Live albums make up a good chunk of any good jazz collection. Many of the best ones were recorded at New York jazz clubs that are long gone. Some clubs even made their way into jazz album titles—like Wes Montgomery's Smokin' at the Half Note,Clifford Brown and Max Roach at Basin Street East, Thelonious Monk's Live at the Five Spot and Mingus at the Bohemia. [Photo by Herman Leonard/CTSImages.com]
Ever wonder where those and other long lost New York nightspots were located? So that the next time you're in town you can walk around and see where they were and what's there now? Here are the addresses of 28 shuttered ballrooms and clubs:
Arcadia Ballroom—Broadway and 53rd St.
Basin Street East—137 East 48th St. [pictured]
Birdland—1678 Broadway
Bop City—1619 Broadway
Bradley's—70 University Place at E. 11th St.
Buddy's Place—133 W. 33rd St.
Cafe au Go Go—152 Bleecker St. [pictured]
Cafe Bohemia—15 Barrow St.
Cafe Society—1 Sheridan Square
Cotton Club—644 Lenox Ave. at 142nd St.
Downbeat—66 W. 52nd St.
Count Basie's—2245 Seventh Ave. at 132nd St.
Eddie Condon's—47 W. 3rd St. (1945)
The Embers—161 E. 54th St.
Famous Door—56 W. 52nd St.
Five Spot—5 Cooper Square [pictured]
Frank Dailey's Meadowbrook—Route 23, Newark-Pompton Turnpike, Cedar Grove, N.J.
Glen Island Casino—Shore Road on Route 1-A, in New Rochelle, N.Y. [pictured]
Half Note—289 Hudson St., near Spring St.
Hickory House—144 W. 52nd St.
Jimmy Ryan's—53 W. 52nd St.
Latin Quarter—1580 Broadway (at 47th St.)
Minton's Playhouse—210 West 118th St. [pictured; photo by William P. Gottlieb]
Monroe's Uptown House—198 West 134th St. (between Seventh and Eight avenues)
Open Door—55 W. 3rd St.
Royal Roost—1574 Broadway
Savoy Ballroom—596 Lenox Ave. (between West 140th and 141st streets)
Gary Burton remained with the Stan Getz Quartet for three years, from 1964 to 1966. Even after the group's sound gelled, Getz was an emotional handful for Gary. Off stage, Gary went out of his way to avoid triggering the saxophonist's dark side. After Gary left Getz in 1967, he formed his own quartet and prepared to record an album unlike any other previously released. The concept was a jazz album that incorporated elements of rock—a radical concept in April 1967.
At the time, Gary was a big fan of the music recorded by the Beatles and other rock groups. He also sensed that the electric guitar was quickly overtaking the saxophone as the dominant front-line solo instrument with younger audiences. The result was Duster, an album with guitarist Larry Coryell, bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Roy Haynes. As anyone who came of age in the late 1960s and early 1970s recalls, the album was a turning point in jazz and remained a big college seller for years.
In Part 4 of my four-part interview with Gary, the vibist talks about coping with Stan Getz, forming his own quartet and the thinking behind Duster:
JazzWax: Picking up where we left off on the Stan Getz Quartet, how did the initial tour in Canada work out in 1964? Gary Burton: The group was pretty settled in terms of our sound. Astrud [pictured] joined because of the popularity of The Girl From Ipanema. She had been with us for just six weeks when we recorded live at the Café Au Go Go in New York.
JW: Is six weeks too soon? GB: I would have waited a little longer before doing a live album. As it turned out, we had to re-record two of the songs at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio: Telephone Song and It Might as Well be Spring. JW: Why? GB: We didn’t know the Telephone Song well and the live vocals were off. At Rudy’s, we re-recorded the songs and mixed in an audience sound.
JW: What did the vibes add to the bossa nova sound? GB: It think the vibes gave the tracks a younger, hipper more mellow sound.
JW: How long was Gilberto with the quartet? GB: Astrud was with us for about a year. Then she left to record on her own, and we were back to a quartet. Gene Cherico replaced Chuck Israels, and then Steve Swallow replace Gene, and Roy Haynes joined. This gave us a more traditional jazz group.
JW: What did you make of Getz? GB: Stan was bipolar or something. There were two personas there, and he had no control over either one of them. He would either be a guy who was too nice or a mean vicious, angry, paranoid character. You’d try to avoid anything that you thought would trigger either one. And you’d try to head off all things that might upset him.
JW: Were you successful? GB: Sometimes, but it didn’t matter. He could be mean verbally or completely inappropriate and obscene at will. At other times, he shouted, glared or insulted. People would dismiss his behavior because he’s an artist, just like with Miles Davis. So Stan got away with it. But you learned quickly to steer clear of him.
JW: For example? GB: We had just finished a concert in Europe in the 1960s. Stan would frequently say obscene things just for kicks. I remember we were standing in a reception after the concert. We were talking with a government official and his wife and a minister’s wife. Stan made an open, lewd remark about one of the women’s breasts.
JW: Was Stan’s wife Monica there at the time? GB: Yes. She just said, “Oh Stan.”
JW: What was the reaction by the officials? GB: The dignitaries looked as though someone had shot someone. They quickly stepped away.
JW: Was Getz’s behavior simply for shock value or was he unable to control the thoughts in his head? GB: Stan was always chasing after women on the road. He was very insecure. I think it was his way of building himself up. He would also challenge a friend or anyone who loved him to prove they cared. Stan didn’t use drugs when I knew him. He was drinking heavily. He was a terrible alcoholic. The mental thing was probably with him from his youth. Either way the comment was crazy. [Photo by Lou Levy]
JW: How did you come to record Duster? GB: I had just left Stan and started my own band. I knew I needed to get a record done to promote my new quartet. I had met Larry Coryell [pictured] at a jam session in New York and invited him to join. Eddie Gomez and Joe Hunt were in the group as well. We worked in Boston and at Café au Go Go in New York. Then I started looking around for new material.
JW: What was the vision? GB: I wanted to merge country, rock and classical into our jazz quartet. Steve Swallow joined the group, but the drum chair was unsettled for a while.
JW: Why? GB: I wanted Roy Haynes but he was still with Stan and wanted to wait until I became more established. JW: Why? GB: To be sure the job would last [laughs]. But Roy came over soon after, and we went into the RCA studio in April 1967.
JW: What was your concept? GB: To bring in outside influences. It was a scratching of the surface of what would become jazz-rock fusion. My creative partner in this was Steve Swallow [pictured]. He got the drift right away and helped me write tunes and make choices.
JW: Who photographed the unusual cover? GB: Tom Zimmerman, a photographer friend who did several of my covers. Tom had taken a picture of a storm. The image described the mood of the album but not too directly. I wanted the cover to be creative and it was. A duster is what they call a tornado in the Plains states. Tom also had photographed the cover of my 1966 album The Time Machine.
