JazzWax

Tardo Hammer

Tadd Dameron composed some of jazz's prettiest songs. Unlike most jazz composers of the 1940s, including Billy Strayhorn, Dameron's work was a rare combination of hip, edgy and vibrant. Where Strayhorn tended toward melancholy, pensive and deep, Dameron's songs were upbeat, playful and airy. They were sophisticated tunes you could hum.

Earlier this year, New York pianist Tardo Hammer took a shot at a Dameron tribute. The result is the CD Look Stop and Listen, which tastefully captures and interprets Dameron's compositions and musical spirit.

Born in 1917, Dameron wrote for Lucky Millinder, Andy Kirk and Vido Musso before meeting Charlie Parker in Kansas City in 1939. In the 1940s, Dameron became one of bebop's earliest and most sensitive arrangers and composers, turning out many of the strongest and intimate standards of the era, including Hot House, Our Delight, Casbah, Lady Bird, If You Could See Me Now and Good Bait.

As legend has it, Dameron took on the extra "d" in his first name after a 1947 encounter with a numerologist, who told him, "To be lucky, you need to add an extra letter to your name." So Tad became Tadd.

Dameron's most fruitful period was between 1947 and 1949. During these years, he made ground-breaking records with Fats Navarro, Wardell Gray, Miles Davis, J.J. Johnson, Howard McGhee, Milt Jackson and Benny Goodman for the Blue Note and Capitol labels. All of these tracks became classics, and they remain so today. 

In the 1950s, Dameron helped usher in hard bop by mentoring trumpeter Clifford Brown. The pair recorded A Study in Dameronia in 1953, and in 1956 Dameron recorded a gorgeous album called Fontainebleau followed by Mating Call with John Coltrane.

But in 1958, Dameron, a drug user, was arrested, convicted and spent the next few years in prison. When released in 1961, Dameron continued to arrange and compose, recording The Magic Touch  in 1962.

Dameron died of cancer in 1965, and today his spectacular contribution to both bop in the 1940s and hard bop in the 1950s remains somewhat underrated.

George Ziskind, a Chicago pianist who spent time with Dameron in the 1960s, categorized the composer's approach this way in an essay:

"Make little songs. This was Tadd's most basic advice to the improviser. When playing one's chorus on a tune, it is not sufficient to know the harmony, to be 100% comfortable with its figurations [or] to have [only] a passing familiarity with the composer's conception.

Tadd stressed that the above were merely starting points. They were the basic building blocks necessary to construct a creditable solo and only when you had those items fully covered could you be ready to deal with the heart of the matter, i.e., to make 'little songs' as you played—little self-contained melodic bits—that could be two beats long, or two bars long, or nine or ten bars long.

The length of these motifs was not the important thing; rather, he believed that there should be lots and lots of little melodies within your solo—little songs—and that this was one of the most important defining factors when analyzing the work of any great improviser, no matter what the instrument or the style."

Which brings me to Tardo Hammer's new CD. Hammer, 49, is an old soul and knows his way around a jazz keyboard—having played with Lou Donaldson, Bill Hardman, Junior Cook, Annie Ross, Art Farmer, Vernel Fournier and Clifford Jordan, among others.

Recording a Tadd Dameron tribute album is a brave undertaking. Most Dameron tributes miss the mark either by overplaying or underplaying his compositions. To get Tadd right, you need a bop ear and strong technique—but you also must know when to lay back and let in lots of space and beauty.

Dameron's melody lines can't be muscled; you have to let them surface, and it's a tough trick to pull off. Pianist Barry Harris managed to capture Dameron in a 1975 tribute album.

Hammer accomplishes this, too, bringing Dameron to life through a handsome execution on Look Stop and Listen (Sharp Nine). Hammer's playing is both confident and delicate—just the right mix for Dameron's sweet bop.

Hammer is joined by Joe Farnsworth on drums and John Webber on bass. Both are sublime, helped immensely by the CD's fine production (Marc Edelman). All three musicians can be heard crisply and distinctly at any given time on the recording, without dropout or overheated sound boarding.

Wax tracks: Look Stop and Listen, is available at iTunes and on the web  here. The entire album is worth owning for its consistency and taste, but if you're downloading, grab Hot House, If You Could See Me Now and Flossie Lou.

If you want to hear Tadd Dameron's bop playing and composing genius in the late 40s, download tracks off Fats Navarro-Tadd Dameron: Complete Blue Note and Capitol Sessions. Or buy the CD here.

Wax clips: Unfortunately I could not find any clips of Hammer up on the web. But I did find a wonderful 1990 version of Dameron's If You Could See Me Now by guitarist Mundell Lowe. Go here to see and hear it. The clip features Bob Cooper on tenor, Monty Budwig on bass and Roy McCurdy on drums.

