Before satellite radio of the 2000s, the proliferation of FM in the 1970s and popularity of Top 40 programming in the 1960s, radio stations licensed extended prerecorded discs of music called archival transcriptions to air as specials. [Photo above of Peggy Lee in the 1950s]

When radio first became popular in the 1920s, the music that listeners heard on local stations was provided by live musicians playing in the studio. With the rise of recorded music on phonograph records, radio stations licensed these transcriptions on 16-inch, 33 1/3 rpm vinyl discs for extended play. These discs were produced only for radio air-play, and the music wasn’t sold to the public until decades later.

Among these transcription companies was the World Broadcasting System, founded in 1929. In 1955, WBS recorded 49 masters by singer Peggy Lee backed by a range of West Coast jazz and pop musicians. This Lee material first surfaced on the Audiophile label in October 2017 as a two-CD set entitled World Broadcasting Recordings 1955. Vinyl followed in July 2021 on Org Music as a limited-edition color LP for Record Store Day.

Now, Peggy Lee Associates has released Too Marvelous for Words, a newly restored and remastered digital-only set of the singer’s World Broadcasting transcription tracks recorded in 1955. The 49 songs are a treasure trove of music, featuring Lee singing American songbook standards. Not only does the new release sound warm and clear, but also half of the songs were recorded only once by Lee, including Autumn in New York, What Is This Thing Called Love? and Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’.

More importantly, they feature Lee during a key period in her career—transitioning from eager and demure jazz-pop singer at Decca in the early and mid-1950s to laid-back superstar vocalist and sex symbol at Capitol in the LP and TV era of the late 1950s and early 1960s. You’ll find the new album at Spotify and other digital service providers.

Recorded over four sessions in February and August 1955 for the World Broadcasting System, the dates feature unidentified small groups. The musicians are thought to include Bill Pitman (g), Bob Whitlock or Don Prell (b), poss. Gene DiNovi (p), Stella Castellucci (harp), Larry Bunker or Ray Rivera (d) and Jack Constanzo (bgo). The only drawback are the arrangements, which tend to be wooden compared with her later swinging Capitol recordings.

Intimate ballads feature Lee influenced by Billie Holiday and backed by a wandering trumpet. Mid- and up-tempo songs include a Latin feel with bongos.

By 1957, Lee had re-signed with Capitol and began recording LPs with fresher arrangements. These Capitol albums include The Man I Love, Jump for Joy and Things Are Swingin’.

From the new WBS transcription album, here’s I May Be Wrong (but I Think You’re Wonderful)…

Here’s Mountain Greenery…

And here’s Speak Low…

Bonus: Here’s Lee in 1955 in the film Pete Kelly’s Blues…

Here’s Lee in 1955 recording He’s a Tramp for Lady & the Tramp…

For comparison between 1955 and 1958, here’s Lee in 1958 for Capitol singing Life Is For Livin’, from Things Are Swingin’, arranged and conducted by Jack Marshall…

What makes New York special is that everything big happens here all at once. It’s where exceptionalism comes to leave its mark in food, fashion, finance, the arts, sports, entertainment, architecture, technology and writing. [Photo above and below of New York by Marc Myers]

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Today is a national holiday in the U.S. The day has long been known in the black community as Juneteenth and commemorates the moment in 1865 when slavery officially ended.

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Abdullah Ibrahim, a South African jazz pianist also known as Dollar Brand who brought a distinct and gentle spiritualism to his compositions and improvisation, died on June 15. He was 91. [Photo above of Abdullah Ibrahim, courtesy of the Kurland Agency]

In 2011, I interviewed Abdullah for JazzWax. In tribute to his passing, I’m reprising my interview with him here, along with clips down below:

***

The name Abdullah Ibrahim (also known as Dollar Brand) may or may not be familiar to you. The South African pianist comes to jazz from creative pressures that are different from most American jazz artists.

Ibrahim grew up in the 1940s and ‘50s under the African country’s brutal segregationist system of apartheid, which was in place from 1948 to 1993. His music celebrates American jazz but echoes his own cultural background and hardships in Africa.

As is evident on his latest album, Sotho Blue, Abdullah works from a rich and gentle spiritual tablet.

I was so moved by Abdullah’s album Sotho Blue with his band, Ekaya, that I wanted to reach out to tell him so. From South Africa, Abdullah generously took time out to answer my e-mailed questions.

