JazzWax

Miles Davis: Strange Fruit

After writing yesterday about the October 26, 1956 recording session for Prestige that produced upward of 14 tracks and allowed Miles Davis to complete his contract with the record label, I grabbed the most fractured album of the bunch to give it a careful listen.

The album, Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants. consists of four tracks—three recorded in 1954 and one, 'Round About Midnight, recorded on that October 1956 date. 

It's an odd album, in that the track 'Round About Midnight clearly doesn't belong on it. Completely different groups were used on the two dates—as you would expect, since the sessions were separated by two years. The differences in Miles' playing is stark. Miles in 1954 was still running bop lines and trying to find a new direction. By 1956, his playing was more brooding and centered, using space brilliantly to his artistic advantage.

Even odder is this isn't exactly a Miles  Davis album. The 1954 session, in all fairness, is Milt Jackson's date. While Miles is mostly floating around on the 1954 tracks, Bags is razor sharp and knows exactly what he wants to get across. His vibes on The Man I Love, Swing Spring and Bemsha Swing sound like ice cubes dropping into a crystal glass. Splendid sound and sharp ideas throughout.

Listening to Bemsha Swing, you can hear Miles hanging too long on notes a number of times, seemingly unsure where to go next. Jackson, by contrast, can't wait to get in and do his thing, and when he does, the energy level instantly rises.

'Round About Midnight, the 1956 "sore thumb" track, is fascinating because it sounds more like a work of exhaustion and boredom than of achievement. A little research tells the tale. A month earlier, on September 10, Miles had already recorded the definitive  version of this Thelonious Monk ballad for the soon-to-be-released Columbia album of the same name. By October, Miles sounds as if he's purposefully taking the song in odd directions, slyly ensuring that it wouldn't top what he had already recorded for his new label. Funny.

Wax tracks: Download the two versions of 'Round About Midnight and compare and contrast. Remember, the Columbia version was recorded a month and a half earlier than the Prestige track—under duress. A fascinating listen.

Wax clip: I'm convinced there are no bad jazz vibes players. Red Norvo, Terry Gibbs, Lionel Hampton—the list goes on and on. But at the top of my list are Milt Jackson and Bobby Hutcherson, both of whom were probably the instrument's most inventive players. Here's a terrific video clip of Jackson and Hutcherson playing together on Bag's Groove.

Tadd Dameron

When disc jockey Symphony Sid asks drummer Big Sid Catlett what song he, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker are going to play back in June 1945 (Dizzy Gillespie-Charlie Parker/Town Hall), Catlett draws a blank.

So Catlett throws the question to Diz: "What's the name of that thing, Dizzy—Tadd Dameron's tune?" Amid laughter, Dizzy tells him Hot House  (see yesterday's post).

As soon as I heard Catlett mention Dameron's name, I knew I wanted to spend the day listening to him. And perhaps because it was only 60 degrees in New York yesterday—with hints of fall in the air—”I also wanted to hear John Coltrane, who always sounds best to me in early autumn.

So I reached for Mating Call, which features Tadd and Trane along with John Simmons on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums. I had forgotten just how beautiful that album is—Tadd, with those lush locked chords, and Trane, with those wails and scale runs. Fascinating combination of tones and techniques.

Mating Call has always been a bone of contention among critics, as Ira Gitler points out in the updated liner notes. Back in 1957, when the album came out, jazz critic Nat Hentoff wrote a review  in which he wished there had been an extra horn on the date, "a gentler trumpet, say," he mused. Gitler says he tends to agree in retrospect.

But after listening to the CD six times yesterday, I'm not so sure. Tadd is so pretty and soft, and his writing is so shrewd (all of the songs on the album are Tadd's), that he in effect becomes that gentle sound Hentoff was looking for. Adding a trumpet would have robbed Dameron of the space he needed to make this album special.

