JazzWax

Linda, Mina and Khatia

In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed actress-singer Linda Lavin for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Linda talked about her childhood in Portland, Maine, and what her musician-singer mother sacrificed by leaving the stage in New York to move north. Linda also talked about her popular late 1970s-'80s sitcom Alice. Linda, as you might imagine from her smile above, is a warm, kind sweetheart. Her new album is Love Notes. [Photo above of Linda Lavin by Bill Westmorland courtesy of Linda Lavin]

Ever the performer, here's Linda at home last October in upstate New York at her new upright piano singing Long Ago and Far Away...

Camille Bertault. Back in June 2019, I featured clips from 2015 of Camille singing John Coltrane's Giant Steps and Hank Mobley's solo on If I Should Lose You. (here and here). [Photo above of Camille Bertault courtesty of Camille Bertault]

Now here's Camille back in October in a video for her album Le Tigre...

For more on Camille, go to her site here.

Jazz From Detroit: Virtual Music Marathon. On Saturday this weekend, from 2 to 7 p.m. (ET), watch live performances by alto saxophonist Charles McPherson, pianist Randy Porter, violinist Regina Carter with pianist Xavier Davis, bassist Robert Hurst’s Black Current Jam; and Balance with Michael Malis on piano and Marcus Elliot on saxophones. Also, see interviews by Mark Stryker, host and the author of Jazz From Detroit (University of Michigan Press). The event will be held at Orchestra Hall, Detroit. [Photo above of Charles McPherson courtesy of Charles McPherson] Tickets are $9 (go here). Performances will be archived for two weeks for on-demand viewing.

Cecil Payne. Last week, Jim Eigo of Jazz Promo Services sent along a link to a rare video of baritone saxophonist Cecil Payne (above) playing All the Things You Are...

CDs you should know about:

Esther Bennett & Terence Collie—Safe Places (TC). This EP features a gorgeous collection of original songs written by English vocalist-lyricist Esther Bennett and pianist Terence Collie in collaboration with various artists. As Esther notes, the music was composed before and during the pandemic and addresses "life indoors searching for love's fulfillness, the celebration of the free spirit and the rejection of the restraints that society often demands of us." Esther and Terence are joined by bassist Richard Sadler, drummer Sophie Alloway, percussionist Matt Hodge and Duncan Lamont Jr. and Hannah Horton on saxophones and flute. I love the integrity and beauty of Esther's voice. Go here.

Here's End of Summer...

Charlie Porter—Hindsight (Origin). Trumpeter Charlie Porter has just released his third album as a leader. The new album follows Immigration Nation, which was voted by Down Beat as one of the best albums of 2020 and winner of a 2020 Grammy. According to Charlie, the new album contemplates "how we act in hindsight to deal with the collateral damage of progress, including the impact of modernization on the environment and the centuries-old struggles with racism, inequality and corruption." Joining Charlie are pianist Orrin Evans, guitarist Mike Moreno, saxophonist Nick Biello, bassists David Wong and Damian Erskine, Behn Gillece on vibes, drummer Kenneth Salters, along with several guest performers including the legendary n’goni player from Africa, Bassekou Kouyate. What I love most about this album is the emotional depth of Charlie's trumpet and the shifting styles of the original songs. Go here.

Here's a promo video...

And here's the title track...

Old New York. Director Raymond De Felitta sent along a fascinating interactive map. Just click on one of the many red dots on the map to see early photos of that location. If you live in New York or used to live here, it will be quite a revelation to see what your neighborhood looked like nearly 100 years ago. Go here.

Mina. Here's Italian pop star Mina singing You Made Me So Very Happy, in 1972...

If you love Mina as I do, here's the entire concert...

And here's Mina in her prime in 1960, singing Gino Paoli's Il Cielo in una Stanza...

Got 34 minutes? Last week I stumbled across Georgian classical pianist Khatia Buniatishvili performing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 1 in C major, Op. 15, accompanied by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra with Zubin Mehta conducting in July 2015. Astonishing confidence, technique and sensitivity. A classical rock star. Hang in until the very end.