JazzWax: You started playing professionally in South Africa in 1949 and began recording with the Tuxedo Slickers Orchestra in 1954, yes?
Abdullah Ibrahim: Yes. The Tuxedo Slickers was a big-band based in Cape Town’s District Six—one of the communities that the government later in the 1970s declared for whites only. Sixty-thousand life-long black residents were forcibly removed to townships. Back then, we played concerts and dance shows, with opening acts, vocal groups that were inspired by the Delta Rhythm Boys, and traditional choral music.

JW: What type of music did you play with the Tuxedo Slickers?
AI: We used Tuxedo Junction as our signature tune. We also played Tommy Dorsey’s Song of India, Glenn Miller’s Moonlight Serenade and songs by Joe Liggins, Count Basie and Erskine Hawkins, who co-wrote Tuxedo Junction. Years later, I visited Hawkins’ home in Birmingham, Alabama, to pay my respects. We also played Xhosa and Zulu traditional music, and a keyboard style called Marabi that combined jazz, blues and ragtime with our music. I still play this form today. When the New York members of my band, Ekaya, visit, they call it South African r&b chord changes. Back in the early ‘50s, the Tuxedo Slickers’ arranger Caleb Ndimande wrote original African charts. He also wrote arrangements of jazz songs. I recall a very complex chart of pianist George Wallington’s Lemon Drop. We had heard Dizzy Gillespie’s recording.

JW: Given South Africa’s horrible apartheid policy back in the ‘50s, how did you perform there and record? Did the government try to prevent this?
AI: The apartheid regime was ruthless in controlling our daily movement. You’d need permits to travel anywhere and you always faced imminent arrest. We sneaked out of safe houses to jam with other musicians. We also organized our own community concerts. Then the white-owned recording companies would rip off naive and uninformed musicians and record their music without acknowledgment or compensation.

JW: How did you become familiar with American jazz in South Africa in the 1950s?
AI: We listened to Voice of America jazz programs hosted by Willis Conover. We also listened to local weekly jazz programs on the radio as well as LPs.

JW: Where was one of the most unusual places you heard American jazz in South Africa?
AI: The local ice-cream van blared Louis Jordan and his Tympani Five.

JW: How did you develop your style?
AI: Our local jazz hero, alto saxophonist Kippie Moketsi, was classically trained and played elaborate pieces such as Mozart’s clarinet concerto. On LP, I heard pianists Jimmy Yancey, Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis. They inspired me to woodshed boogie-woogie, developing left-hand independence and synchronizing it with traditional rhythms, leaving my right hand free to fly anywhere.

JW: What is the origin of the name “Dollar Brand?”
AI: My original last name was Brand. I was given my nickname while hanging out in Cape Town Harbor as a teen. I’d befriend African-American sailors, who were manning merchant vessels. They gave me a few dollars and the name stuck. I changed my name in the mid-70s when I converted to Islam.

JW: When you moved to Europe in 1962, did you find audiences there more receptive to your style of jazz? How did you escape South Africa?
AI: In the aftermath of the Sharpville Massacre of March 1960, the regime became even more oppressive. We joined the wave of people, young and old, leaving the country in 1962. European audiences and musicians were very receptive to what I was playing. Some were hostile, especially when I became identified as an avant-garde musician. But it was the feeling of total creative liberation. It was a wonderful feeling to finally present music written in South Africa, without worrying about restrictions, the market and political and social pressures.

JW: Whose music did you relate to most?
AI: Duke Ellington’s. Duke, for us, was always the wise old man of the village. Our link with the African-American community started with our local African Methodist Episcopal church in South Africa, of which my grandmother was a founding member. Missionaries and bishops from Mother Bethel in Philadelphia had been sent there as missionaries. Duke’s music embodied for us our common struggle and experience.

JW: Ellington must have been viewed as more than a great musician, as a cultural hero.
AI: He was. Similarly, we also had celebrated Joe Louis’ victories. I recall listening over and over to King Joe, also known as the Joe Louis Blues, recorded by the Count Basie Orchestra in 1941, with Langston Hughes’ lyrics and Paul Robeson on vocals.

JW: Your new album [in 2011], Sotho Blue, has a beautiful, soulful feel. Where did you compose many of the songs?
AI: We try to be as sincere as possible in our daily lives and in our music. Compositions have no fixed location or time limits.

