JazzWax

Interview: Frank D'Rone (Part 1)

Back in the late 1970s, I was hunting for a Stan Kenton LP and wound up at Dayton's, a rare jazz LP store on Broadway in New York's Greenwich Village. As I made my way over to the Kenton bin, a record by a male singer was playing over the store's speakers. The song was Why Can't This Night Go On Forever, featuring a rip-roaring big band arrangement. Nearby, a guy in a newsboy cap and dark glasses was leaning on a bin, chewing gum and nodding his head to the music. "Who's the singer?" I asked. "This guy?" the aging hipster asked abruptly, as though awakened. "Man, that's Frank D'Rone." I forgot about Kenton and bought the LP, After the Ball, and took Frank D'Rone Sings, too. Both were recorded for Mercury, and for years I treasured the two albums. No one who heard them on my stereo was able to guess who was singing. 

Fast forward. About three weeks ago, I was e-chatting with JazzWax reader Peter Sokolowski, who mentioned the very same albums. "I thought I was the only one who knew them," I said. Peter wrote back: "Frank's still around." Indeed he is. A few days later, when Frank and I spoke by phone, the singer laughed when I told him the rare-record story. Turns out Frank has had some career, rubbing shoulders with Nat Cole, Benny Carter, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Liza Minnelli, Billy May, Bud Shank, Jimmy Rowles and many others. And he's still singing and playing guitar in Chicago clubs.

In Part 1 of my three-part interview with Frank, 77, the singer talks about performing on stage at age 5, his first playing and singing job at a New York hotel, touring for seven years in the 1950s with different small groups, and landing a steady gig in 1957 with pianist Dick Marx and bassist Johnny Frigo in Chicago:

JazzWax: Where did you grow up?
Frank D’Rone: In Providence, R.I. I was born in Brockton, Mass., but my parents moved to the Italian section of Providence when I was a kid. My mom kept house and my dad worked for the railroad loading and unloading freight cars. He wasn’t a big guy, maybe 5’ 10” and 150 pounds. But he was a bull. I was an only child, so I had all I needed. I had lots of friends, played stickball and did all the street stuff you see in the movies. I had fun.

JW: When did you start playing the guitar?
FD’R: When I was 3 years old, my parents told me, I saw a ukulele in Providence and wanted it. My dad bought it for me, and I started playing right away and wouldn’t let it go. A year later my parents bought me a guitar. My uncle knew four or five chords, so I started by copying him. At age 5, I was on stage singing and playing guitar [pictured]. I was always comfortable in front of an audience. This was in the late 1930s. Back then, in my neighborhood in Providence, they staged these Italian melodramas. I was hired to play guitar and sing in Italian during the 15-minute intermissions. They paid me $2, and audiences fell apart.

JW: And in school?
FD’R: In junior high school, I had my own band, and we played weddings. In high school I was in the band and the choir, and I was the soloist in the glee club. 

JW: Did you have formal training?
FD’R: At age 10 I started classical guitar studies for about six years. But I wasn’t happy with the music. So I taught myself the standards. Everything I know on the guitar I taught myself.

JW: What about after high school?
FD’R: Instead of college, I wanted to work in music right away. New York was the place to be. In 1950 my mom, dad and I took the train down to the city from Providence. My dad had free passes for the family because he worked for the railroad. We stayed at the St. James Hotel and paid $18 a week. The plan was to get me started. My dad would come down on weekends.

JW: Did you find work?
FD’R: I saw an ad in one of the papers placed by the Barbizon-Plaza Hotel on Central Park South. The lounge was looking for someone to play and sing. So I went in and auditioned and got the job. The manager said, “See you on Monday.” I came in that Monday and worked. The tips were incredible—$3, $5, $10. That was on top of my $40 salary. But when I went back the next night, the manager asked what I was doing there.

JW: Why?
FD’R: I had misunderstood. He said, “No, no, I just hired you for Mondays.” I said, “I’ll work the whole week, five nights, for $40.” I knew I’d make money with tips. He took me up on my offer. I earned $150 a week in just tips, which paid for the hotel and food. After that gig ran its course, I went out on the road with a jazz quartet—vibes, bass, drums and guitar and singing. The group was the Jerry Carleton Trio, even though there were four of us [laughs]. We were together for two years.

JW: A lot of traveling?
FD’R: Incredible. We had 1,000-mile hops in a 1938 Ford with a hole in the floor and a door that didn’t close all the way [laughs]. We tied it shut with a rope. Touring was a great experience for me. I learned how to be a gentleman. The other guys were in their 30s and 40s. I was just 19. They taught me which fork to use and how to be polite. I joined the group in the latter part of 1950 and left in 1952.

JW: Why did you leave?
FD’R: I decided to go with Mike Kalli, a piano player. I’d also get to play guitar and sing as a solo. A duo meant greater visibility. We were together for two years. Back then there were jazz groups of every size all over the country touring. There were so many clubs in so many cities. There was plenty of work if you traveled. You have to understand that before email and TV and things like that, people went out to socialize, especially in smaller towns. Going out almost always included hearing live music. Stuff wasn’t expensive then. Soon, the Mutual Entertainment Agency began to represent us. The agency added drummer Barrett Deems [pictured], making us a trio.

JW: How long were you together?
FD’R: We lasted until 1954. The trio broke up because I got an offer from bandleader and clarinetist Herbie Fields [pictured]. He needed a guitar player and singer, and the pay was good—$135 a week. Barrett went with Louis Armstrong and Mike went back home to Waterloo, Iowa, and played singles.

JW: How long were you with Fields?
FD’R: A little over a year, until 1956. By then I wanted to go out on my own. Mike Kalli and I got back together for a short time. We were booked into a shot and beer joint in Rock Island, IL [pictured]. On opening night we played jazz and pop. But every 20 minutes a train would roar by and the place would shake. The people in there weren't really interested in what we were doing. After we finished, I went up to the owner and said, “I don’t think we fit this place at all.” He looked at me and looked around and said, “You’re right.” He just paid us for the night and we left.

JW: What happened?
FD’R: I knew the piano player Dick Marx and called him on the phone. I told him about the gig and how bad it was. He said, “Come to Chicago.” So I told Mike. He understood. I was 24 years old.

JW: What happened in Chicago?
FD’R: I got an apartment and joined Dick at Mister Kelly's. Dick was working with Johnny Frigo, who was playing bass then. We worked the jazz nights—Sundays and Mondays. Other acts played the club other nights of the week. I was getting $40 a night, which was pretty good. Soon other gigs started to come in.

JW: Where else in town did you play?
FD’R: My agent put me into Chicago’s Dante's Inferno  in mid-1957. But there wasn't much business there because the club was on the border of skid row. The club was beautiful. It had mosaic tables, lounge chairs and so on. But the owner didn’t advertise. He wanted the place to be special and catch on by word of mouth. [Chicago in 1957 by Francis Miller for Life]

Tomorrow, Frank talks about the matchbook-sized magazine ad that changed his career, the night Nat King Cole came into the Chicago club where he was singing, being signed to Mercury Records, why Bill Russo's arrangements for Frank D'Rone Sings needed West Coast revisions, and the song that George Shearing always wanted Frank to sing when they performed together in San Francisco.

JazzWax tracks: After the Ball, the early 1960s Frank D'Rone album that cost me a king's ransom in the 1970s, is available remastered as a download at Amazon or iTunes.

Sonny Stitt: Roost Sessions

You either love Sonny Stitt or you're completely unfamiliar with the saxophonist. And if you're as crazy about Stitt, as I am, then you know it's almost impossible to collect his records. There are simply too many of them. When I was a kid back in the 1970s, I worked in a record store in New York and received a decent discount on LPs. After hearing Stitt's You Talk That Talk (1971) with tenor saxophonist Gene Ammons, I went nuts. I'd go see Stitt at clubs in Boston and New York whenever I could in the mid-1970s. I also tried to build a Stitt collection. I assembled a pretty impressive two feet of album spines before I finally threw in the towel. At around the 30th LP, I realized I hadn't even dented the guy's catalog.

So I was overjoyed in 2001 when Mosaic Records released the Complete Roost Sonny Stitt Studio Sessions. Like any good complete Stitt package, quantity comes with the territory and Mosaic's box is the mother lode. It holds nine discs (148 tracks), and the set is one of Mosaic's most ambitious projects for an individual artist. Over the past year, the sheer size of the Mosaic set has resulted in many emails from JazzWax readers asking me, "Nine discs? Is there enough diversity with that much material? Is the box really worth it?"

Guess what? It is. All nine discs of the 1952-1965 Roost period feature lyrical muscle and zero fat. There are quartets with pianists Jimmy Jones, Hank Jones [pictured], Dolo Coker and Harold Mabern. There are orchestras led by Johnny Richards and Quincy Jones. There's even an organ date with Don Patterson and a Latin session with Thad Jones. Not once did I say to myself, "Gee, I could have done without that track" or "Sonny's just coasting." This is Stitt at the top of his aggressive game in the 1950s and early 1960s—engaged, eager and with something to prove.

True, Stitt recorded so much as a leader between 1949 and 1982, the year of his death, that some albums were lesser efforts than others. I've found that this was often the case on albums where the producer played a passive role or was disengaged. The worst thing you could do as Stitt's producer was suck up to him with lines like, "Yeah, sure Sonny. Whatever you want. Just blow and we'll record." Stitt had two speeds—good and great. If you weren't as passionate as he was, he treated the session like a job with one eye on the clock.