Instead of hearing a round, punctuating trumpet, we get vast open stretches featuring Dameron, who fills the gaps with clean, delicate piano playing. Trane jumps on and off the flatbed Dameron provides, offering spirals of sound and giving Dameron plenty of room to be pretty. As a composer and player, Dameron was bebop's Billy Strayhorn, that's for sure.

Producer Bob Weinstock had envisioned the date as a quintet session, and why a trumpet wasn't added remains a mystery. The two go-to horn players at the time would have been Donald Byrd (with whom Trane recorded two months earlier on Paul Chambers' Whims of Chambers for Blue Note) and Lee Morgan.

But five days before the Mating Call session on November 30, 1956, Byrd was recording Hank Mobley with Donald Byrd and Lee Morgan (Blue Note) and preparing for a December 8 date with Doug Watkins on Watkins at Large (Blue Note).

Lee Morgan was tied up with Dizzy Gillispie's big band at a Birdland engagement that week and due in the studio on December 2 to record The Lee Morgan Sextet (Blue Note).

With the death of Clifford Brown in June 1956, Blue Note was furiously recording as many hard bop albums as possible to meet the demand for the new, more aggressive sound.

In all fairness to Trane, by the end of November 1956, he must have been suffering from trumpet exhaustion. Back on October 26, he had been locked in Rudy Van Gelder's studio with Miles Davis for a marathon recording session to mop up Miles' obligation to the Prestige label after Miles signed with Columbia Records.

On October 26, Trane and Miles recorded by my count a total of 14 tracks that would appear on subsequent releases—four on Cookin',  four on Relaxin', four on Workin', one on Steamin' and yet another for what would become the Modern Jazz Giants LP.

More to the point, Mating Call was Tadd's  date. Trane was enlisted to accompany Dameron, and Tadd may have waved Weinstock off.

The more I listened to Mating Call yesterday, the more I marveled at how rich and interesting the album is. There isn't a dull number on the disc (and how could there be, given that they all are from Dameron's pen). But the magic really is in the subtle interplay between Dameron's aromatic piano and Trane's strong  sound. This album would have worked even if it were just a duo—Tadd and Trane.

At the end of my listening session, I realized that this album has much in common with John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman (Impulse/1963). Except on Mating Call, Tadd is the vocalist, with Trane weaving in and out, setting up Tadd's beautiful ideas.

Dameron died in 1965. He wrote many jazz standards including Good Bait, Our Delight, Lady Bird and if You Could See Me Now. He also recorded a bunch of beautiful albums. Tadd was terribly underrated, never achieving the fame or fortune he deserved. I urge you to give Mating Call a re-listen.

Wax tracks: Tadd was an extraordinary composer, as Mating Call demonstrates. Listen to the minor opening and major resolution on the title track. Or the skippy bop beauty of Gnid, the patient ballad Soultrane, the loping On a Misty Night, the blues of Romas and the soaring Super Jet.

This is one gem of an album. If you only want to download one track, make it Gnid or On a Misty Night. But beware--you'll  want to download the entire album. Or just buy the CD for about $8. The CD was remastered and re-released in May, and it sounds like a million bucks.

Wax mix: For a kick—copy Mating Call and John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman into the same iTunes folder, mix up the order and let it play. You'll see what I mean about the two albums being of like mind and temperament. To be sure, Mating Call is much, much stronger work of art. But the pair create an interesting mesh.

Big Sid Catlett

Big Sid Catlett was, well, big. He stood at over six feet tall and was hefty and powerfully strong. He also had showman's blood—as most great big band drummers of the 1930s and 1940s did. So much so that Benny Goodman let him go in 1941 for hamming and distracting the limelight—even though Goodman acknowledged Catlett's masterful playing on his recordings, Pound Ridge  and I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good. So much for upstaging Benny.

Since we're mourning and missing Max Roach for the next bunch of days at least, I decided to re-listen to Big Sid, who was one of Max's main influences (along with Jo Jones and Chick Webb).