JW: Do you view the music you create as jazz or as a different form born in South Africa with South African traditions?
AI: In the words of our illustrious poet Rumi, “There is only one sound, everything else is echo.”

Here’s Abdullah Ibrahim playing Blue Bolero, Signal on the Hill and Once Upon a Midnight in 2022 as part of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series…

Here’s the complete Abdullah Ibrahim With Carlos Ward - Live At Sweet Basil Vol. 1. in 1983…

Here’s Abdullah and Max Roach on the full Streams of Consciousness album in 1977…

Here’s African Space in 1974…

Here’s Is Where It’s Happening from Abdullah’s Mannenberg album in 1974…

Two of my favorite Maynard Ferguson albums are A Message From Newport and Maynard ‘63, both on the Roulette label. The former was recorded and released in 1958 while the latter was recorded in March 1962 and issued in 1963. Today, I want to look at Maynard ‘63.

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In 1979, I spent the fall hitchhiking alone through Europe. I had graduated from college that spring and, with my savings, headed off on an adventure before my work life began.

Much of my time on the road that October was devoted to thumbing through Wales, spending nights at youth hostels. I loved that the country was way off the beaten path and that there was a storied respect for long-distance hiking. Within a week, I found Wales to be an enchanting and bewitching place where sheep outnumber residents, the countryside was a vivid green even in the autumn, the people were warm and generous, and anything could happen, usually for the better.

Today, of course, you’d have to be crazy to do something like that, but back then, the world was still pretty quaint. Drivers gave young foreigners like me a lift without fear of being murdered. Most were curious and asked lots of questions. In Wales, some of those who picked me up whisked me home for a hot lunch.

Some days I’d wind up having two lunches—since the next lift took me home as well. Everyone wanted to know all about New York, whether I knew French Connection star Gene Hackman, and whether the city was like it looked on TV cop shows. My New York accent was their entertainment and I was treated as if I had stepped out of their television set.

Fast forward to August 1995. Back then, the Kenny Barron Trio was on a brief tour of the U.K. and wound up in Brecon, Wales, at the Christ College Auditorium as part of the Brecon Jazz Festival.

Only about 7,500 people lived there in 1995. As I recall from a lunch at a Brecon pub, the town is quaint and sits just north of Wales’s largest mountain range, the Brecon Beacons. In the summer, it’s a popular destination for Welsh vacationers. [Photo above of Brecon, courtesy of the Brecon Town Council]

At the time, the trio consisted of Kenny Barron (p), Ray Drummond (b) and Ben Riley (d). Now, Elemental Music has released So Many Lovely Things: Live in Brecon, the trio’s previously unissued concert at the Brecon Jazz Festival.

The music comes from the Jordi Suñol Archives. For 60 years, the Barcelona-based producer has organized tours, booked festivals and concerts, and produced his own events, taping them with permission along the way and releasing them with the blessing of the musicians or their estates.

Throughout his career, Jordi has amassed an archive of nearly 1,000 taped performance recordings in Europe that have never been commercially available and only recently were digitized and catalogued for release.

Produced by Jordi and Zev Feldman, this new release is astonishing in so many ways. You’ll find it on a limited-edition 2-LP set on 180-gram vinyl. The recording also is also out on a 2-CD set, and via digital download plus streaming.

In many respects, Kenny took over where Oscar Peterson left off, swinging like mad and performing with a muscular and magical technique. On many of the new album’s tracks, there are sections where you can’t believe what you’re hearing.

The tracks:

• Oh, Look at Me Now (Joe Bushkin / John DeVries)

• Up Jumped Spring (Freddie Hubbard)

• Shuffle Boil (Thelonious Monk)

• Time Was (Gabriel Luna / Miguel Prado / Bob Russell)

• Silent Rain (Kenny Barron)

• Ask Me Now (Thelonious Monk)

• Nikara’s Song (Kenny Barron)

• The Surrey With the Fringe on Top (Richard Rodgers / Oscar Hammerstein II)

• The Very Thought of You (Ray Noble)

• Canadian Sunset (Norman Gimbel / Eddie Heywood)

Some of the tracks that stand out are Up Jumped Spring, the Monk pieces Shuffle Boil and Ask Me Now. But to be honest, this is a perfect album, and choosing favorites seems almost absurd. The entire concert was breathtaking, and the trio works together beautifully.

I can’t recall the last time I heard such a terrific piano trio album. There’s so much going on, and the fidelity is warm and sterling, as if recorded in a studio. Kenny, Ray and Ben keep the music compelling throughout.

