebop discourse between the pianist and alto saxophonist, with hard attacks and Woods digging in and establishing his territory. The short "A Look Back" is actually forward-thinking and progressive in a spontaneous manner via the spare recorder playing of Woods underpinning clacky percussion, rattles, and bowed bass.


This recording, the second overall release in the Inner City catalog (with artwork containing a Rube Goldberg-type Honeywell computer schematic and the label's original skyscraper type logo), has been issued on CD, and it is a testament to the tenacity of Phil Woods to think outside the box occasionally, while losing none of his identity. The project deserves a revisit, despite some of the fans' misgivings.”

“Fine As [Phineas] Can Be”: Phineas Newborn, Jr.


“This is the greatest thing that ever happened to Jazz – the greatest pianist playing today.  In every respect, he’s tremendous. He is just beautiful. A wonderful Jazz musician,”
- Jazz pianist, Gene Harris

“Technically, he was sometimes claimed to run a close second to Art Tatum. In reality, Newborn was a more effective player at slower tempos and with fewer notes; but he could be dazzling when he chose,…. A sensitive and troubled soul, even the lightest of his performances point to hidden depths of emotion.”
- Richard Cook and Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Ed.

“I hear in him all that is emotional, as well as all that is cerebral and virtuosic, about jazz piano in one of its most sophisticated forms.”
- Leonard Feather

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Legendary bassist Ray Brown, along with Les Koenig of Contemporary Records and Norman Granz at Pablo Records, were largely responsible for insuring that one of the greatest Jazz pianists of all-time – Phineas Newborn, Jr. [1931-1989] - didn’t slip into total obscurity following his initial acclaim.

Although Phineas was not a celebrity, he was highly regarded by knowledgeable Jazz fans, especially in the 1950's and 60's. ''In his prime, he was one of the three greatest jazz pianists of all time, right up there with Bud Powell and Art Tatum,'' said the late Leonard Feather, who for many years served as a Jazz critic for Downbeat magazine and The Los Angeles Times.

There was a time when Phineas looked set for stardom, but mental problems forced him to return to Memphis in the '60s, where he spent his remaining years struggling against the alcohol and drug problems that exacerbated an already fragile emotional state.

Whenever Phineas [who prefers to pronounce his name - “Fine as, ” with the accent of the first syllable, hence the title of Ray’s tribute tune] could pull himself together, Ray Brown brought him into the studio and recorded him in a trio setting along with Ray on bass and such drummers as Jimmy Smith or Elvin Jones on drums.

I got to know Phineas a little during the early 1960s when he played one of the week nights at The Manne Hole, drummer Shelly Manne’s venerable club in Hollywood. He usually worked with bassist Jimmy Bond and drummer Milt Turner, but drummer Frank Butler often performed with him, as well.

One night he told me “his [my] Count Basie story.  It seems that Bill Basie was a friend of his Dad, a drummer who led a Rhythm and Blues band on Memphis’ famous Beale Street during the late 1930s.  Basie nicknamed Phineas, Jr. “Bright Eyes” because ‘as a boy his eyes would light-up as soon as he heard the music!’”

It was staggering to try and take-in all that Phineas had to offer. His technique was phenomenal and he tossed off so many ideas while improvising that if you stopped concentrating even for a second you were lost.  Listening to him in such an informal and personal setting was an exhilarating experience. Sadly, it was often not much of a shared experience as he hardly drew an audience.

The legendary Jazz pianist George Shearing once said that the “trick” to this music is getting it from the head and into the hands. Based on my first-hand observation of Phineas, I had the feeling that he had invented the “trick!”

With his technique, harmonic mastery, rhythmic displacement, and brilliant tone, Phineas Newborn, Jr. was nothing short of a Jazz piano phenomena.


But prodigious technique is frequently more of a curse than a blessing in Jazz circles and is often heavily criticized.

As the late Jazz writer, Leonard Feather, pointed out in his liner notes to Phineas Newborn, Jr.: A World of Piano [Contemporary LP S-7600; OJCCD 175-2]:

“There has always been a tendency among music experts, and by no means only in jazz, to harbor misgivings about technical perfection. The automatic-reflex reaction is: yes, all the notes are there and all the fingers are flying, but what is he really saying? How about the emotional communication?

Art Tatum at the apex of his creative powers suffered this kind of treatment at the hands of a not inconsiderable pro­portion of the critics. Buddy De Franco, of course, has been a consistent victim. Phineas has been in similar trouble, and not because of any lack in his ability to transmit emotion but possibly, I suspect, because of the listeners' reluctance or in­ability to receive it. Nat Hentoff, in the notes for Maggie's Back in Town, pointed out that Phineas has "harnessed his prodigious technique during the past couple of years into more emotionally meaningful directions!" True, though conservative; I would lengthen the harness to four or five years. During that time, too, the technique has taken on even more astonish­ing means to accomplish even more incredible ends — witness one ploy that is uniquely remarkable: the ad lib use of galvanic lines played by both hands two octaves apart. Today, bearing in mind that Bernard Peiffer is French and Oscar Peterson Canadian, it would not be extravagant to claim that Phineas has no equal among American jazz pianists, from any standpoint, technical or esthetic. He is a moving, swinging, pianistically perfect gas.”

George Wein, the impresario who founded the Newport Jazz Festival, wrote these thoughts about Phineas and his music in 1956 as the liner notes to Phineas’ first album for Atlantic Records Here is Phineas [#1235; reissued on CD as Koch 8505].

For years now I've listened to people scream at me about unknown pianists they have discovered. "He’s greater than Bud . "He cuts Oscar . "He leaves Tatum standing still". As many times as I have heard these cries, that is how often I have been disappointed. In­variably, these unknowns are, at their best, simply minor talents, and, at their worst, pale copies of great pianists.

About a year ago I began to hear stories about a fan­tastic pianist in Memphis, Tenn. with the almost quaint sounding name of Phineas Newborn. Jr. Men I re­spected, such as John Hammond, Willard Alexander and, of course. Count Basic, among many others, insisted that I must hear this guy. Due to my previous sad experiences, I could not get excited. However, when I got a chance to really hear Phineas in Storyville [a nightclub in Boston which Wein owned], for the first time I was not disappointed. The unknown had lived up to his press notices.

Phineas Newborn, Jr. was born December 14. 1932 in Memphis. Tenn. I believe this makes him all of 23 years old at the recording of this album. In all my years of listening to music I have never encountered a music­ian of such tender years who had such a fantastic com­mand of his instrument. Perhaps my reaction to Phineas can be traced to my personal concern with the piano. If this was my only reason for liking him, then I say it would be sufficient, for to my knowledge the only pianist who has as great, or greater command of the piano is Art Tatum.


Phineas is a two handed pianist, as opposed to the tendency of modern pianists to dwell on the single finger, right hand style. The only time he can be ac­cused of being a one-handed pianist is when he puts his right hand in his pocket and plays two choruses of a ballad, such as Embraceable You. exclusively with his left hand. Unfortunately, he does not do this in this album, but when you see him in person, ask him to play a left-handed solo for you. His left hand is de­veloped to such an extent that he can and does execute any passage or chord with his left hand that he would do with his right. When you realize that he has the fattest right hand of anyone since Tatum (he might even exceed Tatum for sheer speed) then you get an
idea of just what happens.

However, technique is only one facet of music. What of Phineas' basic musical style? From whence does he come and where is he going?

First, let me warn the reader of what not to do upon first hearing Phineas. Do not be so overpowered by his technique that you neglect to listen to the music he plays. Through all his technical intricacies I hear a wonderful musical mind, a mind that without copying has absorbed the music of the jazz masters. I get a funny feeling when I hear Phineas. I concentrate on his fan­tastically-"Bird'-influenced ideas and then I can't help but get the feeling that at any moment he is going to swing right into a Waller-James P. Johnson stride piano effect. He never quite does and I sometimes wish he would.

Phineas says his first jazz idols were Bird, Dizzy and Bud Powell. Later on, after he had begun to develop his own style, he heard Tatum. There is no doubt of the influence that these men left on Phineas. There is also evidence that he has listened to Erroll Garner.

However, there is never a question that Phineas has a unique approach to music. (In this album I believe Daahoud comes the closest to defining the Phineas Newborn style).


The only real criticism I have of his playing can be traced to his immaturity, both musically and in years. He tends to want to play everything in the same tempo. To be more explicit, he feels so relaxed at up-tempos that even in ballads he resorts to double-timing in order to utilize his technique. Also, he has a few figures of which he is fond. These appear a little too often in his playing. As soon as Phineas gets over the idea that he must create an impression the first time around the nightclub circuit, I am sure these minor faults will disappear.

Biographically, Phineas' history is not startling. The son of Phineas Newborn, Sr., a fine drummer and band leader in Memphis, he and his brother, Calvin, one year his junior, had an early musical beginning (Calvin plays guitar in the Phineas Newborn Quartet and is heard on some of the sides in this album). Phineas started the study of piano at the age of six with the pianist in his fathers band. He continued right through high (trumpet, tuba, baritone horn, French horn). Later on, he learned the vibes, and in college and the Arm/ he acquired the baritone, tenor and alto saxophones. Those who have heard him say he is nearly as fantastic on these various instruments as he is on the piano. For­tunately, Phineas has concentrated on piano and does not try to impress us with his versatility.

His formal education, in addition to graduating from the Memphis School System, consists of two years as a music major at Tenn. A and I. Later on he spent a year at LemoyneCollege in Memphis, before he was drafted into the Army in August 1953. He was discharged in June 1955, and played with his father's band until last month when he made the break after the Willard Alex­ander agency convinced him he should come North and let the world hear his talent. I am sure that Count Basic, who is Phineas' greatest booster, had much influence on his decision.

As in any record, the music in this album speaks for itself. My personal favorites are the Clifford Brown Daahoud, and a very Tatumesque Newport Blues. I also like his treatment of the Ellington standard I’m Beginning to See the Light. He is accompanied very ably by two jazz greats, Oscar Pettiford on bass and Kenny Clarke on drums, in addition to his brother Calvin on guitar.                                             

- GEORGE WEIN”

Leonard Feather, who, as noted, became an early and frequent champion of Phineas’ music, offered these cogent observations about him and comparisons with other Jazz pianists in the liner notes to Phineas’ 1969 Contemporary album, Please Send Me Someone to Love [S-7622; OJCCD 947-2:

“For a more than a half century, there was a series of evolutions in keyboard jazz, which originated in ragtime, then was marked by the successive advent of stride, with its volleying left hand; horn-style piano, characterized mainly by a fusillade of octaves or long runs of single notes in the right hand; bebop piano, with its central concern for harmonic experiments and relatively limited left-hand punctua­tions; and a 1950s trend marked by a concern for rich, full chords and a more expansive left-hand concept.

The only pianist who succeeded in absorbing many character­istics of each of these phases, in fact the first authentic and com­plete virtuoso of jazz piano, was Art Tatum. His death in 1956 seemed to close the book; there was no room for development, no area to examine that he had not already explored.

Time has shown that there were indeed other directions. The atonal improvisations of Cecil Taylor were acclaimed by many observers as taking jazz forward into a freer, more abstract music. Bill Evans launched what I once characterized, in an essay on jazz piano for Show magazine (July 1963), as the SerenitySchool, cre­ating new harmonic avenues, new voicings, swinging without hammering, asserting tersely yet subtly, rarely rising above a mezzo-forte. McCoy Tyner, armed with exceptional technical facili­ty, moved along still another route with extensive use of modes as a departure from the traditional chordal basis.

All these changes during the late 1950s and throughout the '60s did nothing to demolish the theory that Art Tatum represent­ed the ultimate. Coincidentally, it was during the year of Tatum's death that Phineas Newborn, Jr. first came to New York and emerged from Memphis obscurity (he was born Dec. 14,1931 in Whiteville, Tenn.) to establish himself as the new pianistic pianist, in the Tatum tradition.

In the abovementioned Show article, I wrote: "Most astonish­ing of the dexterous modernists is Phineas Newborn, Jr. As small, timid, and frail as Peterson is big and burly, Newborn belies his meek manner with a relentlessly aggressive style. His technique can handle any mechanical problem and he has, moreover, a quick, sensitive response to the interaction of melody and harmo­ny." Commenting that most critics tended to be skeptical of tech­nical perfection, I wrote of Newborn's AWorld of Piano! album (Contemporary S-7600) that it was "the most stunning piano set since Tatum's salad days in the 1930s."


A year later, in 1964, I went out on a rare limb to declare unequivocally, in Down Beat, "Newborn is the greatest living jazz pianist."

Five years later, while perfectly content to let that categorical statement remain on the record, I reflected on what esthetic, what ratiocination led me to this conclusion. Under the spell of a set by Peterson in top form I might have made a similar remark. In either case, my reaction would have been primarily emotional, but the emotions in evaluating a work of art are often guided, per­haps subliminally, by a consciousness of the craftsmanship required for its creation.

Despite the chattering of the anti-intellectuals, I cannot see how any possible advantage can be found in technical limitation. Clearly technique can be abused, or used without imagination; I can think of a dozen popular pianists, some of them well-known via network television, who have made this point painfully clear. But a man like Newborn, who reached his present command of the instrument by practicing perhaps six or seven hours a day, automatically has an advantage over the simplistic artist, who resorts to simple figures and clichés only because that is as far as his fingers and mind will take him.

Phineas demonstrates all the virtues and none of the handi­caps (if there are any) inherent in knowing how to use the piano. Taking him on his own terms, he's an involved, committed artist, for whom the instrument is virtually an extension of the man. This would not be possible if he were in any way hamstrung by not being able to execute whatever idea may cross his mind.

I won't deny that when he uses a personal device, such as the parallel lines in unison an octave apart, I am impressed by the ease with which he dashes off such passages; but even more meaningful to me is the originality and artistry of the melodic structure he has been able to build.

When Phineas plays the blues, as he does on at least three tracks in this album, it is not down-home, backwoods blues, but it's just as deep a shade of blue, and comes just as straight from the heart, as if he were a primitive trying to make something meaningful out of three chord changes and a couple of riffs. I hear in him all that is emotional, as well as all that is cerebral and virtuosic, about jazz piano in one of its most sophisticated forms.”

If you spend some time listening to the music of Phineas Newborn, Jr., I think that it would be safe to say that you, too will “… hear in him all that is emotional, as well as all that is cerebral and virtuosic, about jazz piano in one of its most sophisticated forms.”

After all, if Leonard Feather is indeed correct, there have only been two other Jazz pianists comparable to Phineas in the history of Jazz: - Bud Powell and Art Tatum.

Not bad company, eh?




Paul Desmond: Neoclassicism in Jazz [Part 1]



OUP Material, Copyright Line, and Acknowledgement
IP Number
THE IMPERFECT ART by Giola (1988) 2800w from "IV: Neoclassicism in Art" pp.81-91
 © 1998 by Ted Gioia  By permission of Oxford University Press, Inc.

