On March 6 and 7 of 1961, arranger-conductor Ralph Burns assembled a top orchestra in New York, a rhythm section and saxophonist Sonny Stitt for an album that would be called The Sensual Sound of Sonny Stitt. I'm not sure what month in 1961 producer Creed Taylor arrived at Verve to become the label's recording chief, but this one may have already been in the can, since Creed's signature isn't on the back cover. Stitt plays alto and tenor saxophones, and the string arrangements are beautiful. Try a Little Tenderness, Back to My Home Town, All of You, Never Felt That Way Before, World Really Isn't, They Say It's Wonderful, Time After Time, I Love You, Once in a While and Talk to Me.
Unwell in 1981 after a European tour the year before, Count Basie decided to sit out a series of booked engagements abroad. Instead, he dispatched nine members of his band to fulfill the obligations. They called themselves the Basie All Stars.
Mind you, I'm not a big fan of leaderless pocket bands, which never stack up to the real deal. But in this case, the nonet works, largely due to the inclusion of Nat Pierce on piano and tough tenor Buddy Tate. The full group features Harry ”Sweets” Edison and Joe Newman (tp), Benny Powell (tb), Marshall Royal (as), Buddy Tate and Billy Mitchell (ts), Nat Pierce (p), John Heard (b) and Gus Johnson (d). [Photo above of Nat Pierce]
Now, Germany's NDR Kultur has released Basie All Stars: Live at Fabrik, Vol. 1, which was recorded May 5, 1981. Fabrik was (and is) a narrow performance space in a former factory in Hamburg, Germany. The ground floor hosts standing space and seats while there's more standing room around the perimeter one story up. The songs performed on the album are Bluesbird Blues, Please Send Me Someone to Love, Shiny Stockings, Everything Happens to Me,This Is All I Ask, I’m Confessin’ That I Love You and Little Pony. [Photo above of Fabrik's interior]
This album isn't essential Basie band fare but it still sounds wonderful, with arrangements adjusted to make nine players sound larger and more dimensional, even though they are half the band's customary 17 musicians. Solos by band members swing with punch and intensity, and you almost forget Pierce isn't Basie. [Photo above of Buddy Tate]
Count Basie died in 1984, but three years earlier, while he was ailing, he was well represented in the Basie tradition at Fabrik.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find Basie All Stars: Live at Fabrik, Vol. 1 (NDR Kultur) here.
In my post yesterday, I told you about Walt Namuth, a superb jazz guitarist from the Baltimore area whose finest playing wasn't recorded commercially. The problem was he became an experimental player and he detested touring, which made him an undesirable recording artist. Another spectacular jazz guitarist who disliked touring and made only a handful of recordings was Lou Mecca, a towering talent who gave up performing for a chiropractic practice when he was 35. He, too, hated the road and preferred to stick around his home town in New Jersey. [Photo above of Lou Mecca in 1970]
Mecca recorded just four albums—as a sideman with Gil Mellé for Blue Note in 1954 and 1955—The Gil Mellé Quartet Featuring Lou Mecca and Five Impressions of Color, respectively. Then he recorded his own Blue Note album called Lou Mecca Quartet. His fourth and final album was Bridging the Gap, recorded in 1999 for the Japanese Pony Canyon label in Freehold, N.J., with Mickey Golizio (b) and Nat Garratano (d).
Born in Passaic, N.J., in 1927, Mecca's first exposure to music was through his father, Nicolino, a symphonic cornetist. Lou asked his father to teach him to play, a task his father entrusted to a family friend. But, as the friend later told his father, "Forget about it, Nick, he has no lip." So at age 9, Mecca picked up a guitar at the nearby Master's School of Music. For 50 cents a lesson, he was given a bum guitar and a book. Mecca dove in.
At 16, Mecca started taking guitar lessons from Frank Staffa, who had played with Rudy Vallee in the 1930s. Mecca was a fast learner and soon quit high school to play professionally. He toured with an organ trio, followed by a group called the Californians. During World War II, he joined the Three Picketts and played regional saloons, starting with the Ball of Fire in Patterson, N.J. That night they played the six songs they knew over and over, without anyone in the audience noticing. Other local combos followed.
When he turned 18, in 1945, Mecca began touring with different groups throughout the U.S. and Canada. After recording two albums with Mellé in the early 1950s, Blue Note had him record one as a leader. But the road was wearing him out and eating into his marriage. It also wasn't paying the bills. So Mecca promised his wife he wouldn't tour again and limited his playing in the 1950s to local joints. [Photo above of Lou Mecca on guitar and an unknown bassist (unseen) and pianist, performing as Three Shades of Blue]
In 1961, at age 34, while sitting in the reception area waiting for his wife's visit to a chiropractor to end, Mecca's interest in chiropractic treatment grew. In September 1998, Mecca told Marcella De Simone of The Coast Star in Manasquan, N.J., why becoming a chiropractor appealed to him:
"I found people with all different ailments were waiting for treatment. I'd had trouble with my gall bladder and the chiropractor helped me. The chiropractor looked at my hands. He said, 'You could be a great chiropractor.' So I decided to become one." Mecca loved that a practice would mean helping people overcome ailments. He also liked that he'd be off the road.
Mecca attended chiropractic school and earned a Doctor of Chiropractic degree. Then he started a practice that lasted 25 years. After he retired in 1992, he was in a financial position to do whatever he wanted. "The very thing that I set out to do, to become financially independent so I could eliminate the business aspect of music and only have to deal with the art form, is what ended up happening," Mecca said. Mecca again began playing locally without concern for the pay and he recorded his finest album in 1999. As you'll hear, it's a shame the Japanese label didn't record him on another 10 albums.
Lou Mecca died on June 27, 2003, at age 76.
Here are six tracks by Mecca:
Here's Gil Mellé's composition Ballade for Guitar in September 1954, with Gil Mellé (bar), Lou Mecca (g), Bill Phipps (b) and Vinnie Thomas (d)...
Here's the title track from Gil Mellé's Five Impressions of Color in February 1955, with Gil Mellé (bar), Don Butterfield (tu), Lou Mecca (g), Bill Phipps (b) and Vinnie Thomas (d)...
Here's Mecca playing Just One of Those Things from his Blue Note release, Lou Mecca Quartet in March 1955, with Lou Mecca (g), Jack Hitchcock (vib), Vinnie Burke (b) and Jimmy Campbell (d)...
Here'sTenderly from his finest and rarest Mecca album, Bridging the Gap, in March 1999, with Lou Mecca (g), Mickey Golizio (b) and Nat Garratano (d). The CD is now selling for between $31 and $95...
All of the jazz musicians you know are familiar because they recorded and toured. Beyond these high-profile artists were hundreds of amazing musicians who never bothered to record because they weren't asked or weren't willing to leave home towns to tour to promote LPs. Each city had these under-recorded jazz legends who today are known only by name and reputation by those who remember them. Occasionally, if we're lucky, a tape is found or a home-made CD surfaces and we suddenly have an example of their work. [Photo above of Walt Namuth, center, in 1981]
One of these phantom legends was guitarist Walt Namuth, who recorded with a few prominent artists in the 1960s and early '70s but then preferred to stay close to home, which was Baltimore. In 1964, he recorded backing vocalist Ethel Ennis. In 1968, Namuth was hired by Buddy Rich and appears on one of the drummer's best big band albums of the period—Mercy, Mercy: Recorded Live at Caesar's Palace. He can be heard distinctly on Channel 1 Suite and he solos on Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, Preach and Teach and Big Mama Cass. His comping in the rhythm section throughout the album is a revelation. Later that year, he recorded with singer Lou Rawls on his album The Way It Was, and he recorded again with Rich on Stick It in 1972.