JW: Did you realize that Duster was going to be special? GB: Not at the time. I didn’t see the album as a groundbreaking thing. It was just another record. For the first year or two, my quartet was the Lone Ranger, playing this new music that we called jazz-rock. We were really the only ones doing this at that point. Others were beginning to, like Gabor Szabo. Not until later in the 1960s and early 1970 did Miles Davis, the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return to Forever advance the concept.
JW: Did you listen to rock at the time? GB: I was a huge Beatles fan. I discovered them through saxophonist Steve Marcus [pictured], a friend. I was fascinated by what they were doing musically. As each album came out, I became more of a fan. When I left to start my own thing, I knew I had to find my niche. I looked at what Stan had done. He had combined Brazilian music with jazz. I asked myself, “What do I relate to emotionally?” The answer was rock and country.
JW: Were you also trying to reach younger listeners? GB: I think so. Audiences for Stan were twice my age. I had this sense that straight jazz was not a good long-term set up. I wanted to connect with listeners my own age, and I was digging the new rock that had arrived. It seemed natural to incorporate them into my band.
JazzWax tracks: Unfortunately Gary Burton's The Time Machine (1966) with Steve Swallow and Larry Bunker is only available as an LP. Duster (1967) is available on CD but it's out of print and is pricey. You'll find a copy here. Why both of these classic albums aren't at least downloads is beyond me. Gary's latest album, Quartet Live, is available here.
JazzWax clip: Here's a rare clip of Gary playing a solo performance of No More Blues, which he recorded on The Time Machine in 1966. If you're unfamiliar with this clip, you're in for a huge treat. Gary's technique and ideas are absolutely breathtaking...
By the time Gary Burton left the George Shearing Quintet to join Stan Getz in 1964, he had perfected the art of the short, concise solo. But while a compact solo was essential for Shearing's group, Gary needed a completely different approach that rested more heavily on comping—the art of accompanying a soloist—for Getz. [Illustration of Gary Burton by Joshua de Leon]
Working with Getz also presented Gary with a range of other challenges. Getz was notoriously acidic and mercurial, and somewhat puzzled by his newfound bossa nova fame. For Gary, Getz required careful management and navigation both on and off stage.
In Part 3 of my four-part interview with Gary on his rise to prominence in the 1960s, the vibist talks about joining Stan Getz, the struggle to fit in, appearing in Get Yourself a College Girl and touring with the band in Canada:
JazzWax: How did you get the job with Stan Getz in 1964? Gary Burton: Through pianist Lou Levy [pictured]. Guitarist Jimmy Raney was in Stan’s band but was having alcohol problems. Stan was looking for a piano player to replace Jimmy but everyone he wanted wasn’t available. Lou said to Stan, “Instead of a guitar, there’s this vibes player I heard who plays with four sticks.”
JW: Did Getz reach out to you? GB: Chuck Israels, Stan’s bass player at the time, said to Stan, “I know Gary, I’ll give him a call.” Chuck invited me to sit in with Stan’s band at Basin Street East in New York.
JW: How did the first night go? GB: Not too well. Jimmy Raney had played steadily behind Stan while Stan soloed and I couldn’t comp that way. After the set, Stan told me it didn’t turn out too well. I knew it had been an experiment but I was still disappointed in how things worked out and disappointed in myself.
JW: That must have been some blow. GB: It was. It shook me off my game. I knew that I had been awkward and unsettled on the date. But I got over it a week later when Chuck called and said, “We’re desperate. We’re leaving for Canada and Stan needs you.” I thought, “What the heck, it’s just a gig.”
JW: Did the group rehearse? GB: Yes. I went up to Stan’s house north of New York. Unlike George Shearing, who had this huge library of charts, Stan had no music. He had records. He’d put on a record and say, “Let’s play this tune.” Some were bossa novas he had recently recorded.
JW: What material did the group pull together for the tour? GB: We chose six songs from the records. This was the beginning of January 1964. I had a few of Stan’s records from the 1950s and his hit record with Charlie Byrd, Jazz Samba. That was about it.
JW: Did the group play many of Getz’s bossa nova tunes in Canada? GB: On the road, Stan minimized the bossa nova material. We did only two of them, usually toward the end of each set. The rest of the playlist was made up of regular jazz tunes, like Here’s That Rainy Day, What Is This Thing Called Love.
JW: Where was the group’s first stop? GB: Montreal. For the first week, Stan stayed drunk. The club was pretty quiet. There wasn’t much traffic. But in Toronto, the crowds were bigger, and Stan started to take the tour more seriously. Meanwhile, I was learning how to comp behind him. He was super particular.
JW: How so? GB: Stan was used to the best when it came to accompanists. He wasn’t used to hearing the vibes behind him, and I was kind of clumsy at knowing when to jump in, what to play behind him, and so on. He’d get frustrated at least two or three times a night and ask me to lay out.
JW: Did things ever work out? GB: By end of three weeks in Canada it had come together. We had a sound as a group. Stan invited me to do more and more concerts, and I stayed on for three years.
JW: In 1964, you appeared in Get Yourself a College Girl, a teen movie that featured Astrud Gilberto singing The Girl From Ipanema. GB: in those days, if you had a hit, the movie studio that owned the label worked you into a film. In Stan’s group, we actually did two of those films. The first was a made-for-TV movie called The Hanged Man, a murder mystery set in New Orleans.
JW: How were you featured? BG: It was a nightclub scene at Mardi Gras and we were playing on the stage, with Astrud Gilberto singing. After we shot that one, we were called to appear in College Girl. It was really just an excuse to showcase MGM/Verve artists. That’s why Jimmy Smith was in College Girl, too. We were on the Verve label. That’s how the movie and record business worked then.
JW: Your scene in College Girl takes place at a ski resort—yet everyone in the audience is dressed for summer. GB: [Laughs] Yes. We did that on an L.A. set that had been used previously for an Elvis movie. There was a snow machine behind the fake window and fake scenery. There was a guy up on a catwalk letting down the flakes. They brought us sweaters to wear. Fortunately, the sound stage was air-conditioned [laughs].
JW: In the scene, the performance on stage is clearly dubbed. GB: [Laughs] In most movies back then, they didn’t want mikes showing in the shots. So they had you first record the music in a studio. They’d tell you, “Don’t play too complicated because we want you to match what you played as closely as possible on camera.” It was easy for pop group to do this with a set arrangement. For jazz, it’s a little tougher.
