Waxing & musings. A few weeks ago, in response to my post on Bob Willoughby's 1951 photos of tenor saxophonist Big Jay McNeely, reader and writer Alan Kurtz posted a comment claiming that McNeely was not a jazz musician but an R&B tenorman, adding that "R&B was not jazz, and to blur that distinction does a disservice to both genres."
A tad harsh. Though the term "rhythm & blues" dates back to 1948, the genre is hard to categorize and distinguish from jazz in the late 1940s and early 1950s. At the time, there was enormous crossover between jazz, jump-boogie, dirty boogie and R&B. Ultimately, the big difference was dance-ability. But if Big Jay McNeely should not be viewed as jazz, as Alan sternly suggests, the same might be said of Lionel Hampton, Tiny Grimes, Louis Prima, Earl Bostic, Benny Golson, Paul Williams, Illinois Jacquet and many others at this point in time.
If we zoom in on 1951, we learn that the year was a pretty sketchy one. Jazz was feeling its way along on both coasts, and to make ends meet, many musicians shifted between jazz and r&b as well as Latin. Part of the reason for the blurring was the record industry itself, which had confused the marketplace with the introduction of two new record speeds—45-rpm and 33 1/3-rpm. Add to the mix the rise of independent radio stations and BMI's growing influence as a rival to ASCAP, and it's rather hard to definitively categorize anyone with a saxophone as a pure practitioner of one genre or another.
Writer Robert Palmer described early r&b as "urbane, rocking, jazz-based music with a heavy, insistent beat." Sounds about right to me. While Big Jay McNeely certainly plays like an early rock 'n' roller to our ears now, he surely viewed himself at the time as part of jazz's avant-garde—albeit a member of the more theatrical and flamboyant wing.
"Thank you for including my version of "Time Remembered" in your recent blog on vocal versions of Bill Evans. It was a deep moment for us in the studio, and I'm so pleased that it touched you. I also enjoyed reading about the other vocal versions you featured. Meredith [d'Ambrosio] is one of my favorite vocalists and a dear friend. Thanks again for sharing the music with your readers, and for doing it so eloquently."
Tab Smith on the air. Today, DJ Jim Wardrop will feature the music of Tab Smith commemorating the r&b alto saxophonist's 100th birthday. Smith in the late 1930's and early 1940's played with Lucky Millinder and Count Basie. Between 1951 and 1957 he recorded more than 90 sides aimed at the r&b market under his own name. Go here to listen today between 5:30 and 7 p.m. (EDT).
Burton Lane on the air. Today, DJ Sid Gribetz presents a five-hour special radio broadcast on WKCR in New York featuring jazz versions of the songs of composer Burton Lane. Lane was a Gershwin protege and one
of the legendary masters of American popular song, most famous for his
scores for the Broadway musicals Finian's Rainbow and On A Clear Day
You Can See Forever. The show on WKCR will air from 2 to 7 p.m. (EDT). Go here to listen live.
Charles McPherson. David Brent Johnson, host of WFIU's Night Lights jazz program, recently recorded a one-hour show on alto saxophonist Charles McPherson. Go here to listen to his podcast. And next Saturday (August 1st), at 11:05 p.m. (EDT) David will host a program on recordings captured at New York's Cafe Bohemia. Go here to listen live. Mark your calendar: On August 8th, David's show is Claude Thornhill: Godfather of Cool, and on August 15th, it's Very Early: Bill Evans.
Herb Snitzer's archive. Photographer Herb Snitzer is looking for a museum, private collector or institution interested in acquiring his complete jazz photography archive that begins in 1958. For contact information, go here.
Ira Gitler on Art Tatum. Recently Bret Primack spoke to legendary jazz writer Ira Gitler about Art Tatum. Interesting insights...
New York's Hotel Astor. Reader Kurt Kolstad sent along a link to photos and historical information on New York's Hotel Astor, where many big bands were captured live on the roof garden via radio remotes. Go here to view.
Bob Keller. Tenor saxophonist Bob Keller sent along a link to a videoclip recorded in Saratoga, N.Y., on July 19, just a few days ago. The clip features Bob (he's on the left) and Lew Del Gatto playing Red Door, the Zoot Sims and Gerry Mulligan composition on which Dave Frishberg's Zoot Walks In is based...
