JazzWax

Roger, Bobbie and Buddy

In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed Roger McGuinn, co-founder of the Byrds and a folk-rock pioneer, for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Roger talked about moving around the country as a child during his parents' book tour in the late 1940s, only to wind up in Chicago on a bike hearing Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel. That moment sparked his interest in music and guitars.

Here are the Byrds in 1965 playing Turn, Turn, Turn, with Roger wearing the granny glasses and David Crosby in the cape...

Also in the WSJ, my review of the upcoming 8-CD set, Bobbie Gentry: The Girl From Chickasaw County—The Complete Capitol Masters (go here). Here are my first three paragraphs...

In May 1981, Bobbie Gentry appeared on NBC’s “An All-Star Salute to Mother’s Day” and sang a song to her mother, seated in the studio audience. When the two-hour TV special ended, viewers had witnessed Ms. Gentry’s last public performance.

Without warning, the 38-year-old Ms. Gentry abruptly gave up performing. Except for attending the Academy of Country Music Awards the following year, she became the music business’s most enigmatic recluse. Since her retirement 36 years ago, Ms. Gentry has led a J.D. Salinger-like existence. Requests for public appearances and media interviews are ignored, and sightings have been rare.

As a result, Ms. Gentry today is barely remembered for her haunting No. 1 pop hit in 1967—“Ode to Billie Joe.” The song about a teenage boy’s love-sick leap off Mississippi’s Tallahatchie Bridge won two Grammys, Ms. Gentry won one, and the single was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. It even inspired a 1976 film...

In St. Louis on October 10? Come hear my jazz talk on 1950: The Year Jazz Changed on Two Coasts. The event, sponsored by Jazz St. Louis, will be held on Wednesday, October 10, at 7 p.m., at the Ferring Jazz Bistro at 536 Washington Ave. Admission is free. For more information, call (314) 571-6000. [Photo above by Marc Myers]

SiriusXM. Next Wednesday, October 3, I'll be on Feedback with Nik Carter and Lori Majewski talking about Donna Summer's On the Radio, the subject of my recent "Anatomy of a Song" column for the WSJ. Feedback, is on channel 106 of the Volume network. I'll be on from 9 to 10 a.m. (EDT).

The Blues. Chris "King" Cowles, the Saturday host of WRTC's Greasy Tracks, sent along a great clip of guitarist Buddy Guy in 1969 with bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Buddy Miles with saxophonists Dick Heckstall-Smith (with glasses) and Chris Mercer...

Stuff I like that you might want to know about...

Birdland: The Jazz Corner of the World, an Illustrated Tribute, 1949-1965 (Schiffer Publishing) by Leo T. Sullivan provides a history of the New York club with page after page of photos, covers of albums recorded there, and matchbooks, posters and ads. Images so potent you'll wish you could step into the book's pages. (Go here)

Jazz in Available Light: Illuminating the Jazz Greats From the 1960s, '70s and '80s (Schiffer Publishing) features the stories and jazz photographs of Veryl Oakland. Images are intimate and engaging. There's Chet Baker in a leather fedora, Thelonious Monk looking over music at the piano, and Denny Zeitlin relaxing in his hot tub. (Go here)

Peter and the Wolf. The New England Jazz Ensemble interprets Sergei Prokofiev 1936 orchestral children's tale with polish and smart arranging and playing. Absolutely gorgeous music by this large jazz orchestra comprised of regionally based artists. Narration by Giacomo Gates. (Go here)

Crime Jazz! (Moochin). This 8-CD set came out in 2014 but remains one of my favorite boxes. The set includes the soundtracks from 14 TV detective series: 77 Sunset Strip; Hawaiian Eye; M. Squad; Staccato; Mike Hammer; Checkmate; Shotgun Slade; Peter Gunn; Mr. Lucky; Mr. Lucky Goes Latin; The Naked City; The Untouchables; Richard Diamond and Bourbon Street Beat! All are remastered and presented in their entirety. (Go here)

What the heck: Here's the Main Ingredient singing Over You, a cover of the hit by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap...

Oddball album cover of the week.