Here she is...

Leonid & Friends: Chicago

The first time I heard Leonid & Friends, I thought for a second they were syncing to Chicago's recordings from the early 1970s. Turns out Leonid & Friends is a Russian-Ukrainian cover band with impeccable ears and talent. Leonid is Leonid Vorobyev (third from left), a Moscow producer, bassist, transcriber and arranger. In concert, the tentet recreates American hits perfectly, but they're probably best known for their precise Chicago covers. What sets them apart is that they work hard to sound exactly like the original recording. They sound just as good on Blood, Sweat & Tears and Earth, Wind & Fire—any pop-rock band with a horn section.

At the dawn of the 1970s, Chicago seemed to be on every AM radio at once. The band produced hit after hit, using a clean wash of acoustic jazz and rock. While jazz-fusion went the electric route, brass-rock bands such as Blood, Sweat & Tears; Tower of Power; Electric Flag; Chase (as in trumpeter Bill Chase); Lighthouse and others relied more heavily on jazz-driven horn sections. Ultimately, Chicago stood out thanks to their songwriting.  

For more information on the Leonid & Friends, go here. To help the performing band survive the current touring crisis caused by the Covid virus, go here. Before Covid, the band toured often in the U.S. It's anyone's guess when people will feel safe enough to return to venue seats.

For now, let's dig Leonid & Friends' Chicago catalog:

Here's Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is...

Here's Beginnings...

Here's 25 or 6 to 4...

Here's Questions 67 & 68...

Here's Make Me Smile...

Here's Dialogue (Part I & II)...

Here's Just You 'n' Me...

Here's If You Leave Me Now...

How would the band sound on Blood, Sweat & Tears? Here's Spinning Wheel...

And here's Earth, Wind & Fire's September...

September featured Leonid Vorobyev (b), Sergey Kashirin (g,lead voc), Igor Javad-Zade (d), Vlad Senchillo (p,el p), Serge Tiagnyriadno (g,backing voc), Ksenia Buzina (backing voc), Maxim Likhachev (tb), Oleg Kudryavtsev (ts), Andrey Zyl (tp), Vladimir Popov (cowbell) and Vladimir Morgovsky (strings group manager).

Buddy Rich on the Road, 1978

The Buddy Rich Big Band was the last great swing orchestra. The band toured relentlessly in the late 1960s, '70s and '80s, up until Rich's death in 1987. The band's ballads and barn-burners were compelling. What's more, the band had its own sound and featured sterling arrangements and captivating soloists. Rich's '78 band was particularly exceptional, especially on the road. 

Here's the Buddy Rich Big Band in Sweden in '78, with special guest soloists Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and Harry "Sweets" Edison in Part 2...    

Here's Part 1...

Here's Part 2...

Here's the band at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland in '78...

Here's the band in Nice, France, in '78...

And here's the band at the Umbria Jazz Festival in '78...

Bonus: Here's Buddy Rich's West Side Story Medley in 1968. The arrangement by Bill Reddie was nominated for a Grammy in '67...

Bill Evans: Live in 1972 and '73

As the early 1970s unfolded, rock became a viable album and entertainment business. National record chains sprang up, rock bands filled arenas and FM radio was ruled by young DJs spinning entire sides of new rock releases. A shadow began to fall over acoustic jazz as producers, promoters, marketers, publicists and others were let go or shifted to the rock and jazz fusion sides of major labels. Pianist Bill Evans, who throughout the 1960s looked like an accountant or advertising executive, had a midlife crisis and began to let his hair grow.

Evans's approach on the piano also changed. By 1973, he was well into what I have referred to as his "percussive poet" phase—featuring a more robust, determined feel with pronounced chord and finger strikes and an increasingly agitated, almost rushed feel. During his earlier “swinging romantic” period of the '60s, Evans tended to listen most intently to his bassists for inspiration. By the early '70s, Evans was paying closer attention to the aesthetics of his drummers, especially the cymbals and brushes, and how he wanted both to frame his sound.

