Yesterday I posted on singer-pianist Joe Mooney and his two fabulous albums for Columbia in 1963. To shed light on Mooney and these vital recordings, I spoke with guitarist Mundell Lowe, who wrote the arrangements for both LPs. Today, I'm focusing on Mooney's five brief recordings with the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra in 1952 and 1953. I'm also going to share with you a conversation I had yesterday with a 1950s music executive who played a major role in Mooney's Sauter-Finegan recordings. And as a special treat, there's an audio link to an extremely rare Mooney recording with the Sauter-Finegan band.
First, let's roll the clock back to the early 1950s. When big-band arrangers Eddie Sauter and Bill Finegan [pictured] formed the
Sauter-Finegan Orchestra in 1952, their aim was to have superior studio musicians play near-symphonic jazz scores using a seemingly endless combination of instruments. While the results sounded somewhat lightweight for jazz and unashamedly corny, the instrumental sophistication was not lost on a younger generation of arrangers, including Gil Evans, Nelson Riddle, Johnny Richards and Billy May.
Originally conceived strictly as an instrumental aggregation,
Sauter-Finegan in the fall of 1952 agreed to add vocalists. The move most likely came after pressure from RCA, which wanted to give the somewhat wooden format a more human touch and popular appeal. This was the pre-rock era of earnest vocal groups like the Ames Brothers [pictured], McGuire Sisters, Four Aces, Four Lads that appealed to the rapidly expanding suburban market.
When Joe Mooney arrived to record with the Sauter-Finegan
Orchestra in late 1952, he was there to provide vocals that wouldn't overshadow the band's six-lane orchestrations. Backing Mooney were two vocal groups: the Ray Charles Singers: Gene Lowell, Artie Malvin and Steve Steck; and the Doodlers: Sally Sweetland and Lillian Clark. The tight choral parts were written by veteran vocal arranger Ray Charles.
The first track Mooney recorded on November 3, 1952 was Nina Never Knew, a song written by Louis Alter and Milton Drake. The lyrics gently related the story of an innocent teenage girl giving in to the narrator's advances. The arrangement featured the wandering trombone of Kai Winding. Also recorded that day was Love Is a Simple Thing, a song with a bouncy melody that had had its debut months earlier in New Faces of 1952, a Broadway revue.
Soon after Nina Never Knew was released, the song
became a minor jukebox hit, reaching #13 on the Billboard charts by December. The song would be the orchestra's second biggest seller after Midnight Sleighride, which had peaked at #12 in August. Mooney returned to the studio on November 18 to record Hit
the Road to Dreamland, a mid-tempo tune that leaned heavily on novelty instrumentation. [Pictured: Musicians in the Sauter-Finegan orchestra cast shadows on a bandstand wall; photo: William Claxton]
After touring with the orchestra for several months, Mooney and the band went back into the studio on April 6, 1953. The first tune recorded that day was Time to Dream, a Mooney duet with female vocalist Florence Fogelson. The next track was Fogelson alone on Pale Moon. Then a third track was recorded: It's Mutual, a song Mooney co-wrote.
This third track was something of an anomaly. For one, recording sessions typically captured an even number of tracks to complete sides of singles. For another, there was no choir arranged behind Mooney. Which leads me to believe that It's Mutual was a demo to show RCA executives what Mooney could do as a lead singer.
Stanley Cooper is a dear friend and my favorite 1950s music industry source. A retired Brill Building executive, Stanley worked for
Redd Evans Music and later Barton Music pitching songs the music publisher owned to singers he believed could make them hits. When I called Stanley yesterday and asked him about Mooney and the Sauter-Finegan sessions, he replied in his Runyonesque New York accent: "Did I know Mooney? I was the one who brought Nina Never Knew to RCA's attention in 1952 and requested that Mooney sing it." Pay dirt!
Stanley's story sheds some light on Mooney's It's Mutual, a song that was issued only once in 1956 on a Sauter-Finegan LP and to this day has never appeared on CD:
"Back in '52, I was a fan of Joe Mooney's. I knew his work well. He had a great sound. Soft, but smart. When Redd Evans of Redd Evans Music picked up the rights to Nina Never Knew, he asked me to find a singer who could make it a hit. The first person I thought of was Nat [King Cole]. Nat was the nicest guy in the world. But when I asked him to record the song, he turned it down. Nat said he didn't like the name Nina. I have no idea why. Maybe he once had a girlfriend named Nina or something. I don't know.
"So I shopped Nina Never Knew around to different A&R men. When I reached Dave Kapp, the head of A&R at RCA, he loved the song right away. Most music publishers who went to Dave brought along sheet music and demos by the pound. I never did that. When I went to see him, I brought only two songs, and usually just one. Dave knew that if I had a song I liked, he could figure out fast whether or not he liked it and which of his artists should record it. So he liked me.
"Dave said the best he could was have the newly signed
Sauter-Finegan Orchestra record it. I said fine, but the song had to have a vocalist. Dave asked me who I thought would be ideal. I said "Joe Mooney." I chose Joe because he had a voice that was closest to the singer I originally wanted—Nat King Cole. The song needed that savvy, jazzy, relaxed sound. Dave liked the idea and sent for Joe. [Pictured: Bandleader Paul Whiteman watching the Joe Mooney Quartet in 1947]
"When Mooney came into the RCA studio that day, he and I spoke briefly. I told him how much I liked his voice and why I wanted him for the date. He thanked me. He was a very pleasant guy. Then I went into the [engineer's] booth with the A&R men and my boss, Redd Evans, to listen to the recording.
"When the band started and Mooney began to sing, I
couldn't believe my ears. As soon as I heard the first four bars I knew right away that I was right about matching Mooney with Sauter-Finegan and that the song had a real shot. It was like being in a trance listening to that sound. I recall Mooney went off mike a few times so they had to start again and bring him back in. But that's all I noticed with my eyes. My
attention was my ears. Listening to that sound for the first time was
amazing.
"I don't know why Mooney never recorded more with Sauter-Finegan or on his own with RCA. It was a natural fit. I do know that RCA offered him a multirecord deal with the label and that
there was some disagreement over money. Dave Kapp was the kind of guy who made an offer and if you didn't take it, he never came back to you with it. A lot of people didn't like him because he was a cold fish. But I liked him, and he was a good music man. He truly liked music people. I guess that's what happened. It's a shame really. They sounded perfect together. The band was easy-going but square. Joe was easy-going and hip. He gave them a little more edge. I can only imagine how great the music would have been if they had recorded more sides together.
"If you listen to Sauter-Finegan's recordings from the early 1950s, the orchestra was way ahead of its time. It was in the same league as Boyd Raeburn's band of the '40s, in terms of experimentation. Joe warmed them up tremendously. And I have no idea why It's Mutual was never released. I'm listening to it with you now for the first time, and it's wonderful. I didn't even know the track existed. It's clearly a beautiful record."
JazzWax tracks: You'll find Nina Never Knew and Love Is a
Simple Thing on a double-CD set called Sauter-Finegan: Inside the Sound (Jasmine) at eBay. Hit the Trail to Dreamland and Mooney's duet with Fogelson, Time to Dream, don't seem to be available on CD.
It's Mutual was released only once, on the 12-inch expanded version of Sauter-
Finegan's New Directions in Music, released in 1956 [pictured]. The song has never appeared on CD. But after a bit of web research, I found it buried on a radio show podcast called Rare But Well Done, hosted by Ray Hall.
To hear It's Mutual, go here, click on the "Listen for Free" box on the right-hand side. A smaller QuickTime box will appear and the radio show will begin. Take your cursor and grab the lower right-hand corner to widen the box. Then use your cursor to move the track ball about 25% of the way across the bar until you hear Hall announce the song. Dig that instrumental intro!
And there it is—the mystery Mooney recording that almost launched the singer's mass-market pop-recording career for RCA.
I, for one, would love to see Mosaic Records issue the complete RCA sessions of the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra in a box set.
JazzWax clip: While there are no video clips of Joe Mooney singing with the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra, this should give you a sense of the complexity of the band's near-mad arrangements and musicianship...