JW: How was it to film the scene? GB: I was playing the vibes while listening to our earlier recording coming through the speakers. I was trying to match what I had done as best as possible so it looked authentic. We shot a few takes. Stan knew it was just for promotion so he didn’t care. It was kind of exciting to be in a movie. The playing wasn’t particularly inspiring or exciting.
JW: In May you recorded Getz Au Go Go, recorded live at New York’s Café Au Go Go. GB: I had been in the band about three months at that point. Astrud had just joined the group on the road. Chuck Israels hadn’t joined Bill Evans yet and joined us during the run.
JW: How did Astrud Gilberto fare on the road? GB: She didn’t know many of the songs we played. She knew two, so she’d come out at the end to sing them. Astrud was the wife of Joao Gilberto and had dreamed about becoming a singer. She had been given a shot on The Girl From Ipanema in 1963 and it worked out well. At the time of the recording, the Verve executives wanted to use authentic Brazilian musicians. But at some point they realized they needed at least one song with English words. So someone had the idea to have Astrud sing. Everybody takes credit for that one.
Tomorrow, Gary talks about Stan Getz, Astrud Gilberto and the making of Duster.
JazzWax tracks: Gary's albums with Stan Getz include Nobody Else But Me, Getz Au Go Go, A Song After Sundown and Paris Concert.
Nobody Else But Me (March 1964) and Getz Au Go Go (May 1964) remain smart period pieces—seductive jazz recorded months before rock's British Invasion began pushing jazz aside. Just the sound of Getz's spirited, upbeat tenor sax against Gary's intellectual vibes brings the early 1960s back with a rush.
JazzWax clip: The YouTube clips of Stan Getz, Astrud Gilberto and Gary Burton in Get Yourself a College Girl are all out of sync. Instead, here's the film's trailer...
Between 1960 and 1963, Gary Burton went from a kid who practiced the vibes with a tape recorder to a musician who recorded with established jazz artists. Gary came of age at just the right moment. Many of these artists were seeking a cooler, more contemporary sound, and Gary, in his late teens, represented the future.
After recording for RCA with Nashville guitarist Hank Garland in the summer of 1960, Gary was gearing up to start music school that fall. But before he left Nashville for Boston, RCA signed him to a multiyear record contract.
In Part 2 of my four-part series on Gary's 1960s rise, the vibraphonist talks about gigging in Boston, joining the George Shearing Quintet and what he learned while playing with the famed pianist:
JazzWax: So let me get this straight: you’re off to college with an RCA record deal? Did your professors hate you? Gary Burton: [Laughs] Not at all. Boston’s Berklee College of Music was still in a brownstone on Newbury Street. You became friendly with the professors pretty quickly and worked gigs with them. There were a couple of hundred students there, and one in a dozen were advanced enough to gig with local jazz groups.
JW: With whom did you play? GB: Mostly with trumpeter Herb Pomeroy’s group. Herb and Ray Santisi owned a club called The Stables on Huntington Ave. They leased the back room and called it The Jazz Workshop.
JW: Was gigging key to the college experience? GB: When you’re playing in a band in front of a live audience, it’s a whole different experience than listening to the music on record. Audiences have an emotional reaction. For example, my instrument is very visual. Audiences get more out of seeing a vibraphonist or a drummer than watching other instrumentalists. With the drums and vibes, you can see all the movement that goes into creating the sound. [Photo by David Redfern]
JW: What was your first recording for RCA? GB: I went down to New York in June 1961. It was a session that featured a mix of players who weren’t used to playing together. It didn’t work out too well. So RCA had me do a leadership date in July. I decided not to take any chances. I hired Gene Cherico on bass and Joe Morello on drums. I had just recorded with Joe on It's About Time. The trio album was called New Vibe Man in Town. I didn’t name it. The record company controlled everything. I fought with the label for three years over their dumb decisions.
JW: How long did you remain in Boston? GB: I moved to New York after two years in college. I was getting a chance to play with more and more musicians and had a few albums out. So I felt the time was right to make it in the business.
JW: You didn’t finish at Berklee? GB: No. One of the main guys at RCA urged me to finish college while the label was paying my living expenses. But I decided it was time to start working full time. Almost immediately, I met Marian McPartland through Joe Morello. They were at the Hickory House together on 52nd St,, and I went down to say hello.
JW: What happened? GB: Marian called George Shearing and recommended me. The next day I got a call from John Levy, George’s manager. He said George was interested in hearing me play.
JW: What happened next? GB: They arranged an audition on Labor Day 1962. I had been living in New York only a month. I met George in front of a building and we went up to the studio, where they had rented a set of vibes.
JW: How did it go? GB: George liked what he heard and said he’d love for me to join his quintet. The only drawback was that he wasn’t going to start to work for a few months.
JW: Why? GB: He was attending a school where they teach you how to work with a guide dog. He said we’d form the group in January 1963. During this four-month stretch, I got one gig playing a wedding reception in Queens working with guitarist Gene Bertoncini [laughs]. I also got a call from Herbie Mann asking me to join his band. But he called back later and said he decided to stick with [vibist] Dave Pike.
JW: So you joined Shearing in January 1963? GB: Yes. I flew out to L.A. and we started touring. We played a live concert at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in February 1963. I had been in the band just two weeks. I was surprised how intricate the charts were and how tight we sounded.
JW: What was it like working with Shearing? GB: It was an interesting challenge and experience for me. George did not believe in lengthy solos. Everyone got to play one chorus on any song. You had about 30 seconds to solo.
JW: Did that become a problem? GB: For me, coming from my student days of five-minute solos, I didn’t know how to do this. At first I tried to play a million things. But that didn’t work too well. Then I became philosophical about it, playing smaller chunks rather than long stretches. With George, I learned how to get into a solo immediately and pace it.
JW: What else was special about Shearing? GB: He was a master of harmony. He could voice and re-harmonize unbelievably well. I learned about harmony from George and melody from Stan Getz later. The other thing that George did that I wound up using is playing a beautiful solo piece in the middle of a set. That always becomes a hit with audiences. I was with George for a year.
JW: In 1963, you recorded an unusual classical-themed jazz album with Shearing called Out of the Woods. GB: George had a fascination with counterpoint. He said to me, “Why don’t you write a song for us with counterpoint.” So I did, calling it J.S. Bop. I had studied counterpoint for a year at college.
JW: What did Shearing think? GB: George loved it. He said he wanted to make an entire record with similar songs. We used two quintets, one with woodwinds and George’s regular quintet. But the record company, Capitol, was reluctant to release it.
JW: Why not? GB: I think it was too far out for their pop sensibilities. I don’t know why but under Capitol, George was never allowed to record anything original. It always had to be standards. He fought with them over this album. Finally they agreed that we’d do a record with our new music on one side and standards on the other half. Six of ours, six of theirs. We recorded the first half and then broke up the band.
