Bill Evans: Evans in England - Resonance Records

April 23, 2019, 7:00 am

≫ Next: Why is jazz unpopular? The musicians 'suck', says Branford Marsalis

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“... beauty still affects people, … they know they are custodians of it. We still need to believe in the beautiful. ...all of us are more loyal to the idea of beauty than we mean to be or know we are.”

- Liz Lev, art historian and author as told to Peggy Noonan, WSJ [paraphrased]

“One of Evans's favorite tour stops in Europe was Ronnie Scott's, the London jazz club launched and managed by two British saxophonists—Ronnie Scott and Pete King. According to drummer Marty Morell, a member of the Bill Evans Trio from 1968 to 1974. Evans loved the club's impeccably tuned piano and the city's old-school jazz fans ….”

- Marc Myers, insert notes to Bill Evans: Evans in England

“In March 1965, [Ronnie Scott’s] club was able to announce proudly the arrival of the first all-American group to play on its premises. Bill Evans was indeed something to be proud of. He was that rare breed: a jazz performer with a strongly European bias toward reflection rather than explicit emotion who could still convey all of the orthodox jazz virtues of swing, profound understanding of the blues and a strong sense of spontaneity….

It was the perfectionist quality of Evans's approach and the subtlety of his thinking that made Ronnie Scott and Pete King realise that they would have to improve the facilities a little. The club's piano was a battered old upright that had been in use there since the establishment opened, its eccentricities by now instinctively grasped by Tracey [house pianist Stan Tracey], who knew every treacherous habit it had. But they could not expect Evans to play on it. So the two club proprietors performed the long-postponed ritual of selling the piano the weekend before Evans was due to arrive. They then set about hiring a grand piano. …

Eventually a friend and sympathiser with the club's objectives, the jazz pianist and composer Alan Clare, was able to arrange the loan of a grand piano for Evans's opening show. It came at the eleventh hour.

When Evans began to play … he had distinct mannerisms in performance, [and] Evans seemed to express his apparent desire to escape more and more comprehensively into a fascinating landscape inside his own head. A thin intense-looking figure, he sat at the instrument with his head bowed over it, his nose at times virtually touching the keyboard, hands floating ethereally through a mixture of evaporating arpeggios, crisp, sinewy single-line figures that would erupt and vanish in an instant, and an ever-present rhythmic urgency that continually prodded at the otherwise speculative and otherworldly quality of his work.

Unlike many of the bebop pianists, Evans did not merely concentrate on chorus after chorus of melodic variations on the harmony - the latter usually expressed in bald, percussive chords designed to emphasise the beat -but sought to develop a solo as a complete entity with a fundamental logic and shape, his left hand developing and enriching the harmony. … Bill Evans - as the New York Village Voice writer Gary Giddins remarked - exhibited the white jazz players' gift of 'swinging with melancholy'. Evans became another regular visitor to Ronnie Scott's Club over the years, with a variety of high-class and empathetic accompanists.”

- John Fordham, Jazz Man The Amazing Story of Ronnie Scott and His Club

“For many decades the transatlantic traffic of jazz musicians suffered at the hands of politicians. Not until 1965, after a history of restrictions and exchange agreements, was the gate fully opened for ail-American hands to play in Britain. In March of that year the Bill Evans Trio became the first such group to play at Ronnie Scott's jazz club, and for the pianist's British followers it was a momentous visit. ...

The critics for Melody Maker had just voted Evans into first place in their jazz piano poll. Such critical reaction was based on his recordings, but there is nothing like hearing the real thing. Today it is easy to forget the impact of this new voice whenever he went to a new place. The pianist John Horler recalls his first experience of the Evans sound; ‘I remember being at the bar at Ronnie Scott's with my back to the bandstand when I heard these chords being played very quietly on the piano. The impact was as great as if you'd suddenly heard the Count Basie band in full cry! I turned around, and Bill Evans was sitting at the piano ready to start his first set."

- Peter Pettinger, Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings

With the exception of Pops, Duke, and Miles and Coltrane, more words have been written about Bill Evans than any other Jazz musician of the 20th century.

But while the narratives about Armstrong, Ellington, Davis and ‘Trane are mostly celebratory, that is to say, works of praise and respect regarding their achievements, the writings about Evans tend to be analytical; more focused on his style and discerning the elements that made it so unique.

[Coltrane may be an exception in that he fits into both categories].

Thus we read reams about Bill’s approach to harmonic analysis, thematic analysis, modal analysis, intervallic analysis, reharmonization and advanced reharmonization techniques, rhythmic displacement, upper structures, slash chords, polychords, Drop 2 voicing and cluster chords.

All of this about a musician who told Brian Case in one of his last interviews before his death in September, 1980:

“The fact that music is polytonal, atonal, polyrhythmic, or whatever doesn’t bother me - but it must say something.

I work with very simple means because I'm a simple person, and I came from a simple tradition out of dance music and jobbing, and though I've sorta studied a lot of other music, I feel that I know my limitations and I try to work within them. Really, there's no limit to the expression I could make within the idiom if I had the inner need to say something.

This is where I find the problem. More an emotional, a creative - emotional problem.'”

[The Quiet Innovator, Melody Maker, 9.27.1980. Emphasis mine].

After reading Bill’s emphasis on the role emotion plays his approach, it is the height of irony to read so much analysis on “the Bill Evans sound” which stresses the intellectual!

Any new recording by Bill is important because it becomes a link in the thread of his improvisational logic. Bill’s work was not about replaying licks and phrases, it was about applying a constantly evolving approach to Jazz piano, seeing what resulted and extending this knowledge to the next stylistic enhancement and embellishment.

Peter Pettinger in his seminal Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings, puts this point another way:

“Each time he took the stage, he entered that world he had created for himself and for which he lived, plugging into a continuous stream of consciousness on another plane, gathering up the reins of an ongoing creation.”

And Pettinger adds to this assertion in the following statement:

“The trio played Keystone Korner [San Francisco, CA] for eight nights, starting on Sunday, August 31, 1980. All eight performances were recorded by the club owner, Todd Barkan, and issued in 1989, ..., on an eight-CD set by Alfa Records of Tokyo called Consecration: The Last Complete Collection. ….

On the first night, a rendering of "My Foolish Heart" was conjured to compare with the classic 1961 performance from the Vanguard. Now, with continuity of feeling (and key, A major) over the intervening years, a more adventurous statement was being made, farther flung on the keyboard and freer rhythmically. The original conception had developed in complexity but not deepened in spirit: simply, its essence had remained intact, affirming the initial worth.” [Emphasis mine]

And even when, as pianist Andy LaVerne [in an interview with Wim Hinkle in “Letter from Evans,” 5/2] explains -

“What he was doing was playing ahead of the changes. His right-hand line would be ahead of where the changes were happening in the harmonic rhythm. That way he could create tension and release; when the changes caught up to his line, obviously that would be a release." - this displacement of phrases came absolutely naturally to Evans, developed through feeling, not intellect. He was not trying to throw his listeners but to say more within the form of jazz.

Recordings from the mid to late 1960’s are particularly important in the Evans oeuvre because -

“Evans had by this juncture created an entirely individual harmonic language as estimable in its thoroughness of working as those of, say, Gershwin, Messiaen, or the neoclassical Stravinsky. It was based on the tonal system of the popular song and had evolved at its own painstakingly slow pace, its creator never in a hurry to leap ahead, always content to add voicings and intensify harmony step by step, consolidating all the way.

It was a craft of distinction; because he selected the notes of a chord with extra care he could heighten expressiveness by playing fewer of them,

his thoroughly grounded knowledge enabling him to make quite original substitutions. As each new element of his vocabulary became assimilated into general use, so the ground was laid for the next, and thus his own successive brands of piquancy came alive. This essentially harmonic world was enhanced by inner and outer moving parts, comments and colorings: a note that began life as a chromatic passing note might be transferred into the chord itself, which then emerged as a fresh voicing. The evolution spanned his whole life and was continuing to develop at his death.” [Pettinger; Emphasis mine]

In parallel with the choice of notes was the rhythmic variety into which they were cast, an acuity which had been sharpened early on, during his first excursions with George Russell. In trying to describe some of his rhythmic approaches in the trio, Evans likened the placement of his chords to shadow lettering, in which the shadows rather than the letters are drawn, yet the observer is always conscious only of the letters themselves. He was fascinated by disguise, surprise, and asymmetry; asymmetry, in fact—in the form of displacement—almost developed into an occupational hazard.

Phrases fell according to their content rather than the position of the bar line. Evans referred to an "internalized" beat or pulse, around which the trio played, avoiding the obvious and the explicit. As for cross-rhythms, he had always been at home in two meters at once, leaning fearlessly into the one he was engaged upon. A further subtle dimension in his playing, extra to written time-divisions, is all but beyond description: an impulsive motion that can only be likened to the timing of a great actor or comedian. In ballads especially, this sense was indispensable to their strength.”

In essence Bill lived the following precept in his music:

“It ends up where the Jazz player, ultimately, if he’s going to be a serious Jazz player, teaches himself. ...

You cannot progress on top of vagueness and confusion, he declared. He was living proof of his own classic maxim: "It is true of any subject that the person that succeeds ... has the realistic viewpoint at the beginning, knowing that the problem is large, and that he has to take it a step at a time, and he has to enjoy this step-by-step learning procedure." [Louis Carvell, “The Universal Mind of Bill Evans,” Rhapsody Films, 1966.]

Pianist Chick Corea once said in paying homage to his accomplishment: “Bill’s value can’t be measured in any kind of terms. He’s one of the great, great artists of the 20th century.”

This being the case, the discovery, preparation and production of more of Bill’s recorded music by George Klabin, Zev Feldman and the team at Resonance Records is to be lauded for having uncovered an extremely valuable new work “by one of the great artists of the 20th century.”

Here’s their media release about their brilliant, new find:

RESONANCE RECORDS' NEW BILL EVANS DISCOVERY EVANS IN ENGLAND

BOWS AS A LIMITED-EDITION 2LP RECORD STORE DAY EXCLUSIVE

ON APRIL 13 AND 2CD/DIGITAL RELEASE ON APRIL 19

Previously Unreleased 1969 Recordings with Eddie Gomez and Marty Morell at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London, England is the Fourth Official Collaboration with the Evans Estate.

Includes an Extensive Book with Rare Photos by Jean-Pierre Leloir; Essays by Acclaimed Author Marc Myers and French Filmmaker Leon Terjanian; Plus Exclusive Interviews with Eddie Gomez and Marty Morell

Los Angeles, February 2019 - Resonance Records, the leading outlet for high-quality, unheard archival jazz releases, proudly announces that it will issue Evans in England, a vibrant, previously unreleased set of recordings featuring music by lyrical piano master Bill Evans with bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Marty Morell captured during an engagement at Ronnie Scott's celebrated jazz club in December 1969.

The Evans album continues Resonance's tradition of unveiling a special release on Record Store Day, the annual event promoting independent record retailers. As Variety noted in a 2018 profile of the label, "If Record Store Day had a mascot label, it would be Resonance Records, a small, L.A.-based jazz independent that's become known even outside the genre for producing high-end archival releases tailored especially with the RSD market in mind."

Evans in England, which features 18 electrifying performances by Evans' brilliant trio of 1968-74, will initially be issued on April 13 - Record Store Day 2019 — as a limited edition 180-gram two-LP set, mastered by Bernie Grundman at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Hollywood and pressed at Record Technology, Inc. (RTI); the package will be available only at participating independent record outlets. Two-CD and digital configurations of the set will be available April 19.

The album will include extensive liner notes including essays by producer and Resonance co-president Zev Feldman and jazz writer Marc Meyers; interviews with Gomez, Morell, and filmmaker Leon Terjanian; and rare photos by Chuck Stewart, Jean-Pierre Leloir, and Jan Persson.

Evans in England succeeds a pair of widely acclaimed Evans releases from Los Angeles-based independent Resonance that featured the pianist's short-lived 1968 trio with Gomez and drummer Jack DeJohnette: 2016's collection of lost studio sides Some Other Time and 2017's set of Dutch radio recordings Another Time. The latter release was named one of the year's top historical releases by DownBeat, JazzTimes, the U.K.'s Jazzwise, and the NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll.

In 2012, the label released its first album devoted to unissued music by the pianist, Bill Evans Live at Art D'Lugoff’s Top of the Gate, a set of two never-before-heard 1968 concerts from the Greenwich Village club featuring the trio with Gomez and Morell recorded by Resonance founder and co-president George Klabin.

Producer Feldman says, "It's very exciting for Resonance to be collaborating on our fourth project together with the Evans Estate. These are really extraordinary recordings that represent Bill at his very, very best, and document the great art and chemistry that existed between these three gentlemen — Bill Evans, Eddie Gomez and Marty Morell — captured just a year into what would go on to become Bill's longest-lasting trio."

As has been the case with some of Resonance's other collections of rare and unheard jazz, the music on Evans in England arrived at the label's doorstep via a bolt out of the blue: an unexpected email to Feldman from a man who said he was in possession of some previously unissued Evans recordings.

The gentleman in question was Leon Terjanian, a friend and devoted fan of Evans who had filmed the pianist for his documentary feature Turn Out the Stars, which premiered at the Montreal Jazz Festival in 1981.

Through the late Francis Paudras, the famed biographer of jazz piano titan Bud Powell, Terjanian had made the acquaintance of a French collector who chooses to identify himself only as "Jo." A similarly ardent admirer of Evans' playing, Jo had tracked the keyboardist across Europe and even captured his trio's sets at Ronnie Scott's.

Evans discovered Jo's surreptitious recording activities (which employed a small portable machine), but the musician grew comfortable with his presence, and he allowed his dedicated fan to tape his performances.

In July 2016, Terjanian received a phone call from 84-year-old Jo, who said he wanted to see his Evans recordings issued to the public before his death. That communication prompted contact with Feldman at Resonance. Arrangements were made with the Evans Estate for a legitimately licensed release of the material, with tracks selected by co-presidents George Klabin and Zev Feldman.

Marked by the already empathetic interplay of Evans, Gomez, and Morell, who would perform together for nearly seven years, Evans in England is an exceptional recital that encompasses energetic renderings of such timeless compositions as "Waltz For Debby,""Turn Out the Stars,""Very Early," and "Re: Person I Knew"; extroverted readings of Miles Davis’ "So What" (which Evans originated with the trumpeter sextet on the 1959 classic Kind of Blue) and Thelonious Monk's "'Round Midnight"; and Evans' earliest recordings of "Sugar Plum" and "The Two Lonely People."

Feldman says, "Bill Evans is an artist who continues to inspire us, all these decades later. I still hear new things in his music upon each new listen, and to find an unearthed set of concert recordings such as these is a cause for widespread joy and jubilation to break out among Evans fans and jazz fans everywhere."

Looking back on the experience of playing with Bill Evans, Gomez says, "He wanted us — me — from the very beginning to just go out there and play and make music, and as long as there's a lot of integrating and honesty and devotion to what we're doing, he was fine. He never put any parameters, or kiboshed anything. So it was an invitation from Bill to try stuff and be creative, and I certainly took the bait."

Morell adds, "It was challenging, inspiring, and just kind of brought the best out of me."

↧

Why is jazz unpopular? The musicians 'suck', says Branford Marsalis

April 24, 2019, 7:00 am

≫ Next: Jeff Hamilton on the Role of Mel Lewis in the Big Band Arrangements of Bill Holman

≪ Previous: Bill Evans: Evans in England - Resonance Records

Although I was aware of his tenor and soprano saxophone playing from his days time with his trumpet playing brother Wynton when they were on Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers together, I really didn’t get into what Branford Marsalis had to offer until I heard his soprano sax playing as accompanied by pianist Mike Lang and bassist John Patitucci on Jerry Goldsmith’s score to the movie version of John Le Carre's The Russia House, which was released in 1990.

I’ve been a Branford fan ever since for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is due to the high degree of skill and creativity on display in his music, but also, because of the courage he has put forth in leading his career in directions that are artistically satisfying, irrespective of the financial consequences.

Ironically, his bravery has resulted in a well-lived and financially successful musical life as detailed in the following interview that appeared in:

The Sydney Morning Herald

With Rachel Olding

April 19, 2019

“American jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis is practically inhaling a bowl of lentil soup and a glass of red wine when I meet him in a hotel lobby bar in New York's East Village. He has been up since dawn, heading to this place and that place, meeting people, doing interviews, rehearsing, signing CDs, listening, watching, eating, drinking.

"I shouldn't have a second glass of wine," he says to himself as a waiter approaches. "But ... yeah," he adds, with a vigorous nod and his eyes widening.

At 58 and with a career spanning 40 years, Marsalis, one of the most respected and unconventional saxophonists of all time, is still ravenous and opinionated. I can see why he once joked that critics weren't wrong to describe him as an "arrogant cuss". He excoriates the state of modern jazz and jazz musicians with the same energy with which he is ploughing into that bowl of soup. He talks of his home town, New Orleans, with a passion that borders on ferocious. He exudes a cavalier swagger and still plays tenor saxophone with burnished elegance. He nerds out in long, forceful diatribes about harmonic structures or diatonics or the criminal stupidity of messing with the tempo of Thelonious Monk. He extends the same vigour to assessing his own shortcomings, describing himself as undaunted to try new genres and musical projects even though he is terrible at most things to begin with.

"I got my first fancy car when I was 57 years old," he says in between mouthfuls of crusty bread. "If I'd stayed on the [Jay Leno] show, I'd have had a garage full of Audis in my 30s. But, when I die, I want to have said that I lived, that I went out there on a limb and did different things."

After earning acclaim as a jazz musician, Marsalis has set about bravely exploring almost every genre outside of jazz, earning him a CV that is dizzying in both length and diversity.

The son of jazz pianist and educator Ellis Marsalis – and one of four sons to become jazz musicians – Marsalis cut his chops playing with illustrious trumpeter Clark Terry and drummer Art Blakey in the legendary Jazz Messengers. He moved to New York in 1981 to join younger brother Wynton's band when the young trumpeter's star was rising meteorically;

Wynton appeared on the cover of Time (the story heralded the dawn of "The New Jazz Age") and was the first person ever to win Grammy awards for both the jazz and classical music. They played with a roll-call of all-time greats – Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock, Sonny Rollins.

But Marsalis left the safe confines of the Wynton Marsalis Quartet to tour with Sting in the 1980s before becoming the first musical director of The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. He stretched the bounds of fusion by forming hip hop/funk group Buckshot LeFonque in the 1990s and made an impromptu appearance on stage with the Grateful Dead at New York's Nassau Coliseum in 1990, a performance that has gone down in Dead folklore as one of the greatest. He has scored Broadway productions such as The Mountaintop, with Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett, all while maintaining his own band, the Branford Marsalis Quartet, for two decades. Just to top it off, he co-starred in the Spike Lee film School Daze. Because, why not?

"The brain is incredibly lazy," Marsalis says, launching into one of his many theories on life; this one about why he thinks it's better to go out on a limb and embrace new genres, despite the risk of feeling hopelessly out of depth. He leans in when he talks and sustains intense eye contact. Each sentence is short with a moment's silence at the end, to really emphasise his point.

"By the time a child is about seven or eight the brain is like, 'I have all the keys to the universe I need right now', which is why learning is often a struggle. It's human nature to not address your shortcomings. The great thing for me is, I played with my brother's band and everybody said, 'You're incredible!' And I was like, 'Haha, not really'. And then I played with Sting and everybody was like, 'Oh man it doesn't get any better than that?' And I'm like, 'Ah, I think it does.'