If you dig jazz with a swinging pop feel, you need to know
about Joe Mooney. The singer, who had four different recording careers (one in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s) isn't well known today. But Mooney remains an inspiration and favorite of jazz legends who have made a career out of good taste. Just last week, guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli told me that he still thinks about Mooney before he plays a chord. Yesterday I spoke with guitar legend Mundell Lowe, who arranged two of Mooney's best albums in the mid-1960s. More with Mundy on Mooney and these recordings in a minute. [Pictured: Joe Mooney in New York in 1946]
Blind since age 10, Mooney grew up in Paterson, N.J. As a
teen he sang and recorded in the early 1930s with the Sunshine Boys, a vocal group. He played piano in several big bands in the late 1930s and early 1940s before forming a quartet in 1942. Not long afterward, Mooney was in a terrible auto accident that left him with a fractured hip. After 18 months recuperating in the hospital, Mooney returned to Paterson and worked local clubs as a singer, accompanying himself on accordion, organ and piano.
In the mid-1940s he formed a Nat King Cole-ish pop quartet
that featured a clarinet, guitar and bass. Mooney's vocals were relaxed and savvy, and the group had great success on 52d Street, eventually recording for Decca and touring. In the late 1940s Mooney recorded briefly on piano with Georgie Auld and Red Rodney.
In 1951 Mooney formed a trio with Pizzarelli and Bob Carter on bass that played clubs and recorded. Mooney moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but a year later, he joined the experimental Sauter-Finegan Orchestra as its male vocalist. Mooney recorded several sides with the band for RCA, including the minor jukebox hit Nina Never Knew.
Despite Mooney's potential, RCA never signed Mooney to an extensive contract, and the singer-keyboardist returned to gigging. In the mid-1950s, Mooney recorded an album for Atlantic that included a revamped Nina Never Knew. But the album did little to advance his visibility or his career. Unsure what to make of Mooney as pop act at a time when rock and r&b were catching on, Atlantic passed.
Back in Florida, Mooney spent the next seven years performing locally. Then in 1963, Mooney staged a comeback of sorts, recording
two of his finest albums. These albums for Columbia were The Greatness of Joe Mooney, released in 1964, and The Happiness of Joe Mooney, released a year later. Both albums were arranged by guitarist Mundell Lowe, and they document
Mooney's genius for simplicity and cool swing. As Terry Teachout pointed out in his liner notes for the CD release in 2000, Down Beat's John Tynan at the time gave Greatness five stars while Gene Lees in Stereo Review said Happiness was "one of the best pop discs of the year."
(It also should be noted that these sensational Mooney LPs probably would never have seen the light of day on CD had Terry not written an exquisite article on the forgotten Mooney for The New York Times' Arts & Leisure section in 1997. The article caught the eye of Koch Jazz producers, who put out both albums on one CD.)
Unfortunately, the soft-sung Greatness and Happiness had the misfortune of coming out just as the Beatles were coming in and pop was increasingly
dominated by belters like Tony Bennett and Barbra Streisand. As a result, Columbia never promoted the LPs or Mooney, who retreated disappointed once again to Florida, where he spent the remaining 10 years of his life playing local clubs. Mooney died of a stroke in 1975.
What's instantly clear when you hear Greatness and Happiness are the perfect
song selections and hip small-group arrangements. This isn't bland, sticky pop. There's a lot of jazz and sophistication in each tune, thanks largely to Mundell Lowe's [pictured] writing and the all-star jazz ensemble gathered for each album.
While listening to the fabulous CD yesterday, I hit the pause button and called Mundy Lowe to ask about Mooney and the two 1963 masterpieces...
"I first met Joe at Frank Dailey’s Meadowbrook [pictured] in Cedar
Grove, N.J. in the mid-1940s. I
was with Ray McKinley’s band. At the Meadowbrook there were these steps
leading from the dance floor up to a terrace where people who weren't
dancing could listen to the band. Joe was up there.
"When we
ended our set, Joe started to come down the stairs but lost his balance and fell, rolling all the way down to the bottom of the stairs. He jumped right up, brushed himself off and
came over, asking how we were doing—as though nothing had even
happened [laughing].
"Joe was a superb writer. He had arranged for Frank Dailey's orchestra.
He was blind, of course, but had an assistant who would take down the notes he wanted. She would then have the parts from the score copied.
"I first heard Joe live in 1951, when he gigged and lived in Florida. The first time I met him was in a restaurant down there that I think he
partly owned. It was a steakhouse called The Grate. He was playing
piano with another blind pianist from Australia. I was down there with
my then wife, visiting her family in Miami. We went over to hear Joe, and
he was so good we wound up going every night he was there.
"In 1952 he joined the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra
as the band's boy vocalist. Kay Finegan, Bill Finegan's wife, and I put the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra together. We did a
couple of tours together, and Joe had a hit with Nina Never Knew.
"Joe was a very soft human being. Big smile and
so kind. I don’t know why he didn’t record more sides with Sauter-Finegan or why he wasn't signed by RCA. Probably some kind of political thing. I just don't know.
"In the early 1960s, Kay Finegan wanted to do something
for Joe. So she went to John Hammond [pictured] at Columbia and sold him on the
idea of having Joe record two albums. Joe called me and asked me to arrange the dates. He had chosen the songs and wanted woodwinds and a
rhythm section.
"When we got together we discussed what keys the songs would be in and how long
the arrangements would be. We decided to keep each song to about two minutes. This would make them more attractive for radio airplay. Joe hoped these records would finally put him on the map.
"We started out with seven woodwinds doubling on reeds on the first album. But we
soon decided we needed a little more in the rhythm section, to offset the sound. So I brought in [guitarist] Barry Galbraith. We
also wanted a vibes player for the same reason, so we got Gary Burton [pictured]. They joined George Duvivier on bass and Ed Shaughnessy on drums.
"Whenever I write, I listen carefully to what's in my head and get into the mood of the singer or situation I'm writing for. Once I had a sound, then
everything else fell into place. In this case, I needed a sound that would match Joe's gentle feel. I couldn't put a loud shouting brass
band behind Joe. He was too intimate for that. I remember the first chart took me about a week, to get the feel. The rest took a total of three weeks.
"Joe wasn't a picky musician, but he knew what he
wanted. The first album was originally going to be
called Joe Mooney with Woodwinds. Instead it wound up as The Greatness of Joe Mooney. My favorite song on the album was Michel Legrand's [pictured] Once Upon a Summertime. Having traveled to Paris a great deal, the song hits me right in the heart.
"Thinking back, I'm constantly amazed at what a superb musician and instrumentalist Joe was. He had a great sense of swing. He was that kind of musician. He even played beautiful accordion, and I don’t even like that instrument.
"Frankly, I don't know why Columbia didn't push those two albums. I don't think they ever believed in Joe. He was too subtle for them. And the timing was wrong, too. By the time the first album came out [1964], everything in the music business changed."
Tomorrow, I will post on Joe Mooney's all-too-few Sauter-Finegan recordings—and an interview with the music executive who brought Nina Never Knew to RCA in 1952 and recommended Mooney sing it. Plus, the long-missing track Mooney sang with the band that has never been released on CD. It's so rare that even seasoned pop experts didn't know it existed. Tomorrow you'll be able to hear it for free.
JazzWax tracks: The two albums Joe Mooney recorded in 1963 were
remastered on CD in 2000. The album, The Happiness of... the Greatness of... Joe Mooney, is no longer available at Amazon, which isn't a good sign. But there are a few copies here from independent sellers. You'll also find copies of the CD at eBay. No matter how many times I listen to this CD, I constantly find new things to love and admire about Mooney's singing and playing, and Mundell Lowe's small-group writing.
Mooney's hip bop-tinged recordings from 1946 and 1951 can be found on
The Joe Mooney Quartet: Do You Long for Oolong? and Joe Mooney Quartet Vol. 2: Joe Breaks the Ice. Both are available as downloads at iTunes.
After recording his sides with Sauter-Finegan between 1952 and 1954, Mooney recorded an album for Atlantic in 1956. He was joined by Lee Robinson on guitar, Milt Hinton on bass and Osie Johnson on drums. The album, Lush Life, can be found here as a CD.
JazzWax clip: Here's a taste of the Joe Mooney-Mundell Lowe collaboration from The Greatness of Joe Mooney. Dig Mundy's arrangement of flutes on top of guitar, vibes and woodwinds—and how they all perfectly frame Mooney's intimate vocal. And dig Mooney's organ in there...