JW: Why? GB: George decided he wanted to stay home and stop touring.
JW: What did you do? GB: I started playing with Stan Getz. But then Shearing called and said Capitol had a change of heart and liked the original tracks. George asked me to write another six songs, so I did. We finished the record in May.
Tomorrow, Gary talks about joining Stan Getz in 1964 at the height of the bossa nova craze in the U.S., touring with the jazz-samba group and Getz's odd behavior.
JazzWax tracks: George Shearing's Out of the Woods with Gary Burton is a superb album and highly unusual for Shearing during this period. The experimental recording features Abe Most, Justin Gordon, Jules Jacobs and Paul Horn (woodwinds); George Shearing (p,harpsichord); Gary Burton (vib,p,lyre); John Gray (g); Ralph Pena (b) or Gene Cherico (b); and Shelly Manne (d). Unfortunately, the Capitol recording never made it to CD. You can find the LP on eBay.
New Vibe Man in Town, Gary's first leadership date, is available on CD but it's out of print. It swings hard the whole way through. You'll find it here.
JazzWax clip: Here'sTime on My Hands from Joe Morello's It's About Time, which featured Gary Burton and a host of songs about the clock...
In the 1960s, vibraphonist Gary Burton bridged three jazz gaps. In 1960 he was the link between jazz and country. In 1964 he helped link jazz and bossa nova. And in 1967, he began to link jazz and rock, becoming one of the earliest exponents of jazz-rock fusion. [Photo by Karlheinz Kluter]
From his earliest recordings, Gary always had a marvelous sense of swing and sensitivity—without overplaying. His cool, four-mallet approach to the vibes added a youthful feel to many of the albums on which he appeared, and as the decade progressed, his sound grew increasingly progressive rather than hinged to vibists of the past.
In Part 1of my four-part interview with Gary, 67, the vibraphonist and jazz-rock fusion pioneer talks about growing up in Indiana, meeting Boots Randolph, teaming up with Hank Garland and Chet Atkins, traveling to the 1960 Newport Jazz Festival, landing an RCA record contract at age 17, and then starting college in Boston:
JazzWax: How did you wind up playing the vibes? Gary Burton: I was born in Anderson, IN. My brother and sister were musical, and my father played piano. All of the kids in my family wanted to take music lessons. My older sister started taking piano lessons at age 6. I hovered over her and started messing around on the piano as soon as she started playing. When I was six, my father decided it was time for me to play an instrument. There was a lady in the area who played the marimba and vibraphone. He took me there, and soon my parents bought me a student marimba. Then they bought me full-sized set of vibes and marimba. My father built a platform so I could reach the keys.
JW: How long did you take lessons? GB: For two years. Then we moved to Princeton, IN, which was an even smaller town. I didn’t have a teacher there, but I had already mastered the basics. My father would buy me sheet music to play.
JW: Did you play vibes in school? GB: No. There was no place for a mallet instrument there. Instead, I played the snare drum. At first I didn’t know much about jazz. I was playing everything from light classical to written-out solo pieces. Then at age 12, I stumbled onto a jazz record. It was a 10-inch LP of the Benny Goodman Sextet in 1954.
JW: Do you remember the name of the song that impressed you most? GB: After You’ve Gone. It was taken at a fast tempo, which knocked me out. I was already chewing at the edges of improvisation. I had already been making up introductions, re-voicing chords, and fleshing out songs. The improvisers on the Benny Goodman record were doing the same thing only much more extensively. I then began buying jazz records to get the feel for swing.
JW: How were you able to figure out if you were on the right track without a teacher? GB: With my tape recorder. My father had bought me one at the time I started playing. It was a reel-to-reel. I discovered that if you hear what you're playing, you automatically make all kinds of adjustments in the feel, pace and rhythmic interpretation of what you're doing. Your unconscious mind winds up making all the decisions. In jazz, you can’t think about what you’re doing. Your unconscious mind has to handle all that data at a remarkable speed.
JW: What exactly did you do with the tape recorder? GB: I had a strong habit of practicing and playing with my tape recorder. I used it as my band. I’d comp on the piano with the metronome clicking to keep time. Then I'd play back the tape and practice my vibes along with the recording. When I’d play a local gig, I'd take the 50-pound recorder along. I’d just reuse the blank tapes.
JW: Where did you buy your records in such a small town? GB: The nearest record store was an hour away in Evansville, where I eventually took lessons. Every Saturday, my father would drive me there and I would have my lesson and peruse the record store on the street level. I would flip through LPs by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Horace Silver, Dave Brubeck, early Charles Mingus, and blues and roots records.
JW: Did you eventually have a musical breakthrough? GB: My first big epiphany came in 1958, when I attended a jazz band camp at Indiana University. It was the Stan Kenton Band Clinic and was only a few hours from where I lived. My father dropped me off. It was the summer of 1959 was 16 years old. It was amazing. There were about 150 kids at the camp who were as excited about jazz as I was.
JW: Who was on staff? GB: Shelly Manne was the drum teacher. Kenton’s musicians were all there. I was in John LaPorta's [pictured] band as the piano player. That band got invited to go to French Lick, IND., where George Wein was putting on a jazz festival.
JW: Pretty exciting? GB: There I was, playing the opening act with a student big band and Miles Davis' Kind of Blue sextet backstage. At the time, I didn’t get what Miles' group was playing. It didn't sound polished to me. Miles sounded like an out-of-tune trumpet player. A year later I heard the band on record and said to myself, "Wow, how could I not get it?"
JW: Did you play professionally in high school? GB: In my senior year, I landed a job in Evansville, where I played in a restaurant five days a week—piano and vibes. I found a piano player to teach me harmony. I also was hearing all the stuff on records.
JW: What did you do after graduating from high school? GB: I had applied and was admitted to Berklee School of Music in Boston. I was due to start in the fall so I had the summer off. But right after graduation I moved to Nashville because of saxophonist Boots Randolph [pictured].
JW: Why? GB: Boots lived in Evansville, where his wife was from. Evansville was about 2 1/2 hours north of Nashville. Boots had heard me play. His friend, guitarist Hank Garland, had talked Columbia into making a jazz record. So Hank began looking for a vibes player. There were no vibes in Nashville [laughs]. Hank asked Boots, and Boots said, “There’s this kid in Indiana who’s great.”
JW: What happened? GB: Not long afterward I was riding down to Nashville with Boots [pictured] in his Cadillac convertible with my vibes in the back. Hank brought in the bass player and drummer. When we got together, we played a couple of tunes. After the audition, Hank said, “What are your plans?”
JW: What did you tell him? GB: I told him that I was going to music school in Boston in the fall. Hank said, “Fine, but why don’t you move to Nashville for the summer, and we’ll play at clubs on the weekend and make this record for Columbia?”
