JazzWax

Holiday for Strings

In the wake of my four-part interview series with guitar legend Mundell Lowe last week, regular blog reader Don Frese spent time over the weekend going through YouTube and sent along the following notes and links to clips of other jazz guitarist greats. Perfect viewing if you have off today for Martin Luther King Day. Enjoy!

Grant Green, Barney Kessel and Kenny Burrell—"This may be the only video evidence of Grant Green's playing.  A three-for-one deal with two other greats—Kessel and Burrell." (Go here)

Chuck Wayne—"Here's Wayne with Mike Morreale on trumpet in 1993 during a 70th-birthday tribute in Staten Island, N.Y." (Go here)

Wes Montgomery—"This is Wes on his 1965 European tour playing Nica's Dream with a Dutch trio." (Go here)

Tal Farlow—After burning brightly in the 1950s, Farlow retired in the 1960s when the jazz scene started to die to do sign painting and give guitar lessons on the New Jersey shore. But Farlow came back in the mid-1970s when classic jazz began to experience a revival. Here he's playing Li'l Darlin' in 1988." (Go here)

Jimmy Raney and Attila Zoller—"A lovely free-form duo improvisation by these two masters from 1980." (Go here)

Django Reinhardt—"This one from 1938 was the only extended clip of Django I could find." (Go here)

Charlie Christian—"While there's probably no video record of Charlie Christian, here's a segment from what I believe is Ken Burns' Jazz documentary, which has a audio clip over narration and photos." (Go here)

Sunday Wax Bits

Grant Stewart at Smalls. On Tuesday night, my daughter and I caught tenor saxophonist Grant Stewart at Smalls in New York. Grant is an aggressive player but a humble, gentle guy who is strongly influenced by Sonny Rollins on up-tempo tunes and Dexter Gordon on ballads. Unlike many jazz musicians today, Grant does a lot of listening to old masters when he isn't playing or practicing, which makes him a very shrewd player.

Smalls (183 W. 10th St.) is probably the best and most affordable place to see live jazz in New York. You pay $20 to get in and receive a poker chip that's good for a beer or glass of wine. You then are able to hang out all night listening to groups. You can sit at the room-long bar that runs right up to the stage. Or you can grab a seat that puts you virtually in the musicians' horns. Best of all, there's no waitress hassling. You sit, you sip, you dig. That's it. And the groups there come to play.

During the first set, Grant played five songs—three of them from his upcoming CD, Young at Heart (Sharp Nine), which is due out in March. I had the rare pleasure of watching Grant record the album in the fall. And in the spirit of what Dan Morgenstern calls "full disclosure," I'm pleased to say I wrote the new CD's liner notes.

Grant opened the first set at Smalls with the CD's title track, which he starts rubato and quickly shifts to a playful swinger. Next was an original burner, Shades of Jackie Mac, which Grant wrote in Brazil and is based on the changes to Sweet Georgia Brown.

Grant worked the lower register of his horn on Jerome Kern's The Folks Who Live on the Hill, a beautiful ballad well suited to Grant's big, round confident sound. Neal Hefti's Repetition, with its searing, soaring lines and tricky chord changes, was taken at medium tempo and given a bossa-Latin beat. About half-way through the tune, Grant slyly tagged the pop hit Windy, which worked wonderfully and gave the 1947 song a fresh feel. The last song was a fast-paced closer theme.

Grant was joined by Joe Cohn on guitar, Joel Forbes on bass, his brother Phil Stewart on drums and Ehud Asherie on piano. All delivered superb performances. The group plays at Smalls every Tuesday night.

During the break, Grant told me he had just returned from a Pennsylvania studio where he recorded on drummer Mike Melito's next CD, with Paul Hoffman on piano, John Swana on trumpet, Neal Miner on bass and Bob Sneider on guitar. More to follow.

If you're in New York, check out Smalls. It's the way jazz used to be heard—when the scene was about the music, not the rent.

The e-hills have eyes: A special thanks to Jon Foley, who often is the first to let me know by email that there's a typo in the day's post. From time to time, typos creep in, despite my painstaking efforts to catch them all ahead of time. For me, any typo is mortifying, since I take this stuff pretty seriously. The good news is that Jon's vigilance has made me extra careful, so I hope there will be fewer of them going forward.

Bill Evans: Conversations

After my post on Bill Evans’ Live in Paris 1965 CD last week ("Bill Evans: Last Great Album," January 8, 2008), I received an email from Jan Stevens. Jan is one of the foremost experts on Evans and the host of the best and most authoritative Bill Evans site—The Bill Evans Web Pages.

Jan and I have been friends for some time, and he felt I had gone a little too far ruling out Evans’ pre-Village Vanguard albums—and way too far dismissing much of Evans’ post-1965 work. Here are Jan’s comments, followed by a brief “editor’s note” from me:

“Marc,

As a friend of Bill's during the last two years he was with us, and as a pianist and student of Bill’s work for over 35 years, I have to respond to your post.

You wrote:

'... [Bill's] sweet spot starts with Sunday at the Village Vanguard  (Riverside) and ends with Trio '65 (Verve). During this golden epoch, Evans' touch was delicate, swingy, sensitive and deeply poetic. Albums that predate Sunday sound a tad half-baked or too work-in-progress-y.'

Ouch! This seems way, way off. For starters, Portrait in Jazz from 1959 is often discussed as one of his finest achievements! Superbly recorded, and with great interplay, the album is perhaps even more personally revealing, intimate and, if you will, transcendent than the Village Vanguard material of 1961. Which, of course, takes nothing away from those monumentally wondrous recordings.

Then there is Everybody Digs Bill Evans (1958), with its amazing landmark Peace Piece and other solo pieces. The album features a sparkling and swinging Evans (with his favorite drummer Philly Joe Jones).  In one of the few times Bill mentioned, retrospectively, one of his albums by name, he cited this as one of his real favorites.

As for your comments on the post-Trio ’65 period, they’re just simply and demonstrably untrue. There are too many examples to list here. For starters, there is much of the 1972 concert in Paris that could make you cry (and I've seen that happen to some who have heard it). Ditto for his New Conversations album of 1978, a favorite of many Evans aficionados.