As readers of this blog know, JazzWax is read daily by jazz fans worldwide. For a humble writer like me, it's exhilarating to know that without paper, ink, a printing press, postage, a fulfillment department, marketers or postal workers, I can connect with so many of you online in the U.S., Spain, Portugal, France, Costa Rica, Brazil, Japan and other countries and share my interests. It's also a thrill to receive emails from friends I've never met. [Photo of Charlie Parker by Eliot Elisofon for Life]
Earlier this week, long-time JazzWax reader Don Brown from Canada, sent an email in which he let slip that he had attended Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie's famed 1953 Massey Hall concert in Toronto. Though in retrospect the concert didn't quite live up to its musical billing, the event remains noteworthy for several reasons: Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie were reunited for the last time on stage, Bud Powell returned to performing following hospitalization for mental illness, and Charles Mingus and Max Roach were able to release the concert on their newly formed Debut record label after Verve's Norman Granz passed. [Pictured: The original 10-inch release from 1953]
I couldn't resist asking Don to share his recollections and research into the Massey Hall concert for JazzWax readers. Don graciously agreed:
"In the early spring of 1953, members of the Toronto chapter of the New Jazz Society (NJS) met to discuss the possibility of bringing some of the top practitioners of modern jazz to the city for a concert. When I interviewed Dick Wattam, the NJS' president, in 1993, he told me there had been a fair amount of negativity among the NJS' members at the time. They hadn't forgotten they'd lost a bundle the previous summer on a concert they'd produced featuring the Lennie Tristano Quintet with Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh.
"The Tristano concert was a musical success but a financial disaster. The only place the NJS could afford was a small hall on Christie Street that had no air conditioning. Unfortunately the concert took place on one of the hottest days of the year, suppressing turnout. Many of the investors lost every penny they put up and weren't prepared to be bitten twice.
"But Dick Wattam didn't give up that easily. Somehow he managed to convince the others that every jazz lover in Toronto would willingly break down the doors of the concert hall to hear the stellar group of players he had in mind.
"His original choice of participants was Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet, Charlie Parker on alto saxophone, Lennie Tristano on piano, Oscar Pettiford on bass, and Max Roach on drums. Dizzy, Bird and Max agreed, but Pettiford was unavailable, and Tristano declined the offer. Tristano told Wattam that Bud Powell, who had just been released from a mental hospital, would be far more appropriate for the group. Charles Mingus was Wattam's choice to replace Pettiford on bass. [Photo of Dizzy Gillespie by Allan Grant for Life]
"A date was chosen a few weeks away, and Massey Hall, which held 2,753 people, was booked. Contracts were drawn up and signed, and everything seemed in order. But then Wattam discovered that mounting a concert in Toronto with American musicians meant he'd be required to hire an equivalent number of Canadian musicians. He hadn't bothered to do this a year earlier for the Tristano concert because it was held under the union radar. But at Massey Hall, you had to follow the Canadian union rules.
"Wattam was a man who never did anything by half measures. He hired a 17-piece big band under the nominal leadership of trumpeter Graham Topping. The band was billed as the CBC All Stars, since most of its members did freelance work for Canada's national broadcaster.
"But then things started getting dicey. Wattam managed to convince his fellow NJS members that there was no need to buy any ads to publicize the concert. After all, when the local radio disc jockeys mentioned the upcoming concert on their programs, listeners would get excited and news would quickly spread by word of mouth. But that certainly didn't happen to the extent Wattam had hoped.
"Then, to further complicate matters, the date chosen—May 15, 1953— happened to be a Friday. On Fridays back in the 1950s, boxing was part of the regular TV schedule, and Friday Night Fights was extremely popular. To make a tough situation worse, a World Heavyweight Championship match in Chicago was scheduled for this particular Friday between champion Jersey Joe Walcott [pictured] and challenger Rocky Marciano. Naturally, people stayed home in droves. Wattam simply didn't pay attention to much of anything outside the jazz world.
"My buddy and I bought centre-aisle seats in the front row of Massey Hall's balcony, and I still remember looking down on a mostly empty auditorium. The hall was less than a third full. The concert got underway about a half hour late, with "The CBC All Stars" opening the proceedings. The band's program was mostly made up of Woody Herman material, starting with The Goof and I, a piece that Al Cohn had written and arranged for Herman's Second Herd. [Pictured: Interior of Massey Hall]
"I recall that the set was short, only four or five tunes. Then Dizzy came out from the wings, followed by Charles Mingus and Max Roach. Eventually, a dazed and shaky Bud Powell was led to the piano by his court-appointed guardian and Birdland owner Oscar Goodstein. Finally, Charlie Parker, who my friend and I had not seen before in person, walked out looking like an unmade bed. He was carrying a white plastic alto saxophone. We later learned his Selmer was in the pawnshop. [Photo from the concert]
"One got the impression that nothing had been worked out by the musicians beforehand. After a couple of minutes of animated discussion Diz and Bird opened with Juan Tizol's Perdido, not a piece that might have been expected from two of the founding fathers of bebop. But, as anyone familiar with the recording of the event knows, it was a blistering performance.
"Then the fun started. Dizzy, who was normally a paragon of reliability, seemed more interested in the championship fight than the proceedings at hand. He kept slipping backstage between solos to check the radio to find out if the fight had begun. Each time he came back onstage, Diz gave the audience a running commentary on the preliminary bouts.
"When the championship contest finally started, it was over in the first minute and Marciano was the new champion. Dizzy told the audience about that while holding his head in his hands!
"Back on stage, Diz began making faces at Bud Powell from under the piano lid, trying to coax a reaction. But the pianist ignored him and played on as though his very life depended on it. (It probably did.) Mingus began firing angry looks at the mischievous trumpeter while Max, the most stable member of the group, somehow managed to hold things together.
"I also remember that Mingus didn't seem too comfortable with some of the bop warhorses. Charles was more of an Ellington-influenced player/composer, and I recall that Wee (also known as Allen's Alley) seemed to give him some problems.
"At the intermission Bird disappeared. Bandleader Rob McConnell told me in recent years that he had seen Bird in the bar across the street drinking triple scotches. In fact, McConnell [pictured], who was underage at the time, managed to buy Bird one of those drinks with borrowed money. He was shocked when he heard Bird place his order.
"When Bird returned to the stage, his playing in the second half of the concert was surprisingly unaffected. The concert closed with Bird and Diz joining the Canadian all-star big band in a blues. Unfortunately, by this time the tape recorder had been turned off, so there's no record of it.
"Bud Powell, of course, had a trio performance during the concert. That occurred somewhere around the mid-point. I can't recall for certain whether it was just before or following the intermission. He was magnificent. I do remember that immediately following the intermission, Max Roach [pictured] had a solo feature he called Drum Conversation. Some of the folks in the audience seemed to think they were at a Jazz at the Philharmonic concert and started shouting 'Go Max, go!' [Photo of Max Roach: (c) Paul Slaughter]
"I recall that my buddy and I felt the concert was entertaining but hoped to hear Diz and Bird in a more organized setting in the future. This, of course, was not to be. We never saw Charlie Parker again.
"Rumors later emerged about the fighting that took place backstage— between Bird and Diz, between Bird and the promoters, between Mingus and everybody. I have no idea whether or not that was the case. Onstage, the friendly musical rivalry sparked a melodic firestorm. Out of anarchy and chaos, musical genius prevailed.
"The newspaper reviews the day after the concert ranged from luke warm to pretty negative. Alex Barris slammed the concert in his Globe and Mail review, and I remember disagreeing with him. While the concert had been pretty chaotic, there had been plenty of good music. But the "Greatest Jazz Concert Ever," as it was later described? I don't think so."
—Don Brown
Don Brown reviews CDs and DVDs for The WholeNote, a classical music and jazz magazine. From 1957 to the early 1970s, Don reviewed records and concerts for Coda Magazine and wrote a jazz column for The FM Guide (later The Home Entertainment Guide). He also worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. from 1957 to 1989 in the TV advertising standards department and then in radio advertising sales before becoming a CBC business manager. He lives in Toronto.