Here are two newly posted videos from Evans's early long-hair period:

Here's Bill Evans, bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Marty Morell performing in São Paulo, Brazil. The video says it's 1970, but I seriously doubt the date. When the trio was in Helsinki, Finland, in 1970, they looked very different. Evans's hair was only beginning to grow long but not nearly down to his shoulders, the way it is in the São Paulo video. In addition, Marty has short hair and no mustache in Finland and Eddie hadn't yet grown his beard. I'm guessing the Brazil clip took place in 1973, when the trio toured in South America...

Here's the Bill Evans Trio at the March 1972 Grammy Awards. Andy Williams also announces that Evans was the winner of a Grammy for The Bill Evans Album on Columbia, released in September 1971. Evans actually won two that evening—for best jazz performance by a soloist and best jazz performance by a group. Months after his Grammy appearance, Evans would be released from Columbia along with Ornette Coleman, Keith Jarrett and Charles Mingus as the label put nearly all its chips on rock and jazz fusion...

A special thanks to Dave Thompson.

Alain Marquet and His Jazz Museum

In Paris, after you've hiked up many flights of stairs to Montmartre and made your way to Sacré-Cœur, the basilica that overlooks the city, walk a little further. Along Rue du Poteau, you'll find one of the city's best kept jazz secrets. There, at No. 68, is a small shop called Jazz Museum, run by Alain Marquet. The oddly named store opened in 2009 and specializes in rare jazz recordings and artifacts. [Photo above of Alain Marquet; all photos in this post by Gilles D'Elia]

I've never been to Jazz Museum and only learned about it recently from Parisian photographer Gilles D'Elia. Gilles frequents the store and was willing to pay a visit last week with his camera. Fortunately, Alain isn't camera shy. We may not be able to travel to Paris now, but thanks to Gilles, we can do the next best thing.

Here's Gilles on Jazz Museum and its swinging proprietor:

Marc, Alain is so in love with the records he owns that he often regrets selling them to customers. In other cases, he'll refuse to sell, and for good reason. His collection includes original first pressings by Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Django Reinhardt. In 2013, when the city of Paris asked Django's family for items they could include in the exhibit, "Django Reinhardt, Paris Swing," at the La Cité de la Musique, Django's family rushed to Jazz Museum to seek out material. Of course, Alain had plenty on hand. [Photo above of Alain Marquet with a picture disc signed by Brigitte Bardot]

Initially, Alain was just another avid jazz collector. Before long, his passion and collection grew so large that he ran out of room in his apartment. That's when he decided to rent space in his neighborhood. The storefront became something of a street-level attic, a cozy place where he could enjoy his collection. To bide his time while he listened to his records, Alain repaired old radios and 78-rpm record players—first for himself and then for musician friends. He knows plenty of them, since Alain is an excellent clarinetist. So much so that musicians who first came to see him at Jazz Museum to listen to his record collection began meeting to rehearse and play together. [Photo above of Alain Marquet with photos of himself and Woody Allen; the American movie director has frequented the shop for pristine recordings that he then uses in his films]

Now Alain performs with bands, but above all he's an essential Parisian jazz character. On many nights, he can be heard in his shop playing the clarinet with friends. Whether the players are professionals or amateurs, it's a distinction Alain does not seem to make, which is good.

Over time, Jazz Museum began to attract the attention of local residents. So Alain transformed his private jazz museum and meeting spot into an official shop. It is space reserved for insiders, those in the know. But the number of those in the know has grown steadily, since everyone he meets becomes a friend, and they tell others. Jazz Museum is undoubtedly one of the last places in Paris where jazz is still about rare recordings, the joy of an owner playing them for you and people pleading with him to let them buy what they just heard. Every trip is a discovery. [Photo above of Alain Marquet swinging away in his shop]

For more information, email Alain at [email protected].

