JazzWax

Interview: Louie Bellson (Part 2)

Louie Bellson has always been a drummer's drummer. He swings and drives a hard beat but he also has a blast in between.

His work on the bass drums is unrivaled. I say bass drums, with an "s," because Louie pioneered the used of two bass drums—one for each foot. His brush and stick work when combined with these bass drums is intoxicating. The effect is like getting hit with pool balls while being brushed off with a whisk.

Yesterday, my Part 1 interview with Louie from last Thursday centered on his Benny Goodman years. Louie played in Benny's 1942 and 1946 bands, with a bit of Hollywood film work with Benny in 1948—the year of the second American Federation of Musicians' recording ban.

Today's blog will focus on Louie's big band years after Goodman. Louie left Benny in 1947 to play with Tommy Dorsey's riveting post-war band, featuring the Swiss-watch arrangements of Bill Finegan. Said Finegan of the Dorsey days: "Louis Bellson was superb with the band. Everything he played on my charts was right."

Bellson jumped to Harry James's unrivaled bop band in late 1949 (the musicianship in this band may have been even a notch or two higher than Dorsey's). Next he played in Duke Ellington's early 50s "family member" band before recoding as a leader in the mid-to-late 1950s. Then he toured briefly with Count Basie's Second Testament band in 1962—making him the only drummer to play in all of those great orchestras.

While Louie went on to play in a wide range of big and small groups, our focus is 1947-1962. Louie picks up the story where he left off yesterday:

"One day, in 1947, while playing with Benny Goodman, I got a call from Marty Berman, Tommy Dorsey’s baritone saxophone player. ‘Louie,’ he said, ‘Tommy has heard about you. He wants you.’ Benny wasn’t working steadily at the time—maybe one day a week. So I left Benny to join Dorsey’s orchestra.

Now that band was one tough group. First of all, the charts were by Bill Finegan and were written tight. Sections came in and out, and the beats had to be  there and sharp. I think the high point for me in that band was Drumology, which I wrote and arranged with Sid Cooper [alto sax]. Wow, it was a real musicians’ band.

During the time I was there, that Dorsey band included Charlie Shavers and Ziggy Elman on trumpets, Marty Berman and Danny Bank on baritone sax, Lou Levy on piano, Barry Galbraith on guitar and just a whole crowd of top session guys who could really read.

Tommy had a different personality than Benny. Dorsey rehearsed the whole band at once—for two hours or more at a time. You really learned something in that band. Dorsey taught me to conduct myself as a gentleman on and off the bandstand and to never to be late.

I played in Tommy’s band for three years. Tommy stood by the drums, so I had a chance to watch him play. It was something. Tommy could still play measure after measure without taking a breath. That’s how Sinatra learned to sing like that, while he was in Dorsey’s band in the early 40s.

As soon as I joined Tommy, we did six months of one-nighters without a day off, traveling 500 miles a day on the bus to different gigs. That's how you traveled back then. I learned a lot. We played all the RKO theaters, which meant I played for tap dancers and jugglers who warmed up audiences and needed the beat to be dead on.

By 1949, Tommy’s engagements slowed down. So when I got a call to join Harry James, I took the job. Man, what a band. Willie Smith [alto sax] was in there. So was Juan Tizol [trombone], and Neal Hefti [trumpet] wrote many of the arrangements.

I was good friends with Juan, and whenever we were in New York I would stay at his apartment. Duke [Ellington] was always calling to talk to Juan. In 1951, he called and asked Juan to join his band and to bring Willie Smith and me with him.

So the three of us went to Harry and told him Duke wanted us. By that point, Harry was semi-retired, and the band was playing only once a week. He laughed and let us go—but added, ‘Take me with you.’ That's how great Duke was. Everyone admired him—even the bandleaders.

Duke’s band was different than all the others. It was like a family. The guys had been with him for years. When I joined, the band members treated me like I was their son. When I joined, there was no music to read. There was no drum book. Nothing. Everyone knew the parts by heart.

Fortunately I had been taking a record player and Duke’s records with me on the road for years. I had Duke's parts memorized. But I still had to be on my toes in that band. I had to listen very carefully to what they were playing. I had to get inside the music.

The band was easy to play with. Man, you had Johnny Hodges [alto]; Harry Carney, the master [on baritone], Paul Gonsalves [tenor], Cat Anderson [trumpet]—these guys and all the others had individual styles but blended together beautifully.