"So what?," you say. "Why should anyone care about this sideman vs. others?" Give a listen to this video of Namuth that Bill Kirchner sent along last week. Namuth is playing alone on There Will Never Be Another You. I guarantee you will listen to it over and over again. His chord voicings and sense of swing are spectacular...
Namuth grew up in Glen Burnie, Md., and attended music school after graduating high school. He tried to establish himself as a studio musician in Los Angeles and, in his spare time, created tapes of experimental music playing all of the instruments overdubbed. In July 1970, Earl Arnett, vocalist Ethel Ennis's second husband, writing in the Baltimore Sun, observed: "It is not easy to service this creative impulse. More than once, Mr. Namuth has offended other musicians by his insistence that the notes be played right. On other occasions, he has annoyed more established musicians by suggesting improvements. His intensity and absorption in music sometimes makes lesser musicians uncomfortable."
If you live in the Baltimore area and you have tapes of Namuth, please email me at [email protected] so I can refer you to record producers who would be interested in hearing what you have for the possible release of an album. This is how history is preserved.
Namuth died February 13, 2011, at age 68.
JazzWax tracks:Here's Namuth in July 1964 backing Ethel Ennis singing But Beautiful...
Here's Namuth with the Buddy Rich Big Band playing Channel 1 Suite...
To the best of my knowledge, Namuth recorded only one small-group album as a leader—Left Bank '66, Walter Namuth's Quintet Featuring Mickey Fields (Left Bank Jazz Society) in 1966—and as a sideman, on The Dawn (American Record Society), a 1966 album with Leslie J. Schnierer on harpsichord, Namuth on guitar and Don Bailey on drums with the St. Anthony CYO Teen Club. You can hear it for free here...
Today is the 99th anniversary of Sarah Vaughan's birth—March 27, 1924. She was the first major post-war female vocalist shaped by the bebop movement of the mid-1940s, not the swing era of the 1930s and early 1940s. And her stylistic phrasing probably had a greater influence on female vocalists who followed her than any other singer. She also left behind a vast catalog of studio and live recordings, as well as film of her in performance. Sarah Vaughan died in 1990.
Her first recording was I'll Wait and Pray, with Billy Eckstine's orchestra in 1944, at age 19. Here she is singing the song...
To celebrate the importance, excellence and joy of Vaughan, here are 10 videos that recently went up on YouTube...
Here's a colorized video of Vaughan singing The Nearness of You in 1951 for Snader Telescriptions, a company in operation between 1950 and '52 that captured performances that could later be edited into TV shows and films...
Here's Vaughan singing The Awakening and Fan My Brow in the film Murder, Inc. (1960)...
Here's Vaughan singing Polka Dots and Moonbeams in 1963 at the Antibes Jazz Festival in France, with Kirk Stuart on piano, Buster Williams on bass and George Hughes on drums...
Here she is singing Misty during the same performance...
Here she is singing The More I See You during the same performance...
Here's 26-plus minutes with Vaughan performing in Paris in October 1969 with Johnny Veiht (p), Gus Mancuso (b) and Eddy Pucci d)...
Here's Vaughan singing Day In, Day Out in November 1969 backed by the Berlin Philharmonic in November 1969, with Johnny Veiht (p), Gus Mancuso (b) and Eddy Pucci d)...
Here's Vaughan in November 1973 singing A Foggy Day,On a Clear Day and 'Round Midnight with Carl Schroeder (p), John Gianelli (b) and Jimmy Cobb (d), with Freddie Hubbard squeezed in on trumpet. Then the director seems to have flipped and the rest is a frenzy of montages...
And here's Vaughan in Italy in 1975 singing What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life?
Bonus:Here's 40 minutes of Vaughan at the Umbria Jazz Festival in Italy in 1976 with Carl Schroeder (p), Walter Booker (b) and Jimmy Cobb (d)...
This week in The Wall Street Journal, I interviewed English comedian-actor Diane Morgan (go here). Diane is best know for portraying Philomena Cunk on Netflix's Cunk on Earth, in which she plays a comedic, ill-informed truth-seeker who interviews stuffy British experts in search of answers to questions that baffle her about the history of civilization. She also plays the character with a working-class Bolton accent. The show is drop-dead hilarious. As you can imagine, interviewing Diane over Zoom was very funny. [Photo above of Diane Morgan as Philomena Cunk, courtesy of the BBC]
Rather than try to put into words how ingenious she is on Cunk on Earth, here's a taste...
Bill Crow. Following my four-part interview with legendary bassist Bill Crow last week, Geri Reichgut, who was close friends with the late pianist Marty Napoleon, sent along the image above—Marty on left, Bill on the right—with the note below:
Hi Marc, I really enjoyed reading your interview with Bill Crow, it’s been the highlight of my week! Bill is definitely a one-of-a-kind human being, as was so evident in your interview. It’s been most enlightening to read about his beginnings and gigs. As for the photo of Marty and Bill, I'll tell you how it came to be. When I learned Marty’s family in 2010 had moved him to a Glen Cove, N.Y., assisted-living facility, I immediately went over and introduced myself. I had been a fan of Marty’s for 25 years and was thrilled he was now living just five minutes from me.
I really hustled to get gigs for Marty, his trio choices were Bill Crow and drummer Ray Mosca. I convinced the Mayor of Glen Cove to hire musicians for what I called “The Gold Coast Jazz Festival.” We had some big names come to play for the three-day festival, which included Ed Polcer, Warren Vache, Bria Skonberg, Daryl Sherman and Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks. I thought you might enjoy seeing my photo of Marty and Bill just chilling in the air-conditioned makeshift green room waiting to go on stage. It was 2013 and one of the hottest Julys on record.
Thanks again for your blog posts and books. Hopefully, one of these days, after all these years of corresponding, I may actually meet you and have you autograph your books.
Gene DiNovi. Following my recent post on pianist Gene DiNovi, Andy Scott sent along the following email:
Hi Marc. Thanks for your nice piece on Gene recently. I'm happy to report that he's coming down to the Rex in Toronto to play with my quartet this Wednesday, March 29th. I've written out a bunch of the music that he was a part of in the 1940s, so it will be really fun for my quartet to play some bebop and some Aaron Sachs, Brew Moore and others. We'll be playing bop with the genuine article! I'll send you a photo after the gig! All the best and thanks for your writing.
More Gene DiNovi news. After my post, Joe Lang sent along an email for Gene's daughter, who put me in touch with her mom. When I asked Gene's wife if Gene still did interviews, she said, "Absolutely." We arranged a time, and I interviewed Gene for an hour via Zoom. Gene looks and sounds great. My interview with Gene (above) will be coming to JazzWax shortly.
Midnight Special. When the indoor, arena rock concert began to take off in the early 1970s following years as a mass, free, outdoor festival gathering, TV was quick to get into the act. Film and TV producer Burt Sugarman launched Midnight Special in 1973, and the broadcast ran 450 episodes until 1981, giving home-bound young viewers a front-row seat to the era's top acts and artists. Now the iconic TV show can be found on YouTube at its own channel here.
Here's Linda Ronstadt performing You're No Good in December 1973, a year before she released the hit song on her album, Heart Like a Wheel....
Bud Powell. On April 3, the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University will host an exclusive screening of rare footage of legendary jazz pianist Bud Powell. The Francis Paudras Collection features over 20 hours of recently digitized film, including interviews, home movies, and live performances. You can watch a curated selection from the collection, followed by a panel discussion featuring Vincent Pelote, Dr. Naomi Extra and Earl John Powell, Jr. The event will run from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. in the Dana Room at the John Cotton Dana Library (185 University Ave, Newark, N.J. 07102) and is open to the public and free of charge. However you must register in advance online here.
Johnny Pacheco radio. The World Music Department at WKCR-FM in New York is presenting a 24-hour special of the great Dominican musician Johnny Pacheco on Saturday. Pacheco was the inventor of the "Pachanga sound," a founder of Fania Records and he laid the groundwork for salsa music in the early 1970s. To listen from anywhere in the world, go here.