To buy the vinyl, go here. To buy the CD, download or stream, go here.

Here’s Up Jumped Spring…

And here’s Ask Me Now…

For every great jazz saxophonist recording in the 1950s, there were dozens of others who were highly gifted but struggled to carve out a name for themselves. Many went into R&B as sidemen, where they found steady work touring and recording with headline artists.

One of these musicians was Fred Jackson. Born in Atlanta in 1929, he played with Little Richard in the early 1950s and accompanied vocalists Billy Wright and Lloyd Price. His recording career began in 1949 as a jump-blues sideman on sessions led by baritone saxophonist Paul Williams for Savoy.

Jackson’s first album for Blue Note as a sideman was on organist Baby Face Willett’s Face to Face in 1961. He also recorded on two albums led by organist Big John Patton—Along Came John (1963) and The Way I Feel (1964).

His sole leadership album was Hootin’ ‘n Tootin,’ recorded for Blue Note in February 1962. The band featured Fred Jackson (ts), Earl Van Dyke (p,org), Willie Jones (g) and Wilbert Hogan (d). The tracks are Dippin’ in the Bag, Southern Exposure, Preach Brother, Hootin’ ‘n Tootin’, Easin’ on Down, That’s Where It’s At and Way Down Home.

Van Dyke, of course, would go on to become a member of Motown’s Funk Brothers, the label’s studio band. Jones was a notable pianist from Chicago and Hogan had perhaps the highest profile of the musicians on the session, playing with Lionel Hampton’s and Ray Charles’s big bands.

Another seven originals were recorded by Jackson for Blue Note in April 1962 for a second album. This date included Fred Jackson (ts), Earl Van Dyke (org), Willie Jones (g), Sam Jones (b), Wilbert Hogan (d) and unknown (cga-1,shaker-1). The tracks were Stretchin’ Out, Mr. B.J., Egypt Land, Teena, On the Spot, Minor Exposure and Little Freddie.

But these songs were never released on a second Blue Note album. Instead, the tracks were added to the CD release of Hootin’ ‘n Tootin’ in 1998.

Jackson had a singular forceful sound, especially on the blues, and he was a terrific composer. All of the tracks on the first and second Blue Note sessions were originals.

So why was his Blue Note career short-lived? My guess is that the label decided instead to put its resources behind tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine, who had a stronger jazz feel. Both musicians had a similar forceful sound and both had come up through R&B in the 1950s.

Fred Jackson is in his late 90s.

Blue Note’s Tone Poet series has released this one on 180-gram vinyl here.

Here’s Hootin’ ‘n Tootin,’ with the tracks from both sessions (if they don’t play though in the embed, you’ll find the complete Blue Note tracks here)…

Every June in Manhattan, the New York Philharmonic performs a live free concert on Central Park’s Great Lawn. Yes, classical music is still a thing among families who love sitting outside in the evening on blankets on the expansive grass space listening to a live orchestra through a huge speaker system. I passed by in the afternoon of June 10 just after they had finished setting up the stage for that evening. [Photo above and photos below of fireworks by Marc Myers]

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Born Albert Atkinson in Chattanooga, Tenn., in 1922, A.K. Salim was a composer, arranger and, for a time, an alto saxophonist. His recording career began as an arranger for Gene Ammons in 1947, moving on to Illinois Jacquet in 1952 and Count Basie in 1949, ‘52 and ‘54.

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Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie gave Lalo Schifrin his first big break. To show his love and appreciation, Lalo wrote Gillespie a suite in 1959 called Gillespiana. The six movements were first recorded by Gillespie and his 16-piece orchestra for Verve in November 1960. [Photo above of Dizzy Gillespie and Lalo Schifrin]

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One of arranger-composer Johnny Richards’s many masterpieces in the LP era was Cuban Fire!, a 12-inch album recorded by the Stan Kenton orchestra in 1956. Richards’s six Afro-Cuban pieces for the band form the movements of a suite, and the album today is widely considered a masterpiece.

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On Saturdays in 1971, I began traveling by myself on a commuter rail line to buy jazz records in Manhattan. It was an hour-long ride, and I was 14. When the train slid to a halt at Grand Central Terminal, I typically spent the first hour in the AR Demonstration Room (above, in 1970).