6000150

Introduction

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

There are lot’s of ways to learn about Jazz for as the noted Jazz author Doug Ramsey has advised in Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of Its Makers [Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press, 1989, p. 6]:

"You don't need a degree in musicology to understand the language of jazz. ... Jazz is based on the common language of music understood around the world. The listener, whether musician or non-musician, can learn the idioms and vernacular of the language. It is simply a matter of absorption through exposure. My only caveat is this: in the learning process, don't spend your time listening to imitators or second-raters."

Doug’s caveat holds true as well for Jazz writers: only read the best.

Certainly, by any standard of judgment, three of the best authors about Jazz are Doug, Gene Lees and Ted Gioia.

I would think that as the youngest member of this distinguished triumvirate, Ted might be flattered to share the following, paraphrased words of praise which Gene articulated about Doug’s writing in his Foreword to Doug’s Jazz Matters:

“A decent and  respectful curiosity fills Doug Ramsey’s writing. When he expresses reservations about someone’s work, he does so gently and reluctantly.

… And he praises beautifully. This is the hardest thing to do in criticism. Any writer can make himself look clever by excoriation, which calls for witty analogies and comparisons, but a rare and sensitive gift goes into the writing of sensitive praise.

And Doug has the gift of imagery, rather like that of Whitney Balliett, to give impressions of music through words.

Doug writes for the ear, he has a habit of writing only what reads well aloud….

‘The primary responsibility in writing about anything is to help people understand,’ Doug said.

That, above all, is what Doug Ramsey does.”

And that is also what Ted Gioia does, he informs the reader. Whether he is writing about one style or school of Jazz such as West Coast Jazz, or whether his discourse is about the sweeping panorama of the history of Jazz itself, Ted gives his readers knowledge and insights into how to better understand and appreciate Jazz.

Yet, Ted is no stodgy academician, but rather, an interesting storyteller who makes reading about Jazz fun and enjoyable.

His writing also enriches our listening experience by introducing fresh and different perspectives about the music for as he states in the Acknowledgements to The Imperfect Art: Reflections on Jazz and Modern Culture: [click on book title for order information]

“… mine is a decidedly ‘thoughtful’ … approach to Jazz.

Doug and Ted’s musings about Jazz also intersect at another point along its spectrum of personalities. Each has offered a treatment on the subject of alto saxophonist Paul Desmond [although in Doug’s case, it is more like a Magnus Opus!].

In The Imperfect Art: Reflections on Jazz and Modern Culture, Ted’s unique views on Paul are characterized as part of what he refers to as Neoclassicism in Jazz [pp. 81 -91].

Ted and the kind folks at Oxford University Press have graciously granted JazzProfiles copyright permission to replicate his description of what this categorization entails and why Paul’s style of playing fits so neatly into it.

As part of an ongoing series, the editorial staff plans to offer future features on other artists who approach Jazz in a “Neoclassicist” manner including John Lewis, Ahmad Jamal and Miles Davis.

So as not to confuse the reader, before describing Neoclassicism, the excerpt from Ted’s work which follows initially describes Romanticism in Jazz as a basis for contrasting these two radically different approaches to the music.

THE IMPERFECT ART, pp. 81-91, © 1998 by Ted Gioia  By permission of Oxford University Press, Inc. Copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Drawing parallels between stages in jazz’s development and periods in the evolution of other arts is, at best, a questionable endeavor. Yet the pronounced obsession with individual art­ists which has characterized the reactions of jazz fans, critics, and even musicians at least since the time of Louis Arm­strong—reaching its peak with the figure of John Coltrane— can perhaps be best understood as the outgrowth of a tempera­ment which is essentially "romantic" in nature.

Romanticism, with its idealization of the expressive artist, created a new aesthetic vocabulary in the late eighteenth and nineteenth century—one that fixated on the act of artistic pro­duction; one that glorified the passing moment of artistic in­spiration as a secular epiphany; one in which the artist often became more important than what he created. In many in­stances the artist's life actually became, in his eyes and in the eyes of others, itself a work of art. With Byron, Wordsworth, Keats, Goethe, Wagner, and many of their contemporaries, biography and aesthetics begin to coalesce. The term "roman­ticism" has become worn with use, and, as more than one critic has advocated, much might be gained by discarding it entirely. Yet, as William Thrall has noted, "viewed in philo­sophical terms, romanticism does have a fairly definite mean­ing.”10 [William Thall, A Handbook to Literature, New York: Odyssey Press, 1960, p. 431] It designates a view of the world "which tends to see the individual at the very center of all life and all experience, and it places him, therefore, at the center of art." This aes­thetic sensibility was often seen as having a special affinity with the musical arts, As M. H. Abrams has noted, the Ger­man critics in particular saw " music as the apex and norm of the pure and non-representative expression of spirit and feeling against which to measure the relative expressiveness of all other art forms . . .

[I]nquiry into the neo-representative character of music joined with many collateral influences to strain and shatter the frame of neo-classic theory, and to reorient all critical discussion toward the new magnetic north of the expressive and creative artist.11 [M.H. Abrams, The Mirror and The Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition, New York: Oxford University Press, 1953, p. 94]

The inherent romanticist elements in music are realized with particular force in jazz. In no other area of creative en­deavor is there so little distance between the artist and his work of art. In the spontaneous act of improvisation, the art­ist has no opportunity to give his music a separate existence, to revise it, to reconsider it, to mull over it. The notion of the autonomous work of art—so fashionable in recent intellectual circles—has no place in jazz. Jazz music lives and dies in the moment of performance, and in that moment the musician is his music. His improvisation is the purest expression possible of the artist's emotions and feelings, and it is a purity which is only heightened by the absence of the spoken word. The German romanticist Novalis, arguing for the primacy of the musical arts, wrote towards the close of the eighteenth cen­tury: "The musician takes the essence of his art out of him­self—and not the slightest suspicion of imitation can befall him."12 [Cited in ibid., 93]
With his a cappella introduction to the West End Blues, Louis Armstrong ushered in a period of romanticism in jazz which has become, if anything, more pronounced with the passage of time. The increasingly individualistic nature of the music, the obsessive reactions of the jazz world to figures such as Parker or Coltrane, the almost complete breakdown of bar­riers between the artist and his work of art—all these legacies of Armstrong are the clear signs of an aesthetic sensibility which is essentially romanticist in character.

The benefits of such a musical environment are unmistak­able. Jazz, as a community of creative individuals, fosters a pluralism which is healthy for the art form as a whole. It lacks the embedded institutions of the other arts, yet a stronger em­phasis on group norms, exercised perhaps through academia or other mechanisms of standardization, would probably have stifled some of jazz's greatest talents. One could not imagine a Charles Mingus or a Thelonious Monk thriving in an environment n which artistic success depended on access to fel­lowships, government grants, academic appointments, and the like.

The benefits of jazz's pluralism, however, have not been achieved without a price. The attendant fragmentation of the jazz community has led to a lack of cohesion among practi­tioners, an absence of institutions for preserving and passing on the music's traditions, and, perhaps worst of all, a steady erosion of generally accepted critical standards which define what is good and bad in the music. Without the latter, musi­cians—as well as listeners and critics—may find their isolation only growing. The lack of common standards and a common musical vocabulary has exacerbated the collapse of the jazz world into countless schools and tendencies, each unable to communicate with those outside of its own small world.

Jazz has become, in effect, a music of perpetual romanti­cism. The jazz world has always exhibited a manic quality in which the music's inherent vitality threatened to run away with itself. Today this strain is more dominant than ever be­fore. By contrast, the powerful broadening and unifying in­fluence of an Armstrong, an Ellington, a Parker is now ap­parently a thing of the past.

V

Within this pervasive aesthetic of emotional excess, however, a handful of musicians have tried to temper the music's natu­ral impulse towards self-indulgence. They have created music of restraint, of control, of economy. These are the neoclassicists of jazz. Like neoclassical artists in other arts, they attempt to pare away the excesses of previous generations to reveal an art that is pristine and timeless. Their paradigm is the sculp­tor, whose work emerges from sharply cut and precisely de­fined lines, and whose warmth of expression is tempered by the cool, distant, and unforgiving medium with which he works. The neoclassicist recognizes that self-restraint is the essence of artistic style. A style which includes everything ceases to be a style—it has become an encyclopedia of tech­niques. The artist who embraces all of these techniques has, by the same token, reduced himself to a mere craftsman. Art begins only when some techniques are favored, others dis­carded.

Jazz, for these artists, is not just a music of possibilities, but rather a music of constrained possibilities. The temptation to­wards all-inclusiveness may have ruined more talent than all of the more publicized vices of the musician's life. Certainly when artistic norms collapse—as in our own day—the great art­ist must impose constraints upon himself. He must reject on his own what others are content to let go by.

Neoclassicism in jazz is not restricted to a specific time pe­riod or geographical area. Artists as different as Lester Young, Wes Montgomery, Bill Evans, Count Basic, Stan Getz, John Lewis, Miles Davis, and Paul Desmond can be included in its ranks, although under almost any circumstances the neo­classicist is part of a minority that distances itself from the more frenetic tradition of romanticism which permeates jazz. Thus the neoclassicist may appear to be perpetually out of fashion, a lone voice in the jazz world.

Jazz, in the hands of a neoclassicist, is a music of balance, of care, of restraint. With an unabashed lyricism and a subtle sense of formal structure, the neoclassicist displays his affinity for jazz's rich tradition of vocal music. The most successful collaborations of jazz singers and instrumentalists—the Billie Holiday/Lester Young recordings come immediately to mind-have more often than not been a part of this neoclassical heritage.

Yet the neoclassicist can often be distinguished not so much by his positive virtues as by what he excludes. Some pundit once remarked that the most telling thing about Jane Austen was that she never mentioned the French Revolution in her writings. A similar perspective, it seems, could be applied fruitfully to the study of musicians. Indeed one of the most striking characteristics of recent jazz in the romantic tradition is its all-inclusiveness. It attempts to encompass the whole musical world, from Third World folk music to the twelve-tone row. Neoclassicism, in contrast, is a music of exclusion, of omission.

VI

In the case of saxophonist Paul Desmond, one never needed to look far to find these omissions. The bebop clichés, the ob­session with playing fast, the memorized licks which char­acterized jazz saxophone playing in the post-Charlie Parker era—all of these were noticeably absent in Desmond's music. As Dave Brubeck once mentioned, with no slight intended: "Paul's big contribution is going to be that he didn't copy Charlie Parker."13 [Downbeat, Sept. 15, 1960, p. 17]

A comparison between Desmond and his contemporary Charlie Parker is illuminating. Parker, perhaps the most bril­liant improviser in the history of jazz, was at his best when the tempo was fast and the chord structure was complex: his virtuosity delighted in musical obstacle courses such as "Ko-Ko" or "The Hymn." Desmond, in contrast, seldom played at very fast tempos, and when he did one sensed that it was done un­willingly. Not that his technique was not equal to the task; rather it was Desmond's overriding concern with creating a melodic and thematically organized improvisation that led him to eschew the facile glibness of many of the beboppers. Unlike the less talented descendants of Parker who followed a credo of "let your fingers do the walking," Desmond played a thinking man's jazz with solos that often made punning reference to other compositions and improvisations. On an early recording of "You Go to My Head” for example, Des­mond inserts a quote from a Charlie Parker blues in the midst of a most un-Parker-like passage. In other contexts he would incorporate long extracts from Chet Baker or Gerry Mulligan solos into his own improvisations.

Desmond was born less euphoniously as Paul Emil Breitenfeld on November 15, 1924, in San Francisco. His father was once an organist for silent movies and later an arranger. Paul began studying clarinet in 1936 while at San Francisco Poly­technic High School, and continued with it until 1943 when he switched to the alto saxophone. That same year he went into the Army and spent the next three years in San Fran­cisco as part of the 253rd AGF band. "It was a great way to spend the war," Desmond later remarked. "We expected to get shipped out every month, but it never happened. Some­where in Washington our file must still be on the floor under a desk somewhere."14 [Ibid.] After leaving the Army, Desmond played briefly with the bands of Jack Fina and Alvino Rey before joining forces with Dave Brubeck in 1951, a collaboration that would continue for over a quarter of a century.

At some point during this period, Desmond discarded the name Breitenfeld for his more manageable stage name. He claimed that he came upon the name Desmond while paging through a phone book. The remark is appropriate: for an im­provising artist such as Desmond, the spontaneous, spur-of-the-moment decision is the basis of all he does. And Des­mond, more than most, let the philosophy of improvisation govern much of his life outside of music. His casual attitude went beyond the choice of a name. At its worst it encouraged a pronounced habit of procrastination, and Desmond was a procrastinator of almost legendary proportions. For years he spoke of writing a book about his experiences with the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Only the title (How Many of You Are There in the Quartet? — according to Desmond, a favorite question of stewardesses) and one very funny chapter ever emerged.15 [It appeared in Punch on Jan. 10, 1973] Among his other intended projects was an album in which he planned to play each song in the style of a different alto player.

Perhaps the latter idea was only offered as a joke. With Desmond one could never tell. He once told an interviewer that he wanted his alto to sound like a very dry martini; whether his music attained this lofty goal is open to discus­sion, but of the dryness of his humor there can be no dispute. The humor figured prominently in his music—a rarity in mod­ern jazz, where the artists' self-conscious seriousness and the concert hall atmosphere of even nightclub performances casts a sombre aura over most of the music. As his close friend, jazz critic Nat Hentoff wrote:

At times Paul was the wittiest of improvisers. His ear was extraordinarily quick and true, his mind moved with eerie swiftness. He could take a phrase that someone had played earlier or a musical reference that a friend in the audience would understand and insert it into his solo. He'd build on that phrase until he had turned it inside out and seven other ways. Usually this kind of quoting is trickery, but Paul made it cohere. In his music, as in his life, the absurd cohabited with the familiar.16
[Nat Hentoff, Village Voice, Aug. 22, 1977]

For much of his twenty-six-year career, Desmond found his musical skills overshadowed by the work of his longtime friend and collaborator Dave Brubeck. Brubeck, who studied with Darius Milhaud in the late 19405, was a pioneer in the syn­thesis of jazz and classical music—his piano work featured dense harmonies, a studied sense of rhythm, and the use of elements seemingly alien to jazz such as the twelve-tone row and odd time signatures. Yet Desmond was the unsung hero of the Brubeck Quartet; as much as the group's leader, Desmond was instrumental in shaping the ensemble's distinctive sound. His lyrical tone was immediately identifiable, and his ingenious compositions (most notably the group's biggest hit "Take Five") were an important part of the band's repertoire. Although not a student of Milhaud's, Desmond was involved with Brubeck's experimental work from the start. His affin­ity for classical music was also revealed in other ways—most markedly in his intonation, which was remarkably pure, es­pecially when contrasted with the "dirtier" sound favored by many of his contemporaries.

