JazzWax

Lester Young, Singer

"Everyone, when he first started, thought: This man, his tone is too thin, you know? A tenor sax! Everybody thinks it has to be real big; and Lester used to go out of his mind to sound big, like Chu Berry (he was very popular in those days). And I told Lester, 'It doesn't matter because' I said, 'you have a beautiful tone and you  watch. After a while everybody's going to be copying you.' And it came to be."  —Billie Holiday in Nat Hentoff's Jazz Is (1976).

"If you were a hype [heroin addict], most record companies wouldn't have anything to do with you. But Norman [Granz] built his labels on junkies. In the bebop era it was hard to have a jazz label if you didn't deal with hypes. Norman had Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Lester Young, and most of the known users, including me."  —Anita O'Day in High Times Hard Times (1981)

Lester Young was a vocalist's tenor saxophonist. All the great female singers loved his velvety tone and patient, emotional delivery. It's easy to hear why—especially during his 1950-52 Savoy and Verve period.

By the early 1950s, Young's solos no longer had the world by the tail. A series of painful events took the punch out of Prez. Instead, his tenor assumed a smokey, reflective resonance that reeked of sorrow, regret and resignation.

For this reason I think of Prez during the period and until his death in 1959 more as a vocalist than a saxophonist. No one except a great jazz or blues singer could crawl inside a song like Prez and shake it to its emotional core. Billie could do it. So could Anita.

So could Sinatra during his heartbreak period for Capitol in 1953-54 (I'm thinking here of his ballad work on My One and Only Love, Anytime, Anywhere, Half as Lovely, From Here to Eternity and It Worries Me). While Sinatra credited Billie Holiday as a major inspiration for his timing and swinging approach, you just know he also listened to a lot of Prez. All smart vocalists did, especially when they needed a refresher on how to feel and let go while singing.

Great jazz singers have a certain intimate, first-hand knowledge of the stories they are telling. So did Prez, who took everyday popular songs during this period and transformed them into new works of art. Producer Norman Granz knew in his gut the formula would work with Prez, and he was right, perhaps more so than with any other artist he recorded.

Sure, the songs' original writers and lyricists were a sentimental bunch and could turn a phrase. But only tender jazz vocalists—and Prez—could personalize a song and make you feel as if they not only lived the words but also wrote them.

If you don't own a Lester Young album—or even if you own them all—take a re-listen to Lester Young with the Oscar Peterson Trio, recorded on November 28, of 1952 for Norman Granz's Norgran label (now Verve).

If you know nothing about jazz, this should be your first jazz album. If you know a lot about jazz, a fresh listen will remind you why Prez was so great during this period. Many critics have unfairly dismissed Prez's Verve years as too light and filmy compared with the swinging sewing-machine aggression of his Basie years. I view the two periods as work by two very different artists—Prez the swing giant (Basie) and Prez the saloon singer (Savoy and Verve).

A re-listen of Lester Young and the Oscar Peterson Trio should confirm what I'm saying here. Prez plays so pretty on the album. It's as if he's singing right through his horn, and in many ways he is. To fully appreciate the album, you have to think of it as Lester Young Sings with the Oscar Peterson Trio. His level of sensitivity was so high that it melts your heart, especially if you know the words to all of the songs played. Every track is great, but I defy you to put on There Will Never Be Another You and not feel something.

This track represents everything that jazz is. Prez is seductive, emotional and joyful. But most of all, he's climbing right through the speakers for your soul. Following the opener, in which he sends plenty of air through the mouthpiece, he jumps up the pace—but only a tad. The song remains a ballad.

Or listen to I Can't Get Started, with Barney Kessel's guitar chords forming a lush platform for Prez's melancholy tenor lines. Or listen to Peterson's Basie-esque backup to Prez's spirited runs on Ad Lib Blues. And dig that ending, where Prez decides he's said enough and Oscar must figure out how wind down the tune fast. Clever old Oscar.

This is an album of pure joy and sums up all that jazz is—blues, sentiment and story-telling Except on this album, you don't need the songs' words. If you have a heart, you already know them.

Wax tracks: Lester Young with the Oscar Peterson Trio is available in many forms on CD—appearing under Young's and Peterson's names. Please do not download it or purchase individual tracks. You really must buy the CD. Just be sure that you purchase a version that has been remastered. An import is preferable. You need a copy so crisp that you can hear Prez's breathing and fingers working the pads.

Mixology: For fun, listen to Prez's There Will Never Be Another You. Then listen to Sinatra's Anytime, Anywhere (Capitol, May 1953). Then listen to Prez play the song again, followed by Sinatra's It Worries Me (Capitol, May 1954). Interesting, right?

Interview: Danny Bank on Bird

Yesterday was Charlie Parker's birthday. Bird would have been 87 years old had he lived to this ripe old age. Instead he collapsed on March 12, 1955, in Baroness Pannonica's suite at the Hotel Stanhope on New York's Fifth Ave. at age 34 following years of drug abuse.

