Imagine that, slightly more than fifty years ago, you could take your partner out for dinner and dancing not a long walk from New York City’s Pennsylvania Station — the Riverboat, in the lower level of the Empire State Building. There, you could dance to the music of the Bobby Hackett Quartet plus Vic Dickenson, with vocals by Maxine Sullivan. A dream, no? And if you simply saw the listings of songs performed on any given night, you could utter the usual implausible requests for a time machine. But for once, the government of a major nation made art accessible, and the programs (about fifteen minutes long) were not only broadcast on CBS Radio in good sound, but were transcribed by the U.S. Treasury Department for service personnel overseas, and here, for everyone, as an inducement to buy U.S. Savings Bonds.
Bobby, listening to Vic at Childs Paramount, October 1952 (photograph by Robert Parent).A very young Maxine Sullivan.
Dreams come true, and I can offer you just under an hour of varied, inventive, danceable music by Bobby, Vic, Maxine (I’ve noted her performances by *), Lou Forestieri, piano; Tito Russo, string bass; Joe Brancato, drums: three programs in all.
Friday, 1.17.69: TIN ROOF BLUES / ROYAL GARDEN BLUES / JOANNA (Vic out) / SILVER MOON (Bobby out — a Vic original?) / HARLEM BUTTERFLY* / I’M GONNA SIT RIGHT DOWN AND WRITE MYSELF A LETTER* / SAINTS //
Friday, 1.31.69: TIN ROOF BLUES / LET’S FALL IN LOVE / EVERYTHING HAPPENS TO ME* / THE LADY IS A TRAMP* / I’LL TRY (Bobby out – a Vic original for sure) / MUSKRAT RAMBLE / TIN ROOF BLUES //
Friday, 2.14.69: TIN ROOF BLUES / UNDECIDED / I THOUGHT ABOUT YOU* / LOCH LOMOND* / A STRING OF PEARLS //
I don’t always celebrate birthdays, but Maxine’s was yesterday, May 13, and it’s wonderful to hear her easy, floating way with a song — a splendid match for Bobby and Vic. And I think with deep nostalgia of the days (1969 seems both near and far) when such lovely sounds could come out of the radio, as they were happening, and then be preserved for us, decades later.
And a splendid side note: I was meandering along on Facebook, as some of us do, before posting this blog, and I saw the name “Lou Forestieri,” as someone I might know. I’d never encountered Lou in person, and he and I are now a continent apart, but when I asked if he was THE Lou Forestieri who had played with Bobby — at the start of his career, when he was not yet 25 — he responded happily and said he was. Lou has gone on to a distinguished career as composer, arranger, orchestrator for television and films. JAZZ LIVES salutes him.
Maxine Sullivan reminds me of sunlight coming through the window: her cheery delivery, her preference for medium-up tempos, as if saying, “Look, it’s all going to be all right,” her delight in pure singing and in improvising subtle variations. Even when she sings songs theoretically about heartbreak, such as EV’RY TIME (“I’m going to hate all you men.”) it’s clear she is grinning at the hyperbole of the lyrics, as she does with what’s really a tale of romantic betrayal, SURPRISE PARTY. She isn’t the Princess of Darkness; she is a good-humored beacon of swing.
Here’s a short set filled with songs (Maxine liked, in Louis’ words, to “keep it rolling”) from the 1980 Manassas Jazz Festival, with an extra-special band, even though only Dill Jones gets an extended solo. Maxine is accompanied by Connie Jones, cornet; Dill Jones, piano; Spencer Clark, bass saxophone; Cliff Leeman, drums; Van Perry, string bass; Butch Hall, guitar, performing SURPRISE PARTY / I’VE GOT THE WORLD ON A STRING / EV’RY TIME / A HUNDRED YEARS FROM TODAY / THEY ALL LAUGHED / YOU WERE MEANT FOR ME / I’M COMIN’ VIRGINA / WE JUST COULDN’T SAY GOODBYE // This video is from the collection of the late Joe Shepherd:
Today, October 24, 2020, Dan Morgenstern celebrates his ninety-first birthday, and we celebrate him. He’s been an eager participant on the jazz scene since his mother took him to see Fats Waller and the Quintette of the Hot Club of France in 1939; he’s hung out with Louis, Billie, Duke, Lester, Bird, Miles, Stan, Rowles, and a hundred others; if there was a jazz event in New York, Boston, or Chicago in the last seventy years, chances are he was there and wrote about it. I could continue, but I’d rather let him speak for himself.
Since spring 2017, I’ve had the immense privilege of bringing my camera to Dan’s Upper West Side apartment and capturing his singular memories: you can find memorable ones on the blog. But for today, I offer two interview segments that have not been seen.
Dan talks about Ella:
Ella in 1936 with Teddy Wilson, Frank Newton, Bennie Morton, Jerry Blake, Teddy McRae, Leemie Stanfield, John Trueheart, and Cozy Cole:
and about Lena, Maxine, and Eva Taylor (I apologize for the ragged ending of the segment, but YouTube refused to let me be any neater):
Lena in 1941 with Teddy Wilson, Bennie Morton, Emmett Berry, Jimmy Hamilton, Johnny Williams, J.C. Heard:
Maxine in 1938 with Bobby Hackett, Bud Freeman, Chester Hazlett, and others:
Eva Taylor, 1926, with Clarence Williams and Charlie Irvis, others unidentified:
and fifty years later (!) with the Peruna Jazz Band:
We are so fortunate to have our Jazz Eminence, Mister Morgenstern, with us!
One moral of this story, for me, is that the treasure-box exists, and wonderfully kind people are willing to allow us a peek inside.