JW: What did you do? GB: I moved to Nashville. Hank helped me find an apartment, and we played the Carousel Club. In June, George Wein [pictured] happened to pass through Nashville looking for potential sponsors for his Newport Jazz Festival. He came into the Carousel Club, heard us play and liked it. We had a trio at that point—vibes, bass and guitar. George suggested that Hank put together a band and appear at the upcoming Newport festival in early July.
JW: Who did Hank hire for the band? GB: We got guitarist Chet Atkins and other Nashville musicians. Chet was a big fan of our trio. With his RCA connections, he had some money available for travel. Hank brought in Floyd Cramer on piano, Brenton Banks on violin and other top Nashville guys. We called ourselves the Nashville All-Stars. We flew to Newport. When we arrived, we checked into our bed and breakfast. But when we walked over to the concert grounds, a riot was going on. When police saw us, we told them we weren't part of the crowd rioting, that we were from Nashville. They could see we were telling the truth.
JW: What did they do? GB: They said, “Go back to where you’re staying,” so we did. The next day our concert was canceled because of the violence and damage. RCA was there with remote recording equipment because the label was contracted by George Wein to record the festival. Someone had the idea to record us in front of this rambling house that RCA had rented. So we set up our instruments out on the lawn, invited all the neighbors and the people who were still stuck in town. There must have been 60 people on the grass.
JW: Why didn’t you record indoors? GB: If we had set up in the living room, there wouldn’t have been room for an audience. RCA was there to do an outdoor festival anyway and wanted a live feel. But they messed up. The engineer didn’t mix the tape well. I was disappointed with the final result. They had turned it over to an engineer who didn’t make much of an effort to enhance the quality of the sound. The musical part is uneven as well. [Photo of the Newport, RI, riot in 1960 for Life]
JW: What did you do after Newport? GB: I went back to Nashville with Hank. We made Jazz Winds there. By the end of the summer, I was ready to move to Boston to attend college. Weeks before I left, Chet Atkins called me into his office and told me he had talked to RCA and that the label wanted to offer me a contract.
JW: How did you feel? GB: At age 17, I was overwhelmed. They handed me a 15-page contract to look over, and I took it back home with me to Indiana. My father and I tried to figure out the legal language but gave up. The contract sat there for a week or two on the kitchen table. I wasn’t sure how to respond. Then one day, another contract arrived in the mail with better terms. RCA wanted me and had assumed I was stalling. They had decided to sweeten the deal. One of the extras they offered me turned out to be quite important.
JW: Which one? GB: RCA had agreed to subsidize my college living expenses. So I’d receive a $25 check each week, which would cover rent and food. I headed off to Boston with a record contract. It called for me to make one record a year while in school. Then when I finished and started my career, I’d record two albums a year. I was the only freshman at the Berklee College of Music with a record deal [laughs].
Tomorrow, Gary talks about recording for the first time as a leader, leaving college, joining the George Shearing Quintet and what he learned from the experience.
JazzWax tracks: Gary Burton's recording for RCA at Newport is called After the Riot at Newport. It's out of print but available here. Jazz Winds can be found as a download or CD on Move! The Guitar Artistry of Hank Garlandhere, which combines Jazz Winds and Subtle Swing.
JazzWax clip: Here's a taste of Gary with Hank Garland playing All the Things You Are, with Joe Benjamin (b) and Joe Morello (d)...
Years ago, cartoons were wry and played a role imparting important life lessons about hard work and fairness, from Cinderella and Bugs Bunny to Little Audrey and Casper. What's more, cartoon theme songs were immensely hummable and became ingrained in the popular culture. Cartoons' widespread popularity had something to do with their showing in movie theaters before the feature film and then their domination of Saturday morning TV. Here are six jazz songs with cartoon titles:
Krazy Kat—Johnny Mandel's flag-waver for Artie Shaw's bebop band was recorded in 1949. It's on Self Portraithere.
Little Lulu—Bill Evans' touching tribute to the girl who was in and out of trouble, but mostly always in. His waltz-time interpretation of the cartoon's playful theme is on Trio '64here.
Mister Magoo Does the Cha-Cha—This 1955 novelty song wasn't Peggy Lee's finest moment. To add insult to injury, Lee had to share the microphone with actor Jim Backus—the voice of Magoo—who added the sight-challenged character's addleheaded mutterings. It's on Peggy Lee: Classics & Collectibleshere.
Popeye—Organist Big John Patton's 1993 tribute to the spinach-eating sea-loving sailor man is on Blue Planet Manhere.
Donald Duck—Sonny Stitt's alto sails through this quirky quacker from the 1962 release Low Flamehere.
Woody Woodpecker Song—Trumpeter Woody Shaw's 1986 take on the "guess-who" bird's lumber serenade is on Solidhere.
Long-time readers of JazzWax are familiar with Paul Slaughter's images (see "PhotoStory" in the right-hand column). Like the other generous photographers on the list, Paul has graciously provided JazzWax with images he took of jazz legends over the years and shared his stories about them. Now Paul has published a new book, Paul Slaughter: Jazz Photographs 1969-2010. The images capture the musicians on and off stage and show enormous sensitivity and love on Paul's part. [Photo of Dizzy Gillespie and Paul Slaughter in California in 1975 by Paul Slaughter]
Paul's book cover features a terrific color image of Sonny Rollins deep in thought while warming up before a Santa Fe concert in 2007. All of Paul's images in the book have this element of proximity and tenderness. Paul also provides text on meeting his favorite artists.
Paul grew up in Louisville, KY, in the 1940s, where he had an opportunity to hear many of the big bands that passed through town. After a move to Indianapolis in the 1950s, his uncle and professional drummer Charles Mastropaolo brought Paul in close contact with jazz and jazz recordings, especially when musicians like pianist John Bunch and bassist Leroy Vinnegar dropped by the house.
In the late 1960s, Paul moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career and had his own jazz radio show. He also began photographing jazz musicians in Hollywood, and it wasn't long before he was seeking and winning photo assignments for jazz magazines and other clients. [Pictured: Sarah Vaughan at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1971]
In the years that followed, Paul's talent for photography flourished, and he has traveled to more than 75 countries, taking photographs for film, television and the theater as well as the Olympics. But by Paul's own admission, jazz is where his heart rests, and you can see this in the images for his new book. [Pictured: Gerry Mulligan at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1971]
Interestingly, Paul decided to publish the book himself, using Blurb.com, which makes the process relatively easy and results in a bookstore-quality hardback. I know other photographers who have used this site to publish their books with terrific results. Clearly, the future of publishing photography books—which is hugely expensive now for mainstream publishers—rests with sites like Blurb.com. [Pictured: Harry Carney in West Hollywood in 1973]
What I love about Paul's work is that he always captures the introspection, intellect and whimsy of jazz musicians. He waits and watches and squeezes the button just as these stage folk turn and reveal a split-second private moment. Through Paul's images, we learn something new about the musicians that we didn't know before—how they feel, what they think of themselves or how much they love performing. [Pictured: Paul Slaughter]
Paul's lens is honest, and over the years musicians from Duke Ellington to Dizzy Gillespie have appreciated the work he has done documenting their feelings and finest moments.