I don't get it. So you put on this record and fall out? What happens to the record? Either the needle goes back and forth at the end of the side until morning or the phonograph stays on all night and burns itself out.

Doc: British Trad Jazz

After World War II, Britain was a mess. The country had been bombed during the war, the country lost roughly a half-million people fighting the Germans, and Britain had to borrow significantly to pay for munitions and gear. On the home front, the post-war economy was in miserable shape and the government instituted austerity measures such as rationing. The mood and economy were bleak and lasted about 15 years. During this period, many in Britain kept their spirits up in the pre-rock era by listening to traditional New Orleans-style jazz. Known as "trad jazz," the music's popularity attracted a large number of bands, and dancing to the music was commonplace at clubs and ballrooms.

What's the evolution of Britain's trad jazz movement? Here's a documentary that sheds light on the trend and the music...

A special thanks to Jimi Mentis.

Hot Track: I Talk to the Trees

In an effort to capitalize on Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's Broadway winning streak in the 1950s, Orrin Keepnews of Riverside Records produced an album in July 1959 of Chet Baker playing their songs. It was a brilliant move. Aptly titled Chet Baker Plays the Best of Lerner and Loewe, the album featured the lyrical trumpeter accompanied by some of the prettiest jazz players in New York.

On I Talk to the Trees, from Paint Your Wagon (1951), Baker was teamed with Herbie Mann (fl) Zoot Sims (ts), Pepper Adams (bar), Bill Evans (p), Earl May (b) and Clifford Jarvis (d). The song opens with Evans playing an eight-measure introduction, with May and Jarvis in tow. Baker runs down the melody of the song. Then Sims takes a bridge solo on tenor saxophone, with Baker returning to continue the melody line. Baker then switches to solo mode with Evans shadowing him. The stillness and beauty of the two musicians is remarkable. Each of their notes hangs in the air for a second or two before disappearing. Mann plays a lovely flute solo, followed by an Evans solo. Baker plays the song out.

Frankly, I can't think of too many other ballads where the sensitivity of each musician is so essential to the song's story and mood. It's almost a jam session of softness.

Here's I Talk to the Trees...

I Talk to the Trees

Bud Powell at Birdland, 1953

The modern jazz piano starts with Bud Powell. In fact, it's almost impossible to fully appreciate any post-World War II jazz pianist without first studying Powell's recordings. Thelonious Monk would be the exception, but even with Monk, there are connections to Powell. If you're new to Powell, the best entry point is The Complete Bud Powell on Verve, a five-CD set that covers Powell in a trio studio setting from 1949 to 1956 on the Clef, Norgran and Verve labels. If you're already familiar with Powell, a live set you may not be aware of or have overlooked is Bud Powell: Birdland, 1953, a three-CD set on the ESP-Disk label. The live club recordings have enormous energy and zest, with Powell's speed on display along with his lush chord voicings on ballads.

Born in New York in 1924, Powell was classically trained from an early age but managed to find time to explore stride and boogie-woogie styles by listening to pianists such as James P. Johnson and Willie "the Lion" Smith. Close friends with Monk, Powell began to create a singular improvisational style in the mid-1940s that Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Monk were developing at the same time. From February to September 1953, Powell appeared at Birdland in different trio configurations. Fortunately for us, the club had its own radio broadcasting booth wired into WJZ, where the recordings were originally aired late at night.

As noted by Powell biographer Peter Pullman (Wail: The Life of Bud Powell), 1953 was the busiest year of the pianist's career. Earlier that year, Powell had been released from a New York mental hospital after 16 months of treatment for depression, a period that included electroshock therapy. When Powell was released, he was declared by New York State to be "incompetent" and placed in the care of Oscar Goodstein, his manager and one of Birdland's nine partner-owners. To keep Powell occupied, Goodstein booked him into Birdland for 20 weeks. Able to play all night long, Powell was overjoyed as he regained the technique he lost during his long hospital stay.