Sarah Vaughan radio. WKCR-FM in New York will broadcast a 24-hour special radio broadcast on Monday celebrating jazz vocalist Sarah Vaughan (above). To listen from anywhere in the world, go here.
Here's Sassy in 1965 on a local TV variety show singing Moon River. Her album, Sarah Vaughan Sings the Mancini Songbook, had just come out, with arrangements by Quincy Jones, who appears to be conducting here...
Here are the Tymes (above) singing So Much in Love, which went to No. 1 on the Billboard pop chart in August 1963...
In 1958, Dick Bock of World Pacific Records decided to put out a 12-inch compilation by Chet Baker of material released on earlier albums for the label as well as tracks previously unissued. What all of the tracks had in common was beauty and a groove. On some tracks, Bock dropped Baker's vocal and had Bill Perkins and Jimmy Giuffre overdub on different songs. This album, little-known today, was called Pretty/Groovy.
The songs on the album are...
Look for the Silver Lining
Time After Time
Travelin' Light
My Funny Valentine
There Will Never Be Another You
The Thrill Is Gone
But Not for Me
Band Aid
The Lamp Is Low
Carson City Stage
Long Ago (and Far Away)
Easy to Love
Winter Wonderland
Batter Up
The tracks were recorded between 1952 and 1957.
The personnel:
Chet Baker – trumpet, vocals
Jimmy Giuffre – clarinet (track 5)
Bill Perkins – tenor saxophone (tracks 1, 2, 4 and 7)
Russ Freeman – piano (tracks 1, 2 and 4–14)
Dave Wheat – guitar (track 3)
Joe Mondragon - bass (track 13)
Russ Saunders - bass (track 3)
Carson Smith - bass (tracks 1, 2, 4–8, 10–12 and 14)
Bob Whitlock - bass (track 9)
Larry Bunker - drums (tracks 6, 8, 10–12 and 14)
Shelly Manne - drums (track 13)
Bob Neal - drums (tracks 1, 2, 4, 5 and 7)
Bobby White - drums (track 9)
Here's Chet Baker's Pretty/Groovy without the interruption of ads...
Most non-musicians think all jazz bass players are fundamentally alike. They believe they aren't there for us but simply to keep time for the band, the way an unseen transmission is essential for a car. As one person who isn't a bass fan told me some years ago, "There's a reason they stand in the back, behind the piano." To be fair, they are indeed there to keep time for the band, like a human metronome. And in many cases, they do stand in the back or off to the side. But how exactly they keep time—for the band and for us—is where their art thrives. What performing musicians listen for is time as well as swing and edge. In other words, buoyancy. It's hard to explain, but a great bassist will cause the other musicians to levitate, spiritually. The bass is the horse the other musicians ride, depending on the style of music being played. Jazz musicians feel those notes in their spines and when they're solid and strong, those notes give the music lift. And without the bass, music would not be complete, like food without salt or flavor. The bass is essential, and your ear would miss it. [Photo above of Bill Crow]
Bill Crow has always been one of those legendary, rock-solid, uplifting bass players, like Don Bagley, Chuck Israels, Curly Russell, Tommy Potter, Oscar Pettiford, Ray Brown, Milt Hinton, Eugene Wright and so many others. For the contrapuntal groups Bill played with in the 1950s, his style, power and articulation kept the other musicians on the beam and deeply rooted as they improvised or played harmony. In a trio, Bill framed pianists like Marian McPartland beautifully, reminding them where the fence was as they roamed. And in big bands, Bill locked the rhythm section in the pocket. I'm overjoyed to be reunited with Bill this week through our interview.
Here's Part 4—the final part of my four-part series of interviews with Bill Crow:
JazzWax: Two performances I wanted to ask you about. The first is you with Duke Ellington in 1958. How did that come about? Bill Crow: The Gerry Mulligan Quartet had a concert opposite Duke Ellington at Lewisohn Stadium on the campus of the City College of New York on July 24, 1958. As we're standing there backstage waiting for Duke to go on so we could listen, we saw Duke looking around. He couldn't find his bassist Jimmy Woode. And he was looking up at the sky, because it looked like it might rain. So he came over to me. I was standing there with my bass. He took me by the sleeve and said, "Come with me." Out we go onto the stage and he led me to the bass stand, which was right next to the piano in front of the trombone section. Sam Woodyard was the drummer.
JW: Were you flipping out? BC: A little, but this band was my ideal. To be asked to play with the Duke Ellington Orchestra in 1958 was beyond thrilling. As Duke took me onstage, I walked with him as if in a dream. At the spot Duke left me, I saw the bass book on the floor underneath the stand. As I started to bend down to get it, trombonist Britt Woodman leaned over and said, "Don't do that. That's all been changed." I turned to look at him. He said, "For this first number, just hang around B-flat. We'll tell you when to change."
JW: What happened next? BC: We started on a rhythm tune in B-flat. Then the trombone section started hollering chords to me. After the first couple of chords, I could see where the song was going, so it wasn't that hard of a structure. Meanwhile, Duke was out front doing his thing. He had sense enough to call his older tunes, but when he called an unfamiliar ballad, I really needed the music.
JW: Uh-oh. BC: Instead of giving me a part for those, he did something else that was clever. He was at the piano right beside me, so just before I needed a note, he'd point to it on the keyboard. I would play that note. And as soon as he saw I was getting his messages, he just led me through the whole tune that way by pointing to the notes without playing them.
JW: Do you remember what tune it was? BC: I have no idea. Just some ballad.
JW: How did the band sound? BC: Glorious. I had such a big grin on my face and was obviously enjoying myself. So much so that Gerry's nose got a little bit out of joint.
JW: Why? BC: Afterward, he came over to me backstage and said, "How come you don't have that much fun playing with my band?" I said, "Oh come on, Gerry, don't throw a wet blanket on my good time. You get to play with Duke all the time. This was my one shot."
JW: Ever run into Duke again? BC: About a month later, the sextet was in French Lick, Ind., at a jazz festival, and I'm standing waiting for the elevator. The door opens and out stepped Duke. He said, "Oh, Mr. Crow. I never did remunerate you for your excellent services at Lewisohn Stadium that day." I said, "Duke, that was the thrill of my life. It was my pleasure.” And we both bowed to each other.
JW: The other performance—or performances—I'm curious about were in 1962. What the heck happened on the Benny Goodman band during its Soviet Union tour that year? BC: As you know, I wrote about it in my book. But here’s the short version: On our tour heading to Moscow and other Soviet cities, everybody in the band had their guard up a little bit. We'd all heard the many stories about Benny's odd temper and personality. Pianist John Bunch was the one who told Benny to hire drummer Mel Lewis and me because we were in Gerry Mulligan's big band at the time. John and Benny agreed we played awfully well together.
JW: What happened early on? BC: We had several rehearsals in New York, and then we did two concerts on the way out to Seattle. We were heading there to play a week at the Seattle World's Fair as a break-in before flying to the Soviet Union. By the time our week in Seattle was over, we were ready to kill Benny.
JW: Why? BC: A short illustration was Benny's unfortunate habit of moving players in sections around so he could figure out what each guy did well. Which was unnerving once you're on the road, since everyone liked to get set and comfortable with their part. When Benny was putting the band together, he insisted on having Jimmy Maxwell as his lead trumpet player. Jimmy was an old friend of his and had played with with him many times. At the time, he was happy playing in the band backing NBC’s Perry Como Show. He told Benny he really didn’t want to go out on tour.
JW: So Benny offered Maxwell more money? BC: Not quite. Benny called David Sarnoff, NBC's founder, and asked him to lean on Jimmy. Additional pressure was needed. Benny offered to take Jimmy's son along with us, so he agreed to go. Then Benny brought in trumpeters Joe Newman, Joe Wilder and Johnny Frosk. These guys were all great players, but Benny started to do dumb things on the bandstand in front of audiences.