In celebration of Bird's birthday, the album I chose to listen to all day yesterday was Night and Day (Verve)—available on iTunes as the Genius of Charlie Parker Vol.  1: Night and Day or Charlie Parker: Big Band. The album features Bird backed by a powerful big band, which included Danny Bank on baritone saxophone.

Bank is probably the last surviving member of this date, and I had the good fortune to speak with him yesterday. But more about Bank in a minute.

The Parker album is fabulous. It ropes together three different recording sessions that featured different big band configurations—some with strings, some without. That's because these sessions were originally recorded for 78 rpm release, and the platters were issued individually. The album brought them together.

The high point for me are four tracks recorded on March 25, 1952—Night and Day, I Can't Get Started, What Is This Thing Called Love and Almost Like Being in Love.

I've always liked these recordings better than the rest because  a big band alone is backing Bird (sans syrupy strings), and the Joe Lipman band arrangements sound so crisp and early 1950s—before recording techniques got cute.

You can almost hear the old gunmetal recording studio reverberate as the band explodes with each brassy crescendo. The recording gear back then just barely captured the charts and ferocity of the musicianship. The guys on this date included Flip Philips, Al Porcino, Oscar Peterson, Freddie Green, Don Lamond and other top club, session and studio players in New York at the time.

March of 1952 is an interesting period for another reason. The West Coast hadn't emerged yet as the TV and  recording mecca it would become, and New York still retained much of the musical and old-guard engineering talent. This was a major transition period for the recording industry, as 78rpms gave way to the longer playing 33 1/3 LPs. As a result, this recording has a nice, warm leathery sound.

When I took the album out yesterday morning and looked it over, I spotted Danny Bank, the baritone saxophonist, in the personnel. I had heard he was still around, which meant he was probably the last surviving member of this March 1952 recording date.

So I picked up the phone and tracked down Danny, who is now 85 and as sharp as a tack. He graciously spent time on the phone with me reminiscing about the date.

First a word about Bank. He was one of the leading session baritones of the 1940s and 1950s, appearing on almost every major big band album of the period. To name a few, his session discography includes Charlie Barnet's early 1940s band, Artie Shaw's bop band of the late 1940s, Miles Davis and Gil Evans Miles Ahead orchestra of 1957 and Gene Krupa's all-star studio band of 1958—which recorded baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan's arrangements. That alone tells you how Mulligan felt about fellow baritone player Bank. On every recording I own with Bank on bari, he's exceptional.

Bank was one of those session musicians who could walk into a studio minutes before a recording, sit down in front of an unfamiliar chart and ace his part on the first take—no matter how tough the writing. And back then, with bop in vogue, these charts were tough to read, let alone read cold.

Bank also had one of the firmest tones. His instrument's every grunt and bark can be heard cutting through the rest of the brass on every album. Which is why I've always loved Danny's playing. As you can imagine, it was a joy to speak with him finally.

Here's how Danny remembered Bird and the March 1952 big band date:

"By the time we recorded those four tracks, Charlie [Parker] was already a friend. We first met at a club that's now gone called Charlie's Tavern [on 51st St., between Broadway and 7th Ave.]. Many jazz musicians hung out there after playing on 52d St. I'd often have a beer with Charlie and talk, and I'd give him lifts home to his apartment on the Lower East Side after gigs.

"I've always been a big band player, a session guy. I was working so often back then I'd get called to play on several recording dates a day. They'd hire me because I was a strong reader. I saved them overtime. They didn’t have to deal with extra costs because I didn’t make mistakes. I also was close friends with one of the busiest copyists in New York at the time. The copyist was the guy who wrote the sheet music for each player from the arranger's score. Whenever there was a big date coming up, he would tip me off.

"One day I said to Charlie, 'If you ever get to do a big band date, call me.' So in 1952, he did. When I walked into the Reeves Studio that morning at around 9 am, Charlie was the first one there. He was the sole person in the room. Charlie only had his alto sax and a couple of sheets of paper with names of the tunes and the order and how much time each one would last. No music. He didn't need music.

"The guy was a genius. If he heard something once, it was right there in the tips of his fingers. There was no rehearsal that morning. Small labels couldn't afford it. If you did rehearse in the studio, the union required that we get paid the same as the record date.

"I remember, Charlie stood across the sax section, on the other side, near the altos. I was near the door. When the session started at 10 am, we read through and played each of the four songs a few times. I think we completed all four songs in a little over an hour. Then we were gone for lunch, and I was on to my next recording session. This was a big moment for all of us there.  We were all in awe. Proud to be there. That was a great day for me.

"Bird had some ear. He and I used to stay at same hotel, the Bryant on 54th St., which is no longer there. Bird would stay there when he gigged especially late and didn't want to go home downtown. In the mornings, I used to practice on the clarinet and flute in my room. Those instruments are perfect for practicing on in small rooms. The baritone is much too loud.

"One morning, sometime in 1951, I think, I took out one of the Sonatas for Woodwind by Hindemith and used it to practice. That night, after I played on two or three recording dates that day, I went to Birdland to hear Charlie play.