CD discovery of the week. Charlie Mariano, the Boston alto saxophonist who died in June, recorded two 10-inch LPs for Prestige—one at the tail end of 1951 and the other at the top of 1953. The albums were called Charlie Mariano's Boston All-Stars. The first eight tracks from 1951 featured Joe Gordon (trumpet), Sonny Truitt (trombone), Jim Clark (tenor sax), George Myers (baritone sax), Roy Frazee (piano), Jack Lawlor (bass) and Gene Glennon (drums). The second eight paired Mariano with another team: Herb Pomeroy (trumpet), Dick Twardzik (piano), Bernie Griggs (bass), Jimmy Weiner (drums) and producer Ira Gitler on bells on Barsac. I own both LPs, but I see now that they're available on a single album download at iTunes.
Oddball album cover of the week. Here's another one of those album covers from the 1950s that portray female singers as love toys. Singer Patty McGovern recorded Wednesday's Child in 1956 for Atlantic with quite a big band, featuring Joe Wilder, Jimmy Buffington, Danny Bank, Arnold Fishkind and Osie Johnson. But for some reason, the art director decided to cast her as an urban temptress or streetwalker. I'm hoping the fellow in the alley with her is the album's talented West Coast arranger Tommy Talbert. Otherwise, this cover is really out there. If you want the album on CD, it's here for about $50 used.
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Further to your Big Jay comments, I have read numerous accounts over the years of McNeeley's background and proficiency as a jazz player. He led one of the first bebop bands on the West Coast playing alongside Sonny Criss and Hampton Hawes long before hitting it big with "Deacon's Hop". The most recent and significant mention of this was in the "Central Avenue Sounds" oral history project. McNeeley's comments in that book are WELL worth reading for a good perspective on just exactly what you talk about in your post today. Let's also not forget that "Deacon's Hop" was a BIG hit in 1949, which I am sure had quite an influence on the musical choices Big Jay has made over the years.
As Reagan said to Carter, "There you go again." Previously I questioned a December 2007 blog where you referred to pianist Lennie Tristano walking out in the middle of a Bill Evans club date. "Apparently the perfection of the Bill Evans Trio," you wrote, "was too much for Lennie's ego." As I pointed out, imputing an unknowable motive to a dead person has the virtue of being irrefutable, but for someone who bills himself as a journalist and historian, it's suspect behavior. And sure enough, Marc, you're at it again, writing today that Big Jay McNeely "surely viewed himself at the time [1951] as part of jazz's avant-garde."
I've scoured Jim Dawson's book Nervous Man Nervous: Big Jay McNeely and the Rise of the Honking Tenor Sax! (1994), the relevant pages in Arnold Shaw's Honkers and Shouters: The Golden Years of Rhythm & Blues (1978), and Joop Visser's booklet accompanying the 4-CD set The Big Horn: The History of the Honkin' & Screamin' Saxophone (2003), and nowhere do I find any mention of jazz's avant-garde. At the time of Big Jay's greatest hit, "Deacon's Hop," jazz's avant-garde included the amazing 1948 Charlie Parker Quintet with Miles, Duke Jordan, Tommy Potter and Max Roach; the Miles Davis Nonet, which performed "Move," "Godchild" and "Moon Dreams" live at the Royal Roost in September of that year; and the aforementioned Lennie Tristano, who recorded "Intuition" in the spring of 1949. As for 1951, Stan Kenton was leading his Innovations Orchestra in, among other outrageous avant-gardisms, Bob Graettinger's "City of Glass." But Big Jay McNeely? Give me a honking break!
So I wonder, how does JazzWax divine these things? And I notice you're getting bolder, too. In 2007, you at least used the qualifier "Apparently." Today you venture farther out on the limb of unsupported supposition, claiming you know how Big Jay "SURELY viewed himself." Pray tell, Mr. Myers, how does a mere mortal (assuming you are still that) attain such preternatural certainty?
Marc -- I think you're way off base on the cover for the Patty McGovern-Tom Talbert album "Wednesday's Child" (that is Talbert with McGovern in the photo). The lyrics (by Bill Wolfe) of the title song (music by Talbert) are based on the old nursery rhyme:
Mondays child is fair of face,
Tuesdays child is full of grace,
Wednesdays child is full of woe,
Thursdays child has far to go,
Fridays child is loving and giving,
Saturdays child works hard for his living,
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.
The clearly implied mood, handsomely borne out by both the album and the cover photo, is one of wistful, inward-looking melancholia; "urban temptress" and "streetwalker" have nothing to do with it. The cover was designed by Talbert's friend Bill Hughes. Further information about the late (and, at his best, great IMO) Talbert can be found in Bruce Talbot's excellent biography "Tom Talbert: His Life and Times" (Scarecrow Press), which comes with a CD anthology of Talbert's work, including two tracks from "Wednesday's Child" (thought not that piece).
Ira's point about the residual effect on the listener of Tatum's rapid harmonic shifts is very interesting. Tatum was as exceptional in concept as he was in execution, though it's certainly not easy to think about those things separately. On the other hand, what Ira said does point to one of the key ways that Tatum was just DIFFERENT.