JW: Like what? BC: Between songs, he'd motion to the brass section and say, "Jimmy, give John your part." This went on for several concerts. By the time we reached the Soviet Union, Jimmy was playing fourth trumpet. He was the most expensive fourth trumpet player Benny ever had. Benny wanted to put it to Jimmy for not immediately jumping at the opportunity to be on the band and for making him spend time putting the squeeze on. Benny was just a weird guy like that. And they were old friends!
JW: So he would just rattle musicians for sport because he could? BC: That was it. Then he brought along pianist Teddy Wilson, who had been with Benny since the early 1930s. At the last minute, he insisted that John Bunch play in the band instead. John had been advising him on putting the band together, and Benny was afraid Teddy wouldn't sound modern enough if he bought arrangements from contemporary arrangers. It wasn't handled elegantly and without any care for Teddy's time or feelings. It was Benny being Benny.
JW: Obviously you guys are disgusted and on edge based on how Benny's is snapping the proverbial towel. BC: Yeah. And by the time we reached the end of the Seattle leg, we had joyous Joya Sherrill lined up to be the featured vocalist. A beautiful set of songs was put together for her. Joya opened with a combination of two tunes—Riding High and Shooting High. Al Cohn’s chart really burned. It was wonderful. The band understood it and played it well. After this medley, I had a bass vamp that opened her next song. It could go on as long as needed until the audience stopped applauding and settled back down. The vamp also allowed her to go into her next tune anytime she wanted, audience noise permitting. For some reason, Benny grew to hate the arrangement. [Photo above of Joya Sherrill on what must be the Benny Goodman Soviet Union tour, since that's Bill Crow on bass on the left and guitarist Turk Van Lake on the right]
JW: Why? BC: I don't think he liked that Joya was such a big hit with audiences. So what he did was take away her opening number and had her start with the second number—the medium-paced one with the bass vamp. Instead of letting me start the bass vamp while she walked out and got settled, he would announce her without my vamp or the band playing. She'd walk out to the microphone and have to stand there in silence as Benny thought about the tempo for around 10 seconds. Then he'd turn to me and count off the tempo, and I would start the vamp. Which means she had to stand there for four bars until I finished before she could start her vocal. Benny killed the excitement and drama leading up to her appearance. Despite his antics, she was a big hit with audiences.
JW: She must have been happy about that. BC: He wasn't finished with her. Then he started fooling around by going back into his band book and pulling out old Fletcher Henderson charts. On those, the vocalist had the third chorus after two by the band. He wanted her to sing on a couple of those that were arranged originally for Martha Tilton. She said, "Mr. Goodman, I have my material. I'm not the band singer, I'm the featured vocalist." Benny just looked at her. From then on, they weren't speaking. When we came back, he told RCA producer George Avakian not to use her vocals on the album that was going to be released. She wasn't even in the liner notes as part of the tour.
JW: Good God. So when you get to Moscow, the band's mood must have been sour. BC: Oh, yeah. We were fed up with him trying to bring the band down. He had good players in there, and we were all there to play for him. But if Phil Woods, for example, played great and got a great audience reaction, Benny wouldn't have him play that chart again. Things like that.
JW: What ultimately happened? BC: Everything I just told you took place in the early weeks of the tour. During the early days, management handed us contracts to sign that they said were necessary in order for us to get paid. The front page was about our pay. The remaining three pages sounded like we were joining the Army. They included all the things we were agreeing not to do, and that violations gave management the option not to pay in full or at all. There also were options on our services for around three months after we got back to the States. If signed, we'd have to postpone booking work until the time period elapsed for fear of being needed and in violation of the agreement.
JW: What did you do? BC: I said to a musician friend on the band, "I don't think he needs the back pages of this contract, and I'm not going to sign anything without legal advice because I don't trust him." Originally, they were just going to hand us checks in Moscow. We said, "What are we going to do with that?" So they had arranged for us to have some of our pay sent home to our families while we were away.
JW: What about those contracts? BC: During the last couple of weeks of the tour, management put their foot down, "You’ve got to sign these contracts or no more paychecks." We still refused to sign. We were in Leningrad by then. It finally came down to whether or not we were going to sign the first page and throw away the rest. Most of us signed just the first page. Then Joe Wilder discovered that when he got his paycheck, they had deducted the steamer trunk he'd brought along. We all knew this was crap because Benny wasn't paying for any of this stuff, the U.S. State Department was. They sponsored the trip. We refused to go on stage until we were given our paychecks. And so they cut them and we went on and played.
JW: How were the performances in Leningrad? BC: The thing that stuck in my mind most about Leningrad was the decision to have us perform with American classical pianist Byron Janis. He had just had enormous success playing two major concertos and was ready to fly home. Predictably, Benny screwed around. He didn't like having to bend to another artist he felt was less popular. The original deal was that Benny would not only present jazz on stage, he'd also play some classical music, which mollified Soviet bureaucrats fearful of wild audiences and riots if we played just jazz. So during our first week in Moscow, Benny was supposed to get together and rehearse with the Moscow Philharmonic.
JW: And? BC: Benny still hadn't decided which of the three pieces he wanted to play. He kept changing his mind. By the time we got to Sochi, the Soviet Union's largest resort city, Benny had changed his mind so many times that the Moscow Philharmonic felt a draft and canceled the performance. [Photo above of Joya Sherrill and Turk Van Lake off the coast of what I believe is Sochi in the former Soviet Union]
JW: Where did that leave you? BC: The State Department was in a panic and leaned in. The result was we'd play the Ferde Grofé arrangement of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue in Leningrad, and Byron Janis would play the piano part. Which meant Byron had to stay in Russia a few days longer than he intended. The State Department liaison spoke to him and he agreed to do it. We had one rehearsal, with Byron looking for Benny to conduct. But Benny never made a move and stood behind the piano's lid. Byron kept saying, "Mr. Goodman, I can't see you." So every tempo change was a train wreck because Benny wasn't conducting to keep everyone in sync, with Byron was looking to him for the next tempo change.
JW: Was Benny doing this on purpose? BC: Who knows. Probably another ego issue: "Oh, this guy thinks he's better than me and wants me to wave a stick. I don't think so. If you're so good, figure it out yourself. I'm a global sensation, you're not. They're here to see me." Or some variation of that thought process regarding ego and stardom.
JW: So who was the bigger jerk, Benny Goodman or Stan Getz? BC: Oh, Benny.
JW: Bigger scale? BC: And bigger stakes. As for that Benny-Byron get-together, we were supposed to straighten all that out on the second rehearsal. Then Benny canceled the rehearsal to go fishing.
JW: And the concert? BC: Byron wanted to take a walk before the concert to clear his head, but the State Department prevailed on him not to. There was too much at stake, diplomatically. "All right," he said, "but the piano must remain where I've marked it, and I have to be on the first half of the concert so I can catch my plane." The State Department assured him all was good.
JW: Why am I sensing this story doesn't end well? BC: Benny walked on stage that night and, during the first half of the concert, he didn't say a word about Byron. He also had the piano moved into a position he favored for Teddy Wilson. When the curtain came down on the first half, Byron was back there ready to kill him. They finally put him on but the piano wasn't where he'd marked it. And once again, he can't see Benny and ends up trying to conduct the damn thing himself with his left hand. He probably played worse than he ever had in his life that night. Then he stormed off stage seemingly ready to murder Benny. After the tour, Time magazine printed a long letter from Byron on what an asshole Benny had been.