"As soon as he saw me come into the club, he started to pay the Hindemith Sonata I had played earlier while laughing through his mouthpiece. Bird had been listening to me through the walls! His ear was so amazing that he played what I practiced from memory when he saw me that night.

"One day, not long afterward, I remember driving Charlie home at about 4 am. As we’re going downtown, I said, 'Charlie, how come you don’t play the clarinet, like Lester Young? He plays beautifully. Do you play?' Charlie said that he did, for himself. I asked why he didn't play the clarinet in public or on an album. He laughed. 'Well, man, I like to play jazz on my alto, sometimes on the tenor. But I don't like to play up here,' he said, using a squeaky high voice [laughing]. He loved to play in the middle register."

To give you a sense of how influential Bank's hotel room playing of Hindemith was, Parker not long after the 1952 recording date insisted that Clef Records put together a session inspired by Hindemith's Kleine Kammermusik, according to Nat Hentoff in an interview in the January 28, 1953 issue of Down Beat.

So arranger Gil Evans scored four songs for a classical woodwind quintet (flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon and French horn) and a jazz rhythm section. Dave Lambert wrote for a small chorus that was added. As Bill Kirchner says in the liners notes from the Charlie Parker: Big Band re-issue (1999), "it was an interesting failure."

Bird had trouble playing along with the vocal group, which wound up sounding too marshmallow mainstream and sappy hip. However, the sessions are fascinating and are part of the Charlie Parker: Big Band CD, complete with false starts so you can hear firsthand what a struggle those dates were.

If only Bank had chosen a different practice book at the Bryant Hotel!

Wax tracks: If you don't want to buy or download Charlie Parker: Big Band from iTunes, download Night and Day, which is cheaper. Or at least download Almost Like Being in Love. This track is from the March 1952 date.

Listen to the punch of that band! And listen for Bank's growling baritone . Bird is razor cutting all the way through, as the band becomes more ferocious, almost competing with Bird to see who can send the recording needles into the red zone. The track runs 2 minuets and 33 seconds, but it's all solid. And dig Don Lamond's driving drums.

Wax clip: While there are no video clips of Bird with this big band, you can get a sense of Danny Bank's versatility from this clip of The Duke. It's remarkable rehearsal footage from the 1957 Miles Davis-Gil Evans Miles Ahead session for Columbia. Clearly Gil forgave Bank for turning Bird onto Hindemith!

The clip opens on a blackboard with the musicians' names written in chalk. Watch carefully as the camera pans—you'll see Danny Bank's name listed under "Wood Winds." Bank is sitting just to conductor Gil Evans' left, on bass clarinet. This was a major run-through session, which produced one of the first jazz concept albums and a breathtaking orchestral suite perfectly married to Miles' contemplative style.

If you own an album of a major band or orchestra from the 1940s or 1950s, Bank was almost certainly there. Check your liner notes. His importance and contribution cannot be underestimated. I'll have more with Danny Bank down the road. There's a lot of ground and history to cover with him.

Happy birthday, Bird!

Phineas in the Shadows

Jazz is something of a "sunken treasure" art form. There were so many brilliant musicians sailing the musical seas in the 1940s and 1950s that invariably some wound up sinking or forgotten over time. That's why I'm always thrilled when I re-discover someone I've overlooked or never had the time to explore fully.

One of those "lost" musicians is Phineas Newborn, Jr. Newborn was an amazingly talented and percussive pianist who came up in the mid-1950s, ran into mental health problems in the early 1960s just as jazz was losing ground fast to popular music, returned after his rehabilitation, but never became the star he was meant to be because popular music and jazz tastes had changed abruptly. Phinaes (pronounced "Fine-us") fell between the cracks. He died in 1989.

Newborn is truly spectacular. Stylistically, he's a cross between Oscar Peterson and Sonny Clark. I kid you not. Newborn's technique is sterling, showcasing flawless dual-hand runs and feathery right-hand solos—and often combining the two.

Newborn in many ways was better than Peterson. His runs on the piano are gentle and caressing compared with Peterson, who tears across the keys much too frequently and with a careless flourish that sounds more like a backhand blow than a touch of flare.

Newborn's runs are much more delicate and seductive, as if he's running his fingers through the music's hair. In fact, his fingering is so gentle you imagine the keys are happily dropping down on their own just before Newborn's fingers reach them.

Newborn told an interviewer in 1978 after a gig at New York's  Village Gate:

"One of my favorite piano players was Nat Cole. He paved the way for lots of exciting things to happen. He influenced me quite a lot. As a matter of fact, I think that’s one reason why Oscar Peterson and I sound so much alike. The same people influenced us more or less. Art Tatum and I enjoyed Bud Powell’s playing. Fats Waller, I liked him very much. He was one of my favorites. I used to do his Honeysuckle Rose."

But Newborn isn't all show and technique, which is what I like most about him. Like Sonny Clark, he has a tender, deliberate touch, always advancing his ideas with a certain urgency and impatience, and resolving them in interesting places.