So as a juvenile collector, I was always looking for albums that had what I call the "Stitt surge." When Stitt was on, the listener experiences a thrill right in the chest, similar to the rush you feel on the first dip of the roller coaster. The Stitt surge often featured the saxophonist double-timing the improvised parts and then squeezing off quadruple-time runs for an extended period. When Stitt was in the groove, there were no pauses. Those improvised sections came out in one long sheet of blues thinking, sizzling with enormous energy, clarity and enthusiasm.

Stitt was a bebop progenitor, coming up in the early 1940s in the bands of Tiny Bradshaw and Billy Eckstine. Stitt's sound  was so pure, forceful and blues-soaked that he was instantly compared to alto saxophonist Charlie Parker. In the Mosaic set's rich liner notes, writer Zan Stewart quotes Stitt on the oft-told tale of his initial encounter with Parker:

"I was 19 and went looking for him and saw a man coming out of a drugstore carrying an alto case and wearing a blue overcoat with six white buttons and wearing dark horn-rimmed glasses. I said, 'Are you Charlie Parker?' and he said, 'Yes, who are you?' I told him, 'Sonny Stitt' and we went to this place called the Gypsy Tea Room and jammed with a piano player for about an hour. 'Well, I'll be damned,' he told me, 'you sound just like me,' and I said, 'Well, I can't help the way I sound. It's the only way I know how to play.' "

But Stitt's Bird-like sound soon drew the envy of fellow musicians and scorn of critics, who branded him a Parker wannabe. Which was completely unfair. Stitt always was his own man, with his own sound, though he rode his alto high on the register like Parker. And he often played tenor. As Stitt said in an interview quoted by Stewart:

"On tenor, I take a different approach, much more like Pres [Lester Young's nick name]. I like to think like Pres, if I could. He was the master by me. On alto, it's Bird and Johnny Hodges and Benny Carter."

With the Mosaic box, you get to hear Stitt on both reeds, and he delivers on every track. There are straight-up bop sessions in 1952 with pianist Jimmy Jones, followed by an interesting orchestral date in 1953 arranged by Johnny Richards. Two years later, Stitt was in front of a Quincy Jones-led and arranged band playing uptempo pieces and ballads on alto (dig My Funny Valentine and Star Dust). Then came sessions with pianist Hank Jones, who astonishes on tracks like There Will Never Be Another You and Afterwards from 1955.

Stitt was teamed with Dolo Coker in 1957, and on Blues for Yard, you hear these two work together brilliantly. After Coker delivers a highly impressive blues run, Stitt [pictured] jumps in to show Coker how it's done—and does. These Coker sessions give you a sense of how great Stitt was, especially on Blue Moon.

Stitt is back with Hank Jones on the next session in 1957, including a searing version of Cherokee. In 1958, Jimmy Jones returns, and you get to hear how his approach by this point differed from Hank Jones' accompanist concept. Jimmy Jones is a bit lusher with the focus on chord voicings. Stitt remained with Jimmy Jones on sessions running through 1960.

In 1962, Stitt began his lengthy relationship with organist Don Patterson. This session is particularly smart, with a rendition of Sposin' that will knock you out. The final Roost recordings in 1965 featured Harold Mabern [pictured] on piano. Here again, you get a chance to hear how beautifully Mabern plays and how his rich chord-driven style affected Stitt's work, especially on ballads.

Credit must be given to Teddy Reig [pictured], who produced the original Roost sessions. Reig was a co-founder of the Roost label in 1948 with Ralph Watkins, Monte Kay and "Symphony Sid" Torin. Eventually he bought out his partners and the label was absorbed by Roulette, where Reig remained for a time. Hands down, Reig was one of the great record producers of the 1950s. Perhaps it was his imposing size—he was 6-feet tall and weighed 300 pounds. Or maybe it was his passion for Stitt and a clear vision of what he wanted to record. Or likely both. At any rate, Stitt delivered for Reig, and the result was an enormous gift to jazz. 

Stitt waged a life-long battle first with drugs and then with alcohol addiction, with the latter eventually claiming his life at age 58. I recall one night going backstage to see him up at the Jazz Workshop in Boston in 1975. When I inched into the small room, Stitt spied me and gruffly told me to sit down on a folding chair. We spoke for a bit, and when he was comfortable, he reached behind his chair for a gallon-sized glass bottle of Smirnoff.

Stitt didn't ask if you wanted a drink. He poured it for you, and sharing a glass with him was the price of admission in those days. Stitt reached into a bucket for a few drippy ice cubes and dropped them into a plastic cup. Then he nearly filled it to the top with vodka. Ginger ale was added for color.

What I remember most as this was going on were Stitt's hands. I couldn't take my eyes off of them. As he fixed the drink, those long, knobby, branch-like fingers were extended gracefully to hold the cup steady. When he held out the drink to me, I looked up at his face. One of his eyebrows went up slightly, as if to say, "Hey, kid, you're the one who wanted to hang out back here." So I took the drink. And sipped slowly.

JazzWax tracks: The Complete Roost Sonny Stitt Studio Sessions is available at the Mosaic Records site here. When I checked the site over the weekend, it appears this box is on sale for $129 until March 31st. Trust me, it's worth the hit. It's a box that won't quit.

And hats off to Mosaic co-founder Michael Cuscuna, who personally produced this Roost CD box. From what I understand, Michael is a voracious Stitt fan. I'm sure he made greater headway on his Stitt LP collection than I did.

Interview: Jim Hall (Part 3)

When Jim Hall left the Jimmy Giuffre Trio in 1958, he was a new guitarist. Jim's period with Giuffre helped him develop a new way to slur notes on the instrument's neck rather than relying solely on the pick. This blending technique would come in handy on the monumental albums he would record in the years that followed.

Between 1959 and 1965, Jim recorded six albums with alto saxophonist Paul Desmond that remain among the finest small-group jazz tracks ever recorded. In January 1962, Jim recorded The Bridge with Sonny Rollins, an album that still astonishes for its inventiveness and raw fury. Later that year, Jim recorded Undercurrent with Bill Evans. They recorded another introspective, conversational album, Intermodulation, in 1966. Then in 1975, Jim recorded Concierto, a leadership date that included Paul Desmond and Chet Baker.

In Part 3 of my three-part interview with Jim, the celebrated guitarist talks about Desmond, Sonny, Evans, Baker and the little-known role his singer-songwriter wife Jane played in his recordings:

JazzWax: When did you meet Paul Desmond?
Jim Hall: I met Paul when I still lived in Cleveland in my early 20s. Paul came through town as part of the Dave Brubeck Quartet. I got to know him on a professional level when the Chico Hamilton Quintet worked opposite him on the West Coast. Once I moved to New York in the late 1950s, I’d run into Paul, and we became close. Paul used to come over to my apartment in Greenwich Village all the time to play Scrabble with my wife Janey and me. He also used to come hear me when I played at a club in New York called The Guitar.

JW: Whose idea was it for you and Paul to get together and record for the first time in 1959?
JH: Paul’s. Despite all of his acclaim, Paul still gets overlooked in terms of his contribution to jazz. He was  such a melodic player. Paul could play a line over a standard that was so much better than the song’s original melody line.

JW: You two clearly were in sync with each other creatively.
JH: The closeness comes through on recordings because we liked and admired each other so much.

JW: How did you and Desmond arrange the later albums for RCA?
JH: We rehearsed at my place in Greenwich Village.  Paul had such a fantastic melodic sense. Listen to his last phrase on Time After Time on First Place Again [1959]. The melodies Paul would come up with on songs were surprising and pleasing.

JW: Were you listening to each other during those sessions for enjoyment?
JH: Yes, we were. We were entertaining each other. A lot  of what we did happened to be in the moment and fed off of what the other was doing. We were very comfortable with each other.

JW: Was playing with Sonny Rollins on The Bridge a tough fit for you?
JH: In some ways, given the music's edge. But I was amazed by Sonny and what he was doing there. It's remarkable, passionate music.

JW: How did Sonny bring you into the group?
JH: A year or so after I had sublet pianist Dick Katz’s apartment in the Village in 1960, I started getting these notes from Sonny. The notes would read something like, “Dear Jim, I’d like to speak with you about music.”

JW: Why did he send you notes?
JH: He didn't have a phone and I didn't answer mine because I don't like talking on it. I still don't [laughs]. Eventually Sonny came over to the apartment, and we began talking about what he wanted to do. I had already known Sonny for years.

JW: When did you two first meet?
JH: On the West Coast in the mid-1950s. The Chico Hamilton Quintet worked opposite Max Roach’s group at Basin Street East in New York.

JW: When Sonny came over to your apartment in New York, what did he say?
JH: We had a nice talk. He said he wanted to get a quartet going but without a piano. I was incredibly flattered.

JW: How were your musical interactions?
JH: We’d be in a middle of a tune and he'd bring it to a halt and we'd just dig in and start exploring it. My role was not to get in Sonny’s way but to follow him.

JW: Did Sonny give you any instruction in terms of what he wanted?
JH: Yes, he was pretty clear about that. I wasn’t to get in his way when he was playing. My job was to listen and react. I also got to write intros, like the one on God Bless the Child. 

JW: You recorded the album What’s New with Sonny as well.
JH: Brazilian music was inching up. I had been to Brazil when I was on tour with Ella in 1960, so I had heard the music first-hand. Then when we went to Argentina, I was able to hear accordionist Astor Piazzolla. So I could add those experiences on Night Has a Thousand Eyes, for example.

JW: You recorded two albums with Bill Evans. What was he like?
JH: Bill was a brilliant guy and had a great sense of humor. His parties for close friends at his apartment were memorable. He’d cook dinner and play for his guests. He was introverted, similar in many ways to Paul Desmond in terms of intelligence and wisdom about things. He expressed himself through his playing.