JazzWax tracks: Because Jazz at Massey Hall originally appeared on Debut Records, Charlie Parker had to come up with a pseudonym to avoid being in violation of his Verve contract. The name he chose was Charlie Chan. [Pictured: 12-inch Debut release from 1956 with the pseudonym on the cover]
The concert can be found on several CDs, including The Complete Jazz at Massey Hall (Jazz Factory) here. It includes all of the music without the overdubbed bass that Charles Mingus had added to make the balance closer to studio quality. The 1952 Tristano concert was recorded and is available on Lennie Tristano: Live in Toronto 1952 (The Orchard) here.
JazzWax clip: Here's an audio clip of A Night in Tunisia, the fifth song played by the quintet at Massey Hall, along with images from the concert...
I have a weakness for the trombone. To me, it's the vocalist of
the brass section. Trombonists Benny Powell and Eddie Bert said as much when I interviewed them, and it's no wonder that Frank Sinatra learned as much as he did about singing from Tommy Dorsey. Same goes for vocalist David Allyn during his time with Jack Teagarden. More than any other instrument (except perhaps the French horn), you can hear the human voice expressed through the trombone's bell. Less of an egoist than the saxophone or trumpet, the trombone is always trying to convey something more than just notes. [Photo: John Abbott]
Which brings me to Clifton Anderson. The trombonist has just
released Decade, his second album as a leader in more than a decade, and the result is impressive. Anderson shines as a stylist and storyteller, and clearly he has done his listening. Long a member of Sonny Rollins' group, Anderson emerges from the long musical shadow of the legendary tenor saxophonist with a distinct voice. On Decade, Anderson demonstrates a new level of maturity and offers a warm, round and purposeful sound. You hear history in Anderson's playing, but you also hear a 1970s groove. To my ear, there's a lot of Wayne Henderson in Anderson's attack.
But the big news is that Anderson is a savvy writer. Six of the 10 tunes on Decade are originals. The balance is made up of standards and one 1971 pop hit. Anderson's compositions are all strong and fresh, and they avoid being derivative. Best of all, they are tailor made to show off the trombonist's lyricism and powerful chops.
Noble is an up-tempo original named for Gil Noble, a long-time New York TV host and emcee at Sonny Rollins' 2007
Carnegie Hall concert. Anderson uses a fine yawning tone, dragging notes and holding them briefly in just the right spots.
So Wrong About You is a walking ballad that features some of Anderson's finest solo work. The trombonist's complete range of skills is showcased, from velvety triplet runs to lushly sensitive lines. I love how he glides over notes and then follows up with staccato punctuation.
I'm Old Fashioned is taken at a faster clip than you'd expect, and with a mute to boot! Once Anderson skitters across the song's melody line, he's off to the races. Behind the skillful slide work I sense a flicker of admiration for Chet Baker's romanticism.
Z is a strong hard bop love letter to a woman Anderson knew and is still strongly affected by, though he notes in an interview that the relationship has changed. No wonder he tags Laura. Alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett has a brisk solo followed by pianist Stephen Scott and bassist Christian McBride.
Anderson slows the pace considerably with I'm Glad There Is You. On the
album's most patient ballad, Anderson features the trombone's vocalizing qualities, with a stylistic nod to Juan Tizol. I love how Anderson holds that last note. It's a tone that's still ringing in my head.
Deja Blu is a strutting blues spotlighting tenor saxophonist Eric Wyatt, whose dad Charles Wyatt is one of Rollins' childhood friends. As a tribute to Rollins, Wyatt references Alfie's Theme.
If is a pop tune recorded in 1971 by Bread and written by Bread bandmember David Gates. It took a lot of courage to take on this blue-eyed
soul ballad, but Anderson pulls it off. Personally, I dig hearing these kinds of songs with a jazz treatment. I think jazz musicians for too long have ignored the wealth of soul and pop material available from the 1970s and 1980s in favor of stale Tin Pan Alley standards. Anderson here rolls the tune around on his instrument, giving the song more edge and sophistication than it had originally.
Aah Soon Come is the sort of Calypso tune you'd expect on a Rollins album. Though I was initially suspect, Anderson works this original nicely, tossing in a reference to Funiculi, Funicula. Wyatt on tenor is given the unenviable task of soloing hard without sounding like Sonny and pulls it off.
We'll Be Together Again is the only track that's a tad off. It opens with a lengthy intro before launching into the standard's melody. Anderson uses a mute, which for some odd reason sounds sonically suppressed on the recording.
Stubbs was written as a tribute to Anderson's friend, tenor
saxophonist John Stubblefield, who died in 2005 of prostate cancer. It starts deceptively, with pianist Scott playing the opening measures alone, as a ballad. But soon enough the tune springs into a hard bop modal tribute, with Anderson roaring through the theme.
Decade is a solid work by Anderson, who clearly has a rich musical voice, a creative vision and a comprehensive grasp of the instrument's tender purpose. Playing with Rollins and maintaining the legend's frighteningly high energy level has been heady stuff for the trombonist. As a leader, Anderson has found himself and delivers the warmth. Hopefully we won't have to wait as long for his next CD.
JazzWax tracks: Clifton Anderson's Decade is available as a
download or as a CD here.
JazzWax clip: You can hear Anderson's playing on Decade and his thinking behind the original tracks in a video clip directed and produced by Bret Primack...
Some of the finest West Coast jazz combo playing of late 1954 appears on Best From the West: Modern Sounds from California (Vols. 1 and 2). These albums were issued by Blue Note as a pair of 10-inch LPs. Frankly, there isn't a drop of filler here, and the playing and compositions, many of which are by Shorty Rogers, swing with a special richness and aggression. As Leonard Feather writes in the original album's liner notes, "this is a wailing set of performances." [Pictured: Conte Candoli]
Volume 1 was released in early 1955 and marketed without
the musicians' names. The plan was brilliant, actually. Several of the musicians on the date already had contractual commitments. Which presented Feather, the album's producer, with a problem. But rather than trying to thread a needle, Feather simply removed the needle. All of the artists' names were removed, and the record was positioned as a "blindfold test."
The goal was to put listeners through the same audio exam
that Metronome magazine had been administering to jazz musicians since 1946 (and a nifty gimmick that continues in jazz publications today). Album-buyers were asked to guess who was playing. At the end of Volume 1's liner notes, Feather writes:
"We're curious to see which of Blue Note's customers, long noted for their astute jazz tastes and discernment, can come up with a complete or at least partially correct answer."
Listeners were urged to send their picks along to Blue Note's offices. Feather offered only six clues in his Volume 1 liner notes:
1. All the music on both LPs was recorded during the winter of 1954-55 in Hollywood, CA.
2. The music was recorded at three different sessions, using a total of 12 instruments, played by sixteen men and a girl [sic].
3. None of the musicians made his record debut on these sessions. In fact, most of them had recorded frequently before, and many are closely associated with the disarmingly amorphous entity known as "West Coast Jazz."
4. The musicians who composed the original material for these sessions did not necessarily take part as instrumentalists.
5. All 17 musicians can be heard if you listen to the three numbers entitled The Blindfold Test (actually three different themes based all based on the 12-bar blues format).
6. All the musicians can be heard on either side of either record.
Volume 1 did not include the names of musicians on the date.
But Volume 2, released soon afterward, did, thus revealing the mystery players. I have no idea why it was OK to announce the musicians' names in Volume 2 but not in Volume 1. My guess is that whatever releases Feather and Blue Note were seeking for the first album came through in time for the second album. If so, it's interesting how the Blue Note marketers positioned the inclusion of the names on a "blindfold test" album.
To keep the game interesting, the soloists on Blindfold Tests 1,
2 and 3 were not revealed. But since all of the musicians' names were listed on Volume 2, determining who was playing wasn't too much of a stretch—unless you were unfamiliar with the West Coast scene, which likely was the case for Blue Note's East Coast customer base.
While the two albums featured a wide range of musicians, the Conte Candoli sessions are particularly interesting. Recorded
on December 31, 1954, the first group featured Conte Candoli (trumpet), John Graas (French horn), Charlie Mariano (alto sax), Marty Paich (piano), Monty Budwig (bass) and Stan Levey (drums).