It's easy to see why. Catlett was one of the first melodic drummers. In addition to effortlessly laying down a steady freight-train beat, Catlett could at the same time deftly shoot out a wide range of small beats and mini beats and tiny beats and whispery rhythms. He could work the skins, hi-hat and cymbals until the drums were carrying on a seductive and forceful conversation with the listener, and live audiences went wild (more on this below).

What's fascinating about Catlett, in addition to his drumming technique, was his ability to transition from the 1930s swing era to the bebop upheaval of the mid-1940s. Coleman Hawkins, the great tenor saxophonist, did, too.

For those unfamiliar with bebop or its musical impact, think of swing as print and bebop as the Internet, and you get the picture. Bebop represented a new way of playing and thinking about music—with a a heavy emphasis on speed, complex beats and melodies, extended solos, individualism, and wry humor. Most of all, bop was about being distinct within a group and then expressing your individualism in a big way.

Bebop was a small club between 1944 and 1946, and its members were made up of a handful of musicians who understood the difficult musical language and could navigate the tricky exchanges. As bop grew in popularity, swing  sounded old fashioned by contrast, and no one sounded more moldy than a swing drummer trying desperately to play creatively behind bop musicians. Catlett was one of those rare swing musicians who made the shift to bop early and naturally.

Catlett's strength and delicacy was appreciated from the start by bop's originators—Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and especially Max Roach. And Catlett had huge respect for them as well. Both Catlett and Max had played in Benny Carter's band and shared a special father-son respect for one another.

Sadly, Big Sid died of a heart attack in 1951, just as the recording industry was switching to a longer format—the 33 1/3 LP. If only Sid had been around longer to record extended solos.

Wax track: One of my favorite Catlett recordings is Hot House on the Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker Live at Town Hall,June 22, 1945 CD. If you own the CD, pull it out. If not, buy it or download the cut.

Hot House starts with Big Sid being brought up to the stage by Symphony Sid, the jazz radio disc jockey. Catlett had to leave to play a gig, so they squeezed him in with Bird and Diz, which meant Max had to give up the drums. Max does so with grace.

If you listen carefully to the audio, you'll hear Big Sid say to Max as Max passes him, leaving his drums behind, "Hell of a spot, Max, whatchu doing, man?" This is a hats off to Max (a kid at the time) from Big Sid (already an established star) in the wake of Max's brilliant performances on earlier numbers. Sid may even have embraced Max or clapped him on the back, since the audience erupts in adoring applause.

And then Sid sits in. Listen to Sid, the swing drummer, work the kit in bop style. Wow, what he does to those cymbals—and then the snare. If you listen to this recording a few times, you'll notice that  Catlett does not repeat a single beat or pattern. And he even works the Hot House melody into the snare toward the end of his solo. And this is June 1945.

No wonder the audience went nuts at the end of his solo.

Wax clips: Fortunately for us, Big Sid is captured in a number of great video clips. Here are two stunners:

The first is Swingin' on Nothin' with Louis Armstrong's orchestra from 1942. Everyone's having a ball. Catlett is back there keeping time and even gets a few brief seconds on film  twice (note the stick handling). That's trombonist George Washington singing with a sofa-sized Velma Middleton. Velma may have put down one of the earliest examples of break dancing here!

The second is even more incredible. It's Jammin' the Blues from 1944. I had always been familiar with the still shot of Lester Young in pork-pie hat, sitting on a stand with streams of smoke captured in mid-air. But I didn't realize it was from a film.

If you're new to this short film (as I was), you won't believe your eyes. Dig Prez and Sweets Edison and Illinois Jacquet. Here, we get a taste of Catlett's graceful and gone brush playing. Man, the guy was all style. And catch the drum switch as Catlett hands off to Papa Jo Jones—without missing a beat!!! You just know Max must have loved this film.

Billie's Trounce, Betty's Flounce

I'm not sure what's going on at Sony BMG these days, but the label seems to have looked the other way, allowing a bunch of techno-goons to slip in and assault the venerable Billie Holiday Columbia catalog.