JW: Did you and Evans rehearse the concepts on those albums?
JH: Not really. We got together at his apartment once or twice to go over a few things. Again, I got to know Bill by playing opposite him when he was with Tony Scott’s quartet in 1956. Then when I was with Jimmy Giuffre. Then when Jimmy Giuffre replaced the bass in his trio with Bobby Brookmeyer in 1958, we played opposite Bill for eight weeks when he was with the Miles Davis Sextet at the Café Bohemia. Miles would tease us that our silly little trio would get more applause than his group.

JW: How was John Coltrane?
JH: He sounded incredible. He was constantly searching and looking for new things. It’s a shame most people remember him best for playing fast. It’s Coltrane’s slower pieces, his ballads, that stand out to me, where you can really hear his thinking and ideas.

JW: You never recorded with Miles Davis.
JH: No. I did get to play with Philly Joe Jones when Bill Evans had his quintet in 1962. Miles called me a couple of times for playing dates, and I almost recorded with him on Miles in the Sky in 1968.  [Pictured: Miles Davis and Bill Evans]

JW: What happened?
JH: After Janey and I were married, I began playing the Merv Griffin Show regularly. It was a perfect job. I could take the subway to work. It was dumb music, but it was steady. When Miles called, I had to work the show and suggested that he call George Benson. I first met Miles at John Lewis’ apartment in the late 1950s.

JW: What happened?
JH: When John invited me to New York in the late 1950s, I stayed with him. That’s how I met Miles. Miles then invited me over to his apartment and played me a recording of Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concerto de Aranjuez. He said he wanted to get Gil Evans to arrange it. The result in 1960 was an adaptation for Sketches of Spain.

JW: Did you enjoy recording the duet album Alone Together with Ron Carter?
JH: Very much so. Ron and I are still close. We still play together and talk all the time. I think we’re close because we both listen to each other and react beautifully. Ron has such a strong sense of harmony, and I try not to step on it. I just fill it out.

JW: Who came up with the idea for Concierto?
JH: [Producer] Creed Taylor. He assembled a great group of musicians. Chet Baker was incredible on there. We even recorded a tune by my wife Janey—The Answer Is Yes. The credit says “J. Hall,” but the “J” stands for Janey, who’s an accomplished musician in her own right. She studied and worked with pianist Hall Overton. When Chet played down the song, he said, “A chick wrote that tune? Wow” [laughs]. [Pictured: Jane and Jim Hall]

JW: How did you meet your wife?
JH: I met Janey through Dick Katz. They had a date that didn’t work out and realized they weren’t really serious.

JW: Jane also wrote O Gato on Bossa Antigua, didn't she?
JH: Yes. She's a wonderful songwriter and singer.

JH: What’s next for Jim Hall?
JW: I’m going to start touring in April with Scott Colley and Joey Baron.

JW: You still love performing?
JH: Absolutely. I love the connection I get with audiences in clubs.

Jazzwax backstory: Yesterday I asked Jane Hall for the stories behind two of her most famous songs that Jim recorded, The Answer Is Yes and O Gato:

"The Answer Is Yes was the headline on a profile of Jim in The New Yorker in 1975 by Whitney Balliett. Whitney came to our house for five days to interview Jim. In the magazine interview, Jim speculates on his future. At one point Jim asks himself whether he would be happy playing saloons when he was 50, 60 or 70 years old. Jim responds aloud to his own question: 'The answer is yes.'

"O Gato [the Cat] was named after a cat we had at the time named Pablo. At first the song didn't have a bridge. But when Paul recorded it, I was so inspired by his melodic improvising that I wrote the bridge. I also wrote the song's lyrics.

"Jim has kindly recorded a few of my tunes over the years, including Goodbye My Love, Something Tells Me and Where Would I Be—all of which have words that I wrote. He also recorded my instrumental, It's Nice to Be With You."

JazzWax tracks: Jim Hall's recordings with Paul Desmond are must-owns. Their first recording together was First Place Again in 1959 for Warner Brothers. The remaining five albums were recorded for RCA. The complete RCA recordings are available at iTunes.  Or an imported CD box is available here. First Place Again is available as an import here.

Jim Hall with Sonny Rollins can be found on The Bridge (also a must-own) and What's New, both for RCA. Though the latter album is a bit spotty, The Night Has a Thousand Eyes is tremendous and appears on several compilations at iTunes.

Jim Hall and Bill Evans recorded Undercurrent for Blue Note in 1962 and Intermodulation in 1966 for Verve. Both duo albums are fascinating studies in understated, poignant playing. Undercurrent is the moodier recording while Intermodulation has a bit more get up and go.

Concierto was recorded in 1975 for CTI. It features Chet Baker (trumpet), Paul Desmond (alto sax), Sir Roland Hanna (piano), Jim Hall (guitar), Ron Carter (bass) and Steve Gadd (drums). It's a relaxed session, though its cool temperament can be deceiving. All of the pros on the date make the execution seem easy.

For more on Jim Hall and his upcoming tour, visit his sites here and here.

Jazzwax clip: Here's a clip of Jane Hall in the 1970s singing her composition O Gato, with Jim Hall accompanying. For contrast, it's followed by Jim and Paul Desmond's famed recording of the song from the album Bossa Antigua...

Interview: Jim Hall (Part 2)

In the late 1950s, Jim Hall was a founding member of two of the decade's most forward-thinking chamber jazz groups: the Chico Hamilton Quintet and the Jimmy Giuffre Trio. Both groups fused West Coast jazz with classical sensibilities, resulting in a swinging sound that was both breezy and ferociously competitive. The music at first seems genteel, but a closer listen reveals artistic engagements that are more akin to a cage fight between rocket scientists.

In these challenging groups, Jim established his musical voice and reputation. In both ensembles, he had to perform as part of team that executed a tight choreography of lines. But as a soloist, Jim forged a new sound that was tender and exciting. Rather than function simply as a rhythm-keeper, his guitar emerged as an independent voice, chiming in with soft sophistication but also engaging passionately with other instruments. [Pictured: Jim Hall and Chico Hamilton in 1955]

In Part 2 of my interview series with Jim Hall, the guitarist talks about developing his sound in groups led by Chico Hamilton, Hampton Hawes, Jimmy Giuffre, Ben Webster and Ella Fitzgerald:

JazzWax: How did you come to join the original Chico Hamilton Quintet in 1955?
Jim Hall: French hornist Johnny Graas [pictured] was playing in one of Joe Dolny’s rehearsal bands. I was over at  Johnny’s house one day rehearsing when Chico called. He told Joe that he needed a guitar player for a group he was putting together. Joe said, “I have a guitar player right here.” He handed me the phone and I spoke to Chico. I went over to his place to audition. The group Chico put together included Buddy Collette, Fred Katz, Carson Smith, Chico and me.

JW: What was your role?
JH: I had several roles. I was part of the rhythm section, I was part of the ensemble of melody players, and I’d write compositions. Sometimes I’d just turn off the amp and play rhythm guitar.

JW: Who was the group’s driving force?
JH: Chico [pictured]. He had the personality and drive to meet people, make phone calls and make groups happen. He was a natural leader. With my formal training, I was able to write for cello and clarinet. Chico wanted a combo that could play light jazzy classical music and straight-ahead swing. We all brought in original compositions.

JW: Your first gig was at The Strollers in Long Beach, CA. Was it a tough house?
JH: Not that I recall. It was a great experience for me. The room's design configuration was tough. The bandstand was against the wall and people sat at the bar right in front of us. So the acoustics were bad and my hollowbody Gibson wasn’t able to resonate loud enough. So soon after we started there, I traded it in for a solid body Les Paul. Soon after I did a recording with John Lewis [Grand Encounter]. Percy Heath looked at the guitar and said, “No rhythm playing today?” [laughs] There’s a picture of me on the back [pictured] holding the Les Paul.

JW: You recorded for Contemporary as part of the Hampton Hawes Quartet. Different sound?
JH: I loved Hampton’s group. The time he kept was terrific. So was the feeling. Hampton swung so hard. That sound could carry you for hours. I think we went into that studio in the afternoon and hung out straight through the night. There was enough recorded for three LPs.

JW: Your next group was the Jimmy Giuffre Trio, which also had a different chamber jazz sound.
JH: Jimmy had gotten into folk music at around this time. He also had a background in classical composition and had studied with Wesley La Violette. Jimmy was a lovely person. He was a curious guy, very interested in people and very positive. He helped me enormously with my phrasing. He’d write a line and I’d work to make my playing blend better with Jimmy’s sound. That group and approach helped my playing a great deal.

JW: How so, specifically?
JH: Jimmy [pictured] worked with me to get my guitar to sound more fluid, like a wind instrument. To do this, he encouraged me to ease off on the picking with my right hand and to use my left hand more on the neck for slurring, so notes would blend with what he was doing on the clarinet and saxophones.

JW: What do you recall about recording with June Christy in 1959 on Those Kenton Days?
JH: Oh, that was with Pete Rugolo. I thought June was fabulous. On a break, I went out to the parking lot and saw her there. I went over to compliment her but she was so upset with herself. She felt she hadn’t delivered what she wanted to, which surprised me. She was a star and had been great on the date. She beat herself up terribly.

JW: What did Ben Webster teach you in 1960 when you played with him at the Renaissance in Hollywood?
JH: That a melody could be played straight and mean something. Ben talked me into playing fewer notes and to be poignant with those notes, to make listeners care about them. Ben could bring songs like Chelsea Bridge, In a Sentimental Mood and others to life with a highly emotional reading. He also had a fantastic sense of swing, and he never over-played.