In the midst of a period in which cool jazz and West Coast jazz were increasingly the scorn of jazz critics, Desmond em­braced both with a vengeance. Desmond was well aware of what passed as fashionable in jazz circles; commenting on Bud Shank, a fellow Californian (although one transplanted from Ohio), Desmond said: "I sympathize with him because I have the same problem in my occupation, which is the problem of one who is sort of raised in the atmosphere of cool jazz trying to sound hostile enough to be currently accept­able.” 17 [Downbeat, Oct. 16, 1958, p. 43] In another interview he elaborated: "The things I'm after musically are clarity, emotional communication on a not-too-obvious level, form in a chorus that doesn't hit you over the head but is there if you look for it, humor, and construc­tion that sounds logical in an unexpected way. That and a good dependable high F-sharp and I'll be happy."18 [Downbeat, Sept. 15, 1960, p. 37]

The virtues Desmond enumerated are easy enough to list, but maddeningly difficult to attain. Desmond's dissatisfaction with his own playing frequently came to light in many of the interviews he gave over the years. As Lee Konitz, a contem­porary who shares many similarities with Desmond, com­mented: "I feel that Paul has experienced greatness, and once this feeling of playing what you really hear has been felt by a player, it's difficult to settle for less than this."19 [Ibid., p. 16]

One senses that towards the end of his life Desmond came closer than ever to realizing this goal. His last recordings re­veal an artist who is at peace with himself and who knows with a dogged assurance what it is he wants to express. The ravages of lung cancer may have lessened his stamina and shorted his phrases, but if anything this led Desmond to be even more refined and thoughtful in his playing.

The sardonic humor, however, remained. One wonders what to make of the cover of Live, the last album he saw released. Desmond is pictured seated alone in a club at closing time—the chairs are stacked on the tables, and Desmond is packed to go with a suitcase, or perhaps his saxophone case, at his side. The artist is smoking a cigarette, although even then he must have known he had only a short time before lung cancer would take its final toll. Another detail: if one looks closely, one notices little skulls and crossbones on Desmond's suspenders. These details, combined with the album's ironic title and Desmond's grim smile, are powerfully unnerving. The music inside, however, is every bit as beautiful as the album's cover is morbid. His solo on "Wave" could be a text­book example of solo construction, each chorus outdoing the previous one in inventiveness and incisiveness. Elsewhere, on his own composition "Wendy" or in his closing chorus on "Manha de Carnival" Desmond plays as well as at any point in his career. This is the music of a master.

The end was approaching fast. His last appearance in a re­cording studio was for friend Chet Baker's debut album with the Horizon label. He had been slated to play on the entire album, but had the stamina to record just one track before begging leave to go home and rest. Although he had rarely played in the preceding months, his tone was as pure as ever and his short haunting solo is as fitting a closing statement as any artist could wish to make.


His were the legacies of a man immersed in music. Des­mond's piano, left to Bradley Cunningham, now graces Bradley's in New York, and has acquired a reputation as one of the finest nightclub pianos in jazz. His alto was left to Brubeck's son Michael, with whom he shared a special closeness. Yet these pale beside his legacy to jazz fans through his many records and a few—too few—short writings. Desmond, a West Coast musician at a time when that was virtually synonymous with being unfashionable, had his ashes scattered over Big Sur country near his birthplace in San Francisco.”

John Lewis: Neoclassicism in Jazz [Part 2]


“Jazz, in the hands of a neoclassicist, is a music of balance, of care, of restraint; with an unabashed lyricism and a subtle sense of formal structure, ….  [T]he neoclassicist can often be distinguished not so much by his positive virtues as by what he excludes.” [paraphrased from Ted GioiaThe Imperfect Art: Reflections on Jazz and Modern Culture, p. 85]

“With a touch as individual as Basie or Claude Thornhill, and an ever more careful and considered phraseology, … [John Lewis’ pianism] is swing and bebop distilled down to their most lyrical and refined essences.”
Richard Cook and Brian Morton The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Ed., [p. 904].

“John Lewis’ style is single-noted and highly rhythmic. His simple, seemingly repetitive phrases are generally played just behind the beat, where much of the secret of Jazz lies. He is an emotional pianist – in a transcendental way – and he succeeds, where most pianists fail, in transmitting his emotion.”
– Whitney BalliettAmerican Musicians: 56 Portraits in Jazz, p. 240.

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

The late John Lewis [1920-2001] and Oscar Peterson [1925-2007] were both Jazz pianists. But any similarity between them ends with that declarative statement.

Stylistically, they are as different as night and day.

For proof of this assertion, all one need do is listen to Oscar Peterson play his break-neck speed version of Clifford Brown’s Daahoud and then try to find anything remotely resembling it in the entire catalog of John Lewis recordings. Oscar plays more notes in one rendering of Daahoud than John plays on an entire album.

[BTW – did I mentioned that I am a big fan of OP’s Daahoud?]

This contrast in Jazz piano styles was once again brought home to me while working on a recent profile of trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie when I stumbled upon the following 1946 photo of Diz’s big band at the Spotlite club with none other than John Lewis in the piano chair.

Talk about a flurry of notes – Dizzy Gillespie in his early years and in a big band, no less!

What in the world was John Lewis doing in the piano chair of such a band – a pianist who could rival Count Basie for pecking out the fewest notes in a chorus of 12-bar blues?

As the story goes, Bud Powell, whose fast and furious right-hand phrasing was a more appropriate fit for the piano chair, was AWOL again, bringing about Dizzy’s insertion of Lewis as a last-minute substitute for the gig at the Spotlite club.

For the most part, pianists are largely superfluous in a big band [you can’t hear them], so I doubt that anyone listening very closely to Diz’s band at the time would have noticed the difference.


But I did and in so doing it helped me realize that I had been wanting to spend some time developing a piece about John Lewis, an interest that was further enhanced after a recent JazzProfiles feature on Ted Gioia’s The Imperfect Art: Reflections on Jazz and Modern Culture and his analysis of Neoclassicism in Jazz as noted in the following, somewhat modified quotation [pp.84-85]:

“… the Neoclassicists of Jazz, like Neoclassicists in other arts, … attempt to pare away the excesses of previous generations to reveal an art that is pristine and timeless.

Their paradigm is the sculptor, whose work emerges from sharply cut and precisely defined lines, and whose warmth of expression is tempered by the cool, distant, and unforgiving medium with which he works.

The Neoclassicist recognizes that self-restraint is the essence of artistic style. A style which includes everything ceases to be a style – it has become an encyclopedia of techniques.

The artist who embraces all of these techniques has, by the same token, reduced himself to a mere craftsman. Art begins only when some techniques are favored, others discarded.

Jazz, for these artists, is not just the music of possibilities, but rather of constrained possibilities.”

John Lewis fits perfectly into the Neoclassic approach to Jazz.

Not surprisingly, alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, who is the primary example that Ted uses to support his premise of Neoclassicism in Jazz, always wanted to perform in concert with John Lewis and The Modern Jazz Quartet [MJQ].

His wish was granted on December 25, 1971 at Town Hall in New York City.

[As an aside and for those readers who may not be aware, John is best known as the pianist and musical director of the MJQ, one Jazz’s most enduring combos, and Paul Desmond was a member of legendary pianist Dave Brubeck’s Quartet for over 15 years]

As Irving Townsend explains in his insert notes to a posthumously issued CD that captured the music that was played that evening [paragraphing modified]:

[Following their initial meeting in San Francisco in the mid-1950s] it is not difficult to understand … the developing friendship between the two men or their admiration for each other’s music.

Each was soft-spoken, shy of lime lighted celebrity which by then had caught them in its glare.

They were contemporaries both in age and in Jazz, each a distinctive voice in what was at that time something new, a permanently established small group whose music was bound neither by the previous perimeters of Jazz nor by the calisthenics of night club entertainment.

…. There is a handful of instrumentalists whose playing redefines the instrument. Paul Desmond was one of that handful.”

Of the 1971 Christmas Day union between the MJQ and Desmond, John Lewis – appropriately -  put it more succinctly: “I guess we always thought about things the same way and finally it happened.”

Mr. Townsend assertion about Paul Desmond redefining the alto saxophone refers to the sound that he achieved on the horn; one that is sometimes called a subtone. The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz defines this as:

“A soft, caressing, breathy tone produced by carefully controlled suppression of the higher partials of a note. Subtone is produced by means of a small, slow, but steady stream of air, projected through a tight embouchure; the player must blow firmly to prevent the sound from breaking or fading altogether, but gently so that the upper partials of the note are not produced.” [p. 1168]

Obviously, the analogy between Paul and John cannot be pushed so far as to assert that Lewis changed the sound of the piano.

But at a time when most Jazz pianists were embracing bebop phrasing with it multiplicity of notes played in a fast and furious fashion, John Lewis opted for a more succinct almost laconic style.

The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz offers this description of John’s playing [paragraphing modified]:

“Lewis is among the most conservative of bop pianists. His improvised melodies, played with a delicate touch are usually simple and quiet; the accompaniments are correspondingly light, with Lewis’ left hand just grazing the keys to produce a barely audible sound.

His method of accompanying soloists is similarly understated: rather than comping – punctuating the melody with irregularly placed chords – he often plays simple counter-melodies in octaves which combine with the solo and bass parts to form a polyphonic texture.

…. Many of Lewis’ solos have a degree of motivic unity which is rare in Jazz. For example, in Bluesology [1956] each chorus of his solo builds on the previous one by establishing a link from the end of one chorus to the beginning of the next.

As … [his] solo progresses, Lewis subjects its opening motif to inversion, chromatic alterations, and a variety of other alterations in pitch and shape, which nevertheless retain their links with the basic figure [i.e.: motif].” [p. 695]

Given all of this, maybe John does change the sound of the piano after all?!

More insights into what makes John Lewis’ kind of Jazz so singular and satisfying are to be found in the following inserts notes to his album Kansas City Breaks [Red Barron JK57759], which Dan Morgensten, the distinguished Jazz critic and current Director, Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University, has graciously granted copyright permission to replicate.

John’s choice for the instrumentation on this recording assures it of an almost chamber music quality as he is joined by Joe Kennedy, Jr. on violin, Frank Wess on flute, Howard Collins on guitar, and John, Marc Johnson and Shelly Manne on piano, ass and drums, respectively.

In order to give JazzProfiles readers the opportunity to sample John’s music from Kansas City Breaks, the editorial staff has selected this group’s performance of Django, probably John’s most famous composition, as the audio track and set it to this YouTube tribute to John Lewis.


© -Dan Morgenstern. Reprinted with permission; copyright protected, all rights reserved.

“Throughout his long and distinguished career, John Lewis has created so much remarkable and beautiful music that it seems presumptuous to speak of landmarks. Nevertheless, I'll go out on a limb and call this remarkably beautiful album a John Lewis landmark.

It brings to first fruition some ideas about a new and fresh combination of instruments that have been taking shape over a number of years, starting not long after the breakup (after a record near quarter-century) of the Modern Jazz Quartet. (That the MJQ would eventually be reconstituted from time to time was inevitable, but it clearly no longer occupies a central position in Lewis's musical life.)

Soon after Lewis began to teach at New York's City College, he formed a student group with the unusual instrumentation heard here, and in 1975, he made an album for Columbia, "P.O.V." on which a similar combination (substituting cello for guitar) was presented. But one need only compare the 1975 version of Lyonhead with the 1982 one to realize that a lot has happened since then.

Much closer to the new conception was the music, recorded in the spring of 1981, heard on "The John Lewis Album for Nancy Harrow" (Finesse FW 37681), which essentially introduced the John Lewis Group—the only differences being that Connie Kay was on drums, and that the ensemble's primary function was to provide a lovely framework for Nancy Harrow.

It was the artistic success of this venture that sparked the album at hand, and it is a pleasure to announce that the John Lewis Group will not confine its existence to the recording studios, but will perform live as well — and often, one hopes. The Group is already so well integrated and fine tuned and has achieved such a high level of empathy that it must take its place in the front ranks of jazz ensembles.

That should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the work of John Lewis, which from the start has been synonymous with a very special kind of excellence in which creativity and craftsmanship—both of the highest order—combine with inspiration and elegance. In the world of jazz, the term composer is often misused and misunderstood. Suffice it to say that John Lewis is a composer in the truest sense and a true jazz composer. And a great player as well; a true improviser.

There is no conflict in Lewis between these roles. Rather, they complement each other and co-exist in perfect balance. Form and order serve as springboards for adventure, surprise and that sense of playfulness (the sense in which the great Dutch historian Johan Huizinga uses it: "Play casts a spell over us... it is invested with the noblest qualities we are capable of perceiv­ing in things: rhythm and harmony") without which there can be no true jazz... or real music.

The John Lewis Group at play is a joy to the ear and the heart. There is no striving for effects, no pretense; just pure music-making invested with unity of purpose. This is indeed a group-a unit—in which distinctive musical personalities come together without clashes of egos. For John Lewis is not only a great composer and instrumentalist, he is also a great leader.

He has chosen well. There are some established players here, to say the least. It is unlikely that any reader of these notes will need an introduction to Shelly Manne, one of the most accomplished and versatile percussionists in jazz, but it is worth noting that this, to the best of my knowledge, is his first recorded collaboration with Lewis. A case of instant rapport. Frank Wess, too, is justly famous as the man who, more than any other, established the flute in jazz. That he is also a more than accomplished composer-arranger surely does him no harm in this context (which, incidentally, is the most stimulating in which he has been heard of late).

Joe Kennedy, Jr. has, finally, become somewhat better known. Fine jazz violinists have always been scarce, and the instrument is not as fully appreciated in jazz circles as it deserves to be. Kennedy made his first records in 1945, worked and recorded with (and wrote for) Ahmad Jamal in the '50s (also making an album of his own that was a well-kept secret), and then settled in Rich­mond, Virginia where he is Supervisor of Music for the public school system and concert master of the local symphony. He also happens to be Benny Carter's cousin, and the great man recently coaxed him out into the jazz world again, taking him on tours to Japan and Europe and major U.S. festivals. Last year Kennedy was featured on a Billy Taylor album (the pianist, who worked for Eddie South and Stuff Smith, knows a good violinist when he hears one), and then on the aforementioned Nancy Harrow LP. I've been a fan of Joe's for many years, and think he's never been heard in a better setting than here.

Marc Johnson, the youngster of the group, was in Bill Evans's last trio—not a job for a beginner—and then with Stan Getz. He has also worked in a duo setting with John Lewis, who called him "one of the best I've ever played with'.' His work here bears out that judgment. We've come to take remarkable bassists for granted, but Marc Johnson will surprise you.