"If I needed the adoration of others, I was pretty much done in 1985. But since I'm lucky enough to not need it, I said, 'Well what else can I do to make myself better?' One way you can do it is to double down on your strengths ... but I decided I'd go out there and find out how good I can be. People routinely stay in their lanes. They lose the thrill. Know what I'm saying?"

Growing up in New Orleans – the mecca of jazz and a music scene that manages to stay egalitarian and unpretentious – made him equal parts cocky and humble. He's not afraid to fail at something, and he's also not afraid to tell you he's not afraid.

Undoubtedly his home life played a role, too, where he was one of six children in the famous Marsalis family, often dubbed the First Family of Jazz. (There's Wynton, 57, trumpet supremo and veteran director of Jazz at Lincoln Centre; Delfeayo, 53, a trombonist and record producer; Jason, 42, a drummer; Ellis III, 54, who eschewed music to become a poet and photographer; and Mboya, 48, who is severely autistic and often cited by the brothers as their musical inspiration).

Their father, Ellis Marsalis, has never been one for platitudes and emphasised earnest work ethic over braggadocio. He mandated that each son would play a different instrument so there'd be no sibling rivalry to stroke their egos. Marsalis' mother, Dolores, who died in 2017, could be wincingly harsh. When she came to see a less-than-polished Buckshot LeFonque gig in the 1990s, she told the band it was "some of the saddest shit I've ever heard". "Y'all should be embarrassed," Marsalis recalls her saying.

"Some people say, 'Well, how do you deal with bad reviews?'" he says. "I say, 'I grew up with Dolores Marsalis!' What the hell do I care about a bad review?"

Blistering honesty runs in the family; the brothers don't often talk music, but if they do, it's usually to point out where the other could be better. Marsalis prefers is that way. How does flattery help you improve? There has also been the odd unsubtle dig at the different paths they've taken, like Wynton, a jazz purist, saying in the 1990s, "There's nothing sadder than a jazz musician playing funk".

As he empties his second glass of red and the sun begins to dip behind the city skyline, the self-flagellating only continues. Marsalis talks about his move into classical music about 20 years ago, yet another experiment in torching the boundaries of his comfort zone, and emphasises how awful he was for the first seven years. It took him two days to learn how to execute a down beat, the moment the orchestra starts playing together. In jazz, the down beat is negotiable; for the musicians of New York's Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, who were a tad wary of this imported jazz man, it was not.

"At first, yeah, I was terrible, as I should have been. It's like an American baseball player deciding he wants to fly to Melbourne and play AFL [Australian Football League]," he says. "But I was undaunted. Because the only way to not feel like shit, is to feel like shit."

The rest of the world must have been oblivious to his failings because Marsalis has been flown to almost every corner of the globe and implanted into various orchestras, taking on compositions by Debussy, Vivaldi and even works by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos arranged for solo saxophone and orchestra. In Australia in May, he will perform a Latin American-flavoured program with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, including an arrangement written for him and premiered in Australia by Scottish composer Sally Beamish, who usually writes for viola.

"It has made my jazz playing exponentially better," he says. "All those little things; suddenly I had to be very precise. [I] started paying attention to the sound of things because you can't have a one-emotion-fits-all like you can in your own music. Suddenly I'm responding to sounds differently, asking, 'Is this a happy ballad? Is this a sad ballad?' These aren't jazz musicians' discussions. Jazz musician discussions are about tempo, structure."

The more jazz has changed, the more Marsalis has gravitated towards classical music. It's the reason he moved his young family to Durham, an artistic city in North Carolina, 10 years ago; the New York scene wasn't inspiring anymore. (He'd also had enough of "New York living", of five-year-olds calling adults by their first name).

Today's jazz musicians are too mathematical and wonkish, he says. Jazz clubs are half empty, only frequented by other musicians who appreciate each other's showmanship. Listeners need music degrees to understand what they're playing. The music has become rigid. Improvisation is mostly over-rehearsed regurgitation.

"[I'm often asked] the question, 'Jazz is so unpopular, why do you think that is?' And the answer is simple: the musicians suck," he says with typical subtlety.

He says the shift started in the '90s and I can't help but think the Marsalis family was not immune. While they still wield incredible clout, nothing can compare to the two decades in which Wynton and his siblings seemed to ruled the jazz universe. In 2003, the music critic David Hajdu stumbled upon Wynton playing as a sideman with a band in a near-empty jazz club in New York, and wrote a piece in the Atlantic (tartly titled "Wynton's Blues") hypothesising that Wynton's stifling orthodoxy and nostalgia was partly to blame for both his and jazz's dwindling relevance.

It's nevertheless hard to see that Branford Marsalis is slowing down in any way. Not in the flood of opinions he wants to impart. Nor in his commitment to improving music or lifting standards. Not in the pace and scope of his work, nor with that bottle of red wine. And especially not with the tempo of Thelonious Monk.”

↧

Jeff Hamilton on the Role of Mel Lewis in the Big Band Arrangements of Bill Holman

April 25, 2019, 7:00 am

≫ Next: Ralph Moore - "This I Dig Of You"

≪ Previous: Why is jazz unpopular? The musicians 'suck', says Branford Marsalis

When we listen to a big band, what we hear is a formed tonal entity - the whole equaling the sum of its parts.

The composer-arranger gives the tonality its form through the structure of the notes given to each instrument to play and these are further shaped into various melodies and harmonies throughout the piece.

But there is another element “shaping” the sound of the big band as its plays the arranger's "charts" - the drummer.

Jeff Hamilton, who has been a premier drummer on the big band scene for the past four decades, beginning with Woody Herman in the 1970s, Bill Holman in the 1980s and continuing through to today as a co-leader of the Clayton Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, explains why this is so in the following excerpt from Bill Dobbins, ed. Conversations with Bill Holman: Thoughts and Recollections of a Jazz Master, a work we plan to review in its entirety.

Jeff Hamilton

Top jazz drummer and co-leader of the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra

"The first I became aware of Bill Holman was through his charts for Buddy Rich's band. There was a certain sound that Bill had that I wasn't aware of when I was 16 or 17 years old. But after that I soon grew to understand what Bill Holman’s writing was. I learned that his music needed to be played at the tempo in which he envisioned it from the get go. As a drummer, you need to learn to be sort of an orchestrator/co-ar ranger to set up the next section of the piece without being obvious about it. This later became so apparent to me, especially by playing in his band.

He heard Mel Lewis as the glue from segment to segment, from background to shout chorus to melody out. He had Mel Lewis in his head. I learned this from knowing Mel, being friends with Mel, studying Mel and then knowing Bill's writing, learning Bill's writing and putting the two together. They were like one person. Knowing Mel, his playing and his views of how to play the music, taught me that the drummers task was to feel like a big overstuffed sofa the band can sit on when they're playing. Not lay on; but a sofa they can sit on. That's how comfortable the band should be in order to play the music.

Playing Bill's music feels comfortable if you let it come in. If you force it, it's not going to sound the same. A good example of this was when I travelled with Bill to Cologne, Germany, for a recording project with the WDR Big Band. I love Bill Holman and I felt a lot of friendship and respect from Bill Holman over the years so I knew he trusted me with the music he wrote. But I also knew that nobody could play his music from the drum chair like Mel Lewis. I respected that and I knew that I couldn't play the music as well as Mel, but I would do my damnedest to bring what I could to his music. I said, 'Let me know if there's anything you want me to do to help this band come together. I've played these charts with you in your band, so let me know if I need to do something.'

About one arrangement he said, 'The shout chorus always seems to pick up a little tempo-wise.' I said, 'I noticed that, but I thought you wrote it that way, like you wanted to goose it a little bit on the shout chorus.' And he says, "No. Keep letter C in mind when you get to the shout chorus.' (Letter C was simply played by a couple of saxophones.) That was such a huge lesson for me because I ignored the shout chorus. I went to letter C when they went to the shout chorus and Bill looked up at me at the fourth bar, winked at me, and chuckled with that wry smile of his. That's the subtlety, often overlooked, that Bill Holman brings to the music.

A shout chorus is a shout chorus; it's on the ceiling. But Bill's underneath supporting all of that like Mel was on the sofa. It's the same thing. That's why those two guys were so compatible; they thought the same way about the music. He let all the bombs burst in there but wanted that comfortable sofa underneath.

So Bill was recording a Woody Herman tribute and Wolfgang Hirschmann, manager of the WDR Big Band, says, 'We should bring Al Porcino in on this.' Al lived in and had gotten his own big band together in Dusseldorf. He was on that particular date as a third trumpet player because he was no longer playing lead trumpet. So there was also a hot young trumpet player as well as a good jazz player from Germany. We're rehearsing this tune and Al's kind of laying out. Halfway through Bill says, 'OK, let's record this.' Al says, in his halting voice, 'Willis! Hold it! Hold it, Willis!' We all stop and Bill says, 'What is it Al?' Al says, 'In my part, you've got jazz written at letter E. I don't play jazz!' And Bill said, while the bands kind of chuckling, 'Well, pass it down to another trumpet player.' Al says, ‘I’ll do just that, Willis.' And Al passes the part down to another guy. As they're exchanging parts, Al says, 'You know, they called Roy Eldridge "Little Jazz". Well, they call me "VERY Little Jazz".’ (Much laughter.)

On that same trip I said to Willis, 'Do you realize that I have to think like Mel Lewis? I don't lose myself, but I think like Mel Lewis in order to play your music properly. I think you have Mel Lewis in your mind every time you put your pencil to paper. And I think, "What's Mel Lewis going to do to make that music pop off the page, to make it work?" You know he's the glue from this section to that section. Mel Lewis is your guy. Do you think of anyone else when you write?' And Bill looked at me and said, 'Hmm. You might be right.' It's like he'd never thought about it. And I said, 'You have early Duke Ellington and Sonny Greer when it was the Washingtonians and Duke was the piano player, but he had to write with Sonny in mind on those '20s arrangements because Sonny was the leader. And then it became Sam Woodyard and Louis Bellson when he was writing later on.' Ralph Burns had Don Lamond. Bob Florence had Nick Ceroli. Every arranger has his own drummer, and I pointed all of those things out to him. Bill Holman had Mel Lewis.

You cannot not study Mel Lewis and play drums in Bill Holman's band. And that's one of my beefs with drummers who play in Bill Holman's band and haven't studied Mel, and won't give in to that. You can never sound like Mel Lewis but you have to study what he did to bring that to the music, because that's what Bill is hearing!"”

↧

Ralph Moore - "This I Dig Of You"

April 26, 2019, 7:00 am

≫ Next: Michel Petrucciani - Pianism

≪ Previous: Jeff Hamilton on the Role of Mel Lewis in the Big Band Arrangements of Bill Holman

I took a break from Jazz some time in the early 1970’s. I didn’t like where the music was going at the time so I decided to check out for awhile.

Many of the independent Jazz record labels were gone including Pacific Jazz [Dick Bock], Contemporary [Lester Koenig] on the Left Coast and Blue Note [without Alfred Lion] and Riverside [Orrin Keepnews] in The Big Apple.

The conglomerates hadn’t quite made their mark - Columbia was not as yet Sony, The Universal Music Group was still on the horizon, Warner-Elektra-Atlantic was still a decade or so away and EMI was still primarily a British recording and electronic corporation and not as yet a multinational amalgamation.

I got back into the music in the mid and late 1980s largely because of the recorded convenience of the compact disc and the huge LP reissue campaign that was characteristic of the nascent period of the digital music revolution. [Ironically, it was this very digitalization that brought into full swing the flurry of consolidations that resulted in the recorded music conglomerates.]

One day, while searching around a music store not too far from my office in San Francisco during a lunch hour break, I notice the name of an “old friend” on some discs released on the Landmark label.

Orrin Keepnews, the producer of so many legendary recordings for Riverside Records was back in business.

The discs in question were by Ralph Moore, a young tenor saxophone player, and they were entitled Images [Landmark LCD-1520-2] and Furthermore [Landmark 1526-2], respectively. [Perhaps “Furthermore” should have been titled “Further Moore” for those who enjoys puns?!]

Moore’s tenor sax was joined by Terence Blanchard’s trumpet on the former and Roy Hargrove’s trumpet on the latter and both are supported by a superb rhythm section of Benny Green on piano, Peter Washington on bass and Kenny Washington on drums.

I knew hardly anything about any of these musicians at the time but my ears told me that they were the real deal.

Speaking of “ears” [and eyes], in order to better familiarize myself with both the musicians and the music on these recordings I relied heavily on the following insert notes for each of these recordings.

Images [Landmark LCD-1520-2] - Stuart Troup [New York Newsday]

“A great musician is distinguished by his ears as well as his chops. And Ralph Moore, at 32, has obviously heard, absorbed, and assimilated the rewarding grit of jazz— and embroidered it with singular intensity.

He has gained acceptance from such bandleaders as J.J.Johnson, Freddie Hubbard, Roy Haynes, and Horace Silver. But even more impressive than those credentials is the convincing evidence we have right here in these recordings.

Moore is London-born, where "my mother got me interested in playing, at the age of 14. I was playing trumpet at first, but my teacher had a tenor sax and I liked the way it looked. It turned me on." A year later, Ralph emigrated to central California to live with his American father. "The music program at the high school included a jazz band," he says. "And then I spent a couple of years at the Berklee School of Music in Boston. Early on, I listened to Stanley Turrentine, Sonny Stitt, and Charlie Parker. Then all of a sudden it was Coltrane."

He needn't have confessed; the evidence is clear.

When Moore reached New York, he was quickly found and nurtured by Haynes, then Silver, and moved easily into the company of Hubbard, the Mingus Dynasty Band, and orchestras led by Dizzy Gillespie and Gene Harris. More recently he has taken part in J.J.Johnson's return to full-scale jazz activity.

What Ralph now brings to Images is exactly what all of the above found in him: a sense of adventure, understanding, and innovation. There is one important addition; as his own leader, he has been able to pick the repertoire and the sidemen of his choice. The compositions are divided between newer material and some unhackneyed, overlooked gems from the earlier years of the modern jazz tradition. In particular, his use of works by tenor players Hank Mobley and Joe Henderson, plus a personal tribute to John Coltrane, makes clear one meaning of the album title. And his accompanying musicians form a support system that provides a resilient cushion and complementary strengths.

The basic unit of pianist Benny Green, bassist Peter Washington, and drummer Kenny Washington meshes solidly from the opener, a Moore original called Freeway.This is one of four cuts calling on Terence Blanchard, a supple, often poignant trumpeter who has earned his high visibility during the past few years. He and Ralph play unison passages on the head, a modal excursion through 16 bars, with a 12-measure bridge.

Moore gently nudges trombonist Johnson's haunting ballad, Enigma, with his melancholy tone, and caps it with the coda that Miles Davis played on the original record. "It's sort of my tribute to J.J., with whom I worked quite a bit during 1988," he says.

Episode from a Village Dance is a tune by Donald Brown, one of several impressive newer pianist/composers. It is underpinned by infectious Latin rhythms—including deft conga playing by Victor See-Yuen. Moore's tenor is warm; Blanchard's trumpet is searing. When producer Orrin Keepnews asked Brown to explain the unusual title, "he said he was trying to get the feeling of a carnival in a South American village, and this piece is just one aspect of what's going on there."

Ralph supplies a plaintive but tension-free edge to Morning Star, a medium-tempo tune by Rodgers Grant (who spent a number of years playing piano and writing solidly for Mongo Santamaria). Moore and Green solo with warmth over the impeccable foundation supplied by drummer Washington.

This I Dig of You, a Hank Mobley original, evokes the spirit of hard bop.The piece has remained undeservedly ignored since the late saxophonist recorded it on Blue Note years ago. "Kenny and Peter really hooked up well throughout, but especially on this one," notes Moore. "Kenny doesn't just play drums, he plays music. He breathes." Keepnews had a comment of his own to add about these two players: "I told them that unrelated bass and drum teams with the same last name was an important jazz tradition"—the reference, of course, is to Sam Jones and Philly Joe.

Blues for John, as indicated, is dedicated to Coltrane. "When I was writing the head," the young tenor player says, "I was thinking about Trane." It's a fine example of Ralph's adventurousness. And, as he points out: "Benny plays his brains out."

Moore thoroughly explores Joe Henderson's Punjab, stamping the punchy, percussive melody with his own imprimatur. "We played it a little faster than Joe did"— but with no less imagination.

Elmo Hope, the great bop pianist who died in 1967 at age 43, was responsible for the closer, One Second, Please, an unusual, even arch, piece on which Ralph displays a forceful, almost swaggering attack.

It's all powerful evidence that those of us concerned by the passing, in recent years, of such heavyweights as Sonny Stitt, Budd Johnson, Lockjaw Davis, Zoot Sims and Al Cohn, and Charlie Rouse, can at least feel confident about the future of jazz tenor.”

Furthermore [Landmark 1526-2] - Orrin Keepnews

“One of the greatest satisfactions in my line of work has come from observing that magic sequence I sometimes think of as "crossing the line." Occasionally it is swift, but more often it sneaks up gradually but inevitably, as a musician you're working with breaks through the invisible, intangible (but quite real) barrier tha distinguishes the merely "promising" from the accepted, the interesting from the important. Calendar age has nothing to do with it: some achieve this status quite early, while others may spend a lifetime waiting. Musical maturity is very relevant; the event is best described — if you'll forgive the cliche — as separating the men from the boys.

By the middle of the year in which these numbers were recorded, RALPH MOORE had crossed the line. There was no single blinding flash to mark the occasion, but there were many signposts along the way:

Still in his early 30s, Moore has worked with a dazzling array of leaders: Horace Silver, Roy Haynes, Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard, J. J. Johnson—which sounds like (and is) great training, but led one critic to wonder if he weren't destined to be "a sideman for everyone." But that same writer, Peter Watrous, reviewing Ralph's previous Landmark album in Musician magazine, pronounced it "a stunning leap forward" and called him "an individual voice."

On the first Sunday in 1990, the Calendar section of the Los Angeles Times devoted a page to five acoustic jazz artists "most likely to have an impact. . . in the coming decade" and included Moore, citing his Landmark debut as "one of the most rewarding and listenable jazz releases in recent memory."

Last fall's Phillip Morris-sponsored "Superband" world tour, by an almost entirely veteran orchestra with only three young players, had Ralph as one of two tenors, affording him the honor and pleasure of teaming with all-timer James Moody.

When teenage trumpeter Roy Hargrove (who plays an important role on this album) made an early sideman appearance at New York's legendary Village Vanguard, it was in a quintet led by Moore: Roy's management were looking to Ralph as the comparative veteran to introduce the newcomer — an unaccustomed task, but one he might as well get used to.

Following these and other examples, it was hardly any kind of surprise when the 1990 critics polls of both Down Beat and JazzTimes magazines agreed on him as tenor saxophone winner in the category known, respectively, as "Talent Deserving Wider Recognition" and "Emerging Talent." No surprise, but a very fitting pair of exclamation points for a sentence such as: Ralph Moore has arrived!!

A good deal of documentation for all this is to be heard on the seven selections here: the power and imagination, the swiftly-growing command and assurance. Ralph has now taken steps to assemble a regular working group of his own, and this could well be its permanent rhythm section (with either drummer). Up to now, he has worked with them as often as possible. When a schedule conflict made Kenny Washington (who had combined superbly with Peter Washington and Benny Green on Ralph's previous Landmark recording) miss the Vanguard week, Victor Lewis had been called in. When Victor was unavailable for the first of these two sessions, Kenny stepped in! There clearly was no problem either way in achieving a fully-meshed unit.

