In April 1958, Coleman Hawkins recorded Meets the Big Sax Section for Savoy. The session lived up to its billing. Hawkins was teamed with Count Basie's Marshall Royal, Frank Wess, Frank Foster and Charlie Fowlkes. The result, as you can imagine, was heavenly, inserting Hawkins' big bossy tenor into Basie's refined saxes. I posted about this session here.
The date's arrangements were by Billy VerPlanck. Recently, singer Marlene VerPlanck, Billy's widow, sent me a copy of the April 2009 interview that writer Schaen Fox conducted with her late husband for Jersey Jazz. Here's what Billy VerPlanck [pictured] had to say after Fox asked him about the Hawkins session:
"I came in with Coleman, and it was a very interesting thing: When we came in, everybody stood up, and when he sat down, that's when everybody sat down. He was treated like royalty, and it was quite wonderful.
"I enjoyed working with them. They were remarkable. Marshall Royal and Coleman read the charts once and never looked at them again. They had photographic minds.
"We were there about six hours, no overdubbing in those days. You read the charts down, played it through a couple of times and got all the solos together and that is the way it went. It turned out great."
At the dawn of the jazz LP era in the early 1950s, Ira Gitler worked for Prestige Records. As anyone who has owned a jazz LP knows, Ira has written the liner notes to hundreds of albums, including updates to his original notes in the CD and download eras. In short, Ira was among the first to hear many of the recordings we enjoy today and wrote about them for their album jackets. Here's a section from Ira's introduction to Prestige Records:The Album Cover Collection(Concord Editions):
"Blue Note and Prestige—both recording some of the most notable jazz of the times—were a study in contrast in several ways. Blue Note, run by Alfred Lion and Frank Wolff, had in Wolff an accomplished photographer with an innate feeling for the personalities of the musicians. Furthermore, Blue Note employed freelance design specialists to make good use of Wolff’s images. Prestige, on the other hand, had me...
"Without any delusions of being an art director I supplied the same firm that did the labels for our 78s as to where I wanted the musician’s name, the names of the songs and the album number, etc. to be placed, and how big each type-face should be...
"Photos with primitive type layouts became the norm, but there were still a few strictly, type-only covers that showed up... The back covers were blank for the first few releases... With PRLP 117, Swingin' With Zoot Sims (1951), the first set of liner notes appeared on a Prestige back cover, written by yours truly, and my career as a designer was over. It was my first professional essay, but it didn't change my salary. 'I'll make you famous, man,' Prestige founder Bob Weinstock told me—and he was right."
I love the sound of a jazz guitar. But what I enjoy most aren't the melody lines, although who can deny the joy of a great guitar solo. Instead, I'm a nut for the sound of swinging guitar chords and harmonic voicings. The thicker and meatier the chords played the better, and the more of them the merrier. If you share my passion for this full guitar sound, an album that will knock you out is Barney Kessel's Soaring.
Recorded in 1976 for Concord, Soaring features Kessel on guitar, Monty Budwig on bass and Jake Hanna on drums. Kessel was among the most prolific jazz guitarists, recording on more than 500 known jazz sessions. This staggering career number does not even include all of his many credit-less studio dates for pop and rock singles and albums, or his relentless TV and movie soundtrack work.
A large chunk of Kessel's jazz recordings in the 1950s featured him as a tasty accompanist or as a leader surrounded by other West Coast giants. In the 1960s, Kessel frequently recorded jazzy pop albums that required a heavy dose of melody work to illustrate the Broadway or movie themes being covered. By contrast, on Soaring, Kessel was freed from such distractions and conformity, allowing him to stretch out as he pleased.
On Soaring, Kessel chose to place an emphasis on his chord technique for the six standards and two originals. Think block-chord piano marvel Milt Buckner—but on guitar—and you get the picture here. Kessel here is at the absolute top of his game. There are no studio gimmicks or commercial trappings, just gorgeous, hard-swinging jazz-chord playing. The result is an album that dismisses all notions that Kessel was merely a sugary studio genius who lacked a burning drive. Here, it's all drive.
The tracks You Go to My Head and Get Out of Town are taken at an uptempo pace and raise hairs. Not only is Kessel's chord technique magnificent, his taste and ability to hear what he wanted seconds before he delivered it on the guitar fretboard is amazing.