Blow Like Art

Don Byas never quite got a fair shake. The tenor saxophonist had a big confident sound but was constantly compared to Coleman Hawkins by critics or ignored. Despite being one of the originators of bebop and a major player on the New York scene in the early and mid-1940s, Byas never managed to break out as a dominant figure. There were just too many terrific tenor players who had already made names for themselves in marquis bands.

Then in 1946, just at the height of his fame, he moved to Paris to escape the long tenor shadows in New York, becoming one of the first in a long line of jazz musicians to emigrate to Europe—a move that only made Byas less important and even more forgotten.

Yet when you listen to Don Byas' recordings between 1944-1946—without comparing him to other tenor players of the time—you realize how incredible a musician and innovator he was.

This, from tenor saxophonist Sonny Stitt, from the liner notes of a 1961 Byas album:

"Years ago the game was vicious, cutthroat. Can you imagine Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Chu Berry, Don Byas and Ben Webster on the same little jam session? And guess who won the fight? That's what it was—a saxophone duel. Don Byas walked off with everything."

Don Byas began his career in the 1930s, playing with the bands of Lucky Millinder and Andy Kirk. Byas came to New York with Eddie Mallory's band in 1940 and remained, playing with small groups at Minton's Playhouse in Harlem and in clubs on 52d St. Byas joined Dizzy Gillespie's early bop quintet at the Onyx Club in late 1943—a group that featured Max Roach on drums, Oscar Pettiford on bass and George Wallington on piano.

But Byas never quite fit in, as Alyn Shipton notes in Groovin' High: The Life of Dizzy Gillespie (1999):

"Byas was never an entirely convincing bebopper, but rather like Coleman Hawkins, he was a sufficiently adaptable tenorist to amend his playing to cope with all the vitality, speed and harmonic originality of the new jazz, and he rapidly changed bands at the Onyx to work with Dizzy and Pettiford rather than [pianist Al] Casey.

'He'd work with just about everybody,' recalled Billy Taylor. 'Erroll Garner and others up and down the Street. But Don wasn't a big enough name to draw the crowds on his own. In fact, Budd Johnson, who eventually replaced him, was far better known to the general public because he's been with some high-profile big bands like Earl Hines, which had put him in the public eye more than Don.' "

In early 1944, Byas was in Coleman Hawkins' orchestra, and by July and August he was recording with pianist Clyde Hart for Savoy. In January 1945, Byas was with Hart again on a new-famous blues recording date that included Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet, Charlie Parker on alto, Trummy Young on trombone, Hart on piano, Al Hall on bass, Specs Powell (who died earlier this month) on drums, and Rubberlegs Williams on vocals.

By the early spring of 1945, Byas fronted his own groups on record dates, and by May and June 1945, was playing in the Charlie Parker Sextet (the June date is captured on the recently released Town Hall, New York City, June 22, 1945).

Byas recorded as a leader and sideman in 1946 before joining Don Redman for a European tour. Once there, Byas fell in love with Paris and remained there (recording throughout Europe). In 1961, he married and moved to the Netherlands, where he died of lung cancer in 1972.

Here's what Byas told drummer Art Taylor during an interview in Paris in 1969 that appears in Taylor's book, Notes and Tones (1977):

AT: Who influenced you?

DB In the beginning, Hawk. That sound always stayed with me and never got away. In fact, I think I have a bigger sound now than he had. Apart from that, I dug what he was playing. Art Tatum really turned me on. That's where my style came from...style...I haven't got any style! I just blow like Art. He didn't have any style, he just played the piano, and that's the way I play. We were real close, and he loved me.

He used to sit down and talk to me, and one day he said, 'Don, don't ever worry about what you're going to play or where the ideas are gong to come from. Just remember there is no such thing as a wrong note.' He said, 'What makes a note wrong is when you don't know where to go after that one. As long as you know how to get to the next note, there's not such thing as a wrong note...

That's when the doors started opening for me music-wise. From that time I started practicing and remembering that, and all of a sudden I said, 'That's where it is.' There's no way you can hit a wrong note, as long as you know where to go after. You just keep weaving and there's no way in the world you can get lost. You hit one. If it's not right, you hit another...There was nobody playing what I was playing...

Bird [Charlie Parker] got a lot of things from me. I met Bird when he was about fourteen in Kansas City, so I've been knowing him for a long time. Even after Bird got to New York with Jay McShann, we were still real tight, and he used to always come and get me when he wanted to go and jam, which was damn near every night. He would say: 'Come on, Don, we're going to play Cherokee.' That was his favorite tune. What people don't know is that Bird got a lot of stuff from me, although he was influenced more by Pres (Lester Young]. Pres was really his boy.

AT: Do you feel unrewarded for the contribution you made to our music?

DB: Yes, in a way, but I can't say that I'm angry, because I split at the top of my success, so actually a lot of it is my fault...

AT: You were one of the first musicians to settle in Europe?

DB: I was the first. I came with Don Redman, after the war. I had a beautiful success and made a lot of money...

Don Byas was everything and nothing to many critics. But in his day, Byas was one of the most feared tenor soloists around and certainly one of the most interesting to listen to.