Powell's playing on this live set is absolutely thrilling. You can hear his exuberance and delight in every track. His hands are magical, moving expressively but with regimented control. His trills, block chords, spirited runs, percussive style and romantic and delicate touches are perfectly mixed to delight and hypnotize the audience. Despite his extraordinary comeback, Powell had to be hospitalized again intermittently throughout the 1950s. Eventually, he moved to Paris in 1959, and in 1963 he came down with tuberculosis. In 1964 and '65, Powell's health deteriorated and he died in July 1966.

Despite the limitations of his mental health and his relatively short life (he died at age 41), Powell managed to re-invent the jazz piano in the 1940s and was admired by virtually all modern players, both for his technique and his understanding of how to turn a song into a beautiful sculptured work. The Birdland set is remarkable for several reason: We not only are able to hear how Powell sounded live during a peak period but we also can hear just how far ahead of his time Powell was. The 1953 material could have been recorded last week. One is left wondering what it must have been like to sit down in 1953 and spend an evening listening to Bud Powell play piano. One can only dream.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Bud Powell: Birdland, 1953 here.

JazzWax clips: Here's I Want to Be Happy, with bassist George Duvivier and drummer Art Taylor...

And here's How High the Moon...

Songs By Jackie Paris

The high-point of singer Jackie Paris's recording career came in 1955. Over the course of three days in November, Paris recorded Jackie Paris (or Songs by Jackie Paris) for the Wing label, a Mercury subsidiary based in Chicago that launched in May 1955 to handle the 12-inch recording spillover at the parent company. In 1955, Paris's voice was at its romantic, club-cool peak. Equally impressive was the album's arranger—Manny Albam—who perfectly framed his voice using New York's finest jazz studio musicians at the time.

The uptempo songs There Will Never Be Another You, Wrap Your Trouble in Dreams, Indiana and My Kind of Love featured Sam Marowitz and Hal McKusick (as); Frank Socolow and Eddie Wasserman (ts); Al Epstein (bar); Bill Triglia (p); Barry Galbraith (g); Milt Hinton (b) and Osie Johnson (d), with Albam conducting.

The lush brass-and-strings ballads included That Old Devil Called Love, I Can't Get Started, Goodnight My Love, Strange, Heart of Gold, Cloudy Morning, Heaven Can Wait and Whispering Grass featured Romeo Penque (fl,oboe,eng-hrn,b-cl); Janet Putnam (harp); Bill Triglia (p); Barry Galbraith (g); Milt Hinton (b); Osie Johnson (d); five strings and Albam conducting. [Photo of Milt Hinton above courtesy of NPR]

Don't Hurt the Girl and Tell Me Something Sweet were recorded with an unknown band in September 1956. They were for a different Mercury release, but in later years wound up folded into the CD version of the Jackie Paris album.

Paris had an unfortunate career. As we know from director Raymond De Felitta's film 'Tis Autumn: The Search for Jackie Paris—one of jazz's most exquisite documentaries—Paris should have been a much bigger deal over a longer period of time. But his pushy personality and out-sized ego kept getting in the way. [Photo above of Jackie Paris and Charlie Parker in the early 1950s]

Once Paris sufficiently annoyed record company executives, musicians and club owners, opportunities dried up, especially as jazz tastes changed. Paris, like a number of jazz artists of the period, forgot he was in a commercial line of work in which his livelihood depended on consumers paying money for what he did. In order for that to happen, a certain amount of give and take was necessary on his part to convince those holding opportunities to make them available to him. In short, his early fame went to his head, resulting in a destructive superiority complex. An unfortunate and sad outcome given his enormous talents and taste.

On Songs by Jackie Paris, the singer's voice was warm, hip and embracing. Every note was beautifully articulated, perfectly phrased and seductively delivered. There was a with-it intelligence and vulnerability in his voice that was largely unmatched in his peers. Unfortunately for Paris, this album may have marked the beginning of the end for him. Unable to find champions willing to put up with him, Paris inflexibly stood his ground and inched downward at a snail's pace over the next 50 years.

Jackie Paris died in 2004.

JazzWax tracks: The documentary 'Tis Autumn: The Search for Jackie Paris is an astonishing work and can be found here. Here's the trailer...

The album Songs by Jackie Paris can be found here.