You can preview images from Paul Slaughter: Jazz Photographs 1969-2010 as well purchase the book here.
I should have told you this from the start but Paul Bacon has had a second career that has been even bigger than his first. Paul is perhaps best known today not as an LP-cover art director but as the inventor of book jacket design as we know it. Starting in the late 1950s, he has designed more than 7,000 covers, many of which were bestsellers, including Catch-22, Portnoy's Complaint, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Andromeda Strain and Slaughterhouse Five.
But before Paul brought new and exciting life to the book jacket, he was pioneering iconic concepts for jazz album covers that not only enticed the eye but also stimulated purchases.
In Part 4 of my four-part interview with Paul, the design maverick shares the stories behind a handful of Riverside albums—and the one cover that an artist disliked:
JazzWax: Let me ask you about a handful of album covers and how they came about. For example, Sonny Rollins’ Freedom Suite. Paul Bacon: That was largely the work of designer Ken Baren, who was my first hire. Ken was more likely to do abstract stuff than I was—when I believed that an abstract approach was the way to go. For that cover, we went with a childlike feel to soften the cover’s title. The goal always was to create a compelling contrast.
JW: How about Chet Baker Sings: It Could Happen to You? PB: We just thought what we were selling there wasn’t jazz but romance. None of us, including me, was particularly fond of the album. I thought Chet was OK on there and interesting as a singer. But all that infant-child breathlessness never impressed me much.
JW: How did that cover come about? PB: We decided the theme called for a glamour shot of Chet and left the execution up to Paul. The vision was to have Chet with a girl set in the mood for love. Chet was happy to do it, if he was off the junk long enough to be sober.
JW: How well did you know Baker? PB: I had only met him once before, in the parking lot at Riverside Records on 51st St. My wife and I had just been in to see Bill Grauer when we saw this forlorn shape moving toward our car. It was Chet. He just managed to say, “Is Orrin [Keepnews] up there?” Chet was a type of phenomenon. He could play if he was really on. [Photo of Chet Baker by Herman Leonard/CTSImages.com]
JW: Was Baker authentic? PB: I suppose so based on his definition. For me, he was on the opposite end of the spectrum from Thelonious Monk. Alfred and I once took Thelonious up to a radio station to appear on Fred Robbins' program. Fred wasn't a bad guy but in those days he was really ambitious but not yet hip. But he knew how to navigate the microphones [laughs]. [Pictured from left, drummer Sid Catlett and Fred Robbins by William P. Gottlieb]
JW: How did Robbins get along with Monk? PB: Fred didn’t know what he was dealing with in Monk. Fred probably never met someone who was incapable of lying.
JW: Why, what happened? PB: Fred talked a little bit, and Monk was muttering in his usual style. Then Fred played a record without saying who it was. At the end, Monk said, “Well, it sounds like someone trying to play like Miles Davis.” In truth, it was Chet Baker. Fred was infuriated, though he didn’t show it at the time. Later Alfred told me that Fred told him privately, “Never bring that guy around again.” I guess Fred must have felt that Monk's comment was intended to tell listeners that Fred was square. Which, of course, wasn't it at all. Monk was simply saying what was on his mind, the truth. [Photo of Chet Baker and Miles Davis by Cecil Charles/CTSImages.com]
JW: How was Thelonious Monk’s Brilliant Corners photographed? PB: We talked about what we could do with the title track, Brilliant Corners. We also listened to the different tunes. Then we tried different concepts, like Monk sitting in a corner or standing on a street corner, but they didn’t have any lift. They didn’t say anything. Then Paul came up with an idea.
JW: What? PB: Paul said, “I think I can do something with a multiple image.” Paul set up mirrors somehow. The cover you see was done with one shot using mirrors, not multiple images. Monk got a huge kick out of it.
JW: Why the surrealist cover for Monk's Misterioso? PB: The surrealists were cutting edge then, and I was probably more aware of modern art than others in our group. We agreed that Giorgio de Chirico was about as serious as you could get when it came to surrealism.
JW: Why not Dali? PB: I didn’t really like Dali. De Chirico’s work is mysterious and suited Monk’s Misterioso title best. [The piece is de Chirico's The Seer from 1915.]
JW: And Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington? PB: When the Ellington band was first reorganized in 1929, it was called The Jungle Band for the sounds it created with plungers and so on. The Monk cover was an obtuse reference to that. I figured those who knew would get it.
JW: The Other Side of Benny Golson? PB: I thought it would be kind of funny if we literally featured another side to Benny. Sometimes literalism pays off when handled the right way with the right typeface. Remember, we were totally unfettered. We had no real paragons to base things on.
JW: Did you have a favorite cover that you illustrated? PB: One of my favorites was an early Blue Note album for Ike Quebec called Mellow the Mood. The cover was a deliberate attempt on my part to try my hand at French painting.
JW: Did a jazz artist ever hate a cover? PB: I did a cover for Steve Allen and Irene Kral in 1959. It was for United Artists, not Riverside or Blue Note. They gave me the record to listen to and told me who was on it. I thought it was a smart album. I called it SteveIrene-o!—as a play on "Steverino," Allen's nickname. I thought it was clever.
JW: What did Allen say? PB: I was in an elevator soon after the album came out and Steve Allen was in there. Someone in the elevator said to him, “Hey, I saw your new album." Steve said, “I know. Isn’t that terrible?”
JW: What did you do? PB: I sneaked out on the next floor [laughs].
In the early years of LP cover design, there were no rules. The only driving force was that a cover had to be graphically gripping. Designers then often worked with just two colors, and much rested on typeface solutions and the integration of motion, dimension and excitement. As one of the early jazz-album cover designers and art directors, Paul Bacon was free to follow his artistic instincts and invent a fresh, new cover look.
But Paul was also on the vanguard of a new artistic movement. Along with a handful of art directors and designers, Paul was creating a new mood and mystique for modern jazz. Like a box of cereal or a bag of potato chips, the jazz LP in its infancy called for packaging that sold the promise of what was inside: the artist's genius and the joy of the music. In the LP era, the record-buyer's initial impressions and desires were in the hands of the art director, and jazz musicians knew it. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Paul developed that square 10-inch and then 12-inch plot of cardboard real estate for Blue Note and then Riverside and broke new ground.