JW: We could talk for days about your many great albums. We didn't even touch on Bob Brookmeyer's The Street Swingers (1957), the Gerry Mulligan Quartet with Art Farmer recordings, you recording with Swedish baritone saxophonist Lars Gullin (1959), Gerry Mulligan's Concert Jazz Band [starting in 1960], and so many other terrific albums that followed. Did you ever take lessons? BC: I did finally have to get to a teacher. When I got with Gerry in the 1950s, I'd never heard anyone talk about studying the bass, except Trigger Alpert, who had mentioned he was studying with somebody. So I called Trigger and got the teacher's name—Fred Zimmermann, who was with the New York Philharmonic. This is in the mid-1950s. I studied with him whenever I was in town. I didn't know how to use the bow until he showed me how to hold it and what to do with it.
JW: Did you have to undo some things? BC: A few. But Fred taught me a fingering system that I didn't know existed and showed me how to be accurate in the upper register and all that sort of thing. He was very helpful.
JazzWax notes: For more on Duke Ellington and the Gerry Mulligan Sextet at Lewisohn Stadium, go here.
I highly recommend Bill Crow's books: From Birdland to Broadway (here) and Jazz Anecdotes: Second Time Around (here).
JazzWax tracks: Here's the title track from The Street Swingers (1957), with Bob Brookmeyer on piano, Jim Hall and Jimmy Raney (g), Bill Crow (b) and Osie Johnson (d)...
Here's the full album of News From Blueport (1959), with Gerry Mulligan (bs), Art Farmer (tp), Bill Crow (b) and Dave Bailey (d). Dig Bill's solo on Just in Time...
Here's the full album of Gerry Mulligan and the Concert Jazz Band at the Village Vanguard (1961), with Bill Crow on bass...
And here's one of my favorite contemporary Bill Crow albums: Reprise : Marian McPartland's Hickory House Trio, featuring Marian McPartland (p), Bill Crow (b) and Joe Morello (d), playing Falling in Love With Love, recorded live at Birdland in September 1998...
Here's the same song with the same personnel in 1955...
In the early 1950s, Bill Crow began to develop a style and prominent sound on the bass while playing and recording with some of the era's finest East Coast jazz musicians. Yesterday, Bill and I talked about his year with Stan Getz. Today, Bill talks the evolution of his career working with Al Haig, Jimmy Raney, Marian McPartland, Jackie Cain and Roy Kral, Phil Woods, Sal Salvador, Sam Most and Gerry Mulligan. Along the way, he developed a reputation for being a warm, straight-up muscular player. His sound was thick, punchy and pronounced, making him a forceful time-keeper for both the ensembles he was in and the tapping feet of audiences. As you listen to Bill's recordings, you'll find that the activity of your foot is actually motivated by his swinging bass lines. [Photo above of Bill Crow in Greenwich Village in 1958]
Here's Part 3 of my interview with Bill Crow:
JazzWax: Why did Stan Getz let you go in 1953? Bill Crow: The band had evolved two or three times. And by '53, we had pianist Johnny Williams, drummer Al Levitt, Bob Brokmeyer on valve trombone, Stan and me. That particular rhythm section had never gelled. We played some hot things that you can hear on those early records, but Johnny wanted to be up on top of the beat all the time. He was constantly like, "Come on. Come on. Come on," and "shuffle, shuffle, shuffle." His rhythmic feel was very forward. Al liked to lay back and smooth things out. And I was kind of in the middle of their tug of war. I didn't know which way to go.
JW: Too tough to be where Johnny Williams wanted you? BC: I tried to move up but I never seemed to satisfy him and never felt that the rhythm section was as tight as some of the others we'd had.
JW: How did it go down? BC: After a job in Philadelphia in ‘53, Stan came up to me and said, "Look, we're going out to the West Coast and I want to get [bassist] Teddy Kotick to come back with the band. I don't have the two weeks’ notice to give you, but I hope you'll see what my problem is, that I don't want to take you out for two weeks and then send you home."
JW: What did you say? BC: I said, "No, that's cool. Just let this be the end of it." I drove back up to New York that night and went into Charlie’s Tavern feeling very glum. There, I ran into Winston Welch, who was with Claude Thornhill's band at the time. I said, "What's happening, Winston?" He said, "Oh, we just lost our bass player." I said, "Teddy Kotick’s going with Stan Getz." He said, "Oh, does that mean you're open?" I said, "Sure." He called the band’s manager, and I went right onto Claude’s band.
JW: That was a nice band. BC: Oh, it was a wonderful band. Trumpeters Dale Pierce, Sonny Rich and Dick Sherman were in there, Billy Ver Planck was on trombone, the saxophones were Gene Quill and Ralph Aldridge on altos, Red Norman and Dave Figg on tenors, and Dick Zubak on baritone. I was there on the road with the band for about seven months doing one-nighters. I loved Claude. He was a bizarre man, but he was a darling guy.
JW: Why bizarre? BC: He didn't like the limelight. If the band had a hit record, Claude would go fishing for a couple of months until things died down a little bit. He hated all of the attention that accompanied good press.
JW: Thornhill is the father of mood music, Claude and Paul Weston. Was he influenced by Gil Evans? BC: Claude loved Gil Evans's writing, including his lush stuff. Claude had a way with the piano. No matter how rotten the pianos were on those road trips, he'd come in and run a couple of chromatic scales and find all the notes he never wanted to hear again. By fooling around with the soft pedal, He would get some little chime notes that sounded beautiful. He’d tuck those into the arrangements and not play too much when the pianos were bad.
JW: In 1954, you recorded one of the great piano trio albums, what originally was called The Al Haig Trio and became Jazz Will-O'-the Wisp, with Al Haig on piano, you on bass and Lee Abrams on drums. Extraordinary music. How did that come about? BC: I lived in Greenwich Village at the time. One day my phone rang and it was Jerry Newman, the recording engineer. He said, "Hey, this guy from Paris is in town with some money and wants to record Al Haig for the French Swing label. Can you come up tonight?" I must have been the first bassist who answered the call. I said yes because I admired Al, but I'd never met him or Lee before that date. We all went up to Jerry’s studio. Jerry was into some kick of wanting to record everything with one microphone.
JW: What did he do? BC: He placed the mic over the topless piano and stood me on a box in the curve of the piano so I’d be as close to the mic as possible. Then he kept moving Lee back until Lee ended up sitting in the doorway across the room
JW: The album sounds great. BC: I was still just playing by ear. Al would play three or four bars of some standard tune and say, "You know this?" I'd say, "Yeah." We would record it with no run-throughs, nothing. I never got a chance to find out what chord substitutions Al was going to use or how he was going to do the tune. And every one of those things was one take. We recorded nine songs for Swing. And as I'm playing, I'm hearing notes all the way through that I wish to God I hadn't played. But I didn't get a second chance.
JW: But many more songs were recorded that night on March 13, 1954, yes? BC: Well, we got through the nine-song date so quickly that Jerry said, "Hey, Jesus, we still have a couple of hours left. Why don't we do an album for my Esoteric label in the States?" Al said, "Sure." He sat down and we did another 13 tunes. Eight of those were originally released in the U.S. on Jerry's 10-inch Esoteric label. Jerry eventually released all 13 songs recorded for the U.S. portion of the session on a 12-inch LP for his renamed Counterpoint label. That was Jazz Will-O-the-Wisp. Al had recorded three solo songs, which were included.
JW: You're right: Don't Blame Me, April in Paris and My Old Flame. BC: Even though we wound up recording two albums, I only got paid for the one French date. Jerry slipped one in there.
JW: In the summer of 1954, you wind up with the Jimmy Raney Ensemble. That’s another unbelievable group. BC: That was wonderful. We rehearsed down at Jimmy's apartment in Greenwich Village. Sal Salvador came down and took the photo that's on the cover of the album. Then we went over to Rudy Van Gelder's parents’ house in Hackensack, N.J., where he had his studio then. He didn't have a piano then, which was perfect since we didn't have a piano in the group. That was the first time I played with trumpeter John Wilson and alto saxophonist Phil Woods. Joe Morello was the drummer. I knew Phil through Joe, because they were all from the Springfield, Mass., area.