This space was a glass-walled room perched above the terminal’s main concourse. It was set up in 1959 by Acoustic Research, a Cambridge, Mass.-based company that manufactured high-end audio equipment.

Inside the room, you could hear the high-fidelity playback of AR’s top speaker models, including the AR-3a, AR-5 and AR-6 models—driven by glowing AR amplifiers, Dual turntables and Dynaco electronics.

At this point in time, component stereo equipment was just becoming more affordable with increased competition from Japanese and German makers of turntables, amps and speakers. You could buy different brands for your set-up or stick with the same brand for all of your gear.

But I wasn’t in the AR Demo Room for gear. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I lusted after the stuff. All jazz fans did. My problem was that the gear was still out of my reach, financially, despite all of my saved cash from snow-shoveling, mowing lawns, painting houses, cleaning gutters and repaving driveways.

Instead, I was at AR to hear one single track on one specific album through those speakers. The album they had for demos that I loved was the Buddy Rich Big Band’s Mercy, Mercy (1968), a live LP recorded at Caesars Palace. The track I loved to hear was Channel One Suite. I was elevated listening to that amazing piece blaring through those speakers and it primed me for the vinyl hunt that followed before I returned home in the afternoon.

Channel One Suite was composed and arranged for the band by trumpeter Bill Reddie, who wasn’t in the band. Here’s what trumpeter Bobby Shew told me in an interview in 2010. Bobby often sat in with the Rich band during Vegas club performances.

JW: Who was Bill Reddie?

BS: Bill led the house band at the Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas. Back then, all the big hotels had floorshows. Today, a floorshow seems passe compared to all the digital technology and larger-than-life stuff you see. But back then, a floorshow was an extravaganza. That's how the Vegas casino-hotels attracted guests, with homegrown entertainment. You'd have headliners, of course. But you'd also have these elaborate musical revues with dancers and orchestras. Reddie was the guy responsible for coming up with songs and skits and things for the Dunes. West Side Story Medley, with all its moving parts, was a natural for an arranger like Reddie.

JW: Was West Side Story Medley tricky for Rich, who didn’t read music?

BS: We rehearsed it with a different drummer while Buddy sat in the audience seats. It took us a few hours to put it together after rehearsing the different sections. After we had it down, Buddy jumped up and played it through without a single mistake. He had memorized the whole thing. The guy had the most natural instincts.

JW: What about Reddie’s other charts?

BS: After West Side Story Medley became popular, he brought in Channel One Suite and Machine. They were taken out of his Casino De Paris show at the Dunes. I know because I played both of them there when I sat in.

JW: What was the origin of Channel One Suite?

BS: The Dunes show included a paper prop of a humongous TV screen. Showgirls came through the back of it. The channel on the prop was set to Channel 1. Bill just took that piece and brought it into Buddy’s band. It was a great chart.

JW: The same thing with Machine?

BS: Yes. On the Casino De Paris stage, they had a machine set up. You know, The Octopus ride they used to have at amusement parks in the 1960s? It was black, with all these mechanized tentacles and open cars attached. People would sit in the cars and get whizzed around when the tentacles started moving. Except in the revue, showgirls were in the cars. The song Bill wrote for this was called Machine.

JW: Reddie was a good writer?

BS: A hell of a writer.

The track still gives me the chills and often motivates me to drum along with Rich using my thumbs on my desk. Then I catch myself and stop.

To read my JazzWax interview with trumpeter Bobby Shew on Buddy Rich, go here.

Two tracks for you today and lots of videos. Here’s the album version of Channel One Suite with Don Menza playing the iconic tenor saxophone solo…

And here’s the Rich Band in 1969 playing Channel One Suite. Stick with it. It’s an astonishing clip, for Rich’s drumming alone. His solo is sharp, on edge and jaw-dropping. The stunning tenor saxophone solo here on the ballad portion is by Pat LaBarbera, followed later by alto saxophonist Richie Cole…

Bonus: I love this 1969-’70 period for Rich’s road band. Here’s the band in 1970 in Copenhagen, but you have to click “Watch on YouTube” so view…

Here’s the band in Paris in 1970…

Here’s another great Channel One Suite in Berlin with another fabulous solo by Pat (at 07:22 on the time bar), with a tip of the hat Sonny Rollins (click on Watch at YouTube)…

Here’s the band in Norway in 1970…

And here’s Rich’s 1968 band in Copenhagen, with Don Menza on lead tenor saxophone and a great version of West Side Story Medley…