JazzWax track: Here's Alain on clarinet...

Emmet Cohen Trio: Webcast Sessions

YouTube algorithms are scary. Based on what you've watched before, these formulas automatically figure out what you should watch next. If you're a frequent YouTube user, you know what I'm talking about—those video clips perched on the right-hand side like a line of cats waiting for their heads to be stroked. A week or two ago, these algorithms lined up videos by Emmet Cohen from his ongoing webcast series called Live From Emmet's Place. [Photo above, from left, Emmet Cohen, Russell Hall, Tivon Pennicott and Kyle Poole, courtesy of YouTube]

As Emmet told me in a recent email, when the going was especially tough in New York with Covid last March and nothing was happening, he started Emmet's Place with his trio, bassist Russell Hall and drummer Kyle Poole. Each Monday at 7:30 p.m. at his New York apartment, Emmet would have special guests in to jam with his trio while cameras taped. The resulting high-resolution webcasts attracted widespread attention and sponsors. Here are six of these clips (many more are online):

Here's the Emmet Cohen Trio with vocalist Cyrille Aimée singing La Vie en Rose...

Here's the trio with vocalist Catherine Russell and Ken Peplowski on tenor saxophone and clarinet on The Song is Ended...

Here's the trio playing Billy Boy and then being joined by vocalist Veronica Swift on Getting to Know You, from the King and I...

Here's Swift on Four...

Here's Aimée and the trio on Young and Foolish...

And here's the trio with Giveton Gelin on trumpet and Patrick Bartley on alto saxophone playing Emmet's You Already Know...

Emmet's latest album, Future Stride, can be found here or at Spotify.

Peter, Gilles and Dinah

Last week in The Wall Street Journal, I interviewed actor Peter Kim for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Peter co-stars with Radha Blank in the film The Forty-Year-Old Version, now on Netflix. Peter talked about his parents, hard-working South-Korean immigrants, and a music teacher in fifth grade who became his mentor and piloted him into acting school before she died while Peter was at college. He didn't learn of her passing until months later. The new film is about a Black female playwright nearing 40 who decides to become a rapper to find her own voice. Radha Blank stars. She also wrote, directed and produced the film. Peter plays her manager and best friend. [Photo above of Peter Kim, courtesy of Netflix]

Here's the trailer...

Gilles D'Elia, a photographer friend in Paris, keeps an online portfolio diary. Each day, he adds another photo that he took that day on the streets. For example, the one above was from February 18. For the rest of his fine work and visual log, go here.

Gilles also sent along an email relating to my post on the video featuring Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and Zoot Sims:

Marc, my parents were at this concert on July 19, 1975 at the Arènes de Cimiez in Nice (my hometown)! And I was there. I was 3. It's incredible, what an emotion to see this video which I did not know existed., Thank you a thousand times, my friend. I watch it (and I especially listen to it) without getting bored. Obviously, I had no memory of the music.

I don't know if you know how the Nice Jazz Festival was staged. At the time, the festival was called "La Grande Parade du Jazz." There were three stages—the main stage was known as the Arena and was where this concert was filmed. There also was a stage in the olive grove. Many on YouTube were filmed there, including concerts by Miles, Dizzy and Al Jarreau. I even saw Henri Salvador and James Brown there. And finally a smaller stage located between the two: in front of the Matisse Museum.

You'd buy a ticket good for the entire evening and walk around, stopping to listen at the stage of your choice. Each stage featured three concerts per evening. Between each concert, you could walk in the gardens and eat Niçois specialties such as Socca or Pan-Bagnat.

My friends and I knew that behind the gardens of Cimiez was a place in the gate with a hole in it. Very discreet. Then one year, they repaired the gate and we started paying. We were ready to pay because we had caught the jazz bug.