On four selections, the addition of Roy Hargrove makes it the familiar post-bop trumpet/tenor front line, but actually Roy makes it anything but routine. There is much empathy between the two horns, and the younger man has a whole lot to add here. To be strictly accurate, Hargrove can no longer be called a teenager, since he has by now turned 20, but he is very likely to be recognized as part of the great tradition of early-blooming trumpet players.

A well-balanced repertoire combines three examples of Ralph's writing with contributions from Hargrove and Green and adds a soulful version of Neal Hefti's Girl Talk and an impressive quartet treatment of Thelonious Monk's seldom-attempted Monk's Dream. Altogether a proper celebration of the solid status of Ralph Moore.”

I put together the following video tribute to Ralph and “the boys in the band” using the Hank Mobley This I Dig of You because I have always dug the tune and because the harmony that Terence Blanchard plays is in the lower register which is sadly not often heard on the instrument.

↧

Michel Petrucciani - Pianism

April 27, 2019, 7:00 am

≫ Next: James Price Johnson and William "Chick" Webb

≪ Previous: Ralph Moore - "This I Dig Of You"

“He… [is] a romantic with a taste for lush voicings, high-drama soloing and bouts of introspection, while steadily refining and nurturing a rhythmic vigor and flair for melodic invention and forceful bass lines that contribute in setting him apart.”

- Fernando Gonzales, Jazz critic

With this feature, I wanted to pick up on a thought that Bill Evans expressed in the Universal Mind of Bill Evans documentary that Louis Carvell produced for Rhapsody Films in 1966 and apply it to the late pianist Michel Petrucciani’s evolution as a Jazz artist.

“It ends up where the Jazz player, ultimately, if he’s going to be a serious Jazz player, teaches himself. ...

You cannot progress on top of vagueness and confusion. It is true of any subject that the person that succeeds ... has the realistic viewpoint at the beginning, knowing that the problem is large, and that he has to take it a step at a time, and he has to enjoy this step-by-step learning procedure."

Still a few days shy of his 23rd birthday, on December 20, 1985, Michel Petrucciani on the Blue Note label along with Palle Danielsson on bass and Eliot Zigmund on drums recorded Pianism [CDP 7 46295 2]. With this recording, Michel achieved the distinction of being the first French-born Jazz musician offered a contract by this famed label. He would record seven albums for Blue Note during their nine-year association.

Somewhat ironically relative to the statement by Bill Evans that motivated the development of this piece, with Pianism, Michel begins to move away from Bill’s influence and more towards an expression of his own individuality.

Pianism [which means the technique or execution of piano playing] was recorded after this group had finished a 6-week, 32-concert tour and Michel, Palle and Eliot approached the recording session as just another gig on the tour.

Michel is a two-handed pianist; he uses both hands while improvising instead of playing an occasional chord or interval with his left-hand to form an accompaniment for horn-like figures being played in his right-hand.

He has the technical ability to carry this two-handedness even further by employing improvisations with both hands at the same time or even using both hands to play two different tunes or even two different time signatures simultaneously.

Michel has a special way of practicing that helps in achieving this skill that he described to Mort Goode in the insert notes to Pianism as follows:

“I play a song with my left hand in the original key. Let’s say it’s in ‘C.’ My right hand plays the same song a half-step higher in ‘C sharp.’ Then I improvise on ’C sharp’ and comp [accompany myself] in the original key so it sounds like a kind of study. It sounds terrible. It’s wrong but interesting, because when you change melodies it’s completely different. That teaches me to have two different brains, to keep my hand actions separate.

My technique goes where my mind would like to go. Sometimes I don’t have the mental agility to get there. That’s why I’m an instrumentalist. That tool (the piano) helps me go further than my mind might go. This practice helps me reach there.

Incidentally, Mort was to later discover that Art Tatum also practiced by playing a half-tone higher in his right hand than he was in his left hand. It is doubtful that many others Jazz pianists would have the discipline and the perseverance to practice in this manner.

Michel’s nine years with the Blue Note Label from 1985 to 1993 would find him on many new voyages of musical discovery. On these recordings, he would play in a variety of musical settings involving an array of both young and seasoned Jazz musicians, experiment with electronic instruments and synthesizers, and compose a wide array of original compositions. All of these experiments would contribute to the creation of a style of his own.

Throughout his career, Michel was constantly altering his musical settings; this was particularly true of his choice of bassists and drummers. In general, he simply enjoyed playing with as many good musicians as possible. Since his preferred group format was a piano bass and drums trio, one way to enhance the development of his own style of Jazz piano was to play with a wide variety of bassists and drummers.

As Michel commented to Mort Goode:

“I don’t want to get too intellectual about my music. My philosophy is quite simple. For one thing – too much intellectualizing is boring. Too much comedy is boring. Too much of anything is boring. We all need to know when to get off, to simply stop.”

In many ways, Pianism is a breakthrough album for Michel in terms of the evolution of his own approach to Jazz piano for with, and perhaps because of, the concentration of original compositions, the Evans-Jarrett-Tyner influences are hardly discernible this recording is an expression of Petrucciani’s Jazz conception.

And what a conception: improvisational ideas that seem to flow limitlessly, punctuated by a forceful attack and encapsulated in a variety of constantly changing tempos and rhythmic displacements.

With Michel playing more Petrucciani and less his influences, his music not only reflects Whitney Balliet’s “Sound of Surprise,”more and more, it becomes The Sound of the Never Heard Before.

↧

James Price Johnson and William "Chick" Webb

April 28, 2019, 7:00 am

≫ Next: Free Flight [From the Archives]

≪ Previous: Michel Petrucciani - Pianism

From time-to-time, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles likes to give a quick nod to some of those who made the music during its formative stages.

It’s our small way of remembering their contributions and it is a always great fun to compare what was happening in Jazz, then and now.

At times, even with the “distant” sound that characterized the audio of many of the earlier recordings, it can be quite startling to hear the improvised ideas and technical mastery of these early Jazz musicians.

Two such musicians that have always impressed us in this manner are pianist James P. Johnson, who died in 1955, and drummer Chick Webb, who died in 1939.

“In the hands of James Price Johnson [1894-1955], ragtime piano developed into "stride," a more boldly imaginative style characterized by a left hand that constantly strides from the lower to the middle register of the keyboard. Johnson played in a looser, more blues-based style than the classically oriented rag-timers. Though he was always drawn to composing orchestral works, he will be remembered most for his solo-piano playing and for his timeless composition "The Charleston" (1923). He was a profound force in the development of jazz piano, tutoring Fats Waller and influencing the piano styles of Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, Thelonious Monk, and countless stride players.

Johnson began learning classical piano from his mother. When the family moved to New York in 1908, he was exposed to ragtime and blues at rent parties and in Long Island resorts during the summer. He studied classical piano as well as harmony and counterpoint with Bruno Giannini and he developed a superb, almost athletic technique, which set a standard that other stride pianists were expected to emulate. He would often introduce paraphrased passages from the classics into his own blues, shouts, and rags. Johnson also learned the repertoires of the eastern ragtime players like Abba Labba (Richard MacLean) and Eubie Blake. Johnson was known for his playing at a club called The Jungle, where poor laborers from the South danced to his solo-piano shouts. One can easily imagine from listening to his recordings decades later the relentless rocking rhythms he must have generated in that environment.

In 1917, Johnson began recording rolls for the Q.R.S. company. His original “Carolina Shout” [1921 and the audio track to the above video] became a standard for the era for East Coast pianists: [Duke] Ellington and [Thomas “Fats”] Waller, for example, learned it by ear.” Jazz Portraits: The Lives and Music of the Jazz Masters [New York: William Morrow/Quill, 1989, pp.307-308].

“Buddy Rich. ‘Until the mid-1930s, I had never been any place where jazz was played. I was in another world, a world called show business that really had nothing to do with music. I lived in Brooklyn with my family when I was becoming involved with jazz. One Wednesday night in '35, a bunch of my friends took me to the Apollo Theater on 125th Street in Harlem for the amateur night thing. That was the first time I dug Chick Webb.

He was the total experience on drums. He played everything well. A little later, about the time I joined Joe Marsala at the Hickory House in 1937,1 went up to the Savoy to check him out again. What I remember most distinctly was that he was different and individual—not like Cozy Cole or Jimmy Crawford or any of the other cats. Even his set was different. He had cymbals on those gooseneck holders, the trap table, a special seat and pedals made specifically for him because he was so small.

Chick was hell on the up-tempos. He kept the time firm and exciting, tapping out an even 4/4 on the bass drum. That was something in the 1930s. Most of the guys downtown could hardly make two beats to the bar; they were into the Chicago style— Dixieland.

Chick set an example. He was hip, sharp, swinging. You know, only about a half-dozen of the top drummers since then, including today's so-called "great" drummers, have anything resembling what he had. If he were alive now, I think most drummers would be running around trying to figure out why they decided to play drums. That's how good he was!

As a soloist, Chick had no equal at that time. He would play four- and eight-bar breaks that made great sense. And he could stretch out, too, and say things that remained with you. It's difficult to describe his style and exactly what he did. One thing is certain, though; he was a marvelous, big-band, swing drummer. Gene [Krupa] got to the heart of the matter when he said, after the Goodman-Webb band battle at the Savoy in '37, "I've never been cut by a better man."’ …

Webb in action made quite a picture. When swinging hard, he brought the entire drum set into play as he proceeded, moving his sticks or brushes across, around, up, and down the hills and valleys of the set. He choked cymbals, teased sound out of them, or hit them full; he played time and variations on the pulse on his snare, high-hat, cymbals, tom-toms, cowbell, temple blocks (often behind piano solos), and, of course, on the bass drum. He had facility to burn; fast strokes, with diversified accents, most often were played to forward the cause of the beat.” Drummin’ Men: The Heartbeat of Jazz – The Swinging Years [New York: Schirmer, 1990. pp. 19-21].

Glasses lifted to the early guys: no them – no Jazz.

↧

Free Flight [From the Archives]

April 29, 2019, 7:00 am

≫ Next: Baby Dodds and Zutty Singleton: Paving the Path to Modern Drumming

≪ Previous: James Price Johnson and William "Chick" Webb

Through a mutual friend, I was introduced to bassist James Lacefield during the early 1980s.

Although some of the early giants and creators of Jazz were still active, by and large, the 1980s was a time for new blood, electronic instruments and lots of fusion.

Mainly a straight-ahead guy myself, I dug the fusion, crossover thing if it was done well. After awhile, I even got on with electronic keyboards and synthesizers if they weren’t played in poor taste [overplayed; too loud; too frantic and frenetic, et al].

So when Jim Lacefield hipped me to Free Flight: A Jazz/Classical Union [Palo Alto Jazz Records 8024], an LP which came out in 1982 on which he played both acoustic and electric bass, I thought I’d keep an open mind about it and see if its music had any appeal.

Classical themes set to Jazz rhythms are always fun because they offer a fresh orientation to the composition of J.S. Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Paganini and many others. What’s more, some of these Classical Music heavyweights were the Jazz improvisers of their time.

In addition to Jim Lacefield, Free Flight was made up of Milcho Leviev on piano and keyboards with whom I had worked on a number of occasions in alto saxophonist Fred Selden’s quartet and drummer Ralph Humphrey, whose playing I was familiar with dating back to the Don Ellis Big Band of the late 1960s [Fred and Milcho were on Don’s band with Ralph].

The only member of Free Flight I was not acquainted with was James Walker, but since he was the principal flutist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, I figured with that pedigree, he could handle himself in a musical setting that professed to be “A Jazz/Classical Union.”

Given the theme of Free Flight: A Jazz/Classical Union and the musicians performing on it, I was predisposed to like its music and I wasn’t disappointed.

I liked it so much that I went out and purchased two of their subsequent recordings: Slice of Life [CBS-FMT 4415] and Beyond the Counds [Palo Alto Jazz Records 8075].

Mike Garson replaces Milcho on these recordings and lends his particular skills and style to Free Flight’s approach which had broadened considerably beyond its Classical Music orientation.

The real revelation for me on all of these Free Flight recordings was how effortlessly flutist James Walker seemed to take to Jazz improvising, an adaptation that often causes some difficulties for musicians who primarily perform Classical Music.

But the even bigger surprise was that the whole idea of Free Flight was Jim Walker’s idea in the first place!

I found this out 30 years after I first heard the group when a recent internet search led me to the background information about Jim and Free Flight contained in the following, two essays.

Free Flight: Eclecticism without Compromise

“Founded in 1980 by flutist Jim Walker as a jazz outlet from his career as principal flutist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Free Flight has managed to turn jazz fans into classical buffs and classical audiences toward jazz.

From Bach to Beethoven to Miles Davis to the Beatles, their "eclecticism without compromise" can be heard not simply piece by piece, but within each composition, blending together flavors of classical, jazz, new age and rock music into a palatable whole.

Whatever legitimacy the label "Crossover" holds for their sound, in performance Free Flight always encourages the crossover of audiences' tastes no matter what the setting. Walker says Free Flight has always been "Performance-oriented, reaching people above and beyond the style of music played."

And the proof is, they have never had anything close to a "mediocre" reaction to any performance. A critic may have put it best: "If you can sit still while listening to Free Flight, you're either deaf or dead." Their ongoing success comes as much from their personalities as from technical brilliance, improvisational flair and compositional density.

Audiences know, Free Flight is Fun! The clairvoyant interplay between Jim & Mike Garson — who joined the group in 1982 and now composes most of their original music — flows down into the crowd, uplifting and always entertaining.

An evening of Free Flight may possess the cool side of jazz, the tranquillity of classical, as well as rock's drive, but make no mistake: Free Flight doesn't distance itself from it's listeners with these, its personalities draw people in.

Garson says the technology of the 90's has allowed the group to keep up with the contemporary production standards, while relying primarily on the sonority of the acoustic flute, piano, bass & percussion. Walker believes his concept of a flute-led jazz/classical ensemble has a strong appeal to a musician raised on jazz, but who found his profession in world-famous orchestras for 15 years.

Eight recordings plus appearances on the "Tonight Show", Lincoln Center, and the Hollywood Bowl have justified that appeal. Free Flight's recordings always hit the top of the charts and remain listening gems for years.

Their newest releases are "Free Flight 2000" and "The Best of Free Flight." These CDs capture Free Flight's "live/concert feeling" combining past favorites with exciting new compositions, a treasury of the best of their work. Other signature Free Flight albums include "Flight of the Dove" (which Jim recorded with Mike Garson) and "The Jazz-Classical Union."

Two recordings made in the late 1980's — "Illumination" and "Slice of Life"— may also be available in the near future. For more information about Free Flight — including a comprehensive selection of audio samples — please visit the website of Jim Walker, the group's founder at: www.jimwalkerflute.com.

© - Zan Stewart/Los Angeles Times, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Flutist Enjoys His Solo Jazz Flight - January 7, 1978

“When Jim Walker walked out on the Los Angeles Philharmonic, he knew exactly what he was doing.

Walker, who had been with the Pittsburgh Symphony for eight years before joining the Philharmonic as co-principal flutist in 1977, wanted to focus his energies on studio work and the jazz/rock/classical fusion group Free Flight when he resigned his very lucrative post in August, 1984.

"After 15 years as a classical player, it was enough," Walker said. "In the beginning, I felt I was playing honest, wonderfully inspiring music. But after hundreds of repetitions, it wasn't so inspiring."

Instead of heading up a flute section, Walker, 42, discovered he wanted to be a soloist, as he is when he plays with Free Flight, which appears Sunday, on the Chamber Music in Historic Sites series, at the Mount Lowe Historical Museum in Altadena.

"I've found I have a soloist's instinct," he said, propping himself up on his couch in the music room of his Encino home.

"I do love to be heard and I've found that I want to play more than two-to-three minutes of solos during a two-hour concert. I like to be the guy who's really working out hard with two or three others. Plus, I like the challenge of improvising and playing with freshness and vitality."

Playing with a small band--Free Flight's other members are pianist Mike Garson, bassist Jim Lacefield and drummer Ralph Humphrey--and offering "contemporary crossover" sounds to predominantly youthful audiences gets a result that pleases Walker.

"I like the immediate involvement with an audience when you know that what's being put out is being actively, and enthusiastically received, which isn't always the case with a classical performance," he said. "I love those standing ovations. That's the bottom line for me. A check isn't that big a deal. I really thrive on that communication."

Though his recordings show Walker to be an exciting soloist, he thinks he still has some work to do before he'll feel completely at home as an improviser.

"I've always preached that 'the more you practiced and the better you got, the further you realized you had to go,' and I'm finding this to be true," he said. "I'm probably less satisfied in terms of how far I have to go, but I'm very happy that I'm working as a soloist."

Walker, who has a remarkable technical fluency, feels that if he has a weak point, it's that "I'm not as spontaneous as I'd like to be," he said. "A lot of times I'll play a lot of notes, when I should be playing less. So, my current campaign is to slow down.

"Technical playing can be a trap," he continued. "For someone with good facility, when you're under stress, the automatic reaction is to revert to wiggling your fingers and blowing faster and faster, as if to say, 'Well, at least something is coming out.' It's like a baseball player, when his swing goes off, to swing harder, because his timing is a little off.

"Basically, I want to put forth a buoyant, happy spirit from the stage, and I'm hoping that's what comes across to the listener, not some unbelievable coordination between four virtuosi. I want the audience to be uplifted, and the more I relax, the more that happens."

Walker--who describes Free Flight's music as alternately "high- energy new age, pop-jazz and classical adaptations"--calls himself an "American flute player.""I'm one of those guys that grew up exposed to a lot of different musics, and if I spent enough time playing them, they'd become part of my style."

Along with elements of jazz, pop, rock and the classics, Walker's style also prominently spotlights "the classical sound of the flute," he said. "A close listen will tell you I've had classical training. That's my strong suit, making a warm sound and playing warm melodies on the flute."

Though the major portion of his career has been in classical situations, Walker grew up "in an area of Kentucky where there wasn't an orchestra nearby and my parents didn't have a lot of classical music around," he said. "I was really raised hearing the great standards, like 'Stella By Starlight' and 'Stardust.' It was only later, when I was at music camps, that I found I had an attraction for classical music."

Although Walker has not appeared with a major symphony since he left the Philharmonic, he has not abandoned the classical realm. He makes occasional festival appearances, as at Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Ore., and Music From Angel Fire, near Taos, N. M.

While he makes the bulk of his living in the studios, playing on scores such as the recent NBC miniseries, "A Year in the Life," Walker says his heart is with Free Flight, which presently tours about two-to-three months a year and whose most recent LP is "Illumination"(CBS). "This music comes closer to the type of music I like to make and listen to than anything I've done so far."

The following video features Free Flight performing Bach’s Groove - Milcho Leviev’s arrangement and adaptation of J.S. Bach’s Badineire from Orchestral Suite #12.

↧

Baby Dodds and Zutty Singleton: Paving the Path to Modern Drumming

April 30, 2019, 7:00 am

≫ Next: A Review of Harlem Jazz Adventures: A European Baron’s Memoir, 1934-1969 [From the Archives]

≪ Previous: Free Flight [From the Archives]

“One night late in the fall of 1933, a lanky youth with a mop of dark hair entered a night club on Chicago’s north side and asked the waiter for a table near the band. He sat down took out a stick of gum, popping it in his mouth as he watched the show. He drummed on the table with his fingers.