Howard Collins is one of the last of that rare and selfless breed, the willing rhythm guitarist. He performs this demanding but unsung task wonderfully well, but that's not all he can do, or is asked to do here. Howie's been around for a while, but not lately in such good company. 

The program here is a varied one, demonstrating the scope and range of John Lewis's composing and arranging gifts, and, not incidentally, the durability of his best pieces. Work of four decades is represented, but D&E, vintage 1951, sounds as fresh as the brand-new Kansas City Breaks. Perhaps that is because the eternal verities, not least among them melodic strength and grace, have always been foremost in Lewis's writing, but surely it is also because he has always been able, to a remarkable degree, to find fresh new ways to present his classics. (That's not the only thing John Lewis and Duke Ellington have in common; another might be a love for and profound understanding of the blues—form and content. There's a lot of blues here, in a lot of guises.)

Django is a case in point. Quite possibly the most famous Lewis piece, it was in the MJQ's repertoire for more than 20 years but never grew stale. It has been re-interpreted here with such imagination and freshness that it sounds delightfully new. It also serves to introduce some of the many textures, colors and nuances the group has at its disposal, for one instance, the combination of bowed bass, low violin and bottom flute that backs Lewis's stately recapitulation of the theme.

Sacha's March begins with Manne's distant parade drums, then the band comes into view. Shelly's extensive solo work reminds me of Zutty Singleton—it has that spirit. There are fine solos by Wess, still the flute master, and Kennedy, who enters a la Stuff Smith and swings as hard as that paragon of jazz fiddle. But the main event is the wonderful interplay.

Lyonhead, dedicated to Jimmy Lyons of Monterey fame, stems from the score to a documentary film, "Cities for People'.' The almost pointillist sections that frame the solos (by Lewis, spare, skipping and with a crystal sound; Kennedy, and Wess, the latter with brilliant Manne support) are out-of-tempo and through-composed, making for fine contrast with the lively, swinging improvisations.

Winter Tale, from the score for the 1962 film "A Milanese Story,' is a moody piece with a lovely melody, introduced by Kennedy with a gypsy feeling and exposed by Lewis and Wess. When Kennedy resumes in the lead, Wess dances around him. Eddie South would have loved Kennedy's closed statement.

Valeria, from the same film score, has a latinesque beat and feeling. Everybody is in splen­did form, and the rhythm section's work is outstanding. Manne builds a brushfire under Lewis, who gets into a characteristic double-time groove, and Johnson's lively bass lines are a joy. A unique touch is the flute-and-piano unison stuff behind the violin in the closing ensemble passages.

D and E is a sunny blues, beautifully scored — all the voices interwoven in what is essentially a feature for Marc Johnson, who, among other things, plays a terrific cadenza. There are witty solos by piano, violin and flute, and Collins's steady strum is in evidence.

Kansas City Breaks continues the happy mood and also has a prominent role for the bass, notably in an extended dialog, first with Wess, then with Lewis (whose ideas are charming here), punctuated by Shelly's triangle. Again, the voicings are lovely, including some three-way pizzicato activity. A masterpiece that affirms the living roots of jazz.

Milano, a pretty waltz composed in 1954, finds the piano in the spotlight, exposing the melody with serene dignity. Lewis the master accompanist is also in evidence, behind Wess's improvisa­tion on the theme. The flute and violin unison figures are yet another indication of the group's varied palette. A perfect closing to a splendid set.

The John Lewis Group is a bright new presence on the jazz scene. The high standards it has set for itself here are what one would expect from John Lewis, but nothing else about this music is predictable. It is very good to know that such music can still be made, for it proves that tradi­tion and innovation are not opposing forces. The message is clear and strong. Listen!

Dan Morgenstern, Director, Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers Univ. (1982)”

And no one writes more descriptively about music with words than the Dean of Jazz writers, Whitney Balliett who provided the insert notes to John Lewis’ Grand Encounter Pacific Jazz album [1217;Toshiba EMI CD – TOCJ-6115]. These follow Dan’s notes.

© -Whitney Balliett, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Nostalgia is cheap witchcraft. It is also an old looking glass, which reflects, however dimly, chairs that are chairs and light that is light. Thus, in jazz, where nostalgia often passes as critical judgment, there is frequently moist talk of Chick Webb and the Savoy Ballroom, of Bix Beiderbecke hammering out gorgeous metals in person that he never recorded, of Buddy Bolden stifl­ing the waters of Lake Ponchartrain. But these things are at least half true, and probably more. In the same fashion, it is more than half true that the area of jazz now most nostalgia-fixed - the years, roughly, between 1935-1945 - has proved re­markably durable.

In this period one hears, to be sure, chuffy rhythm sections, paralytic tempos, a sometimes thin and purposeless suavity, and instrumentalists who were more expert embellishers than improvisers. One also hears, though, an undated sweetness and inter­dependent relaxation and unhurry — where soloists were means and not ends — that produced in Billie Holiday's singing, Harry Edison's bellying trumpet, or Sid Catlett's majestic drumming, a kind of jazz that elevated artlessness to art. Much of the free lyricism that resulted has, for the present at any rate, gone out of jazz, which is, inevitably, busy with techniques. It can still be found, however, in the work of Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge, Jo Jones, Ruby Braff, Teddy Wilson, and Count Basie, as well as among modernists like Gerry Mulligan, Stan Getz, Hank Jones, Joe Wilder, Joe Morello, and the Modern Jazz Quartet. (It can also be heard everywhere on this record,- which though modern in its overtones, is full of the old poetry; as a result, the record wears like Harris tweed, and is, perhaps, one of the great jazz records, which is not a liner-note puff but a subjective truth.)

Much of the musical success of the Modern Jazz Quartet, which is the most plausibly inventive group to appear since the Davis-Mulligan 1949 Capitol band, must be credited to John Lewis, its pianist and "musical director." For Lewis, a gentle, shy, bearded man in his mid-thirties, is an exceptional jazz com­poser. He is also a unique and invariably moving jazz pianist, a fact that few people have bothered with. Lewis' style is much like that of the late, underappreciated Clyde Hart. Basically, it is a single-note attack, supplemented by light chording or occa­sional melodic counter-figures in the left hand. His touch is sure and delicate, his ideas are disarmingly simple and honest. He has a rhythmic sense and enough technique to allow him easy freedom. One rarely hears an arpeggio — unless it is used func­tionally — or much block chording. Also, there is none of the metallic sweat so fashionable in the work of pianists like Hamp­ton Hawes and Horace Silver. Lewis, indeed, has a kind of dogged, floating quality in his playing; he seems to slide beneath, above, and around his materials - like, in a sense, the best of the New Orleans clarinetists-brightening them, deepening them with emotion, filling the chinks. In addition to being what amounts to a classical jazz soloist, Lewis is one of the few great supporting jazz pianists. (Lewis would never sanction the first statement; before he made this record, he had consistently refused to make a solo piano recording, feeling that jazz should be, as it is in the work of the MJQ, a collective expression.) Lewis, as a supportive pianist, again resembles Clyde Hart. (Listen to Hart behind Lionel Hampton's vocal on the latter's Victor record of "Confessin'" or his fill-ins around Lips Page's singing on the Savoy version of "Uncle Sam Blues." Then listen here to Lewis as he moves in beneath Jim Hall on the first bridge of "Skylark", and behind Bill Perkins in the first chorus of "Almost Like Being in Love.") Where most pianists simply supply cold, boring back­ground chords, Lewis like Jess Stacy, Hank Jones, or Billy Kyle, either plays an enfiring subordinate second line or chords that amplify or embroider purposely what is going on in front.

This record was made in one afternoon a few months ago in a small, empty theatre in Los Angeles. Largely an accident, it is composed of men — outside of the two teams of Lewis-Heath (the MJQ) and Hamilton-Hall (Hamilton's Quintet) -who or­dinarily do not work together or have not played together at all. As such, it is: like Armstrong's 'Knockin' a Jug", a "motherless" session. Some of the great jazz records have been motherless sessions: many of Lionel Hampton's pick-up sides made in the late Thirties on Victor; Red Norvo's Comet session in 1945 with Parker, Gillespie, Phillips, Teddy Wilson, and Slam Stewart; the Teddv Wilson-Harry James-John Simmons-Red Norvo "Just a Mood." The head arrangements were done on the spot by Lewis, who acted as musical overseer for the date, and also contributed the blues-original, "Two Degrees East — Three Degrees West", a charming, infectious figure that should be expanded into a work for the MJQ. Elsewhere, Lewis's touch is evident in the quiet tempos, the unstrained swinging, the overall, persuasive warmth.

Bill Perkins, who acts as a kind of co-leader here, was born in 1924 in San Francisco. He holds a B.A. from the University of CaliforniaSanta Barbara, and a degree in Electrical Engineer­ing from Cal. Tech. Although he has played with both Woody Herman and Stan Kenton, he has not been a full time profes­sional jazz musician much over five years. His style, at present, is an intelligent offshoot of the sunny drybones school of Lester Young and Stan Getz. It is a flowing, melodic approach that em­ploys few notes, a sense of languor, and a big, gentle tone. There is none of the hair-pulling, the bad tone, or the ugliness that is now a growing mode, largely in New York, among the work of the hard-bopsters like Sonny Rollins, Hank Mobely, and J. R. Montrose. His solos here on the blues, on "Easy Living", and "Love Me or Leave Me", are excellent lyrical tenor saxophone, and represent his best recorded work to date.

Jim Hall was born in New York and is twenty-five. He, too, has been a professional for only a few years. His style is remark­ably similar to that of Charlie Christian, especially in the direct way he strikes his notes, and in his practice of repeating certain single notes and simple figures. Some of the best modern guitar­ists have a tendency toward slipperiness and laciness. Hall, how­ever, gives each note weight, with such intent that his work occa­sionally has a kind of puggish, lumbering quality about it, which is not at all unpleasant.

Percy Heath, in comparison with Hall, is a veteran of thirty-three and is one of the soundest rhythm bassists in jazz, as well as a pleasing, unobtrusive soloist. (Some of the newer jazz bas­sists would make a full orchestra out of their instrument.)

Chico Hamilton, at thirty-five, is, with Shelly Manne and Joe Morello one of the few younger drummers who have absorbed the lessons of sprung drumming, as taught by Max Roach and Kenny Clarke, but at the same time have retained the purpose of the drummer as a sensitive, sympathetic supporter.

Most of the music here is self-explanatory. Of particular in­terest, however, are these items: the simple ingenuity of the first four choruses of "Two Degrees East — Three Degrees West," in which Perkins and Hall play a unison figure with spaced bass and tom-tom beats below them, are joined midway in the second chorus by Lewis, then drift into the background for the follow­ing two choruses while Heath solos; Lewis's appealing, yet al­most static, rendition of "I Can't Get Started"; the marvelously oblique, lazy-seeming piano introductions on "Love Me Or Leave Me" and "Almost Like Being in Love", which also has some dis­creet yet forceful solo brush work by Hamilton, mostly in ex­changes with Hall and Perkins; the way, in Perkins's third chorus in "Almost", Lewis picks up Perkins's last few bars before the bridge and repeats them throughout the bridge behind Perkins; all of "Love Me Or Leave Me", which is an almost perfect jazz recording.

None of the tempos here is above a fast walk. The loudest sound is Perkins's restrained tenor. The materials are traditional, the approach even a little old-fashioned. This is not, however, pursed chamber jazz, where the music blows lilies. Rather, it is full of the sort of understated power and inspiration that ran through so much of jazz ten or fifteen years ago, which is a blessed event.”

We thought it might be fitting to close this piece on John Lewis with the following YouTube which uses the arrangement of Django that appears on The Modern Jazz Society Presents a Concert of Contemporary Music [MG N -1040; Verve 314 559 827-2]. Richard Cook and Brian Morton awarded it a “Crown” designation as an recording deserving of special merit and offered this review in their Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Ed.:

“One of the great forgotten masterpieces of the 1950s, this brilliant date is still available only as a limited-edition reissue in Verve Connoisseur Edition. Collectors are advised to snap up any copies they see, although it’s disgraceful that this classic should not be more easily available. The Modern Jazz Society was an initiative by Lewis and [Gunther] Schuller to present new works and new arrangements, broadly in the “Third Stream” vein which Schuller encouraged. Lewis was only the supervisor of the original LP, but new discoveries -  … - find him at the piano.

The five principal pieces are all Lewis compositions, and they are among the finest treatments of “Little David’s Fugue,” “Django,” and “The Queen’s Fancy,” ever set down.” Django, with its final coda taken at the stately pace of a cortege, is so bewitching that it can silence a room.” [p. 903]






Third Stream Music - From Three Perspectives - Part 1



© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


One of my Jazz buddies suggested that I develop a blog feature on Third Stream music and I thought it might be particularly appropriate to do so following our recent features on the Neo-Classical postings associated with Paul Desmond and John Lewis, especially because the latter was heavily involved in the early development of the Third Stream Movement along with Gunther Schuller.


To accommodate my friend’s suggestion, once I started digging into the Jazz literature on the subject, I decided to develop not one but three pieces on the topic, hence the title of this posting.


Let’s start with a definition of terms so that we are all on the same page as to what constitutes Third Stream music.


And what a better place to start than with an explanation by one of the movement’s founders, Gunther Schuller, who wrote the following detailed description for Barry Kernfeld, editor, The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz.


“Third stream” is a term coined by Gunther Schuller, in a lecture at Brandeis University in 1957, for a type of music which, through improvisation or written composition or both, synthesizes the essential characteristics and techniques of contemporary Western art music and various ethnic or vernacular musics.


At the heart of this concept is the notion that any music stands to profit from a confrontation with another; thus composers of Western art music can learn a great deal from the rhythmic vitality and swing of jazz, while jazz musicians can find new avenues of development in the large-scale forms and complex tonal systems of classical music.


The term was originally applied to a style in which attempts were made to fuse basic elements of Jazz and Western art music -the two mainstreams joining to form a "third stream."


This style had been in existence for some years, and is exemplified by such pieces as Red Norvo's Dance of the Octopus (1933, Brunswick 6906), Ralph Burns's Summer Sequence (recorded by Woody Herman's band, 1946, Col. 38365-7), George Handy's The Bloos (1946, Jazz Scene [unnumbered]), Robert Graetinger's City of Glass (recorded by Stan Kenton 's orchestra, 1951, Cap. 28062-3), Alec Wilder's Jazz Suite (1951, Col. 39727), Rolf Liebermann's Concerto for Jazz Band and Orchestra (recorded by the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra, 1956, RCA Victor LPM 1888).


Since the late 1950s the application of the term has broadened, to encompass fusions of classical music with elements drawn not only from Afro-American sources but also from other ethnic musics, such as Greek folk and popular music, and Sephardic, Armenian, Japanese, and Hindu traditional music.