Newborn's rising career was cut short in the early 1960s, when he suffered a nervous breakdown. Legend has it that leading jazz critics of the time roughed him up in print over his lighter fare for Contemporary Records, a West Coast label.

As a result of his mental collapse, Newborn spent time at Camarillo State Hospital in California's Ventura County, the same institution that played host to Charlie Parker after his drug-induced spin out and arrest during a West Coast tour in 1946.

Whether Newborn was really a victim of wilding jazz critics or simply suffered from mental illness in an age before proper treatment and meds is unknown. What is clear is his enormous talent—and that those jazz critics who piled on were dead wrong.

For film buffs, that's Newborn playing with Charles Mingus on the soundtrack of John Cassavetes' 1957 film, Shadows. If you are unfamiliar with Shadows, rent it. Cassavetes was the father of independent film, and Shadows was his courageous dramatic look at three siblings in an African-American family in New York in the 1950s. Here are Cassavetes' reflections on the score, from Ray Carney's Cassavetes on Cassavetes (2001):

"We  were a little bit crazy in those days, very pure. first we were going to use Miles Davis, but then he signed with Columbia Records and I got so angry I didn't want to use him. Anyway, someone said there was this great improvisational artist down in the Village who'd cut a few records, so I listened to a couple and oh!--this guy was wonderful! Charlie Mingus...We get together to record. So, double session, three hours, double session with the projectionist sitting there, and I'm watching. He's got fourteen seconds' worth of music. Everybody's saying, 'Why don't you you just tell Charlie to improvise?' All the advice then starts. So I said, 'Come on Charlie. You guys can improvise. You're wonderful, you can do that off the themes you have.' 'No, man--can't do it. Can't do it.' We're artists. It's gotta be written.'

"They did some of the score, improvised the rest; Charlie sang 'Leaning on Jesus' and played some piano, and Phineas Newborn, Jr.. took over the bass. So I said to Charlie,' Charlie, Charlie it was great. it's perfect for the picture.' He says, 'Man, I got to work six more months. It's going to take me a long time, you know. I went to Julliard.' That first session he had about two and a half minutes of music...

"Jazz musicians are all Raskolnikovs. They have these little tin weapons--they don't shoot; they don't go anywhere. The jazz musician doesn't deal with structured life. He just wants that night, like a kid."

When Newborn returned to the jazz scene in the late 1960s, music had changed and jazz musicians were no longer intellectual and artistic stars—and they didn't have much hope of ever regaining the status they held in the 1950s. A racial attack took Newborn out of the playing circuit in 1974, when he was admitted to the hospital with a cracked jawbone, broken nose and several broken fingers.

Interestingly, the day Newborn was discharged from the hospital he went to Ardent recording studios and recorded a Grammy nominated album, Solo Piano.

Newborn deserves a fresh listen, especially his late 1950s and  1960s recordings. It's a shame he isn't a household name among jazz fans.

Wax tracks: Two wonderful Newborn albums are We Three (1958) and Harlem Blues (1969). The energy and delicate touch are most evident on both albums but especially on Ray's Idea and Tenderly from Harlem Blues.

But my all-time favorite Newborn album is A World of Piano! Everyone should own this one. All of his tricks are displayed, and his Lush Life is perhaps my all-time favorite version of this Billy Strayhorn ballad—by any jazz musician.

I know, I know, how can I say something like that. Go ahead, you listen to it and you e-mail me if I'm wrong.

Wax  clip: Before you get crazy writing about which version of Lush Life rules, have a look at Newborn playing the song from A World of Piano! here. So much for that e-mail, right?

Newborn is as good as jazz piano gets. It's time he got his due.

 

Teachout on Pops

When critic Terry Teachout isn't blogging on the arts,  writing his weekly theater review for the Wall St. Journal, penning the libretto for an opera, or banging out the many columns he scribes for magazines and newspapers, he's hard at work writing what will certainly be the definitive biography and critical evaluation of Louis Armstrong.

On Tuesday, Terry provided a sneak peak of Hotter Than That by offering up a slice from a 10,000-word chapter on Louis in 1929 at his blog:

"The results [of recording I Can't Give You Anything But Love in 1929] exemplified the recipe for a three-chorus solo [Louis] had shared with the New Orleans trumpeter Wingy Manone: 'The first chorus I plays the melody, the second chorus I plays the melody round the melody, and the third chorus I routines.' They also showed that he could make a ballad sound as jazzy as a blues, a lesson that was not lost on his contemporaries."

Bravo! Go here to read the rest of Terry's terrific blog entry on Pops.

Lockjaw Takes Charge

Count Basie completed two tours of Great Britain in 1957—the first in April and the second just after recording The Atomic Basie for Roulette Records. Both tours were critical hits, according to Melody Maker, the London music magazine popular at the time. The second tour even included a command performance for Queen Elizabeth at London's Palladium theater.

Eddie Lockjaw Davis was on hand for that fall tour, having returned to the Basie band over the summer of 1957, just before the band's Atomic date.