Duke Ellington was late, but Dizzy Gillespie knew he’d show. I was 15 on that warm Saturday, August 15, 1972, and was already in love with jazz. Late that afternoon, I was standing behind the outdoor stage inches from Dizzy Gillspie, who was conversing with Stan Getz. We were on the sprawling grounds of Lyndhurst Mansion, an estate once owned by Jay Gould in Irvington, N.Y. I couldn’t believe my good fortune. [Photo above of a 32-year-old Queen Elizabeth II meeting a 59-year-old Duke Ellington ]

Getz had arranged a benefit concert to help raise money for the family of his son’s friend, Brian Sheldrake, a high school sophomore. Both of Sheldrake’s arms had been amputated at the shoulder four months earlier. We were virtually the same age, so his catastrophic accident hit home. [Photo above of Lyndhurt Mansion]

That spring, Sheldrake had climbed a utility pole to take pictures of the Hudson River. He fell into high tension, 11,000‐volt wires along the railroad tracks leading into New York City. This same railroad line appears in many movies, including North by Northwest. His fall into the wires also resulted in losing part of his foot.

The outdoor concert was scheduled to start at 6 and had sold out all 4,500 tickets. I had arrived at the venue super-early. Ellington was due to go on first since he and his band had to get back to Manhattan’s Rainbow Room, where they were performing.

When Ellington’s limo rolled slowly across the grass, kids like me surrounded the door eager to have something signed. I had a piano book of his most popular songs that I was learning on the piano. [Publicity still above of Duke Ellington]

When Duke got out, he seemed to be followed by a half-dozen women. It was something to see, since they were all dressed in evening wear. But rather than make time for eager kids, Ellington brushed us all off gruffly and headed to the stage where the band had already taken their seats.

It took me years to forget that snub. I never played that Ellington piano book again and moved on to the Bill Evans. I didn’t resume buying Ellington albums again until the late 1980s. Yesterday, on a similarly warm day outside, I listened to two of my favorites: The Queen’s Suite (1959) and …And His Mother Called Him Bill (1967).

The former is one of the oddest recordings in Ellington’s discography. Ellington first met Queen Elizabeth II in October 1958 at the Leeds Centenary Music Festival in Yorkshire, England. Following a cordial and mildly flirtatious exchange, Ellington promised to compose music for her.

The following year, he and collaborator Billy Strayhorn completed the work and the band recorded The Queen’s Suite. Only one gold copy was pressed. Ellington reimbursed Columbia Records the $2,500 production cost. The disc was sent directly to Buckingham Palace for the Queen’s ears only, along with a personal, hand-written note. Ellington was ensured it wouldn’t be released publicly until after his death.

The original master tapes later became part of Ellington’s commercial catalog at Columbia. In 1976, two years after his passing, the suite was finally released on the compilation album The Ellington Suites by Norman Granz’s Pablo label. The music remains as elegant and sensual as its original intent. The work combines formality with the graceful sass he saw in her.

…And His Mother Called Him Bill was recorded for RCA in the fall of 1968, a tribute to Billy Strayhorn, who had died in May at age 51 of cancer. The album featured Strayhorn compositions, among them ones that had not been previously recorded. The album won a Grammy for best large jazz ensemble album. [Photo above of Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington]

Both albums are regal portraits of important figures Ellington admired for different reasons. The music and orchestrations are timeless, with the bands at their expressive best. I often listen to them together, one after the next. They have much in common.

As for Brian Sheldrake, little is known other than Slate reporting in 2005 that he was driving a 40-foot RV with his feet.

Here’s the complete Queen’s Suite…

And here’s The Intimacy of the Blues…

And here’s Rock Skippin’ at the Blue Note…

This weekend’s post began in the shower, where the best ideas spring forth. For some reason, a shower sets your head in neutral. Washing and shampooing are auto-pilot chores, freeing up your brain to wander. The following came to mind last week [photo above of Central Park by Marc Myers]:

Since the end of World War II, in 1945, major innovations in musi…

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If you’re old enough to know the name Herbie Mann, you probably think first of the beatnik flutist at New York’s Village Gate in 1961. Or his 1962 and ‘63 bossa nova albums. Or his 1969 funk-fusion album Memphis Underground. Or the groovy shirtless guy on the cover of his 1971 album Push. Or his 1975 disco hit Hi-Jack.