The third-stream movement attracted much controversy and has often erroneously been allied with the SYMPHONIC JAZZ movement of the 1920s; symphonic jazz, however, lacked the essential element of improvisation.


Other critics have seen the movement as an inevitable outcome of postwar eclecticism and stylistic and technical synthesis. Third stream, like all musical syntheses, courts the danger of exploiting a superficial overlay of stylistic exotica on an established musical idiom, but genuine cross-fertilization has occurred in the work of musicians deeply rooted in dual traditions.”


My first exposure to Third Stream Music came as a result of a chance finding of a used Verve-LP entitled The Modern Jazz Society Presents A Concert Of Contemporary Music [Verve 559827-2 ].


Pianist John Lewis is listed as the leader and he is joined on the date byJ.J. Johnson, (tb); Stan Getz, Lucky Thompson (ts); Tony Scott, Aaron Sachs (cl); Gunther Schuller (frhn); Manuel Zeglcr (bsn); Janet Putnam (hp); Percy Heath (b); Connie Kay (d).


It was recorded in March of 1955 and the CD reissue received the special token of merit award in Richard Cook and Brian Morton’s The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Ed. Here’s their evaluation of the recording after which you’ll find a suggested discography and bibliography should you wish to pursue the topic of Third Stream music more fully on your own. [I’ve also appended a video montage featuring the Modern Jazz Society’s performance of Django to the end of this piece.]


“One of the great forgotten masterpieces of the 1950s, this brilliant date is still available only as a limited-edition reissue in Verve’s Connoisseur Edition.


Collectors are advised to snap up any copies they see, although it's disgraceful that this classic should not be more easily available. The Modern Jazz Society was an initiative by Lewis and Schuller to present new works and new arrangements, broadly in the 'Third Stream' vein which Schuller encouraged. Lewis was only the supervisor of the original LP, but new discoveries - a rehearsal of a previously unheard J.J Johnson piece Turnpike and a run-through of Queen's Fancy - find him at the piano.


The five principal pieces are all Lewis compositions, and they are among the finest treatments of Little David's Fugue, Django and Queen's Fancy ever set down.


Django, with its final coda taken at the stately pace of a cortege, is so bewitching that it can silence a room. Midsommer, which has not been performed or recorded in the intervening 45 years, is a gorgeously evocative piece. The arrangements and ensembles are intoxicatingly beautiful, but there are also the most handsome solos by Stan Getz, J.J. Johnson and Lucky Thompson - the latter especially reminding us how poorly he was served by most of his recording opportunities.”


DISCOGRAPHY:


Composers and performers associated with the third-stream movement include J. J. Johnson (Poem for Brass, 1956, Col. CL 941); Andre Hodeir (On a Blues, on the album American Jazzmen Play Andre Hodeir’s Essais, 1957, Savoy 12104); Milton Babbitt (All Set, on the Brandeis Jazz Festival album Modem Jazz Concert, 1957, Col. WL127); Bill Russo(An Image of Man on the album An Image: Lee Konitz with Strings, 1958, Verve 8286); Gunther Schuller (Concertino for Jazz Quartet and Orchestra, on the Modern Jazz Quartet's album Modern Jazz Quartet and Orchestra, 1960, All. 1359); Don Ellis (Improvisational Suite no.1, on the album How Time Passes, 1960, Can. 9004); Bill Smith (Concerto for Jazz Soloist and Orchestra, 1962, CRI 320); Jimmy Giuffre (Three We, on the album Free Fall, 1962, Col. CS 8764); Larry Austin (Improvisations for Orchestra and Jazz Soloists, 1967, Col. MS 6733); Mike Mantler (13, on the album 13-3/4 (recorded with Carla Bley), 1975, Watt 3); Ran Blake (Jim Crow, Silver Fox, both on the album Wende, 1976, Owl 05; Portfolio of Dr. Mabuse, 1977, Owl 29); Anthony Braxton (Composition 82, on the album For Four Orchestras, 1978, Ari. 8900); Leo Smith (The Burning of Stones, on the album Spirit Catcher, 1979, Nessa 19); and Steve Lacy (Worms, on the Globe Unity Orchestra album Compositions, 1979, Japo 60027).


A large number of third-stream works have been published by Margun Music; others have been issued by such publishers as MJQ Music, C. F. Peters, and Cireco Music. See aho FORMS, §4.


BIBLIOGRAPHY


G. Schuller: "Jazz and Classical Music," FeatherE
—: " Third Stream' Redefined." Saturday Review, xliv (13 May 1961). 54 -----: "The Future of Form in Jazz,"The American Composer Speaks: a Historical Anthology, 1770-1965, ed. G. Chase (n.p. [Baton Rouge. LA). 1966,216
G. Crane: Jazz. Elements and Forma! Compositional Techniques in Third Stream Music (thesis, Indiana U., 1970)
C. J. Stuessy, Jr.: The Confluence of Jazz and Classical Music from 1950 to 1970 (diss., Eastman School, 1970)
M. Harrison: A Jazz Retrospect (Newton Abbot, England, 1976, rev. 2/1977) R, Blake: "Teaching Third Stream,"Music Educators Journal, lxiii/4(1976),
30 L. Lyons: "Ran Blake: Pianist and Teacher from the Third Stream," CK, iv/
10(1978), 16
A. Lange: "Ran Blake's Third Stream Visions," DownBeat, xlvii/2 (1980), 24
E. Santosuosso: "Third Stream: a Label for an 'Anti-label' Music,"Boston
Globe (19 July 1980). §A.p.9
G. Schuller: "The Avant-garde and Third Stream," Mirage (New World 216,1985) [liner notes]
M. Williams: "Third Stream Problems,"Jazz Heritage (New York, and Oxford,England, 1985) [colln of previously pubd reviews]
G. Schuller: "Third Stream Revisited,"Musings: the Musical Worlds of Gunther Schuller (New York, and Oxford, England, 1986)
-----------------------


Leo Wright: Alto Sax and Flute with Verve and Vigor


© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.



One of the most pleasurable experiences in Jazz is finding a musician who is new to you and whose music “speaks to you.”

Alto saxophonist and flutist Leo Wright was one, such discovery for me.

He was appearing at a club in Hollywood with Dizzy Gillespie’s quintet along with pianist Lalo Schifrin, bassist Bob Cunningham and drummer Chuck Lampkin.

Diz was making a West Coast swing shortly after the release of his Gillespiana LP, a 5-part suite that Lalo had composed for him and a large orchestra. All of the musicians in Diz’s group that night had also played on this recording.

Although Leo’s playing on Gillespiana really intrigued me, it in no way prepared me for what greeted me when I heard him in person.

I was sitting at a table close to the bandstand and the force of Leo’s sound on alto saxophone almost blew me away, such was its intensity and power.

This guy could blow and he sounded like nobody I’d ever heard before – the latter being the ultimate Jazz achievement – three or four bars and he is instantly recognizable.

He tore into his solos with a fierceness and reckless abandon that snapped your head back.

Leo sound was huge; it was so rich and muscular that it was difficult to believe it was coming through an alto saxophone.

He was a perfect compliment and complement to Dizzy that night as both adopted a take-no-prisoners attitude in their solos. Each egged the another on, much to the delight of an enraptured audience who innately knew that they were in attendance at a moment-in-time experience.

Thankfully, Leo was to remain a part of Dizzy’s quintet for about three years and make a number of recordings with him as well as a handful under his own name on the Atlantic label.

And then, just like that, he disappeared from the scene and like the music itself, he went to Europe to live.

Sadly, I was able to find very little about Leo in the Jazz literature.


Gary Carner prepared this overview of the highlights of his career for The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, Barry Kernfeld, Ed.:

“Wright, Leo (Nash) (b Wichita Falls, TX, 14 Dec 1933). Alto saxophonist, flutist, and clarinetist. He studied saxophone with his father and John Hardee.

He made his first recording with Dave Pike (1958) and performed with Charles Mingus at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1959. From 1959 to 1962 he played in Dizzy Gillespie's quintet and big band, appearing at the Monterey, Newport, and Antibes-Juan-les-Pins festivals and recording several albums. He also recorded with Richard Wil­liams (1960) and Eldee Young (1961), and in New York as the leader of bop quartets and quintets (1960-63); his sidemen included Junior Mance, Art Davis, Charli Persip, Williams, Kenny Burrell, and Ron Carter.

After leaving Gillespie, Wright recorded with Lalo Schifrin and Brother Jack McDuff (both 1962) and Antonio Carlos Jobim, Jimmy Witherspoon, and Johnny Coles (all 1963).

In Europe he worked as a freelance and recorded with George Gruntz (1965) and with Lee Konitz in the all-star group Alto Summit (1968). After settling in Berlin he played with the studio band of Sender Freies Berlin and other groups, and appeared at jazz festivals in Germany, Switz­erland, and Finland. He later lived in Vienna and retired from music for a period from 1979; he first played again in 1986, recording an album of duets with his wife and performing with Nat Adderley, Grachan Moncur III, and Kenny Drew in the Paris Reunion Band.

A versatile instrumentalist, Wright was strongly influenced as a saxophone player by Johnny Hodges; his timbre on the alto instrument and the bluesy character of his solos show evidence of this. His flute sound, supported by a superb technique, is airy and resonant.”

And, as is so often the case, Leonard Feather offers detailed background explanation and musical analysis in the insert notes he wrote for Leo’s first album on Atlantic, Blues Shout [1358], which was issued in 1960:

“To anyone who has followed the flow of jazz through the veins of the last generation, it should come as no surprise that Leo Wright is a discovery of John Birks Gillespie. Aside from his contribution as a definitive instrumentalist, composer and arranger, not the least of Birks' works has been his talent for find­ing sidemen of exceptional ability.

Historians and fans may have overlooked the fact, but it was as a sideman with Dizzy's combo that Charlie Parker made his first vitally influential records in 1945. The list of stars who at one time or another have been members of the various Gillespie groups since then is almost endless. The entire personnel of the original Modern Jazz Quartet was composed of Gillespie alumni — John Lewis, Milt Jackson, Percy Heath and Kenny Clarke. James Moody was the first of many saxophonists heard in the larger Gillespie ensembles. Quincy Jones, and many of the men heard in Quincy's most recent orchestra, were members of the big band fronted by Diz (and assembled for him by Quincy) in 1956-7. One of Quincy's 1960 sidemen was the guitarist and flutist Les Spann; it was Spann's chair that was taken over in the Gillespie Quintet, in August of 1959, by the slight, quiet-mannered young man who makes his leader debut on the present sides.

Leo Nash Wright was born December 14, 1933 in Wichita Falls, Texas. His father was an alto saxophonist who played with the band of a drummer named Clifford "Boots"Douglas (the group was called "Boots and His Buddies") that worked out of Houston. —Dad was a close friend of the musicians from Sherman, Texas," says Leo, —including Buddy Tate; also the brothers Budd and Keg Johnson from Dallas." Later, the senior Wright moved to San Francisco, where he became a merchant seaman; it was in the Bay Area that Leo was reared and first stud­ied saxophone with his father during the early 1940s.


Leo returned to Wichita Falls, where saxophonist John Hardee (heard on a few records around that time) had taken over the high school band and instructed him during his senior year. There were later studies at a Texas college, to which Leo had won a scholar­ship, and in San Francisco, where he spent a couple of years job­bing around before resuming his schooling.

"After one semester at San FranciscoState, I had to stop again — the Army got me. That was in 1956, and as it turned out, it was one of my greatest musical experiences. I was part of a group of more than a hundred musicians and entertainers that played every kind of music all around Germany. I was in a symphony orchestra; I played with Porgy and Bess; I was put in charge of a jazz group. I met some fine musicians, including Cedar Walton and Don Ellis and Eddie Harris. I'd only fooled around a little with flute before the Army, but I got a good chance to develop as a flutist in the service. Altogether I was in for 21 months, then I went back to San FranciscoState, majoring in music education."

While in the service, Leo had met the drummer Lex Humphries, who was then in the Air Force. When Humphries played in San Francisco as a member of the Gillespie group, he arranged for Leo to sit in with Dizzy. This turned out to he of con­siderable value later, for after Leo's money had run out he was compelled to give up his studies and, at the advice of some friends, decided to try his luck in New York. After he had worked with Charlie Mingus at the Half Note and at Newport, he received a wire from Dizzy asking him to join the group in Chicago.

Hearing Leo soon after this at a couple of jazz festivals, and later in New York at the Metropole and several other spots, I was impressed with the remarkable degree of maturity achieved by this young musician. Only 25 when he joined Diz, he displayed not mere­ly the superficial fluency of a schooled but mechanical musician, his qualities included a communicative, thoughtful approach and an evi­dent self confidence that belied his modest offstage personality.

For the first recording session under his own name, Leo was teamed on one session with Richard Williams, the remarkable young trumpeter who came to prominence during 1960 with var­ious small combos at Birdland as well as with Ernie Wilkins' big band on records. On the other date, his front-line partner was Harry Lookofsky, the amazing ex-symphony man who stopped in mid-career to develop a technique and style as a jazz violinist. Lookofsky masterminded a unique album, Stringsville (Atlantic 1319), that was one of the most successful efforts ever undertak­en in the difficult field of swinging-strings work. —I hadn't met Harry before" says Leo, "but I was glad Nesuhi Ertegun suggest­ed him for the date."

To compensate for the comparatively light, high-pitched sound of the front line, Leo says, "I decided I wanted a real bot­tom in my rhythm section. So I got Dizzy's bass player, Art Davis, who has a big, strong, full sound; and Junior Mance, who also was in Dizzy's group when I joined it; and another of Diz's former men, Charlie Persip, who I think is much more of a combo drum­mer than people give him credit for, even though he's worked just as successfully in big bands. …

Leo Wright's comment on his first album is characteristic of the man. "I'm not trying to be way out. What I wrote and what I played is a reflection of theory as I know it and as I apply it to my ideas. No twelve-tone rows, nothing like that. But I was hoping that someone might find it a little interesting."

It is considerably more than that. The evidence is persuasive­ly and pulsatingly at hand.”

Leonard had this to say about A Night in Tunisia, the track from Blues Shout that comprised the audio track on the following video tribute to Leo:

A Night In Tunisia, which Leo has played hundreds of times as a sideman working for the composer, has a slightly different guise here, the first six bars of each eight in the main phrase being played in a rather complex meter that might best be called 6/4. For the rest, it's the traditional routine, though even the bridge from first to second chorus is subjected to a rhythmic telescoping that gives it a fresh quality. Everyone solos —alto, piano, trumpet, drums, bass. The minor sixth with the ninth top at the end is strictly from Dizzy.”