JW: Were you two close?
JH: Yes, very. We saw things in each other that we recognized. Ben had a reputation as someone who could get tough when drunk. I didn’t see that side of him too often. He had loved working with Duke Ellington’s band and told me that he felt bad he didn’t stay longer.

JW: How did you land a job with Ella Fitzgerald in 1960?
JH: Norman Granz had been managing Jimmy Giuffre and Ella. When guitarist Herb Ellis left Ella, there was an opening and I got the call. That was a fantastic experience. Playing behind her required enormous listening and support. My job was to avoid stepping on her toes. Offer support but not to play on top of her while she was singing.

JW: What was Fitzgerald like, personally?
JH: She was lovely. She would get emotional sometimes though.

JW: How so?
JH: Ella could be easily offended. When we traveled between gigs, whenever she’d want to sing on the train or bus, I’d accompany her on guitar with a small amp. It was fun. She’d often add passages or words with off-color double entendres. One time she did that and I pretended to be shocked and offended. She got mad. She didn’t realize I was just kidding [laughs]. But we patched it up.

Tomorrow, Jim Hall reflects on his recordings with Sonny Rollins, Paul Desmond, Bill Evans, Ron Carter and Chet Baker, and he talks about his favorite singer and songwriter—his wife Jane.

JazzWax tracks: Jim Hall with the Chico Hamilton Quintet can  be found on several fabulous CDs. The first is Live at Strollers (Fresh Sound), an exciting album that features the group's live sessions recorded at the California club in 1955. You'll find the CD here.

The group's studio sessions are on The Original Chico Hamilton Quintet: Complete Studio Recordings (Fresh Sound) here. Or you'll find some of the material at iTunes on The Chico Hamilton Quintet in Hi Fi.

Jim's recordings with the Hampton Hawes Quartet in 1956 are tremendous. The group swings from start to finish, and Hawes is exceptionally electric. These recordings are on All Night Session! Vols. 1-3 (Fantasy). The quartet features Hampton Hawes (piano), Jim Hall (guitar), Red Mitchell (bass) and Bruz Freeman (drums). You'll find the recordings here, here and here.

The Jimmy Giuffre Trio (with Ralph Pena on bass) began recording in December 1956, releasing The Jimmy Giuffre 3  (Rhino Atlantic). It's available at iTunes or here. Live recordings by the group are on Hollywood & Newport 1957-58 (Fresh Sound) and can be found on CD here. Travelin' Light by the Jimmy Giuffre Trio (with valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer in and the bass out) is available combined with The Jimmy Giuffre 3 here.

Interview: Jim Hall (Part 1)

Jim Hall sounds like your heart. Whether the guitarist is playing in a medium-sized group or just a duo, your ear is instantly drawn to the hushed pulse of his tasteful chords and notes. There's a tenderness and shyness to Jim's playing that makes your soul want to seek him out, like the person at a party you're hosting who's off by himself because he doesn't know anyone.

Jim in the mid-1950s re-invented the jazz guitar. Or put differently, he created a new poetic niche for the instrument.  Before Jim's recordings with Chico Hamilton in 1955-57, the jazz guitar was heard mostly as a big swinging instrument that swooped down on melody lines and swaggered through improvised passages. In Jim's hands, the guitar became a more humble and introspective voice that no longer rushed up to you. Instead, you had to meet Jim's guitar halfway. 

In Part 1 of my three-part interview with Jim, 79, the guitarist talks about taking up the guitar in his teens, driving out to Los Angeles to play in a studio rehearsal band, and studying with classical guitarist Vicente Gómez:

JazzWax: When you listen to yourself on recordings, do you realize how pretty you sound?
Jim Hall: [Laughs] It’s hard to evaluate myself that way. On the other hand, I judge myself constantly. I know I have always aimed for melodic playing versus technical wizardry. I believe I listen to what’s going on and react appropriately to those I’m playing with. I enjoy coming up with new melodies over standard chord changes.

JW: Why do you think you wound up on so many key recording sessions of the 1950s and 1960s?
JH: Part of it was my friendship with the musicians leading the dates. But I hope it also was my melodic sense. And 800 years of experience [laughs].

JW: You were born in Buffalo, N.Y.?
JH: I was born there but my family lived all over the place. I never knew why we moved so much or what my dad did for a living. We finally settled in Cleveland when I was 8 years old and I lived there until I was 25. My dad was a traveling salesman of some kind. I never knew what he sold, and I never really saw him after I was 7. My parents by then had separated.

JW: When did you first pick up the guitar?
JH: When I was 10 years old. My mother bought me a guitar for my birthday. I had asked for it because my Uncle Ed, who lived in Geneva, Ohio, played country guitar and my grandfather played the violin. I don’t know how my mother paid for the instrument. We were not well off. My mother, brother and I lived in a housing project in Cleveland.

JW: How did you learn to play it?
JH: When my mother bought the guitar, part of the deal was 10 free lessons with a teacher.

JW: Who was your teacher?
JH: Jack DuPerow, who was terrific. Then I studied locally with Fred Sharp, who also was great. Once I knew enough, I started playing in small groups at age 13. One quartet I played in had an accordion, clarinet, guitar and drums. That instrument mix produces a terrific sound for a guitarist to listen to. 

JW: How did you come to jazz?
JH: One day, the group’s clarinet player, Angelo Vienna, took me with him to a store to buy a Benny  Goodman record. That’s when I first heard Charlie Christian playing with the Benny Goodman Sextet on a record from 1940.

JW: What did you think?
JH: I was amazed. Christian played two choruses of blues on Grand Slam. I bought the record right away. We didn’t have a record player at home, so I carried it around with me and played it wherever I could. But I had to be careful how I held the record sleeve. Covering “tet” in sextet left the word “sex” exposed and could get me in trouble [laughs].

JW: What did you do after high school?
JH: I attended the Cleveland Institute of Music. I also started playing string bass there in addition to the guitar. It was a fantastic school. Many of the teachers there were highly trained. They had escaped Europe before World War II. My composition teacher was from Vienna and was a friend of Arnold Schoenberg’s. Classical music was always part of my training.

JW: How could your mother afford the tuition?
JH: I was able to pay tuition a little at a time. I was there for five years. I remained after my undergraduate studies to get a masters in composition. But then professional gigs began to pour in so I didn’t finish.

JW: What happened?
JH: A friend and trumpeter, Joe Dolny, had moved to Los Angeles and started a rehearsal band. He asked me to come out and play. I knew a couple of people who lived there, like my great aunt. So a buddy of mine, Ray Graziano, a saxophonist, and I decided to go. This was late 1954.

JW: How did you get there?
JH: They had deals back then where you could deliver a car to the West Coast and get a free ride. We drove a lavender Cadillac out. It took about a week.

JW: What did you do for income when you arrived?
JH: I worked in a music store sorting sheet music. I also took on a few students. In my spare time, I played in Joe Dolny’s rehearsal band. It was made up of guys who worked in the studios, like bassist Ralph Pena and drummer Mel Lewis [pictured]. It was incredible exposure for me.

JW: You studied with classical guitarist Vicente Gómez?
JH: Yes, I studied with him in Los Angeles. At the time I had ambitions to play classical guitar. He helped me enormously to develop my style.

JW: How did he do that?
JH: Many guitarists at the time played rhythm or supporting lines for leaders and soloists. I wanted to play so that my counterpoint and alternative melodies stood out clearly. My work with Vicente Gomez [pictured] forced me to concentrate more on what was going on with other musicians playing with me and on the sound coming out of my strings.

JW: Did classical have a big influence on jazz in the early 1950s?
JH: Oh, yes. It was always there because more and more musicians were formally trained. I could hear how classical composers were influencing jazz artists at the time. For example, Paul Hindemith was clearly influencing the writers on Stan Kenton’s [pictured] band. Classical study also opened my ears and helped my writing technique. I've always believed that the idea of form—the shape of things and solos—should mean something.

Tomorrow, Jim talks about joining the Chico Hamilton Trio and Quintet starting in 1955, playing in the Jimmy Giuffre Trio, teaming up with Paul Desmond, building a friendship with Ben Webster and the day he said the wrong thing to Ella Fitzgerald.

Jazzwax tracks: Jim Hall's first leadership session was in 1957. The album was Jazz Guitar (Pacific Jazz) with Carl Perkins on piano and Red Mitchell on bass.

Here's the back story:

First, the cover was photographed by William Claxton. The artist working furiously behind Jim? That was John Altoon, a Los Angeles abstract expressionist painter. Altoon painted while Jim played and Claxton clicked. Altoon's involvement was an experiment by Pacific Jazz owner Dick Bock to have the artist capture the sound of Jim's jazz guitar. [Pictured: A rare outtake from the photo session featuring, from left, Dick Bock, Jim Hall, John Altoon and William Claxton, with the camera's shutter cable in hand]

Second, Jazz Guitar was re-issued in stereo in 1963 with Larry Bunker dubbed in on drums. Jim says he was annoyed that Dick Bock had done this and doesn't know why he did it. In the early days of stereo reissues, Bock likely was trying to fill out the left or right channel with another instrument. Jim also says that Bunker was a great musician and at the time told Jim he felt funny doing the dub.

The version that has been released on CD is the original, without Bunker's drums dubbed in. You'll find it here, as Jim Hall: The Complete Jazz Guitar.