A jazz fan / broadcaster / amateur singer and kazoo player, Johnson “Fat Cat” McRee, Jr. (1923-1990), — he was an accountant by day — held jazz festivals in Manassas and other Virginia cities, beginning in 1966 and running about twenty years. They were enthusiastic and sometimes uneven affairs, because of “Fat Cat”‘s habit, or perhaps it was a financial decision, of having the finest stars make up bands with slightly less celestial players. Some of the musicians who performed and recorded for McRee include Bobby Hackett, Vic Dickenson, James Dapogny, Don Ewell, John Eaton, Maxine Sullivan, Bob Wilber, Pug Horton, Kenny Davern, Dick Wellstood, Bob Greene, Johnny Wiggs, Zutty Singleton, Clancy Hayes, George Brunis, Willie “the Lion” Smith, Tommy Gwaltney, Joe Muranyi, Danny Barker, Edmond Souchon, Cliff Leeman, Bobby Gordon, Marty Grosz, Hal Smith, Kerry Price . . . .
McRee also had business sense, so the proceedings were recorded, issued first on records and then on cassette. I never got to Manassas while the Festival was happening, but I did buy many of Fat Cat’s lps (with their red and yellow label) and years later, when I met Hank O’Neal, he told me stories of recording the proceedings on Squirrel Ashcraft’s tape machine here.
My dear friend Sonny McGown, who was there, filled in some more of the story of the music you are about to see and hear. The 1986 festival was dedicated to Jimmie Noone and these performances come from a Sunday brunch set. “It was a very talented group and they meshed well. Mason ‘Country’ Thomas was the best clarinetist in the DC area for years; he was a big fan of Caceres. . . . Fat Cat’s wife, Barbara, often operated the single VHS video camera which in later years had the audio patched in from the sound board. As you well know, the video quality in those days was somewhat lacking but it is better to have it that way than not at all. Several years later Barbara allowed Joe Shepherd to borrow and digitize many of the videos. In his last years Fat Cat only issued audio cassettes. They were easy to produce, carry and distribute. FCJ 238 contains all of the Muranyi – Dapogny set except for “River…”. However, the videos provide a more enhanced story.”
A few years back, I stumbled across a video that Joe had put up on YouTube — I think it was Vic Dickenson singing and playing ONE HOUR late in his life, very precious to me for many reasons — and I wrote to him. Joe proved to be the most generous of men and he still is, sending me DVDs and CD copies of Fat Cat recordings I coveted. I am delighted to report that, at 93, he is still playing, still a delightful person who wants nothing more for his kindnesses than that the music be shared with people who love it.
Because of Joe, I can present to you the music of Jimmie Noone, performed on November 30, 1986, by Joe Muranyi, clarinet, soprano saxophone, vocal; Mason “Country” Thomas, clarinet; James Dapogny, piano; Rod McDonald, guitar; Johnny Williams, string bass [yes, Sidney Catlett’s teammate in the Armstrong Decca orchestra!]; Hal Smith, drums; Johnson McRee, master of ceremonies and vocalist. The songs are IT’S TIGHT LIKE THAT (vocal, Joe); CRYING FOR THE CAROLINES (vocal, Fat Cat); MISS ANNABELLE LEE (Joe); SO SWEET; RIVER, STAY ‘WAY FROM MY DOOR; APEX BLUES; SWEET LORRAINE (Fat Cat).
Some caveats. Those used to videocassette tapes know how quickly the visual quality diminishes on duplicates, and it is true here. But the sound, directly from the mixing board, is bright and accurate. YouTube, in its perplexing way, has divided this set into three oddly-measured portions, so that the first and second segments end in the middle of a song. Perhaps I could repair this, but I’d rather be shooting and posting new videos than devoting my life to repairing imperfections. (Also, these things give the busy YouTube dislikers and correcters something to do: I can’t take away their pleasures.)
One of the glories of this set is the way we can see and hear Jim Dapogny in peak form — not only as soloist, but as quirky wise ensemble pianist, sometimes keeping everything and everyone on track. Joe has promised me more videos with Jim . . . what joy, I say.
Don’t you hear me talkin’ to you? It IS tight like that:
Who’s wonderful? Who’s marvelous?
I’ve just found joy:
I started this post with “a” moral. The other moral comes out of my finding this DVD, which I had forgotten, in the course of tidying my apartment for the new decade. What occurs to me now is that one should never be too eager to tidy their apartment / house / what have you, because if everything is properly organized and all the contents are known, then surprises like this can’t happen. So there. Bless all the people who played and play; bless those who made it possible to share this music with you. Living and “dead,” they resonate so sweetly.
There’s a wonderful tradition that began on records in the late Twenties: sweet and hot singing — female or male — backed by a small improvising combination. To some, it reached its apex with the series of recordings done by Billie Holiday and Teddy Wilson, but it continues on in this century, something I find reassuring.
Vocalion Records ceased production a long time ago, and the last time I was near a diner jukebox, it lacked Red McKenzie, Bob Howard, Mildred Bailey, Putney Dandridge, Maxine Sullivan, Nan Wynn, Tempo King, Lee Wiley, Connee Boswell, or Dick Robertson, but our friend Dawn Lambeth embodies the tradition beautifully. As do her Rascals, an ad hoc group of friends who swing.
Here’s the second half of a performance by a lovely little jam band of friends at the 2019 Jazz Bash by the Bay: Dawn Lambeth, vocal; Riley Baker, drums; Jeff Hamilton, piano; Ike Harris, string bass; Jerry Krahn, guitar; Jacob Zimmerman, alto; Clint Baker, trumpet. And here‘s the first part.
The very antidote to melancholy . . . with the verse, no less:
Consider this very truncated list: Bix Beiderbecke, Jack Purvis, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Chet Baker, Jabbo Smith, Sandy Williams, Cassino Simpson, Dave Tough, Tony Fruscella, Fud Livingston, Dick McDonough, Serge Chaloff, Fats Navarro, Fats Waller, Bunny Berigan.
What do they have in common? Would you, were you a recording supervisor, hire them for a record date? Would you hire them for your orchestra or gig? Could you count on them to do the work asked of them? (A hint here: as much as I revere, let’s say, Fruscella or Livingston, I wouldn’t want them driving the kids to summer camp.)