Third Stream Music - From Three Perspectives - Part 2

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


“The world of music in the 1950s was still for the most part divided among sharply defined lines of musicians who, on the jazz side, could not (or preferred not to) read music — and then only of the simplest and most jazz-conventional kind — and also could not improvise on anything but traditional tonal "changes;" while on the "classical" side musicians could not improvise, could not swing, could barely capture the unique rhythmic inflections and expanded sonorities of jazz.”
- Gunther Schuller


A word of caution at the outset.


This is a fairly complicated feature, both in terms of the technical nature of some of the material it treats and because of the density of many of the annotations.


But if you ever wanted to know anything about the origin and early development of Third Stream Music, these discussions are invaluable as a basic primer.


My suggestion is not to try and retain it all but to let the explanations just wash over you to gain a basic awareness and a feel for what was involved in this melding of Jazz and Classical forms that resulted in the birth of the Third Stream.


One thing I’m certain of is that you are going to enjoy pianist Bill Evans’ magnificent performance on the 3rd section of composer George Russell’s All About Rosie in the video montage that closes this piece.


Our second take. then, on Third Stream Music centers around two recordings that pretty much represent the defining moment in Third Stream Music:


[1] the Columbia Jazz LP Music for Brass: The Brass Ensemble of the Jazz and Classical Music Society [released April 1, 1957 as CL 941] and
[2] the Columbia Jazz LP Modern Jazz Concert: Six Compositions Commissioned by the Brandeis University Festival of the Arts [released June 16, 1958 WL 127].


The eight tracks that make up these two LPs were combined and reissued as one CD in 1996 under the title: The Birth of the Third Stream [Columbia Legacy CK 64929].


In many ways, the 1957 Brandeis University Concert and the subsequent 1958 Columbia recording also represent the apotheosis of Third Stream Jazz, at least in its initial form. One could certainly make the argument that the Third Stream ethos continued in the works of Bob Brookmeyer, Maria Schneider, Carla Bley, Michael Gibbs, Eddie Sauter, many of the compositions by various composers associated with Stan Kenton's neophonic orchestra, some of the repertoire of The Metropole [especially under Vince Mendoza] and the Concertgebouw Orchestra, both based in Holland, and in the repertoire of some of the “Radio” Orchestras based in Germany, particularly the WDR under the direction of Mike Abene.

The combined music that forms The Birth of the Third Stream is exhaustively described and discussed in the inserts notes that accompany the CD as written by Gunther Schuller, one of the principal organizers of the Third Stream movement and by George Avakian, the producer of both LPs for Columbia.


Or as explained in the Preface to the notes:


“For a clearer understanding of the unique importance and long-range impact of these eight compositions, we have reproduced in totality the liner of the original LP release of Music For Brass (Columbia CL-941) followed by the pertinent portions of the annotation for Modern Jazz Concert (Columbia WL-127).


BY GEORGE AVAKIAN AND GUNTHER SCHULLER (FOR MUSIC fOR BRASS, 1956)


“The Jazz and Classical Music Society is an organization started in 1955 by John Lewis and Gunther Schuller (it was then called the Modern Jazz Society) to present authoritative and exemplary concert performances of rarely heard music. The emphasis was placed on contemporary music, including that written by composers in the jazz field who would not otherwise have an opportunity for their less-conventional work to be presented under concert conditions.


The Society gave a concert at Town Hall in New York in 1955 and planned a second one in 1956, which was canceled when an unexpected conflict developed with a performance by the New York Philharmonic Symphony of the key work of the Society's program, Gunther Schuller's "Symphony For Brass And Percussion." Work had already begun in recording some of the music to have been presented at that concert; so it was completed nonetheless, and this album is the finished result.


The aims of the Society were, and are, of a nature designed to bring together musicians in both the "classical" and jazz fields. Gunther Schuller exemplifies this intention in this recording, in that he appears as a composer whose work is conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos, as a conductor of the works by the jazz musicians (whose compositions, however, are not jazz as such), and even as a performer in the Brass Ensemble.


The grave problem of preparing good performances of difficult music is only one of the reasons for forming the Society, but as musicians and composers, both Lewis and Schuller felt that it was an extremely important one. For years they felt that the greatest obstacle to the appreciation of unfamiliar music is the number of poor performances. The cost of adequate rehearsals and the finding and assembling of capable, willing musicians (not to speak of the countless musical and stylistic problems involved) made first-rate performances of new music a great rarity. When they do occur, they are inevitably the result of considerable financial expense, selfless devotion to the music, an ability to resist the temptations of compromise, and. needless to say, the necessary musical qualifications of the interpreters. Therefore Lewis and Schuller decided that only a society of musicians (and their friends, whose support and contributions have been invaluable), devoted to such an idea, could accomplish these goals under the present conditions of the concert field.


The Society's planning of its concerts to date has been centered around various basic instrumentations. Thus in the first concert the emphasis was on woodwinds, supported by a harp and the Modern Jazz Quartet, a combination of instruments which resulted in a more or less subdued chamber music sound. In the second concert (which will now be given in the fall of 1957), the planning turned to a large brass ensemble, building the program around the Schuller Symphony. With this piece as the representative of contemporary "classical" music, two Gabrieli works to exemplify the earliest innovations in brass writing over 300 years ago, and with the jazz world represented by three of its most outstanding performer-composers, an unusually complete sampling of all aspects of brass writing and playing was programmed. All but the Gabrieli pieces can be heard on this recording.


Gunther Schuller's "Symphony For Brass And Percussion" was first performed (minus the last movement) in 1950, and presented in its entirety for the first time in the following year at an ISCM (International Society for Contemporary Music) concert, Leon Barzin conducting. It has also been used by Jose Limon as the foundation for one of his choreographies, "The Traitor."


In Gunther's own words, "The purpose in writing this work was primarily to write a symphony. Secondarily, it provided me with an opportunity to make use of my experiences of sitting day in, day out in the midst of brass sections, and to show that the members of the brass family are not limited to the stereotypes of expression usually associated with them. Thus, there is more to the horn than its "heroic" or "noble" or "romantic" character, or to the trumpet than its usefulness in fanfares. Indeed these instruments are capable of the entire gamut of expression. Their full resources and the amazing advances made—especially in America—in the last 30-odd years have been left largely unexploited by most contemporary composers.


"The concept of the symphony is of four contrasting movements, each representing one aspect of brass characteristics. Unity is maintained by a line of increasing inner intensity (not loudness) that reaches its peak in the last movement. The introductory first movement is followed by a scherzo with passages requiring great agility and technical dexterity. The third movement, scored almost entirely for six muted trumpets, brings about a further intensification of expression. The precipitous outburst at the beginning of the last movement introduces a kind of cadenza in which the first trumpet predominates. A timpani roll provides a bridge to the finale proper, which is a sort of Perpetuum mobile. Running through the entire movement are sixteenth-note figures, passing from one instrument to another in an unending chain. Out of this chattering pattern emerges the climax of the movement, in which a chord consisting of all 12 notes of the chromatic scale is broken up in a sort of rhythmic atomization, each pitch being sounded on a different 16th of the measure."


As for a discussion of the other works, let's have Gunther, who conducted tliem, take over at this point.—G.A.


Just about the only common denominator among the three jazz scores is the instrumentation. In every other respect, the three works are widely contrasting and represent three definite styles and personalities. Where J.J., the most eclectic (and the only brass player) of the three, delights in extracting rich, full-bodied sonorities from the instruments, Giuffre in his score tends toward a leaner, more concentrated, almost completely contrapuntal concept of brass-writing; and John Lewis seems to me to stand somewhere between the two. Where J J. uses the instruments with an intimate knowledge of their every subtle characteristic (and even with a certain degree of caution) which is directly attributable to his first-hand knowledge of brass instruments, Giuffre makes them more subservient to the musical material. Again John seems to combine the best of both concepts.


J J. Johnson's "Poem For Brass" opens with a stately introduction, alternating the full brass with cymbal rolls which lead to the main body of the movement, an allegro. Mixtures of muted and open brass predominate. Miles Davis soon enters, improvising over (and at times almost absorbed by) a constantly active background. J J. then also solos, in his best unequivocal manner, using previously stated thematic material. A sudden slackening of the tempo leads to an interlude in which the four horns (led by Joe Singer) and the tuba indulge in some luscious parallel harmonics. The following section features Joe Wilder's sensuous trumpet in a ballad-like strain.


Osie Johnson's cymbal sets the pace in the third movement, subtitled Meter And Metal. Various brass combinations, sparked by Bernie Glow's driving trumpet, alternate with cymbal breaks. Soon the line of continuity is broken; short chordal outbursts remain, isolated, as if left hanging in silence. Suddenly the six trumpets in unison announce the theme of the following free fugue which forms the main body of the movement. The tuba starts the fugal ball rolling, and as various groups of instruments enter, the web of sound thickens, and the impending climax becomes inevitable. At this point JJ. has ingeniously combined five contrapuntal lines which Bound perfectly, both horizontally and vertically; i.e.—they make sense both as melodic lines and as harmonic progressions. Milt Hinton's wonderful bass gives this section a special lift. This idea having run its course, four final declamations based on material from the first two movements bring the work to an exciting close. The golden-toned high C# that John Ware came up with at half past three in the morning to end the session seemed to me at the time like the final strike-out in a pitcher's no-hit game.


John Lewis'"Three Little Feelings" show a side of his musical personality not generally known to those who know him only from his work with the MJ.Q. The instrumentation gave him an opportunity to present a more forceful side of himself and to work with a wider dynamic range than the more intimate level of the quartet would seem to allow.


Without benefit of introduction, three thematic motifs, drawn in solid unison lines, present themselves in quick succession. These three themes, cast in a minor key, emphasize a certain blue-note feeling, in this case through the use of the flatted fifth. As the themes pile up on top of each other one by one, an ominous note is introduced by a timpani and cymbal roll; but this is quickly dispersed by a relaxing trombone counter melody, played by JJ. Soon Miles enters, playing one of the three motives, a chromatic four-note pattern whose center of gravity is the flatted fifth. Out of this eight-bar statement emerges his first improvisation, disarming in its simplicity and economy, but blending perfectly into the character of the piece. Osie Johnson's strong playing sparks the next section, a powerful, snapping outburst in the brass. Later against a background of richly voiced lower brass. Miles returns for a short solo, as if reminiscing, and the piece closes with an almost Brahmsian feeling of gravity.


The second movement, again featuring Miles, presents John in an even more nostalgic and poignant mood. An idyllic atmosphere pervades everything, especially in the middle section where John gently extends two measures in such a way as to give them an almost timeless feeling. The undulating movement in the trombones and baritones makes the chord seem suspended in time, while Miles is free to wander about unhampered, as it were. Also listen to the rich tone of Bill Barber's tuba as he underlines the entire piece, blending when necessary with Milt Hinton's bass.


The third movement returns to the minor key and tempo of the first section. A horn call, beautifully intoned by Jim Buffington, introduces the piece. Then a variant of the chromatic motive from the first movement makes its appearance, leading to JJ.'s finely conceived, perky 40-bar solo. A strong climax and a recapitulation of the horn call (this time played by all four horns) end the piece. In this movement, John has made particularly excellent use of the timpani, without resorting to mere effects or bombastic noise.


These pieces are superb examples of John Lewis' creative talent. In a very simple, unspectacular way, he combines the romantic and the classical in a judicious blending. His great melodic gift is veiy much in evidence. John has that rare ability to create a melody which is thoroughly conventional, immediately hummable. sounds as if one had heard it somewhere before, and yet is in fact absolutely original. Above all, this music has that unassailable quality of lightness for which there is no substitute.


Giuffre's approach, as indicated above, is quite different. In his own words, "brass instruments in large numbers suggest to me ceremonies of perhaps a royal nature, a sense of excitement, as though something momentous were about to happen."


The stage is set by the timpani, playing a rhythm which, says Giuffre, "suggested Egypt to me, and when the brass enter, I imagined the approach of a great Pharaoh and his court; hence the title."


The form of the work is quite original, developing out of the thematic material itself. Different sections feature different groups and material. Outstanding, for instance, is the magnificent six-part writing for


trumpets alone (about halfway through the piece), where Bernie Glow's high C shines forth like a beacon in the (lark. Another highly interesting moment is the bridge featuring a trio of trumpet, horn and timpani. The difficult high horn part is played with consummate ease by Joe Singer.


All the thematic material is finally gathered together for the final climactic section which ends in a blaze of sound, topped by Bernie Glow's high F. (At 3:00 A.M., towards the end of a lip-withering recording session. Bernie's infallible accuracy and power nearly lifted the roof off at Columbia's vaulted studios.)


DIMITRI MITROPOULOS, musical director of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony, needs no introduction, either as one of the world's greatest conductors or as a champion of contemporary music. His keen interest in the Schuller Symphony and his enthusiastic support of the aims of the Society persuaded him to participate in this unusual recording.


GUNTHER SCHULLER, first horn with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, is self-taught in composition. Among his public appearances, he has been heard as soloist in his own concerto with the Cincinnati Symphony, Eugene Goossens conducting. The present work developed from this appearance, having been written at the suggestion of Ernest Glover, director of the brass ensemble of the Cincinnati Conservatory, and conducted by him. Schuller has also performed frequently with jazz groups, including the now famous Miles Davis nine-piece recording group.


JOHN LEWIS, musical director of the Modern Jazz Quartet, is responsible for the commissioning of the Johnson and Giuffre works. His first major work was "Toccata For Trumpet And Orchestra," introduced at a 1947 Carnegie Hall conceit by Dizzy Gillespie, with whose band John first became known as a pianist and arranger.


J.J. JOHNSON has won more jazz polls as the outstanding trombonist of recent years than the New York Yankees have won pennants. He is also an exceptional arranger, most of whose work has been for small combinations. After many years as a featured member of both big bands and small groups, J J. organized an extraordinary quintet with another fine trombonist, Kai Winding, and since 1956, has been leading his own unit. "Poem For Brass" is his first large-scale work.


JIMMY GIUFFRE is the only one of the composers in this album to have studied composition extensively; he is, of course, much better known to the jazz public as a saxophonist and especially as a clarinetist. He is one of the musicians associated with the development of a rather unique style of modern jazz on the West Coast, and his new trio is considered to be the brightest and most individual new group to have emerged from this school.”


FROM THE ORIGINAL NOTES BY GUNTHER SCHULLER (FOR MODERN JAZZ CONCERT, 1957)


“As recently as ten years ago, this album could not have been produced, either in terms of performance or in terms of the marketability of its contents.


But so rapid has been the progressive intermingling of influences in the jazz and non jazz fields that there exists now a nucleus of musicians—albeit still limited in number—who can combine the ability to read "far out" twelve-tone scores with that prime requisite, the life-force of jazz? improvisation. (This should not be confused with the ubiquitous manifestation known as "commercial music" which, while it demands of the musician the ability to read and even occasionally challenges him to improvise, does so on a cliche level that suppresses creative imagination by the stereotyped mass-appeal patterns that it explicitly sets out to achieve.)