Lockjaw Davis was a confident, no-nonsense tenor saxophonist whose sound was infused with a raw, roadhouse sense of the blues. Lockjaw knew only one way—a full, rich, exciting sound that was both relentless and soulful. He also had an entertainer's knack for the dramatic, handling his tenor as though it were made of balsa wood. As Lockjaw explained in Stanley Dance's The World of Count Basie (1980), there was a reason why he always gave his tenor a little heave after every solo:

"I deliberately handle the horn the way I do, to show I'm its master! I've always noticed how delicately so many tenor players handle it, as though it were fragile, as though it commanded them. I try to show that I have command of the horn at all times, whether I'm playing or just holding it. You take charge, it's yours, and I want the audience to feel I'm in complete command. Otherwise you can give the impression the horn is too big for you, whether you play it well or not. The visual impression is quite important."

This Basie band in the fall of 1957 was spectacular. It also was unusual, in that the reed section featured three tenors—Frank Wess, Frank Foster and Lockjaw Davis—instead of the customary two.

The reason for the trio had to do with evolving personnel changes. During this period, Basie was forced to  replace three chairs: trombonist Al Grey was in for a departing Bill Hughes; trumpeter Snookie Young joined when Renauld Jones left; and the return of Lockjaw (a Basie favorite) forced  Frank Wess to learn the alto charts when alto saxophonist Billy Graham gave notice at about the same time.

"That's how we happened to have three tenor soloists on that [Atomic] album, the two Franks and also Lockjaw, who got the meat on Flight of the Foo Birds, After Supper, Whirly Bird and Double-O," said Basie in Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography of Count Basie (1985).

Frank Foster—who had replaced Jaws four years earlier— recalled the worrisome musical shadow cast by Jaws' arrival during a 1992 interview with Bob Bernotas:

"Jaws was Basie's sweetheart when it came to the tenor. He fit the band so well 'til I felt intimidated every time Jaws played. I even had more of a hangup trying to fit with the band during that time. And some of my recorded solos with the Basie orchestra are things that I'm not very proud of."

That second tour of England in the fall of 1957 was Lockjaw's first trip there. But his big, strong American sax at the dawn of rock and roll was the real deal to young British audiences hungry for musical honesty and energy. Besides, Lockjaw's recordings with small jazz groups were already well know in the UK. British fans lined up to hear him with the Basie band and cheered every wide-body solo.

Jaws' popularity in Britain even unnerved Basie. During the flight home, Jaws, nursing a scotch and milk, began to hint about starting a group. But before he could raise the issue of leaving the band, Basie beat him to it:

"You need your own thing," Basie recalled telling Jaws in Good Morning Blues.

" 'Now, look, when we get back, my joint [Count Basie's on Seventh Ave. and 132d St.] will be ready to open in about a month or something like that. Why don't you go and work in there? That's what you need.'

"And he said, 'What are you talking about?'

'You want a job with your own thing?' I said. 'You got a job in there.'

He just looked at me. I said, 'See how you like it. Because you need your group. I don't know why you broke it up nohow.'

He didn't say anything for a minute or so, and then he said, 'Well, you know, maybe...' "

That's how Lockjaw left Basie the second time. Jaws played Count Basie's club and other jazz spots in New York, forming a popular trio with Shirley Scott on organ and Arthur Edgehill on drums. And Frank Wess, much to his relief, went back to playing tenor in Basie's reed section.

Then on June 20, 1958, Lockjaw's organ trio went into Rudy Van Gelder's studio in New Jersey to record the first of their many soulful, bluesy dates for Prestige Records. The result was The Eddie Lockjaw Davis Cookbook, Vol. 1.

I spent much of yesterday listening to the CD, which was remastered in 2006 and includes Jerome Richardson (on tenor and flute) and George Duvivier (on bass). Its probably one of Lockjaw's best albums. Lockjaw plays with assertiveness and authority. He's completely in charge, and each track has a different feel.

I also mixed in the Atomic Basie album to hear Lockjaw's fabulous solos prior to the Cookbook date. This was a great period for Lockjaw. He was on top of his game. No wonder so many rock and roll tenors tried so hard to emulate and exaggerate that big, edgy sound so effective in working crowds up into a frenzy.

Wax tracks: The two stunners on Cookbook/Vol. 1 are In the Kitchen, a rich smokey blues, and the standard But Beautiful. The remastered CD offers a previously unissued alternate take of But Beautiful, and it's a tough call which version comes out ahead. Download these tracks at iTunes—or buy the album for about $12. You only live once.

Wax clips: If you want to see what the fuss was all about, here's Lockjaw in the late 1950s with the Basie band. Talk about cool heat. And here's Lockjaw with Basie in the late 1960s playing on Cherokee (dig how he handles that tenor!) and Magic Flea.

Enough said. Lockjaw always came to play. Now imagine catching these guys in a small jazz club like Birdland. One can only dream...

Bill Evans on High

The fall of 1962 was nearly disastrous for Bill Evans. The pianist's heroin addiction was out of control, and his life and career were in disarray. To feed his creeping narcotics habit, Evans had recorded voraciously between April and August of that year, with the Interplay session for Riverside of August 21-22 being his last studio date until December.