For evidence of his early prowess, I recommend listening to Byas' Savoy sessions. As you'll hear, Byas is still underrated—a casualty of his burning desire to be free of comparison.

Wax tracks: Don Byas's Savoy sessions (1944-46) are available on Don Byas: Savoy Jam Party. You will find the CD at iTunes or online.

Download Old Folks, Candy, How High the Moon, Donby, Byas a Drink and Cherokee. These six tracks prove without a doubt that Byas was extraordinary as a swing master and a bebop steamer.

Candy and Old Folks are taken at an ultraslow tempo, allowing Byas to show off his glossy ballad work. How High the Moon and the other uptempo numbers demonstrate just how agile and catlike Byas could be.

To hear Byas in all his European glory, download Ladybird from A Night in Tunisia (1963). Or download the entire album. It's an amazing date, and you really hear how unrestrained Byas had become at this point as he tears into uptempo songs and ruminates on the slow ones.

If you're feeling flush, spring for the imported box, Don Byas: Complete American Small Group Recordings (Definitive). It sells for about $35 and can be found here.

Wax clips: To see and hear an abbreviated clip of Don Byas in 1966, go here. Byas takes a little time to warm up, but when he does, you hear shades of the tenor killer from 20 years earlier.

Moonlight Becomes You

In many ways, jazz is like a fabulous, 50-year drama opus. Over the course of five decades (roughly 1920 to 1970), this epic story offers plots, twists, subplots, hidden meanings, shocking moments,  shootings, accidents, beatings, revelations and scores of brazen individualists and hip characters.

Unlike nearly all other art forms, jazz is as much about lore and legend as it is about the medium itself.

That's what makes jazz so interesting—beyond the joy and inspiration the music provides. With jazz, there's a story within a story, an evolution, a struggle beyond the music to create and be singularly special in America at a time when audiences and recording technology beckoned and rewarded genius.

Jazz is a glorious film noir in which tough musical guys and gals come and go, and jazz has the leading role. As with any great dramatic work, this story—the history of jazz—has moments of high comedy and of heart-breaking tragedy.

One of jazz's most tragic figures was Booker Little. The trumpeter was born in 1938 and died in 1961 at age 23 of kidney failure.

Little emerged in 1958 as the hot new successor to Clifford Brown, who had died (also tragically) in a car crash two years earlier. In just three short years—between 1958 and 1961—Little would leave a haunting mark and contribution that today has been somewhat lost as the jazz-fan focus concentrates mostly on Brown and Miles.

Of course, after Little's death in 1961, Miles would regain the metaphoric title of "innovator in chief" and hold onto it until the late 1960s, when the trumpet no longer represented the sound of what's new. Like the clarinet before it, the trumpet died a hard death, rendered old fashioned by the electronica of the British Invasion, Sly Stone, Motown, Stax, studio mixers and producers.

But before all of this, back in 1958, there was a trumpet gap. When Brown died, the jazz trumpet faced a big loss. What Louis Armstrong had started, Roy Eldridge had extended, Dizzy Gillespie and Fats Navarro had interpreted, Miles had modified and Clifford Brown had supercharged—all in succession—suddenly there was no dominant, young new trumpet superstar to push jazz into new territory.

Competing for the role were Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Donald Byrd and Art Farmer among others. The major players to beat during this 1956-1958 period were Miles and Kenny Dorham, but both were seasoned old pros by then.

Enter Booker Little. Little was discovered by Sonny Rollins in 1958 while he was studying at the Chicago Conservatory of Music. Sonny cautioned Little not to be overly influenced by other players and not to listen to too many records. So Little developed his own sound.

The Rollins-Little encounter led immediately to a series of major record dates for Little with Max Roach, who since Brown's death had been using Kenny Dorham but was sorely in need of a hot young trumpeter not under contract yet to a major record label.

From 1958 through 1961, Little recorded steadily with Max Roach, and the 1958-59 records are some of the most exciting and innovative jazz trumpet dates of the period, which is saying something considering the years in question and the players on the scene.

Booker Little also appeared on several major recordings led by other artists through 1961, including Eric Dolphy's Far Cry! and At the Five Spot, Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite—We Insist! and John Coltrane's Africa/Brass.

Little recorded four albums as a leader. His first—and my favorite—is Booker Little 4 & Max Roach for United Artists (now Blue Note). Joining Little on the date were George Coleman on tenor, Tommy Flanagan on piano, Art Davis on bass and Max Roach on drums.

This album—like all of Little's leadership dates—takes you by surprise with its beauty. The first track, Milestones, is an uptempo rendition of the Miles Davis composition from 1947. Sweet and Lovely is a standard ballad. Rounder's Mood is a Little original with a Charles Mingus feel, Dungeon Waltz is an original minor hard bop piece. And Jewel's Tempo, another original, has a peppery Jazz Messengers feel.