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Marc Myers writes frequently on music and the arts for the Wall Street Journal. He is author of "Why Jazz Happened" (University of California Press). In 2012, JazzWax was named the Jazz Journalists Association's "Blog of the Year."
Further to your Big Jay comments, I have read numerous accounts over the years of McNeeley's background and proficiency as a jazz player. He led one of the first bebop bands on the West Coast playing alongside Sonny Criss and Hampton Hawes long before hitting it big with "Deacon's Hop". The most recent and significant mention of this was in the "Central Avenue Sounds" oral history project. McNeeley's comments in that book are WELL worth reading for a good perspective on just exactly what you talk about in your post today. Let's also not forget that "Deacon's Hop" was a BIG hit in 1949, which I am sure had quite an influence on the musical choices Big Jay has made over the years.
Posted by: Nick Rossi | July 26, 2009 at 03:25 PM
As Reagan said to Carter, "There you go again." Previously I questioned a December 2007 blog where you referred to pianist Lennie Tristano walking out in the middle of a Bill Evans club date. "Apparently the perfection of the Bill Evans Trio," you wrote, "was too much for Lennie's ego." As I pointed out, imputing an unknowable motive to a dead person has the virtue of being irrefutable, but for someone who bills himself as a journalist and historian, it's suspect behavior. And sure enough, Marc, you're at it again, writing today that Big Jay McNeely "surely viewed himself at the time [1951] as part of jazz's avant-garde."
I've scoured Jim Dawson's book Nervous Man Nervous: Big Jay McNeely and the Rise of the Honking Tenor Sax! (1994), the relevant pages in Arnold Shaw's Honkers and Shouters: The Golden Years of Rhythm & Blues (1978), and Joop Visser's booklet accompanying the 4-CD set The Big Horn: The History of the Honkin' & Screamin' Saxophone (2003), and nowhere do I find any mention of jazz's avant-garde. At the time of Big Jay's greatest hit, "Deacon's Hop," jazz's avant-garde included the amazing 1948 Charlie Parker Quintet with Miles, Duke Jordan, Tommy Potter and Max Roach; the Miles Davis Nonet, which performed "Move," "Godchild" and "Moon Dreams" live at the Royal Roost in September of that year; and the aforementioned Lennie Tristano, who recorded "Intuition" in the spring of 1949. As for 1951, Stan Kenton was leading his Innovations Orchestra in, among other outrageous avant-gardisms, Bob Graettinger's "City of Glass." But Big Jay McNeely? Give me a honking break!
So I wonder, how does JazzWax divine these things? And I notice you're getting bolder, too. In 2007, you at least used the qualifier "Apparently." Today you venture farther out on the limb of unsupported supposition, claiming you know how Big Jay "SURELY viewed himself." Pray tell, Mr. Myers, how does a mere mortal (assuming you are still that) attain such preternatural certainty?
Posted by: Alan Kurtz | July 26, 2009 at 03:25 PM
Marc -- I think you're way off base on the cover for the Patty McGovern-Tom Talbert album "Wednesday's Child" (that is Talbert with McGovern in the photo). The lyrics (by Bill Wolfe) of the title song (music by Talbert) are based on the old nursery rhyme:
Mondays child is fair of face,
Tuesdays child is full of grace,
Wednesdays child is full of woe,
Thursdays child has far to go,
Fridays child is loving and giving,
Saturdays child works hard for his living,
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.
The clearly implied mood, handsomely borne out by both the album and the cover photo, is one of wistful, inward-looking melancholia; "urban temptress" and "streetwalker" have nothing to do with it. The cover was designed by Talbert's friend Bill Hughes. Further information about the late (and, at his best, great IMO) Talbert can be found in Bruce Talbot's excellent biography "Tom Talbert: His Life and Times" (Scarecrow Press), which comes with a CD anthology of Talbert's work, including two tracks from "Wednesday's Child" (thought not that piece).
Posted by: Larry Kart | July 26, 2009 at 04:22 PM
More about Talbert can be found here:
http://www.npr.org/programs/jazzprofiles/archive/talbert.html
including clips and interviews.
Posted by: Larry Kart | July 26, 2009 at 04:25 PM
Ira's point about the residual effect on the listener of Tatum's rapid harmonic shifts is very interesting. Tatum was as exceptional in concept as he was in execution, though it's certainly not easy to think about those things separately. On the other hand, what Ira said does point to one of the key ways that Tatum was just DIFFERENT.
Posted by: Larry Kart | July 26, 2009 at 09:00 PM