 

Interview: George Avakian (Part 5)

Columbia's first 12-inch jazz LP was George Avakian's idea. In 1950, when company president Ted Wallerstein played George a test pressing of Benny Goodman's band live in 1938, George knew instantly what he was listening to: Goodman's famed Carnegie Hall concert, which had been languishing in a closet and had never been released in its entirety. George decided to have the entire concert issued that year on two 12-inch LPs—jazz's first double-album. It appeared on the company's more expensive Masterworks label. "We had to do that for the Goodman album because of the all the extra number of copyrights that were on the program,“ George told me.

From that point on, the 12-inch pop and jazz LP was simply a matter of time—and depended on whether costs could be contained. By 1954, more efficient record-manufacturing strategies were in place, making the two-cent royalty on ASCAP compositions moot. With the larger format becoming standard industry-wide by 1956, George was busy planning hundreds of new 12-inch jazz LPs, among them Miles Davis' followup to 'Round About Midnight.

In Part 5 of my five-part interview with George, the legendary producer talks about the inspiration for Miles Davis' Miles Ahead (1957), helping establish the "look" of the Miles Davis Quintet, and the Gil Evans album that was never recorded:

JazzWax: What did Miles Davis think as he listened to Dimitri Mitropoulos conduct Gunther Schuller’s brass work in 1956?
George Avakian: Miles sat there in awe. He’d already heard Mitropoulos conduct a Kurt Weill violin concerto at Town Hall in 1954.

JW: Did Davis get to play in the studio with Mitropoulos conducting that day?
GA: Almost. When Miles came into the studio at the end of the first break, he said to me in that raspy voice, “George, do you think he’ll let me play with his band if you ask him?” So after the next break, when Mitropoulos was returning to the studio after the playbacks, I said to him, “There’s a very fine young trumpet player who’s going to be recording for me. He hopes one day he might be able to play with the Philharmonic. Can he play with the group?” [Pictured: Miles Davis and George Avakian]

JW: What did Mitropoulos say?
GA: Mitropoulos was very polite as always. He nodded his head sagely and said, “Yes, yes, perhaps,” and walked out. But his response wasn’t a yes or a no.

JW: What did Davis say?
GA: Miles never said another word. He knew that Mitropoulos had other things to think about and that he was generous enough to say what he did and that it was not a good idea to bug him. If Miles had asked me to ask again to get clarity, I would have. But he didn’t.

JW: So from that jazz brass ensemble Davis did accompany, you wanted to create a similar one for him on an album?
GA: Yes. Miles and I agreed that the orchestral setting would be perfect for his sound. Remember, I thought of Miles essentially as a ballad player who could communicate instantly with large audiences. He was more impressive doing that than any of his in-person performances, especially after I signed him.

JW: Did Davis agree with you?
GA: Miles realized that the plan I suggested would be very, very good for him, commercially. So the whole thing came together very, very well.

JW: You were happy with the Miles Ahead sessions?
GA: Everything clicked and we sold a ton of records. The album established Miles as a major international jazz star. The publicity kept rolling in. Deborah Ishlon at Columbia had done a terrific job with Dave Brubeck and the return of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, both of whom had been in the doldrums for a while.

JW: You also worked with Miles to create a new look or image.
GA: Miles looked great. He had his group wear black silk suits with black neckties and white shirts. They looked terrific. That meant a great deal, because up until then, jazz musicians wore whatever they felt like wearing. Frankly, when Miles was on junk he looked like a bum. He went down hill so badly that he didn’t shave or bathe. He was falling apart. He finally got it together when he realized that he was ruining his ability to earn a living. [Photo of Miles Davis by Robert W. Kelley for Life]

JW: Did you coach Davis on his formal look?
GA: Let’s put it this way. Miles established the look  and then I persuaded him to standardize it, which I didn’t have to work hard to do. He kept that meticulous look for quite a while. But by the 1960s, he was well established and public would have come to see him if he had been in a bathrobe [laughs].

JW: So the look was good for Davis and good for business.
GA: Yes but I didn’t apply this to all of the jazz musicians on the label. It was just Miles I wanted to appear before the public that way because he did it himself and I realized, hey, this is what's going to get him into Time and Newsweek and break him out of the jazz category.  [Photo of Miles Davis by Herb Snitzer]

JW: In general, did you have a vision for an album first and then discuss it with an artist or the other way around?
GA: Most of the time. Sometimes there was no need to discuss the concept because the repertoire spoke for itself. But the more complicated things were, of course, the more they had to be discussed in advance.

JW: How did the idea for Sketches of Spain come about?
GA: Gil Evans and I were going to make an album based on Cyril Scott’s Lotus Land. I had already recorded the composition with Calvin Jackson, the jazz pianist. My vision for Gil was an album with exotic, beautiful music from all over the world. Each track would be influenced by music from a different country. Out of that concept came the inspiration for Sketches of Spain.

JW: How did the concept begin?
GA: One of the pieces for the Lotus Land project representing Spain was from a pre-war 78-rpm record I had by Pastora Pavón Cruz [pictured], one of the great flamenco singers of 1920s and 1930s. Her stage name was La Niña de los Peines, or “Woman with the Combs.” It was a beautiful procession-like piece with these long valve-less trumpet instruments and drums.

JW: Was it used on Sketches?
GA: It was the basis for Saeta on Sketches. But remember, Gil’s arrangement of the song was written before Sketches because we originally had been planning to do it as part of Gil's Lotus Land album.

JW: So why wasn’t Lotus Land recorded?
GA: Because in 1958 I left Columbia to start Warner Brothers Records. Gil took the one Spanish-influenced arrangement for Lotus Land and developed it into an entire suite for Miles.

JW: Looking back, you had quite a run at Columbia Records.
GA: It was a great experience. Though I was in charge of producing pop music records there, I think we did quite a great deal to make jazz more popular without compromising its heart or integrity. Everything had changed over this period of time, the music and the technology. My first recording session at Decca in 1939 was recorded on a machine powered by a series of pullies because the power wasn’t steady enough to turn the turntable consistently [laughs].

JW: Do you still have the sign from your office door?
GA: [Laughs] Yes, actually I do. It’s a gray plaque with white lettering that says, “Popular Album Department.”

JazzWax tracks: Both Miles Ahead and Sketches of Spain  have been remastered and issued with alternate takes. You'll find Miles Ahead and Sketches of Spain at iTunes or here and here. As jazz musician and writer Bill Kirchner reminds me, Evans did eventually get to record Lotus Land on Kenny Burrell's Guitar Forms (Verve) in 1964. 

JazzWax clips: For more on Benny Goodman's Carnegie Hall concert in 1938, check out Michael Steinman's fine post at JazzLives here. And here's a fascinating clip featuring soundless film images of that night...

Fifty-three years later, Miles Ahead continues to amaze and thrill. The concept remains daring and the execution is at times shy and vulnerable and at other times assertive. Dig the spectacular beauty and spare modernity in this clip of Miles Davis on flugelhorn and Gil Evans conducting Dave Brubeck's The Duke in advance of a CBS-TV appearance in April 1959...

Interview: George Avakian (Part 4)

By the mid-1950s, George Avakian was a record-industry rainmaker. As head of Columbia's Pop Album Department, George had enormous power. When he decided to sign talent, there was no question about whether the artist had the chops or stamina. Both were a given, since George had sized up both carefully in advance. The only question that remained was how quickly the artist would become a national entity and how big that artist would become with Columbia's mighty marketing and record distribution muscle. [Photo of George Avakian by William P. Gottlieb]

In Miles Davis, George found jazz's first superstar. In addition to being enormously talented, Miles was charismatic and intense, with a natural cool. In the new album-cover, TV-show and glossy-magazine age, a visual image mattered—or at least played a big role in winning over fans on a mass scale. In this regard, it's no coincidence that Davis' rise in 1956 coincides with Elvis Presley's. Of course, these artists appealed to different audiences. But Davis was being positioned similarly—new, fresh, individualistic, confident, vulnerable and deeply passionate. Davis, like Elvis, had "it"—and people couldn't take their eyes off of him.  

In Part 4 of my five-part series with George, the master producer talks about his club strategy for Davis, the formation of Davis' first quintet, George's formula for sequencing the tracks on 'Round About Midnight, and the inspiration for Miles Ahead:

JazzWax: When you were thinking about signing Miles Davis in 1955, you faced a challenge.
George Avakian: Yes. He had soured owners by not showing up. They viewed him as a high risk.

JW: What did you do?
GA: I was pretty friendly with Jack Whittemore of Shaw Artists Corp., the second or third largest booking agency for jazz musicians.

JW: What did you say?
GA: I said, “Jack, if I sign Miles, he promises to keep the same group together and to keep it going if you can keep on booking him, despite the obstacles you’ve encountered in the past.” I said, “At the end of the year, when publicity builds in support of his first album [‘Round About Midnight], I promise it’s going to be big because I plan to spend a lot of money to establish Miles Davis.” [Photo of Miles Davis by Don Hunstein]

JW: What did Whittemore say?
GA: Jack agreed and Miles agreed. Within a few days in 1955, Miles had a lineup of musicians ready for touring. Sonny Rollins was on tenor saxophone, which was great because I had become very friendly with Sonny and had already tried to record him.

JW: What happened?
GA: Sonny was still under contract to another label. Then disaster struck when Sonny quit Miles’ group. He got an offer from a Chicago club to play with a local rhythm section for four times the money that he could make with Miles. He also liked the idea that he’d be based in Chicago and wouldn’t have to tour. He had already kicked his habit. [Photo of Sonny Rollins by Francis Wolff]

JW: Who did Miles use in his place?
GA: Cannonball Adderley. But then Cannonball quit, too. He had been teaching in the Florida school system and had tenure. He said, “I can be more assured of my future if I keep my tenure as a teacher than traveling as a jazz musician.” He went in that direction.