The next group with Candoli featured Buddy Collette (flute and alto sax), Jimmy Giuffre (tenor sax, clarinet and baritone sax), Gerald Wiggins (piano), Howard Roberts (guitar), Curtis Counce (bass) and Stan Levey (drums).
The 10-inch albums featured yet another set of musicians
recorded on the same day: Harry "Sweets" Edison [pictured] (trumpet), Bob Enevoldsen (valve trombone and tenor sax), Herb Geller (alto sax), Lorraine Geller (piano), Joe Mondragon (bass) and Larry Bunker (drums).
Among the many delightful surprises on these recordings are the early flute of Buddy
Collette, superb clarinet work by Jimmy Giuffre, the piano of Lorraine
Geller and beautiful, full jazz guitar work by Howard Roberts.
Compositions were mostly by Shorty Rogers, with one by Pete Rugolo, another by Tiny Kahn and originals by musicians on the dates as well as a few standards.
As you listen to the recordings without looking at the
personnel, what's instantly clear is the influence that Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie had on Candoli's playing during this period, before Miles Davis and Kenny Dorham made a much deeper impression.
JazzWax tracks: The Candoli recordings from the Best of the
West sessions appear on the CD, Conte Candoli: Modern Sounds From the West (Lonehill Jazz) here. The entire CD is brilliant, from start to finish.
In addition to all of the Candoli and Edison recordings from December 31, 1954, the CD includes a June 1956 Candoli date in New York
called Rhythm Plus One: Conte Candoli with the Hank Jones Quartet. Only four tracks were recorded for Epic that day. The group included Candoli (trumpet), Hank Jones (piano), Barry Galbraith (guitar), Milt Hinton (bass) and Osie Johnson (drums).
This CD is a must-own for anyone who appreciates West Coast jazz under the influence of East Coast sensibilities and the intensity of Candoli's horn.
JazzWax clips: For those who think Candoli was just another West Coast studio musician, try this blindfold test. Close your eyes and listen to the following video clip from 1962. If you thought it was Miles, you were wrong...
Artie Shaw. My post on Artie Shaw's Gramercy Five of 1945 triggered
the following anecdote from Don Brown of Toronto on how Johnny Guarnieri came to play the harpsichord on the sextet's 1940 recordings [Pictured: Artie Shaw and Ava Gardner]:
"Some time in the 1970s I spoke at some length with Johnny
Guarnieri, who was playing solo piano at the Cafe des Copains here in
Toronto. I asked him about his use of harpsichord on the Artie Shaw
Gramercy Five recordings. He seemed totally embarrassed by his playing
on those sides. Apparently Shaw had set up a quintet recording, and when
some of the guys got to the studio someone spotted a harpsichord in
a corner. Guarnieri began fooling around with it, and by the time Shaw
arrived the pianist was beginning to get the hang of it. But he wasn't
at all happy when his boss insisted he use it on the recordings."
Also in my Gramercy Five post, I mistakenly used the generic word
"tonal" to describe the cool, modern bridge of Hop, Skip and Jump. Writer and musician Bill Kirchner sent along an email shedding light on exactly what was going on there, musically:
"Your use of the term 'tonal' is puzzling in this context and, I daresay, incorrect. 'Tonal' simply means having a key center, not what you seem to think it means (i.e., something more exotic and daring).
"Harmonically, Hop, Skip and Jump is a 32-bar AABA tune that comprises I Got Rhythm chord changes (in the key of F) in the A sections. The bridge, or B section, has a series of what jazz musicians call 'II V7 I's' (or 'two five ones'). To illustrate:Bb minor 7, Eb7, Ab; Ab minor 7, Db7, Gb; G minor 7, C7 F, D7; G minor 7, and C7. Then back to final A section.
"Jazz musicians such as Art Tatum, John Kirby (his sextet's recording From Ab to C), and Benny Carter (the
bridge to When Lights Are Low) began to use 'two five ones' in the mid-1930s. The practice later became one of the hallmarks of bebop. The intellectually and musically curious Artie Shaw (with his pioneering beboppers, pianist Dodo Marmarosa and guitarist Barney Kessel) was reflecting what was in the air at the time."
Reader Ian Bradley informed me this morning that he has posted at Midriffon the new Artie Shaw: The Complete Spotlight Band 1945 Recordings that includes a live recording of Hop, Skip and Jump.
Roland Hanna. Following my post on Helen Merrill Presents:
Sir Roland Hanna, I received several comments from readers, many of whom offered up favorite Hanna albums:
From critic and author Larry Kart:
"You may want to alert your readers to a solo Roland
Hanna album from 1987 called Round Midnight. It's a gem and
beautifully recorded. Eight out of the eleven tracks are Hanna originals."
From Russ Neff:
"I
produced two concerts with Hanna in the 1980's and found him to be very
likable and an exceptional musician. Here is a link to my blog and my post about Hanna. It turns out he was a fan of mine!"
From Raul Bernardo in Lisbon:
"Nice to read your post remembering Roland Hanna. I
wonder if JazzWax readers are aware of a delicious Hanna CD recorded in 1979 in Japan called, When You Wish Upon a Star, on the TDK label. With Hanna was bassist George Mraz. It's worth looking for. Congratulations on your site and the magnificent interviews."
From Agustin Perez in Madrid:
"You may want to let readers know about a video of Hanna in a trio setting performing Lover Come Back To Me from a 1958 Art Ford Party. It's here, and it really swings!"
Reader Ian Bradley tells me that Sir Roland Hanna Plays the Music of Alec Wilder can be purchased from the U.K.'s Amazon site here.
Terry Teachout.Wall Street Journal critic Terry Teachout had
a terrific post last week at his blog, About Last Night, detailing the research that went into his recently completed Pops: The Life of Louis Armstrong. The biography, expected this fall from Harcourt, is definitive, to say the least.
From Terry's post:
"Sooner or later, everyone who interviews me about Pops will ask some variation on this question: Why do we need
another book about Satchmo? The short answer is that I am the first biographer to have had access to six hundred and fifty reels of tape recordings privately made by Armstrong during the last quarter-century of his life, many of which contain revealing after-hours conversations in which he speaks with breathtaking frankness about his life and work.
"More generally, I've been able to draw on a wide variety of other material that was unavailable or unknown to Laurence Bergreen when he wrote Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life, the last primary-source Armstrong biography, which was published twelve years ago.
"All well and good—but what did I do with my new ingredients? To put it as simply as possible, I've sought to write a narrative biography of Armstrong that is comparable in seriousness and scope to such 'definitive' high-culture biographies as W. Jackson Bate's Samuel Johnson, George Painter's Marcel Proust, or David Cairns' Berlioz."
I, for one, can't wait. If you're unfamiliar with Terry's
unmatched ability to take complex matters and spin them into easy-reading gold, pick up A Terry Teachout Reader. The collection contains one remarkable essay after the next on a wide range of artists, writers, dancers, musicians and singers.
Billy Taylor Meets Art Tatum. Bret Primack ("Jazz Video Guy") offers a marvelously directed and packaged v-post in HD featuring pianist Billy Taylor on mentor Art Tatum. Billy talks on-camera about meeting Tatum and how Tatum's impossible technique became a motivating force rather than a discouraging hurdle...
Metronome All-Stars. In my post on the Metronome All-Stars
of 1948-49 and interview with legendary clarinetist Buddy DeFranco, I wrote that short and long versions of Overtime and Victory Ball were recorded. I wrote that the shorter one was for commercial release (10-inch 78 rpm) and the longer one (12-inch platter) was likely for radio airplay. Reader John Cooper offered a different theory:
"By 1949, RCA Victor had learned its lesson of 10-inch v.
12-inch tunes. Formerly, the label had issued edited versions of their 12-inch jazz classics such as Sing Sing Sing and I Can't Get Started as soon as the company realized it was losing sales to jukebox operators and its tunes were not being heard. So RCA edited the longer ones and offered 10-inch versions for sale. I can't think of any other reason why someone would want Bunny Berigan's I Can't Get Started with the entire introduction cut off which is what the 10-inch version features.
"So, the same thing must have occurred with the Metronome All-Stars. But this time RCA simply did it with a separate recording. I just cant recall for sure if they actually did issue the 12-inch versions at the time. I think they did, but I didn't look hard enough for discographical proof, which should be available. But I could be mistaken. Someone should check."