Music such as recorded here, of course, will once more bring up the often-raised questions. But is this still jazz, and is this intermarriage of two separate kinds of music valid?


In the short space available here, it is perhaps not possible to discuss conclusively such a thorny question— if this be possible at all—mainly because people in general, and jazz aficionados in particular, seem to have an irrepressible urge to pigeonhole their favorites into neat little category packages. And thus such and such is jazz, such and such is not. (We all know the purist to whom anything after 1925 is no longer jazz, or the latter-day jazz protagonist who thinks anything left of center—center at present being Sonny Rollins, Horace Silver, et al—also outside the realm of jazz.) It just so happens, however, that creative musicians since the beginning of music—not to speak only of jazz—have never concerned themselves too much about what their product would be called or whether it would fit certain established categories.


The truly creative artist has always—to the extent of his talents and artistic sincerity—followed the demands of his creative personality, and it has been the job of the historian and theoretician to explain anil categorize artistic events after they occurred. (To cite only one very simple but pertinent example, the music now called "jazz" was played for years before it was known as such; arguments as to when it was first called jazz and why are still in full swing.)


As a matter of fact, the entire history of the arts was, and still is, precipitated by precisely those glorious moments in which the innovator of genius defies the established patterns and rules, thereby opening up new vistas for him and others to develop until the next big breakthrough occurs. The music lover of all periods, and also the record buyer of today, has a long history of resistance to these innovations of the great masters of past and present; and this is his right and privilege. We hope, however, that he will not find it necessary to exercise this right in regard to this album.


At any rate, perhaps this is jazz or perhaps it is not. Perhaps it is a new kind of music not yet named, which became possible only in America where, concurrent with a rapidly growing musical maturing, a brand new musico-cultural manifestation came into being, which has by now spread to all comers of the earth. Perhaps right now Japanese musicians, for instance, are working on a synthesis of jazz and their own ancient musical traditions. For who knows what the influence of jazz on other cultures as well as our own will produce in years to come? Speaking for myself, I can only say that the possibilities seem to me both exciting and limitless, and it seems irrelevant to worry about whether this will be jazz or not. It does seem relevant to worry about whether it is musically valid and meaningful within the time and society that produce it.


On this basic premise I will therefore not categorize and typecast the six works on this record. In view of the newness of much of the music, this would seem premature, and might in the process renourish prejudices which could limit the listener's enjoyment. Instead, I should like to give the listener the all-too-rare opportunity of uninhibitedly roaming over the wide range of personalities and concepts displayed here. For it was one of the marks of success of this Brandeis concert that the six works commissioned by the University not only were of high quality but as different in their immediate concepts as is possible to envision, while yet all — in a general way — subscribing to the same point of view. I will therefore limit myself to a few remarks about the works, remarks of an essentially non-categorical nature, that will aid the listener in appreciating some of the more salient moments on this record, both in terms of playing and writing.


"All About Rosie" by George Russell, is based — to quote the composer—"on a motif taken from an Alabama Negro children's song-game entitled 'Rosie, Little Rosie.'" The work is in three movements. In the first, a fast pace is set by the trumpet. Alternating between sections in 2/2 and 3/2 meter, the composer builds a gradually mounting tension through excellent manipulation of sequences and repetitions, culminating in a sudden climactic ending.


The second movement changes the mood; it is slow and has a distinct blues feeling. Notice how the composer at first effectively avoids establishing a specific tonality. Only gradually do the several lines in the flute, bassoon, tenor, etc., coalesce into a definite tonal picture, a process quite indigenous to George Russell's own particular modal concept, which effectively encompasses everything from pure diatonic writing to extreme chromaticism. Especially striking in this movement is the guitar writing, superbly played by Barry Galbraith. Again a climax is built with the two trumpets in unison over a rich ensemble. There is a sudden relaxation, and on a short questioning note the movement ends much as it began.


In the third section, the fast relentless pace of the opening is resumed, with the element of improvisation added. Outstanding in this respect is Bill Evans' remarkable piano solo. The ideas are imaginative and well related, but — more than that — Bill's strong, muscular, blues-based playing here fits dramatically into the composition as a whole. Other solos (La Porta, Farmer, Charles, McKusick), and a recapitulation of the opening statement, lead to a brilliant ending.


"Suspensions" is another one of Jimmy Giuffre's attempts to compose and notate, as exactly as our inadequate musical notation will permit, music that represents his particular viewpoint on the jazz and blues feeling. In this respect, the present work is an extension of the kind of thing Giuffre has been doing for some years with his own small groups. In "Suspensions," he has also once more used percussion, not as a rhythmic foundation and backdrop, but as an integral melodic voice within his contrapuntal structure. Giuffre also attempted to write for the players in an individual manner "with which they can express themselves as they would in a solo"—to quote Giuffre from his own notes for the Brandeis concert—which partially explains why there is no improvisation in this work.


A dark and ominous sounding statement in the bass instruments opens Mingus'"Revelations" and sets its initial mood. This is sustained for some time and is only slightly relieved by a chain of solo passages for the French horn (Buffington), trumpet (Mucci), and trombone (Knepper), which in their turn lead to a recapitulation of the opening. The ominous mood continues, abetted by hissing sounds from gourds, jangling tambourines, and ominous rumblings on the timpani (all played by Ted Sommer) that culminate eventually in Mingus' own inimitable appeal to the Lord. An "old church-style" piano solo in 3/4 sets a momentarily happier mood, but this soon capitulates to a more romantic, almost yearning atmosphere, featuring a remarkable and very difficult passage for French horn and bass in unison, played by Buffington and Zimmerman, incidentally Mingus' bass teacher.

With Art Farmer in the lead, the more energetic vein is reestablished which, in turn, gives way to two unusual measures in which, mixed with the moaning flute and tinkling harp and piano embroidery, you will hear the wheezing and rattling of instruments being blown through without producing pitches or tones (a device to the best of my knowledge first used by Igor Markevitch in his work "Icare").


The next section, back in 4/4 time, is one of Mingus' remarkable extended-form improvisations, where two continuously alternating chords form the sole harmonic basis. This "preaching" session — as Mingus thought of it —  begins with the first word from Brother Farmer who is answered by La Porta and later Knepper. As the tension and "shouting" mounts, all the remaining instruments join in response, like a congregation. At a point where drummer Ted Sommer enters the fray with all available instruments, and where the paroxysm threatens to become virtually unbearable, Mingus relaxes the tension and with two quieter improvised chords leads us back to the very opening of the work. But Mingus has not yet played all his cards; he leaves us with an astonishing ending, once more achieved with improvisatory means. No words of mine would be able to give a just idea of this extraordinary and beautiful fade away ending. Just listen to it!


As for my own work, "Transformation," I thought of the piece as a kind of musical reflection (in general terms) of the issue all these compositions bring into focus and which these notes aim to clarify: namely, the continuing process of amalgamation of jazz and contemporary "classical" music. The opening section is indistinguishable from any of my other non jazz compositions. It makes free use of the "passacaglia" idea, in this instance a constantly reiterated though changing line of single held notes (horn, clarinet, bass, clarinet, flute, etc.). Ever so gradually, however, against this background, tiny embryonic fragments of jazz material are introduced. These fragments grow in size and frequency until they predominate and the music has transformed itself into jazz. At a point where the original passacaglia idea (horizontal form) has been condensed into a single chord (its vertical form), the instrumental background suddenly breaks off and the vibes, piano and rhythm begin an improvised section. Notice here how beautifully pianist Bill Evans manages the transition from my written background for the vibe improvisation to his own improvised solo. Most listeners will probably be unable to tell where one ends and the other begins. (This, incidentally, is one of the central problems in jazz today: the integration of improvisation into increasingly complex compositional contexts.)


As the piano improvisation runs its course, a riff is introduced in the wind instruments, at first barely audible as if from far away. As the riff gains momentum and power, a kind of stretto develops, opposing the wind instruments against the others. At the same time, the rhythmic structure is broken up, and in rapidly alternating juxtaposition of jazz and classical rhythms, the composition reaches a climactic ending.


Quite aside from the individual merits or qualities of the six works here displayed, I think this recording predicts, above all, an exciting future in music — not jazz necessarily, but music. When a musician like Bill Evans, for instance — and I could name any one of the others too—can produce an extraordinary strong solo such as in Russell's work, then change character to suit the entirely different demands of my composition, and then turn around and deliver a flawless rendition of Milton Babbitt's exacting piano part, then in all probability, along with developments in the mainstream of jazz, we can look forward with assurance to a greatly enriched and exciting musical future.”


1956 -1996: A FOND REMINISCENCE FROM GEORGE AVAKIAN...


“The middle fifties was a grand time to be Director of Popular Albums for the company that had created the long-playing microgroove record in 1948. The new medium had caught on commercially-caught fire, in fact — but there was still a spirit of exploration in which hardly anything seemed too daring to try. Best of all, the catalog was doing incredibly well at the cash register, so I could risk new ideas without undue panic in the counting-house. (Hysteria, maybe, but not total panic.)


Thanks to my wife, concert violinist Anahid Ajemian, my interest in contemporary classical music had broadened from Stravinsky to Schoenberg to John Cage and beyond. So it was with an open mind that I listened to my friend and Upper West Side neighbor, Gunther Schuller, who had the eminently reasonable but patently impractical idea of recording an album which has since come to be recognized as the birth of "Third Stream"— Gunther's descriptive imagery for music which synthesizes elements of classical music (first stream) and jazz (second stream).


Music For Brass was an album which might never have been recorded if the music had not already been rehearsed for a Jazz and Classical Music Society concert which never took place. Thus the first favorable tip of the scales came when I realized that a considerable amount of studio time (and musicians' overtime) would be saved because the musicians' ears, minds and "chops" were already into the score. Dimitri Mitropoulos, music director of the Philharmonic, was prepared to conduct Gunther's work; his stellar reputation and the fact that he was a contract artist at Columbia helped cushion what I anticipated might be some grumbling on the bean-counting front. When Gunther asked if I thought that Miles Davis — whom I had signed to a contract although I could not release his work until early 1957 — might like to participate as a soloist in the Lewis and Johnson pieces, my conviction that I should make this recording was sealed, even though Miles's enthusiastic assent also meant delaying the release of the album.


The Schuller "Symphony" was recorded on the first session. Miles came and listened, entranced, in a corner of the control room. He couldn't keep his eyes off Mitropoulos. "Hey, George," he whispered — hoarsely, of course — "ask him if I could play with his band some time." (Because he had heard Anahid's performance of the Kurt Weill violin concerto with Mitropoulos conducting, Miles had convinced himself that I had influence in that department.)


During a break, I introduced him to Mitropoulos, adding that Miles would be a soloist in the next two works in the album, and perhaps one day... ? Maestro nodded sagely and hummed an "Ahhhhh, perhaps." Miles beamed. (Yes, he used to beam now and then.) Although I mentioned Miles to Mitropoulos when I gave him a copy of the album a few months later, nothing came of it. (Miles never said another word about it.)


The Music For Brass LP was Gunther's debut, as a composer on one side and as a conductor on the other.


("The industry's first two-for-the-price-of-one offer which refers to a person instead of a free second album," I told him.) "Third Stream" became a familiar term as Gunther used the tributary-river analogy to answer questions about this unique album.


Gunther became a tireless organizer of concerts which brought jazz and classical music and musicians together. The 1957 Brandeis University Jazz Festival of the Arts included six new compositions for a basic instrumentation — a reprise on a smaller scale of the framework of the Music For Brass repertoire. We originally planned to record the music "live," but rehearsals at Brandeis established that the hall was acoustically unsuitable, so we made the recordings soon after at "The Church"—the 30th Street studio which had once been an actual Greek Orthodox church.


In his 1996 essay, Gunther describes the burgeoning impact of "Third Stream," which soon lost its quotation marks. It was the founding premise of Orchestra U.S.A., organized by John Lewis in the early sixties with Gunther and himself as conductors and myself as manager. Gunther went on to new successes as a composer, as a conductor (especially after his notable New York series, "Twentieth Century Innovations") and as president of the New England Conservatory of Music, before he "retired" to an extraordinarily full life of composing, conducting and organizing concerts all over the world. Seemingly endless honors, prizes and awards have followed, including a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.


With the passing years, it's been said that one doesn't hear much about Third Stream any more. There is good reason for this; it has been absorbed into the mainstream. Abetting this development has been the Third Stream Music department of the New England Conservatory, which Gunther founded in 1976 and which continues under its original director, Ran Blake.


As great an influence as the first Third Stream recordings were on contemporary music, jazz and non-jazz, possibly their greatest effect was the ignition of the skyrocket which shot Miles Davis to lasting international stardom. Without Music For Brass, I might never have dared to even think of creating the watershed Miles Ahead album with a 19-piece orchestra. (Without it, as more than one observer noted at the time. Miles would have continued "slogging along" making quintet and sextet recordings.) When I told Miles that I had decided that his second Columbia album must be with a large orchestra — "something like 'Music for Brass"'— I also told him there were only two arranger-conductors he should consider Gunther, who had played French horn in Miles' ground-breaking Nonet in 1950, or Gil Evans, whom I remembered from my 1940s sessions with the Claude Thornhill orchestra (and, more recently, Johnny Mathis).


As I expected, Miles chose Gil, in whose apartment the Nonet was bom and rehearsed. I still believe it was the right answer for Miles. But I have also stopped joking about "Hey, Gunther, no Nobel yet?"”


GEORGE AVAKIAN
May, 1996


GUNTHER SCHULLER CONTINUES WITH HIS 1996 REMINISCENCES...


“How things have changed! Dare I say advanced and improved? When these eight compositions were recorded and first performed about 40 years ago, the average record listener and buyer, and even most critics, considered them (at worst) "incomprehensible,""anti-jazz," even "anti-music,""absurdly avant-garde,""beyond the pale," or (at best) "controversial,""difficult,""abstract,""unrewarding."


Ranging from Babbitt's extraordinarily provocative combinatorial serialism ['Unfortunately, Babbitt's "All Set" is not on this CD. Playing time restrictions forced us to omit it, along with Harold Shapero's "On Green Mountain."] to Giuffre's folksy Polyphonic modal work, these pieces were viewed by most observers as either falling between the proverbial stools of classical and jazz concepts, or simply so far outside any tradition as to be not even worth discussing. That these [pioneering efforts] have long since become "celebrated" and absorbed into a generally eclectic, broad-gauged mainstream, where modern jazz and classical concepts often meet on an equal footing, proves once again that, as so often in the whole history of music (and the arts in general), what was once considered inscrutable and obscure and thus apt to be rejected, not too long afterwards becomes perfectly accessible and accepted, even routine.