JW: So what did Miles do?
GA: Miles called in the early fall of 1955 and said he had a new saxophonist for the quintet. It was John Coltrane. I had heard Coltrane at the open mike sessions at Birdland. He was just one of several young musicians there, but at the time he didn’t make a huge impression on me. When Miles hired John, we made this plan: Miles asked me to come down to Philadelphia and listen to the new group. He said, “If you like it, I have a booking at the Cafe Bohemia in New York and we can record us then.” [Photo of John Coltrane by Francis Wolff]

JW: What did you think?
GA: Well I certainly did like it because on the third set, Coltrane played a long up-tempo solo that knocked me out. This was the fall of 1955, when we got started recording ‘Round About Midnight.

JW: You had a secret formula for ‘Round About Midnight, didn’t you?
GA: Well, it wasn’t so secret. It was an overall concept I had in mind when Columbia switched to the 12-inch LP. The switch to the larger disc size for pop and jazz came when I was able to lower manufacturing costs, which made the two-cent royalty fee easier to absorb and still earn a profit. But on the longer records, I realized albums had to be programmed carefully.

JW: What did you do?
GA: I wanted the first track to make listeners glad they bought the album. The last track on the first side was designed to make the person turn the record over. The last track on the second side had to send listeners back to the store to say, “Hey, Mr. Dealer, I want another by this guy. What have you got?”

JW: In essence, you were treating an LP like a Broadway show.
GA: A 12-inch LP no longer could be simply a collection of singles. It was a journey, with a start and a finish. People put it on and sat down expecting a performance, a range of moods, a sequence.

JW: What did you think of ‘Round About Midnight?
GA: I thought it was great. We recorded that in late 1955 and the spring of 1956, in between the Prestige recording schedule and Miles’ tour dates. But my mind was already thinking about Davis’ next album. Record-buyers think in terms of individual albums. Producers think in terms of building an artist's body of work.

JW: What were you thinking while ‘Round About Midnight was being recorded?
GA: I was already thinking about what I was going to do for an even bigger follow-up. That’s how the idea for Miles Ahead: Miles Davis + 19 with Gil Evans came about. I wanted to do something different that would establish Miles as a soloist and frame him in an orchestral setting. By the time we had the first album with the quintet completed, the second album, with Gil Evans, was already underway.

JW: What was the inspiration for that concept?
GA: It came from what Gunther Schuller and John Lewis had put together in 1956 for their Jazz-Classical Music Society.

JW: How did Davis tie in?
GA: The Jazz-Classical Music Society had a concert schedule all rehearsed but it had to be canceled. The key piece was a work by Gunther Schuller for brass and percussion. But when Dimitri Mitropoulos [pictured], conductor of the New York Philharmonic, saw the score, he told Gunther that he wanted to do it with the Philharmonic. Well, you can’t perform an original piece that the Philharmonic is going to do at the same time. You’re trying to attract the same audience. So the Jazz-Classical Music Society’s concert was canceled.

JW: Did Davis hear it?
GA: The group also had jazz pieces that were written and arranged by J.J. Johnson and John Lewis, and included parts for trumpet and flugelhorn. We were going to record the music. John and J.J. asked me if I thought  Miles would be willing to record with them, since he was signed to Columbia. So I asked Miles and he accepted enthusiastically. I also invited Miles to hear Dimitri Mitropoulos conduct one of Gunther’s compositions with members of the Philharmonic for the recording. When Miles asked me in the studio if he could play with Dimitri's group, I asked the conductor during a break. [Photo of Miles Davis by Don Hunstein]

Tomorrow, George talks about Dimitri Mitropoulos' response to his question, George's role in helping Miles shape the visual image of his group, and the Gil Evans album that never was recorded but led to Sketches of Spain.

JazzWax tracks: To hear the inspiration for Miles Ahead: Miles Davis + 19, you have to listen to The Birth of the Third Stream, which originally was entitled Music for Brass. Miles was featured on Three Little Feelings and Poem for Brass. Unfortunately, Birth of the Third Stream is out of print and is available here for a small fortune. With any luck, Sony will re-issue it as a download.

Interview: George Avakian (Part 3)

If you were a record producer in the late 1940s, you pretty much had to invent the job. At the dawn of the LP era, there were no rules, no models and no mentors. As George Avakian discovered at Columbia Records, new ways to package pop and jazz music for long-playing albums had to be developed. So did ways to promote albums and hold down printing and copyright costs. Prior to 1948, records meant thick 78-rpm shellac singles—with one song on each side. After 1948, the thinner, vinyl 33 1/3-rpm LP rapidly became the standard, allowing listeners to hear four to six tracks per side. The LP was the "download" of its day. [Photo of George Avakian at an Eddie Condon recording session in November 1953, courtesy of Hank O'Neal]

By the early 1950s, George's vision and knack for packaging and releasing million-selling albums set new industry standards. But George was head of the pop music department. There was no jazz division at the time. So George, by virtue of his choices, created a jazz line within the pop group. He leveraged and repositioned legends who had been largely forgotten and signed others who were new and just emerging. One of those artists was Miles Davis. [Photo of Miles Davis by Herman Leonard/CTSImages.com]

In Part 3 of my five-part interview series with George, the fabled producer talks about the 10-inch LP's development, signing Miles Davis in 1955, and the deal he worked out to get the trumpeter out of his Prestige contract:

JazzWax: You were at Columbia at the dawn of the LP era, yes?
George Avakian: That’s right. Columbia introduced the LP in the spring of 1948. But jazz was really an afterthought and came later. Columbia invented the  12-inch LP for classical music, which ran long and had required multiple 78-rpms to fit all of the music of a symphony. The LP reduced the cost, weight and inconvenience of 78-rpm albums. The 10-inch LP was actually created by Columbia for pop music.

JW: Why?
GA: Classical record albums were popular with listeners who could afford them. The next most lucrative genre was pop, so it made business sense that pop would receive the LP treatment next. Since pop songs were relatively short, the thinking at first was that the genre didn’t really need a 12-inch disc.

JW: There was a royalty issue as well, yes?
GA: Yes. A 10-inch LP meant fewer tracks—and fewer royalties to pay, which meant lower overhead. There were no royalties to pay on classical recordings. Once we decided to move forward with the 10-inch LP, we needed to create a complete catalog of pop LPs in a hurry. That was my job. I developed around 100 titles relatively quickly.

JW: What about jazz?
GA: There really wasn’t much of a strategy with the 10-inch LP for jazz at Columbia. At first, we just transferred the masters of 78-rpm discs onto the longer-playing discs. So the early 10-inch jazz LPs were just a collection of previously released 78-rpm singles. We didn’t start recording jazz for the 10-inch LP until later.

JW: Many people assume you were a jazz producer.  
GA: That right—and it wasn’t the case. You have to  remember that I was head of the pop music department. One day I came back from lunch and my secretary said a man from Europe had come in looking for me. She said he was very disappointed because he saw a sign on my door that said “Popular Album Department.” My secretary told me that the man had said, “I thought Mr. Avakian was in charge of the Jazz Department.” She had to explain to him that such a department didn’t exist at the label.

JW: When did you start to think about Miles Davis as a Columbia artist?
GA: When I heard Miles at the Newport Jazz Festival  in 1955. That was where I had made the decision that I was going to sign him to Columbia, despite the fact that he had been a junkie and all that. 

JW: What did you hear at Newport?
GA: I heard and saw jazz’s first modern superstar. What struck me was that Miles was the best ballad player since Louis Armstrong. I was convinced that his ballad playing would appeal to the public on a very large scale. While his bebop playing had established his reputation among musicians and jazz bands, I knew that bebop would never connect on a large scale.

JW: Why not?
GA: It was ingenious music but far too complicated for the average ear and too hard for the mass market to follow the melodies.

JW: So Davis, to your ear, was a melody player?
GA: Absolutely. It’s really Miles‘ melodic playing that put him across with the public on a wide scale. That happened first with our album ‘Round About Midnight in 1956 and on an even bigger scale with Miles Ahead in 1957, which sold 1 million copies and established him internationally.

JW: But he was more than a jazz musician in your eyes?
GA: Yes. I viewed him as a much bigger figure, a pop-jazz star, if you will. But there was a problem. A few years earlier, when he was hung up on junk, I was  astounded to find that he had worked live in front of the public only four to five weeks out of the year. No one wanted to hire him. He was too irresponsible and his habit was ruining him. He’d cancel out at the last minute, so club owners saw him as absolute poison.

JW: Why was playing live so important?
GA: To be a star on the level I had in mind, Miles had to perform constantly and consistently, not just a few weeks a year. Back then, before TV, cell phones and the Internet, the way you promoted yourself was in front of live audiences. If audiences liked you, they told others and bought your records. Clubs were affordable and convenient places to hear and see jazz musicians.

JW: What was the turning point for you?
GA: When Miles kicked his habit on his own and convinced me that he was going to stay off junk. After I heard him that day at Newport, my brother, who was standing with me, said, “George, stop worrying about signing Miles. You can go ahead. He’s back. You can hear that he’s back. You’ve been listening to him.” [Photo of Miles Davis' hand by Irving Penn]

JW: So we have your brother partly to thank for Miles Davis on Columbia.
GA: That’s right [laughs].

JW: You waited just a bit though before signing him.
GA: I wanted to hear how consistent he was. So I went to hear him on Monday nights at Birdland. The club had an open mike night on that day, which meant musicians who weren’t on the bill could just show up and play.

JW; How was he?
GA: Miles was playing beautifully. I was convinced he was clean. I told him to come in to talk to me about the contract he had been bugging me about for some time.