But the high point for me on this album is Moonlight Becomes You, a Jimmy Van Heusen-Johnny Burke ballad. The song opens with a series of lush chord changes by pianist Tommy Flanagan. Then Little enters with a pure, pensive reading of the melody, wandering in and out, skipping over notes in flurries.

Little has a Clifford Brown feel on this track, but his tone and runs are softer, more caressing and less brooding. He's inside the song, roaming around and hitting all the notes your ear anticipates.

This is true on all the album's tracks. Where Brown would strive for a certain purity and impact, Little seems to be enjoying his own playing and gentle attack. After the 12th listen, I realized there's a more feminine quality to Little's playing compared with Brown's muscle-bound execution.

At the end of Moonlight Becomes You, Little descends wonderfully but then shifts gears with a sudden run that seems to catch Flanagan off guard. Listen carefully. As Little takes run after run, Flanagan and Davis (bowing at this point) appear to be conservatively anticipating what Little is going to do, fearful of ruining a perfect take. Little finally starts high and spirals down, landing and holding a beautiful note. Wow, perfection.

I remember Booker.

Wax tracks: Booker Little 4 & Max Roach is available as a download at iTunes and as a CD online. For some strange reason this great album hasn't been remastered. It was last transferred digitally in 1991. Shame on Blue Note.

Nevertheless, the album is a must. In addition to the tracks mentioned above, there are two additional cuts with a slightly different group that weren't on the original album.

Wax clips: To see Booker Little with Max Roach in October 1958, go here. The song is Minor Mode Blues and the piano-less group features Max on drums, Ray Draper on tuba, George Coleman on tenor and Art Davis on bass.

Then go here for The Scene Is Clean, a Booker Little arrangement (apologies for the rubbery clip). Check out Little's trumpet runs! The clips are from ABC-TV's Stars of Jazz series.

Unfortunately, a clip of the third and hottest track captured on film that day, Love for Sale, isn't up on video sites.

Citizens Bop

In November 1946, tenor saxophonist Wardell Gray led a bop quartet that recorded for Sunset Records in Hollywood. The group featured Dodo Marmarosa on piano (who was living on the West Coast at the time after leaving Artie Shaw's band a year earlier); Red Callender on bass; and Chuck Thompson on drums.

Among the tracks recorded that day was Easy Swing, which has a bop line that's virtually identical to Charlie Parker's Steeplechase. Except Steeplechase wasn't recorded yet by Bird and wouldn't be until September 1948. Talk about Bird taking something home from the West Coast after his stay at Camarillo State Hospital! Or perhaps Bird gave the bop line to Wardell for his recording date. We'll never know.

Flash forward to June 1952. Wardell Gray and tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon get together at Swing Time records for another one of their famed tenor battle sessions. The group featured Gerry Wiggins on piano and organ, Red Callender on bass, and Chuck Thompson on drums.

The reason I mention both sessions is that they are fabulous and are available on one CD, which I spotted a week ago tucked away under Wardell Gray's name at iTunes.

The $11.98 download (and CD available on the web) is called Citizens Bop (Black Lion) and offers 12 tracks from three different dates. If you're a fan of Dexter's and Wardell's, and of West Coast bop, this download is breathtaking for the ideas that pour forth and the quality of the remastered sound. I found the Wardell Gray Quartet session from 1946 to be one of Wardell's strongest and most inventive outings. 

Most importantly, there are two ballads on this download—one featuring Dexter and the other Wardell.

The Dexter ballad is My Kinda Love (1952) and is one moody, masterpiece with a fabulous tag at the end. Dexter's solo is pure smoke and gives you a hint of where he is heading artistically and where he winds up later in the decade and in the 1960s.

The Wardell ballad is The Man I Love (1946)—but Wardell never once plays the melody as written. Instead, he invents a completely new song off the cuff as the rhythm section comps the chord changes. Seriously smart stuff.

These two tracks, along with the other 10, represent a vivid and spirited West Coast bop document. I spent the last four days listening to the CD several times at each sitting. Despite repeated playing, I never once found myself bored or disappointed.

The CD's only flaw—and it's minor—is Jingle Jangle Jump, a holiday-season jump boogie featuring Wardell and Dexter and a  vocal by Gladys Bentley. (Bentley was an openly gay blues singer in the 1920s and 1930s who performed in men's clothes and relocated to California in the 1940s, where she recorded and sang at clubs.) Jingle features upbeat tenor solos, but it's too much of a novelty number for this CD.

Otherwise, the Wardell Gray/Dexter Gordon CD is bop perfect from start to finish.