That list contains poets of the music, artistic trailblazers, instantly recognizable creators, memorable improvisers. But it is also a list of people who didn’t show up on time or at all for the gig or has to be awakened in the middle of a song to play, people who were addicted to alcohol, food, drugs, and sex; people who had borderline personality disorder; people who stole, lied, and destroyed property; people who refused to bathe or change their clothes . . . and more.
Even if this seems blasphemous, do me the kindness to read on.
And if you proclaim that Genius must be forgiven anything because it’s Genius, I wonder how you would feel if the Genius vomited on your living room rug or stole money from you.
I suspect that most jazz fans are Apollonian (in Nietzsche’s dichotomy): they drive in the proper lane; they shower regularly; they hold jobs; they change the registration sticker on their car when the law says they must. But, perhaps as a result, they are fascinated by the Dionysiac, the Bad Boys and Girls of Jazz, the people whose behavior is flashy, self-destructive, eccentric, illegal.
Consider this: if someone could come up with an authenticated needle used by Billie or Bird, or a piece of Bix’s mummified blue sweater, how much would those holy relics — the jazz Shroud of Turin — fetch on eBay?
Violently erratic “bad” behavior makes good copy. How many biographies of Bix are there, as compared to his more restrained contemporaries? How many theatrical presentations “recreating” Billie are there, as opposed to the lives of other singers who drank Seven-Up?
I was motivated to write this piece because of the just-issued biography of Johnny Guarnieri, SUPERSTRIDE, beautifully written and researched by Derek Coller, depicts a good husband and father, and a craftsman, someone serious about his art even when striding joyously.
I think of others of the same general character: people who kept pocket notebooks and were thus early to gigs, who came prepared to make music, with horns that worked and a knowledge of the charts; musicians who could transpose and knew their keys; who came to the club date in appropriate, even elaborate formal wear; whose clothes were clean; who conducted themselves as professionals and whose behavior might have been placid and thus not worthy of chronicling, but who behaved as adults.
Think of Maxine Sullivan, George Duvivier, Milt Hinton, Joe Wilder, Teddi King, Eddie Barefield, Al Hall, Ed Hall, Mary Lou Williams, Marian McPartland, Bennie Morton, and Buster Bailey among others: artists who didn’t use “genius” as an excuse for childishness. Sadly, I sense a silent snobbery among jazz fans, who look down on these mature men and women because their personal lives are uneventful. And, aside from Hinton, Wilder, and Ed Hall, how many of the artists in the list above have been properly chronicled? Men and women who didn’t destroy themselves and others are proper figures to contemplate and admire. Even if they are tediously busy being professional, monogamous, and sober, their lives have much to show us.
Obviously it’s not thrilling to write about someone who does his or her job without drama, but we should be celebrating these artists as grownups. And grownups are hard to find in any field.
Here’s music made by several grownups: musicians, classically trained who could cut the charts and swing like mad, who appear on many record dates because they were both creative and reliable: William C. Bailey of Memphis, Tennessee, coincidentally backed by Osie Johnson, drums, and that very same Johnny Guarnieri among others:
I wonder what would happen to us, as an audience, if we chose not to fetishize childish self-destructive behavior, and instead celebrated adult behavior?
Inspiration for this post is, as it often is, thanks to Sammut of Malta, whose thoughts are always inspiring.
I wouldn’t have known of these programs (now shared with us on the Musikladen YouTube channel) except for my good friend, the fine drummer Bernard Flegar. They are rich and delicious.
The WGJB lasted from the late Sixties (when they were a development of the Nine / Ten Greats of Jazz, sponsored by Dick Gibson) to 1978. In some ways, they were both a touring assemblage of gifted veteran players — I believe Robert Sage Wilber, known to his friends worldwide as Bob, is the sole survivor — and a versatile band that echoed the best of the Bob Crosby units, big and small. The WGJB came in for a good deal of sneering because of their hyperbolic title, which was Gibson’s idea, not the musicians’, but from the perspective of 2019, they were great, no questions asked. And they weren’t just a collection of soloists, each taking a turn playing jazz chestnuts (although JAZZ ME BLUES was often on the program); Haggart’s arrangements were splendid evocations of a Swing Era big band with plenty of room, and the WGJB brought its own down-home / Fifty-Second Street energy to current pop tunes (I remember their UP, UP, AND AWAY with delight). And they played the blues.
I remember them with substantial fondness, because the second jazz concert I went to (the first was Louis in 1967, which is starting at the apex) was held in Town Hall, with Gibson as host, probably in 1970, and it featured the WGJB — Vic Dickenson and Eddie Hubble on trombones — and a small group with Al and Zoot, possibly Joe Newman, where they performed THE RED DOOR and MOTORING ALONG, titles no one would forget, and Gibson told his anecdote of the white deer.
These two programs seem to have been sophisticated television offerings: multi-camera perspectives with a great deal of editing from one camera to the other, and beginnings and endings that suggest that these were not finished products. The absence of an audience — or their audible presence — on the first program seems odd, but I don’t mind the quiet. The WGJB could certainly add its own charging exuberance — hear the final ensemble of CALIFORNIA, HERE I COME — that few bands have matched.