The dancers were running through a routine based on Liszt's First and Second Hungarian Rhapsodies. To watch the dancers and watch the conductor, too, in show work, everything depends on the drums.

Gene Krupa stayed late that night even though he had to get up for a rehearsal the next morning. Like many of today’s great drummers, Krupa was serving his extra-curricular apprenticeship with Baby Dodds.

Baby won’t actually claim that he taught any of them. “Drummers just get pointers from each other, that’s all,” he says, “and I don’t want to go claiming that I taught them. I got that in the back of my head and if they want to ask for it, I give it to them.”

Among the drummers who have asked for that stuff are Dave Tough of the Eddie Condon Band, George Wettling with Paul Whiteman; Ray Bauduc, Wally Bishop and Ben Pollack have all sat by his side.

When Zutty Singleton first heard Baby on an excursion boat out of New Orleans, he went home and asked his uncle: “I wonder if I could ever drum like that fellow on the boat?””

- Fred Ramsey,Baby Dodds, The Drums[Smithsonian Folkways FW02290 / FJ 2290]

Jazz drumming has come so far today in terms of technique and complexity that few listeners ever pause to reflect on those that started it on the path to modernity.

Horn instruments in the hands of Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Jack Teagarden made possible examples of how to develop facility on the trumpet, tenor sax and trombone, respectively.

Earl Fatha Hines, Thomas Fats Waller and Art Tatum became beacons for those pianists who wished to bring their technical skills on piano to a higher level as did the work of string players such as Joe Venuti on violin and Eddie Lang and Django Reinhardt on guitar.

Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich gained a large measure of public attention for the stylistic advances that they brought to Jazz drumming but, sadly, too few Jazz fans are aware of the foundation upon which their drumming wizardry is based.

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles thought it might be fun to reflect back on the careers of two drummers who provided the building blocks upon which early Jazz drumming technique is based: Baby Dodds and Zutty Singleton.

We are indebted to a variety of sources for the following information including the Moderndrummer and Drummerworld websites and Len Lyons and Don Perlo’s Jazz Portraits: The Lives and Music of the Jazz Masters.

Warren “Baby” Dodds

Warren “Baby” Dodds was born in New Orleans on Christmas Eve, 1898 and died in Chicago on Valentine’s Day, 1958.

Dodds, a hard-drinking, hard-fighting musician in his youth, and is considered by many to be the Father of Jazz Drumming mainly because he defined many of the criteria by which future drummers would be judged. Although he was inspired and influenced by parade drummers like "Black Benny" and Mack Murray, and Creole bandleader Louis Cottrell, Sr., Dodds popularized the steady of the bass drum in ensemble playing, a style that persisted until 1940 and long after in traditional jazz groups.

Dodds also proved that tuning the tom-toms and snare to the other instruments in the band was essential. In addition to these innovations, he is credited with keeping an early form of the ride rhythm on the snare drum. During the 1920s, Dodds’ recordings with King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, Louis Armstrong's Five and Hot Seven, and Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers made him the most famous and imitated of jazz drummers.

The youngest of six children, and bearing the same first name a father, Dodds was called "Baby" from his earliest years. Everyone in the family played an instrument, and Baby's older brother Johnny was a prominent clarinetist. Baby created his first snare drum from a lard can, removing the dowels from a chair for a pair of sticks; he kicked the baseboard wall to get a bass-drum sound. On this jerry-built kit, he first accompanied Johnny.

At sixteen, Baby worked as a butler and salad boy and saved to buy first drum. He studied music with a well-known local teacher, Dave Perkins, who taught a racially mixed class, an extraordinary arrangement even for New Orleans. Baby was soon playing for dances, at picnics, and on the band (advertising) wagons with Louis "Big Eye" Nelson, Bunk Johnson, Papa Celestin, Frankie Dusen's band, and other local groups. He was developing a longstanding rivalry, born of admiration, with Johnny, who worked with King Oliver and Kid Ory in more prestigious bands.

In 1918 bassist George "Pops" Foster got Baby a job in the riverboat bands, where the drummer befriended the young cornetist Louis Armstrong. Dodds's technique improved radically with the demands of constant performing, and he was soon known for his press roll and his ability to get varied tonal coloration from the trap set, which then included a good supply of novelty instruments, like whistles, wood blocks, triangles, and tambourines. During 1921 Dodds and Armstrong were notorious crowd pleasers in Fate Marable's band, but in 1921 they were dismissed from the riverboat line for their intractable offstage behavior. Dodds was known as "a real hellion" who would "fight at the drop of a hat."

In 1922 Dodds was invited to join King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, which had just returned to Chicago from the West Coast. When Armstrong was added as second cornet the next year, the group — which also included Baby's brother Johnny on clarinet — became the most influential small combo in jazz. Descriptions of Dodds's style emphasize its complexity, especially his use of varied tonal colors and sensitive accompaniment to whatever mood and spirit was struck by the band. Interestingly, Dodds resisted using wire brushes until later in his career, although he was able to play very lightly with sticks. He considered it imperative to fit in with the context. In short, Dodds was perhaps the first to demonstrate what has since been taken for granted: that the drummer could be, and must be, a full-fledged musician.

Shortly after Armstrong left the group to make his own name, Oliver's band broke up because of disputes over record royalties. During the remainder of the 1920s, Dodds's influence grew so that his dense sound, full of color and special effects, exemplified the state of the art for that period. Unfortunately, the famous disks that Dodds made with the Hot Five, Hot Seven, and Red Hot Peppers (1925—27) do not reveal how he played because the primitive recording techniques were unable to capture the drums' sound.

Until the 1930s, drummers were prohibited from using a bass drum and in general kept to the wood blocks, or one cymbal, sitting as far from the microphone as possible. Dodds's style, however, has been preserved by the descriptions of critics and the many drummers he influenced, a group that includes Zutty Singleton, Ray Bauduc, George Wettling, and Gene Krupa.

Dodds free-lanced for the rest of his career. His most important playing was done with his brother at the Three Deuces in Chicago and with the many white traditionalists for whom he was a major hero: Paul Mares, Mezz Mezzrow, Jack Teagarden, Eddie Condon, Jimmy McPartland, and Art Hodes.

By that time, there were younger drummers like Singleton, Big Sid Catlett, and Chick Webb, who were evolving the drummer's task as outlined by Dodds. Dodds worked with Jimmy Noone and Sidney Bechet in the early 1940s. In 1944 he was incorporated into the New Orleans revival as accompaniment to Bunk Johnson, and in 1946 he recorded drum solos and narration for historian Fred Ramsey in order to recapture the sound of jazz drumming in Chicago of the 1920s and in turn-of-the-century New Orleans (The Drums, Folkways).

Overweight and drinking heavily, Dodds suffered the first of several strokes in 1949. But he continued to play in the Chicago area until two years before his death, in 1959.

Arthur James “Zutty” Singleton

Arthur James “Zutty” Singleton was born in Bunkie, Louisiana on May 14, 1898 and died in New York City on July 14, 1975.

Zutty Singleton’s drumming served as a transition between the dense, heavy style of Baby Dodds and the lighter swing style of Jo Jones and Big Sid Catlett.

Singleton simplified not only drumming but the drum set itself, which was outfitted by most traditionalists with a colorful if cumbersome array of novelty percussives. Zutty also pioneered the drum solo, though on a modest scale, and the use of wire brushes to achieve a softer sound.

Zutty's interest in drums dates from his earliest years in Bunkie, where ke was drawn into music by an uncle, guitarist Willie Bontemps. His unusual nickname, acquired in infancy, is the Creole word for “cute.”

The family moved to New Orleans when Zutty was a boy, and he inevitably was drawn into the local music scene. He is known to have worked in the bands of Steve Lewis and John Robicheaux (1915—16) before his hitch with the navy (1917-18). Zutty had a close friend and bandmate in Louis Armstrong, with whom he was destined to make his historic contribution. The two were so close that Armstrong turned down a flattering offer to work in New York around 1920 because Zutty could not be hired along with him. Zutty later followed Armstrong into one of Fate Marable's riverboat bands (1921—23), where nightly performing and demanding arrangements radically improved | lis musicianship.

In 1925 Singleton moved to Chicago, where his most significant playing took place over a five-year period. First, he worked with clarinetist Jimmy Noone (1925—26), most notably at a club called The Nest in a trio that included pianist Jerome Carrington. To take the pressure off his colleagues, Zutty began taking chorus-long solos that were organized to reflect the song material. Although extended drum solos became commonplace a decade later thanks to the pyrotechnics of Gene Krupa, Singleton's emergence from a backup role to a soloist was boldly innovative.

The group at The Nest acquired a following that included a young Benny Goodman, the composer Maurice Ravel, and the poet Carl Sandburg. Next, Singleton replaced Baby Dodds in Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven recording bands. With his lighter style and adoption of the new wire brushes (rejected at that time by Dodds), Zutty was able to contribute more fully to the recording process than drummers before him (Louis Armstrong—Earl Hines, 1928, Smithsonian Collection). On the earliest of these tracks, Zutty merely punctuates the music with a high-pitched cymbal, but by December of that year it was discovered that placing a mike under the snare, with Zutty on brushes. made the drums recordable. On some tracks he keeps time for a chorus on the large ride cymbal, a technique that few other drummers adopted until the 1930s. In two sessions with Jelly Roll Morton and Barney Bigard (1929), Singleton's neat, swinging brushwork and remarkably modern feeling is even better preserved (Giants of Jazz: Jelly Roll Morton, Time-Life).

From 1930 to 1935, Singleton was the house drummer at the Three Deuces in Chicago, perhaps the nation's first jazz club. When Art Tatum came into the club with his own drummer, Zutty moved back to New York. where his headquarters became Nick's in Greenwich Village. During the late 1930s, he accompanied and recorded with Sidney Bechet, Lionel Hampton, Roy Eldridge, Mezz Mezzrow, and numerous others. Shortly after the Goodman quartet broke the color barrier, Singleton was the drummer in another early racially mixed group, led by Mezzrow; it included Max Kaminsky, Frankie Newton, and Sidney DeParis.

Zutty's popularity drew him into the film Stormy Weather (1943), and after his trip to Hollywood, that became his home for ten years. As usual, he became the backbone of a local jazz club, this time Billy Berg's. Zutty helped arrange for Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie to play there in 1945.

For the remainder of his long career, Singleton free-lanced in Los Angeles, Europe, and finally again in New York, where he lived with his wife in an apartment overlooking Birdland. In 1969 he suffered a stroke that left him unable to play. He died six years later.

↧

A Review of Harlem Jazz Adventures: A European Baron’s Memoir, 1934-1969 [From the Archives]

May 1, 2019, 7:00 am

≫ Next: Herbie Hancock Trio - Mimosa (Remastered)

≪ Previous: Baby Dodds and Zutty Singleton: Paving the Path to Modern Drumming

It's not often that one gets to read first-hand accounts about the early makers of the music - primary source material about Jazz masters like Pops, Duke, Fats, Billie and Eddie Condon.

That's because there aren't too many people around from those halcyon days to tell their stories from a first person perspective.

Timme Rosenkrantz's memoirs is one such book.

It first posted to the blog on April 17, 2012 and I wanted to reprise it to edit out some flaws, add photographs and include the Eddie Condon video which you'll find at the conclusion of this piece.

“This book is not a sociological or jazz-historical work; it is not a reference book on the evolution of jazz over the ages. There are lots of those!

This is a book about my adventures during many, and sometimes long, visits to the jazz capital of New York; about the thrill it has been to meet the great and lesser jazz musicians and their friends. It had to be a happy book about happy people and their music, and it is written by a happy man who is happy because he has been lucky enough to get close to that world, even to live the life he had, so to say, chosen as his own.”

- Baron Timme Rosenkrantz

Every time I’m the least bit inclined to forget bassist and Jazz author Bill Crow’s admonition that “Jazz should be fun,” something comes along to remind me of the import of this remark.

Most recently, it came in the form of Fradley Garner’s superb English adaptation of Timme Rosenkrantz’s Harlem Jazz Adventures: A European Baron’s Memoir, 1934-1969.

As these dates denote, Mr. Rosenkrantz, a Danish baron, spent a good portion of his life in New York City when Jazz was first coming into existence and he offers exciting and enthusiastic glimpses of this time-gone-by in the thirty-six vignettes that comprises the chapters of his memoirs.

Each chapter is a short essay and collectively they form an episodic stroll through the Jazz clubs, theaters and gin joints of Harlem [and later 52^nd Street] during its heyday as the “must visit destination” for any Jazz fan.

Mr. Rosenkrantz’s lovely stories are also a brilliant example of the power of one of William Zinsser’s key points in his On Writing Well when he enjoins us to “ … let the person speak to the reader in his own words.”

The very manageable chapters and the cozy manner in which the stories contained in them are told create a much welcomed first-person narrative at a time when many of the books being published on the subject of Jazz are overly analytic and coldly academic in nature.

Credit for the engaging “tone and tenor” of Mr. Rosenkrantz’s memoirs must be given to Mr. Fradley Garner for his brilliant English translation/adaptation which is replete with a number of explanatory footnotes that help make the book even more lucid.

And while Mr. Rosenkrantz’s commercial Jazz ventures [record producer, record shop owner, concert producer, Jazz club owner] ultimately failed causing him to comment – “You can say I was born under an unlucky star if you want to.” – he’s quick to also acknowledge: “But every so often that star shone brightly and made up for all the sunshine that I slept through.” [p. 186].

Mr. Rosenkrantz was to experience first-hand the old adage: “The best way to make a million dollars in Jazz is to start with two million!”

Yet, it’s difficult to feel too sorry for him, as based on the experiences he shares in his book, Mr. Rosenkrantz met everyone who was anybody in the world of Jazz during its formative years and had the time of his life while doing so.

If this book is a testimonial to anything, it is to the fact that Mr. Rosenkrantz definitely knew how to have fun with Jazz.

Judging from a reading of Mr. Rosenkrantz’s anecdotes, tales and yarns, perhaps the book might have been alternately subtitled: A Danish Baron’s Book of Enchantments, Revelations and Amusements in The Land of Jazz.”

Take for example the title of the work’s very first chapter: Get Off at 125^th Street and God Be with You” which refers to the warning given by his midtown Manhattan hotel clerk when Mr. Rosenkrantz’s asked subway directions to uptown Harlem during his very first trip to New York in 1934.

“God certainly was with” Mr. Rosenkrantz for over the next thirty-five years he was to meet and, in many cases, become personal friends with Jazz luminaries such as Don Redman, Chick Webb, John Hammond, Benny Carter, Billie Holiday, Adrian Rollini, Benny Goodman, Willie “The Lion” Smith, Art Tatum, Fats Waller, Mezz Mezzrow, Eddie Condon, James P. Johnson, Slim Gailliard and Slam Stewart, W.C. Handy, Stuff Smith, Erroll Garner, Mildred Bailey, Bud Powell, and most especially – Duke Ellington – whom he [I think] correctly refers to as “The King of Jazz.”

Among the book’s many, other enchantments are the following stories from Mr. Rosenkrantz:

- “I'll never forget that first 1934 visit to Harlem!

I walked upstairs from the subway platform at the corner of 125th Street and Lenox Avenue and blinked twice as I stepped out on the sidewalk. I felt as if I had entered another world. Huge neon signs blinked around me and over me. Beckoning shop windows caught my eye. The traffic was frightening. Music blared from every open shop door. You might think you were standing on Times Square, Piccadilly Circus, or—stretching the imagination—Vesterbrogade, Copenhagen's main street, except for the people around you. They were all people of color. A solid mass of blacks, browns, yellows, grays moved along the broad avenue with a swinging, rhythmic gait that held this Nordic visitor in a trance. Their clothing was gay, their faces animated, their voices rang in the February evening air, as they fairly skipped along under the trees (now uprooted) on Lenox Avenue.

Following the crowd, I walked up the street, past several big movie houses, and suddenly, there I was standing in front of the Apollo Theater.

The Apollo was the last variety theater in New York City. Here the colossal show goes on at ten in the morning and runs nonstop until two the next morning—and to think I had wasted nearly my whole first day in conversations, cafeterias, and clouds!

In the lineup were the greatest black artists in the world—singers, dancers, comedians, strong men and weak women, balancing acts, jugglers, and magicians. And the best Negro bands of the day—plus, of course, a line of the prettiest and darkest chorus girls this white man has ever seen.

And there was nearly always a full house. The program ran over two hours and changed every Friday. In between performances, they showed some Mickey Mouse films and newsreels and a feature film, something with lots of action. The black audience—and it's almost entirely black—demands action. Something has to happen!

Still and all, the films were so bad, I still believe they were chosen to empty the house. They usually succeeded.

My first night, there was a big revue with Don Redman's Orchestra as the main attraction, costarring with the Mills Brothers, those fantastic tap dancers the Step Brothers, and a funny, blues-singing comedian, Pigmeat Markham. He later gained TV fame on the Ed Sullivan Show….” [pp. 14-15] …

- “And then Billie Holiday came on. I shall never forget her, standing there in the dim spotlight. Young and beautiful as a dream, her sensitive, full lips half open; those almond eyes almost closed, as if she were having a blissful dream. Her voice wasn't big, but it crept under your skin and stayed there. She sang like an instrument—sometimes like the softest plea of a saxophone, sometimes like the shrill command of a trumpet. Never had I heard anybody sing like this. You sat there, almost clenching your fists in ecstasy. Her way of phrasing the words was so different, yet so right. You instantly knew that this was the way a jazz lyric should be treated. That voice clutched you like coiled fingers.” [pp. 43-44]

- “Anyone who knew Fats loved him. He had a heart of gold. No one came to him in vain when they were needy. No one could resist his always buoyant and contagious spirit. His laugh could be heard for miles around.

I remember one of our mutual friends, Adrian, a young Dutch composer of whom Fats was very fond. Adrian had come over to New York to try to make it as a composer and arranger, but nothing was happening. To make ends meet, he had taken a job as a wastepaper basket emptier in an office. One night, when the three of us were together, Adrian started dreaming out loud. "If only I could afford to rent a little piano, I could really start writing some tunes and working on arrangements, and get out of that office. It's killing me!"

The very next morning two moving men showed up at Adrian's doorstep bearing a new grand piano. With love from Fats. It had a great sound. I'm sure Fats had taken the time to choose it personally. In fact, he came by often to play it himself, much to the joy of everyone within hearing range on West 87th Street. At least Fats wasn't to blame for our European friend never making it. "The Flying Dutchman" managed to do a few arrangements and place them, but at last hearing, Adrian was still trying to get paid.” [p. 75]

And here are some of the book’s revelations as recounted by Mr. Rosenkrantz:

- “C-R-R-R-R-R-R-ASH! An ear-splitting drumroll unfolded into a cymbal crash at the other end of the ballroom. Then the orchestra fell in, heralding the arrival of a little hunchback drummer, the greatest in the world, Chick Webb. Something happened to me I shall never forget, impossible to put into words. Only to be felt. And I’ve learned a great drummer is to be felt before he is heard. Chick seemed to turn a light on in me.” [p. 19]

- “Young Garner's father was a singer who played several instruments, as did his older brother, Linton. Erroll was an entirely self-taught musician who hit the keys when he was three years old and never did learn how to read music. But he played like no other pianist, and his flamboyant style was a delight to the ears. He would start a ballad with a long, discordant introduction that didn't even hint at the melody to come. At last when he swung into it, his left hand lay down chords like a guitar, keeping up a steady pulse, while his right hand never seemed to catch up, improvising chords or playing octaves that lagged way behind the beat for the rest of the number. Just a pinch of Fats Waller added spice.