JW: What did you tell him when you met?
GA: The first thing I said was, “Look, you’ve got to get a group together and hold onto the musicians.” Consistency was important then. You wanted musicians who knew the material and knew how to interact with each other. That’s where the magic was. But retaining the same players also was important for audiences. When you built and promoted a group, that group was what audiences wanted to see and hear. [Photo of Miles Davis by Don Hunstein]

JW: But Davis in 1956 was signed to Prestige Records.
GA: That’s right. Miles’ idea was I should record him and hold the Columbia releases until his Prestige  contract expired. By then, he said, he would be even better known and we could release the Columbia recordings right away. His point was that we’d get the publicity going instantly instead of waiting the customary three months for an album to be marketed. [Photo of Miles Davis by Esmond Edwards/CTSImages.com]

JW: But you had a different idea.
GA: We had the same concept in mind but I had a slightly different twist on it.

JW: Which was?
GA: I wanted to sign Miles right away—before he got bigger. Which meant he had to get out of his Prestige contract. Or wrap it up faster. He still owed the label four albums.

JW: What did you come up with?
GA: I decided that Miles should record enough material to complete the remaining four Prestige albums, to finish up his deal with the label right away. Prestige’s owner Bob Weinstock [pictured] knew that Miles was going to sign with Columbia, so there was no real expectation that he would re-sign with Prestige. It was just a question of whether that contract ended sooner or later.

JW: How did you make such an arrangement worthwhile to Weinstock?
GA: By recording all four album’s worth of material at once [in May and October 1956], Prestige would have an inventory it could release—either one at a time or all at once—starting when our first album came out. Bob immediately saw the value.

JW: And what was that value?
GA: That the Prestige releases, with the exact same group, would be riding Columbia’s marketing coattails. As I spent money to promote Miles’ Columbia records, Bob would be able to release his Prestige albums simultaneously. He would wind up with greater sales than if Miles was still with Prestige all that time. In other words, he’d be getting a free promotional ride for his releases.

JW: Quite a brilliant move on your part.
GA: Look, I could have bought out Weinstock, but that’s not what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to hurt Weinstock, who was a pretty decent guy. This approach would help both of us and Miles.

JW: What did Davis think?
GA: He got it. But the plan was predicated on Miles continuing to hold onto the same group of musicians.

JW: Which meant you had another challenge.
GA: What’s that?

JW: Making sure Davis performed frequently and regularly at clubs with the same group.
GA: Yes, that’s right. And he had a terrible reputation for not showing up and for leaving owners hung up with a financial loss.

Tomorrow, George talks about how he re-launched Miles Davis' club career, why Sonny Rollins left the Miles Davis' quintet, the formula George used to sequence 'Round About Midnight, and why the followup album was the orchestrated Miles Ahead: Miles Davis +19 arranged by Gil Evans.

JazzWax tracks: Miles Davis recorded four albums' worth of  material for Prestige in just two sessions—one on May 11, 1956 (14 tracks) and another on October 26, 1956 (12 tracks). The releases were Cookin', Relaxin', Workin' and Steamin'.

Quite an extraordinary achievement for Davis, John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones. Now add to this prolific output Columbia's 'Round About Midnight, which was sandwiched in on June 5, 1956 and September 10, 1956.

'Round About Midnight remains an extraordinary album and set the stage for a new, more sophisticated era in jazz. The remastered 'Round About Midnight can be found at iTunes or here.

JazzWax clip: Here's 'Round About Midnight. Interestingly, the first song on the album was the very last track to be recorded at the final Columbia session for the album. The song was captured in one take...

Interview: George Avakian (Part 2)

In 1938, recordings by the latest swing bands were plentiful. The three major record companies that dominated the market (RCA, Columbia and Decca) saw to that. But earlier releases from the 1920s and 1930s that were recorded by companies that had gone bust were out of print. And other than a magazine or two, there were no books published in the U.S. on jazz, no jazz encyclopedias and no jazz discographies. Jazz was music without an archived past, which baffled a young George Avakian, who loved jazz but was hard-pressed for information and pre-swing recordings. [Photo of George Avakian in 2007 by Hank O'Neal]

George's earlier questions about the music were not unlike your own today. Who were these guys who could play such amazing solos? Where did they come from? Who were their teachers? What else did they record? And who were their inspirations? The difference was George had no resources to turn to for answers. Instead, he had to find jazz authorities, question them, read French jazz books and become an expert without the source material we now take for granted. [Pictured: Johnny Dodds]

In Part 2 of my five-part interview series with George, the first jazz and pop LP producer, talks about befriending Marshall Stearns at Yale, meeting with Columbia president Ted Wallerstein, service in the Army during World War II, and seeing Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie at Billy Berg's in Los Angeles:

JazzWax: Did you continue your interest in jazz at Yale?
George Avakian: Yes. Coincidentally, Marshall Stearns, the leading authority on jazz history at the time and one of the most noted jazz critics, was studying literature at Yale. He lived in New Haven and had an open house every Friday night. He invited me to come over to listen to jazz records and talk about them. [Photo of Marshall Stearns by Walter Sanders for Life]

JW: How were those sessions?
GA: Extraordinary. For two years we got together to listen. Along the way, Marshall tired of writing his "Collector's Corner" columns for Tempo magazine and asked me to take it on from time to time. That was a daunting task because I didn’t feel I had the authority to answer collectors’ mailed-in questions.

JW: Why did they write in?
GA: You have to understand, before the Internet, before jazz became popular, before large record stores and before entire sections of bookstores were devoted to jazz books, information about the music and even records were hard to find or didn't exist.

JW: But records had been made for years.
GA: Yes, but records that went out of print stayed out of print. Before World War II, you had to learn about jazz by listening carefully to the records you could get your hands on, reading mostly French books on the subject, and by searching out experts.

JW: Did Stearns put you at ease about handling his column?
GA: He said, “You can do it. Just go into my closet and pick out the records you have to check out to answer readers’ questions.” So I did. In Tempo magazine, Marshall had his byline, and his address appeared at the bottom so people could write in with questions. When I took on the column, I had my address at Yale there, and I’d get letters addressed, “Dear Professor Avakian…” [laughs]. I was just a sophomore.

JW: When did Columbia Records answer your letters?
GA: Early in my junior year, right after my Chicago Jazz album for Decca came out. Ted Wallerstein, president of Columbia Records, asked me to come to the company’s factory in Bridgeport, CT, which was about 20 miles from Yale.

JW: What did he want?
GA: He wanted to talk about the possibility of a jazz reissue program. I figured he had read one of my letters, but that turned out not to be the case.

JW: How did you know that?
GA: At the meeting in Bridgeport with various company executives, it was clear Mr. Wallerstein had invited me  there after seeing my Decca album. At the meeting, he asked the factory manager to choose a letter he had received urging Columbia to reissue classic jazz records the label owned. As the manager started to read the letter, I began to realize it was mine.

JW: What did you do?
GA: I interrupted to say that I might have been the writer of that letter.

JW: What happened?
GA: The manager looked at the bottom of the letter and said, “So you did—two years ago.” Mr. Wallerstein then asked me, “Did you get an answer, young man?” “Yes, sir,” I said. “What was the answer?” he asked. I said, “The letter said that the company’s advertising department in New York handles such matters and that I’d hear from them shortly.” [Illustration: Bridgeport by Jim Flora]

JW: What did Wallerstein say?
GA: He said, “Did you ever hear from them?” “No sir,” I said. Mr. Wallerstein said, “Well I’m hiring you at $25 a week to come to this factory and get all the test pressings you want, listen to them and put out all the albums you want according to the plans outlined in your letter—four albums at a time and then some singles for special releases.”

JW: What did you think?
GA: I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t wait to get started.

JW: Did all of this affect your schoolwork at Yale?
GA: It sure did. It knocked me off the dean’s list, but I graduated anyway. It gave me a punch line for my 90th birthday party last year. I said, “I’m upset that I got knocked off the dean’s list at Yale and that my grandchildren have better grades in college than I did when I graduated” [laughs].

JW: You graduated from Yale in 1941?
GA: Yes. Then I was drafted into the Army.

JW: What did you do in the Army?
GA: I ended up in New Guinea and then at the invasions of Leyte and Mindanao islands in the Philippines. I was fortunate. Even though I was a sergeant in the infantry, I wasn’t actually on the front lines. I was assigned to a rear-echelon unit. We did interpretations of aerial photos and reconnaissance work. It was an intelligence unit. I was discharged in February 1946, as a second lieutenant.

JW: What did you do when you arrived back in the U.S.?
GA: I came back by way of Los Angeles because I wanted to see my sister, who had married a colonel in the Air Corps. That visit led me to hear Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker at Billy Berg’s club. The entire music scene was changing.

JW: Was it new to you?
GA: Yes and no. I had heard much of it already when I went up to Minton’s in Harlem on furloughs in New York. I also had hit the jam sessions in Greenwich Village and on 52d Street. So I was a little onto the scene by 1946. But hearing Gillespie and Parker was an experience.

JW: Was Billy Berg’s as empty as they say?
GA: Yes. I went there three times with Ross Russell of Dial Records. He was a terrific enthusiast for the music and was about to start recording Parker out there. At the club, there were never more than 12 people in the audience. Yet Parker and Gillespie played with enormous fervor.

JW: Who hired you at Columbia in 1946?
GA: Mr. Wallersein. He liked what I had done with Columbia’s reissue series, which had to be canceled when the Japanese army reached Malaysia and cut off the world’s supply of shellac. But he had liked my work. In 1941, after I was drafted, he had said to me, “If your father allows it, I’d like you to work for me after the war.” He knew that my father wanted me to go into my family business, which imported Oriental rugs.