Duke took a big risk hiring me. I was the only white musician in his band. During our first 1951 tour, just before we headed south for Birmingham, Alabama, he said ‘We’re going down South so we’re going to make you a Haitian.’ That’s how they described me so we wouldn’t wind up in trouble. I stayed in hotels where they stayed. It was a great time.

Duke’s band was my favorite. First of all, the intensity and the dynamics were overwhelming. In Duke’s band, you play a ballad with Johnny Hodges and his playing would make you cry. I used to pinch myself, the music was so good.

Duke would offer suggestions but that’s it. Not once did he say the drums had to be played the way Sonny Greer played them. He said I want to hear how Louie Bellson plays these songs. Duke gave me a lot of confidence.

I left Duke's band and started many of my own groups in the mid-50s. Then in the summer of 1962, Sonny Payne, Count Basie’s drummer, was in a terrible car accident on the [New] Jersey Turnpike. The Count was about to leave on a tour to Sweden, so he asked me to come.

I went with the band and had the good fortune to record Basie in Sweden for Roulette. That band included Thad Jones, Frank Foster, Frank Wess—just a fabulous band. Sonny Payne rejoined the band shortly after the recording and I returned to the States.

Looking back, I had a great time playing with those bands, and I learned a lot. The work always managed to find me, and I've been blessed to play with some very talented people.

In just a few weeks, on October 4, Louie will appearing as a guest performer with the LA Jazz Orchestra during a showcase of Duke Ellington's film music. Go here for a PDF about the West Coast event.

Wax tracks: Wow, where should I begin. Louie with Dorsey can be found on Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra: The Post-War Era (BMG). This CD is out of print—but I noticed there are a handful of copies from other sellers at Amazon.com, starting at about $6. Go here and snap it up, fast.

Louie's work with Harry James' bop band is limited to two tracks on There They Go: Harry James and His Orchestra (1948-1949). This is a stunning band album and should be added to any collection. Go here to look it over. But you can hear more Louie with Harry James on Young Man With a Horn, the soundtrack from the 1950 movie, by going here.

Perhaps the best example of Louie on drums behind Duke Ellington's orchestra is Ellington Uptown (Columbia/1951), which can be found here.

Unfortunately Basie in Sweden (Roulette/1962) is no longer in print. But For the First Time (Pablo/1974)—with Louie, Basie and Ray Brown—is available here.

And finally, one of my absolute favorite Louie Bellson albums is Skin Deep, an out-of-print CD that's now available at iTunes for $9.95. It was recorded in 1953 and 1954, with arrangements by Don Redman.

The personnel is a dream band that includes Willie Smith, Wardell Gray, "Sweets" Edison, Conrad Gozzo, Ray Linn, Maynard Ferguson, Tommy Pederson, Barney Kessel and Jimmy Rowles.

With this one download (which is actually two recording sessions combined into one at iTunes), you will hear why Bellson is one of the most textured and versatile jazz drummers of all time—and why so many bands fought to bring him aboard.

Wax clip: To see Bellson playing behind the Ellington orchestra on The Hawk Talks in 1952, go here. And for a fabulous brush and stick solo on Skin Deep from 1957, go here.

And if all of this wasn't enough, Louie's work with Benny in 1942 included the Peggy Lee sessions. Go here to see Benny and Peggy with Louie in the background on Why Don't You Do Right. Watch carefully in the beginning and dig Louie's stick twirls. Considering this was for a film—Stage Door Canteen—with zero room for dropped sticks, that took guts. 

Interview: Louie Bellson (Part 1)

I've always loved Louie Bellson's drumming. It's crisp and aggressive—without being noisy or over the top. To my ear, Bellson's sound is thunderous and seductive—a graceful, rolling invitation rather than a sharp military call to arms. To quote Count Basie on Bellson: "He plays so clean, till it sounds to me like he is reading it out of a book. And he can swing."

I spoke with Louie on Thursday by phone about his early band years—from 1941 to 1962—and he shared stories about Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, Duke Ellington and Count Basie. 

This is my favorite period of Bellson's. He had the startling good fortune to play with the most challenging orchestras of the period —leapfrogging from band to band as the genre wound down and competition for seats in those top ensembles heated up among the nation's top sidemen.

While  Bellson isn't as well known a name today as Buddy Rich, that's probably due more to Buddy's tireless knack for self-promotion and rough-guy intensity. Bellson was a bit more laid back but just as intense and popular, especially among jazz greats. He was a lot less angry and combative than Buddy, that's for sure, yet they remained close friends through the decades. That's a testament to Bellson's warm, magical personality.