There are also four albums that followed that won him Grammy awards that are excluded by virtue of your statement.  There are the solo piano albums, too! The trio with Jack DeJohnette! And all of the recorded output of the Last Trio, which, as Bill said, 'very much connected to the first trio.'

Also I hope you’re familiar with The Paris Concert (Edition One and Edition Two) recorded in November 1979. If you're not hip to this concert album, you need to be. It would, in my judgment, certainly factor in deeply to your stated opinion. It's a landmark performance, in which Bill's beautiful touch, sense of space and sensitivity is unquestionable.

Any considered opinion of Bill's legacy that leaves these albums out is simply unfair. I feel that my friend, the writer and professor Sam Chell, said it best:

'There's a misleading myth about Bill Evans that seems to be gaining acceptance, if the increasing references to his drug problem are any indication. The necessary inference is that Evans' genius and career fall within the familiar patterns of the tragic romantic artist--a burst of youthful, inspired creativity followed by gradual decline and eventual disrepair. Nothing could be further from the truth, as these recordings from a late 1979 Paris concert should make abundantly clear. In fact, they are every bit as impressive as the celebrated Vanguard recordings with LaFaro and Motion in 1961.'

Like Bird or Trane or Miles, (or Picasso, in art) no one can reduce the 'sweet spots' of this amazing creative force down to simply five short years!  It ignores way too many incredibly beautiful and often triumphant performances from the other 20 years that you left out.

Please go back and scrutinize the recordings more—since by any available assessment, there are many peaks and pure musical gems that your statement, by default, disposes of."

Editor’s Note: In the wake of Jan’s email, I decided to re-visit all of the Bill Evans albums in my rather large collection.

After my re-evaluation of Evans’ pre-Vanguard period, I must confess that I should have included Portrait in Jazz (1959) and Explorations (1961), which certainly deserve to be included in what I believe is Evans' “golden period."

However, I found that New Jazz Conceptions (1956) Everybody Digs Bill Evans (1958) and Green Dolphin Street (1959) remain flawed in one regard or another—either because they’re rushed (New Jazz Conceptions), sluggish (Everybody Digs) or marred by the wrong mix of sidemen (Green Dolphin Street).

Again, my words here should not imply that these albums need to be turned into ornaments or recycled. They simply aren't as refined or as perfect as those recorded between December 1959 and February 1965.

As for Evans’ post-Trio ’65 period, Jan is right—there are albums that are stunning works and in many ways perfect executions. For me, these include Montreux II, Alone (Again), You're Gonna' Hear From Me and You Must Believe in Spring. In addition, Jan is 100% correct about Evan's 1972 Paris concert. It's a masterpiece.

However, I’m afraid that whatever beauty exists on The Paris Concert albums from 1979 remains lost on me. The albums to my ear remain dull and depressing, which I find to be the case with much of Evans' work in the late 1970s, including the impossibly dreary Turn Out the Stars: Final Village Vanguard Recordings.

In short, this period just doesn't capture the same delight and excitement for me as Evans' "innocent" 1959-1965 years. Nor should it, given Evans' looming illness in the late 1970s and how artists change over time.

But that’s just me. Jan’s broader points are all solid and appreciated. So, if I were recasting my earlier opinion in the wake of Jan's comments and my review of Evans body of work, I would do so this way:

Bill Evans was a giant. There’s no disputing this, and there are few truly awful Bill Evans albums. His emotional depth exceeds most jazz artists, and he continues to touch listeners with his deeply poetic music.

However, for me, Evans’ most dramatic and optimistic period runs from December 1959 to February 1965—though there are quite a few superb albums and live dates between 1965 and his death in 1980.

I only wish the child-like beauty of this 1959-1965 period had been sustained. I wish that Evans' mood didn’t grow so dark with time. And I wish that his song choices had been less repetitive as the years wore on. But these are mere quibbles, since every Evans album takes us on an emotional journey and teaches us something new about life and ourselves.

Mundell Lowe, Part 4

In the late 1950s, jazz guitarist Mundell Lowe was playing, arranging and contracting dates for jazz recordings, TV shows and commercials. Known for his impeccable chord changes and round, confident solo style, Mundell was on top of his game by 1960. But the music industry was changing, and Mundell grew increasingly frustrated by rock's growing influence.

In the final installment of my four-part interview, Mundell talks about the 1950s guitar scene, the making of Satan in High Heels, Carmen McRae and why he relocated to California. He also talks about Bill Evans' Waltz for Debby and resolves the question over who it was written for:

JazzWax: Was there cutthroat competition among jazz guitarists back in the 1950s?
Mundell Lowe: Goodness, there were so many great players. You had Tal Farlow, Chuck Wayne, Barry Galbraith, Billy Bauer, Sal Salvador, Kenny Burrell, Barney Kessel, Jim Hall and on and on. But we were all friendly. There was plenty of work to go around.

JW: Even for gigs?
ML: If you walked into a club where another guitarist was playing, he'd motion you to come up and play. And you did. It wasn’t like it was later, when the opportunities dried up and jazz musicians were cutting each other’s throats for work. At that point, musicians suspected you were showing up just to take their gig away. It's hard to believe today, but everyone got along. It was a tight club, and we helped each other.

JW: Your score for Satan in High Heels remains one of the great movie soundtracks. How did your involvement come about?
ML: That was the first film I ever scored. The producer, Leonard Burton, called me up in 1962 and said he had made this skin flick, which by today’s standards I guess is pretty tame. He said he heard some music I wrote for the NBC Orchestra and that this film might be my cup of tea.

So I had a meeting in New York and ironed out the business end. Then we set up the dates. The film editor started putting film together and called me to spot the film and reels—which means to figure out where the music is going to go.

JW: What did you think when you saw the film?
ML: To tell you the truth, I didn’t know what to think. It was pretty trashy. But I wanted to write for film and this one was as good as any to try out new things, musically. As I started to live with the film, the music I wanted to write came into focus. I decided I would do a jazz score, and the arrangements I created turned out to fit the film perfectly.