Wax tracks: Since iTunes doesn't break the CD into its different dates, let me do it for you here:

The Rubaiyat—Wardell and Dexter (1952)
My Kinda Love—Dexter ballad (1952)
Citizens Bop—Wardell and Dexter (1952)
One for Prez—Wardell (1946)
Jingle Jangle Jump—Wardell + Dexter (1952) w/ vocal
Dell's Bells—Wardel (1946) 
I Hear You Knockin'—Wardell (1952) mimics the early r&b tenor sound popular then
The Man I Love—Wardell (1946)
Easy Swing—Wardell (1946)
Man with a Horn—Maurice Simon on bari (1952)
Blue Lou—Wardell (1947) with Erroll Garner on piano
The Rubaiyat—alternate take

Wax clips: To hear Wardell, as smooth as silk, in 1955 with Count Basie, go here. To get a sense of Dexter's cocky personality and confident blowing, go here. If only there was footage of the two boppers playing together in the late 1940s. One day, maybe.

Miles' Denials

A few weeks ago I purchased a rare, out-of-print CD by bassist Oscar Pettiford called Another One. Recorded in 1955 for Bethlehem Records, it includes Bohemia After Dark, a Pettiford original.

It is the unmistakable basis for Miles Davis' So What—yet two major books on the making of Kind of Blue seem to have missed this entirely, and there's no mention of the tie-in in Kind of Blue's original or CD liner notes.

Either Miles adapted Bohemia After Dark as a Pettiford dig or was paying tribute to the bassist. Either way, Pettiford didn't take kindly to Miles' So What. More in a minute.

Pettiford's Another One is an exciting album. Then again, nearly every album recorded by Pettiford was exceptional. He was and is vastly underrated as a composer, bassist and bandleader.

The personnel on Another One features Donald Byrd and Ernie Royal on trumpets, Bob Brookmeyer on trombone, Gigi Gryce on alto and clarinet, Jerome Richardson on tenor and flute, Don Abney on piano and Osie Johnson on drums.

Both Bohemia After Dark (August 1955) and Miles' So What (March 1959) open with a nearly identical bass line call followed by a piano response. So What's riff runs a bit longer, and Bohemia After Dark is taken at a much faster pace—but the similarities are too obvious to be ignored. They're too close a match to be a coincidence.

Here are the original liner notes from Pettiford's Another One:

"Bohemia After Dark is Oscar's tune, arrangement and the high spot of the album. Its title is derived from a club in Greenwich Village 'The Bohemia,' where Oscar and his group started the policy of using live jazz on a regular basis. The tune is catchy and it appears to be on its way to becoming a jazz standard. You can hear it around the clubs in New York and there are at last four other new recordings of it. The intro is by Oscar on bass and he uses these eight bars to state the theme. An ensemble is followed by a full chorus of Gigi's bright alto; Brookmeyer follows with a careful chorus and Richardson picks up Bobby's closing phrase to swing into his inventive turn on flute. Byrd's thoughtful chorus leads into Abney's piano. An ensemble, with Oscar swinging through the release, brings to a close the round-robin of solos."

A little investigating on the web turned up some interesting facts. When Kenny Clarke recorded Pettiford's Bohemia After Dark for a Savoy album in June 1955, Cannonball Adderley and Paul Chambers were on the date. Both musicians would appear on Kind of Blue in 1959.

Then in September 1955, pianist George Wallington recorded Bohemia After Dark on The George Wallington Quintet at the Bohemia—again, with Paul Champers on bass.

What's puzzling is that neither The Making of Kind of Blue (Eric Nisenson) nor Kind of Blue (Ashley Kahn) mention Bohemia After Dark and its influence. Neither do Kind of Blue's original liner notes by Bill Evans nor do the updated CD notes by Robert Palmer.

While Miles doesn't mention the song in his autobiography, he does make it clear that the Cafe Bohemia marked a turning point in his musical life in 1955:

"At this time I was rehearsing my own band that I was going to open up with at the Cafe Bohemia so I might have been distracted on Mingus's date. It was going to be Sonny Rollins on tenor, Red Garland on piano, Philly Joe Jones on drums, myself on trumpet, and a young bass player that Jackie McLean had told me about who was working with the George Wallington Quintet, Paul Champers. Paul had been in New York for only a couple of months and had already worked with J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding in the new group that they had formed...

We opened at the Bohemia, I think in July 1955, and the place was always packed. After my engagement at the Bohemia, Oscar Pettiford brought a quartet in there that had Julian 'Cannonball' Adderley on alto sax. I used to go down to the Bohemia just to hang out with my girlfriend Susan. But Cannonball just fucked me up the way he played the blues and nobody had ever heard of him."

Bohemia After Dark's influence on So What seems to have been overlooked by nearly everyone. Except Oscar Pettiford, that is, who may have had the last laugh and inadvertently offered up the smoking gun.

If you listen to Pettiford's August 1959 album, Montmartre Blues, you'll find a track called Why Not? That's What. Take a listen. Sounds a lot like payback to me—a mashing of Bohemia After Dark and So What. The following notes are from the album's liner notes:

"Pettiford answers Miles Davis's deprecatory So What? with an affirmative Why Not? That's What! As Pettiford says, 'the title contains a message for Miles on behalf of Paul Chambers and myself.' And it certainly has something to do with opinions on bass playing."