I was fascinated by this fellow's joyously swinging piano, and I sought him out while Louis Prima was on. Erroll was anything but happy. He didn't know many people in New York and was downhearted. No one was interested in listening to him—Louis Prima was the showman attraction. And Erroll was only making forty dollars a week!

He told me he thought he'd go home soon, as it seemed nothing was going to happen for him in New York. Somehow, I had to stop him. I invited him home to 7 West 46th Street, showed him my rented Krakaur grand, and once he got started, it was impossible to pry him off the bench. Little did I know at the outset that he had a bad case of asthma and couldn't sleep lying down!” [p. 176]

- “An odd commentary on the vicissitudes of life is the fact that Ellington does not like the business of getting from one place to another. He cannot sleep on trains, ships, or in cars, and he especially dislikes flying. Constant traveling for forty years has not changed him at all. Approximately 14,650 sleepless nights account for those heavy bags under his eyes. Come to think of it, he doesn't like to go to bed at home, either. Life fascinates him so much, it seems a terrible waste of time. He just seems to thrive on not sleeping!

On the road, he prefers to play cards with the bandsmen, very often winning all their loot—but he is a gracious loser, too. Until recently, when he bought an apartment in a skyscraper on New York's Central Park West, Duke had a modest little flat on Harlem's Sugar Hill. He fell for New York the first time he glimpsed the bright lights—which, to his imaginative soul, were an Arabian Night's dream.

A born big-city man, he has a deep-seated dislike for expanses of green grass, saying they remind him of cemeteries. Can't bear any kind of outdoor sports; regarded the walk down three flights of stairs in his old Harlem apartment as his daily constitutional; laughingly describes himself as "a hot-house flower."

"You have to be careful, Timme," he once told me. "There's nothing more dangerous than fresh-air poisoning!"”[pp. 158-59]

The following excerpts are examples of the book’s many amusements:

- “Pod's and Jerry's, also known as the Log Cabin, at 133rd Street near the corner of Seventh Avenue, was usually the last stop for uptowners and downtowners alike. Here you could bump into celebrities like Tallulah Bankhead, Frederick March, Franchot Tone (or his mother, playing drums), and other New York theater people and Tin Pan Alley types. Many had been slumming at the Cotton Club, where they watched floorshows featuring the Duke Ellington, Cab Galloway, or Jimmie Lunceford orchestras. They'd show up in top hats and tails or dripping in ermines. As a rule, they circulated incognito, wearing oversize sunglasses to make themselves unrecognizable, which never worked nor was it intended to.

This scene inspired Don Redman to write a tune, "Take Off Those Dark Glasses, We Know Who You Are!" Confronted by one of those notables, Harlemites would chant the melody.”[p. 27]

- “A few years ago, Eddie Condon made a tour of the British Isles that is still remembered. With him he had his jug buddies Wild Bill Davison and George Wettling. The tour turned into a contest of how much liquor can be consumed while playing trad jazz. Who won I don't have to guess: Eddie had no peers. But nobody seemed to mind, for this was a very special occasion—the very first time the Brits had heard a stomp-down, sure-enough, live Dixieland band….

Arriving in a principal city, they were met early in the morning by the I press, who tracked them to their hotel. They found Eddie in bed with the hangover of all time. He could hardly move, but the interview was important, and the road manager let the scribes in. Eddie lay flat on his back with his hat on. "Go on, shoot!" he growled. Anything else he mumbled was lost as he faded away.

"Mr. Condon, wouldn't it be better if you sat up a wee bit in bed, so we can hear what you are saying?" ventured one of the chaps.

Condon's eyelids stayed at half-mast as he cracked open his lips and croaked, "What the hell do you think I am, man, an athlete?" [pp. 153-54]

- “The New York Herald Tribune [subsequently, The International Herald Tribune] once gave a luncheon in honor of Louis Armstrong at one of the fashionable Paris restaurants. Many prominent people from the literary world and theater were there, as well as music critics and reporters from all over the continent. Louis had asked me to come along.

It was a typical American luncheon with hamburger steaks and three different kinds of ice water. I think Louis had a side order of red beans and rice, his favorite fruits.

There were many speeches, and Armstrong was praised in as many different accents.

Then it was Louis's turn to say a few words. Somebody had asked him what his greatest thrill had been on this latest European tour. Louis answered:

"Last week we were playing in Rome. We gave a great concert and those Italian cats went crazy. We could’ve filled the Forum, no question about that, if they had repaired it! Well, the next day my wife, Lucille, and I had a private audience with the Pope. And it knocked us out, man! I told His Holiness about my music and about my Swiss Kriss (a laxative), which moves me almost as much as the music, and he was real great, you know?

"'What a beautiful wife you have!' the Pope says. 'Do you have any children?'

"'No, Pops,' I told him. 'But we're still working on it.' And do you know, the Pope fell o-u-t!

And so did everybody at the luncheon party.” [pp. 127-28]

Socrates once said that “the unexamined life is not worth living,” to which, an acceptable corollary might be: the unlived life is not worth examining.

No words could form a better description of the “Jazz Life” lived by Baron Timme Rosenkrantz as depicted in Harlem Jazz Adventures: A European Baron’s Memoir, 1934-1969.

As Jazz approaches the beginning of its second century, don’t miss you chance to read about what it was like soon after it all began.

For information on ordering the book, go here.

The Great Condon, already into his 4th decade of music here, rips through the venerable standard Royal Garden Blues with the ample aid of Wild Bill Davison (ct), Peanuts Hucko (cl), Cutty Cutshall (tb), Buzzy Drootin (d), J. Varro (p) and Joe Williams (b).

↧

Herbie Hancock Trio - Mimosa (Remastered)

May 1, 2019, 1:24 pm

≫ Next: Herbie Hancock – A Jump Ahead

≪ Previous: A Review of Harlem Jazz Adventures: A European Baron’s Memoir, 1934-1969 [From the Archives]

↧

Herbie Hancock – A Jump Ahead

May 2, 2019, 7:00 am

≫ Next: Johnny Griffin - "Some of My Best Friends" by Orrin Keepnews

≪ Previous: Herbie Hancock Trio - Mimosa (Remastered)

Before he became a sizzling Jazz-Rock Fusion superstar for Warner Bros. and Columbia Records during the 1970s [and beyond], pianist-composer Herbie Hancock made seven LPs under his own name for Blue Note Records in the 1960s.

A few of these albums were hugely successful, especially for someone like Herbie, who during the 1960s was still primarily a Jazz musician and who was largely unknown to the greater public.

That lack of recognition would begin to change almost immediately with Herbie’s first LP for Blue Note – Takin’ Off - which contained the commercial hit tune – Watermelon Man. [conguero/band leader Mongo Santamaria also recorded a very successful version of the song].

The year was 1962, which was also a seminal year for Herbie as he joined the Miles Davis quintet along with Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone, Ron Carter on bassist and drummer Tony Williams. This was to be Miles’ last “classic” Jazz quintet before he moved on to add more Rock ‘n Roll elements to his music along with a host of electronic instruments as these made their appearance in the late 1960s.

Herbie’s additional Blue Note LP’s were to all have at least one horn fronting a rhythm section, with one exception, an album he recorded in August 1963 that almost went unnoticed.

Entitled Inventions and Dimensions, it is a piano-bass-drums trio album although Osvaldo “Chihuahua” Martinez plays Latin percussion on all but one track.

The album marked the first time that Herbie had ever worked with bassist Paul Chambers and, for many of us, it was the first chance to hear Willie Bobo play a Jazz drum kit. Throughout most of his career, Willie was primarily known as a timbales player and Latin percussionist

As Nat Hentoff explains in his liner notes to the original LP, Inventions and Dimensions gets it title

“… [from the fact that it] reflects Hancock's increasing preoccupation with releasing himself from what he terms the customary jazz ‘assumptions.’ Usually, he explains, ‘you assume there'll be chords on which to base your improvisations and you assume most of the time that the playing will be in 4/4 and that the bass will automatically walk. On this date, I told the musicians not to assume anything except for a few rules I set for each piece, and every time those rules were different. As it happened, Paul Chambers did often play a walking or a recurring rhythm, but that was because he wanted to play that way. I didn't suggest it, and he could have done whatever he wanted. There were no specific chord change on any of the tunes except Mimosa, nor did any of the tunes have a melody to begin with.’”

The musical departure inherent in this last sentence is what caught my ear when I first heard the album.

But the music on this recording is no exercise in what came to be known as Free Jazz in the sense of doing away with all musical rules and conventions.

According to Bob Belden in his insert notes Herbie Hancock: The Complete Blue Note Sixties Sessions

“On August 30, 1963, Herbie went to Englewood Cliffs to record another Blue Note album. Instead of the typical Blue Note dates he was creating, Herbie sought to do something different, something that reflected what he felt about his playing at the time. Since he had been on the road steadily since May, he may not have had enough time to write complex new material. His associations with more open musicians may have planted the seed of adventure, but the confidence of being Miles Davis's pianist had a lot to do with Herbie's next album.”

To my ears, what is so compelling about this recording is best exemplified in the track entitled A Jump Ahead, which we have used as the soundtrack to the video tribute to Herbie’s Blue Note years located at the end of this piece.

As Herbie denotes above in the Nat Hentoff quotation, A Jump Ahead does not have a conventional melody or theme.

Instead, the tune gets its structure from a four-bar ostinato played by bassist Paul Chambers.

An ostinato is a short melody pattern that is constantly repeated in the same part at the same pitch.

Nat Hentoff’s notes contain this further elaboration:

“The rule which Hancock set for A Jump Ahead was for Paul Chambers to select an introductory four-bar pedal tone. ‘Then there come sixteen bars of time,’ Hancock points out, ‘in which what I improvise is based on the pedal tone Paul played during the first four bars. Another four-bar break follows, for which Paul selects another note. I never knew what Paul would play, and that's how this one got titled. He was always a jump ahead. Incidentally, since any one note can be related to all twelve tones on the keyboard, I had complete freedom to utilize Paul's pedal notes any way I wanted to. Those notes acted as a note in a chord, but I formed the chords in my own way. Again, there was no preconceived melody, and the harmony came from the notes Paul chose.’”

Structurally, A Jump Ahead is what may be referred to as tonal music.

And in tonal music, a pedal tone is a sustained tone, played typically in the bass. Sometimes called a pedal point, a pedal tone is a non-chord tone.

The term “pedal tone” comes from the organ’s ability to sustain a note indefinitely using the pedal keyboard which is played by the feet; as such, the organist can hold down a pedal point for lengthy periods while both hands perform higher-register music on the manual keyboards.

In effect, Chambers acts like the organ pedal keyboard while Herbie plays over it using both hands on the piano keyboard.

One other point that may be of interest is Willie Bobo’s use of very thick/heavy drumsticks that really serve to crackle & pop the snare drum and crash the cymbals. Such large sticks take great control and using them masterfully, Willie generates tremendous swing on this six-and-a-half minute cut.

Paul’s four-bar ostinato can be heard at the outset of the track, again at 18 seconds, and again at 35 and 53 seconds and so on.

Each time it is followed by a 16-bar improvisation that Herbie conceives based on the pedal tone that Paul selects.

In effect, A Jump Ahead is the Jazz equivalent of the geometric head-start in which one never catches-up.

To my ears, Herbie’s solo really hits its stride on A Jump Ahead at around the 2:42 mark [which Willie conveniently underscores with a cymbal crash!] and just soars thereafter.

See what you think.

↧

Johnny Griffin - "Some of My Best Friends" by Orrin Keepnews

May 3, 2019, 7:00 am

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In a comparison with Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane - whom the Jazz press dubbed “heavyweight tenor saxophonists” - being described as “the middleweight champion of the tenor saxophone” was as expression that seemingly haunted Hank Mobley throughout his career.

One can only wonder why Orrin Keepnews’ description of tenor saxophonist John Griffin as a “B+ tenor saxophone” player didn’t do the same for him.

Perhaps it was because by the time it was written in 1973, there were too few Jazz fans around to even care.

“Down at the lower level of the evolutionary process, there are species of animal life that on occasion eat their own young. Some primitive human tribes leave their useless elderly folk out in the wilderness to die. But as far as I know it is only the American public that, with terrible and monotonous regularity, deliberately destroys its own full-grown, youthful, and genuinely talented artists and entertainers.

Actually, it's not the whole American public that does this. After all, a very large proportion wouldn't even recognize an artist enough to say "hello" or "excuse me" if they ran into one on the street. And since I'm talking now about deliberate destruction, not just through ignorance, I'm not referring to that great silent majority (to coin a phrase). I am instead talking about us, the sensitive minority — listeners, fans, club-goers, and record-buyers like you (and, I guess, writers and record producers like me). What we manage to do is set our sights so super critically high that we will not settle for anything much less than superstars. Anyone getting a grade below A-minus flunks our course.

This is not a passionate defense of the rights of the incompetent. The really awful painters, musicians, singers, and jugglers usually and quite properly fail (except for those that are so bad that they sometimes join the real geniuses in the ranks of the commercially successful). I'm not even campaigning for more work for mediocrities. What I am specifically bitching about is our refusal to give house room to the works of those who are merely good or very good, without being superb or trailblazers or true giants.

Obviously, these remarks are closely related to the fact that these are notes for a Johnny Griffin reissue package. Johnny is, unfortunately for him, a superb example — almost a prototype — of what I'm complaining about. The fact is that Johnny Griffin is no John Coltrane, no Sonny Rollins, no Coleman Hawkins or Lester Young or Ben Webster. But he is certainly the equal of. and more likely than not superior to, pretty nearly any other tenor player you might mention. Don't go running names in rebuttal: I have my favorites, and you have yours; and the fact that Johnny Griffin was a friend of mine is undoubtedly one of the reasons I'm prejudiced in his favor. And of course it's the fact that you, or I, might easily substitute many another name for Griffin's without tampering with the logic of what I'm claiming that makes me so vehement on this subject.

The point, then, is that Johnny Griffin is certainly a high B-plus tenorman, and that for about a decade he has lived and worked in Europe —

primarily because that was preferable to the two other alternatives: to keep on scuffling for gigs in the cultural center of the universe, or to give up music. When I say that he "was" a friend of mine, therefore, I'm not referring to any overt break between us, but simply to the fact that between 1958 and 1963 we worked together a lot, saw a good deal of each other, enjoyed each other's company — and haven't laid eyes on each other for the past decade.

The time in which I knew Johnny best was, of course, a relatively happy time for jazz. There was a reasonable amount of club work, and there were lots of independent record companies (very much including Riverside) willing to take a fairly inexpensive few chances on recording a batch of B-plus musicians. Of course some of those had already (to stick to tenor saxophone examples) turned into Sonny Rollins or were about to turn into Coltrane. But most of them just stayed themselves: capable of specific bursts, or full evenings, or even entire albums, of notable creativity and joy; but never finishing first in a poll, or causing lines to form outside clubs, or having best-selling records.

And, failing to scale those heights, all such artists get to be adjudged failures (or at least non-successes) in our society. But who was it that decreed that art is a win-or-lose proposition? Who? Why, it was us, the same folks who can tolerate, but just barely, a baseball team that finishes second for a couple of years, but then are most likely to stop going to the ballpark. You don't really have to be on the top end of the charts to be tolerable to a jazz record company. The economics of our specialized music world, particularly back in the late 1950s, enabled us to recoup our investment from an album that only sold a few thousand copies. Even a more ambitious project or two didn't hurt too much if they more or less bombed. And most jazz record companies of that era were owned and operated by fairly freaky, jazz-fan kinds of people; and we got very stubborn about continuing to record musicians we dug, and whose capabilities we enjoyed and believed in. (And when once in a while a young guitarist turned out to be Wes Montgomery and got straight-A grades, or an always-A-plus giant like Thelonious Monk broke through to salable recognition, that made it fiscally and emotionally possible for us to keep on being stubborn.)

But it was still a rather precarious life. A musician who doesn't sell enough records to earn additional royalties gets to feel pretty frustrated. He also doesn't get to work all that much in clubs or concerts, and when jazz begins to slide down the popularity scale, as it began to do in the early '60s, he is the first to feel the pinch. And when jazz really falls off a cliff, as it did in the mid-'60s, he either keeps on scuffling for gigs, or gives up music, or maybe leaves for Europe. (And after a while probably finds that Europe is part of our culture-laggard society, too, and maybe is being asked to absorb too many escapee musicians.)

Nobody starts out in any art form ever thinking about being B-plus or lower. Every member of every symphony orchestra violin section in the world believed as a child (or at least accepted Mama's belief) that he would be a famous concert artist. Nobody comes to his first big-band jazz job, or his first record date, doubting that the world will open up wide for him before long. To that extent, the artist usually begins as one of us, as a member of our victory-oriented culture, wanting to be the "best" tenor player in town.

But most of them quickly come to understand that, within the society of the "good" players, there is no need for any permanent, definitive "best." (In the legendary cutting contests of an earlier jazz era, not even Coleman Hawkins or Louis Armstrong or Art Tatum was expected to be a winner every night.)

One important aspect of the jazz musician's realization that creative art should not be a win-or-lose proposition can be the growth of a sense of real comradeship. Quite possibly the fact that the public usually thought of them as competitors helped to build their own quite opposite attitudes, at least during the late-'50s/early-'60s "relatively happy time" I was referring to. To return specifically to Griffin. I first heard of him in 1956 when Thelonious Monk, returning from a job in Chicago, sounded off about the local tenor player he had worked with there. Blue Note Records had grabbed him before we had a chance to act, but for a year or so Johnny worked his way into the large, shifting group I sometimes think of as the Riverside stock company.

Then and later he was a sideman on albums featuring Monk, Wes Montgomery, Nat Adderley, Blue Mitchell, Clark Terry, Philly Joe Jones, Chet Baker. By 1958 he had become established in New York, had reached the ripe old age of thirty, had served that almost inevitable apprenticeship as one of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers (practically every trumpet and tenor worth his salt in the hard-bop idiom of the '50s seems to have done a valuable stretch with that band), and had succeeded Coltrane as the horn in Monk's Five Spot quartet.

By 1958 he was also newly signed to Riverside, and on his first albums as leader for us was able in turn to recruit comrades as sidemen: Philly Joe, Wilbur Ware, Donald Byrd, Pepper Adams, Blue Mitchell, Wynton Kelly.

Looking at my liner notes for his first albums, I am able to recall that he began his career in Lionel Hampton's big band, that his middle name is Arnold, that he was born and raised in Chicago, and that in high school he was primarily an alto player. Looking into my memory, I recall other facts — that this mild-looking, slight young man could execute brilliantly on his horn at killingly fast tempos (not an un-valuable quality when working in front of Blakey), but that he came to be very annoyed at being described as things like "the fastest gun in the West."

There were many reasons other than speed for singling Johnny out from his contemporaries. He had a richly deep sound, and he had a lovely awareness of roots — he knew blues and gospel and, to quote myself, he was "not one of those modernists who think that a reference to an old-time jazzman probably means Charlie Parker."