JW: You brought in some amazing talent for the date.
ML: I got the best guys I could find—Joe Newman, Doc Severinsen, Clark Terry, Urbie Green, Al Cohn [pictured] and others. It was an all-star group. Hey, they had to pay rent, too!

JW: What's it like to score a film?
ML: It's tricky business. It took me about three weeks to spot the film and write the score. Then the guys came in, we put the parts up on the stands and had to record so each song lasted a specific amount of time—not a second over or under.

But hitting the clock just right takes time, even for pros. You need to work out the tempos and then finish each piece of music at exactly the right moment in the film. There's no room for error.

JW: What was your biggest obstacle?
ML: Musician fatigue. By the time I scored the film, I knew from writing for commercials that trying to complete pieces of music according to a time sheet saps the concentration of musicians pretty quickly—no matter who the artist is. Too many takes to finish on the dot causes musicians to start screwing up.

So I decided to create breaks in extended pieces of music by overlapping the cues. A cue is a fancy movie term for the music you’re recording for a scene. So if I had a cue that ran 4 ½ minutes, I’d break it into three segments and write an overlap between the second and third segments.

JW: Explain a little.
ML: OK, if I had three separate segments that made up a 4 ½ -minute piece of music, I'd write an easy-going chord, like a C-7, at the end of each segment.

JW: Why?
ML: At the end of the first cue, a sax, say, would run down the C-7 chord. Then we'd take a break. When we returned, the sax would then start the next segment by running down the same chord. This would allow the segments to be spliced together later seamlessly—without the music sounding chopped up or low-energy.

JW: Very cool. How did you figure that out?
ML: It's a trick I read in a great book on scoring for film by arranger Russ Garcia. The book is called The Professional Arranger Composer. I read it a couple of times and understood all the techniques I needed to score a film.

JW: You first recorded with Carmen McRae in 1954. She loved your pretty sound.
ML: We recorded and played together for years. After we recorded Bittersweet in May 1964, she said she was going to use me on guitar for all her dates. She had originally hired another big-name guitarist to play on Bittersweet. But he didn’t understand what Carmen was up to, so I got called in to replace him.

JW: Is being an accompanist tough?
ML: Not if you remember one rule. My philosophy has always been that when you’re playing with a singer or a sax, they are the feature. Period. You are supporting them. The minute you try to override them, you lose.

JW: You played behind so many singers. Which one had the quickest temper?
ML: Carmen. She was a very talented lady but she had bad management. Back in those days, agents had a lot of control. Carmen didn’t have enough strength and pull to take care of herself. When things got away from her, as they often did, she could become pretty tough.

JW: You left New York for good in 1965. Why?
ML: I began to see the handwriting on the wall. The business was going down. I had been at NBC for 13 years as a staff musician and they were getting antsy about retaining staff. Rock was coming in strong, and all the money was being diverted to promote it.

In early December 1965, my family went out to Los Angeles to spend the holiday season with Ed Shaughnessy’s family. When I flew out to join them, I ran into Jackie “Skippy” Cooper—you know, the child actor. By then he had become a big TV director for Screen Gems. Jackie said he had heard some music I had written and asked me to move out to Hollywood and score for television.

I asked my wife at the time what she thought. She said let’s do it. So we went back to New York, I packed up everything, put my family on a plane, and a week after Christmas 1965 we were living in California. I also went to work for Columbia Pictures and wrote for the movies.

JW: Was rock a factor in your decision?
ML: Rock was just something that producers dreamed up to make money. It had nothing to do with art. I’m glad I made the move out to California and avoided the whole rock scene. Rather than sell out, I was able to do what I wanted to do—and sleep at night.

JW: Bill Evans' Waltz for Debby—who was it written for?
ML: It was written for two Debbys—my daughter and Bill's niece. Both were named Debby. My Debby was 3 years old when Bill played in my trio with Red Mitchell in the early 1950s. He liked her very much. The tune was a melody Bill had been fooling around with since college. It was a foregone conclusion that he wrote the song with both of Debbys in mind.

Attention, Ohio: Mundell will be playing in Cleveland with guitarist Mike Magnelli, bassist Dave Morgan and drummer Val Kent on January 23d and 24th at Nighttown ...and in Dayton at Gilly's on January 26th.

JazzWax tracks: Satan in High Heels is one of the great sleeper jazz soundtracks and a must-own. The movie is camp and seedy, but Mundell's incidental music is dynamic and swinging from start to finish. Best of all, it's available as a download at iTunes. Search under Mundell's name.

Dig the personnel on the Satan in High Heels soundtrack: Joe Newman, Doc Severinsen, Clark Terry [pictured] (trumpets), Urbie Green and Buster Cooper (trombones), Jimmy Buffington (French horn), Ray Beckenstein (alto sax and flute), Walt Levinsky (alto sax and clarinet) Al Cohn, Al Klink (tenor saxes), Sol Schlinger (baritone sax), Eddie Costa (piano and vibes) Mundell Lowe (guitar), George Duvivier (bass) and Ed Shaughnessy (drums).

At iTunes, sample Coffee Coffee and the cha-cha, From Mundy On. Enough said.

Mundell's 1964 album with Carmen McRae, Bittersweet, also is available at iTunes, as is his latest album, Haunted Heart, with singer Jim Ferguson.

JazzWax video clip: In this clip from a 1987 TV show, Mundell plays Waltz for Debby with guitarist Louis Stewart. It's my favorite clip of Mundell's, and I was saving it as a treat for today. I think it sums up Mundell's playing beautifully. Enjoy!

Interview: Mundell Lowe (Part 3)

Mundell Lowe got his start with bandleader and drummer Ray McKinley in 1946 and rapidly built a name for himself in the late 1940s. Between 1947 and 1952, Mundell played and recorded with a long list of top jazz artists, including Billie Holiday, Mary Lou Williams and Charlie Parker.

By 1953, Mundell was one of the most sought-after session guitarists in the business. During the 1950s, he recorded with the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra, Georgie Auld, Dick Hyman, Joe Wilder, Ruby Braff, Tony Scott, Ben Webster, Cannonball Adderley and Donald Byrd along with many others. He also began recording as a leader for Riverside Records and became the go-to guitarist of singers such as Carmen McRae, Sarah Vaughan, Lee Wiley, Chris Connor, Blossom Dearie and Sammy Davis, Jr. 