JW: How did that group sound compared to the Stan Getz Quintet? BC: It was much more aggressive because of Phil. He had that strong, lead-player's edge. And John was more laid back on the time, but they worked well together.
JW: Without a piano in there, did more rest on your shoulders? BC: I just followed Jimmy Raney. I figured if I could match his chords, I was all set. Joe was an interesting drummer. I was working with him and Marian McPartland around this time at Manhattan’s Hickory House. It was easy for people to drop in there. We were in the middle of a big oval bar and people would come and have a drink and listen to the jazz. It was an audition for Joe and me to see how we worked as a rhythm section. We got hired by people that would come in and listen to us and think that we played well together. We wound up doing albums with Jimmy, Jackie and Roy, and others. [Photo above of Marian McPartland at the Hickory House with Bill Crow on bass and Joe Morello on drums, courtesy of Bill Crow]
JW: What were Jackie Cain and Roy Kral like to work with? BC: Wonderful. I knew them because when I was in the Army in 1948, I went to see Charlie Ventura's band with Jackie and Roy several times when stationed at Fort Meade, Md., between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. My Army buddies and I got friendly with the guys on the band just because we were hanging around so much. Charlie Ventura's brother, Benny, was very kind to us. He was playing baritone sax. We also got to know Jackie and Roy and drummer Ed Shaughnessy, mainly.
JW: Speaking of Jackie and Roy, you record with guitarist Barry Galbraith on Jackie and Roy's Storyville album in 1955 that included Mountain Greenery. How did Galbraith differ from Jimmy Raney? BC: I got to know him in the studios as a very good sight reader, but I didn't really think of him as having a particular style of his own, because the job was to figure out the music and get it played during the time you were in the studio. But I always felt he had really solid rhythm and a nice selection of voicings for chords.
JW: What did Marian McPartland teach you? BC: She modulated all over the place. She liked to play in all the sharp keys. I was scuffling with my technique at that time. I didn't know what the fingering system was on the bass other than what I'd figured out for myself. So sometimes, you'd get into keys with her that didn't have many open strings in the scale, like D-flat and F-sharp. But it was really good for me because by the time I got off of that group and joined Gerry Mulligan, my technique had improved tremendously.
JW: Is that because of things that other musicians showed you or because you worked hard and figured it out? BC: I finally found a teacher who gave me a better fingering system and taught me to use the bow. When I went with Gerry in 1956 and found out that there were parts he had written that started in the upper register, I had no idea how to find those notes accurately without working my way up to them. As long as I was able to pick out my own lines, I could construct something musical that was within my technical grasp.
JW: How did you wind up with the Gerry Mulligan Sextet in '56? BC: Bob Brookmeyer recommended me. Which was weird, since he was the one who recommended that Stan fire me. Three years earlier he felt the rhythm section wasn't hot enough and complained to Stan. Stan said, "Well, what do you think we should do?" And Bob said, "Well, maybe we should go back to Teddy Kotick." [Photo above, from left, of Bill Crow, Gerry Mulligan and Bob Brookmeyer]
JW: Then why would he turn around and recommend you to Gerry? BC: When he was on the West Coast, Gerry had established that he wanted guys who were more interested in accompanying others on the bandstand rather than just soloing. He found Chico Hamilton, who was good that way, and two or three bass players who he had played with out there. So when he came back to New York, his original sextet was trumpeter Idrees Sulieman, tenor saxophonist Zoot Sims, valve trombonist Bobby Brookmeyer, bassist Peck Morrison and drummer Dave Bailey. Idrees didn't stay too long, so Gerry got trumpeter Jon Eardley, and then Peck had a chance to go with Johnny Hodges or somebody. Gerry and Bobby were wondering who they should get on bass. Bobby said, "Well, Bill Crow's there. And he may be the kind of bass player you're looking for. He has good ears, and he’s an an accompanist."
JW: What happened? BC: Gerry or Bob reached out to me and I gave Marian my two weeks’ notice. I said to her, "I loved this job with you, but I can't pass up the chance to go play with Gerry, Bobby and Zoot." She understood. In fact, after I'd been with Gerry for six or eight months, we had a disagreement about something that didn't have anything to do with the music, and I quit.
JW: And? BC: Marian immediately hired me back at the Hickory House and I stayed.
JW: What was the disagreement with Mulligan about? BC: About me not giving the group enough attitude on the bass. Many of Gerry's originals were based on another song that I knew. So most of his originals were lyrical and easy. They didn't usually give me anything written out to follow. Once in a while, Gerry would have a lead sheet.
JW: How was Zoot in that group? What made him special? BC: It's his spirit. Besides the years and the technique under his belt, he had a spirit for swing that he tried to inject into everything he played. In fact, I was with him on some pub crawls in Europe where he would end up so drunk he couldn't articulate fast phrases, but he could still swing on his horn.
JW: In 1956, you recorded Musically Yours with flutist and clarinetist Sam Most. Nice player, yes? BC: Yeah, Sam was a sweet guy. He didn't stay around New York too long. He went out to the West Coast, and I didn't seem him again. But we did get that one album made.
JW: You also recorded with Sal Salvador on Shades of Sal Salvador for Bethlehem in October 1956. Then you went back with Mulligan? BC: I did. I stayed with the sextet until the sextet became a quartet. And then I left. I was only away for couple of years when Gerry called me up in 1958. He said, "I'm putting together a new quartet with Art Farmer. Do you want to be on it?" I said, sure. So we got ready for the Newport Jazz Festival. That was a nice stretch. We did some European tours with that group.
JW: Backing up, the earlier quartet recorded for World Pacific in 1956. BC: Oh, yeah, in Boston. Owner Dick Bock was really an amazing guy. Gerry told me that when he had his original quartet at the Haig in L.A. in the summer of 1952, Bock came in and told Gerry, "Oh man, I love this band. Where can I buy a record?" Gerry said, "We haven't recorded yet." Gerry said, "How much does it cost to make a record?" I think they did it for $300 or $400. That quartet's 10-inch record got Dick's Pacific Jazz label off the ground.
JW: How was Dick to work with in Boston? BC: When Dick Bock came up there to record us, he was really grateful to Gerry, who had created a career for him. He paid us for the album and gave us bonuses because it was near Christmas and he took us out to dinner. He brought Bill Claxton along to do the cover shoot. Bill spread reflective paper on the floor and stood on a ladder while we looked up. It was a play on cover photo that Dave Pell took of the the first Gerry Mulligan Quartet in 1952 for the Pacific Jazz cover by standing on a ladder and shooting down. We took the photo after the last set.
JazzWax tracks: Here are a bunch of Bill's recordings covered in this post:
Here's Bill with the Al Haig Trio on the full Jazz Will-O-the-Wisp...
Here's Marian McPartland live at the Hickory House with Bill on bass and Joe Morello on drums...
Here's Bill with the Jimmy Raney Ensemble playing Stella by Starlight...
Here's Bill with Jackie and Roy on Mountain Greenery...
Here'sTwo Sleepy People from Shades of Sal Salvador with Eddie Costa (p), Sal Salvador (g), Bill Crow (b) and Joe Morello (d)...
Here's the Gerry Mulligan Sextet playing Elevation, with Don Ferrara (tp), Bob Brookmeyer (v-tb), Zoot Sims (ts), Gerry Mulligan (bar), Bill Crow (b) and Dave Bailey (d)...
And here's the entire Gerry Mulligan Quartet Live at Storyville...
And here's the Gerry Mulligan Quartet at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958, with Mulligan (bs), Art Farmer (tp), Bill Crow (b) and Dave Bailey (d)...