As the fall of 1962 began, Evans was suffering personally and drifting musically. Two turning points saved his career:

The first was a booking into the Village Vanguard. Since the  death of bassist Scott LaFaro in a July 1961 auto accident, the Bill Evans Trio was without a bass player of merit. In the autumn of 1962, Evans was playing different club dates in New York, including a long run at the Hickory House on 52d St. using bassist Hal Gaylor. But when Evans moved into the Village Vanguard, Chuck Israels was on bass along with Paul Motion on drums.

Critic, producer and lyricist Gene Lees, who was like a brother to Evans at the time, relates the following in Peter Pettinger's book, Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings:

"During ten weeks at the Hickory House, the thing just wasn't happening for the trio. But suddenly, during the Village Vanguard engagement, it began. The change is startling, reflected even in Evans' appearance and morale. A certain wisful lethargy that had crept into his playing is gone. His ballads are as extradordinarly evocative and lovely as they were in LaFaro's time, and his uptempo things seem, to me, at least—even stronger than before."

At the Vanguard, says Lees, Israels challenged Evans and raised his morale. (Unfortunately, no recordings that I'm aware of exist of these turning-point club dates.)

The second turning point was the hiring of a new manager. Thanks to Lees, Evans' contract with two managers—Bert Block and Joe Glaser—was invalidated, since the dual arrangement  was a union oversight and infraction. This opened the door for manager Helen Keane, who heard Evans during his fall run at the Vanguard. "Bill and I met and liked each other immediately," she says in Pettinger's book. Fortunately her management business was doing well. "I was able to give the dedication and commitment to Bill and build him without starving to death."

By the end of 1962, Evans' Riverside Records contract was about to end and a new one with Verve was starting. It's during this period—on the heels of his seminal run at the Vanguard— that Evans recorded what I believe is one of his most delicate and least-known albums.

The album is The Gary McFarland Orchestra/Special Guest Soloist: Bill Evans.

Like Evans, McFarland—a cutting-edge vibraphonist, composer and arranger—had just joined Verve. McFarland, according to Lees, was in awe of Evans and wanted to record with him. So Lees functioned as go-between, bringing the pair together for a recording session.

McFarland wrote and arranged six songs, and they were recorded over two dates—December 18, 1962 and January 24, 1963. McFarland's compact 11-piece "orchestra" for the date included Jim Hall on guitar, Phil Woods on alto and Ed Shaughnessy on drums as well as four strings.

But Evans initially was a no-show, says Lees in the liner notes of a recent re-issue of the album:

"Bill was badly strung out on heroin at the time and would often be late because he was out on the perpetual search for junk. I won't say Gary was in a panic—he was much too together for that—but he went ahead and rehearsed the orchestra just hoping Bill would turn up. Bill came to that session with the orchestra already prepared, and Bill sight read that stuff. It was the most astonishing feat of musicianship you could possibly imagine."

McFarland met a strange and sad end. In November 1971, he was at a New York City bar with a friend and consumed a drink that contained liquid methadone, which triggered a heart attack that killed him instantly. Evans, of course, died in September of 1980.

In my opinion, this album is vastly underrated and pretty much overlooked. If you dig Bill Evans, add it to your collection. The mood McFarland created for this album is brooding, light and fabulous. I spent yesterday listening to it again and again, perhaps upward of 20 times. It never disappointed and was filled with surprises.

Wax tracks: Unfortunately, The Gary McFarland Orchestra/ Special Guest Soloist: Bill Evans, is not available at iTunes. But you can buy a reissued and remastered import from the UK here for about $19.

The standout on the album for me is Peachtree, which showcases Evans' transformed approach and splendid chord runs just as Gene Lees heard them during this period. Though it's Gary's date, it's truly a jazz portrait of Bill Evans.

Wax clips: If you want to see and hear what Evans, Chuck Israels and Paul Motian sounded like during their Village Vanguard run in the spring of 1962—before Israels departed the trio and then returned in the fall—check out this clip and this one. Both were taped for an NBC TV show called Camera Three and are part of the famed Francis Paudras collection.

 

Dizzy, Johnny and Frank

As has become custom on Sundays, here's a roundup of jazz bits, e-mails and reflections:

Waxflash: I hear that Uptown Records—the same label that mastered and released the Charlie Parker/Dizzy Gillespie 1945 Town Hall Concert a couple years back—is preparing to issue a double CD of Dizzy Gillespie's 1946 big band recorded live.

Word is that while the material is from the "primary source," the sound still isn't great. But we'll see. Uptown Records does an amazing job with everything it releases.

The recordings in question would be the June and July 1946 dates at the Spotlight Lounge in Washington, DC. Dizzy's band at the time included Sonny Stitt on tenor, Leo Parker on baritone, Thelonious Monk on piano, Milt Jackson on vibes, Ray Brown on bass and Kenny Clarke on drums.

Yikes. This band's studio recordings for RCA are pure roars—the power and energy level are amazing. It's somewhat  frightening to think what this bop band sounded like in a live, club setting. Looking forward to the upcoming CD release.