In Part 3 of my four-part interview with Mundell, he talks about Bill Evans and Ben Webster:

JazzWax: You are often credited with discovering Bill Evans. How did that happen?
Mundell Lowe: I first met Bill when I got out of the army after World War II. I was in New Orleans and he was at Southeastern Louisiana University. My brother-in-law took me over to hear him. I loved Bill’s sound right away. When we met, I told him that when he graduated, he had to come to New York and that we’d gig.

JW: Did he take you up on your offer?
ML: Sure enough, as soon as he graduated in 1950 he called. I put together a trio—me, Bill and Red Mitchell on bass. We never recorded, though. Producers at the time weren’t interested. Can you imagine? I did record something Bill played for me on my  little Webcore machine, which recorded onto a wire.

Our trio played a couple of gigs in New York and then went on the road to Illinois. We sounded great, but our management agency kept booking us into beer joints and places like that.

JW: It's hard to imagine Bill, his head over the keyboard, in a dive in the middle of nowhere.
ML: I know. What's worse, the people who were in those places couldn’t have cared less about what we were playing. For them, we were just there for background music while they got loaded and geared up for fights. One bar even had chicken wire around the stage and up to the ceiling so we wouldn’t get hit by flying beer bottles. It was like playing in a chicken coop. That was definitely weird.

JW: Why didn't the trio work out?
ML: When we returned to New York we couldn’t get work. We had to disband. Red joined Woody Herman. Bill went down to his mother’s place in Florida. And I picked up gigs and session work with Billy Taylor, Benny Goodman and Louis Prima.

JW: You were the one who told Riverside Records' producer Orrin Keepnews about Bill?
ML: By the mid-1950s, I signed with Riverside Records, and Orrin was a friend. I told him, “You need to hear this guy, Bill Evans. He plays wonderfully.” I knew that Orrin was trying to build a catalog for the label. He said, “OK, OK, send him over and I’ll listen to him.”

The rest, as they say, is history. Bill’s first album as a leader, New Jazz Conceptions, came out in late 1956. Up until that point, Bill had been a sideman and wasn't thought of as a leader by producers yet.

JW: You recorded with Ben Webster in the late 1950s. Big temper?
ML: Not with me. I recorded with Ben on his date, The Soul of Ben Webster for Verve, and he recorded with me on my date, Porgy & Bess: Mundell Lowe and His Orchestra for Camden. Both were done in July 1958.

Ben was fantastic. People said he had trouble getting along with others, but we liked each other very much. We used to hang out all the time, and Ben would play the most amazing stride piano for me.

JW: But he could be plenty tough, yes?
ML: Oh sure. One night Ben, Billy Taylor and me were talking in front of Birdland on 52d St. and Broadway. Out of the dark a junky came up to us, scratching his face and asked for money so he could get fixed. Ben told him to take a walk.

The guy continued as if he didn’t hear Ben or didn’t care what he had said. Ben told the guy again to split or he’d force him to. The guy was high and kept saying, “I have to get my soul together, you dig?”

Ben used to carry this big walking stick with a silver lion’s head on top. Eventually the guy got a little too close. Ben lifted the stick up and cracked the guy with the lion’s head. The guy went down like a sack. Then Ben turned to us and politely said, “Let’s go and get some coffee.”

JW: Yet he was such a tender player.
ML: Sure—and as a person, deep down. When Ben moved to Copenhagen in 1964, he used to call me every few months at four or five in the morning. He didn’t understand the time-difference thing. He’d be juiced and crying. He'd tell me how much he wanted to come home and how much he missed it here.

I told him to come on home. There was plenty of work. But he'd say no, that he couldn’t leave. That he was plenty busy. But so lonesome for home. It was so sad. Those calls would break my heart. He just had a better life over there and knew it. But he still had such nostalgia for his life here.

Tomorrow: In the final part of my four-part interview, Mundell  talks about his swinging score for Satan in High Heels, Carmen McRae, and why he packed up his family in 1965 and moved to California.

JazzWax tracks: Mundell recorded frequently in the 1950s as a leader, as a session player and as a singer's accompanist.

Mundell's early 1950s Sauter-Finegan dates can be found on a number of CDs, inclduing Inside Sauter-Finegan. Mundell's first album as a leader, for RCA in 1954, is available only on a 10-inch LP—The Mundell Lowe Septet.

Mundell's recordings as a leader for Riverside Records include The Mundell Lowe Quartet (1955), Guitar Moods (1956), New Music of Alec Wilder (1956) and A Grand Night for Swinging (1957).

Mundell's duet album with Sammy Davis Jr., Mood to Be Wooed (1957), is available only as an out-of-print Japanese CD.

Interestingly, most of Mundell's Porgy & Bess (Camden) was recorded on July 16 and 17—five days before Miles Davis began recording Porgy & Bess with the Gil Evans Orchestra (Columbia). Mundell's session featured Art Farmer on trumpet, Don Elliott on mellophone and vibes, Tony Scott on clarinet and baritone saxophone, Ben Webster on tenor sax, George Duvivier on bass and Osie Johnson on drums. Unfortunately, the CD is out of print, but a used copy is going for around $70.

Mundell's two TV Action Jazz albums from 1959 and 1960 featuring Clark Terry, Donald Byrd, Eddie Costa, Jimmy Cleveland, Urbie Green, Herbie Mann and Tony Scott have been combined on one CD that's available here.

JazzWax video clips: Here's Mundell with the Billy Taylor All Stars in May 1958 playing Flying Home. That's Ben Webster on tenor, Buck Clayton on trumpet, Benny Morton on trombone, Billy Taylor on piano, Mundell on guitar, Eddie Safranski on bass and Ed Thigpen on drums. How'd you like to follow Big Ben, Buck and Benny with a solo? Yikes! And how about Billy Taylor!

I've added this clip to my "Video" listings in the right-hand column under Mundell Lowe's name so you can access it any time.