The first program features co-leaders Yank Lawson, trumpet; Bob Haggart, string bass, arrangements; Billy Butterfield, trumpet; Bob Wilber, clarinet, soprano; Bud Freeman, tenor saxophone; Bennie Morton, trombone; Sonny Russo, trombone; Dick Wellstood, piano; Gus Johnson, drums; Maxine Sullivan, guest vocalist, and the songs performed are BLUES / MERCY, MERCY, MERCY / DOODLE DOO DOO / THE EEL (featuring its composer, Bud Freeman) / THAT’S A PLENTY (featuring Bob Wilber and Dick Wellstood) / A HUNDRED YEARS FROM TODAY (featuring Maxine Sullivan) / THE LADY IS A TRAMP (Maxine) / SOUTH RAMPART STREET PARADE/ MY INSPIRATION (closing theme) //:
And here’s another forty-five minute program, presumably aired October 17 of the same year, with certain personnel changes — this time there’s an audience but the band is also dressed with great casualness: Ralph Sutton, piano; Al Klink, tenor saxophone; Peanuts Hucko, clarinet; Bobby Rosengarden, drums; George Masso and Sonny Russo, trombones; Lawson, Haggart, Butterfield, and Maxine, performing AT THE JAZZ BAND BALL / BASIN STREET BLUES (featuring Masso) / CALIFORNIA, HERE I COME (featuring Sutton) / BABY, WON’T YOU PLEASE COME HOME (featuring Lawson and Butterfield) / LIMEHOUSE BLUES (featuring Russo and Masso) / HARLEM BUTTERFLY / EV’RY TIME (featuring Maxine Sullivan) / ST. LOUIS BLUES / STAR DUST (featuring Klink) / RUNNIN’ WILD (featuring Hucko) / BIG NOISE FROM WINNETKA (featuring Haggart and Rosengarden) / SOUTH RAMPART STREET PARADE / MY INSPIRATION //:
The repertoire for the longer program is more familiar, with few surprises, but that band could roar as well as play pretty ballads and its own version of Thirties funk. What unexpected treasures these programs are.
This song made a deep impact on me decades before I might have encountered the emotional situation it describes. Perhaps it’s something about the intense but elliptical declaration of love: I am so deeply entranced by you that IF you decided to behave in opposition to those feelings I wouldn’t be able to “take it.” “Baby.” By the way, singers could have a whole course of study focused on the ways each singer pronounces and phrases that meaningful word.
Here I present Thirties versions of this song (our friends Banu Gibson, Hanna Richardson, and Becky Kilgore have done more recent versions, as did Maxine Sullivan in Sweden, but that’s another blogpost; I’ve also skirted versions by Eddy Duchin, Frances Wayne, and a particularly raucous reading by Lionel Hampton from 1937).
I think you will hear why the song struck home, as well as understand my admiration for the singers and their particular approach to the material. (And imagine a time when the jukebox would play new recordings by Jack Teagarden and Ethel Waters. I know that had I been there, I would not be writing this blog, but still . . . . ) I also suspect that the connection between the Teagarden, Waters, Bullock recordings is the wonderfully omnipresent Victor Young, and that all the recordings use an arrangement by Arthur Schutt.
First, an unexpected pleasure — the Leo Reisman recording from December 28, 1933, with Thelma Nevins singing. Years ago I would have scorned this as “just a dance-band record,” but it’s so pretty, and Miss Nevins does the song beautifully. Google turns up no photographs of her, but she’s mentioned in an April 1939 Variety as a “svelte looker” and in a 1947 Billboard as singing at the Chateau in New York City, so she didn’t disappear, thankfully:
Now, the first of two 1933 versions for which I can offer personnel: Frank Guarente, Sterling Bose, trumpet; Jack Teagarden, trombone, vocal; Chester Hazlett, Jimmy Dorsey, clarinet, alto saxophone; Mutt Hayes, clarinet, tenor saxophone; Walter Edelstein, violin; Joe Meresco, piano; Perry Botkin, guitar; Artie Bernstein, string bass; Larry Gomar, drums; Victor Young, director. New York, November 11, 1933. Jack only sings; before this, on the session, he recorded two takes of A HUNDRED YEARS FROM TODAY:
Jack takes it fairly briskly — one would think “matter-of-factly,” but listen to his variations on “Baby.”
Here’s Ethel Waters, accompanied by Benny Goodman and his Orchestra: Ethel Waters; Charlie Teagarden, Shirley Clay, trumpet; Jack Teagarden; Benny Goodman; Art Karle, tenor saxophone; Joe Sullivan, piano; Dick McDonough, guitar; Artie Bernstein, string bass; Gene Krupa, drums. (Two takes were issued; only one shows up on YouTube.) New York, November 27, 1933 (the session at which Billie Holiday recorded her first side — YOUR MOTHER’S SON-IN-LAW, also written by Nichols and Hollner — with the same band. Ethel went first, as befitting a Star, with two takes of HUNDRED and of BABY. And please notice that although Victor Young saw Jack as vocalist only on his own date, he is memorable, as is Benny, in duet with Ethel as if two voices.)
Her reading, and I mean this as a compliment, is dramatic — a three-minute stage play, with deep feeling throughout. Her enunciation, her phrasing, her wit and sorrow, are all unforgettable. I know there was a massive and unsparing biography a few years ago, but where is the Ethel Waters celebration? She was extraordinary:
Here are a few happy meanderings on the theme, first, a quick instrumental version from the “Bill Dodge” transcription session (circa February 10-28, 1934) featuring Benny Goodman and a nearly savage Bunny Berigan out front. The collective personnel according to Tom Lord is Berigan, Manny Klein, Shirley Clay, trumpet; Joe Harris, Jack Jenney, or Larry Alpeter, trombone; Benny Goodman, clarinet; Hank Ross, Arthur Rollini, tenor saxophone; Arthur Schutt, piano; Dick McDonough, guitar; Artie Bernstein, string bass; Gene Krupa, Sammy Weiss, or Stan King, drums: :
Finally, Chick Bullock and his Levee Loungers from December 12, 1933. He’s accompanied by Guarente, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Hazlett, Hayes, Edelstein, Moresco, Botkin, Bernstein, and Gomar. I like Chick’s singing a great deal but no singer should have to follow Ethel:
In researching this post, I found a scholarly essay (scholarly in its digging, not in its stuffiness) about Alberta Nichols and Mann Hollner, who were married. The writer, Molly Ruggles, is much more fascinated by UNTIL THE REAL THING COMES ALONG than this song, but the pieceis well worth reading.