Waxwaves: I had a chance to listen to Night Lights live over the web late last night. Night Lights is an NPR jazz radio show hosted by David Brent Johnson on WFIU Indiana. This week the focus was on Johnny Mandel's and Gerry Mulligan's movie soundtrack, I Want to Live (1958), a pure jazz score that featured Mulligan, the ever-spirited Frank Rosolino, Bud Shank, Art Farmer and other jazz greats.

The Night Lights show (it's archived here for anytime listening) zoomed in on audio clips and tracks frm this beat noir film about a hard-boiled woman (Susan Hayward) fighting to avoid San Quentin's gas chamber. At the time, the film's female subject was billed as the "wildest of the jazzed up generation."

I've always felt that the unrecognized star of this soundtrack was Pete Jolly, a jazz pianist with terrific time and technique. Jolly remained largely anonymous until his death in 2004 thanks to decades of steady work as one of the top studio keyboard players in the lucrative "easy listening" genre of the 1960s and 1970s. Unfortunately for Jolly, his Faustian bargain resulted in many bland jazz albums over the years. But on I Want to Live, we hear what Jolly might have become had he spent more time on the cutting edge.

Waxanalysis: John Salmon raised an interesting point in response to my blog entry earlier last week focusing on Miles Davis' exhausting, October 26, 1956 recording session for Prestige, which freed him from the label to join Columbia Records.

Salmon points out that Frank Sinatra seemed to be afflicted by the same problem during his 12-month Capitol cram sessions of 1960-61. Only after four album's worth of tracks were in the can Sinatra was released from his Capitol obligation to move on with his new Reprise label.

Couldn't agree more. Sinatra's recordings during this short period are largely ring-a-ding-ding run-throughs—more an audio cache of Sinatra at his boring worst—with a rare touch of flare here and there. Song choices are mostly throw-aways, the arrangements are excessive, and Sinatra sounds as if he recorded them from a lounge chair. Remember, Sinatra's Swingin' Session includes Ol' MacDonald.

For kicks, dig this amusing passage from Will Friedwald's comprehensive book, Sinatra: The Song Is You: (1995):

"Before Sinatra himself could record for his own label [Reprise], there was still the matter of his Capitol commitment... [The label] reached the compromise for four "contractual obligation" albums, three of which finished within a year: Nice 'n' Easy (March 1960), Sinatra's Swingin' Session (August 1960) and Come Swing with Me (March 1961)...

"Billy May has recalled attending a date circa 1960 when Nelson Riddle conducted and [Harry] Sweets Edison sat in his familiar solo trumpet chair. 'In those days, Frank was deliberately being his petulant worst because he was pissed off and didn't want to be there,' said May. To express his annoyance, Sinatra constantly complained about the microphone setup and kept demanding take after take, finding fault both real and imagined with each run-through.

'They'd get to like, take 28, and Frank gets to the end of it. Nelson cuts the band off, and Frank starts looking around trying to figure out what he's going to get mad at this time. Sweets had a high, squeaky kind of voice, and just as the echo [of the take] was dying away, before Frank can think of anything, Sweets says, 'Shit, baby, you can't do it no better than that.' It broke Frank up so bad, he just fell right on the floor.' "

Jimmie Lunceford

Back in the late 1930s and early 1940s, big bands weren't meant to be listened to on record or in front of a radio. To fully appreciate a band in all its swinging glory, you had to be standing smack in front of the bandstand.

There, you could hear the brilliance of a great arranger, feel the impact of the instruments playing together and apart, and see the polished moves of a band's section or soloist.

I've seen many big bands over the years in concert, in clubs and on video, but only once did I feel what it must have been like to be front and center back in those hungry pre-war years. In August 1974, I was in front of the stage when Duke Ellington and his band played a benefit up in Tarrytown, NY.

The gig was a benefit arranged by Stan Getz to help the14-year-old son of a neighbor who lost both arms and part of his foot in a power line accident. Yeah, the same Stan Getz who takes so much heat for being a nasty piece of work. Stan asked Duke and Dizzy Gillespie to come up to Irvington, NY, where he and the kid's family lived, to play for free.

As you can imagine, Stan and Dizzy were sensational that sweltering afrternoon—they played together (with a rhythmn section that included Dave Holland on bass)—and both hung around afterward backstage and gabbed while only a handful of fans listened.

But the real highlight was seeing and hearing Duke up close. The effect was staggering. Russell Procope, Harry Carney and Paul Gonsalves were still with the band, giving the ensemble plenty of soul and swing. What I remember most was the power of that band and the slick click of the instruments falling into line and churning out an hour's worth of hits. I still remember the sensation. The only way to describe the feeling was being swept up by musical surf. You became excited from inside out, and lost control of your inhibitions, one by one.

Based on my listening and reading of the big band era, the orchestra that beat all others in the rush department between 1936 and 1941 was Jimmie Lunceford's.