Interview: Mundell Lowe (Part 2)

Mundell Lowe ran away from his Mississippi home at age 16 to play jazz guitar but was drafted into the army two years later, in 1942. Before shipping out, Mundell met producer John Hammond. After Mundell was discharged in 1945, Hammond introduced him to bandleader Ray McKinley, and Mundell played with McKinley exclusively in 1946.

Between 1947 and 1948, Mundell recorded in groups with Helen Humes, Buck Clayton, Jo Jones, Peanuts Hucko, Davie Tough, Billy Taylor, Cootie Williams, Dinah Washington, Benny Goodman, Fats Navarro, Zoot Sims, Wardell Gray and Charlie Parker.

Today, in Part 2 of my four-part series on Mundell between 1946 and 1964, he talks about Billie Holiday, Mary Lou Williams, Johnnie Ray and Charlie Parker:

JazzWax: What was it like playing behind Billie Holiday?
Mundell Lowe: I first recorded with Billie when I was part of pianist Bobby Tucker’s quartet in 1948. I also  recorded with Billie in 1949, with Buster Harding’s Orchestra, which included Lester Young. I first met her in 1948 when I was playing at Café Society in Greenwich Village with George Duvivier on bass and Bill Clark on drums. Billie came in wearing a big mink coat, and as we were talking a little head pushed out of her coat pocket and looked up at me. It was her Chihuahua. She took that dog everywhere.

The biggest kick I had with Billie was playing behind her for about 10 days in April 1948 during Holiday on Broadway. This was a small, little-known revue at the Mansfield Theater in New York. Billie would sing about a dozen songs and then showcase a bunch of groups, including the Bobby Tucker Quintet, which featured Bobby on piano, me on guitar, Tony Scott on clarinet, John Levy on bass and Denzil Best on drums. The show had a short run—about 10 days, I think—because the theater reviewers came in and couldn’t figure out what we were doing.

Playing with Billie was like playing behind God. She had such innate talent and knew how to control it. There’s an art to that. For most artists at her level, that gift dates back to earlier days, when they had a terrible time and learned how to communicate with their audiences through their voice or horn.

JW: In 1949 you gigged and recorded with pianist Mary Lou Williams. Was she tough?
ML: Not at all. Mary Lou was a bop pianist but liked her music clear, clean and melodic. She was a wonderful lady. When I started  playing with her, the trio was Mary Lou on piano, me on guitar and Beverly Peer on bass, who would eventually play with Bobby Short in the 1960s and 1970s.

One night in 1949 we were working at the Village Vanguard when a tall lanky kid came in with a sax in a grocery bag. He went over to Max Gordon who was napping on one of the seats during our set. The kid asked Max if he could sit in with us. Max told him it’s Mary Lou’s group and that he’d have to ask her.

So at intermission the kid asked Mary Lou if he could play with us. She said sure, that the trio would play a few tunes first and then she’d call him up to the bandstand. When we started again, after a few numbers, she called him up, and we started to play a standard. The kid starts playing 1,000 notes for every beat.

Mary Lou stopped playing in the middle of the song and closed the piano. "That's it," she said. "The set is over." She wasn’t into running scales. She liked ideas and the music to be straightforward. That saxophonist, of course, was John Coltrane. He had just arrived in New York. I think he recovered just fine from that night!

JW: You're the guitarist on Johnnie Ray's Cry, a #1 pop hit in late 1951. A big change from the jazz greats you were playing with at the time?
ML: Just another gig. It's funny, I recorded quite a bit in the early 1950s with Johnnie Ray but I can’t remember specifically what happened on that Cry session. Probably not much. Pop recordings lasted about three hours—two or three takes max per song. I was called to play on so many pop dates.

Johnnie Ray’s singing style is mocked today as being overly emotional, and Cry certainly sounds heavy by today's standards. But it was a huge hit at the time. Also, many people aren't aware of the jazz musicians who were on some of those Johnnie Ray dates. Musicians included me, Lucky Thompson on tenor, Ed Safranski on bass, Ed Shaughnessy on drums and Stan Freeman on piano.

There were no arrangements. We just had a bunch of chord changes written out and made everything else up as we went along.

The last recording I made with Johnnie Ray was around 1953, at New York's Great Northern Hotel on 59th St. They cleared out a lot of stuff in one of the ballrooms and made a recording studio out of it. But halfway through the session, Ray fell down and started convulsing. Not many people knew he had epilepsy. Shortly after that incident his agent moved him out to California to work in the movies.

JW: The following year you were playing with Charlie Parker. A big change, yes?
ML: Oh my, yes. My phone rang on a Tuesday—I remember it was a Tuesday. When I picked up the receiver,  the voice at the other end said, "Mundy? This is Bird. I’m looking for a guitar player. Are you available on Friday?" I was shocked. Bird went on, saying he was playing a concert up at the Rockland Palace Dance Hall in Harlem.

I told him I’d make the date, he said great, and we hung up. The next three days were the longest in my life. I got the sweats. I had played with Bird in 1950, at Café Society with Tony Scott and others. But this was going to be a long concert with a large audience and major sidemen.

When I arrived at the dance hall that Friday, Bird had strings and an oboe behind him. But he had only eight or nine orchestral arrangements. He needed a small group to fill out the concert time on other numbers. That group was Walter Bishop, Jr. on piano, Teddy Kotick on bass, Max Roach on drums and me on guitar.

I must confess I was scared to death. I knew I had to show Bird the best I could play. The first song we played—Ornithology or Don't Blame Me, I can't recall—Bird ran through a couple of choruses and motioned for me to step forward and play one. After I played, I started backing up. But Bird waved me to go on, and I played four or five more choruses.

Bird wanted to see what I could do. When I was done, he smiled wide, exposing that gold tooth. When you saw that tooth, you knew Bird was real happy.

After the concert, Bird and I remained good friends. I lived with clarinetist Tony Scott at the time above the Café Society in Sheridan Square. Bird used to come down and hang out with Tony and me. We never talked about music. He always wanted to talk about books or chemistry or something else he was curious about. He was a great guy.

Tomorrow: In Part 3 of my four-part interview, Mundell talks about discovering Bill Evans, why they had to gig behind chicken wire, an incident between Ben Webster and a junkie on Broadway, and playing with Carmen McRae.