But from a critical perspective, the big difference for me between the two drumming giants is that Bellson had taste and Buddy didn't. That's not a knock on Buddy. It's just that Buddy often sounded ferociously mechanical, as if it were his last day on earth. While that style can sound exciting at first, I've always found that it gets old fast and exhausts the ear. Buddy left little air or room for the listener.

Bellson, by contrast, always is doing something interesting and subtle with the drums, whether sitting behind bands or a group. Bellson's genius was and is his driving beat—his signature was using two bass drums at once—and the delightful messages he delivered with sticks or brushes on the skins, cymbals and hi-hat.

But let's get back to those bands. Bellson cut his teeth playing with the best of them and at their musical peak—after World War II. This isn't an overstatement. While the bands were indeed dying after the war, the best ones remained and got better.

Bellson's on drums in Benny Goodman's bands of 1942 (at age 18) and 1946 (the Magic Carpet band); he's behind Tommy Dorsey's stunning post-war orchestra of 1947-49 featuring the breakthrough arrangements of Bill Finegan; he then jumps to Harry James' bop band of 1949 (yep, James could bop, and this was his best band, with the breakneck Neal Hefti charts); Bellson leaves for Duke Ellington in the early 1950s (a who's who of sidemen); and then Bellson travels to Sweden in 1962 with Basie's Second Testament band, which recorded a killer live album over there for Roulette.

After Basie, Bellson went on to lead groups and play with every jazz legend, recording more than 200 albums and composing more than 1,000 songs. In 2006, Bellson released The Sacred Music of Louie Bellson, an ambitious Ellington-inspired choral and band work recorded in 2000. (It's available here). A new CD with Clark Terry and Kenny Washington is due soon.

When I spoke with Louie on Thursday we focused on his early band years:

"My father owned a music store when I was growing up in Rock Falls, Illinois. He could play all the instruments, which you had to do when you owned a music store back then. One day, when I was three years old, he took me to a parade. When the drums passed by, I got so excited I told him wanted to learn to play them.

By high school, I was crazy about the drums. I was using a drum kit with two bass drums—one for my left foot and one for my right, which no one was doing at the time.

In 1941, when I was 17 years old, I entered the Singerland National Gene Krupa Drum Contest along with 40,000 other young drummers. After several rounds, at the finals in New York, Gene picked me as the winner. I was knocked out. When Gene gave me the award, he said, “You have a brilliant career ahead of you.” Later, whenever I’d run into him, Gene would say, “See, I told you that you had a big career ahead of you.” Funny guy.

My first big break was with the Ted Fio Rito band. Fio Rito had a bunch of record hits in the 1930s and did a lot of radio work back then. When he came to my home town in early 1942, I sat in with the band. Ted liked me and offered me a job.

But I had three months left of high school and my parents wouldn’t let me leave. Ted said to call him when I finished and he’d give me a job. I thought he was just talking, but after I graduated, I called Ted and he paid for me to come out to California to join the band.

My first paying job for the Fio Rito band was at the Florentine Gardens club in Los Angeles. I remember we shared the bill with the Mills Brothers and I got to hear them every night, which was great. Man, they sounded even better live than on record.

I soon joined Benny’s band in 1942 and again in 1946, after the war. Benny always knew what he wanted to hear and got the band to deliver. I never had any problems with him. I did what he wanted me to do.

Benny was a master at rehearsing. He would rehearse each section of the band individually. First he’d rehearse the saxes. Then the trombones. Then the trumpets. Then he’d rehearse two sections together. It went on for hours—and without the bass, drums or piano.

Benny wanted the sections playing in tempo on their own. He needed them to keep time without relying on the rhythm section. We'd have to sit through the entire rehearsal until Benny would finally add the bass, drums and piano. When he'd rehearse the other sections, he’d look over at us and say, “Now don’t pull a magazine out on me. Listen to what’s going on.”

The sections had to be up on those charts. Otherwise, Benny would give you that ray, that look. The ray was a complete, cold stare. But the ray was often misunderstood by the press. Yeah, Benny would stare when he didn’t like something. But he also had a funny habit of staring while just listening intently to you, to really hear what you were doing. He’d blank out doing that, and many musicians thought it was that ray. It wasn’t.

I remember during a practice session he was staring at me for a long time. I started to wonder what the problem was. Then he snapped out of it, realizing he was staring at me, and smiled. I smiled back.

Tomorrow I'll have Part 2 of my interview with Louie and his reflections on Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, Duke Ellington and Count Basie.