Bill Crow came to the bass accidentally in 1950. But he was ready for the challenge. Within two years, he was recording with Claude Thornhill and then Stan Getz. But Bill was no ordinary bassist. Listening to the Stan Getz recordings today. he's the second loudest instrument after Getz, his right hand driving the band and keeping firm time with those strong thump-thump-thumps. [Photo above of Bill Crow with Bob Brookmeyer]
In Part 1 yesterday, we learned where and how Bill grew up, and why he kept switching instruments. Today, I talk with Bill about his year with Stan Getz in 1952 and '53. Hanging on by his fingernails, as Bill put it, he managed to hold his own with Getz's groups. We also learn about Getz's unfortunate dark side. While we'll never know why a musician who played as beautifully and soulfully as Getz could be as cruel as he was, Bill shares stories about the tenor saxophonist's puzzling behavior and actions.
Here's Part 2 of my interview with the legendary bassist Bill Crow....
JazzWax: When and how did you switch from the valve trombone to the bass? Bill Crow: In the summer of 1950, I went up to Tupper Lake, N.Y., to play with Buzzy Bridgeford, the drummer from Olympia, Wash., who brought me to New York. He had a gig up there, and the owner of the summer resort wouldn't pay to hire a bass player. Buzzy went out and rented a bass for the season for $20 from some kid. He put it on the bandstand and said, "Anybody not taking a chorus has to try to play bass. I can't stand playing without a bass player." We were a quintet— Marty Bell was on trumpet, I was on valve trombone, Fred Greenwell was on tenor sax, John Benson Brooks was on piano and Buzzy was on drums. I quickly became the bass player by the end of the summer.
JW: Wait a second, Bill. You make it sound too easy. How do you put down the valve trombone, pick up the bass—a completely different instrument—and learn it by the end of the summer? BC: By trying not to sound bad. My learning curve on the instrument happened on the bandstand. I picked the thing up and I knew how to tune it and where the notes were. I could hear when I put my fingers on the strings where the next note was supposed to be. I would just play up the E-string to where the A-string started and then up the A-string to where the D-string started and up the G-string maybe as far as the neck, to a D or an E flat. I was OK. I could find the appropriate bass notes within that range as long as I had to. I had a great ear for bass lines. That was the thing. I'd been listening to bass lines all my life.
JW: And by the end of the summer of 1950? BC: I could find my way around on tunes by ear sufficiently enough to start taking club dates. Back in New York, I was at Charlie’s Tavern looking for gigs but didn't have a bass. The one that I used in Tupper Lake remained there. If I got a gig, I’d run over to an instrument-rental store off Sixth Avenue and lease a bass for $5 for the weekend. Then I’d rush down to Jack Silver's and rent a tux for $5 for the weekend. The job paid $15 or $20, allowing me to live on the surplus. I also went to a lot of jam sessions where I could practice on somebody else's bass. It was usually pretty easy to get some time to play because on these jam sessions, there would be a piano player, a bass player and a drummer backing 15 tenor players. They would all line up and play 15 courses each and the bass player would get tired. I volunteered to play as soon as that happened.
JW: Strong hands? BC: I developed a strong right hand at the time. My left hand was a bit disabled because I had run it through a glass door accidentally when I was a kid and cut the tendons and some nerves. Fortunately, I had a brilliant doctor in Seattle who put everything back together and had me go through a little rehab to get it working. My little finger was numb and weak, so I wasn't using it too much when I first started to play bass. Actually, it was bass playing that got that hand back around to being normal again.
JW: How do you wind up with Stan Getz in 1952? BC: Through the jam-session connections I’d made. Vibraphonist and producer Teddy Charles got me the gig. When those first piano-less Gerry Mulligan Quartet records on Pacific Jazz hit in late '52, I was with Stan down in Baltimore. He was just changing the quintet by bringing on valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer. But Bob hadn't joined yet, so Johnny Mandel was subbing for him for two weeks. When we heard those Mulligan Quartet things, Johnny wrote a couple of them out for Stan's group. So we were playing songs like Line for Lyons. I remember Stan saying something like, "Oh, wouldn't it be great to put these two groups together?" A jazz journalist misunderstood his remark and published it as a possibility. When Gerry read it in Downbeat, he said, "Tell Stan to go get his own band." [Photo above of Stan Getz in the early 1950s]
JW: But it wasn’t inconceivable, right? BC: Right. That's what Gerry wound up doing later with his sextet that included Zoot Sims and Bob Brookmeyer.
JW: Stan was ahead of the curve on that sound, yes? BC: I was there when that all went on. On the East Coast in '51, he had Al Haig on piano, Jimmy Raney on guitar, Teddy Kotick on bass and Tiny Kahn on drums, Then he went out to the West Coast alone in the late summer of '52 and his East Coast group was inactive for a while. So everybody went their own way. Jimmy ended up with the Red Norvo Trio. At the time, I was still with Teddy Charles.
JW: What happened when Stan came back East? BC: He called Jimmy Raney and said, "I’ve got a week in Boston. Roy Haynes is up there, so we'll use him on drums. And I got a piano player. Why don't you get a bass player and come on up?" Jimmy asked me if I wanted to do it. I said, "Sure." That was my introduction to Stan's new quintet.
JW: Was Duke Jordan the piano player? BC: No, that week in Boston it was Jerry Kaminsky, a wonderful player from Pittsburgh. Sadly, Peter wound up drinking himself to death. Stan always had good piano players. Even though Gerry Mulligan dropped the piano, that didn’t stop Stan from using one. Gerry's decision to drop the keyboard was partly out of logistics. The piano at the Haig, where they played in Los Angeles, wasn’t very good. And the club could only afford four guys. Gerry wanted to be able to harmonize and do the contrapuntal things that he was doing behind other people's solos. He thought that he could do without the piano to get the sound he wanted, and his approach really changed the jazz world.
JW: When you get up to Boston and you’re playing with Stan's new quintet, how do you feel about what you're hearing? BC: I hadn't been playing bass very long, and I was just trying to learn what everybody was doing. Jimmy was very helpful. He showed me chord substitutions that he'd learned from Al Haig that were smoother. As soon as Stan wanted to play Stella by Starlight and other standards that Norman Granz wanted for his Clef label, Stan showed me the chords he wanted. It was like going to school for me. I had no critical point of view. I was just hanging on by my fingernails trying to make the gig and keep up with these guys.
JW: Stan could really take off. Everything was very uptempo. BC: He and Jimmy Raney had a fantastic blend there. Jimmy brought in a new tune and Stan sight-read it. They were playing in unison and sounded like one horn. When Jimmy left, Brookmeyer came on the band, Stan changed his sound slightly to blend with the trombone where before he'd been blending with the guitar. It was fascinating.
JW: How was Stan to work with? BC: Musically, he was very generous. It was funny, I always felt that Stan was under some kind of a personal cloud as a tenor player. He felt that Al Cohn was the genius of composition and invention as far as solos went. And he thought Zoot could out-swing anybody. In fact, somebody once asked him, "Who's your ideal saxophone player?" He said, "Zoot's time, Al's ideas and my technique." But he told me once, "I never had any trouble playing anything I could think of. The problem is trying to think of things." So the struggles were the ideas rather than the technique or sound.
JW: Did he improve in that area over time? BC: He didn't upgrade his ability to invent. He knew he could play anything he could think of, but he thought that Al Cohn's improvised inventions were the best thing around.
JW: Any frustration about that on his part? BC: I felt that when he talked about playing and how he thought about himself as a star soloist, he felt he didn't deserve to be more important in the jazz world than Al Cohn. And yet he always was, as far as the public was concerned, because of that smooth sound and probably his good looks.