JazzWax tracks: Mundell Lowe's recordings with Cootie Williams in 1947 can be found here on Cootie Williams: 1946-1949. Mundell's 1948-1949 recordings with Billie Holiday are here on a terrific two-CD set, Billie Holiday: The Complete Original American Decca Recordings. Mundell's 1949-1950 recordings with pianist Mary Lou Williams are here on Mary Lou Williams: 1949-1951. His sessions with Billy Taylor, Jo Jones and Zoot Sims are on Billy Taylor: 1950-1952 here. Johnnie Ray's recordings of Cry and The Little White Cloud That Cried (Mundell was also on that hit-producing session)  can be dowloaded from iTunes.

A little perspective: Pop music was dominated in the very early 1950s by a new style of singing that featured enormous vocal tension and faux sensitivity. Passion singers of the period included Frankie Laine, Johnnie Ray, Kay Starr, Eddie Fisher, Patti Page  and even Tony Bennett—all of whom dominated the charts in late 1951 and 1952. Johnnie Ray was at the forefront of this bluesy "crying" genre, and his Cry remains the best example of this short-lived trend. To hear Johnnie Ray and Mundell's guitar on Cry, go here. 

Charlie Parker's Rockland Palace Concert is available here on a double-CD set, The Complete Legendary Rockland Palace Concert.

JazzWax video clips: To see Mundell Lowe play on a May 1957 TV show called The Subject Is Jazz, go here. The clip of Billie's Bounce features Mundell, Vic Dickenson on trombone, Buck Clayton on trumpet, Paul Quinichette on tenor saxophone, Billy Taylor on piano, Ed Safranski on bass and Ed Thigpen on drums.

Interview: Mundell Lowe (Part 1)

When it comes to the jazz guitar, few musicians around today have played with as many greats as Mundell Lowe. Now 85 years old, the guitar legend has performed and recorded with virtually everyone—including Charlie  Parker, Lester Young, Billie Holiday, Carmen McRae, Mary Lou Williams and Ben Webster. He’s also credited with discovering Bill Evans in 1949 and bringing him to the attention of Riverside producer Orrin Keepnews in the mid-1950s.

“Mundy,” as he’s known among friends and insiders, has one of the smoothest sounds in jazz. In addition to being one of the most sought-after session guitarists from the 1950s onward, Mundell is a fabulous arranger. You merely have to listen to his writing on the soundtrack Satan in High Heels or the album The Greatness of Joe Mooney. Mundell could write swinging scores for bands and pretty, tight charts for ensembles.

In recent years, Mundell has been traveling worldwide playing in clubs and recording for TV commercials, TV shows and the movies. I spoke with Mundell last week about his early years in New York, before his move to California in 1964. Here's Part 1 of my four-part series:

JazzWax: You grew up a country boy?
Mundell Lowe: Yes, I was born in 1922, in Laurel, Mississippi, which is about a two-hour drive north of New Orleans. I loved music and jazz from the time I could pick up a guitar. Farming wasn’t for me, so I dropped out of high school and ran away from home at age 16. I wanted to play music, and my dad wanted me to go to school.

When I left home I headed up to Nashville, which was about six hours north of us. My dad came to get me, but I ran away again, to New Orleans, which was about two hours to the south. Parents back then—like parents today, I suppose—have no idea what their kids really want to do in life.

In Laurel, running away from home was a shocking thing. There was no precedent for it. In our town, you grew up and went to work on a farm as soon as you could. No one left, let alone ran away.

JW: In 1942, when you joined the army, you had a career-changing encounter, didn’t you?
ML: Before I shipped out to the Pacific, I was stationed in Camp Plauche, up the Mississippi River in a Louisiana town called Harahan. That’s where I met producer John Hammond, who also was stationed there. John threw jam sessions in the enlisted men’s club and liked my playing so much that he wrote articles about me. He said I should look him up when I got out of the service. So after I got out in 1945, I sent John a brief telegram: 'Just discharged. Merry Christmas.'

The next thing I knew, John found out where I was and had me meet Ray McKinley, the drummer who had his own big band. I joined Mack in early 1946 and made my first record with him in March of that year.

JW: What did Ray McKinley teach you?
ML: Ray taught me a simple lesson: Always believe in yourself. During World War II, I had been in the South Pacific and the experience was miserable, as you can imagine. When I came back, I hadn’t played in some time and was musically insecure. Mack saw potential in my playing and became a father figure to me. Back then, I sure needed some fathering.

One night in 1946, Mack came over during an intermission, put his arm around my shoulder and said, 'Play what you want to play, not what you think you should play.' That was great advice. After that I started choosing chords and notes based on what I felt in my gut, without worrying about convention. I was with Mack off and on through the 1950s.

JW: Who taught you the most about music?
ML: Eddie Sauter, the arranger [pictured at top, left]. He was writing for Ray McKinley’s band when I joined. Eddie could hear things no one else could. Once, when I played down one of Eddie’s guitar parts, I told him it sounded like there were some wrong notes. Eddie said not to worry and to wait until I heard the recording back. So I learned the part, recorded it, and when the track was played back he was right. It sounded beautiful.

Later on, in 1951, I was in the Sauter-Finegan band. Hanging around with both Eddie and Bill Finegan was amazing. As arrangers, those guys were in their own league. Both of them had done a lot of studying. Bill had gone over to Paris when he was writing for Tommy Dorsey in the late 1940s and studied with Nadia Boulanger, the French composer and teacher.

I learned about arranging by listened to Sauter-Finegan orchestrations and by borrowing the scores and reading them down in my hotel room. They were tough to read at first, because both arrangers transposed all the parts on the score. It was like reading a book where each sentence is in a different foreign language.

For example, an alto sax is an E-flat instrument. When you’re writing for an alto sax, you have to transpose notes up a major sixth so that what the alto saxophonist sees and plays will come out in the key everyone else is playing. Different transpositions have to be made for different instruments.

When you see notes and keys all over the place, a score is tough to read and hear in your mind. I worked hard to read their charts until I could see a transposed note and hear in my head exactly what the instrument would play.

On the whole, I learned from Eddie how to write for brass, and Bill taught me how to write for woodwinds and reeds. I had both areas covered with those guys."