A fair amount of controversy did, of course, swirl around this kind of music back in the 1950s and early 1960s, primarily in the professional magazines and journals. Great fears were expressed on both sides of the stylistic fence that, in coming together, the two musics would seriously damage each other. Jazz critics were worried that the "spontaneity" of jazz would be severely afflicted with alleged "stiffness,""straightness,""abstractness"— what was deemed the "academicism"— of modern "classical" music. Conversely, critics on the "classical" side either considered these "experiments" as simplistic and naive, or were concerned that the sacred precincts of modern music would be contaminated by the populist "vulgarities" and/or "simple-mindedness" of jazz.


Caught between being rejected or ignored, this kind of new music — mixing improvisational techniques and concepts with straight composition, blending atonality with tonalities, bringing classical musicians together with jazz players — found only a relatively small receptive audience. Today, these "experiments" are seen as important pioneering efforts which opened up all kinds of musical doors, and which long since have become the basis for all means of new stylistic fusions and amalgamations.


Looking back to those heady, exciting days 40 years ago, it is also fascinating to observe how the technical and stylistic horizons of musicians have broadened and deepened in the intervening years. While the various kinds of musical alchemies and stylistic fusions presented here could be managed 40 years ago only by a small handful of musicians, it is commonplace today to find many performers who will readily deal with any kind of music: improvised or written, tonal or non-tonal, "classical" or jazz. Webern, Varese and Stravinsky co-exist and co-mingle happily with Parker, Mingus and Coleman.


The world of music in the 1950s was still for the most part divided among sharply defined lines of musicians who, on the jazz side, could not (or preferred not to) read music — and then only of the simplest and most jazz-conventional kind — and also could not improvise on anything but traditional tonal "changes;" while on the "classical" side musicians could not improvise, could not swing, could barely capture the unique rhythmic inflections and expanded sonorities of jazz.


Today those erstwhile separate worlds have come together, have cross-fertilized, in variously overlapping ways, and learned much from each other. A rare pioneer on the frontiers of jazz, such as Scott LaFaro, Bill Evans, Eric Dolphy, who in those days had both the "chops" and the ears to deal with these new musical fusions, has been replaced by a whole generation of younger performing and creative talents, for whom those old stylistic and conceptual boundaries have long since disappeared.


One should also pay tribute to the courage and adventurous spirit of Columbia Records and its then-young producer George Avakian in having the wisdom, against all commercial, economic odds, to initiate these recordings, especially at a time when rock and roll was radically changing the face of "popular" music and when questions as to where music — classical as well as jazz — was heading were hardly answerable but nevertheless hotly debated.

In retrospect, it is fascinating to see how well this music has survived the years, how undated and timeless it still sounds. Known collectively as "Third Stream," i.e. the offspring of the marriage of two mainstreams — classical and jazz — it is great to see how well these creative efforts have stood the test of time.


It is also a joy to hear how remarkably well this music was played on the original recordings, when, as mentioned above, such repertory was considered "very difficult" (to say the least), on the outer edge of possibilities; and how beautifully sonically it was recorded (let us remember monaurally, without the enhancing aura of stereo) in that great, wonderful, now long-gone 30th Street studio.


It seems to me that retroactive congratulations are in order all around.”


GUNTHER SCHULLER
May, 1996





Monica Ramey and Beegie Adair - "Some Enchanted Evening"

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


For one so “young” [a relative term as it is used here], it is amazing to hear Monica Ramey’s singing of standards from the Great American Songbook in a manner that is evocative while not succumbing to sentiment. Unlike the song stylings on so many of today’s vocal CDs, Monica does not try to insert heightened meaning and artificial passion into the lyrics.


Over the course of her, as yet, relatively modest career, Monica has managed to develop the vocal skills and faculties that allow her to produce work that helps her listeners gain a better understanding of the Great American Songbook music, despite the fact that we’ve all heard most of the tunes she sings many times before.


There is a maturity in Monica’s rendering of a song that compliments her choice of material in her latest CD Some Enchanted Evening which includes tunes from some legendary Broadway shows as written by Frank Loesser, Irving Berlin, Lerner and Loewe, Rodgers and Hammerstein and George and Ira Gershwin.


In other words, she measures up to the immense talents of those who wrote the songs she sings. She sings the lyrics with a respectful restraint instead of an emotional fawning; there is no exaggerated flattery or obsequiousness.


I suspect that some of these attributes in her growth and development have come from her long association with pianist Beegie Adair, an experienced and gifted musician, who works with Monica effortlessly, never pushing or leading, but always accompanying, suggesting and gently guiding.


Monica’s latest CD offer new exploration of an art that originated in a time when to say “good popular music” was not an oxymoron.


Some Enchanted Evening is subtitled piano and vocal music from My Fair Lady, The King and I, South Pacific, Kiss Me, Kate, Oklahoma!, Guys and Dolls, Carousel and more.


The voice-piano contrast of hearing the songs out of the context of their original and extravagant orchestral productions is as striking as it is satisfying.


What happens to these tunes in the quieter environment that Monica and Beegie have created is that they become more expressive and accessible.


The lights, sets, movements, orchestra in the pit, acting, dancing and gestures that usually surround these songs when they are performed on the big stage by a large Broadway show company are replaced by the intimacy of the piano lounge which finds Monica seated at or near Beegie on the piano bench singing to “you.”


As a result, you hear these lyrics in a new way, almost, perhaps as the composer and lyricist heard them when they were first inventing them.


Monica and Beegie create an intimacy that helps give new interpretations to the likes of They Say It’s Wonderful, C’est Magnifique, Someone to Watch Over Me and nine other Broadway show selections some of which have become “chestnuts” over the years [piece of music in the repertoire that has grown stale or hackneyed with too much repetition].


Another great benefit from the subsiding of the fanfare usually associated with these songs is that the piano-vocal setting allows us to hear the musicianship of Monica and Beegie; how they go about their business in making the music be it in their choice of tempo or key or rhythm. The duo framework is as simple as it gets and if you are not up to it there’s nowhere to hide. But when it clicks, it is as direct a connection as you get between the music and the musicians.


Louis Armstrong was fond of saying the “Jazz is who you are.” Implicit in this statement is that the music is an honest representation of the people making it.


If you want to know who Monica Ramey and Beegie Adair are, just listen to Some Enchanted Evening. They are all there and the music that they make together is wonderful … er … S’Wonderful.


Order information is available at www.greenhillmusic.com

And you can preview all the songs on this CD via this link.

Third Stream Music - From Three Perspectives - Part 3

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


“When Brandeis University held its fourth Festival of the Creative Arts in 1957 at least one of the programmes represented a most unusual gesture. It consisted of six specially commissioned jazz pieces, and, for what little such distinctions are worth, three were from jazzmen, two from straight composers sympathetic to jazz, and one from a musician active in both spheres.


Though universities are supposed to foster research and other original work, this for many years remained one of the few cases of such an institution doing anything practical to further jazz. To have promoted a concert at which a well known band marketed its familiar product would have been nothing, but here was created a situation in which something new might happen. And there was no aimless or self-indulgent experimenting, an encouragingly high standard being attained by all six composers. One of the pieces may be accounted a partial failure, yet these scores are a mine of ideas for further development.


It might be objected that such commissions, by removing normal commercial pressures, create an artificial situation, that music produced under such circumstances can offer no realistic insight on jazz potentialities, and that the point is proved by so few of the 'ideas for further development' having been widely followed up. But even now it is premature to say that, our perspective being too short. It must be remembered that at all periods of musical history the pieces which really made that history were in their own day the property of only a limited circle of initiates. True, such patronage will seldom be available for jazz until it is safely dead, but it is the worst sort of defeatism to discourage commissions because they are rare.


And there is nothing artificial about the fine quality of the jazz which resulted on this occasion: the best of it affords us a glimpse of the sort of music we might be able to expect if jazz ever breaks away from the normally almost crippling limitations and sense of values of the entertainment business to which it has always been linked. Besides, a good piece of music is its own justification, and compared to its enduring value the conditions under which it was created are finally of little interest.”
- Max Harrison, “The Brandeis Festival LP” in Jazz Retrospect


The Third Stream and After


The following excerpts by Terry Teachout appear in Bill Kirchner, Ed., The Oxford Companion to Jazz and provide a nice recap of where Third Stream music has been as well as where it was in 2000, the year this book was published.


And, in contrast with Gunther Schuller retrospective assessment of the success of the music, Terry also does a thorough job of detailing some of the failures and disappointments associated with Third Stream music.


“Starting in the mid-'50s, the Modern Jazz Quartet, a New York—based ensemble led by John Lewis, recorded a series of compositions by Lewis, including "Vendome" (Prestige, 1954) and "Concorde" (Prestige, 1955), that resembled the experimental works of the West Coast school in their attempt to import fugal techniques into a small-group jazz context.


Around the same time, Lewis and the classical composer Gunther Schuller organized the Jazz and Classical Music Society (originally the Modern Jazz Society), a group devoted to the performance of music "written by composers in the jazz field who would not otherwise have an opportunity for their less-conventional work to be presented under concert conditions."


In 1956 a contingent from the Jazz and Classical Music Society recorded Music for Brass (Columbia, 1956), an album of compositions for brass ensemble by Lewis, Schuller, Jimmy Giuffre, and J. J. Johnson; the following year, a mixed ensemble of jazz and classical instrumentalists led by Schuller recorded Modern Jazz Concert (Columbia, 1957), a collection of six extended pieces by Schuller, Giuffre, Charles Mingus, George Russell, and the classical composers Milton Babbitt and Harold Shapero, all commissioned by and premiered at the 1957 Brandeis University Festival of the Arts. (The contents of these two albums, minus the pieces by Babbitt and Shapero, are now available on the Columbia CD The Birth of the Third Stream.)


Schuller contended in a lecture at the Brandeis Festival that these works represented a new synthesis of jazz and Western art music, which he dubbed "third stream music."Modern Jazz Concert and Music for Brass soon became the subject of intense debate in the jazz community, and numerous other composers, including Teo Macero, Friedrich Gulda, Andre Hodeir, Gary McFarland, Bill Russo, Eddie Sauter, and Lalo Schifrin, began to experiment with related compositional ideas.


Third stream music is typically (though not always) composed for mixed groups of jazz and classical instrumentalists. The standard jazz rhythm section is sometimes omitted — Russo's An Image of Man (Verve, 1958), for instance, is scored for alto saxophone, guitar and string quartet — and the regularly sounded beat of traditional jazz heard only intermittently. In most third stream works, fully written-out ensemble passages, often of considerable musical complexity, alternate with simpler improvised episodes involving one or more jazz soloists.


The inherent tension between composition and improvisation may be emphasized, as in Sauter's Focus (Verve, 1961), a suite for tenor saxophone and strings in which Stan Getz's solo part is completely improvised from beginning to end; in other pieces, such as Schuller's Transformation (Columbia, 1957), the improvised sections are carefully integrated into the larger compositional scheme.


The extent to which the original third stream composers drew on classical techniques varied considerably. Mixed-media works such as Schuller's Concertino for Jazz Quartet and Orchestra (Atlantic, 1960), in which the Modern Jazz Quartet performs the function of the "concertino" ensemble in a concerto grosso, and Giuffre's Piece for Clarinet and String Orchestra (Verve, 1959), a through-composed work whose solo part, though fully notated, presupposes idiomatic jazz inflection, clearly seek to reconcile the disparate elements of jazz and classical music. By contrast, J. J. Johnson's Poem for Brass (included on Music for Brass) and George Russell's All About Rosie (included on Modern Jazz Concert), which are intended for performance by jazz instrumentalists and contain no distinctively "classical" features, conform to the third stream model only in the relative complexity of their harmonic language and formal structure.


The third stream movement continues to this day under the auspices of Schuller and Ran Blake, who chaired the third stream department of the New England Conservatory of Music from 1973, and many highly imaginative mixed-media pieces, including Michael Gibbs's Seven Songs for Quartet and Chamber Orchestra(Gary Burton; ECM, 1973), Claus Ogerman's Symbiosis (Bill Evans; MPS, 1974) and Keith Jarrett's Arbour Zena (ECM, 1975), continued to be premiered and recorded well into the '70s.


Unfortunately, these compositions failed without exception to enter the working repertoires of established soloists and ensembles, and public performances of them are now rare. (Orchestra U.S.A., a third stream ensemble founded by John Lewis in 1962, disbanded three years later, and Stan Kenton's Los Angeles Neophonic Orchestra, a similar group founded in 1965, was equally short-lived.) Much the same has been true of pieces by jazz composers specifically written for performance by classical musicians, such as Dave Brubeck's oratorio The Light in the Wilderness (1968), Roger Kellaway's ballet score PAMTGG (1971), and Anthony Davis's operas X (1985) and Amistad (1997).


The latter failure reflects a practical problem of stylistic integration which is also common to third stream music: not only are most classical musicians unable to improvise, but they find it difficult to realize in performance the unwritten rhythmic nuances intrinsic to the jazz idiom. (In addition, works in which electronically amplified jazz instrumentalists are accompanied by unamplified classical ensembles pose near-insuperable problems of acoustical balance in live performance.)


The larger failure of the third stream idea to engage the interest of more than a small number of major jazz soloists also suggests the possibility of an underlying incompatibility between jazz improvisation, with its spontaneous variations on regularly repeating harmonic patterns, and tightly organized classical structures such as sonata-allegro form, in which there is no room for discursive episodes that are freely improvised rather than organically developed.


For all these reasons, it may be that the future of attempts to synthesize jazz and classical music lies not in third stream works for traditional classical media or mixed groups but in substantially through-composed instrumental pieces written for large and medium-sized jazz ensembles.


Many of George Russell's compositions, including Jazz in the Space Age (Decca, 1960) and Living Time (Bill Evans; Columbia, 1972), fit this description, as do such works as Lalo Schifrin's The New Continent (Dizzy Gillespie; Limelight, 1962), in which Dizzy Gillespie is accompanied by a big band, and Carla Bley's A Genuine Tong Funeral (Gary Burton; Victor, 1967), a "dark opera without words" performed by Bley, the Gary Burton Quartet, and a five-piece horn section. Of comparable interest are such recent extended compositions for jazz orchestra as Bob Brookmeyer's Celebration (1997), Bill Holmes All About Thirds (1998), and Maria Schneider's ballet score The Hand That Mocked, the Heart That Fed (1998), which aspire to more rigorous formal challenges, as well as a higher degree of harmonic and contrapuntal complexity, than the big band scores of the past.


Whether such a synthesis is possible within the less structured framework of small-group improvisation remains to be seen, however, and given the fact that jazz continues to be primarily an improvisationally based small-group music, it seems probable that at least for the present, jazz and classical music will continue for the most part to travel on related but independent stylistic tracks.”

The following video montage is set to Carla Bley's Syndrome as arranged by Mike Abene and performed by the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw. It will serve as an example of Third Stream in 2009, the year it was recorded at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.



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