In Part 3 of my four-part interview with Paul, the legendary art director and designer talks about creating a new look for modern jazz at Blue Note and his move to Riverside in the early 1950s.
JazzWax: What exactly is an album art director? Paul Bacon: The art director back then came up with the vision for the album cover either alone or with his team. Then he hired the talent to get the job done. In the case of Riverside, we had periodic cover meetings with Bill Grauer, Orrin Keepnews [pictured], photographer Paul Weller and me.
JW: How did the creative solutions emerge? PB: I'd have a concept or Paul Weller would think of some idea. Or we’d hear the music and think of a solution. In some cases Bill and Orrin had strong notions about the cover. We’d also discuss the album title. For example, Everybody Digs Bill Evans in 1958, with its laundry list of musician endorsements was my idea. So was the look, with the different typefaces.
JW: How did that come about? PB: The problem we faced is that we had all of these rather flat lines of praise from other musicians. Very powerful endorsements. The challenge was this: What do you do to make such comments interesting to the eye? We needed to come up with something graphically that would make their words look interesting while at the same time showing the potential buyer that the biggest names in jazz were Evans' fans. We decided to use white type on a tan background for the comments. But we had to find a way to work in the musicians who were offering praise. Designer Ken Baren and I simply faked the signatures in the artists’ own hand so the cover took on another dimension. It was a typeface solution.
JW: Early jazz-album covers were executed with illustrations, yes? PB: Yes. When I started doing album covers, they were pure graphic solutions. When Burt Goldblatt came along in the early 1950s, he was a photo guy, and covers started to change. He spearheaded the idea of having fewer and fewer graphics on the cover and using images instead, except for the artist's name and album title, of course. [Miles Davis album design and photos by Burt Goldblatt]
JW: What was the goal? PB: We were trying to convey with graphics what jazz was about. At Blue Note, there were certain things that I knew Alfred and Frank would not be happy with, such as too literal an image. I was very strongly influenced by those who came before me—like Alex Steinweiss [cover pictured] and Jim Flora. Alex had started doing album covers before the war.
JW: Who ran the art show at Blue Note? PB: I had absolute free reign. Alfred and Frank trusted me and thought I was good at it. I would think of an album title, and my title often suggested something graphic. It was exciting, cool, fun stuff. We didn’t have much color in the early days. All we had to attract the buyer’s eyes was fun and whimsy in the illustration and color treatment. The Amazing Bud Powell was the first portrait I did on scratchboard for an album cover.
JW: Were cover artists jazz fans? PB: Absolutely. I was always listening to jazz and creating a mood in the covers that reflected the music and lifestyle I loved. There was no gravity. The beauty is we had plenty to work with.
JW: How so? PB: Classical was about the same music. Only the orchestra and conductor changed. In the jazz world, the artists were all different and unique. Covers needed to rise to that level. In the case of Bud Powell [pictured], Frank Wolff gave me photos so I’d get a likeness on the scratchboard. Same with Milt Jackson.
JW: Yet your earliest covers focused on an older style of jazz. You had been a fan of the earlier music first. PB: Yes, at the start, everything I did for Blue Note was for albums by old-timers like Pete Johnson, Albert Ammons and Vic Dickinson. All good guys but totally unconnected with what was going on in the late 1940s. The beginning of modern jazz for me was when Alfred played TheSquirrel with trumpeter Fats Navarro [pictured] and Ernie Henry on alto sax. I was knocked out. I remember saying, “That’s really dynamite.” Alfred smiled at me. He was just getting into it then. Everything was happening and new, and we were in awe of the talent. [Photo of Fats Navarro by Herman Leonard/CTSImages.com]
JW: Did you still enjoy Louis Armstrong? PB: I never lost my taste for Louis. At the time, we were still going down to the south end of Manhattan to hear Bunk Johnson. You could hear him on Friday and Thelonious Monk on Saturday. The city was wild like that then.
JW: But you were more than just a fan. PB: How so?
JW: You and other cover designers were the promoters of a new feeling, of a mystique. Your covers had to capture the energy and promote the hip qualities of the music. Covers couldn't be square. PB: True. We thought the music was great and that people should listen to it. I tried to get this point across through the graphics. My illustrations were saying, “Forget what you know and forget what you think. Just listen to the music.”
JW: In this regard, you were a big promoter of Monk's. PB: I was trying to get others to listen to Monk’s music by designing compelling covers. I was slightly evangelical [laughs]. But that was true about virtually every artist, from the album covers to my reviews. The only things I ever bad-mouthed in print as a reviewer for Bill Grauer and Orrin Keepnews’ Record Changer were things I thought were pretentious.
JW: Why? PB: The Record Changer had started as a medium to help people collect records. Then Grauer felt it should also include opinions and articles, and he pushed me to express myself honestly in print.
JW: When Grauer and Orrin started Riverside and brought you over, your first cover was Randy Weston’s Cole Porter in a Modern Mood in 1954. PB: I had met Randy and thought he was a big talent. One of the things floating in my mind for the cover was Cole Porter on the 90th floor of a building, the skyline at night and sophistication. We all loved Randy’s playing and wanted to advance him as a new artist. So in the cover, I wanted you to feel the music, the city and Randy's sophistication.
Tomorrow, Paul talks about a range of his Riverside covers and how they were created.
Paul Bacon is modest and soft-spoken. Since the late 1940s, jazz musicians have sensed in the album illustrator, designer and art director a wise and gentle soul. This was particularly true of Thelonious Monk, who saw Paul as an unpretentious artist and sensitive thinker. For his part, Paul saw in Monk a creative genius who was impervious to conformity and allergic to hidden agendas. Paul felt strongly from their first meeting in early 1948 that Monk was everything a jazz musician should be and more. [Photo of Paul Bacon in 1996 by Hank O'Neal]
Paul first expressed how he felt about Monk in a deeply insightful essay. While Orrin Keepnews' Thelonious (published in the Record Changer in 1948) was the first serious appraisal of Monk's music and mission, Paul's The High Priest of Be-bop: The Inimitable Mr. Monk in 1949 was the first reportage on Monk's quirky personality, drawing a connection between the pianist's frustrations and eccentricities and his unadorned creativity.
In Part 2 of my four-part interview with Paul, the album cover illustrator and designer talks about meeting Monk and the evolution of their symbiotic relationship.
JazzWax: When did you first meet Thelonious Monk? Paul Bacon: Sometime in early 1948. I often went to the Blue Note offices on Lexington Ave. after working all day for Hal Zamboni. One night I was up at Blue Note’s offices with Alfred [pictured] and Lorraine. We were about to go down to their car to drive someplace to eat when Lorraine said, “I bet you don’t know who’s in the car.” I said, “Who?” She said, “Thelonious Monk.” I was surprised and curious.