JW: When you went to see Wallerstein after the war, did he remember you?
GA: He did. I visited him in early 1946, just after returning to New York. The first thing he asked me was, “Did you speak to your father?” I said, “Yes, sir, and here’s what he said: ‘You went to college and went into the Army and came back in one piece, thank God. Go enjoy yourself in the record business.’ My father also said that when I was ready to get serious about life, I’d join the family business [laughs].

JW: You started with Columbia in 1946?
GA: Yes.

JW: So, did you ever work in your family’s business?
GA: Yes, 25 years later. It was a great experience to work for Avakian Brothers and travel to Iran, Pakistan and India buying carpets. [Pictured: Aram Avakian of Avakian Brothers demonstrating how an Oriental rug is made, for a 1981 Milwaukee Sentinel article]

Tomorrow, George talks about the birth of Columbia's long-playing microgroove album, the moment he decided to sign Miles Davis, why he viewed the trumpeter as more than a jazz star, and the strategy that got Davis out of his Prestige contract in 1956 with the blessing of the label's owner.

Interview: George Avakian (Part 1)

Today is George Avakian's birthday. For more than 70 years, George has shaped how jazz was recorded and regarded. As a pop and jazz LP producer starting in the mid-1940s, George was a visionary at a time when several recording technologies and formats were emerging and competing. In the first decade of the LP era, his innovative album concepts for Columbia transformed jazz from a fringe genre to nationally acclaimed performance art. In this regard, George served as both an eyewitness to modern jazz history and a catalyst, raising jazz's profile while serving as architect of its sophisticated image. [Photo of George Avakian by Ian Clifford]

George's "firsts" speak volumes. He produced the first jazz album in 1940 (for Decca). He wrote the first jazz album liner notes. He produced the first 10-inch LP at Columbia in 1948 (The Voice of Frank Sinatra). He produced the first 12-inch jazz LP in 1950 (Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall, 1938), which also happened to be the first double-LP set. He signed Miles Davis in 1955 and helped make the trumpeter jazz's first modern superstar. He revived the careers of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. He also founded Warner Brothers Records—and we're only up to 1958.

In Part 1 of my five-part series with George, 91, the father of the jazz LP talks about interviewing Benny Goodman for his high school newspaper, writing to Decca Records in 1938 and pitching a series of jazz albums, producing one of them, and having to learn about the music through French jazz books:

JazzWax: When did you first fall in love with jazz?
George Avakian: In 1935, at age 16. I was supposed to be sleeping but instead I was up sneaking a listen to NBC on the radio. I first heard broadcasts from New York’s Savoy Ballroom. But the music didn’t resemble Yes We Have No Bananas and other novelty stuff of the day. It was the music of Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson and Louis Armstrong.

JW: Why did the music appeal to you?
GA: It reminded me of the lively dance music, ballads and other folk music that my parents had brought to America from Armenia and played in the house. I think that’s why many European immigrant families identified with jazz. There was that common ethnic bond.

JW: Did your obsession with late-night radio grow?
GA: Yes. As I became more deeply interested in the musicians with the strange-sounding names, I began to listen regularly on Saturdays to NBC’s Let’s Dance program, which came on at 10:30 p.m. in New York and lasted for hours. NBC used to divide the broadcast among three different types of music, so there would be something for everyone. There was sweet band music by Kel Murray, Latin by Xavier Cugat and dance band music by Benny Goodman.

JW: By the summer of 1935, Goodman’s status had changed, didn’t it?
GA: Oh, yes. When Goodman went out on the road to California with his band that year, his music’s popularity died as he traveled west. People just weren’t interested. But when the band reached the Palomar  Ballroom in Los Angeles in August 1935, the roof came off there was so much excitement. NBC’s Let’s Dance broadcasts had built an audience for him, Benny was so popular out there that he didn’t return to New York for a year.

JW: How did you feel about Goodman?
GA: I was more than a fan. When I heard that Goodman was scheduled to return to New York in September 1936, I saw an opportunity. I was editor of my high school newspaper at the Horace Mann School for Boys. I decided I was going to interview Mr. Goodman. His record of King Porter Stomp had been No. 1 on "Your Hit Parade" for weeks. Imagine, a composition originally written in 1903 by Jelly Roll Morton ends up being the biggest selling record in the country. The question was how to reach someone like Benny Goodman.

JW: What did you do?
GA: I told a classmate what I wanted to do. He said that his mother was on the Democratic Committee in New York and that its president was owner of the Hotel Pennsylvania, where Benny was due to play for an extended period. My friend said that his mom might be able to arrange for me to interview him.

JW: What happened?
GA: I caught a break. The hotel’s owner agreed to put us together. In November, I interviewed Mr. Goodman in the hotel’s Manhattan Room. Benny enjoyed the experience so much that he told his band manager, “Take good care of George and his friend. They’re nice kids. Be sure they have a good table.” After the show, we were invited to hear the band rehearse pop tunes of the day for the following week’s Camel Caravan radio program.

JW: How was it?
GA: A thrill. And the musicians were so nice to us—probably because we responded immediately to requests for sandwiches [laughs].

JW: After you graduated from high school, you attended Yale. What did you study?
GA: English literature, which I had discovered years earlier by picking up a Sherlock Holmes story. When I asked the school librarian for more stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, she brought me a big thick book. I ate it up in about 10 days. That’s when I decided I wanted to be an English teacher or a journalist.

JW: In 1938, while at Yale, you wrote to Decca Records. Why?
GA: Yes, I did. And they responded a year later. I had been campaigning for jazz to be recorded and released like classical albums of the day. Back then, classical albums featured multiple 78-rpms that slid into sleeves. They also came with a booklet that featured beautiful photos and text describing the music and why the composer and performers were important.

JW: What did you write in your letter to Decca?
GA: I proposed that they do a series of jazz albums and start with tributes to the styles of the three cities that made jazz famous—New Orleans, Kansas City and Chicago.

JW: What was Decca’s response?
GA: Decca said in essence, “We don’t know quite what jazz in those cities is about but you seem to know so why don't you go ahead and produce them.”

JW: Be careful what you wish for, right?
GA: I was excited. I was pretty close with the musicians from Chicago who had moved to New York during the Depression, like Eddie Condon, Pee Wee Russell, Bud Freeman [pictured] and Jimmy McPartland. I made that album first. But when time came to get paid, I found out that Decca was going to pay me only $75, which was less than it had cost me to go to Chicago and do one recording session with Jimmy McPartland.

JW: What happened?
GA: I decided I was in over my head. I told them to take the material I had outlined for the other two sets and to give them to the two people I thought would do the best job—Steve Smith for the New Orleans set and Dave Dexter for Kansas City. Smith was a collector who had started the United Hot Clubs of America. Dave had been the Kansas City Star’s crime reporter and knew all about the jazz scene there.

JW: What was your album called?
GA: Chicago Jazz, and it was the first jazz album ever recorded. It had six 10-inch 78-rpm discs, which meant a total of 12 songs. I wrote a 12-page booklet, which became the first jazz album liner notes. I produced those records between my sophomore and junior years at Yale in 1939 and 1940.

JW: Had you written to other record labels?
GA: Yes. And oddly enough, just after my Decca set came out, Columbia Records answered some of the letters I had written them about reissues. I had written the company after discovering Okeh Records over the Thanksgiving weekend in 1936.

JW: What happened?
GA: That fall, Julian Koenig, a friend of mine, had told his older brother, Lester, a senior at Dartmouth, that I was interested in swing music. Lester read the interview I had just done with Benny Goodman and said to Julian, “Ask George what he thinks of Louis Armstrong.”

JW: What did you say?
GA: I gave him an honest answer since I had been  buying Louis’ Decca records: “Oh, he sings funny but he sure plays a lot of trumpet” [laughs]. Lester’s response was, “Gee, George has never heard the Okehs. I’m going to knock his ears off Thanksgiving weekend.”

JW: Did he?
GA: When he came home to New York for Thanksgiving, Lester invited me over and, wow, imagine out of the blue hearing West End Blues and all those other great classics of Armstrong's. I said, “How can I get them?” Lester said, “You can’t. They’re out of print.” I said, “Who owns them?” He said, “Brunswick Records bought them up long ago and they’re sitting on them.”

JW: What did he suggest?
GA: Lester urged me to write to Brunswick. He said, “They’re in the phone book. But if you want to find out about the history of this music, you can’t do it in the U.S. because there are no books that will help you.” Jazz scholarship and jazz writing didn't exist the way it does today.

JW: What was his suggestion?
GA: Lester said, “If you studied French at Horace Mann, then you must know enough to do this: Send an $8 money order to La Volta Music at 75 Boulevard Raspail in Paris and request two books.

JW: What were they?
GA: Charles Delaunay’s Hot Discography and Hugues Panassie’s Le Jazz Hot, a definitive guide to jazz musicians that explained why they were great. There was a summary at the end of each chapter telling you which records to buy. Of course, the records recommended were the European releases, but the book gave me a head start.

JW: Was Lester...
GA: That Lester Koenig? Yes. Lester went on to found Contemporary Records in California in 1951.

Tomorrow, George talks about befriending jazz authority Marshall Stearns at Yale, being summoned by Columbia chief Ted Wallerstein to the company's Bridgeport, CT, plant, being drafted into the Army in 1941, and hearing Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie at Billy Berg's in Los Angeles upon his return to the U.S. in 1946.

JazzWax clip: Here's one of the sides from the Chicago Jazz album for Decca that George Avakian produced between 1939 and 1940...