Curious about the new Billie Holiday: Remixed and Reimagined, I picked up a copy of the CD at Virgin on Friday. I'm always in the market for something new—and I liked some of the deejay interpretations on the Verve Remixed series.

In short, the Billie Holiday CD is horrifying—the musical equivalent of turning 7-year-olds loose at the Metropolitan Museum with crayons to "reimagine" the Impressionists by drawing all over them.

Remember Billie's sexy, pained pleas on All of Me? Here, you'll find the track hammered to a pulp by electronic house beats. I don't even want to tell you what they did to But Beautiful from Lady in Satin.

It's not clear what producers Steve Berkowitz and Scott Schlacter were hoping to achieve here, but the duo and their so-called "reimaginers" clearly have zero sense of Billie, her art or jazz history. I found myself straining to hear Billie's voice through a construction site of scratching beats and migraine percussion. And when I could hear poor Billie, she seemed to be begging from the grave to get her out of there.

If you thought Billie's voice sounded tortured on the original Columbia tracks, you'd cry if you had to listen to what these guys did to her. Thanks, Steve and Scott. What's up next—an EMI electropunk reload of Nat King Cole? Shame on Sony BMG for allowing this level of archival desecration.

Wax groove: On a happier note, David Brent Johnson, host of WFIU's Night Lights radio show, sent along a link to a terrific Ellington clip featuring Betty Roche singing Take the A Train, from the 1943 film Reveille with Beverly. It's a remarkable clip, for Roche's vocal and novelty approach is starkly different than her sassier, more classic version from 1952. As David notes, dig the vocal harmonizing as Roche swings down the aisle of the Pullman Car. Go Duke!

Wax clip: While most of us have seen Billie sing Fine and Mellow on CBS' The Sound of Jazz documentary from 1957, take another look. Carefully watch Billie's eyes as she sings. Man, it's all there. If you want to own a copy of the DVD (complete, with Thelonious Monk's performance), go here.

Max Roach, Part 2

I think the death of Max Roach on Thursday has hit jazz fans a little harder than most of us expected.

In New York, Phil Schaap, host of WKCR-FM's Birdflight, a daily morning radio program devoted to the music of Charlie Parker, was devastated. When I gave Phil a call during the show, we spoke for a minute between records about the loss.

Phil knew Max well. In fact, most mornings during Birdflight, Phil would salute Max with an unexpected shout-out, "Morning Max!" The outburst was part slap on the Max's back and part reminder to listeners that this genius was still with us on the Upper West Side. "It's such a huge, huge loss," Phil said on the phone,  his baritone voice trailing off. "I guess now I'll just have to shout, 'Max Roach!'" It sounded more like a pained wail than a salute.

Fortunately for everyone with a computer, WKCR is airing a marathon Max Roach Memorial Broadcast that started on Thursday and will run 24-hours a day until next Wednesday (go here to hear the broadcast live).

I, too, feel a void. One of the last living connections to Bird and Brownie and so many other legends whose art and messages I  adore  is gone. All that's left are Max's CDs, LPs, 78s and downloads. If there's anything we wanted to ask Max about that age or specific recordings or musicians, it's too late now.

In 1986, when I sat down to interview Art Taylor, another great drummer who played with John Coltrane and so many others, he told me that jazz musicians aren't as focused on personality as they are on the posterity of the music they record. "We know that after we're gone we're still going to be here on those records," he said. Funny how true that is.

Which is why I reached for Taylor's Notes and Tones. For those unfamiliar with the book, Notes is an intimate and candid collection of interviews Taylor conducted with dozens of great jazz musicians. When my interview at Taylor's Riverside Drive apartment was wrapped, Taylor left the room and came back with a copy of his 1977 book, inscribing it, "To Marc, I know that you know that I know that..."

Reading that inscription today made me think of Max and that he really shouldn't be missed too much. Nor should AT, who died in 1995. They're both still here with us on all those records.