Which prompted me to do a bit more research. Roland Gelatt's The Fabulous Phonograph: 1877-1977 offers a clue.
In mid-1948, during the height of the second musicians' union recording ban, Columbia introduced the 12-inch 33 1/3-rpm record and a turntable converter for $29.95. Columbia was using what was known as "microgroove" technology, which meant the result was largely noise-free. Instead of patching together shorter recordings to make longer ones, Columbia engineers simply recorded a duplicate set of masters on acetate transcription blanks. In 1948, Columbia offered to share its new technology with RCA. But RCA balked at Columbia's offer.
Nevertheless, in January 1949, when the Metronome All-Stars
date was held, RCA hedged its bets and recorded longer versions of Overtime and Victory Ball. But by early 1949, Columbia's new longer format still hadn't caught on with the record-buying public. So RCA introduced a new, more compact format: the 45-rpm. The thinking here was that a faster changer [pictured] would allow multiple 45s to keep music going with just a brief break. The new format immediately ignited a "battle of the speeds" between the major labels.
Naturally, the 45-rpm could not overcome the biggest consumer drawback: longer-playing music without any interruption. Confused, buyers stopped buying records altogether, and disc sales slipped dramatically in 1949. Finally, on January 4, 1950, RCA threw in the towel and announced the introduction of the long-play 33 1/3 record.
Now, whether RCA issued the longer versions of Overtime and Victory Ball commercially in early 1949 remains unclear. It's doubtful given the heated format-war brewing in the spring of that year, on the eve of the 45-rpm's launch by RCA.
I've always had mixed feelings about Billie Holiday's Lady in Satin. I love the February 1958 recording, but I have to be in a certain mood to hear it. Billie is in the twilight of her career, and while her voice isn't quite as shattered as it would be on her final studio recording in March 1959, her voice is already frayed and fragile. While Ray Ellis' arrangements are lushly embracing, I've found them a bit too rich and syrupy in places. What's more, some of the song choices were off considering the state of Billie's voice. Songs for me that weren't quite right include Glad to be Unhappy, I'll be Around (Billie can barely get the words out), I Get Along Without You Very Well and Violets for Your Furs (which starts rather abruptly, without the important intro). [Photo of Billie Holiday and Ray Ellis by Arnold Newman]
Fortunately, there are many more hits than misses on Lady in
Satin, including breathtaking renditions of For Heaven's Sake, You Don't Know What Love Is and I'm a Fool to Want You. More important, there are four stunners that solidify the album's classic status: You've Changed, It's Easy to Remember, But Beautiful and The End of a Love Affair, which I believe is the date's intimate high point.
I spent the day yesterday listening repeatedly to the four stunners. Then I spoke with harpist Janet Putnam Soyer and cellist David Soyer, both of whom played on the February session nearly 51 years ago.
First, a few words about husband and wife Janet and David [pictured]. Janet was one of the most in-demand studio harpists of the 1950s, recording on
albums ranging from Frank Sinatra's Songs for Swingin' Lovers to Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain (I'll have a longer interview with Janet in the coming weeks). David, of course, is one of the country's foremost cellists and was a member of the famed Guarneri Quartet. That's his magnificent cello accompanying Billie throughout on I'm a Fool to Want You.
Says Janet about Lady in Satin:
"Ray rehearsed the band before Billie arrived. When Billie came in, she wasn't in great shape. She was sort of
creeping in. She looked at all the guys she knew in the orchestra and seemed embarrassed that she was in the condition she was in. She was crying but happy to see everyone. It was a sad session, as I recall. Ray Ellis was a good writer. His harp parts were accessible, meaning they fell into my hands nicely. On this date, Ray was particularly fond of glissandi [the sound you hear when both hands run across the harp's strings in a circular motion for an uplifting effect]. Billie was in terrible shape on the days we recorded but she sounded great. I don't know how she did it." [Photo of Billie Holiday and Ray Ellis at the Lady in Satin session by Don Hunstein]
Says David:
"Billie was a wreck when she came in. She had just come out of prison or rehab. She was so nervous when Ray
introduced her that the orchestra applauded to put her at ease. I remember she didn't want the guys in the band to hear the playbacks because she didn't think she sounded good. But we all went into the booth after to hear them anyway. She sounded pretty damn good to me. Ray [Ellis], as always, was fine and easy going." [Photo: Chenz/Dalle]
What makes You've Changed, It's Easy to Remember, But Beautiful and The End of a Love Affair so special is that the lyrics suited Billie's autumnal voice perfectly. Ellis' arrangements on each song manage to be both melancholy and spirited, at once supporting and saluting Billie's jazz and pop significance.
You've Changed gives Billie a chance to let loose, and she
does so with enormous warmth and power. Backed at the start by Urbie Green's trombone, Billie delivers the lyrics with resigned and firm conviction. Ellis' use of strings, woodwinds and a choir is magnificent. Pay particular attention to Milt Hinton's heartbeat bass line, Ellis' use of shimmering strings and Janet's rich harp work. [Photo: Don Hunstein]
On It's Easy to Remember, a tremendous song choice, Ellis places flutes on top of the choir and strings, which lift higher and higher to accentuate Billie's vocal. All are anchored by Danny Bank's bass clarinet. The high point here is trombonist Urbie Green's warm, tender solo.
But Beautiful has the same splendid feel, even though Billie struggles a bit at the outset. Soon enough she slides into place on what is perhaps the album's most florid and graceful
arrangement. Mel Davis' open trumpet solo always seems to come out of nowhere before punctuating the song, and the string arrangement feels like the rhythm of water at the beach running up onto the sand and then back out.
Billie admitted on-mike that she didn't know The End of a Love Affair, and she needed multiple retakes. Finally, Ellis decided to record the orchestra alone, with Billie adding her vocal later using a headset. The arrangement is so powerful and so perfectly matched to Billie's voice that the package breaks your heart. And again, dig Janet on the harp glissandi and how she firmly snaps off chords and notes.
Lady in Satin is a jazz classic. The beauty of the album is that each time you hear it, the recording excels for different reasons. Yesterday, thanks to Janet and David, I experienced for the first time Ellis' arrangements through the harp, cello and strings.
JazzWax tracks:Lady in Satin was last re-issued in 1997
along with alternate takes, including several for The End of a Love Affair. If you want to hear just how good Billie was even at this late date, put on track No. 15, where you hear Billie singing The End of a Love Affair without accompaniment (in reality, she's singing while listening to the orchestration through a headset).
To enjoy this album and appreciate Ellis' arrangements, try segmenting what you hear. In other words, focus just on the strings during one listen or Milt Hinton's bass on the next. Or listen carefully to David's passionate cello work behind Billie on I'm a Fool to Want You.
Best of all, be sure to try what I did yesterday: training your ear on
Janet's harp. Listen carefully, and you'll hear her in the thrush of the strings or cascading down or up with glissandi depending on the mood Ellis wanted to telegraph. I've never really listened to an album by isolating the harp, but doing so here is a kick. Once your ear grows accustomed to Janet's delicate sound, you realize that the instrument's angelic whispers have everything to do with Billie and the success of Lady in Satin as a work of art.
PS: David's last name was misspelled on the 1997 re-issue. It's Soyer, not Sawyer.
JazzWax clip: Here's Billie singing on track No. 15. After the false start, she asks Mal Waldron, her pianist, to play as loud as possible because she doesn't know the song. This is followed by Billie singing without accompaniment (she's hearing the orchestration in a booth through a headset). It's positively haunting...
Speaking of Alec Wilder (yesterday's post), the composer
may have had an inadvertent influence on Artie Shaw's [pictured] decision to start his Gramercy Five combo in 1940. Forming small jazz groups within big bands was nothing new. Benny Goodman, Bob Crosby and Tommy Dorsey had created them in the 1930s. What was different about Shaw's first sextet was the use of the harpsichord instead of the piano. A year earlier, Wilder had recorded with a harpsichord in his pseudo-jazz octet, and the instrument would play a big role in the sound of Shaw's original Gramercy Five, thanks to the enormous keyboard skills of Johnny Guarnieri.
But the point of this post isn't to do an in-depth examination of Shaw's Gramercy Five, which featured a range of different sidemen over the years. Instead, I simply want to bring to your attention one track recorded by the group in August 1945 that contains early tonal jazz writing. First, some background.