I also found it unusual and valuable that Griffin almost always thought of his albums as related wholes, not just a string of tunes united only by having the same personnel. Today, the "concept" album is not only commonplace, it is just about a necessity; in the more loose-jointed period in which Johnny recorded for Riverside, it was pretty daring. It was also pretty daring for a musician to suggest to one of us less-than-wealthy labels that we try anything larger than a sextet date. Griff dared both: he wanted to do a date tied together by being entirely in a funky, "church blues" bag, and he wanted at least a moderately big-band sound behind him. He kept on wanting, and not getting, for quite a while. Then we struck a good lick: Cannonball Adderley's new band recorded an album in 1959 for Riverside that featured Bobby Timmons' church-y tune, "This Here"; it did a lot for Cannon and the label and for something that the world (or at least the record business) decided to call "soul music."

That music happened to be very close to what Johnny had been talking about, so we found it hard to keep resisting the idea. Whereupon, Griffin and a goodly number of his and our friends went into the studio and generated an album that made some little noise in its own time (including the fact that another arranger lifted the scoring of "Wade in the Water" and created a hit for another artist—but that's life, isn't it?). It also is an album that I find still makes a lot of sense today, which is no small tribute for a 1960 recording featuring a non-famous player. Its sense of blues-and-spirituals roots remains valid, and the full-flavored "preaching" tenor sound carries a very timeless emotional pull.

The following year Johnny had another idea for a concept album — it was again something that was quite fresh when he thought of it, but that others have made stale through overuse in the years since then. An instrumental tribute to Billie Holliday was a fine and offbeat idea back in 1961; Lady had died in the summer of 1959, and nobody had gotten around to eulogizing and canonizing her (it would of course be more than a decade before a movie biography, with Billie being imitated by a Motown star, would be a good commercial idea). Riverside had grown somewhat more affluent and self-assured in the period between the two albums; this time I even went for the luxurious touch of a few dark-sounding strings along with a sizable brass ensemble. All of which helped create an effectively mournful, soulful setting in which Griffin— without trying to imitate or even parallel Billie, but just being a musician who had known her and loved and understood her music—could do a remarkably fitting and creative job of "singing" some of her songs. (This is the sort of thing your B-plus musician can do, where an A type would possibly feel it was beneath him.)

These two albums are also pretty good working examples of that comradeship I was referring to: names like Nat Adderley and Clark Terry and Barry Harris and Ron Carter and Bob Cranshaw turn up here as they do on many Riverside sessions. (I recall Harry Lookofsky, one of the busiest studio violinists of that period, volunteering to round up the viola and cello players needed for the first day of the Holiday album, and then turning up himself to take one viola chair — just because, he said, the session sounded like fun and he wanted to be in on it.)

Neither these albums nor the many others that Griffin made in those years broke any sales records, but they were a very interesting lot: some straight-ahead, some experimental (like the one with two bassists and French horn Julius Watkins), and of course the series of Tough Tenor swingers made during the period when he was working side by side with Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis. Then came the leaner years and the departure for Europe, where he worked with pretty good regularity (including a long stretch with the formidable Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland big band), although, as I have noted, the European market has also become a declining one for expatriate American jazzmen.

My main point continues to be that it is a damn shame that the U.S. jazz scene has been unable to support and sustain, or in any way to directly or indirectly subsidize its Johnny Griffins, The only counterbalancing feature, in his specific case, is that the way things worked out in the very late '50s and very early '60s, it was possible for one of my favorite non-great Jazz musicians to set down some very strong examples of his very strong work.”

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I Concentrate on You - J . J Johnson & Kai Winding

May 3, 2019, 3:28 pm

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≪ Previous: Johnny Griffin - "Some of My Best Friends" by Orrin Keepnews

When trombonists J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding put their quintet together in the mid-1950's, some Jazz critics questioned whether it would work because of the sameness in the sonority of the two horns.

I'm sure glad that J.J. and Kai went ahead with their association and formed a group that produced so much marvelous music as you can hear on the following video.

The rhythm section is Bill Evans, piano, Tommy Williams, bass and Roy Haynes, drums.

↧

Thelonious and Orrin, Monk and Keepnews, That Is

May 4, 2019, 7:00 am

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For a short time in the late 1990’s before he moved to the other side of “The Bay” [San Francisco, of course, is there another one?], Orrin Keepnews and I were neighbors.

On a number of occasions, he graciously consented to meet me over a coffee at a local bistro and answer my many questions for a piece I was preparing on pianist and vibraphonist Victor Feldman. Victor had recorded for Riverside Records in the early 1960s when Orrin co-owned the label with Bill Grauer.

Orrin left a huge footprint on the Jazz landscape of the second half of the 20th century, one that extended into the first decade-and-a-half of the 21st as well. [He died on March 1, 2015 in El Cerrito, CA].]

I was humbled by the time this legendary impresario made available to a novice writer trying to put together a few words in tribute to his former friend and teacher.

I mean this guy literally launched the recording career of dozens of major modern Jazz musicians when he was the co-owner of Riverside Records, including the iconic pianist Bill Evans who was reluctant to even make his first recordings because he thought that “ he had nothing to say!” Thank goodness that Orrin convinced him otherwise.

Invariably, my talks with Orrin eventually turned to his relationship with pianist and composer Thelonious Monk. I say “invariably” because Orrin generally conducted the pace of our “talks” [He talked and I was smart enough to just listen.] and he always closed them with “Monk Musings” - his term.

From 1953 to 1959, Orrin recorded Monk in various settings and because of these sessions [30 in all], he succeeded in rescuing Thelonious from total obscurity and helping him on to “fame and fortune” - although how lasting either one of these were as far as Monk was concerned is pure conjecture.

The full story of Orrin’s relationship with Monk is detailed in Thelonious and Me by Orrin Keepnews, the opening essay in the booklet that accompanies the 15 CD boxed - Thelonious Monk: The Complete Riverside Recordings [RCD] 022-02 which garnered Grammy Awards upon in 1987 for Best Historical Album and Best Album Notes.

Central to the reason why Orrin felt so justifiably proud of his achievements on behalf of Monk and his music is the argument contained in the following excerpt from this essay.

“Over the years it has come to be my personal definition of the role of the jazz record producer that above all he should serve as a catalytic agent.In a literal sense, my dictionary refers to this as something that "initiates a chemical reaction and enables it to proceed under different conditions than otherwise possible." In a jazz sense, I mean that the producer's job is to create, in whatever ways he can, a set of circumstances that will allow and encourage the artist to perform at the very highest level. I first attempted to function in this way on my early sessions with Monk, and I do feel that at least some of the work I helped bring into being was truly different and lastingly valuable, and that without my involvement it might not have been quite the same.”

Of the many recordings that Orrin and Monk made together during their six year association, The Thelonious Monk Orchestra at Town Hall [Riverside Records RLP-1138 and Original Jazz Classics OJCCD-135-2] remains one of my personal favorites.

The following recounting by Orrin as to what went into making it is also drawn from the boxed set booklet to Thelonious and Me by Orrin Keepnews. This annotation is also a reminder of how grateful Jazz fans should be for the “digital revolution” and its related CD reissues because many of these compact discs contained rediscovered additional tracks and/or music that was previously thought lost.

SESSION 2O [out of 30] (February 28,1959) - The Thelonious Monk Orchestra at Town Hall

"Three decades ago, it must be remembered, a jazz presentation in a major New York concert hall was still most unusual. Even with Monk's newfound popularity, the idea of offering full-band arrangements of his strange music was too daring for any professional promoter — this evening at Town Hall was put on by Monk's close friend Jules Colomby. And there was a full house!

The scores were the work of Hall Overton, in close cooperation with the composer. Six strong horn players were added to the current quartet (Charlie Rouse had just begun his eleven years as Monk's tenor player), and there was an unusual series of long and detailed rehearsals, rigorously supervised by Thelonious. So when we set up to record that night, there was no reason to expect trouble. Actually, we encountered only one problem, but it was a classic:

Staff engineer Ray Fowler and I were working just offstage, using a single tape machine. Accordingly, I asked Monk to glance at me before each number, to see if we needed a momentary delay to load a new reel of tape. He neglected to check only once—but it was during a reel change, so that the first several bars of Little Rootie Tootie were not recorded. At the first opportunity, I explained the problem to Thelonious, whose solution was direct, outlandish, and quite helpful. At the end of the scheduled program, with the audience screaming for an encore, he calmly announced that the recording engineers had "loused up" and proceeded to repeat the entire number. The start of the encore, of course, doubles as the opening of both versions here.

Since the full concert is being presented here exactly in performance sequence, we begin as the evening did, with three quartet numbers. At the time, knowing that there would be enough orchestral material for a full album, we used this first segment only to work on the recording balance. Many years later, I found that the unused quartet reel had survived. The performances were exciting (Monk was clearly full of enthusiasm on this triumphant night), and the sound actually much better than remembered.The material was easily put into shape for belated issuance. [There are frequent rumors about two additional quartet numbers. I do not remember any; I would very much doubt that there could have been as many as five small-group pieces on what was billed as an orchestra concert; and above all what is heard here is everything that was recorded that night]

There has also been some confusion about Thelonious. The original Riverside album begins with a shortened version; Monk was not happy with his chorus (which is the only solo), and we decided to use only the final ensemble chorus, presented as a sort of opening theme. The full version actually turned up on a late-1960s German reissue album; hearing about this finally led me to search for and uncover that tape in the vaults. Apparently it had survived without my being aware of it and had mistakenly been copied for that reissue. A very awkward edit was clearly audible in the piano solo — presumably the result of someone's attempt to repair whatever had initially bothered Thelonious. I don't recall whether it had been a technical recording flaw or a performance error. However, a few years ago I re-edited and basically smoothed over the original problem; the best possible full-length version appears here."

↧

Michael Buble Moondance HD

May 4, 2019, 12:13 pm

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↧

Kai Winding and J.J. Johnson ‎– ISRAEL 1968 (LP full album)

May 4, 2019, 3:59 pm

≫ Next: Gerry Mulligan - Before: First of Two Articles by Leonard Feather

≪ Previous: Michael Buble Moondance HD

Trombonists J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding recordings are the subject of a forthcoming feature on the JazzProfiles blog. This is their last recording together. It was made in 1968 and released on A&M Records and features them with strings and woodwinds with arrangements by Don Sebesky, J.J. and Kai.

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Gerry Mulligan - Before: First of Two Articles by Leonard Feather

May 5, 2019, 7:30 am

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“The way Mulligan wrote made his omission of the piano inevitable: His chords were moving so much that the piano got in the way. Gerry was a straight-ahead, here-and-now arranger, impatient with complications. His great contributions were the liberation of the minor seventh and a sort of freedom of tonality, a horizontal kind of thinking."

- George Russell, composer and arranger

In our continuing efforts to provide Gerry Mulligan’s many contributions to Jazz with more of an online presence, this feature provides yet another piece of the Jeru bibliography to go along with those already posted on these pages by the Gene Lees, Nat Hentoff, Bill Crow and Gordon Jack, et al.

Leonard Feather, the esteemed Jazz author and critic was an astute observer of the Jazz scene for almost fifty years from his arrival in the United States in 1939 until his death in 1994.

Surely his writings about Jeru deserve a place among the Jazz luminaries who have contributed their views and interpretations of Mulligan and his music.

This is the first of two articles that Leonard published in successive issues of Down Beat magazine beginning on May 26, 1960.

“Mulligan er utvivlsomt en af de mest begavede musikere i den unge jazz," is the unequivocal opinion of Erik Wiedemann of Copenhagen. "Muito interessantes sao os trabalhos, num mood mais cool, de Gerry Mulligan," observes Jorge Guinle of Rio de Janeiro. And Arrigo Polillo of Milan states, "Apparve presto chiaro a tutti che nel jazz de Mulligan vi era qualcosa di nuovo e di diverse." In Paris, Andre Hodeir has expounded at length on "Mulligan, artiste a la sensibilite exquise," while Joachim-Ernst Berendt has echoed from Baden-Baden, "Mulligan ist vielleicht der ideenreichste unter den jungen arrangeuren der Jazzmusik.” These and a few score more around the world have sung the virtues of a tall, red-haired young man who is probably the most popular saxophonist living.

The Gerry Mulligan era, begun in the October 22, 1952, Down Beat ("Mr. Mulligan Has a Real Crazy Gerry-Built Crew," read the headline on Ralph Gleason's rave review of the original quartet), currently is reaching a peak with his almost simultaneous appearances in four films: a playing part in Jazz on a Summer's Day, an acting and playing role in The Subterraneans, and acting assignments in The Rat Race and The Bells Are Ringing. Of his work in Bells, Judy Holliday said, "I was amazed by his sense of timing. He played a comedy scene with me so beautifully that we're almost hoping it will be cut out — it makes everything that follows seem anticlimactic."

Mulligan's movie work gave him enough financial security to start his first successful big band venture; the orchestra, assembled in New York, played its first date there in April at Basin Street East.

Along with Mulligan's musical growth, there has been a striking development in his personality. Musicians who once saw in him an air of belligerent intolerance, a garrulity, a lack of direction, now are inclined to observe that the intolerance is directed against stupidity, racial prejudice, and narrow mindedness and the talkativeness—based on sensitivity, a keen concern for music, the theater, politics, and a broad range of general interests—is leavened with humor and a refusal to accept pompousness on any level.

"It's hard to realize how much he's changed," says drummer Dave Bailey. "In the five years I've been with him he's grown up; he is a man, and he's happy. He said to me one day, 'Dave, I've got a band, and I've got no problems in it. I'm so happy about it I'm shaking'."

Chico Hamilton, who played in the original quartet, says: "He's trying to become a very good human being and has become aware of his fellow man. I think of Gerry not as a genius but as just another guy — a nice guy and a very sincere person." And Elliot Lawrence observed, "Often you see people mature from boyhood to manhood, but it's more than that. Gerry now is a completely different person."

Mulligan himself attributes much of the change to a fruitful experience with psychiatry. As for his musical advancement, he declares: "People think jazz is a young man's game, like athletics; but the fact is, creativity must improve as you get older and more mature,"

That his life has stabilized itself may seem remarkable to many who have studied the turbulent pattern of his first 25 years. Born in Queens Village on Long Island, NY, April 6, 1927, he was the youngest of the four sons of a management engineer whose jobs took the family to many cities, making it hard for the children to form durable childhood associations. Gerry is three-fourths Irish: his maternal grandmother was German. Mrs. Mulligan now manages an apartment building in Washington; the three brothers all took up their father's profession.

"Gerry's parents were strict authoritarians," recalls Russ Saunders, a bassist who knew him as a teen-ager. "And he had the background problems of a strict Catholic home. He was very devout; this inhibited him in many ways and it was the source of our frequent disagreements."

Regarding this matter, Mulligan has said, 'The Catholic background was deeply ingrained in me; but the conversations with Russ and others had a lot to do with my later thinking. This was my first exposure to anything other than the Catholic philosophy. It's one thing to stop being a Catholic and another to go back and weed out your thinking when it goes back to early childhood. But from the time I left home I never went to church again, which is a remarkable step in itself."

His childhood was as deeply entrenched in music as in religion. A nun, Sister Vincent, gave him his first piano lessons in 1934. He had been picking out melodies from infancy, had recently taken up the ocarina, and had even written a song.

Though his parents had sung in choirs and his father could play violin and piano, there was little love for music in the household. After pleading vainly with his family to buy him a musical instrument, Gerry borrowed a clarinet while at school in Kalamazoo, Mich., in 1938. He took some lessons, but had more success teaching himself; soon he was playing in the school orchestra and, without any training, wrote his first arrangement.

Gradually, he drew closer to music and away from the family. By 1943, taking a part-time job as an office boy, he saved up enough to buy a clarinet; a year later, in Philadelphia, he bought a tenor saxophone, organized a dance band for West Philadelphia Catholic high, and wrote a book for the band.

He sent three arrangements to Russ Saunders, whom he had known while living in Reading, Pa. ("they were all in concert; I had to transpose them," says Saunders), and sold a couple to Johnny Warrington, then leader of the radio house band at radio station WCAU.

"His first efforts were pretty feeble," Warrington said, "but he accepted criticism well, and came back with the arrangements changed. He was a good kid, with real musical Stardust in his eyes; sometimes he'd go along with the band for the ride on a one-nighter. He enjoyed hanging out with the boys in the band; to him they were real big operators in the music business."

The big operators, however, never found room for Mulligan as a 'blowing colleague. After his junior year in high school, during the 1944 summer vacation, Gerry landed a job on tenor with Alex Bartha's band at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, N. J. At least one member of the band advised him to stick to writing on the grounds that his playing just didn't make it. But Mulligan refused to be discouraged. When a chance came to stay with the band for a road tour in the fall, he decided to quit school.

"My family are still kicking themselves because I didn't get my high school diploma," Mulligan said. "They thought if I'd stayed with the church, everything would have been all right. Our ways of thinking were completely unrelated. But there is a passive acceptance between us now."

The abrupt halt in his school studies did not mean an end to Garry's education. "He was always a sensitive, bright boy," said Mrs. Frank Socolow, a friend from the Reading days. "He read a lot and gravitated toward other people in .the arts. I'm sure he didn't stop studying when he stopped going to school.'

"He was a tremendous reader of books," said Elliot Lawrence. "Intellectual-type books, psychology and mythology and what have you. Maybe he was at the wrong school and felt hemmed in at a Catholic high school."

According to Russ Saunders, "Gerry was ill at ease with his family. The other brothers had a leaning toward mathematics, business, the higher forms of learning, and here was Gerry bumming around with a bunch of musicians; they never adjusted to it. They were well-to-do, with a comfortable home, but he turned his back on it all and pulled himself up by his bootstraps."

The Bartha tour failed to materialize, but in the fall of 1944, Mulligan made a three-month tour as arranger with Tommy Tucker's band. Exposure to the bop band of Billy Eckstine during the tour induced him to try to lead the Tucker group a little further out than it was willing to venture; at the end of the tour Tucker decided Mulligan was expendable.

The WCAU house band was now in the hands of Lawrence, whom Gerry promptly approached for a job. "He came into the studio looking like the all-American high school boy," Lawrence said. "He wrote regularly for me for a year, and we kind of palled around together and he stayed with my folks. I found him polite and gentlemanly and never saw any other side to his character until he took me to his family's home one day; then I found out about the terrible clashes with his parents, who hadn't wanted him to leave school,

"Gerry was dying to play in the band, but unless one of the sax men got sick, we never let him. He wrote constantly and quickly, and in his spare time he'd jam at the Down Beat -with Red Rodney."

One occasion when Gerry did get to play with the band was a concert at which Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker were to appear. Gerry recalled, "I said to Elliot's sax section, 'For God's sake, can't one of you guys break a leg or something so I can make this concert with Bird?' And sure enough, the day before the concert, one of the tenor players slipped and broke a wrist. Everyone gave me an odd look, like I was practicing witchcraft."

Parker, talking with Mulligan and learning that he had been frustrated in his desire to blow, invited him to sit in at a local club with the Gillespie quintet. Nervous but proud, Gerry formed a friendship with Parker that was cemented in a series of visits to New York.

It was during this period that Mulligan received an offer to join the Gene Krupa Band. "I think one reason Gerry took the job," Lawrence said, "was that Gene had promised to let him play as well as write." As it turned out, during the year with the band Mulligan only played for four months — two on alto and two on tenor. At the end of the year Mulligan's music went on record for the first time: his Disc Jockey Jump, cut in January, 1947, became a hit single for Krupa.

It was during the post-Krupa, pre-California period (1947-51) that Mulligan made his crucial steps both as writer and soloist. First he sold all his horns except a baritone. There was far less competition than on alto or tenor, and Gerry was fascinated by the depth and scope of the horn.