JW: Did you know the name? PB: There had been some talk about Monk in the papers. This was the late 1940s. Usually the papers seized on his eccentricities rather than his music. When we got downstairs, I sat in the back with him on our way up to Harlem to get dinner. He was fantastic. Along the way, he would listen to Alfred and Lorraine trying to figure out how to get where we were going. They would be debating the best way to go or where to turn. Monk would just chime in softly with things like, “Oh yeah, I see what you mean if you go this way.” He was just riffing on what they were saying but it sounded like he was part of the marital discussion.
JW: Were you at the Lions’ party in 1948 when Orrin Keepnews met Monk? PB: Yes. I can still hear Orrin’s voice as he spoke to him. I thought at the time that Orrin was an extremely bright guy. I remember I had one flash of thought though: “Orrin, don’t try to understand too much of what Monk is saying.” Monk was extremely taciturn, but he and Orrin hit it off. [Photo of Orrin Keepnews, center, with Thelonious Monk, by Esmond Edwards/CTSImages.com]
JW: You and Monk had hit it off as well, yes? PB: Yes. Monk liked that I was primarily an artist and illustrator—not a writer with an agenda. In fact, he never mentioned the stuff I wrote about him. And he always introduced me as an artist. I remember going to visit Monk late one night at around midnight in the green room at Birdland. I was telling him how tired I was and that I couldn’t stick around long. Then the door opened and in walked Charlie Parker. Monk said to me on the side, “Paul, do you know Bird?” I didn’t know him personally. So Monk brought me over to Parker. “Hey Bird, this is Paul Bacon. He’s an artist. “
JW: What did Parker say? PB: He said, “Yeah, I know.” Monk knew we hadn’t met, so Monk pressed him: “Really? How do you know Paul?” Bird shot me a sour glance, implying that his life had been just fine before he had met me. So I jumped in and covered for him, saying something about having met him before.
JW: What was so special about Monk’s personality? PB: He was truly free. Most people weren't like that then. Most people were looking for angles. Monk was just sailing through looking for people who were emotionally honest. Bill Grauer and Orrin Keepnews very much wanted to interview him for the Record Changer, and Orrin was able to do so beautifully. Orrin said to me later, “The fact that you were at that party didn’t do us any harm.” Orrin knew that Monk respected and liked me and that I would put him at ease. I always felt strongly about Monk's purpose. When Monk was arrested with Bud Powell in 1951 after the police found a packet of heroin in Bud’s car, I was one of the people who bailed him out. [Photo by Herman Leonard/CTSImages.com]
JW: Were you in the studios when Monk recorded? PB: Yes, all the time at Blue Note and Riverside. One time I was in the studio sitting on a stool while they were listening to playbacks of what he had just recorded. I was going to leave but Monk put his arm around me to keep me there as we listened.
JW: How did you feel? PB: As though I had been knighted. Monk knew how I felt about his music. Once at the Lions’ apartment, Monk was listening to a playback of a recording. I saw Monk looking at my foot. He said, “You have good ears.” That was classic Monk.
JW: Did Monk also get you? PB: I think so. I was up in Harlem at a party in the early 1950s. Alfred took me up there. The apartment was quite big and the place was crowded. Art Blakey [pictured] was there and a bunch of other guys. I remember one small older guy carrying a large turkey drumstick. The conversation started getting heated, Blakey was shouting, “Why don’t we put up our own hotel and keep the white people out.” I started to feel like I shouldn’t be there. [Photo of Art Blakey by Paul Hoeffler/CTSImages.com]
JW: What did you do? PB: There was a piano in an empty room. All the talk was going on in the kitchen. So I sat at the piano in the empty room. I couldn’t play but I could figure out songs. I had small hands but could play 10ths and I figured out how to play Liza. All of a sudden I spot Monk peering in the doorway.
JW: What happened? PB: He came over to the piano, gently pushed me off the bench and said, “Draw!” Then he played the living bejesus out of Liza. [Monk wound up recording the song for the first time in 1956]
JW: Why do you suppose Monk had those tender feelings toward you? PB: I think he could recognize that I was easy going and in awe of him. I think he also knew who I was deep down, and liked that I was an artist. He had pegged me as an artist based on a portrait of Meade Lux Lewis [pictured] I had drawn that was hanging in the Blue Note offices.
JW: How do you know that? PB: Monk said once when he introduced me, “Paul did a picture that’s on the wall there at Blue Note. It looks exactly like Meade Lux Lewis” [laughs]
JW: One of your most famous designed covers was Monk’s Music. How did Monk wind up in a red wagon? PB: The guy who took most of the photos for me at Riverside was Paul Weller. He had a big studio. We wanted to get a photo made of Monk for the album cover. At the time, the art director was Harris Lewine. Harris had this idea to find a Trappist monk outfit.
JW: What did you think? PB: It sounded fine to me, but when we got to Weller’s studio and mentioned this to Monk, he flared up: “What kind of shit is that?” he said.
JW: What did you do? PB: I knew we had to get a photograph. I said to Harris, “Listen, Monk’s mad at me. But we have to do something.” We looked over at Monk and he was half-sitting in a red wagon writing on sheet music. Paul had all kinds of props for photo shoots. I looked at Harris and Harris looked at me. Monk looked up. There was this pause. Then Monk said, “Yeah, go ahead.”
JW: Why do you think you were so attracted to Monk? PB: He didn’t lie and didn’t fake anything. And he was completely free of reverse prejudice. He didn’t care anything about politics. That was pretty liberating. He just thought, “I don’t have time for that crap.”
JW: Your famous essay, High Priest of Be-bop was originally published in France. Why? PB: I wrote it for the French magazine Le Jazz Hot at the behest of Alfred Lion. It focused on Monk’s personality. At some point the Record Changer decided to publish it in English in 1949.
JW: Knowing Monk clearly changed your thinking about jazz—and certainly your outlook on art and life. PB: I had never known a great artist before. A truly great artist. Monk was so used to people trying to get him to do things for them. I didn’t care about any of that, and I think he liked that.
Tomorrow, Paul Bacon talks about the thinking behind some of his other well-known LP covers for Riverside Records in the 1950s.
JazzWax note: You'll find Paul's 1949 essay The High Priest of Be-bop in the Thelonious Monk Readerhere.
Marc Myers writes regularly for The Wall Street Journal and is author of "Anatomy of 55 More Songs," "Anatomy of a Song," "Rock Concert: An Oral History" and "Why Jazz Happened." Founded in 2007, JazzWax has won three Jazz Journalists Association awards.