I have not yet gotten to the bottom of the rift between Miles and Pettiford or why the message to Miles comes from Pettiford and Chambers. Clearly Pettiford wasn't happy.

Wax tracks: Oscar Pettiford's Another One is now selling for $76 and can be found here. Or save yourself a fortune and buy  Oscar Pettiford: Nonet and Octet, 1954-1955 here for about $18. Pettiford's Montmartre Blues can be found at iTunes or here.

Wax clip: If you go here, you'll see and hear Cannonball Adderley playing Bohemia After Dark (with the late Joe Zawinul on piano). Slow this song down in your mind and you'll hear the similarities between this song and So What.

And if you're able to hear Oscar Pettiford's 1955 recording of the song, you'll hear the original bass intro with piano response.

To see what a monster Pettiford was, go here. That's Howard McGhee on trumpet and Coleman Hawkins on tenor. And dig the couple trying to dance to the group playing a blistering Sweet Clifford. Too much!

Wax Notes

Rare downloads: I received the following tip yesterday from Ed Newman for those who want to save money on the recordings they read about at JazzWax.com:

"Marc: Your weblog has become a daily visit for me, and I've gotten a lot of great music thanks to it. You might want to note that a lot of the stuff you describe as being out of print is actually available at EMusic.com. Today I snagged the three Hampton Hawes discs you praised. You can get something like 72 downloads a month for $20, so it's a wonderful deal. Keep up the great work

Duke on the dial: David Brent Johnson is on the radio all week (WFIU-FM/Indiana) with Duke Ellington's 1945 U.S. Treasury Shows. He's featuring the May 1945 broadcasts on Tuesday; June 1945 on Wednesday; July 1945 on Thursday; and August 1945 on Friday.

David's show, Night Lights, airs at 11:05 (EST). Go here to see the schedule, check out David's series archive, and listen to the show's live stream.

Raise Up Off Me

Hampton Hawes is an acquired taste. There's a certain choppiness to his piano playing, a hard sound that likely was the result of continued narcotics use for a good part of the 1950s. And like Art Pepper, he was in and out of prison for chunks of time on drug busts throughout the decade. Sadly, Hawes isn't all that well known among many jazz listeners today. That's a shame.

Hawes was born and raised in Los Angeles. Self-taught, he began playing professionally with trumpeter Howard McGhee in 1947. He was the pianist on the rigorous live Elk's Club date (Bopland/Savoy) featuring Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray, played a bunch of dates in 1948, formed his own trio in 1951 and was on the seminal Shorty Rogers and His Giants sessions for Capitol later that year. In 1952, Hawes recorded with Wardell Gray and Art Farmer, and then put together a trio for a gig  at the Surf Club (which was recorded) before teaming with Art Pepper.

From late 1952-1954, Hawes was in the army, serving in Japan. When discharged, he formed a trio with Red Mitchell on bass and Chuck Thompson on drums and recorded steadily for Contemporary Records.

Busted in 1958, Hawes remained in prison until 1963, when he was pardoned by President Kennedy. Hawes played regularly during the 1960s and 1970s, dying in 1977 at age 48 of a brain hemorrhage.

Hampton Hawes' albums recorded between 1955 and 1958 are his prime period. Most are gems. When Hawes was on, he was blindingly terrific. There was a fabulous snap to his playing, an unwillingness to compromise or blend in. He had huge energy and an intensity that was influenced by Bud Powell but rooted solidly in Art Tatum. There also was a frantic funkiness to his playing. In some respects, before there was Horace Silver, there was Hampton Hawes.

Like Tatum, Hawes was best captured playing solo, where he had a chance to show off not only his versatile technique but also  his ability to play lush and at varied tempos. And Tatum was impressed. Hawes recalls an encounter in his autobiography (written with Don Asher), Raise Up Off Me (1974);

"I was working with Stan Getz at the Tiffany Club [in Los Angeles] when Art Tatum showed up at the bar one night. Didn't even know he was in the club till he came wandering out of the shadows moving in that awkward lumbering way, head turned to the side and up—like Bela Lugosi coming at you, scare the shit out of you if you didn't know who it was—straining for the light because he only had but a light sight in the one eye. Move right up to me and said, 'Son, you hot. I came down to hear you.' Well I knew I was playing good, getting there, but in the overall rundown of players I considered myself comparatively lukewarm at the time. And here's Art Tatum looking weird at me out of the corner of one eye, saying Son, you hot.

I said, 'I'm glad you came and I wish you'd show me some of that stuff you do with your left hand.' He said, 'I will if you'll show me some of your right-hand stuff. Why don't you come by my house.' Gave me the address and we shook hands on it...I kept meaning to go by his house, but by the time I got my head together and said, Tomorrow I'll go by Art Tatum's house, I hear on the car radio he was dead. Forty-six years old. On November 4, 1956."