Joe Derise. Last week, following my post on Joe Derise, rock and jazz writer Michael Simmons sent along the following note:

Marc, Joe Derise was my Uncle Joe—married to my mother’s sister — and my favorite relative. I loved him dearly. He was warm, funny, supportive and, by far, the hippest. A singer, songwriter, pianist, guitarist, arranger and recording artist, he excelled at everything and lived and breathed music. He married my mother’s sister Pat Easton before I was born and was the father of my cousins Jimmy Derise and Fay Richardson. Aunt Pat was the “Jill” of their vocal group Four Jacks and a Jill in the early 1950s. Pat also sang with Woody Herman and performed a duet with Tony Bennett (when he still went by Joe Bari in the late 1940s). The song was "Vieni Qui (Come To Me)," which I believe was Tony's first released recording.

In 1965, Uncle Joe went to Manny’s Music on 48th Street in New York with my mother to pick out a guitar for my 10th birthday present. It became the most important and treasured gift of my life. By the 1970s and ‘80s, I’d regularly go see Joe perform in nightclubs. I sang with him and his combo at my sister Julie’s wedding in 1981 and it was a blast! I recall singing "The Gypsy" and "Five Minutes More. As a singer, Uncle Joe's phrasing was relaxed and natural and full of life and heart. His intonation was perfect and he always swung. I revered him as a musician and loved him as my uncle. The photo at the top features Uncle Joe at the keyboard accompanying me singing at New York's Tavern on the Green restaurant in 1981.

Alex Baird, a singer I featured last year in a post on Wes Montgomery, had some good news to share last week. She was signed by Next Records, an independent label and rights management company that provides distribution and administration services for recording artists, record labels and rights holders. Which means Alex needs funding to record. Next Records is helping with gifts at different levels of contribution. To donate to a good cause, go here.

Here's Alex talking about songwriting...

Martin Scorsese. Oliver in Dublin sent along a link from NME featuring podcaster Edgar Wright sharing director Martin Scorsese's list of 50 favorite British films. Go here. [Photo above of Martin Scorsese courtesy of IMDB]

Art Pepper. Laurie Pepper, Art Pepper's wife, has digitized the late alto saxophonist's 1979 memoir, Straight Life: The Story of Art Pepper. The classic book, written by Art and Laurie, is based on interviews Laurie conducted with her husband over a period of seven years. You can listen to an audiocast of the book here.

CDs you should know about:

Franck Amsallem—Gotham Goodbye (Jazz & People). After 20 years spent living in New York, Franck bid farewell to the city with this recording before returning to Paris. Released in 2019, the album shows off Franck's wonderful playing and chord voicing. He's joined here by tenor saxophonist Irving Acao, bassist Viktor Nyberg and drummer Gautier Garrigue. Go here.

A bit of background from Franck:

I was born in Algeria in 1961 during the independence war, and my family (all 9 of them—6 kids, parents and grandma) moved to Nice, France, in 1962. I was lucky enough to go to Berklee College of Music in Boston from 1981 to 1984 on a scholarship. Then I moved to New York in '85 and attended Manhattan School of Music on another scholarship and stayed there until 2002. I relocated to Paris in 2002, where it's easy to travel for tours and concerts. That is, until Covid 19 arrived. Since 1990, I have recorded 10 albums under my name, some with Gary Peacock, Joe Chambers, Bill Stewart and Scott Colley. All are on YouTube and streaming services.

Here's a promo video for the album...

Bianca Rossini—Rio Paradise (Apaixonada Music/BDM). Bianca, a singer who divides her time between Los Angeles and her native Rio de Janeiro, has just released a five-track EP that includes three new originals that she wrote with Peter Roberts—Mariana, Canto de Mi Tierra and Ipanema Paradise. At a time when travel and vacations are all but impossible, listen carefully and her voice and music will put you on a Rio beach. Her beautiful voice will remind you of turquoise water, silky sand, palm-tree shade and the distant sound of children playing. A sensual audio experience. Go here or Apple Music.

Here's Canto de Mi Tierra...