Tomorrow: In Part 2 of my four-part series, Mundell talks about his encounters with Mary Lou Williams, John Coltrane, Billie Holiday and Carmen McRae—as well as the Johnnie Ray Cry and Little White Cloud That Cried sessions of 1951 that surprisingly featured several jazz greats.

JazzWax tracks: Mundell Lowe's earliest 1946 recordings with Ray McKinley and arranger Eddie Sauter can be found on two out-of-print CDs—Jiminy Crickets here and a Savoy release called Borderline here. The McKinley band is notable not only for the inclusion of Sauter but also clarinetist Peanuts Hucko and pianist Lou Stein.

JazzWax video clips: While I could not find clips of Mundell with the Ray McKinley's band, I did come across a wonderful 1954 clip of Mundell playing with Lee Konitz, Don Elliot, Warne Marsh, Billy Taylor and Ed Thigpen. You'll find it here.

Dig Mundell's thick, strong open chords behind the group—and then his bop solo with cool modern lines, leaving plenty of room for space in just the right places. Sweet.

Sunday Wax Bits

Jazz West Coast: If you dig West Coast jazz (and who doesn't), you should know about Woofy, a nifty record label I came across a couple of weeks ago. The label, run by Woofy Productions and Bob Lorenz, was formed in 1993 and has recorded dozens of California jazz legends such as Carl Fontana, Shorty Rogers, Bill Holman and pretty much everyone else who spent years in Stan Kenton's band and in Hollywood's TV and film studios.

But before I could recommend anything to you, I had to hear a sampling of the recordings. I'm happy to report that Woofy's CDs are not only rich with swinging jazz, they sound fantastic. The two CDs I heard—The Dave Pell Octet: Sunday Afternoon at the Lighthouse Cafe (2005) and The Billy Root-Vinnie Tanno Quintet: Live at Capozzoli's (1999)—are both terrific.

When I originally saw the CD lineup at Woofy's site, I must confess I was a bit apprehensive, fearing that the label was just turning on a mike while legends played local gigs. Hardly! These are crisply recorded (almost no ambient noise) and the jazz ideas on the CDs are hard-driving and top shelf.

To see the Woofy catalog and learn more about Woofy Productions, go here.

New jazz site: Ted Gioia, the esteemed jazz book author, jazz pianist, jazz journalist, Stanford and Oxford graduate, tough Texan, former management consultant, and about 12 other cool things—has launched Jazz.com.

The site and platform is devoted to jazz news, profiles and interviews as well as as musings and critiques by contributors. If Ted's name rings a bell, it should. He's a one-man jazz writing machine who is best known for authoring The History of Jazz and West Coast Jazz. His next book, Delta Blues, a study of traditional blues music, will be published this year by W.W. Norton.

To learn more about Ted, go here. To keep up on all things jazz, visit Jazz.com here. I've also added Jazz.com as a direct link in my right-hand column.

Letter to JazzWax: Don Frese sent along the following note earlier in the week. Don has seen 'em all and heard 'em all, and I couldn't agree more with his list and choices:

"In one regard, the entire history of jazz, with the usual exceptions—Armstrong, Ellington, etc.—was created by underrated artists. Artists who I think deserve more attention (two of whom you have already honored on your blog) are:

On the East Coast...

• Tina Brooks
• Clifford Jordan
• George Coleman

...and on the West Coast:

• Teddy Edwards
• Harold Land
• Bill Perkins

George Coleman has been much on my mind lately—and turntable and CD player. Try his solos on the following songs:

• Sister Salvation—from the CD of same name by Slide Hampton, the first Atlantic recording by his working group.
• Stella By Starlight—from Miles Davis' My Funny Valentine, the 1964 Lincoln Center concert.
• Good Morning Heartache—from Coleman's deliriously ecstatic Live at Yoshi's.

As always, thanks for providing a bright moment in my weekdays."

Lockjaw and Don Byas

One of my favorite Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis interviews was conducted in the mid-1980s by Bob Rusch, the founder of Cadence magazine and Cadence Jazz Records. Bob has always had a way with jazz musicians and is a master at drawing out artists and capturing the drama of the music and the times.

Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis was one of the most confident tenor saxophonists in jazz—on stage and in the studio. Whether recording with small groups or big bands, on ballads or burners, Lockjaw was always electrifying. Here's a snippet from Bob's 1986 interview with tenor saxophonist Lockjaw Davis:

BR: Which musicians did you find were the most helpful for you, or the most giving, the most cooperative?
Lockjaw: Don Byas.

BR: To everybody?
Lockjaw: To everybody. Anyone that could play. He'd give you reeds, he'd answer your questions, direct. He didn't give you no tap dance. He'd just tell you. But he was full of tricks, too. He used to broadcast every Friday night from the Downbeat. And they had a bar...what was the name of the bar, the musicians associated...on 6th Avenue? Between sets everybody would be around. He'd come in, he'd see you with your horn. "You want to  play the next set for me? I go on in about 10 minutes, 'cause I don't feel good." I'd say, "Yeah, okay, sure." It'll be broadcast." I'd say, "Fine, great."

And by the time you'd get there, start the first tune, you look up and he's on the stand next to you. "Thought you didn't feel good?" "Oh, I feel better now." He needed that inspiration, somebody up there he could nail. Things like that he would do. He was great for that.

Starting Monday: Part 1 of my four-part interview with guitarist and jazz legend Mundell Lowe.

"Mundy" talks about discovering Bill Evans; playing with Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Johnnie Ray and Carmen McRae; and scoring the soundtrack for the cult classic, Satan in High Heels, a killer session that included Joe Newman, Clark Terry, Doc Severinsen, Urbie Green, Al Cohn, Al Klink, George Duvivier, Ed Shaughnessy and other top jazz artists.

Deep Blue Organ Trio

The Hammond B3 organ has two true personalities—brash and groovy. But in recent years, the instrument's groovy side has been heard less and less. Most young jazz organists coming up today—and many vets—seem to prefer showing off what technical monsters they are rather than exploring the instrument's rich textures and gospel roots.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, most Hammond practitioners  learned to work the double-decker keyboards and foot pedals in church, accompanying singing congregations. Many of today's organists are colder and more likely to come out of music conservatories, bars and acid-jazz recording studios.