Unlike Benny Goodman, whose forays into bop wouldn't come
until the late 1940s, Shaw began to experiment with the form in his second Gramercy Five in 1945. This chamber group featured Shaw on clarinet, Roy Eldridge on trumpet, Dodo Marmarosa [pictured] on piano, Barney Kessel on guitar, Morris Rayman on bass and Lou Fromm on drums. The six tracks recorded by the ensemble were The Grabtown Grapple, The Sad Sack, Scuttlebutt, The Gentle Grifter, Mysterioso and Hop, Skip and Jump.
Grabtown Grapple and The Sad Sack were recorded in
January 1945 and are minor-key tunes. While showing some signs of a bop feel, they are fairly traditional small-group swing fare. Grabtown, by the way, is the North Carolina birthplace of Ava Gardner [pictured], Artie's wife at the time.
Six months later, the songs started to take a bit more risk, thanks to Shaw's writing skills. For some strange reason, the summer tracks were credited to Artie Shaw and John Carleton, a pseudonym Shaw used for himself. Why he decided to feature both names on the credit is a mystery, unless he was using the name as a fallback in case the singles didn't sell.
Scuttlebutt, recorded in July and the first of this Shavian series, has more pep and a distinct Basie feel, with the instruments pressed together and running
in unison. Despite the bop inklings of Marmarosa and Kessel, Shaw can't seem to pull himself out of the swing mode. In August, Shaw's small-group writing is even more advanced. The Gentle Grifter has a distinctly progressive melody line, but again Shaw's ear for writing contemporary pieces seems more advanced than his playing. Was it Benny Goodman's swing shadow looming over him? Or was Shaw simply unfamiliar with the technique and feel needed to play bop, as Buddy DeFranco noted in a JazzWax interview last week?
Myserioso (not the Thelonious Monk composition, which would come later) is a lumbering blues with a clip-clop beat that gives Shaw a chance to showcase the hot-jazz side of his playing, with hints of Nightmare, Shaw's big band theme. In retrospect, it's a tedious number.
Hop, Skip and Jump is another matter. The final track
recorded by the group is an aggressive-paced tune that shifts back and forth between an uptempo blues and a cooler tonal melody line. Excluding the tonal works of Boyd Raeburn's orchestra in 1944 (Eddie Finckel's Duck Waddle, for example), this among the earliest uses of tonal lines in a small-group setting.
Marmarosa's solo on Hop, Skip and Jump is pure bop mounted on top of a swing beat. Eldridge's muted trumpet
also leans toward bop. But Shaw continues to play as if it's 1941, though his solo lines are more intricate than in past Gramercy Five solos. It's almost as if Shaw were trying to play his own personal interpretation of bop, which, of course, turns out to be swing. Kessel follows Shaw and also has a bop feel to his solo.
On Hop, Skip and Jump, you hear bop starting to bleed through the swing fabric, exhibiting the form's drawn out harmonies, tonal passages and rhythmic trickery. In fact, the tonal interlude on Hop, Skip and Jump is so radically different and laid back, you wonder what Shaw was thinking and who his influences were. You also wonder whether Shaw's modern writing on this tune had an influence on John Lewis' Milestones of August 1947, Gil Evans' Robbins' Nest of October 1947 and even Neal Hefti's Repetition of December 1947.
Whether Shaw was happy with his bop experiment in the summer of 1945 isn't clear. What we do know is that a few months after Hop, Skip and Jump was recorded, the mercurial Shaw folded his big band and the second Gramercy Five. His next band would be massive, with strings, and wouldn't record until April 1946 for Musicraft.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find all of the tracks mentioned above
at iTunes. The Shaw tracks are on Artie Shaw: Summit Ridge Drive and The Complete Gramercy Five Sessions. Interestingly, if you sample Hop, Skip and Jump at iTunes, you'll hear both the bop segment and the tonal interlude that illustrate the points above. Even better, sample the same track on both albums. They feature different sections of the song.
Sometimes you wind up with the greatest albums by accident.A couple of weeks ago I purchased a batch of Helen Merrill CDs online. When they arrived, I began listening to them, one after the next. Three tracks into the fourth CD, I suddenly realized Helen wasn't singing (hey, I go into a zone when I'm writing). Puzzled, I reached for the jewel case. The cover of the Gitanes release said, Helen Merrill Presents: Sir Roland Hanna Plays the Music of Alec Wilder. How odd, I thought, I didn't order this album. [Photo of Sir Roland Hanna by John Abbott]
When I went online to check my order, I saw that the album I was supposed to have received was Helen Merrill Presents: Al
Haig Plays the Music of Jerome Kern. Just as I reached to remove the CD from my player and return it, Hanna began playing Wilder's Ellen. That's when I realized that fate had dealt me an enormous blessing. The more I listened to this solo piano album, the more I realized how extraordinary it is. What makes this story even crazier is that the CD appears to be impossible to find for less than a queen's ransom. How a rare CD could have wound up in my package is beyond me. I never argue with good fortune.
Helen sings on just one track, and beautifully. That track is The
Sounds Around the House, with lyrics by Johnny Mandel. Helen's primary role on this glorious 1978 album was as producer, which means she was the one who made the session happen, was in the engineer's booth and arranged the order. Back in the 1970s, while living in Japan, Helen forged relationships with labels there. When she returned to New York, she produced solo albums for Tommy Flanagan, Haig and Hanna.
I haven't spent much time over the years listening to Roland Hanna. I never had anything against his playing. I just never had a chance to listen to him broken out from the various groups and bands he played with. The biggest surprise for me about this Alec Wilder tribute is how spectacular and tasteful Hanna was as a pianist and how underrated he remains as a dominant soloist.
Hanna recorded many solo efforts over his 70-year career,
including Sir Elf (1973), Informal Solo (1974), Piano Soliloquy (1979) and Duke Ellington Piano Solos (1990). Thanks to Helen's good taste and a nutty warehouse mistake, I now know just how extraordinary Hanna was.
Roland Hanna was born in 1932 and started out studying classical piano in his home town of Detroit. In the early 1950s he studied at both the Eastman School of Music and Juilliard. His first recording was in 1956, as part of the Seldon Powell
Sextet. He recorded with Benny Goodman's small groups and orchestra in 1958, with Charles Mingus and Kenny Burrell, and led his first trio sessions that year, including Easy to Love, featuring Ben
Tucker on bass and Roy Burns on drums.
Hanna joined Sarah Vaughan in 1961, and the following year recorded
with Lionel Hampton. He backed singers Al Hibbler
in 1964 (Early One Morning) and Ruth Brown in 1965 (Ruth Brown '65). Small group and big band sessions followed, and in 1966 he began an eight-year stretch with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra. His first Solid State recording with the band was Presenting Joe Williams.
In the 1970s, Hanna recorded with
Sonny Stitt on Mr. Bojangles (1973) and Never Can
Say Goodbye (1974). He also is on Jim Hall's Concierto (1975). Hanna continued to record into the 1980s and 1990s. He died in 2002 of a viral infection of the heart.
The "Sir" part of Hanna's name came from an honorary knighthood bestowed on him in 1969 by a grateful President William Tubman of Liberia. Hanna received the honorific after giving a tour of concerts for charity to help young African students. (Gee, state-backed jazz recognition: man, those were the days!)
This Alec Wilder album came at the height of Hanna's
all-too-brief career. Off-beat Wilder gems include You're Free, Blackberry Winter and Remember My Child. There also are a couple of mainstays, like I'll Be Around and It's So Peaceful in the Country, which is fabulous. As Hanna says in Leonard Feather's liner notes: "It's a beautiful piece, and I tried to broaden it to the best of my ability because the theme is too fine to be treated as just an ordinary song."
The one Helen sings, The Sounds Around the House, is absolutely gorgeous. Hanna and Helen made beautiful music together. I wish they had recorded more. For now, however, I'm just grateful for what I have—and for warehouse mistakes.
JazzWax tracks: When I first realized I hadn't ordered Roland Hanna Plays Alec Wilder, I couldn't recall which retailer I bought it from. So I went on the web to
see who was selling it. That's when I discovered the CD wasn't available anywhere for a reasonable dollar amount. (Go here to see the prices.) So I checked all of my past orders and identified the benevolent, addled retailer. Which was fine with me, considering how rare this thing is.