I JUST COULDN’T TAKE IT BABY is the real thing for those who feel.
Dawn Lambeth, Kris Tokarski, Larry Scala, Nobu Ozaki, Hal Smith, Jonathan Doyle, Marc Caparone at the San Diego Jazz Fest
What Phil Schaap calls “the swing-song tradition” — a nimble swinging singer accompanied by an equally swinging group — is epitomized for most people by the 1933-42 recordings Billie Holiday made with Teddy Wilson, Lester Young, and other luminaries. However, it was going on before Billie entered the studio (Connie Boswell, Lee Wiley, Mildred Bailey) and it continues to this day (Rebecca Kilgore, Daryl Sherman, Barbara Rosene, Petra van Nuis, and others). Dawn Lambeth shines in this setting, and the three performances captured here at the San Diego Jazz Fest both reflect the great tradition and show what joy and art these musicians bring to it. (I was reminded often, as well, of the late-life recordings Maxine Sullivan made in Sweden, which are very dear to me.)
I know that the tradition wasn’t exclusively female — think of Henry “Red” Allen among others — but I am holding back from making a list of all the swingers. You’ll understand.
If you more evidence of Dawn’s magic — and the band’s — before proceeding, I invite you to visit hereand here. She sounds wonderful, and there’s fine riffin’ that evening.
Here are three beauties from that same set. First, Irving Berlin’s ALL BY MYSELF (which is really quite a lament — but not when swung this way):
Then, the tender ONE HOUR — someone is sure to write in and say that it is really called IF I COULD BE WITH YOU ONE HOUR TONIGHT. Yes, Sir (there are no Female Corrections Officers in jazz-blog-land!) — by James P. Johnson and Henry Creamer:
And finally, Mr. Berlin’s I’M PUTTING ALL MY EGGS IN ONE BASKET, with thanks to Fred Astaire, as always:
To quote Chubby Jackson, but without a touch of irony, “Wasn’t that swell?” I certainly think so.
“We improvise our way through life,” wrote the seventh-century philosopher Sammut of Malta. And perhaps that’s why jazz is such an enthralling wellspring of inspiration: even on a record that we know by heart, we get to hear musicians maneuver themselves into impossible corners and slither out. Houdinis of Swing and Stomp.
These two Decca sides are seriously neglected, even though they feature three of the strongest players in the John Kirby Sextet: drummer / vocalist O’Neil Spencer (1909-1944, tuberculosis) and two musicians who coincidentally ended their days as members of the Louis Armstrong All-Stars: pianist Billy Kyle and clarinetist Buster Bailey. Even before Spencer gained some fame with Kirby, he had lifted up many recordings by the Mills Blue Rhythm Band, and was a valued session player for the Variety and Decca labels, recording with everyone from Jimmie Noone and Willie “the Lion” Smith to Maxine Sullivan, Bob Howard, and a host of forgettable blues singers. These sides come from the only session Spencer was able to be given leader credit, and I think they are remarkable. Often I think of the Kirby band as expert but polished, with some powerful exceptions: these sides are much looser and to me extremely gratifying.
BABY, WON’T YOU PLEASE COM HOME? is usually played as a slow drag or medium opportunity to ask the musical question. Here, the imagined speaker must have been terribly eager or impatient, for the tempo is unlike any other. What a good singer Spencer was, and how nimbly Buster maneuvers those turns at top speed before the splendid drum solo:
LORNA DOONE SHORTBREAD (had someone brought a box of cookies into the studio?) features Buster’s singular tone, swing, and phrase-shapes; Kyle’s sparkling accompaniment and solo, and that rarity, a full chorus for Spencer, who is his own person but sounding much like a hot hybrid of Catlett and Webb:
I like, for a moment, to imagine an alternate Thirties-universe, where O’Neil Spencer was a regular leader of small-group sessions for Decca, singing and rocking the band. I wouldn’t mind another thirty or forty sides with him out front, instead of (for one example) having to lug Milt Herth through a song.
And something extra: AFTERNOON IN AFRICA by the trio, easy and lyrical, showing that clarinet / piano / drums did not have to imitate Goodman, Wilson, and Krupa:
These three players embody great freedom, courage, and joy: I celebrate them not only as musicians but as models, showing us how to do it.
Truman “Pinky” Tomlin, singer, composer, bandleader, film star
Everyone reading JAZZ LIVES could, with not much effort, compile a list of a dozen well-known and rewarding jazz recordings. Your list might be entirely different, but I feel that we would recognize the names of most, if not all, of the entries. But what continues to delight me is the wonderful music to be found on recordings that don’t get any attention, those beneath the surface of the collective attention.
One such record is a recent purchase from eBay, and it’s repaid its original price (perhaps $2.99?) a dozen times over, even though its star, Oklahoma-born “Pinky” Tomlin, would not be at the top of many people’s lists.
The record isn’t listed in Tom Lord’s or Brian Rust’s discography, although the records Pinky made with (among others) Joe Sullivan and Joe Haymes are. Make of this what you will, but two sides made at the same session — SMILES and THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET — are listed (and thus certified as Official Jazz Records) although they are less memorable: I bought that disc also from eBay.
The orchestra is directed by Harry Sosnik, and features Pinky with Mannie Klein, trumpet; Andy Secrest, cornet; Abe Lincoln, trombone; Jack Mayhew, clarinet; Claude Kennedy, piano; Perry Botkin, guitar; Slim Jim Taft, string bass; Spike Jones, drums. It was recorded in Los Angeles, April 23, 1938.
Those are illustrious names; some readers will notice that the band is close to the group that accompanied Mr. Crosby and Mr. Mercer on their version of the Gallagher-and-Shean vaudeville routine in July of that year: the evidence here. I suspect that more than a few worked in radio and were known as the best “studio” musicians on the West Coast. The one unknown in this band, pianist Kennedy, I found out through reading Pinky’s autobiography, THE OBJECT OF MY AFFECTION (his best-known composition) was a friend and musical colleague of Pinky’s from Oklahoma. (Just because you might be wondering, Truman Tomlin got his nickname early on because of his complexion.)