During the next couple of years he became part of a highly informal salon in the dark, windowless one-room basement apartment of Gil Evans on W. 55th St. in New York City. "Miles and Bird often stayed there," George Russell reminisced, "and everybody fell in; we were all gravitating around Gil. Gerry was still doing much more writing than playing. He was lighthearted and gay, a crisp and witty and outspoken person.

"Those were hungry days. At one time five of us collaborated on an arrangement for Buddy Johnson's band— Gerry, who wrote the intro, Gil, Johnny Carisi, John Lewis, and I. Buddy must have been ashamed to refuse it with all those names on it, because he bought it the next day — and it was a pretty bad chart."

The way Mulligan wrote, Russell said, made his omission of the piano inevitable: "His chords were moving so much that the piano got in the way. Gerry was a straight-ahead, here-and-now arranger, impatient with complications. His great contributions were the liberation of the minor seventh and a sort of freedom of tonality, a horizontal kind of thinking."

Gil Evans said, "He didn't strike me as impatient; in fact, he spent a lot of time on his work. I didn't try to guide him consciously; we were just musical associates. But I was Thornhill's arranger then, and I did get Gerry the job with Claude."

As Mulligan remembers it, "Gil wasn't the only influence on my writing; he was the final influence. Before that there were Ben Homer, who wrote some good things for Tommy Tucker, and Eddie Finckel with Krupa; they were major influences. And George Williams influenced me in terms of section writing. Later I turned out to he an influence on him. I was tremendously affected, too, by Bobby Sherwood's ballad writing; he could get that symphonic ensemble sound, using inner lines. Ralph Burns and Neal Hefti made an impression on me, too."

In 1948, a nonet crystallized out of the workshop around Gil. Miles Davis, as leader, got a two-week gig at the Royal Roost in September; four months later came the first of three memorable record dates, now on a Capitol LP aptly titled Birth of the Cool. Mulligan played on all the sessions, arranged George Wallington's Godchild and three originals, Jeru (the nickname Miles gave Gerry) ; Venus DeMilo, and Rocker. Though they have since become the most discussed records in the historiography of modern jazz, these sides were dilatorily treated at the time. Some came out on 78s, others were not released at all for years.

Gunther Schuller, who played French horn on the last date, said he believes there were strong differences of feeling about the objectives of this group: "Gil and Miles wanted a rich, earthy sound while Gerry wanted a lighter, more transparent quality.

"By my classical standards," added Schuller, "Gerry was a disorganized person at the time, the kind who in his very pleasant, nonchalant way would saunter in late. But he was tremendously flexible and had an affability under all circumstances."

During the New York years, Mulligan's only steady jobs were eight months' writing and playing with a new Elliot Lawrence Band and a few months with Thornhill. There was also a short-lived combo led by Kal Winding, featuring Brew Moore and Gerry, with which he played one of his first record dates and made several nightclub gigs. But by now he was more than dimly aware that destiny had not designed him as the eternal sideman. "How come," he said once to Allen Eager, "everyone else is leading bands and getting ahead while I'm not in a position of leadership and authority?" Some of this attitude had been inculcated by a girl named Gale Madden, who for a couple of years was a strong influence, and whom Gerry considers largely responsible for the no-piano idea. Miss Madden encouraged him to keep writing and to organize rehearsal bands to try out his work.

Money was so scarce that Mulligan was involved in some weird ventures in the effort to keep rehearsing.

"One time," Eager recalled, "when there was no money for a hall, we met at Charlie's tavern and decided to take our horns to Central Park. We went to a knoll overlooking the lake and had our rehearsal there with an audience of children, nurses, and dogs. Nobody interfered the first day or two; then the cops ran us out."

According to bassist Buddy Clark: "Gerry got a kick of playing in the open air; sometimes we'd have two or three bassists to compensate for the lack of a piano. We even played the first modern jazz concert in the Catskills — around the swimming pool at the Waldemere hotel."

About the same time Rita Cansino, a dancer cousin of Rita Hayworth, who wanted to sing, paid Mulligan to write a library. "She thought I was star material," Gerry recalled with a grin. "Even wanted to build an act and have me dance."

A swinging personnel was assembled, with Mulligan on piano, but after two months of patient preparation at Nola studios in New York City, the venture collapsed. There was a slight hitch that was making work hard to get; Miss Cansino couldn't sing.

At this stage, Mulligan was no longer the ail-American boy. A gaunt, haggard-looking figure with close-cropped hair and a raggedy beard, he was given to wearing sneakers and a rope belt; he and Gale Madden wore identical green pork-pie hats. "Gerry and Gale," said George Wallington, "were the pioneers of the beat generation." Easily irritated, he blew up at a Herbie Fields rehearsal, denouncing the band's inability to interpret; he returned his fee and asked for his arrangement back. There was a similar scene with Benny Goodman after a few days of desultory rehearsal with a modern band Goodman assembled in 1948.

By now Mulligan was firmly identified with the baritone, but it was Serge Chaloff who had begun to dominate the polls previously won by Harry Carney. Once, after hearing him with the Woody Herman Band, Mulligan said to Charloff, "Watch out, in a couple of years I’ll be the No. 1 baritone." ("Serge wasn't a writer on his horn," Gerry said recently, "the way Bird was. When Bird played cliches, at least they were his own cliches.")

By 1951 Mulligan, in bad shape financially and physically, decided to head west. With the help of Milton Bauchner, a jazz-loving businessman in New Jersey, he played a concert in Newark with a horn just reclaimed from a hock shop, borrowed some money, and soon moved on to Reading to see a brother.

From there he and Gale Madden hitchhiked across the country. "We took turns napping in the backs of trucks," Mulligan said. "We went by moving truck, oil truck, private car; stopped off in St. Louis, then got as far as Albuquerque. An old friend from Reading was at the university there. After I'd worked briefly in Albuquerque, we made it to Los Angeles."

This was June, 1951. Gerry Mulligan had spent most of his 24 years escaping —from social and religious problems, from conformity, from reality, and finally from the musical maelstrom of Manhattan in which he had found no firm path to tread. Impossible though it must have been to perceive, the Mulligan success story was barely a year away.

(Part two of this article will appear in the June 9 issue.)”

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Gerry Mulligan - After: Second of Two Articles by Leonard Feather

May 6, 2019, 7:00 am

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"Gerry has a missionary's zeal. He equates jazzmen with the left bank writers in Paris in the 1920s. He goes about things so fiercely that sometimes he may antagonize the very people he's trying to win over. But what's most important of all to him is to be a great jazzman and a great leader. Like Eisenhower, he's a great general who'd have made a very poor sergeant."

- Marshall Brown, leader of the Newport Jazz Festival youth jazz band.

"It was St. Patrick's day. A jazz fan who happened to stop in at a bar near Yankee Stadium glanced idly at the jukebox. This was a typical Irish bar— nothing on the piccolo but songs of old Erin, plenty of Bing Crosby's Irish efforts and, of course, the customary quota of Carmel Quinn. But the box was not 100 percent square: nestled like a jewel in one slot was a card announcing a side by Gerry Mulligan.

That Mulligan today is at a zenith of esteem, among both Irish and non-Irish from Hollywood to Helsinki, is a source of astonishment to many of those who observed his arrival in Los Angeles in the summer of 1951, when his fortunes were at their nadir.

Mulligan's first Hollywood job of any consequence was an assignment to write some arrangements for Stan Kenton. Though the music he wrote (10 charts in all) was not quite startlingly colorful enough to elicit the unbounded enthusiasm of Kenton himself, many musicians both in and out of the band felt that the Mulligan contributions were among the swingingest pieces ever inserted in the Kenton books. Some of them were used only as throwaways on dance dates. But Stan did record two of Gerry's originals, Swing House and Young Blood, and continued to play the latter frequently long after Mulligan stopped writing for the band.

During the Kenton period, Mulligan became friendly with a young man named Richard Bock, then a student at Los Angeles City college with a side job doing publicity and organizing Monday night sessions at the Haig. One day, at the Laurel Canyon home of his friend Phil Turetsky, Bock produced some tapes with Mulligan, and without a piano. It had not been scheduled as a pianoless session. "Jimmy Rowles was supposed to be there," Bock related, "but couldn't make it at the last moment. So we did it with just Gerry, Red Mitchell, and Chico Hamilton." This was in July of 1952, and the records were never released.

Soon afterwards, Bock began to use Mulligan on the Monday nights at the Haig. Only a couple of these gigs had taken place when, said Bock, "one afternoon in September we went up to Phil's home again — he had some fine sound equipment — and made Bernie's Tune and Lullaby of the Leaves, with Gerry and Chet (Baker) and Chico (Hamilton) and Bob Whitlock. This started the Pacific Jazz label, with a single 78 disc. Later, we went into the Gold Star studios on Santa Monica Blvd. and did the other tunes for the first 10-incher, LP-1. This was how the company got started."

By year's end, the LP had been released, lines were forming all around the block at the Haig, and the Gerry Mulligan Quartet was put to work on a full-week basis. Before long, Gerry had reached what is usually the vital point in any artist's career: people needed him more than he needed them.

Soon after success struck, Gerry eloped to Mexico with a young former college-mate of Bock. The marriage was short-lived, and after an annulment, Gerry married Arlyne Brown, whose father was one of the celebrated Tin Pan Alley team of De Sylva, Brown, and Henderson. A son, Reed Brown Mulligan, was born in 1957; Gerry and Arlyne were divorced last year.

During the first half of 1953, Gerry and Chet had a partnership that seemed as historic, in its way, as Venuti and Lang in the 1920s, Tommy and Jimmy in the '30s, and Diz and Bird in the '40s. "Gerry's musical communion with Chet was a fantastic and beautiful things," said a girl who knew them well. "But as a person, Gerry wanted Chet to be so much more sensitive than he was capable of being. Chet was so different as a musician and a person — a real juvenile-delinquent, hot-rod kid in his attitudes."

"The group really came off until Gerry and Chet started hating each other," Chico Hamilton said. "They'd come on the stand and Gerry would face one way and Chet another. A couple of times I had to pull them apart."

The breakup that resulted was inevitable. But, though it seemed to augur disaster, Mulligan turned it to advantage: during Christmas week of 1953 he organized a new quartet featuring the valve trombone of Bob Brookmeyer instead of trumpet.

This group represented the second of six major phases in Gerry's career as a leading jazz figure. The third was a sextet he led in 1955-56, with Zoot Sims, Brookmeyer, and Jon Eardley or Don Ferrara; the fourth was the 1958-59 quartet with Art Farmer; the fifth was a period of movie-making, during most of 1959, when he had no organized group, and the sixth began a few weeks ago when he formed a 13-piece band in New York.

"Each of my groups has had an entirely different sound, and an entirely different effect on me," Gerry said recently. "It's misleading to talk about 'the quartet' as if there'd been only one. And the sextet was completely different again — there we had the first leanings toward a big band sound, a more concerted thing, getting away from the strictly spontaneous counterpoint." How, he was asked, did he feel about the use of the pianoless format by so many other groups since his?

"I don't think there have been that many, have there? But if there have, that must mean that it's practical, that it works well. However, the way the music is written must have a concerted enough sound to cancel out the need for a piano. It won't work if everybody is just playing long solos all in a row. For instance, there's one group that dispensed with the piano — Max Roach's — that I thought was doing something musically incomplete. They would play the same number of solos that they'd have used if there had been a piano, and the fellows didn't alter their style. When you play without a piano it does require a different approach. With Max' group, it was a big test for my ears just to be able to follow the soloists through 10 or 12 choruses. It was a noble experiment, though, and I must say that the way Max plays has a concerted enough sound in itself to give the others a very melodic style of accompaniment. But the soloists have to be up to this challenge; you've got to establish some kind of chordal progression, you can't just skate over the rhythm section as you can when the piano is there stating the chords."

Mulligan's innovation was not long in acquiring imitators; by 1954, Lars Gullin in Sweden had taped an LP patterned directly after the Mulligan-Brookmeyer quartet sound. Meanwhile, Gerry had run the gamut from best-selling records (LP-1 ultimately went over 30,000, an exceptional figure by jazz standards) to night club attendance records and jazz festival eminence. Soon the critics, fans and musicians who came to know him realized they had been ignoring an extraordinary personality in their midst.

Perhaps the first qualities with which Gerry became associated, after he had made it, were his musical and personal gregariousness and his penchant for analysis, discussion, and suggestion, no matter what the subject.

George Wein, producer of the Newport festival and operator of Storyville in Boston, said, "At first, when I saw Gerry walk onstage and sit in with Billie Holiday and Teddy Wilson and Pres, I thought he was just trying to hog the limelight. Later I realized he just had a love for the music and wanted to be a part of it. Then, at Storyville, I once had him working opposite Jimmy Rushing, and he'd just stay up there and play straight through both sets! He's very eager, very sporadic, and gets upset very easily. As for his urge to play, I think Gerry and Dizzy are the last of the blowers —the men who really enjoy a session."

Ellingtonian Harry Carney, always Gerry's baritone idol, has this recollection: "One night Gerry came over to Duke's record date and we decided to celebrate my birthday by going out to hear Pepper Adams at the Bohemia. We wound up listening to a terrific baritone player with the other combo there, a group from Cornell [Nick Brignola with Reese Markewich] and after he'd listened a long time Gerry just had to get up and play." It was during that evening that Mulligan and Carney conceived the idea of a duet with Duke's band, later consummated at Newport in [Duke Ellington’s composition] Prima Bari Dubla.

Elaine Lorillard, one of the founders of the Newport festival, recalls one of the greatest sessions ever, at her house in Newport. "Chico came out, and Tony Scott and Art Farmer, and Gerry played piano; Father Crowley and a few other nonplayers were there. It was utterly spontaneous and lasted from 4 until 8:30 a.m., and the sun came up and the roses were blooming — beautiful sights and sounds. The next evening was the exact opposite, completely formal as Gerry posed for a picture spread for Vogue.

"Gerry may put his foot in it here and there, but he's basically dedicated to the cause. And his ideas are constructive. Everything he said was wrong with the festival, really was wrong; the musicians were the last to be consulted, and he wanted an auxiliary board of musicians to act as advisers. He supplied a whole list of musicians' complaints, from programming of the music to lack of refreshments and toilet facilities. He was firm but friendly; although at first he felt the festival setting was how jazz should be presented, he became more disillusioned every year."

"What galls me at these festivals," Gerry said recently, "is the way they emphasize all the names of the '30s and '40s and wind up minimizing our names. They use the prestige of the people of my generation, but then put us in a subordinate position. They have hurt my drawing power by not drawing attention to how much of a boxoffice name I am. The handling of Monterey [Mulligan played there in 1958] was even worse than Newport. Eventually, I'd like to ease out of the jazz festival scene entirely."

"Gerry has a missionary's zeal," declared Marshall Brown, leader of the Newport youth jazz band. "He equates jazzmen with the left bank writers in Paris in the 1920s. He goes about things so fiercely that sometimes he may antagonize the very people he's trying to win over. But what's most important of all to him is to be a great jazzman and a great leader. Like Eisenhower, he's a great general who'd have made a very poor sergeant."

'Though Brown's analysis may be right, General Gerry still enjoys nothing better than a barracks bash with GIs of every rank. At the first Newport festival in 1954, he not only sat in with Eddie Condon's Dixielanders but also took part in a fantastic finale that brought Mulligan, Kenton, Condon, and a dozen more of every breed into a wild rideout on I Got Rhythm.

"Gerry loves to play and he loves to talk," Condon said. "You can make some casual remark about the weather or the new Buick, and then he'll go into an hour's oration. He's got guts,too. One time we were in Toots Shor's together and Toots, who didn't know who Gerry was, made some kidding remark about not talking to musicians. Gerry said to me, 'I don't like the way that fellow talks. I think I'm gonna take him outside.' Well, you know the size of Gerry — he couldn't get any skinnier and live. And you know the size of Toots. He could have picked Gerry up and thrown him right through the wall!"

More often than not, Mulligan's belligerence has some reasonable foundation. "Once we had a reservation at a hotel in Frankfurt," said agent Bert Block, "and when we arrived, we found a Russian trade delegation had taken our rooms and we had to go to some beat-up joint. Gerry blew his stack. Here we are financing Western Germany, he says, and we have to give up our rooms to the Russians. He threatened not to do the concert. But after a while everyone cooled down."

"We were almost brought to court in Bologna, Italy," drummer Dave Bailey related. "We were invited to a restaurant after the concert and there were some Communists sent there apparently as troublemakers. One of them said something insulting to Gerry and he just threw some water in the guy's face and said, 'Leave me alone.' It was tough for Gerry to keep his head, but except for throwing the water, he restrained himself. Finally some non-political jazz fans just took this man and threw him out bodily."

Mulligan's European visits, the first of which was a 1954 trip to the Paris Jazz festival, consolidated what was already a firm foreign reputation. In England, where even in 1957 he was able to command $3,500 a week, every London show was a sellout, and Gerry registered more poll victories than probably any jazzman since Armstrong. The only cool European response, according to Brookmeyer and others, was that of the blase audience during a month at the Olympia theater in Paris. ("Gerry tried announcing in French at first," Brookmeyer said, "but he didn't find it as easy as playing.") The press reaction, all over the Continent, was uniformly warm.

Mulligan's eagerness to adapt himself to any social or musical environment, which made many friends for him during the European trips, did not extend to the glamour world of Hollywood celebrity life.

Around Thanksgiving of 1958, at a party in New York, he had met Judy Holliday, and by the time he had worked in The Subterraneans and The Rat Race, the following summer in California, their friendship was founded partly in a common distaste for the superficialities of the film world, partly in a common concern for all the arts (and a common ability to play a fierce game of Scrabble, aiming exclusively at the seven-letter words). Gerry's assignment to an acting role in The Bells Are Ringing came about through the enthusiasm of producer Arthur Freed, a former songwriter who wrote the lyrics to I Cried For You and many other standards.

"When he wanted Gerry for the part," Miss Holliday, confessed, "I was against it, because I tend to get nervous when any personal friend of mine is acting with me — especially if they're not an actor." It was not long before everyone concerned was fully aware that Gerry was indeed an actor. So successful was this venture that he has been asked often since then if he would care to make a career out of it. Gerry answers that he wouldn't mind it at all if he could continue his life as a bandleader simultaneously.

At the suggestion of Columbia's Irving Townsend, Miss Holliday and Mulligan

recorded a couple of sides together a few months ago; they turned out so well that an album is now in the works. One of the first tunes taped was Loving You, with her lyrics to his music. "At first I didn't know why Irving suggested the idea," Miss Holliday said. "It seemed as if we were from two different worlds. Then I found out about Gerry's talent for writing melodies, and his ability to orchestrate for me in a medium completely different from his usual one. It's almost like Jekyll and Hyde." She has since set lyrics to Tell Me When from the Mulligan-Ben Webster LP, and there will be other such collaborations.

Regardless, though, of what his future may be as a popular-song writer or motion picture actor, Gerry at present is very much wrapped up in his new band. So far, the general reaction among musicians both in and out of the orchestra, and among critics and the more attentive listeners at Basin Street, has been uniformly enthusiastic. During several visits I found enough excitement, both in the writing and in the spirit that formed the interpretation, to produce some of the most genuine and unpretentious swinging big-band jazz this town has heard in years

Just before he opened at the club I interviewed Gerry in an hour-long session over WNCN-FM, New York. The dialog that follows combines excerpts from this broadcast and passages from a tape-recorded private interview.