Jimmie's secret was a team of fantastic arrangers, including Sy Oliver, and the ability to stir up the competitive juices of his reed and brass sections. The saxes would try to outdo the trumpets, who would try to put one over on the trombones, who were taken to task by the trumpets.

Lunceford's sections even excelled in showmanship—with saxes all turning to play in one direction while the trombones turned to play the other way, with the trumpets waving derby hats. Musicians could sing and dance as well as they played, and the image was as spectacular as the sound and punch delivered.

To give you a sense of how great this band was, George T. Simon describes a night in his book, The Big Bands (1967):

"What must go down in dance band history as the greatest gathering of the clan took place in New York's Manhattan Center on the night of November 18, 1940, when Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Glen Gray, Les Brown, Guy Lombardo, Will Bradley, Sammy Kaye and 20 other big bands wowed 6,000 enthusiastic fans without a let up from eight in the evening until four the next morning.

"In this marathon, MC'd by disc jockey Martin Block, all the bands were scheduled to play 15-minute sets—and all except one of those 28 bands got off the sage when it was supposed to. But that one couldn't for the simple reason that along about midnight it broke the show wide open, to such hollering and cheering and shouting for "More!" that no other band could get on stage until Jimmie Lunceford's was allowed to play some extra tunes."

When you listen to recordings of Lunceford's band today from the late 30s and early 40s, you understand why. The band swings, it's tight, and it's never dull or hokey, despite a proclivity for novelty tunes. In fact, the term "novelty tune" is unfair given the level of excellence in everything it played. The band was hip and even had a signature sense of syncopation that was impossible to mimic. When you listen to Lunceford's band today, you can't seem to hear enough tracks.

Few essays on Lunceford capture the excitement generated by the band better than Ralph J. Gleason's, from Celebrating the Duke (1975):

"To begin with, [Lunceford's band] had character, just as Duke Ellington's band has always had character. It sounded like Jimmie Lunceford. You didn't have to wait for the individual voice of some musician, for a particular familiar arrangement or for a well-known number. You coasted down the dial on the car radio late at night and when you hit Lunceford, you knew it was Lunceford. Who else could it be? Later, of course, there were little Luncefords, now and then, but in the beginning there was only the one sound and, of course, that was the way it really stayed because the imitators never made it.

"Visually, it was the greatest. No other band put on as much showmanship before or since. They looked good all the time and they made music sound like making it was fun, and they enhanced it with all the tricks, from Russell Bowles or Elmer Crumbley, putting the trombone wa-wa mutes on their heads to the flaring sideways and up-and-down motion of the sections in unison."

By the mid-1940s, Lunceford's band ebbed. Many bands did, with the wind-down of the war. A tighter economy meant less money for bands and more opportunity for smaller bop groups. Improved radio and record-player technology meant less demand to see live bands. Neither stopped Lunceford, who died of a heart attack in 1947, on the road, trying to sustain the popularity of his sound.

Thanks to CDs, we can still witness and appreciate what Jimmie Lunceford achieved.

Wax tracks: A week ago I picked up a dynamite two-CD set of Lunceford's recordings on sale at Virgin Records for $10. The set is from Italy, and all the tracks are remastered.

There isn't a bad track on here. Among the best are Ain't She Sweet, I'm Alone With You and Twenty-Four Robbers. I'm Alone is stunning for its foreshadowing of the writing by Claude Thornhill and Gil Evans.

But perhaps the biggest shocker is Yard Dog Mazurka (1941). If you thought Ray Wetzel of Stan Kenton's band came up with Intermission Riff in 1946, think again. Wetzel and Kenton lifted that "riff" from Jimmie Lunceford (and Lunceford's arranger, Gerald Wilson), wholesale.

Another shocker is I Wanna Hear Swing Songs (1940), whose loping baritone sax and trombones interplay clearly influenced Nelson Riddle and his intro tag for Sinatra's I Get a Kick Out of You.

Wax clip: For a rare glimpse of the Jimmie Lunceford band in action—and the incredible level of perfection, showmanship it exhibited—check out this clip of Nagasaki from 1936.

Bird's Word

"I put quite a bit of study into the horn, that's true. In fact, the neighbors threatened to ask my mother to move out once when we were living out West. She said I was driving them crazy with the horn. I used to put in at least 11 to 15 hours a day. I did that for over a period of three to four years."

—Charlie Parker, from a 1954 Boston radio interview with fellow saxophonist Paul Desmond

Road Trip

I'm out of town until Friday night. While I'm gone, check this out...

"It's very sad that this music is put on the side, and not many people know about the importance of this art form we call jazz.

"And the other sad thing is that whenever someone has an opportunity to educate people in film about the art form, they always miss the mark. They never show the brilliance of improvisation and what it really is. They show a romantic story, or a story about drugs, or a story about alcohol, or the perennial image of the jazz musician as a child who hasn't grown up; who cares only about sex and alcohol and drugs and music, and really doesn't have any feelings or opinions or ideas or interest about any other things in life. Which is very sad, because it's not true."

—Charlie Haden in Gene Lees' Waiting for Dizzy (1991)