Before all of that, way back in the…

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When people ask me which female jazz singers I fancy most after the bigs—Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae, Dinah Washington and Peggy Lee—one who instantly comes to mind is Chris Connor.

I’ve always loved her phrasing and timbre. Her range is my favorite, as is her husky, hip swing. She takes risks on songs and has a way of casting them beaut…

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Self-promotion is exhausting, especially for jazz musicians. These days, there’s a seemingly infinite number of diversions that distract audiences. To reach large numbers of people, musicians have to learn the ins and outs of Instagram and TikTok, reach out to the media to develop relationships and be open to being coached on presenting oneself in a co…

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If asked to make a list of leading jazz photographers, most aficionados would probably miss including Steve Schapiro.

Best known for his photojournalism during the civil rights movement, his movie-star portraits and his on-set film stills for classics such as The Godfather, Chinatown and Taxi Driver, Schapiro also worked extensively for magazines. He took the famous cover portrait of Mia Farrow on the first issue of People in March 1974.

Schapiro admired Henri Cartier-Bresson, who pioneered street photography, and W. Eugene Smith taught him the technical side of photography, including film development and printing. Smith also helped him develop his own perspective. [Photo of Steve Schapiro in the 1960s]

Lesser known are the photographs Schapiro took of jazz legends at two New York performance venues—the Apollo Theater and the Village Vanguard—and in the studio during recording sessions for Riverside Records. Now, a stunning new book of his never-before-seen images has just been published by ACC Art Books with text by Richard Scheinin: Steve Schapiro: Jazz, Best of the Apollo, Village Vanguard and Riverside Sessions.

Schapiro took the images in 1961 and ‘62, just before his career took off. The ones in the book have never been seen before because there either wasn’t a market for them or because only one from the contact sheet was sold and the others remained in Schapiro’s archives. He apparently had to leaf through about 20,000 images to make selections for the book before he died in 2022.

Jazz’s golden years have been documented mostly through black-and-white images and occasional black-and-white shorts or films. Photos of musicians wound up on album covers and in jazz magazines, so we’ve been stuck with the same limited number of pictures of these artists over the decades.

What this means is we don’t really know these musicians beyond the iconic images with which we’re most familiar. Most fascinating about the new book is we get to see our favorite jazz artists in human situations—waiting, reading, napping, lifting weights and more. As Sonny Rollins says in the book’s introduction, “It’s hard for me to look through these pictures with anything but great feeling.” [Photo of Sonny Rollins by Steve Schapiro courtesy of ACC Art Books]

I felt the same way, and I know what he meant. In addition to the nostalgia Sonny must have felt, he was seeing a different side of artists he knew well and worked with. In this regard, he was meeting them for the first time through the photographs.

Why should we care? Because these artists were exceptional, and the images give us a finer sense of their personalities, who they were off stage and at rest. Every single image in this 315-page hardcover, coffee-table book offers a fresh perspective of artists we thought we knew well from photos on album covers.

In particular, I loved the series of Bill Evans images, which include alternate takes of his first trio in 1961 backstage at the Village Vanguard. Also captivating are Sonny Stitt playing the tenor with a leg bent and raised, and the one of him kissing his wife, Pamela; and a series of Billy Strayhorn images. [Photo of Sonny Stitt kissing his wife, Pamela, by Steve Schapiro, courtesy of ACC Art Books]

There are photos of Sonny Rollins lifting weights backstage at the Apollo in a T-shirt; candids of Count Basie; one of Riverside producer Orrin Keepnews pretending to throw a left jab at Red Garland, whose head has playfully snapped back; a rare photo of Frank Strozier and one of a young Ray Barretto; and a delightful image of Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis grinning broadly with his tenor in his lap. [Photo of Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis by Steve Schapiro, courtesy of ACC Art Books]

Leafing through the book was like looking at the images beamed back to earth by the astronauts who recently circled the moon. We know the moon is round and pocked with asteroid craters. But seeing the back side for the first time gave me chills. It didn’t look much different than the moon’s face we see all the time, but it was the moon without makeup on, the one napping in the back. As with the other side of the moon, this book shows us a new, unseen side of famed jazz musicians, and all provide us with a greater sense of their humanity.