Canto de Mi Tierra

Chu Berry radio. On Sunday, February 21, from 2 to 7 p.m., WKCR-FM in New York will rebroadcast Sid Gribetz's five-hour retrospective on tenor saxophonist Chu Berry. Listen from anywhere in the world by going here.

And finally, here's Dinah Washington singing All of Me at the Newport Jazz Festival on July 6, 1958 backed by Don Elliott (mellophone,vib), Urbie Green (tb), Terry Gibbs (vib), Wynton Kelly (p), Paul West (b) and Max Roach (d)...

Lockjaw and Zoot in France, 1975

Imagine a concert with Dorothy Donegan on piano, Arvell Shaw on bass and Panama Francis on drums. Then add tenor saxophonists Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and Zoot Sims (above) and trumpeter Harry "Sweets" Edison in the front line. On July 19, 1975, that's exactly what happened at the Nice Jazz Festival, held at Arènes de Cimiez, a Roman amphitheater. Of the three songs taped for French TV, Out of Nowhere is particularly special, with extraordinary solos all around, including a rare muteless one by Edison.

Here's the group in 1975 playing The Man I Love, Out of Nowhere and Blues for Nice...

Johnny Pacheco (1935-2021)

Johnny Pacheco, a bandleader who championed pachanga dance music in the late 1950s and co-founded Fania Records in 1964, a label that specialized in New York Latin music and paved the way for salsa in the late '60s and early '70s, died on February 15. He was 85. [Photo above of Johnny Pacheco in the '70s]

Pacheco was important for several reasons. While many New York Latin bands in the 1960s were exploring the boogaloo—a popular form of party dance music that combined the Latin tradition and soul—Pacheco developed a flute-driven blend of son montuno and merengue. The hypnotic style grew in popularity on New York dance floors and eventually led to salsa in the late '60s as Puerto Rican influences were added. [Photo above of Johnny Pacheco and Celia Cruz in 1974, courtesy of Grammy.com and Craft Latino]

Pacheco's Fania Records and his role as music director were equally significant in helping salsa rise and thrive in the disco era. Not to mention founding the Fania All-Starsin 1968, perhaps the greatest Latin supergroup. Leading salsa artists who continued Pacheco's vision include Celia Cruz, Héctor Lavoe, Rubén Blades, Bobby Cruz, Ray Barretto, Willie Colón, Larry Harlow, Bobby Valentín, and Eddie and Charlie Palmieri.

Even if you don't speak Spanish (sadly, I don't either but I love the music just the same), Pacheco's contribution remains extraordinary in terms of the polyrhythms, vocals, arrangements, the commanding use of the piano and the incorporation of the flute and rhythmic use of strings. Ultimately, the heartfelt music and articulation matter more than the specific words.

Here are some of my favorite Johnny Pacheco recordings of the 1960s plus a bonus:

Here's Se Fue Para La Luna from Pacheco's Pacheco y Su Charanga Vol. 1 released in 1960. This is a charanga, which essentially is a cha-cha-cha with violins and flute...

Here's Que Suene La Flauta from Que Suene la Flauta Vol. 3 released in 1962...

Here's Triste Muñeca from Pacheco y Su Charanga Vol. 2 released in 1963...

Here's Las Matanceras Son from Spotlight on Pacheco Vol. 5 released in 1963...

Here's Decidido, a Latin-bossa from the same album...

Here's Latin Gravy from Latin Jam, released in 1965...

Here's No Tienes Corazón from Viva Africa released in 1966...

Here's Esto Si Se Llama Querer from Pacheco Presents Monguito released in 1967...

Here's Convergencia from Sabor Tipico released in 1967...

And here's the same song performed live in 1998 with Johnny Pacheco (right) and vocalist Pete Rodriguez...

Bonus: And this is where the music pioneered by Johnny Pacheco paid off. Here's Hector Lavoe, one of the all-time great salsa vocalists, in 1981, singing Soy Vagabundo. Lavoe was able to sing uptempo while retaining an innocent, passionate ballad style with a clipped vocal style. Remarkable...