Nearly all over-compensate on the instrument to show that they are the rightful heirs to Charles Earland, the father of the modern organ. But while no one could build a crescendo and pull out all the stops like Earland, the "Mighty Burner," as he was known, had a gentle side.

And he had great taste, cherry-picking pop standards of the 1970s and 1980s and giving them a groovy lick that knocked your socks off. Aquarius or More Today Than Yesterday or the Moonlighting theme may not have been your bag when you heard them on the radio or TV. But you loved those tunes after Earland's hands and feet were finished with them.

That's why I was so pleased to receive Deep Blue Organ Trio's Folk Music in the mail earlier this week. The group's third album revives the instrument's groovy sound and saves it from extinction. The CD's title certainly is an insider's nod to the organ's 1970s' roots.

Back then, Earland,  Don Patterson, Leon Spencer, Chester Thompson and other organists changed the direction of the instrument. Where Wild Bill Davis had given the organ a big-band feel in the 1940s and Jimmy Smith brought it down to size in the 1950s, soulful players like Shirley Scott, Jimmy McGriff, Brother Jack McDuff and Richard "Groove" Holmes added a funkier, percussive sound in the early 1960s.

But by late in the decade, the jazz organ was on the ropes. Little by little, the Hammond's distinct soul sound was adapted by r&b groups such as Booker T and & MG's, pop acts such as Question Mark and the Mysterians, concert rockers such as The Doors, and category-defying ensembles such as Sly and the Family Stone. The organ even won a starring role on Frank Sinatra's That's Life and Strangers in the Night albums of 1966.

But in the early 1970s, soulful organists emerged again—thanks largely to labels like Prestige and Black Jazz, and producers like Bob Porter. This time, organists would combine their church-based approach with the r&b sound of Marvin Gaye, Archie Bell, Gladys Knight and other soul artists.

That's why it's so gratifying that Deep Blue Organ Trio knows its 1970s stuff. The group features Chris Foreman on organ, Bobby Broom on guitar and Greg Rockingham on drums.

The 50-year-old Foreman was born blind, learned to play the organ by listening to records of organ greats, and didn't start playing in his local church until age 20. Chris made his debut in 1981 on blues guitarist Albert Collins' Don't Lose Your Cool.

Guitarist Bobby Broom, 46, played his first concert at age 16. At  Carnegie Hall. With Sonny Rollins. While attending the High School of Music and Art, he was invited by Sonny to audition. Bobby rejoined Rollins in 2005 and has been a member of Sonny's working band.

Drummer Greg Rockingham, 48, knows a great organ when he hears one. His dad is organist David Rockingham, who led an early-1960s r&b trio with guitarist RC Robinson and drummer Shante Hamilton. In 1963, the trio had an instrumental Top 100 hit with Dawn. Greg sat in with his dad's group at age 5 and was a member between the ages of 9 and 16.  Later, in the 1970s and 1980s, he spent 10 years playing with the Mighty Burner himself—Charles Earland.

Folk Music opens with an original soulful blues credited to all three band members. Listen to that deep organ groove with the guitar riding piggyback, note for note. Man, that's what I'm talking about!

Next up is Hank Mobley's cooker, This I Dig of You, from Mobley's classic, Soul Station. What a great, off-beat choice, and the group takes the tune at about the same tempo as the original. Next is I Thought About You, the 1939 Van Heusen-Mercer standard. The trio's interpretation never makes the mistake of feeding directly into the Tin Pan Alley standard but instead keeps it groovy. Victor Feldman's The Chant follows, a fabulous gospel-funk tune.

Perhaps of the album's oddest—and coolest—choice is She's Leaving Home, the Lennon-McCartney tear-jerker from Sgt. Pepper's. It's always dangerous for jazz musicians to take on a Beatles tune, since most interpretations sound foolish at best and the melodies don't lend themselves easily to a jazz vibe. But Deep Blue Organ Trio puts a whole new spin on the rock classic. The group slows the song down to a simmer, making it sound more like Brook Benton's Rainy Night in Georgia.

In the spirit of Charles Earland, the trio takes on the 1980 Stephanie Mills disco hit, Never Knew Love Like This Before. In Deep Blue's hands, the club anthem gets a groovy makeover, and it swings.

The album's high point for me is Ceora, a terrific Lee Morgan tune with a mild bossa beat that comes from Morgan's 1965 Cornbread album. Here, Foreman offers a clinic in how to play the organ. Listen as he slowly builds the song to a crescendo and at the high point uses a mind-blowing and tasteful Grazin' in the Grass chord tag. Broom's guitar solo is sublime, a bluesy tribute to Melvin Sparks.

Kenny Dorham's swinger from 1963, Short Story, shows off Deep Blue's ability to weave together Latin rhythms, jazz lines and 1970s soul. Broom and Rockingham play beautifully, with Foreman providing a thick pedal bass-line cushion. On the final tune—the Ohio Players' Sweet Sticky Thing, from the funk group's 1975 album Honey—Deep Blue goes all out for a hot feel.

Have mercy. If you, too, love the soulful and caressing jazz organ sound of the 1970s, check this one out. I played the CD all day yesterday and it never got old. In fact, it's still on. Great to hear that the Hammond B3 has got its groove back.

JazzWax tracks: You can download Deep Blue Organ Trio's Folk Music at iTunes or you can buy it here.

To hear what Charles Earland was all about, download More Today Than Yesterday from the CD Black Talk, at iTunes. While you're there, check out Will You Love Me Tomorrow from Cookin' With the Mighty Burner and Stomp! from the album of the same name.

Not at iTunes but equally worthwhile are the Earland albums Living Black! (which includes the Mighty Burner's classic, Killer Joe) and Black Drops.

And if you're feeling flush, check out Leon Spencer's Legends of Acid Jazz here, which includes his 1974 release, Louisiana Slim. Spencer's treatment of the Carpenters' Close to You and Marvin Gaye's Mercy, Mercy Me are out of this world. Dig Amazon's samples of these two songs. His groovy originals are fabulous, too.