The album also can be found at Spotify.

JazzWax clips: Here's I Can't Get Started...

Here's Strange...

And here's Heaven Can Wait...

Guy Lafitte's Quartet and Quintet

Paris was thick with French saxophonists in the years immediately after World War II. Native-born reed players included Alix Combelle, Michel de Villers, Michel Attenoux, William Boucaya, Maurice Meunier, Andre "Teddy" Hameline, Andre Debonneville and Armand Conrad, to name just a handful. One of the best of the period was Guy Lafitte (above). More on him in a minute.

There are several reasons for the wave of saxophonists in the French capital in the late 1940s and early '50s. First, the saxophone originated in nearby Belgium, so the instrument was popular. Second, Paris was a major European recording center during this period with many dominant labels, including Barclay, Vogue, Club Du Disque, Pathe as well as divisions of Columbia, Philips and other foreign-based companies. And third, a greater number of American jazz saxophonists traveled to Paris on tour to perform at the city's many theaters and Left Bank clubs, inspiring budding French reed players.

Lafitte began as a self-taught accordionist and then played clarinet in local bands. By the early 1950s, he toured with Big Bill Broonzy, an American blues singer and guitarist, and Mezz Mezzrow. He also began recording regularly with Geo Daly, one of the great French vibraphonists. Lafitte's reed influences included Coleman Hawkins, Don Byas, Herschel Evans and Lucky Thompson.

On Guy Lafitte's Tenor Sax: With His Quartette and Quintette (Fresh Sound), Lafitte appears leading multiple groups. On the album's first five tracks recorded in May 1954—Blue and Sentimental, She's Funny That Way, Stardust, Where Or When and Krum Elbow Blues—he's backed by Daly (vib), Raymond Fol (p), Alix Bret (b) and Bernard Planchenault (d).

On the next eight—If I Had You, I've Got the World on a String, Get Happy, I Cover the Waterfront, I Got Rhythm, Melodie au Crepuscule, Sweethearts on Parade and Topsy—Lafitte's quintet consists of Daly (vib), Andre Persiany (p), Buddy Banks (b) and Jacques David (d). These sides also were recorded in June 1954.

In March 1955, Lafitte recorded again with a quintet: Daily (vib), Persinay (p), Jacques "Popoff" Medvedko (b) and Teddy Martin (d) on If I Could Be With You, Jubilee and Chase a La Baute.

Finally, Lafitte led another quintet in June 1956 for Columbia, featuring Daly (vib), Jean-Pierre Sasson (g), Jean-Claude Pelletier (p), Paul Rovere (b) and Christian Garros (d).

On ballads, Lafitte had a firm and intense approach, digging deep for an enormous feeling without sounding dated on the tenor saxophone. On uptempo tunes, Lafitte swings easily with terrific solo command. Hard bop hadn't reached France yet, so the album's material, including the original tunes for his 1956 session, have a swing-era sensibility with bebop salted in. As you'll hear, the swing works splendidly, since French jazz was melody-driven and sounds so darn tasteful.

Guy Lafitte died in 1998.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Guy Lafitte's Tenor Sax (Fresh Sound) here.

JazzWax clips Here's Guy Lafitte playing I've Got the World on a String...

Here's What a Funny Moon, based on the chord changes to How High the Moon...

And here's Flying Back, based on the chord changes to Lionel Hampton's Flying Home...

Twiggy, Terry and John

This week in The Wall Street Journal, I interviewed Twiggy (go here), who in 1966 as a 16-year-old English model revolutionized fashion and captured the pop innocence of the global youth market. She also wound up on Broadway, on albums, on the cover of David Bowie's Pin Ups album and in The Blues Brothers movie, among dozens of other places. Twiggy talked to me about her childhood home in a London suburb, how she came to add those lines under her eyes at 15, why her parents let her leave school to model, and the strange series of events that landed her in front of a camera in the first place.

Here's Twiggy during a photo shoot dancing in 1968...