Herman Chittison: Pride of Stride

On Monday, when I posted my 2011 interview with Chick Corea, a comment Chick made echoed. It grabbed me when I originally wrote up the interview 10 years ago, but because I was too busy editing the text and preparing it for posting, I forgot to follow up. It was one of those situations where you make a mental note but later can't remember what you were supposed to recall. The mental flag came after I asked Chick what it was like playing with Cab Calloway early on in his career. [Photo above of Herman Chittison]

Here was Chick's response:

One of the interesting sidelights to that gig with him at Boston's Mayfair Hotel is that I became aware of an incredible pianist who I listened to every night. In between shows, I went into the hotel lounge and sat near the piano. The guy playing was Herman Chittison, who played in the style of Art Tatum. He was amazing. I sat there gawking at him for the whole week

Finally, on Monday, I dug into Chittison's past and was amazed. Better late than never. After doing a little research, I discovered that in May 2002, a crowd that included family members of Herman Chittison gathered in the basement of the Fleming County Public Library in Flemingsburg, Ky., the town of Chittison's birth. Presentations were made and then the guests moved outside to look at an historical marker unveiled honoring the pianist.

Born in 1908, Chittison began playing piano with one finger at age 4. At 8, he was playing church hymns. When he was 13, Chittison attended a Methodist school in Nashville and, after high school, he was enrolled at an industrial college that would become Kentucky State University. A star stride pianist with a golden ear, Chittison moved to Cincinnati in 1928 and began playing professionally. Then it was off to Europe with Willie Lewis & His Entertainers. He soon played with the Louis Armstrong Orchestra.

Nine years later he returned to the U.S. at the start of World War II. For the remainder of his career, up until his death in 1967, Chittison led trios that backed vocalists. He also recorded a handful of solo albums. Many have equated Chittison with Art Tatum, but to my ear, he is more closely in line with the hard stride of Fats Waller. Chittison's left hand was like a bouncing piston, hammering out notes and chords in the bass clef as his right hand stitched away above on the melody. [Photo above of Fats Waller]

Chittison's recording career began in New York in 1933, backing banjo player and vocalist Ikey Robinson on two sides of a Vocalion 78. In 1934 and '38, he recorded in Paris. In New York in '41, he recorded two sides and, in '44, he recorded for World Transcriptions and on other sessions backed by guitarist Jimmy Shirley and bassist Carlton Powell. There were Musicraft sessions as well. Chittison's recording career went cold in the 1950s, resuming in 1958. A fine solo recording in 1962 called That's All! for L'Elegant Records was the first of two albums for the label. Two more for IAJRC followed, and that was it. [Photo above of Herman Chittison]

It's hard to understand why Chittison didn't become a household name. His style and technique were dazzling and robust. Perhaps he could earn more playing regularly in hotel lounges rather than recording in the studio and then touring the country in support of them. Or perhaps his piano was considered old school by the late 1940s, when bebop was ushered in. Or maybe he was too much of a perfectionist and his insistence on take after take was too much trouble and cost for major labels. History shows us that without a vast number of recordings, a musician's name fades fast, no matter how extraordinary his or her talents.

Whatever the reason for Chittison's anonymity, that's all in the past. Now you know his name.

JazzWax tracks: Herman Chittison's piano recordings between 1933 and 1950 are gathered on three Chronological Classics albums: 1933-1941 here, 1944-1945 here and 1945-1950 here. Or at eBay here.

And try to get your hands on That's All!, recorded in 1962. P.S. With Love, recorded in 1964, is available at eBay on CD.

JazzWax clips: Here's I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket recorded in Paris in 1938...

I'm Putting All My Eggs In One Basket

Here's Flamingo recorded in New York in 1941...

Flamingo

And here's That's All!, the full album (a special thanks to Danilo in Switzerland)...