JW: Wow, I never thought I'd hear the word humility and Stan Getz in the same sentence. BC: Stan was a complicated guy. My take on him was that Stan saw himself as a good boy, the way he presented himself to his parents and all that. But behind that image, there was a lot of complicated anger, frustration and unrestrained compulsion. That side often came out when he got high. He was one of the few evil junkies I ever knew. Most junkies got very passive when they got high. Stan’s dark side would come out and he’d do mean things to people.
JW: For example? BC: In early 1953, he hired Dick Sherman to join the quartet on trumpet at Birdland. He knew Dick was a sometime junkie who was trying to kick his habit. Stan paid him for the gig in heroin. That's just evil. I also know he came on to other musicians’ wives to try to prove to those musicians how bad the women were. He was a misogynist.
JW: Any idea why someone like Getz would behave that way? Or is it just ambition combined with frustration? BC: Reality problems, maybe? I don't know. It would take a psychiatrist to figure it out. But the way it manifested itself was that you'd see him do a lot of really crappy things to people. There was a druggist in Washington, D.C. who loved Stan and would give him anything for free except hard drugs. He also would see to it that Stan got to the right doctors if he got sick. He even took care of Stan's cars when Stan was on the West Coast. Stan ended up burning him some way. He was just trying to show people how it could be. Or maybe he didn't want people to like him because he didn't like himself. That all came out of his junkie side. I was lucky. I was single at the time and in way over my head on that band, musically.
JW: Did Stan ever lean into you? BC: Sometimes he'd take advantage of me. Like the time he was too drunk to drive home to Levittown, N.Y. He asked me to drive him home in his car, inviting me to stay overnight. But then he had me take the subway home. That didn't hurt my feelings. He had a lovely family at the time. I didn't mind, because I didn't have anything else to do. And I liked him, and I liked his family, so he never did anything really bad to me, except fire me without notice. I sort of expected that all along because I figured at some point he was going to want a better bass player.
JW: I'll ask you about that in a minute. How did you know when Stan was high? BC: His pupils would be pinned, and he had a certain look around his mouth that looked a little kind of restrained and dry. It was a different expression. Jimmy Raney and I always knew when he was using. Stan had promised him that he wasn't going to get high anymore. And when Jimmy saw that he was loaded at this record date at the end of 1952, Jimmy called Stan into the men's room and gave him his notice. That was the end of Jimmy on that group. None of us in the studio that day knew what had gone on in the bathroom, since Jimmy came back, picked up his guitar and played beautifully. Jimmy called me the next day and told me what had happened and that he was going to work with Jimmy Lyons at the Blue Angel on Manhattan's East Side. So that was the end of Jimmy in the group.
JW: Who was left? BC: The remainder of the group was Duke Jordan, me and Kenny Clarke. We worked some gigs just as a quartet for a couple of weeks. Then Duke and Klook [Kenny Clarke] got a gig somewhere else and left. I don't think they were too happy with Stan because they felt adrift. Stan was not kind. I don't really know how to say this. I know Clark Terry used to always freeze when you'd mentioned Stan, and I got the feeling that it was about race. And even though Stan admired those guys and loved their playing and all of that, he wasn't easy around them. And they certainly must have felt it.
JW: So strange. BC: He gave off bad vibes to an awful lot of people, even Zoot.
JW: Do you think Stan knew he was cruel or did he feel he was just being his unfiltered self, take it or leave it, because his ego was so large due to public and media admiration? BC: He was an equal-opportunity harasser. Everybody was on edge, especially if he had any power over you. If he could hire or fire you or if he could get you busted, he knew he held that power. I know there was one incident where he came up out of Birdland on his break, jumped in his car and drove up to 110th Street to buy drugs and came right back down. Two detectives were waiting for him and got in the car with him and found the junk he'd bought and were ready to run him in. He gave them his innocent plea. He told me about this, but said it was the baby shoes hanging on his rear-view mirror that really got to them, and they let him go.
JW: So he positioned himself as a family man? BC: Yeah, and he said that what he did was just a childish mistake, a youthful error.
JW: That was a close call. BC: It was a close call. But there was an even closer call. As soon as the detectives left with his junk, he went right back up to 110th Street to buy again. Word traveled fast by pay phone in that world. The guys selling him the junk got word that detectives had talked to him and must have thought he was returning to rat them out. Otherwise, why would the detectives have let him go, they thought. Keep in mind, the retaliation for that sort of thing was quite often to put something lethal in the junk, and that's the end of you. One of the dealers surely was ready to do just that, but someone must have talked him out of it. Otherwise, Stan would have been dead. That was the word on the street, anyway. As an addict, Stan took those kinds of reckless chances. I'm not sure what compelled him, whether it was the junk or just the thrill of escaping another terrible situation or both.
JW: Sounds like he was a prisoner of the addiction and himself. BC: In that world, a lot of guys were caught up in it. Not all of them got second and third changes like Stan, though.
JW: Those Stan Getz Quartet recordings, the live ones and the studio stuff, are so swinging and pretty. It must have been a lot of fun. BC: Oh, it was. I was thrilled to death. I tell you, on some of those little intros that Duke Jordan would play, we would stand there holding our breath because they were so gorgeously constructed, and you almost hated to come in. When Miles Davis published his autobiography in 1989 and trashed Duke, I couldn't imagine what he had in mind. Duke was such a beautiful musician
JW: You were still so new to the bass. Did you ever have imposter syndrome—fearing that Stan or someone in the group was going to realize it? BC: I felt like I was scuffling with the instrument, technically, because I hadn't had any lessons. I just figured it out for myself. But I had good ears. I could really hear the notes I wanted to play in advance. Sometimes, I couldn't find them quickly enough, but I knew what would sound great. As a soloist, it wasn't an issue for me because Stan could see I wasn't ready to play on their level. He'd occasionally throw me eight bars to solo on or something like that, and I would do my best. But they liked the fact that I could play hard solid rhythm and that my lines were good.
JW: Did the group have a following with younger jazz fans? BC: Stan enjoyed a particularly good position at that time. His rep had been built on his solos with Woody Herman and the relaxed records he made with guitarist Johnny Smith. New York radio DJ Symphony Sid was playing all that stuff. The seductive Lester Young-influenced style was true of a number of guys, like Allen Eager and Zoot Sims. But the fact that Stan was so handsome just charmed everybody he dealt with. That's true of both his audiences and the people who hired him. They gave him the kind of freedom as an artist that none of his peers had at that moment. He could get up on the bandstand and play anything he wanted to, including a set of awful pop tunes and nobody would complain.
JazzWax tracks: Here's Strike Up the Band live at Carnegie Hall in November 1952, featuring Stan Getz (ts), Duke Jordan (p), Jimmy Raney (g), Bill Crow (b) and Frank Isola (d)...
The first album Stan Getz recorded for Norman Granz was Stan Getz Plays in December 1952. The session featured Getz (ts), Duke Jordan (p), Jimmy Raney (g), Bill Crow (b) and Frank Isola (d). Here'sStella by Starlight. Listen how nice and big and in the pocket Bill's bass playing was...
Here'sMoonlight in Vermont live at Boston's Hi-Hat club in March 1953, with Bob Brookmeyer (v-tb), Stan Getz (ts), Duke Jordan (p), Bill Crow (b) and Frank Isola (d)...
And here'sRustic Hop for Clef in April 1953, featuring Bob Brookmeyer (v-tb), Stan Getz (ts), John Williams (p), Bill Crow (b) and Al Levitt (d)...
Bonus: Want the entire Stan Getz Plays album with Bill on bass? The tracks are Stella by Starlight, Time on My Hands, 'Tis Autumn, The Way You Look Tonight, Lover Come Back to Me, Body and Soul, Stars Fell on Alabama, You Turned the Tables on Me, Thanks for the Memory, Gigi Gryce's Hymn of the Orient, These Foolish Things and How Deep Is the Ocean. Go here...
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.