Star Eyes and I Love You are rollicking swingers that showcase Kessel's ability to keep sensational time, develop innovative musical knots and escape from them deftly. He seems to go out of his way on both tracks to throw himself into musical trouble and resolve tricky passages with beautiful escape chords. [Photo of Barney Kessel by Ray Avery/CTSImages.com]
The other two standards, Someone in Love and Beautiful Love, are gentle, mid-tempo renditions that express sensitivity through waves of caressing chords.
The two originals on the album are soft, introspective pieces. Seagull is the album's only pure ballad. But a slower pace only means more time to absorb Kessel's technique in slow motion. You're the One for Me is a delicate bossa nova that features the nimble Jake Hanna on brushes.
This is one of those perfect recordings, with daring chords and spirited melody-line bursts that only lead back to more Kessel chords. Which is how we jazz guitar lovers like it. This album is a must-own.
David Soyer, the founding cellist of the regal Guarneri String Quartet who also appeared on many jazz and pop record dates in the 1940s and 1950s, including Billie Holiday's Lady in Satin, died on February 25th at his home in New York. He was 87.
David was best known in the classical world as a sublime cellist whose robust bowing technique and warm vibrato could move listeners to feel melancholy, sympathy and elation depending on the piece of music played. David studied with Pablo Casals and began his professional career in 1942 in the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of Eugene Ormandy [pictured]. By the late 1940s, David was based in New York, and in the LP era was frequently called upon to play on classical, pop and jazz record dates.
In 1964, David helped form the Guarneri String Quartet with violinists Arnold Steinhardt and John Dalley, and violist Michael Tree. The four musicians had been performing at the Marlboro Music Festival in Marlboro, VT. The quartet was named for the family of Italian instrument makers whose legacy dates back to 1641. The Guarneri String Quartet performed upward of 100 concerts worldwide each year and maintained an aggressive recording schedule.
But what nearly all tributes to David over the past two days neglected to mention (including the one by The New York Times) is that he was often featured on jazz and pop recordings that called for "strings." He told me that his involvement with pop music dated back to Frank Sinatra's romantic ballad recordings for Columbia in the late 1940s.
David appeared on Billie Holiday's Lady in Satin (1958), Holiday's last studio recording with Ray Ellis in 1959, Ahmad Jamal's At the Penthouse (1959), Chris Connor's Sings Ballads of the Sad Cafe (1959), The Fabulous Little Jimmy Scott (1960) and dozens of others on which the string players were not listed by name. In other cases, his last name was misspelled as "Sawyer."
In January 2009, I spent an afternoon with David and his wife Janet Putnam Soyer, a harpist who recorded on even more jazz and pop dates than David. Both had recorded in Ray Ellis' orchestra for Lady in Satin. So when Janet invited me over to their Central Park West apartment, I came bearing a box of ginger cookies.
I also came with a remastered CD of Lady in Satin. The three of us then spent a half hour listening to it, mostly in rapt silence. Along the way, David and Janet had recollections and observations. In fact, David's cello solo opens I'm a Fool to Want You. (See my post on that afternoon here.) [Photo of Billie Holiday and Ray Ellis by Arnold Newman]
What I remember most about David that afternoon was the intensity with which he listened to the recording, his insightful and often hip comments about Holiday's voice and struggles that day, and his gentle grace.
Over his lengthy career, David made many classical, pop and jazz recordings. But perhaps my favorite of all is the one that Janet pressed into my hand before I left their apartment. It was a homemade recording of classical pieces entitled: David Soyer: Cello Program—David's Happy Birthday to Janet. "David made it for me for my birthday as a present," Janet said. "It's beautiful."
Indeed it is. David will be missed.
JazzWax clip: Here's Billie Holidays' I'm a Fool to Want You from Lady in Satin (1958), accompanied by David Soyer's cello in the intro. By the way, the harp you hear here and throughout the album was played by David's wife Janet Putnam Soyer...
Marc Myers writes regularly for The Wall Street Journal and is author of "Rock Concert: An Oral History" (Grove), "Anatomy of a Song" (Grove) and "Why Jazz Happened." Founded in 2007, JazzWax has won three Jazz Journalists Association awards
Marshall Royal and Coleman read the charts once and never looked at them again. They had photographic minds.
those days. You read the charts down, played it through a couple of times and got all the solos together and that is the way it went. It turned out great."