And instantly in demand. After I raved about the disc to my friend John Q. Walker two nights ago, he emailed to let me know that he had rushed onto eBay and snapped it up as an LP.
If you're interested, my advice is to wait until Sunday. By then, numerous JazzWax readers are likely to have tracked down the CD at various little-known sites and passed along the information to me, which I'll share then during my weekly roundup.
For now, if you want to hear Hanna in fine solo form, go to iTunes and download Solo. The album was originally called Informal Solo, recorded in Annecy, France in 1974 for the European Hi-Fly label. Or sample Duke Ellington Piano Solos. and Tributaries: Reflections on Tommy Flanagan, recorded just five months before Hanna's his death.
JazzWax clip: I couldn't find video clips of Sir Roland Hanna playing solo piano. But I did find this one with Ruth Brown and Linda Hopkins with just Hanna on piano. It will give you a feel for his strong yet engaging style:
Benny Golson is one sublime composer and
tenor saxophonist. For too long, Benny (who turns 80 on Sunday) has been unfairly pegged as a glossy Los Angeles artist whose music is more closely identified with the jazz of TV ads and movies than the jazz of art and meaning. This is absurdly shortsighted. Listen to Benny's compositions and performances (today or yesterday), and you'll hear instantly that he's truly among jazz's most potent and profound artists. In fact, the only other composer-musicians I can think of with his combined tenderness and prowess are Benny Carter and Tadd Dameron. [Photo: fstop45/Flckr]
Benny really wears two crowns. He's one of jazz's most important living composers and certainly one of its most seductive practitioners as a player and arranger. He has penned more than 200 songs, among them jazz's most enduring standards including I Remember Clifford, Whisper Not, Stablemates, Along Came Betty, Blues March, Park Avenue Petite and Killer Joe. His playing is equally strong and penetrating.
Two albums from Concord Records released today make these points neatly. One (New Time, New 'Tet) was recorded last September. The other (The Best of Benny Golson) is a compilation of his recordings from 1957 to 2004. But first, full disclosure: I wrote
the liner notes to The Best of Benny Golson. I do not
receive royalties from the CD's sales nor
does my appreciation here carry with it any commercial agreement or agenda.
As readers of my five-part interview series with Benny back in September 2008 know, I just happen to dig Benny's scene—his music, his grace and his art.
Here are two paragraphs from my liner notes that summarize Benny's talents and gifts:
"What sets Benny's compositions apart are their shimmering contrasts. By tempering gorgeous melody lines with provocative harmonies and suspenseful tempos, Benny tugs the reins slightly on beauty, restraining it from going too far. The results are songs you can't wait to hear again and again.
"As a tenor saxophonist, Benny has recorded with virtually every major jazz artist since the early 1950s. His smoky, aggressive attack snaps eel-like among the melody lines, adding just enough friction to be both pleasing and menacing, which is exactly where true art lives on the instrument."
Unlike many jazz artists today, Benny works hard to win you
over—not with cute tricks or cliches but with glamorous melodies and sly, risk-taking improvisational lines. To be sure, Benny's romanticism is unabashed and unfettered, wooing your ear with seductive pastel tones. But what you wind up responding to emotionally aren't the romantic touches. If that's all Benny's music had to offer, his collective works would have collapsed under their own weight some time ago and today would be largely forgotten. [Photo: fstop45/Flckr]
Instead, Benny's songs and playing continue to have meaning
because they contain just the right doses of restlessness and unease. Lurking beneath Benny's polished melodies is a thrashing irony that competes shark-like for your attention. Benny's music thrives on taut, bluesy contrapuntal lines and sighing resolutions combined with the tasteful application of tension and knowing when to lighten up.
Many jazz fans forget that Benny had a surging career as a small-group leader and sideman on the Prestige and Riverside labels between 1957 and 1960. This bountiful period began shortly after he left Dizzy Gillespie's big band in 1956 and ended when he and Art Farmer co-founded the Jazztet. During
this four-year stretch, Benny recorded albums such as New York Scene, The Modern Touch, Gone With Golson, Groovin' With Golson and Gettin' With It, which I believe is his most perfect album from these years. Benny also appeared as a sideman on albums led by Art Blakey, Curtis Fuller and Art Farmer.
Six of the nine tracks from The Best of Benny Golson are from these years: Whisper Not, Reunion, Are You Real?, Blues
After Dark, I Didn't Know What Time It Was and April in Paris. The last tune is especially fascinating. Benny takes this classic a few ticks slower than most executions, allowing you to hear his magnificent breath control. Even careful listeners will have trouble hearing exactly where Benny catches his air. It's an extraordinary performance. The remaining three titles—Along Came Betty, Five Spot After Dark and Killer Joe—also are significant recordings from later years.
As you listen to this compilation, you hear Benny's smoky tone and cagey attack as he starts low on the register and rises steadily before launching streams of triplet runs. Benny's also about power here. He can add enormous energy at any point during a solo, lingering on notes before running all the way down or up, only to finish off with fabulous blues lines.
The second CD release, New Time New 'Tet, was recorded last
fall. To me, this isn't a conventional album. It's more akin to a suite or concept album. Just four of the tunes are Golson originals, but the 11 tracks work together as one thanks to Benny's arrangements. And the playing is all sirloin. Joining Benny are Eddie Henderson (trumpet and flugelhorn), Steve Davis (trombone), Mike LeDonne (piano) [pictured], Buster Williams (bass) and Carl Allen (drums). Al Jarreau makes a vocal cameo on Whisper Not.
The album opens with Grove's Groove, a hard bop blues by Davis [pictured]. It's followed by a cool-tempered Airegin. With any lucky, Sonny Rollins will hear how
Benny has arranged his standard and how he has paid tribute to his fellow tenor master. Golson's From Dream to Dream is a startling rainy-night ballad in the pensive mode of Park Avenue Petite.
Benny's Whisper Not snaps and crackles, with Jarreau giving the lyrics a relaxed, husky sound. Monk's Epistrophy is brooding and roils with a strong undertow. Benny's jazz arrangement of Chopin's L'Adieu is a spirited transformation of a classical piece. I'm not big on mixing classical and jazz, but this works.
Love Me in a Special Way is perhaps the album's most
interesting choice. Written by r&b artist El DeBarge [pictured], the 1984 ballad receives a warm rendition from Davis on trombone. I wish more jazz greats would interpret lesser-known soul and r&b hits of the 1970s and 1980s. Another DeBarge hit yearning for a jazz treatment is All This Love.
Gypsy Jingle-Jangle is a rollicking original by Benny that opens deceptively with a peasant-y wedding melody but then breaks into an uptempo hard bop finish. Verdi's Voice is another jazz interpretation by Benny of a classical motif, and the album ends with Benny's Uptown Afternoon, a minor-key uptempo original.
Both albums celebrate Benny's music and playing in different ways. With The Best of Benny Golson, you get a feel for the artist's small-group energy and passion. On New Time, New 'Tet, you hear the master at work today, in a more advanced vein but still tricked out with signature hooks and lavish arrangements. Both seduce and pack quite a restless punch. And both remind you of Benny's beautiful contribution.
JazzWax tracks: The Best of Benny Golson and New Time,
New 'Tet are available as CDs here and here, respectively, or as downloads at iTunes and Amazon.
Benny's work with Art Farmer and the Jazztet is available herefrom Mosaic Records on The Complete Mercury Art Farmer/Benny Golson Jazztet Sessions, a magnificent box.
Despite a promising career as a singer and songwriter, El DeBarge was arrested for crack cocaine possession and sentenced last October to two years in prison. You'll find Love Me in a Special Way and All This Love as downloads at iTunes and Amazon. Both remain superb pop singles.
JazzWax clip: Here's a video clip of Benny, Curtis Fuller (trombone), Mike LeDonne (piano), Buster Williams (bass) and Carl Allen (drums) on Along Came Betty. Dig Benny's lines here, and follow where he's going up and down the horn:
Marc Myers writes on music for the Wall Street Journal. His book, "Why Jazz Happened," will be published by the University of California Press in December 2012.