Feather: Let's talk about the new band, your personnel, and your plans.

Mulligan: Well, first and foremost, let's say we have Bob Brookmeyer and Bob Brookmeyer and Bob Brookmeyer . . . playing valve trombone and writing; Wayne Andre on trombone and Allan Raph on bass trombone; on trumpets Phil Sunkel, Danny Styles, and most of the solos are taken by Don Ferrara. The reeds are Eddie Wasserman on clarinet; Bill Holman on tenor —he came east to do a lot of writing for us. [Holman played only the first week at Basin Street, then withdrew to concentrate on writing, and was replaced by Zoot Sims.] We also have arrangements by Al Cohn, and some by Johnny Mandel of themes from his I Want to Live score. The alto is Dick Meldonian, the baritone is Gene Allen, bass is Bill Takas, and on drums another old face from quartet-sextet days, Dave Bailey.

The instrumentation problem was, I think, one of the things that kept me from getting a band together. I started one a couple of years ago, and I was thinking in terms of four trumpets, three trombones, and five saxes, and I wrote arrangements and even started on an album. But after I got halfway through, I decided it was bottom-heavy, too full, and didn't allow the kind of freedom I'd come to enjoy with the small bands. Also it didn't have that kind of clarity of sound that I liked, with the interplay of lines, in the small groups.

Now the present band gives us most of the possibilities that we had with the other one, but it also allows for a great deal more clarity. And of course a practical consideration is, if you've got people sitting on the bandstand, you've got to have them playing. If they don't play enough it's bad for their lips and their horns get cold; they tire of not playing, they lose interest, and contribute nothing.

Feather: Are you using the clarinet a lot in the reed voicing?

Mulligan: We've used it not so much as a reed section sound, but rather as a sound that contributes to the ensemble as a whole. We've been trying to avoid the clarinet lead effect.

Feather: Are you aiming this band purely at listening audiences, or do you think it might be adaptable to dance dates if you're interested in playing any?

Mulligan: What I'm really building is a concert band. It's a jazz band for listening, and there are only a handful of clubs in the country that can handle a band like that. I don't want to think about dance dates yet, until we've established ourselves and are working the way we want to. But it's fun to play dances occasionally, fun to play a prom, when we get to feeling like the old folks sitting up on the stand watching the kids have a good time. We play differently. You get very sentimental and all that sort of thing.

Feather: The reason I asked is that John Hammond said recently he feels jazz is essentially a functional music and is coming back to that.

Mulligan: I'm really not too concerned about where jazz is going, what it's doing. I'm concerned about the entity that I've tried to put together, which is really quite separate from the entire field of jazz. My answer to John is, there are jazz musicians who have never gotten away from that. Now if you're talking about jazz in terms of what the avant garde has been doing, or what's the most influential thing with the younger musicians now, that's not what I'm basing my ideas on.

But anyhow, by taking the band out on dances now, I would dissipate the band's power as a jazz band, a listening band, a show band. The bands in the '30s and '40s did it the other way around. They were basically dance bands; then the theater shows came along, and the bands that could put on a good show were successful. But at this point there would seem to be a good field for a real out-and-out jazz band, which is what I want. Most bands that have been put together lately have been trying to reach a happy medium, and this doesn't exist; they spoil the possibilities in both directions.

Feather: Do you find it easier to get sidemen than it was years ago? That the level of musicianship has advanced a lot?

Mulligan: Well, they cost more! But there have always been good players around. In fact, several in this band are guys I played in bands with in years past. There were always plenty of guys that had technical proficiency, but it took someone like Lester Young to come along and turn everybody around and show them a new way to use their technique; and then the same with Charlie Parker. So the kind of technical facility that these people brought into jazz has come to be an accepted thing — you either play that way or you can't play.

Feather: How about your soloists?

Mulligan: Well, I've approached this band on a very strict premise, which possibly doesn't always meet with the complete happiness of all the fellows in the band. In the sextet there were four soloists. To simplify our own problem and that of the audience, in this band, too, we have four basic solo chairs: I'm one, Brookmeyer is another, the trumpet and tenor are the others. To a great extent we restrict solos to these four chairs; as time goes on we'll find things that will provide a solo outlet for others. But first we want to establish some sort of basic approach to the band.

I've seen a lot of bands fall into a trap of spreading the solos around so everybody can play. Now these are known as musicians' bands, and one of the reasons they can never establish themselves with an audience is that the audience takes time to be able to understand the playing of each man, and so many players go by that they never really have a chance to hear anybody, so nothing really sticks in their minds.

Feather: Did you want to have Art Farmer on the band?

Mulligan: Well, all I can say is, I hope Art's band is a big failure so he has to come back with my band! No, actually, of course, Art's band was just wonderful when I heard it. I wish him nothing but ill.

Feather: About your movies. Do you think I Want to Live got the recognition it deserved for its musical achievements?

Mulligan: Listen, the fact that they not only didn't give Johnny Mandel an Oscar, but didn't even nominate him, just convinces me of the closed doors, the private little club that the movie composers have. And they say this is the first movie music Johnny wrote. Actually it's just the first he ever got credit for — a good part of the good jazz music that was heard in segments of other pictures was written by Johnny. They call that ghosting.

Feather: You did a little ghosting yourself, didn't you, I mean ghost playing?

Mulligan: Yes, in The Rat Race, they told me I was to play a bandleader on a cruise ship, but it turned out they were just throwing me a bone. It was a very small acting role and they really wanted me to play baritone for Tony Curtis — a ghost baritone voice. Well, I like Tony and I didn't want to be a bad guy, so I wound up doing it anyway.

In The Bells Are Ringing, my scene with Judy comes right at the beginning of the picture and the whole thing is slapstick. She told me she'd had no experience with this kind of thing, and I'd had less than none, so it's a wonder we didn't kill ourselves! Hitting each other in the head and breaking glasses and catching on fire ... But this opening is supposed to be building to a love story, and it should be a gentle buildup to her first love song, which she sings beautifully. But coming right after this comedy sequence really kills it for her, so I asked them, I said, "Well, it's nice, let's all show it to our grandchildren and all that sort of thing, but please cut it out of the picture." So they cut out one of her songs and they cut this scene and that scene. But our own scene, the one that was the root of the trouble, they left in!

Feather: Gerry, let's project a little into the future. What would you like to be doing, say, when you're 50 years old?

Mulligan: When I'm 50? Well, I'd like to be doing some of the same things as now — but I'd like to double on other horns, and play a lot more piano than I'm playing now. And I'd like to be a producer in various other fields besides jazz. I'd love to do some television production, with jazz used on a popular level.

I'd also like to produce for Broadway, because I love the theater. I think Leonard Bernstein created a great innovation when he integrated an orchestra into a show as he did with West Side Story ... Of course, these are all idle dreams at the back of my head, but they are possibilities.

As far as the immediate future is concerned, I'm glad to be getting into the position where I feel I'm able to call my own shots. I want to take this band out on the same level of prestige as my small bands. I'd like to package my own show built around the band; I'm sick of being booked on these miscellaneous package shows and I feel my name has drawing power enough to fill a hall.

The powerful sound-wave on the crest of which Gerald Joseph Mulligan is currently riding seems unlikely to diminish in intensity in the foreseeable future. After a long siege of hard times, he has found the artistic and economic security that for so many years seemed hopelessly out of reach.

Perhaps the best summation of Gerry's story, during the weeks I spent talking about him to past and present friends and associates, was offered by Chubby Jackson, who knew Jeru (as Miles Davis nicknamed him) back in the hungry '40s.

"Some people," said Jackson, "would say Gerry was stupid in his attitude, but in so many ways it was the most commendable thing he could do. Gerry wouldn't conform, would never give up his musical principles, even when it meant starvation. He played true to life the defiance that every musician of a creative nature feels. And he's finally made it. And I say, more power to him."

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Li'l Darlin'

May 6, 2019, 10:30 am

≫ Next: Milt Bernhart - by Gordon Jack

≪ Previous: Gerry Mulligan - After: Second of Two Articles by Leonard Feather

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Milt Bernhart - by Gordon Jack

May 7, 2019, 7:00 am

≫ Next: Bud Brisbois- "Woody 'n You"

≪ Previous: Li'l Darlin'

Gordon Jack is a frequent contributor to the Jazz Journaland a very generous friend in allowingJazzProfilesto re-publish many of his perceptive writings on these pages.

Gordon is the author of Fifties Jazz Talk An Oral Retrospectiveand he also developed the Gerry Mulligan discography in Raymond Horricks’ bookGerry Mulligan’s Ark.

The following article was first published in Jazz Journal Online on March 31 2019.

For more information and subscriptions please visit www.jazzjournal.co.uk

“Just occasionally a jazz solo becomes so well known that it transcends boundaries and becomes absorbed into the mainstream of popular music. Bobby Hackett on Glenn Miller’s String Of Pearls, Stan Getz with Astrud Gilberto on The Girl From Ipanema, Paul Desmond on Take Five and Phil Woods on Billy Joel’s Just The Way You Are all come to mind in that regard. There is another that should be added to that exclusive little company because on 12 January 1956 in the Capitol studios on Hollywood’s Melrose Avenue, Milt Bernhart recorded one of the most famous trombone solos of all time.

The occasion was Songs For Swingin’ Lovers! - Frank Sinatra’s masterpiece - and the tune was Cole Porter’s I’ve Got You Under My Skin arranged by Nelson Riddle. The singer often referred to it as “Nelson’s Shining Hour” although his evocative Folks Who Live On The Hill chart for Peggy Lee in 1957 runs it pretty close. It is rumoured to have needed about 17 takes including a number of false starts until everyone was satisfied. Pianist Lou Levy called it, “One of THE outstanding vocal arrangements” and at its conclusion the audience in the studio together with the orchestra applauded the principals – singer, arranger and trombone soloist. They obviously knew they had just witnessed something very special. A noteworthy feature of the arrangement after Sinatra’s first chorus is the ostinato or montuno by the trombone section – Jimmy Priddy, Juan Tizol, Milt Bernhart and George Roberts on bass trombone. Roberts’ part is particularly noteworthy as the tension is increased throughout the twelve bar vamp which was inspired by Bill Russo’s 23 Degrees North, 82 Degrees West recorded by Stan Kenton in 1952 which of course included George Roberts. Milt then launches into a swaggering eight bar statement gloriously full of buoyant joie de vivre to claim his little piece of jazz history. At the end of the performance Sinatra invited him into the control-booth to listen to the playback which was the greatest compliment he could give to the instrumentalist. Riddle was paid $150.00 (worth about $1,400.00 today) and in 2000 Songs For Swingin’ Lovers! was inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame. Just as an aside Quincy Jones once said, “Nelson wrote some of the greatest arrangements for vocalists I’ve ever heard”.

Milt Bernhart was born in the small town of Valparaiso in Indiana on 25 May 1926. He began on tuba before switching to the trombone when he was twelve. When he joined the union in Chicago he told Gene Lees in Friends Along The Way that he was called into President James Petrillo’s office who took a luger out of a drawer and laid it on the desk saying, “This is the way it is”. Petrillo had been selected by Al Capone who apparently controlled all the unions in Chicago at that time. He worked briefly with Boyd Raeburn in 1942 at the Bandbox but his first steady job was with Teddy Powell. Boots Mussulli, Pete Candoli and Charlie Ventura were in the band and when Ventura left Milt recommended his friend the 18 year old Lee Konitz as a replacement. This meant he had all the hot tenor solos to play and years later Lee told me he found this very difficult. Apparently the first time he stood up to perform Powell walked off the stage and started banging his head against the wall. About a month later the band disbanded because of the leader’s tax problems with the IRS.

Bernhart was drafted in late 1944 and eventually served in an army band based at the Presidio, San Francisco. On discharge in 1946 he played briefly with Tom Talbert’s rehearsal band in Los Angeles which included Art Pepper, Steve White and Claude Williamson. When he returned to Chicago Konitz recommended that he start studying with Lennie Tristano. He told Lees that he found Tristano, “Very opinionated with ideas of what you should eat and what you should wear”. The first tune he usually played with students was I Can’t Get Started but Milt apparently found it difficult coping with Tristano’s advanced harmonies and one lesson was really enough for him. Years later Lennie encountered Bernhart’s playing again when he was a guest on Leonard Feather’s Blindfold test in 1971. This was his reaction to Milt’s solo on Stan Kenton’s Solitaire,”A very good trombone player…a little too much vibrato to suit me but a lot of personal warmth”.

1946 was the year Bob Gioga telephoned with an invitation to join Kenton. Bob had been with Stan since the beginning in 1940 not only as a very reliable baritone sax man but also as the band’s manager handling the payroll. Milt joined in Indianapolis and a few months later at a residency at the Paramount Theatre with Nat King Cole’s Trio and June Christy the section was expanded to five trombones. (Kenton really loved the instrument. Basie, Ellington and Herman usually managed with three sometimes four but never five). Bernhart told Lees, “Kai Winding was the star soloist…he made it very clear that he was going to play all the lead trombone parts. We got so we weren’t really speaking. He didn’t want me on the band and rarely said anything friendly”. Despite that he felt, “Kai was as pure a jazz player as I knew and a good one. He was the most important player in the band”. Due to ill-health, Kenton disbanded for a while in 1947 which was when Milt re-joined Boyd Raeburn briefly in a band that included the Candoli brothers, Wes Hensel, Buddy DeFranco and David Allyn.

In late 1947 Kenton organised a new band which performed under the Progressive Jazz banner. Bob Gioga called Milt again who was pleased to find that Winding would not be included as he was working on the Perry Como Show. He was now the lead trombone and over the next few years his velvet tones were featured on several numbers including Journey To Brazil, Somnambulism, Machito, Soliloquy, Salute and one of the Stan’s biggest hit – The Peanut Vendor. He was also in the band for Orange Coloured Sky which was another big Kenton hit featuring Nat King Cole. He left Kenton for a while around 1948 because of the heavy travelling although he did return occasionally.

At Lee Konitz’s suggestion he joined Benny Goodman who was forming a band with some of the younger musicians like Fats Navarro, Zoot Sims, Wardell Gray, Doug Mettome, Eddie Bert and Buddy Greco. The writing was handled by John Carisi, Gerry Mulligan, Chico O’Farrill and Tadd Dameron because Benny said he wanted to explore a more bebop approach. His heart was not really in it as he showed when he wanted Konitz to use a Hymie Schertzer-like vibrato. After several weeks of unpaid rehearsals Konitz, Navarro, Sims and Mulligan had all left and by the time Benny took the band to Las Vegas he had dropped most of the new charts preferring to play his old standbys like Let’s Dance, Don’t Be That Way and King Porter Stomp.

One packed Saturday night at the Flamingo Goodman stopped the band and sacked Wardell Gray in the middle of Memories Of You and an incredulous audience watched him walk off the stage carrying his tenor and clarinet. He had been billed as “The Featured Sax Star” and had a six month contract so Benny had to keep him. He later switched Wardell to second tenor and Eddie Wasserman handled his solos while he worked out his notice. Milt told Lees that he began to “Hate Benny Goodman”. He left the band later when they reached the Palladium in Los Angeles.

He went back to Kenton for a while and then began working with Howard Rumsey at the Lighthouse with Shorty Rogers, Jimmy Giuffre and Bud Shank for $25.00 a night. One of the first recordings he did with Rumsey was Big Boy which became something of a juke-box hit. It was a feature for some pretty raunchy blowing from Jimmy Giuffre who showed that he could have had a successful career as a rock’n’roll tenor-man in the style of Rudy Pompilli or Sam Butera if he had wanted. In January 1953 he was part of a nine-piece Shorty Rogers group that replicated the Miles Davis Birth of the Cool line-up with one change – Jimmy Giuffre’s tenor replaced Gerry Mulligan’s baritone. The date featured Art Salt who was better known as Art Pepper. Two months later he recorded again on Shorty’s seminal Cool And Crazy album and was featured on Tale Of An African Lobster and The Sweetheart Of Sigmund Freud.

The fifties was a prolific decade for Bernhart with Tom Lord’s jazz discography listing approximately 180 albums. It is unknown how many purely commercial dates he was called for at this time. His solo abilities are well showcased on a 1954 date with some of the most inventive soloists on the west coast - Don Fagerquist, Herb Geller and Jimmy Giuffre. Three months later he made his debut as a leader with an octet including Shorty Rogers, Bud Shank and Bob Cooper. Although Bill Harris and Jack Jenney are acknowledged influences his Lover Man feature here recalls some smooth, Tommy Dorsey-like legato magic. Incidentally Roy Crimmins once told Steve Voce, “Milt’s is the greatest sound that I have ever heard on the trombone”. A consummate sight-reader he became a member of the Columbia Pictures Staff Orchestra in 1955. The door to the movie world had opened for several jazz musicians around that time after they performed on Marlon Brando’s The Wild One (1954) and Frank Sinatra’s The Man With The Golden Arm (1955).

He also became a first call player for big band studio dates backing artist like the Four Freshmen, Ella Fitzgerald, Frances Faye, Louis Armstrong, Patti Page, June Christy, Harry Belafonte, Billy Daniels, Bing Crosby, Anita O’Day and Nancy Wilson to name but a few. In 1966 Herb Alpert produced the first Sergio Mendes & Brazil ’66 album for the A & M label. The sleeve-note mysteriously refers to an “Unknown Trombone” on Agua De Beber. After repeated listening and further investigation it has become apparent that the elegant soloist here is none other than Milt Bernhart.

Music tastes changed quite radically in the sixties – “Rock was everywhere” - and Milt who could see the writing on the wall was getting less calls for sessions. Synthesisers became popular and there were fewer films being made needing large orchestras although he continued working on the Jerry Lewis and Glen Campbell TV shows. His last jazz recording was a 1971 Lalo Schifrin date titled Rock Requiem. Two years later he took over a travel agency business on West Sunset Boulevard and in 1983 he became president of the Big Band Academy Of America.

In 2000 he was a guest at a Stan Kenton event in the U.K. where he talked about the band’s trombone sections over the years. He had his trombone with him and performed brief unaccompanied snatches of How Long Has This been Going On?, Solitaire and The Peanut Vendor demonstrating that his lip was still very much in trim. A charming and witty raconteur he was also very complimentary about Ted Heath’s trombone section. An added bonus was his autobiographical lyric which he sang to the melody of Stephen Sondheim’s classic hymn to survival - I’m Still Here from the show Follies. After a period of ill health he died in Glendale, California on 22 January 2004.”

Selected Discography:

As Leader

Milt Bernhart: His Octet And His Brass Ensemble (Jazz City Series FSR 2214)

As Sideman

Frank Sinatra: Songs For Swingin’ Lovers! (Capitol Records CDP7-45670-2)

Shorty Rogers And His Orchestra: Cool & Crazy (RCA 74321610582)

John Graas: Jazz Studio 1/2 (Lonehill Jazz LHJ10145)

Maynard Ferguson: Hollywood Jam Sessions (Fresh Sound Records FSR CD 383)

Stan Kenton (Classics F 1039CD)

Stan Kenton (Properbox E 13CD)

The Sinatra Family Forum lists 40 of the singer’s albums with Milt Bernhart in the orchestra performing under the batons of Jay Blackton, Billy May, Bill Miller, Lyn Murray, Sy Oliver, Nelson Riddle, Morris Stoloff and Axel Stordahl from 1953 to 1977.

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