I wonder if this session was another of Jack Kapp’s crossover ideas, joining hot jazz, swing, and Western swing, to support Pinky, already well-known on radio and films. Had Kapp noticed the success of Maxine Sullivan’s LOCH LOMOND, a swing version of a traditional song, or Ella Logan’s efforts (in all those cases, no composers to pay)?
But enough words. Feast your ears (and, yes, there is authentic surface noise, because the original owner of this record played it often).
RED WING:
RED RIVER VALLEY:
These sides are fun, and that comes from their ease, the sweet balance between Pinky’s sincere Oklahoma voice, not trying to “get hot” except for the one upwards Bing-meets-Louis scat phrase on RED WING. He’s telling us stories, and he’s completely earnest but never stiff. Sosnik wasn’t always so swinging on other Deccas that bear his name, but the arranged passages are right on target, and it’s especially pleasant that the endings on both sides aren’t histrionic, but wind down gently. Secrest plays beautifully, but it’s the band that charms me — its unsung heroes being Perry Botkin and Spike Jones, who certainly swung.
“It’s not in the discography, so it can’t be jazz.” But it’s rewarding music.
I find myself charmed by Pinky: he seems guileless, someone who is being rather than acting. Two more examples: one, from a 1937 film, where he, like Bing, seems to say to a viewer, “I’m on the screen, singing, and putting clothing into a trunk. But you could do this, too.”:
Two decades later, Pinky faces Groucho, his essential sweetness intact:
A few words about THE OBJECT OF MY AFFECTION. I read in Pinky’s autobiography how the song was a spur-of-the-moment creation that grew from the casual phrase that was its title. But it has deep jazz credentials: Ella sang it early, and later in life, when she and Pinky were together at some public function, went out of her way to express her gratitude.
Three versions, each showing the song’s durability and emotional appeal. First, Carl Switzer:
Helvetia, Connie, and Martha:
Garnet Clark, Bill Coleman (“from brown to rosy red”), June Cole, George Johnson, Django:
When I am in conversation with someone new and the talk turns to my pursuit of live jazz in New York City, the question will be, “I suppose you go uptown to hear music? Do you go to . . . ” And then my questioner will mention some club, usually now-vanished, in what he or she thinks of as “Harlem.” My answer nearly always causes surprised perplexity, “No, almost every place I frequent is below Fourteenth Street — you know, Greenwich Village.”
Nearly seventy-five years ago (before my time) the Village was a thriving place for hot jazz to flourish, with clubs and venues now legendary but long gone.
One of the quiet heroes of hot piano was Cliff Jackson, who began his career as accompanist to female blues singers but always as a striding player on his own or as the leader of a big band, an in-demand sideman, intermission pianist, and valued soloist. (And he was married to Maxine Sullivan until his death in 1969.)
Cliff Jackson, 1947, photograph by William P. Gottlieb
In the last years of the Second World War, several independent record companies (notably Black and White and Disc) took the opportunity to record Jackson, either solo or in bands. He was a remarkable player, full of charging percussive energy, with singularly strong left-hand patterns (just this week I found out, thanks to the great player / informal historian Herb Gardner, that Jackson was left-handed, which explains a good deal).
Here are three sides from a remarkable and remarkably little-known session for Black and White by the Cliff Jackson Quartet, featuring Pee Wee Russell, Bob Casey, and Jack Parker. Pee Wee and Casey were long associated with Eddie Condon bands (Eddie featured Cliff in concert and on the television “Floor Show” often). I am assuming that Jack and Jack “the Bear” Parker, both drummers, are one and the same, recording with Eddie Heywood, Don Byas, Eddie South, Hot Lips Page, Mary Lou Williams, Pete Johnson, Leo Parker, Babs Gonzales — and he’s on Louis’ BECAUSE OF YOU and Nat Cole’s 1946 THE CHRISTMAS SONG as well).
The quartet speaks the common language with grace and eloquence. We get to hear Cliff at length, and Bob Casey has a fine solo. Pee Wee seems particularly unfettered: he was the sole horn on sessions that happened once every few years (with Joe Sullivan and Jess Stacy for Commodore) and I think not being placed between trumpet, trombone, and baritone saxophone made for greater freedom. That freedom means great sensitivity on ONE HOUR, and wonderfully abstract phrases on WEARY BLUES.
from Fats to James P. Johnson:
and back in time to Artie Matthews:
Readers who are well-versed or have discographies (some might be both) will note that the YouTube poster has not offered us Cliff’s minor original, QUIET PLEASE. Yes, there are a number of offerings of this song by Cliff, but they are of a 12″ Black and White session including Bechet, the DeParis brothers, Gene Sedric, Everett Barksdale, Wellman Braud, Eddie Dougherty — a true gathering of individualists. But — before there is wailing and gnashing of teeth from the cognoscenti — a nearly new copy of the quartet’s QUIET PLEASE arrived yesterday from my most recent eBay debauch, and if the stars are in proper alignment, it could emerge on this very site.
I just received this now out-of-print “Chronogical” Classics disc.
With all respect to Feather, journalist-publicist, promoter, pianist, composer, arranger of record sessions, I bought this rare item for the company he kept:
From left: Robert Goffin, Benny Carter, Louis, Feather, 1942
For me, the appeal of this now-rare disc in in sessions featuring Bobby Hackett, Leo Watson, Pete Brown, Joe Marsala, Joe Bushkin, George Wettling, Ray Biondi, Benny Carter, Billy Kyle, Hayes Alvis, Artie Shapiro, Cozy Cole, Buck Clayton, Coleman Hawkins, Oscar Pettiford, Remo Palmieri, Tiny Grimes, Jack Lesberg, Morey Feld, and two sessions featuring swinging British players. I knew far less about trumpeter / singer Dave Wilkins, reedmen Andy McDevitt and Bertie King, pianist Will Solomon, guitarist Alan Ferguson, string bassist Len Harrison, or drummer Hymie Schneider.