While re-reading the book last night, I came across the follow exchange between Taylor and Max during conversations they had in Paris and New York in 1970 and 1971:

Taylor: How did you become interested in music?

Roach: I started music in the Concord Baptist Church Bible School. That was during the summers when both my parents worked. It was similar to what they call day-care centers today, but it was the church which took the children. That's where I stared becoming interest in music, at the age of seven or eight.

We had an aunt living with us who was church pianist. She taught my brother and me the staff and keyboard harmony we could use for playing spiritual music. I became interested in the drums in the same church, and I began to study formally. Then i decided to make music my profession. I continued through high school and later went to the Manhattan School of Music.

Taylor: Tell me something about the Putnam Central Club.

Roach: I grew up in Brooklyn, as you know, and Putnam Central was the place where we used to play. I liked the gentleman who owned it at that time very much and respected him a great deal. He took an interest in me. He was an old West Indian man. I knew him as Mr. John [Parish]. I had a studio there and moved in a piano, some vibes and drums.

He had a small ballroom downstairs where we used to have sessions on weekends. I guess that played a major part in whatever I have accomplished in this business. I was trying to promote sessions and organize bands, like most of us were doing at that time. It helped us learn something about our craft.

The music that has been left to us is a great, great gift. We are very fortunate indeed to have this kind of musical heritage handed down to us.

Taylor: Would you tell me about technique in relation to your instrument?

Roach: I find there are two kids of techniques, and I can tell you a funny story about that:

I was going to the Manhattan School of Music and working on 52d Street at the same time. I was paying for my tuition by playing on 52d Street with Bird and Coleman Hawkins. The percussion teacher at Manhattan asked me to play as a percussion major and told me the technique I used was incorrect. This eventually made me change my major to composition. If one thing doesn't work, I go on to another, which I've found very rewarding.

The percussion teacher told me, 'This is the way you have to play in order to be a percussion major.' That particular technique would have been fine if I had intended to pursue a career in a large orchestra playing European music. But it wouldn't have worked on 52d Street, where I was making a living.

There was a conflict there until it dawned on me that I was involved in two kinds of techniques. On the one hand, I was playing with people like Coleman Hawkins and Charlie Parker and emulating Jo Jones, Sidney Catlett, Chick Webb and Kenny Clarke. On the other hand, if I had used the technique that the percussion teacher wanted to involve me in at Manhattan, it would not have been adequate for 52d Street.

By the same token, the technique I was using then, that I use today, that I was trying to learn and am still learning about today, couldn't be used in European music.

This is truly segregation: There's a highly developed technique for playing black music, and I imagine there's a highly developed technique for playing European music, which you learn in school. The two techniques are different. Our black technique is difficult, and it changes constantly. It's the kind of music which develops its own techniques with the times, so to speak. Each new generation of musicians has the opportunity to bring something new to the music, if they are aware of what went on before them, of course.

Hey now, AT. Like Max, you're still here with your sticks flashing on all those recordings—and in your book. I know that you know...

Wax clip: While I Remember Clifford was written by Benny Golson in tribute to Clifford Brown, after Brownie died in a car crash in 1956, the song's sorrow and joy applies now to Max as well. I Remember Clifford is really Taps for any jazz great who dies.

Go here for a rare clip of Lee Morgan playing the tune. That's Golson on tenor and Jimmie Merritt on piano in 1958.

I think this I Remember Clifford may be my absolute favorite. I hope you find it just as moving and apropos. Hail and farewell, Max. We'll be listening.

Max Roach

Max Roach, one of the last remaining giants of post-war jazz drumming who helped pioneer five of its most significant movements—bebop, cool, hard bop, Pan-African jazz and free jazz—died Wednesday at age 83.

Along with Art Blakey and Kenny Clarke, Max Roach emerged in the mid-1940s, transforming the drums from an instrument of big band showmen to a sophisticated, delicate syncopated timepiece capable of  enormous personality and individualism.