Wax clips: Dig Bellson, age 19, drumming behind Benny Goodman's  Minnie's in the Money from The Gang's All Here, directed by Busby Berkeley (1943). Check the "LB" on the drums above the BG. To see all the other Goodman numbers in this film, with Bellson on  drums, rent The Gang's All Here. The DVD is available at Netflix.

To hear Bellson behind Goodman playing the music for a delightful 1946 Disney cartoon, go here and listen to All the Cats Join In (1946). And go here for a clip from the 1948 film, A Song Is Born. Bellson is playing drums in the background on Stealin' Apples.

Interview: Danny Bank on Billie

Danny Bank, 85, appeared on two key Billie Holiday dates—playing flute on the hauntingly lush Lady in Satin and baritone saxophone on Billie Holiday: Last Recording, her final session recorded just four months before her death. I spoke to Danny yesterday about the session, and he helped resolve a few questions I've always had about the date.

Billie's Last Recording is particularly painful to hear. So much so that many of my friends find it unlistenable. And in many ways they're right. Billie sounds frighteningly fragile—much more so than on Lady in Satin, which was recorded a year earlier. You almost feel ashamed to be listening to it given her near-death condition.

Yet Last Recording remains an essential document. Because anything recorded by Billie is important. And because her voice, while shattered after years of abuse, still tries to overcome the physical limitations of her body and winds up taking on a strange, gaunt, autumnal beauty.

In addition, the arrangements by Ray Ellis (who also led the shimmering Lady in Satin date) are fairly strong. The musicians assembled were all major players, and trumpeter "Sweets" Edison seems to be blowing especially strong to shoulder Billie along.

I own a crystal clear Japanese import of Last Recording and have always wondered why so many of the tracks sound unfinished, musically. All of You finds the great tenor saxophonist Al Cohn squeaking during a solo, which should have triggered an immediate re-take. Sometimes I'm Happy and When It's Sleepy Time Down South fade out in strange places. Clearly an engineer's save after the date was wrapped. And so on.

Danny Bank, who occupied one of the nine chairs on the third day of the recording session in March 1959, shed light on the agonizing date:

"Her last album was recorded over three days [March 3, 4 and 11 in in 1959.] The first two dates were done with horns and strings. I wasn't on those. On the last date Ray [Ellis] used just a small band.

I remember getting a call from Romeo Penque a day before the [March 11] session. Penque was a great musician. He could do it all—he played alto, tenor, clarinet, you name it. Penque was on the first two dates in March and was scheduled to do the third. But he was one of those guys that if another date paid $10 more, he’d go take it even though he was booked for the first one.

So I told Penque I'd take the session. Billie was one of my heroes. I had always heard stories about her. I admired her for Strange Fruit. That was a bold social statement at the time. Very courageous.

When I walked into the studio, I think it was in the morning, there she was. But Billie was so sick. She had no balance. They had to put a belt on her to hold her upright in the stool she sat on to record. I don’t know why she recorded that day. Maybe because the session was already booked and she needed the money.

I went over to her before we began. I said ‘Billie, hi, we have a mutual friend.’

'Who? she said.

‘Freddy the Freeloader,' I said. Now Freddy was a band boy. I met him when I was in Charlie Barnet’s band. Freddy ran all over town with my instruments, taking them to my recording sessions. He was one of my schleppers.

Billie looked up at me, paused for a few seconds, and smiled. ‘Yeah,' she said, 'Freddy. How about that. He's a good cook.’ Freddy used to cook for Billie. He really was a great chef.

Then we recorded four tracks. We didn't go overtime. We just played and Billie did the best she could.

But Billie was in really bad shape, and it got worse over the period we were recording. She had her nurse standing right next to her the entire time so she wouldn’t fall off that chair. Finally, after three hours, the nurse called it off with a wave of her hand. 'That's it,' she said."

So much for conductor Ray Ellis. And that's why the album sounds so rough. Billie could barely deliver the vocals and was physically shot. Whatever the engineer could capture was what the record company had to wax, regardless of Al Cohn's gaffe. When Billie's voice would break toward the end of songs while trying to holding notes, the engineer would create fade outs. And when Billie's nurse finally threw in the towel, the session was over. Period.

I, for one, would love to hear the complete masters from these dates, with Billie's false starts and her voice breaks near the end of songs and whatever banter occurred just off mike. This isn't morbid curiosity—it's merely a desire to hear the full extent of Lady Day's final outing, rough edges and all.

And yes, Freddy the Freeloader, Danny Bank's instrument schlepper, is indeed the same person Miles Davis named his song after on Kind of Blue. As Miles said in The Autobiography with Quincy Troupe: "That song was named after this black guy I knew who was always seeing what he could get from you free, and he was always around the jazz scene."