These musicians (with Feather on the final two selections) were presented as LEONARD FEATHER AND YE OLDE ENGLISH SWYNGE BAND, and they recorded for Decca in London on September 12, 1938.
Here’s the personnel for the disc:
Listening in sequence, I discovered this side, which is now an instant favorite:
I hadn’t known this traditional English folksong, obviously updated, but the parade of names is very funny and definitely 1938 hip. I’m sorry the take is so short, because the band has a good time with the simplest material. A similar band had backed Fats Waller on recordings in April. Was the idea of jamming on traditional folk material was modeled on Maxine Sullivan’s 1937 hits LOCH LOMOND and ANNIE LAURIE, perhaps on Ella Logan’s performances of folk songs swung, or a way for a recording company to avoid paying composer royalties. Or both.
I searched for more information about WIDDICOMBE FAIR and found this wonderful animated film, hilarious and deft both:
Hereare the complete lyrics — an oral narrative too long to reprint here, the moral being caution about lending important objects / animals / possessions. But a secondary moral is that anything can swing, in the right hands.
Many people in the United States celebrate today in honor of Christopher Columbus. (My college does not.) I’m not planning to enter into charged historical dialogue except to say that we now know most of what we learned in elementary school was wrong or intentionally misleading, a pattern that continues onwards in education. But that is a dark subject, which I will forego.
This is one kind of historical representation:
Portrait of a man said to be Christopher Columbus
But I prefer this kind, created by Leon “Chu” Berry and Andy Razaf, music and words, in 1936:
A Roy Eldridge small group, a rejected take from 1936, with Roy (tp) Buster Bailey (cl) Chu Berry (ts) Teddy Cole (p) John Collins (g) John Kirby (b) Sidney Catlett (d):
The Fletcher Henderson band’s hit version in the same year, with Dick Vance (tp,arr) Joe Thomas, Roy Eldridge (tp) Fernando Arbello, Ed Cuffee (tb) Buster Bailey (cl,as) Scoops Carey (as) Skippy Williams, Chu Berry (ts) Horace Henderson (p,arr) Bob Lessey (g) John Kirby (b) Sidney Catlett (d):
and the 1937 attempt at a follow-up hit, with Dick Vance (tp,arr) Emmett Berry, Russell Smith (tp) John McConnell, Albert Wynn, Ed Cuffee (tb) Jerry Blake (cl,as,vcl,arr) Hilton Jefferson (cl,as) Skippy Williams, Chu Berry (cl,ts) Fletcher Henderson (p,arr) Lawrence “Larry” Lucie (g) Israel Crosby (b) Pete Suggs (d) Chuck Richards (vcl) Horace Henderson (arr):
A Buck Clayton Jam Session, 1953, with Buck, Joe Newman (tp) Urbie Green, Henderson Chambers (tb) Lem Davis (as) Julian Dash (ts) Charlie Fowlkes (bar) Sir Charles Thompson (p,celeste) Freddie Green (g) Walter Page (b) Jo Jones (d):
(I love that this record has a click in it, early and often. Seems like old times.)
and the classic 1936 version by Fats Waller, with Herman Autrey (tp) Gene Sedric (cl,ts) Al Casey (g) Charlie Turner (b) Yank Porter (d):
and just to cool down, Maxine Sullivan in 1956, with Charlie Shavers (tp) Buster Bailey (cl) Jerome Richardson (as) Dick Hyman (p) Wendell Marshall (b) / Milt Hinton (b) Osie Johnson (d):
Professor Razaf tells us, “He used the rhythm as a compass.” That’s something I can celebrate, as I hope you can.
I first heard pianist Mark Shane a long time ago on someone’s illicit cassette recording of an outdoor festival. Through the rustlings and the sonic murk, he came through like a beacon of swing. I heard finely detailed melodic invention owing a good deal to Tatum and Wilson, translucent improvisations with subtleties reminiscent of Hank Jones and Tommy Flanagan. I had to wait until 2004 to meet him in person, but he didn’t disappoint, and still doesn’t.
When I started to purchase Shane’s CDs (a venture I commend to you) I found he was often in tandem with a glorious singer. She swung without a letup but her approach was delicate and warm. She was very much aware of the great singers of the past but had brought her own tender sound to their repertoire. Her work was and is genuine, and when I played her music for other musicians and fans, the reaction was always, “Who IS that? Wow, she is the real thing!” I had to wait until 2013 to meet Terry Blaine, and it was a joy to see Mark and Terry perform together.
Not everyone can make their way to a Shane-Blaine gig . . . but their music can come to you. And it has!
Their new CD is available here at CDBaby (as a physical disc) and will be available at all the usual sources as a digital download in a few days.
When I heard that Mark and Terry had recorded a disc, I asked to write some notes for them:
Our special friends are back in town, and I am so grateful.
Play a piece of music for a jazz historian and ask for a response: you’ll get an analytical primer of famous names, influences and styles, cities, dates, and record labels. A musicologist will talk of rhythmic and harmonic patterns, ethnic and cultural influences.
But music is much larger than the words and ideas that attempt to explain it. It is vibrating energy sent from its creators’ hearts to ours. True, physical entities are part of it: the uniqueness of a singer’s voice, a pianist’s touch on the keys. But ultimately music is one marvelous way that artists, devoted to feeling and craft, send messages to us.
Terry Blaine and Mark Shane are remarkable transmitters of wondrous vibrations. In the Thirties they would have been called “solid senders.” Although they have lovingly studied the great improvisers of the past, they emerge whole and joyous as themselves. In swinging synergy, Terry and Mark travel through and beyond any song. Hearing them, we emerge, refreshed and nourished by what they embody in music. They do not “imitate”; they do not approach the music from an ironic postmodern distance. They are the emotions they transmit – sly hilarity, pleasure, longing, romantic fulfillment, contentment. This is the real thing, without pretense, full of warmth.