Through complex rhythms and drum patterns that ran the gamut from a distinct touch on the cymbals to thunderous drum rolls across the entire kit, Roach was the drummer of choice for nearly every major jazz leader of his era. He was particularly in demand by those most intent on radically changing the sound of jazz and making  a strong artistic statement.

The significance of Max Roach cannot be underestimated. He was the drummer on Charlie Parker's most important recordings for Savoy, Dial and Verve; he was on Miles' Birth of the Cool; he was co-leader, with trumpeter Clifford Brown, of the first hard bop quintet; he was in the vanguard the Pan-African jazz movement that combined the musical sounds of liberated African countries with the political overtones of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement; and his recordings shortly afterward helped set the stage for free jazz featuring a wider range of percussion instruments and open time.

Like Miles Davis, Roach had a love of everything  and everyone exceptional in music and the arts. And like Miles, Max's curiosity, passion and reedy silhouette helped make him a paragon of cool in the late 1940s and 1950s.

Stylistically, Roach was a master at integrating space and subtlety into a driving, aggressive beat. But unlike many of his peers, Roach was about the small things--teasing out the snare, making the hi-hat stand out, thwacking the bass drum twice on one beat, and extracting a wondrous shuddering sound from the cymbals.

Max was two drummers. He was deft at laying down a rock solid beat, no matter how fast or complex. But he also found ways to interject his own messages and wit on the off beats. Miles Davis said it best in Miles: The Autobiography with Quincy Troupe:

"I love drummers. I learned so much about drums from Max Roach when we were playing together with Bird and living together on the road. He would always be showing me shit. He taught me that the drummer is always supposed to protect the rhythm, have a beat inside, protect the groove. The way you protect the groove is to have a beat in between a beat. Like "bang, bang, sha-bank, sha-bang." The "sha" in between the "bang" is the beat in between the beat, and the little thing is the extra groove. When a drummer can't do that, then the groove is off and there ain't nothing worse in the world than to have a drummer in that no groove bag. Man, that shit is like death."

Blakey, Clarke, Philly Joe Jones, Art Taylor and all of the other great bop drummers are gone—except, that is, for Roy Haynes, who remains the last of Bird's drummers and today is still performing.

Wax tracks: There are simply too many recorded examples of Max Roach's greatness to cover here. Hence, I am simply going to list my Top 12 Max Roach cuts.

While this list in no way attempts to rank or rate Roach's recordings, it simply will stand as my favorite dozen. I've selected them because on each track Max was doing something different, something radical and something interesting.

Buy them on CD (they're all essentials)--or simply create an iTunes download mix.

The tracks appear below in chronological order—with the album title, the artist on whose album it appears, and the year it was recorded in parenthesis...

1. Coppin' the Bop (Savoy and Prestige Sensation/J.J. Johnson/1946)

2. Half Nelson (Complete Savoy and Dial Recordings/ Miles Davis and Charlie Parker/1947)

3. Dexterity (same as above)

4. Segment (Swedish Schnapps/Charlie Parker/1949)

5. Rocker (Birth of the Cool/Miles Davis/1950)

6. Sweet Clifford (Brown & Roach Incorporated/1954)   

7. Sunday Stroll (Complete Blue Note Recordings/Herbie Nichols/1955)

8. Dr. Free-Zee (Max Roach + Four/1956)

9. Junka (Sonny Clark Trio/1959)

10. Very Special (Money Jungle/Duke Ellington/1962)

11. 3/4 v. 6/8 4/4 Ways (Max Roach Featuring the Legendary Hassan/1964)

12. The Glorious Monster (M'Boom/Max Roach/1979)

Also, Roach was one of the first bebop drummers to incorporate Cuban rhythms into his playing and tags. Early examples of his Latin-tinged beats include Star Eyes (from Swedish Schnapps above) and Bongo Bop and Bongo Beep (from the Complete Savoy and Dial Recordings, also above).

Wax clip: To get a sense of what made Max Roach special, have a look. One can only hope film turns up in the future of Max playing behind Bird and Miles in the 1940s or Brownie in the 1950s. For now, watch and listen carefully to what Max was saying. There was a revolution going on.