That was Hampton Hawes. Always screwing up but always playing his West Coast heart out. Once you hear the best of Hawes, you'll be hooked on his approach. Hawes was the sound of excitement and of a candle burning at both ends.

Wax tracks: My favorite Hawes album from this period is Bird Song, which includes solo work on I Should Care that is simply stunning. Just One of Those Things, from the same album, also is staggering. Paul Chambers is on bass, and Lawrence Marable is the drummer. But Hawes is so strong, producer Lester Koenig could have—and should have—made it a solo outing. You'll find Bird Song here. Spring for either import; it's that good.

When you hear how rich and runny his treatment of I Should Care is, you'll realize how close he was to Tatum in style—and that he could have rivaled Sonny Clark.

My other favorite Hawes albums are Four! (1958) and For Real (1958). Four! includes Barney Kessel on guitar, Red Mitchell on bass and Shelly Manne on drums. For Real has Harold Land on tenor, Scott LaFaro on bass and Frank Butler on drums. Hawes'  playing on these two albums is superlative.

Unfortunately, Four! is not at iTunes and was last issued on CD in 1991, so I'd skip the purchase until it's remastered. For Real is available as an import here.

Wax clip: The only video clip I could find of Hampton Hawes is here. It was shot in 1970, with Shelly Manne on drums and Bob Cooper on tenor. Unfortunately, it doesn't nearly capture the genius that was Hampton Hawes in the mid-1950s.

Ila Cantor at EZ's

Yesterday afternoon my wife and I went up to EZ's Woodshed on 132d and 7th Ave. to hear Ila (pronounced EYE-la) Cantor—a wonderful up-and-coming 23-year-old electric guitarist  whose most recent CD was released by Fresh Sound (you can hear her music here and catch her album here).

Ila was playing with a warm bassist (upright) and drummer (fabulous with both brushes and sticks). The compositions were all her own, and they have a hypnotic, introspective quality. It's hard to categorize her jazz style, except to say that her sound and use of chords and rhythm are new and ahead of their time.

EZ's Woodshed is the way all jazz clubs should be. (Go here to see EZ's website and videoclips.) The club is a throwback to the 1950s. The space is pure shoebox—with a store selling CDs and other terrific jazz items up front, and a 20-seat sliver of a club further back. Original jazz paintings and photography cover the wooden walls, transforming the playing space into something of a jazz chapel.

Robert Ball, a young trombonist, was manning the register and working the web to gain support for the fledging store-front club. Ball told me—get this!—that EZ's opens daily at 2 pm with live music and remains open through dozens of sets "until the musicians want to stop."

Man, this is how jazz was born and raised in New York. Yesterday it was gratifying to see that young jazz players like Cantor still have a place to hang out and woodshed. And that young players like Ball know their jazz history.

The Real Ambassador

"Everybody wants to know why I play stronger than any other trumpets. Well, it ain't nothin' mysterious. Ain't no witch doctor, two-head stuff. If you can take the soreness out of your lips, you can put pressure on that horn.

How to do it? I bathe my lips every night, soon as I leave the stand, with witch hazel and lip salve and sweet spirits of nitre. And I bathe 'em again before I go to bed. Sweet spirits of nitre will take the soreness out of anything, man. Oh, it stings! You put it on and then grab a chair for about five minutes, and too many trumpet players aint got the guts to stand the ache. Or they won't use the salve, 'cause its greasy. It's not bad, smells like strawberry.

Now, when I get up to go to work, I put witch hazel and sweet spirits of nitre on again, and by the time I get to the club, I'm OK again. Sure, my lips are scarred up—I been playing that horn fifty years—but they're relaxed at all times, and that's it. If your lips well up a fraction on the mouthpiece, you're in trouble with your notes."

—Louis Armstrong (from Celebrating the Duke, by Ralph J. Gleason, 1975)

Love Is Just a Ghost

Everyone has a Carmen McRae story. Mine took place at New York's Blue Note club back in the early 1980s. I don't recall who was on piano, bass and drums—but I vividly remember what happened that night and the song Carmen was singing.

Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most is a song most singers dread. First, as a singer, you must plunge deep into the dewy mood of the Fran Landesman-Tommy Wolf song or your credibility as a singer is shot. So there's too much room for disaster.

Second, other than the title line, the lyrics never repeat. Spring is an eight-stanza story that starts with "Once I was a sentimental thing" and tells the tale of an ingenue nostalgic for a lost love when spring arrives. Most singers are relieved to reach the end of the song without blowing the lyrics.

Back to the Blue Note. That night, during the second set, the piano began a lush intro and Carmen, perched on a stool and lit by a hot spot, started to sing:

"Once..." (which came out like a gentle hiss followed by a thick pause) "...I was a sentimental thing; threw my heart away each—."

Carmen stopped short, as the piano continued for a measure or two until the guy playing realized Carmen wasn't going to continue.