The images also show us the love these musicians had for each other and the joy they felt playing this music. In many ways, Steve Schapiro was William Claxton East. All of the musicians he photographed were cool. His images make them even cooler. [Photo of Elvin Jones by Steve Schapiro courtesy of ACC Art Books]

Steve Schapiro died from pancreatic cancer at his home in Chicago, on January 15, 2022, at the age of 87.

You can buy the book here. If you’re remotely curious, spring for it. Just don’t wait until it’s out of print and selling for $1,000 on Ebay.

Like most Manhattan jazz clubs in the 1950s, the Café Bohemia was in Greenwich Village. Located at 15 Barrow St. from 1955 to 1960, the club was revived at its original location in 2019 and closed in 2023. Today, it’s the Barrow Street Ale House.

Now, Blue Note has released Kenny Dorham’s The Complete ‘Round About Midnight at the Café Bohemia as part of its Tone Poet series. It’s available as a three-LP set remastered on 180-gram vinyl or as a two-CD set. The music was recorded on May 31, 1956, which means yesterday was the album’s 70th anniversary. The music sounds as fresh today as it did then.

Club owner Jimmy Garofolo had operated the space since 1949 as a restaurant and bar. In 1955, saxophonist Charlie Parker lived across the street in an apartment with poet Ted Joans, an extraordinary artist. Parker told Garofolo he’d play the club for free drinks.

The deal sounded good to Garofolo, but Parker died in March 1955 prior to the start of his engagement. The buzz surrounding his pending gig and death was sufficient to give Café Bohemia its start.

Of the many artists who recorded there, perhaps the one who stands out is Dorham on ‘Round About Midnight at the Cafe Bohemia. Dorham had been the fourth of five regular trumpeters in Parker’s ensembles—Dizzy Gillespie, Howard McGhee, Miles Davis, Dorham and Red Rodney.

At the Café Bohemia, Dorham was accompanied by J. R. Monterose (ts), Kenny Burrell (g), Bobby Timmons (p), Sam Jones (b) and Arthur Edgehill (d). Also there were recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder and Blue Note producer Alfred Lion. This early hard-bop session was Dorham’s second recording at the club.

The previous year, in November 1955, he had been a member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, an early configuration of what would become Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. The musicians on the earlier date were Kenny Dorham (tp), Hank Mobley (ts), Horace Silver (p), Doug Watkins (b) and Art Blakey (d).

Dorham left the Messengers soon and formed Kenny Dorham’s Jazz Prophets, a competitive quintet with the same lineup that appears on the album that’s the subject of this post.

The 17-track release celebrates the brilliance of Dorham, whose gifts have never been fully appreciated by jazz listeners. On ballads, he’s beautifully soulful. On uptempo numbers, he’s as a fleet as a tap dancer. The group—Monterose, Burrell, Timmons, Jones and Edgehill—were perfectly suited for Dorham’s soft, muscular touch on trumpet.

Listen for Bud Powell’s influence on Timmons ; Monterose’s singular commanding style free from Lester Young or Coleman Hawkins; the influence of Charlie Christian on Burrell; Jones’s strong, pronounced bass playing; and the influence of Max Roach on Edgehill.

A few insights into the songs: Royal Roost, a blues by Bud Powell and Dorham, was first recorded by Dorham in 1946 and had been recorded a week earlier by tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins as Tenor Madness. Mexico City is a contrafact of Powell’s Tempus Fugit. K.D.’s Blues sounds like a reworking of Lean Baby. Hill’s Edge is a reworking of Tune Up.

And it’s interesting how the intro to Monaco sounds similar to the intro to The Scene Is Clean on Tadd Dameron’s Fontainebleau (recorded on March 9, 1956), a date that included Dorham. And dig how Dorham scrunches notes on the alternate track of Who Cares?

It’s fabulous to hear this live album again with great sound and additional tracks. The recording is a perfect entry point for those unfamiliar with Dorham. Most of all, we get to hear artists in their early years, clearly influenced by other jazz masters and before their own style took shape.

Kenny Dorham died in 1972 at age 48 of kidney disease.

To buy the new set as three LPs or two CDs, go here.

Here’s Who Cares?

And here’s Hill’s Edge…

My breakfast is rather simple but exciting. A cold banana, a kiwi that I peel with a knife while reading the paper and then a slice of lightweight whole-wheat toast and a latte coffee. My soul rests in Europe, so coffee, like shaving, had to be a hands-on, primitive experience. [Photo above of Central Park’s Bethesda Fountain, dedicated in 1873, taken l…

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