SiriusXM. Last week, Nik Carter and Lori Majewski graciously had me on their Feedback show on SiriusXM's Volume network to talk about my "Anatomy of a Song" column on Joan Jett's Bad Reputation. If you missed the show, here's a link (go here). And don't forget, Bad Reputation, the documentary about Joan's career, hits theaters September 28 (go here). It's excellent.

West Coast Jazz. Planning on being in Los Angeles between October 25 and 28? Don't miss out on the West Coast jazz festival being held by Ken Poston and the Los Angeles Jazz Institute at the Four Points Sheraton at LAX (9750 Airport Blvd) in L.A. Concerts include Veronica Swift singing Anita O'Day, singer Bonnie Bowden with the Dave Pell Octet, singer Pinky Winters, singer Stephanie Nakasian singing the music of June Christy and Bob Cooper, the Four Freshmen Plus Five Trombones and so much more your head will spin. For more information and tickets, go here and download the event's color program. It's wild. Or call (909) 939-0777.

Barcelona Jazz Festival. My dear friend Joan Anton Cararach—who showed me a wonderful time in Barcelona a few years ago when he invited me over in coordination with the U.S. State Department to give a series of talks—has written to say that his Barcelona Jazz Festival will begin October 6 and run through December 12. Sponsored zestfully by Voll-Damm beer, the festival this year marks its 50th anniversary. Joan also mentioned that on October 9 he will produce a special free concert to celebrate Bebo Valdés’s 100 years. For more information, go here.

I miss Bacelona—the tapas, the paella, the pata negra, the warmth of the Catalans and, most of all, those dinners that start at 11:30 p.m. and end at a martini bar around 3 a.m. If you haven't been to the city during jazz festival season, go.

Terry Gibbs. Les Johnston in Australia sent along a link to a swinging video of vibraphonist Terry Gibbs (91 at the time) in 2016 jamming with friends and family. Joined by John Campbell (piano), Mike Gurrola (bass) and son Gerry Gibbs (drums), the quartet plays Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. Here's the video (hang in until the video starts)...

John Coltrane radio. This Sunday (September 23), WKCR-NY will present its annual John Coltrane Birthday Broadcast 11:59 p.m. Saturday night and then continue day and night on Sunday until midnight. You can listen on your computer or cell phone from anywhere in the world by going here.

Radio promos. I'm a bit of a radio promo freak. Can't help it. I fell asleep every night in the 1960s and early '70s with a transistor radio under my pillow. Radio promos (you know, the things with vocal groups singing the station ID and the DJ on the air) sifted into my unconscious. I can listen to them all day long. So I was gratified when Dallas pal Bruce Collier of 90th Floor Records sent along a "shrimp bar" of promos produced by Ken R LLC for radio stations. Just click on each of the seven vocal "power-pella" samplers. You'll be instantly transported back to your feather pillow and your thumb on the volume dial (go here).

What the heck. Man, if this song doesn't take me back to 1974. When the single was out in late August of that year, I was moving into my dorm on the Fenway in Boston on a warm afternoon...

Oddball album cover of the week.

Strange angle for a cover shoot, but not if your client is the maker of Gold Bond acoustic ceiling tile. This surface was standard in most suburban basements of the '1960s and early '70s. And yes, our cover model is holding an album with the same cover as this one. A bit hypnotizing, don't you think? (Cue the Twilight Zone theme.)

Twiggy: Face of the 1960s

The British Invasion wasn't just about music. It was about fashion as well. And at the center of swinging London's Mod movement of 1966 was one petite girl—Twiggy. So how did a 5-foot 6 working-class 16-year-old from the London suburbs transform the world's runways and couture in just one year, giving fashion a more youthful feel? Twiggy: The Face of the 1960s, written and directed by Philip Priestley, answers all. It's a brilliant look at the visual half of Britain's '60s pop revolution.

Here's the documentary on Twiggymania...

Electrifying: For Europeans Only

In July 1953, drummer Louie Bellson recorded an album in Los Angeles for Norman Granz's Norgran label called Skin Deep. For the big band tracks, he assembled quite a stellar showcase of talent. The band featured Harry "Sweets" Edison, Maynard Ferguson, Conrad Gozzo and Ray Linn (tp); Hoyt Bohannon, Herbie Harper and Tommy Pederson (tb); Benny Carter and Willie Smith (as); Wardell Gray and Bumps Myers (ts); Bob Lawson (bar); Jimmy Rowles (p); Barney Kessel (g); John Simmons (b) and Louie Bellson (d).