Jack Teagarden

I spent most of yesterday writing and listening to my favorite Jack Teagarden album, Mis'ry and the Blues (Verve/1961). I love this album for a bunch of reasons. Not only is Teagarden's whiskey-soaked voice nostalgic and patient but his trombone playing is especially sweet, mournful and introspective.

This album is pure, unadulterated Chicago-style jazz from start to finish. Hard times and sweet memories over ice. For some reason I always want to sing along with Tea on this album. It's music of the underdog, of good people down on their luck who keep on trying. Teagarden's playing on this album always touches me.

Along with the great Louis Armstrong, Tea invented the true feeling of this music. And like Louis, Tea was a singular musician who  could play and sing effortlessly. It's no coincidence that Teagarden and Louis were pals and recorded often together.

The second track on this album is Basin Street Blues, a jazz classic that Teagarden's first recorded and made famous in 1931. He wrote the lyrics and arrangement in 1929 with Glenn Miller in Miller's apartment. Can you imagine those those 'bones sounding off?

You can hear 30 years of playing in every one of Tea's warm notes. To me, his music always sounds like beer and laughter and the occasional broken glass or bottle. The sidemen on this album are little known to mainstream jazz, but they can play.

Here's an excerpt from Charles Edward Smith's essay on Tea in Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff's book, The Jazz Makers (1958):

"What distinguished Jack Teagarden in jazz (apart from his scat-singing and vocals) was not that he was the first to employ the trombone creatively in solos, but that he did this in an easy swing with very blue intonation, in a panther style, lazy and lightning quick. He played with remarkable facility and with no unintentional smearing of notes. His first loaylty was to hot intonation and phrasing and to the basic, beat-contending rhythm of jazz."

One of the album's many high points is I Don't Want to Miss Mississippi. The song tells you everything you need to know about Chicago jazz of the 1930s. It will linger with you for a long, long time. Unlike many jazz musicians, Tea actually listened to what he was singing and playing. Jazz always sounds better that way. Tea was an honest artist.

Wax tracks: Perhaps my favorite track on this album is It's All in Your Mind. The arrangement is particularly honey-toned. I highly recommend owning this entire album or downloading it. Every track satisfies, and you won't be disappointed. There's even a track with just trumpeter Don Goldie playing a soaring Afternoon in August.

Wax clips: There are a bunch of great Teagarden clips on the web. But my favorite is Stars Fell on Alabama. Tea is so pretty and pure. Look at him sing without worrying about a thing. Pour yourself a shot and listen to the man.

Duke Ellington, Part 2

Following my criticism of Ellington's 1950s recordings over the weekend I was taken to the musical woodshed by two fellow bloggers.

John Salmon of Mystic Sounds thought I was being way too hard on the Duke and way too dismissive. David Brent Johnson, a writer and host of "Night Lights," a jazz radio show at WFIU in Indiana, also felt I was too harsh and should give a number of Ellington's works from that period another try (both bloggers' full comments and recommendations are tucked into the "Comments" field at the end of my August 12th blog entry; their sites are under "More Blogs" in the right-hand column).

Points well taken, guys. I will, I will. Please note for the recod, I'm not anti-Duke. I just find that other bands and groups from the same decade are a bit more interesting to me and that many of Duke's recordings from this period feel a bit too mannered and overly rendered (I'm ducking behind the barn now).

But to be fair, I did dig deep into my LP and CD collection and re-discovered a few Ellington gems, including Duke Ellington: Unknown Sessions, which is from 1960 and now out of print as a CD, and The Queen's Suite on The Ellington Suites from 1959.

And in the coming month I vow to give most of Ellington's 1950-1960 recordings another listen to comprehensively evaluate his output. At that point, I'll certainly recap with a bit more authority and specificity.