Carmen then glared out into the audience. Looking right at me, she said, "Are you finished? Because if you're not, I'll wait. In fact," she said reaching for a glass on the nearby piano, "I've got all damn night."

I freaked. Did Carmen hear me move my chair closer to the cocktail table? I felt like an animal about to be skinned. "Yeah, you," she said. "That's right. You, in the yellow." I looked down at my shirt. It wasn't me. Relief. It was the woman just behind me who I heard softly chuckle at her first-date's inside joke as Carmen started. I didn't have the heart to turn around.

"Done?" Carmen asked. "I can start again? Yes? OK, good." Her trio laughed nervously. Carmen's rhetorical questions dripped with a unique contempt that reduced the offender to something stuck to a shoe. Carmen could be a bully in clubs, that's for sure.

But Carmen's complaint isn't the point of my story. instead of starting the song from the beginning, Carmen, clad in a dashiki, put her glass down and switched from diva to tragic lover. Then Carmen did the impossible—she picked up the song on the final word of the second line that she never finished and sang the word "—spring" right on key.

Carmen proceeded to sing the mine-field of a song flawlessly, from the third line on. How the pianist knew the chord changes from the third line is beyond me. All I could think of at the time is that if the guy had hesitated or screwed up, there would have been hell to pay.

As Carmen sang, wishing spring away with every ache in her heart, the entire club was on edge. The bar stopped pouring drinks, and whatever had been poured took on melted ice. Waitresses didn't dare tiptoe between tables to deliver them. At the end, Carmen got a standing ovation—probably two parts broken audience tension and certainly two parts admiration.

Carmen, like Sarah Vaughan, was a musician first and a singer second. Both played keyboards wonderfully and both could work every drop out of a song. They also were great friends. According to Leslie Gourse's book Sassy: The Life of Sarah Vaughan:

"Carmen loved Sassy's early recordings with B. [Eckstine], Dizzy and Bird, though at first she thought that Sassy didn't even know who she was. But one day, Sassy said, 'Hi Carmen.' Carmen recalled, 'That really knocked me out.' From that moment on, Carmen and Sassy became friends, hanging out together 'against the law, honey,' until 'six, seven, even eight in the morning. When I got tired, I split and went home. Sass never got tired."

Carmen had much greater knowledge of songs than Sassy and much better taste. Carmen also knew more songs than any other singer—mostly off-beat delights that were long forgotten or never recorded. She also felt the pain and passion deeply, more so, I think, than Sarah, who had terrific range and intensity but in many cases never got the same meaning or essence out of songs. Carmen sang as if she experienced the lyrics just moments earlier.

Miles Davis put it best. As the story goes, he was in San Francisco looking up at a billboard announcing that Ella was playing at the Fairmont's Venetian Room. The ad called Ella "The Queen of Jazz." Miles grunted and then growled, "If Ella Fitzgerald is the Queen of jazz, what the fuck is Carmen?"

Carmen remained just short of a commercial hit, probably because she looked, well, a little odd. She was pretty, but she had masculine features, more jolie laid than model-photogenic. Her nose was a little too pronounced and her nostrils flared just a little too much. She wasn't old enough to have made her mark in the 1940s and was too old to capitalize on the 1960s, like Shirley Bassey did.

Carmen even missed the commercial success that Dinah Washington experienced in 1959 with What a Difference a Day Makes. Even in her time, Carmen's image wasn't sexy-controllable, like Nancy Wilson's or Dakota Staton's. In photos, she never looked like a dumb date. She was in charge, and she never played the game.

But what Carmen had that no other singer seemed to possess back then was a musical intelligence that made her indisputably superior in almost every way. Carmen wasn't an entertainer or a blues belter or a soul singer. Carmen was a jazz musician, and she was always in a category of her own.

Wax tracks: Let's face it, there really aren't any bad Carmen McRae albums, only favorites. I mention my favorites here not as a claim that they are her best outings. I just fancy them for her sound at the time or the arrangements or the mood.

The first is Boy Meets Girl, with Sammy Davis Jr. (Decca/1957 and 1958). I love this album because Carmen is having a blast with Sammy. She's so good, in fact, that Sammy has to up his game, and he seems to love every minute of the competition. You can find this album at iTunes and here.

My second favorite has been hard to find for years but is now available as Carmen McRae: 1964 Orchestra Recordings. It's really two Mainstream albums in one—Second to None (1964) and Haven't We Met (1965). The CD features the arrangements of Peter Matz (who arranged Barbra Streisand's People that the same year) and Don Sebesky. You can find it here.

The highlight is The Music That Makes Me Dance, which features a terrific wandering open trumpet accompaniment by Johnny Bello, who played in many of the best West Coast bands in the late 1950s.

Now, if you want to hear what is perhaps the best recorded version of Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most, go to iTunes and download the song off Irene Kral's album, Where Is Love. The whole album is great, but this version is tops, bar none.

Wax clip: For a look at Carmen's intimate delivery in the mid 1960s, check out Trouble is a Man here.