In March 1959, Billie fondly remembered Freddie before the start of her last recording date. A month later , Miles recorded Freddie Freeloader on Kind of Blue, which would turn out to be one of the most important jazz recordings of all time. Seems Freddie did alright.

Wax snap: To see a photo of Billie at this last recording session, go here. It was taken by Milt Hinton, who played bass on the date and was already an active photographer. Seems The Judge realized he was seeing something both horrible and beautiful at the same time and needed to capture it for posterity.

Wax tracks: Billie Holiday: Last Recording is out of print, but a 1990 CD is available used from sellers for around $16 or as an import for $33 (or less if purchased used). This isn't an essential recording but it is interesting to listen to nonetheless for the reasons I mentioned above. Amazon features both.

Wax clip: The song Bank referred to—Strange Fruit—was recorded by Billie for Commodore Records in 1939 and 1944 to condemn the lynching of African-Americans and the apparent toleration of the practice by local and national authorities. It's one of the first jazz protest songs. You can see and hear Billie sing it on a1959 TV show here.

In a Mist

I'm not sure why I always listen to Bix Beiderbecke's In a Mist over the Labor Day weekend each year. Probably because the song is  carefree and  melancholy at the same time, and perfectly captures the mood of summer's end.

In a Mist is a complex piece of piano music. The song begins and remains a paradox throughout, and you never quite figure out where it's going or where it has been. It sounds jagged and smooth, scampering up and down major and minor scales with exuberance and reflection, pausing on landings along the way to catch its breath. In a Mist never bores, no matter how many times you listen to it.

For those unfamiliar with Bix, he was a pioneering cornet player in the 1920s. He's is important because, like Louis Armstrong, his joyous abandon and modern phrasing advanced his instrument and jazz itself.

But In a Mist does not feature Bix on cornet. Instead, he's playing solo piano. While In a Mist lasts just 2 minutes and 44 seconds, it features a dense fabric of chords and multiple rhythms. The song opens as something of a minor-key cakewalk but Bix quickly shifts to stride piano in a major key, and In a Mist lurches, spins and staggers until it softly reaches its destination.

For me, it's the perfect anthem for the end of summer and start of the fall season. Bix's haunting melody and stop-start attack was ahead of its time musically. As you'll hear, this piano piece has multiple personalities, all of them rich with poetry.

Interestingly, In a Mist was recorded this time of year—nearly 80 years ago on September 9, 1927. Whenever I hear In a Mist, my first reaction  is astonishment that Bix, the cornetist, could get so much out of the piano. My second reaction is bafflement at how complex a puzzle this song is.

This afternoon, In a Mist played beautifully as the dimming intensity of the summer light crept across the tops and sides of brownstones and buildings on New York's Upper West Side.

In Bix: Man and Legend (1974), Dick Sudhalter provides the story behind the naming of the song:

"Bix returned to Okeh [Records] the following Wednesday with Murray, Rank, Signorelli, Morehouse and Rollini to do three titles under his own leadership, the first since Davenport Blues more than two years before. As he recalled the story to Spirier, the first person he spied upon arrival was the recording man who had supervised the piano solo session.

'How about that title, Bix? Thought of something yet?'

'Gosh, I don't know,' he answered, parking himself at the keyboard. in truth he hadn't given the matter a moment's thought. don't ask me that one today, man. I'm just in a fog.'

With all the predictability of the commercially conditioned mind, the official—whose name has been lost to recollection—recoiled in delight. 'Hey! That's perfect. We'll call it In a Fog.'

Bix, said Spurrier, scarcely hid his annoyance. 'Aw, c'mon, man. That's corny And besides, it sounds all wrong—all heavy, like a guy with a hangover. That's not the way I hear it.'

'I like it,' the Okeh man repeated. 'Unless you can come up with something better, it stays in.'

After kicking it around for awhile, said Spurrier, the word 'Mist' replaced 'Fog.' Bix said he thought it more in keeping with his feeling for the thing. So 'Mist' it was and 'Mist' it stayed."

Bix was and remains a joy. On cornet or piano, Bix played jazz that sounded simple and intricate—often at the same time.

Wax tracks: Bix's In a Mist can be downloaded at iTunes. While you're there, download the Bix and Frankie Trumbauer instrumental version for contrast. And you may as well download Singin' The Blues, Way Down Yonder in New Orleans and Royal Garden Blues for a taste of Bix's cornet.