Wax clip: My favorite Ellington period is still the early 1940s, when the energy was raw, the beat was swing, and the Duke's band included a stunning collection of giants. For a taste of the Duke's early 1940s sound, have a look at this clip.

Herb Pomeroy

Herb Pomeroy, the trumpet player and band leader whose abilities to perform as a sensitive session player and produce band arrangements with edge were virtually unmatched in the 1950s, died August 11 in Gloucester, MA, at age 77.

In an era that produced a seeming endless supply of towering  big band jazz trumpet virtuosos who were constantly recording, writing and performing—including Maynard Ferguson and Shorty Rogers—Pomeroy left a strong mark. Unlike many of his 1950s peers, who focused on dense packing brass and showing off a soloist's technical prowess, Pomeroy's writing had a gentler touch. He favored a more relaxed, patient approach that caught your ear rather than bombarding it into submission. Pomeroy liked to highlight the many different textures a band's  instruments could produce and used solos to seduce rather than amaze with stamina.

Like the alto saxophonist Charlie Mariano, Pomeroy worked mostly in Boston during the 1950s and beyond. He played with Charlie Parker In late 1953 (at Boston's Storyville and Hi-Hat clubs), and he recorded with Stan Kenton, Eric Dolphy, Gary McFarland, Anita O'Day, Phil Woods, and the list goes on and on. If you wanted a rock solid chart reader on your recording date who also would add a warm tone and meaningful solos, you called Pomeroy.

In the 1960s and beyond, Pomeroy continued to perform and record, but he devoted more of his time to his greatest passion—teaching jazz at Schillinger House in Boston, which later became the Berklee School of Music.

High on my list of rare vinyl records that I wish would be released on CD is Pomeroy's Band in Boston (United Artists/1958). Pomeroy's arrangements on this album are spectacular—merging a feathery, West Coast sound with an edgy East Coast urgency. The album is quite special. If you happen to spot it on eBay, bid high. It recently went for around $50.

Wax tracks: My absolute favorite Pomeroy small-group recordings weren't made under his name. They appear on  baritone saxophonist Serge Chaloff's Boston Blow-Up! (1955), which features six terrific Boston musicians. Pomeroy was a member of the Serge Chaloff Sextet and wrote 9 of the 10 tracks on this album. They all swing.

Boston Blow-Up! is still availabe on CD but for some crazy reason it isn't available at iTunes.

Teddy Wilson

I'm off to Boston again today on a 6 am flight but wanted to share with you a passage I read last night from an essay appraisal of Teddy Wilson. The liquid prose is from the late jazz critic Whitney Balliett:

"Teddy Wilson's style has changed little since 1935. At first, it was a mixture of what he admired in Earl Hines and Art Tatum. But he quickly worked out his own style, and what we have come to be so delighted by is its calm, riffling runs, some of them the shortest distance between two points and some with a tricky sidewise motion; the short declarative single-note phrases, the first measure often repeated once or twice to give a pleasant stuttering effect; the dashing double-time single-note bursts; the peppery, sometimes quite dissonant right-hand chords; the way he tosses the melody back and forth between his hands like a juggler; the left hand constantly moving from tenth chords to single-note accents and patches of stride; the love of the middle and upper registers....Wilson's solos form landscapes of sound--ordered, serene, polite, beautiful."

             --Goodbyes and Other Messages

Wax tracks: Whether you're new to Teddy Wilson or know his recordings well, you should own The Noble Art of Teddy Wilson. It's out of print, so buy the CD used from a seller if you can--or download the entire album from iTunes. I'd recommend individuals cuts, but that would be absurd. The entire album is pure bliss from the first track to the 24th.

Wax clips: See and hear Wilson in action with the soulful tenor saxophonist Ben Webster by going here. For great Wilson bio info, this clip will do the trick.

But the granddaddy of all clips is this rare one of Wilson and Earl "Fatha" Hines playing together in 1965. Watch it a few times and you'll see how competitive and brilliant these stride pianists. were. Like two hungry guys sitting down to dinner with one pork chop.