One of the tracks they recorded was Tadd Dameron and Don Redman's For Europeans Only. Unfortunately, the arranger wasn't listed. To my ear, though, the chart sounds as if it was scored by Dameron himself. Dameron wrote the original arrangement for Don Redman's 1946 live recording of the song in Denmark.

Here's For Europeans Only, with solos by tenor saxophonist Wardell Gray, tenor saxophonist Bumps Myers, trumpeter "Sweets" Edison and pianist Jimmy Rowles...

Bonus: Here's Illinois Jacquet's big band in 1947 (with a trumpet section consisting of Miles Davis, Fats Navarro and Joe Newman) playing For Europeans Only...

And here's the original in 1946, with Don Redman introducing the song and Tadd Dameron in Denmark in 1946...

For Europeans Only

Helen Merrill With Strings

Between 1954 and 1957, singer Helen Merrill recorded five albums for Mercury's EmArcy division. Yesterday, while writing, I spent the day listening to all of them as well as a bunch of assorted tracks she recorded for the label. Perhaps the best known album of the bunch is Helen Merrill, which she recorded in December 1954 accompanied by the Clifford Brown Sextet. The second most popular EmArcy album is probably Dream of You, arranged by Gil Evans and recorded between July 1956 and February 1957. I last posted about this one in 2010 (go here).

After yesterday's listening session, I've come to the conclusion that the one that tops them all is the lesser known Helen Merrill With Strings. Recorded over three days in October 1955, Helen was accompanied by Hank Jones (p), Barry Galbraith (g), Milt Hinton (b) and Sol Gubin (d) plus a string section. The album was arranged by Richard Hayman, who would go on to become chief music arranger for the Boston Pops for more than 50 years. His early string writing here envelops Helen perfectly, making this album impossibly beautiful. Hayman clearly understood her perfectly.

Admittedly, Helen's jazz voice is different. Avoiding superficiality at all costs, Helen always found a way to travel deep into songs, more so than any other singer. She wasn't just experiencing the story set out in lyrics. She seemed simultaneously tormented and dazzled by them. There's a unique passion and sadness to her voice, but she's never maudlin. Instead, her vocal approach was in the European ballad tradition, sifting tragedy with ecstasy to reach an understanding with the song.

You do have to reset your expectations with Helen. She's a heavier trip. Most pop and jazz singing has a way of making your ear anticipate something light and swinging. That's not Helen. She's experiencing songs on so many subtle emotional levels as she sings. There's sadness, gloom, relief, regret, elation and yearning. But she isn't acting out a story. Rather, she's carefully feeling the words, trying them on and even seducing them. At times that experience is breathy. At others, she's adding power to punctuate. But don't bog down on the process. Just let her style in. Once you do, you'll find yourself enraptured by her voice and you'll hear songs differently.

On Helen With Strings, she sings Lilac Wine; Anything Goes; Mountain High, Valley Low; Beautiful Love; Comes Love; The End of a Love Affair; When I Fall in Love, (I'm Afraid) the Masquerade Is Over; Just You, Just Me; Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year; You Won't Forget Me and Wait Till You See Him. On each song, Hayman's arrangements are tailor-made for Helen's distinct vocal style. Whenever I listen to this album, I imagine arranger Ray Ellis asking Billie Holiday in 1958 for a strings album she likes best that might give him direction for their upcoming Lady in Satin session. Each time that scenario plays out, I imagine Billie, in her raspy speaking voice, mentioning this one first.

To read my interview with Helen Merrill, start here.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Helen Merrill With Strings here. If you want all of Helen's Mercury recordings, go here.

You'll also find Helen Merrill With Strings at Spotify.

JazzWax clips: Here's (I'm Afraid) The Masquerade Is Over...

And here's Kermit Goell and Fred Spielman's You Won't Forget Me...