In the first minutes of this disc, a listener will hear great sincerity in music that never parades itself, an art secure in its wisdom. Terry’s voice is sweetly intuitive, connected to the mood of each song. The way she slides from one note to the next is a caress. Her approach is both generous and wise, for she always lets the song shine through. Mark Shane is a master of delicate yet profound swing; he honors the great musical traditions by creating an orchestra at the piano, with unceasing rhythmic motion. A simple melody statement in his hands has the fluidity of a river, with currents of shading and light, surprising depths and textures. Mark and Terry are a marvelous team, a musical community that needs no other players. Their interpretations of music and words are whole-hearted gifts to the composers, the lyricists, and to us.
We know what our response to this music is: it makes us feel the joy of being alive. We’re happy in the Blue Heaven Terry and Mark create for us. You will be, too.
The songs are MY BLUE HEAVEN / HONEYSUCKLE ROSE / AIN’T HE SWEET / SKYLARK / LOCK AND KEY / MY MELANCHOLY BABY / ROCKIN’ CHAIR / I LOVE BEING HERE WITH YOU / THE NEARNESS OF YOU / THERE’LL BE SOME CHANGES MADE / MY SPECIAL FRIEND IS BACK IN TOWN / COME UP AND SEE ME SOMETIME / LET’S DO IT / SOME OF THESE DAYS / WRAP YOUR TROUBLES IN DREAMS. The recording is delightfully clear and unadorned. It’s heavenly.
In case you have never heard Mark and Terry before, here is a performance recorded at the High Falls Cafe in New York, with drummer Matt Hoffmann gently joining in. Their rollicking WHEN DAY IS DONE is a joy:
Ask any jazz scholar to name another early innovator in jazz electric guitar in addition to Charlie Christian. A few scholarly types will remember Eddie Durham, Leonard Ware, Floyd Smith, Les Paul. Someone will think of Allan Reuss’s PICKIN’ FOR PATSY.
But few will think of George Barnes.
That’s a pity, because Barnes was exploring the instrument’s possibilities in the late Thirties.
Proof of just how inventive he was — at 19! — has recently been offered by the George Barnes Legacy Foundation: a series of delightful home recordings of Barnes and friends in mid-1941.
On these tracks, Barnes improvises masterfully not only on electric guitar but also piano, and he’s aided by Bill Huntington and Bill Iverson, rhythm guitar; Ralph Hancock, cello; Jerry Marlowe, piano; Bill Moore, string bass; Benny Gill, violin; Adrienne Barnes, vocal.
Here’s the story behind the music (from the notes):
In the spring of 1941, 19-year-old guitarist George Barnes had already been a national radio star for almost two years, and enjoyed jamming with his colleagues after they’d wrapped their respective NBC shows. In March, June, and September of 1941, George’s friends — including violinist Benny Gill, rhythm guitarist Bill Huntington, and bassist Bill Moore — dropped by his Chicago apartment in The Chelsea Hotel and played into the wee hours. These 15 tracks were recorded directly to acetate discs by recordist Joe Campbell, who had been a Barnes fan since the first time he heard 17-year-old George play at Gus Williams’ Nameless Cafe on Chicago’s West Side.
The fifteen selections are BARNES’ BLUES / BARNES’ BOOGIE WOOGIE / BODY AND SOUL / JA-DA / MEMORIES OF YOU / NIGHTFALL (four versions) / SUNNY SIDE OF THE STREET / SHE’S FUNNY THAT WAY (two versions) / SOMETHING TO REMEMBER YOU BY / SWEET LORRAINE / TEXAS BLUES.
And for those who shy away from “old private recordings,” these sound good for their age. The originals have been well-mastered, and they were originally 12″ acetates, which afforded longer playing time. Barnes’ colleagues, although their names are not well-known today, are rewarding players who hold our attention throughout. Violinist Gill plays beautifully on BODY AND SOUL, MEMORIES OF YOU, SUNNY SIDE, SOMETHING TO REMEMBER YOU BY — in an Eddie South mood; Adrienne Barnes (George’s first wife) reminds me beautifully of Ella Logan and Maxine Sullivan, and the supporting players are first-rate.
In addition, the collection offers two rare October 1941 electric guitar duets by Barnes and Ernie Varner, G MINOR SPIN and SWOON OF A GOON, as well as a brief audio reminiscence by recordist Campbell.
A video and audio taste:
And here, a little reiteration is necessary. Barnes was 19.
What does it all sound like? Since George’s first instrument was the piano, it’s fitting that the set begins with a violent but precise boogie-woogie that sounds as if Albert Ammons had been studying the Romantic tradition (Rachmaninoff, not love ballads); the guitar blues that follows is delightful, a subtle mixture of harmonically deep chordal playing and sharp single-line inventions, a JA-DA that alternates between musing interludes and straight-ahead swing. MEMORIES OF YOU has touches of Louis and of what we would come to call “American roots music,” and is the work of a compelling melodist, someone with his own sound on guitar, someone more than able to make electricity work for him.
When he is backing Adrienne Barnes on NIGHTFALL (the first version), his accompaniment is a beautiful orchestral tapestry, moving the melody along while creating a rich hamonic background. The three versions that follow — solo, duo, and trio — are also lessons in what can be done, so evocatively, with lyrical material.
The solo piano SHE’S FUNNY THAT WAY is also a pleasure, combining an endearing simplicity with harmonic experimentation (think of, say, Nat Jaffe two and three years later) and an audible sense of humor: had Barnes chosen piano as his instrument, he would be known in jazz histories. SOMETHING TO REMEMBER YOU BY, which begins with extravagantly rhapsodic piano, shifts into fourth gear when Barnes begins his guitar solo. SWEET LORRAINE has a melody statement worthy of Eldridge in its contained force; the closing TEXAS BLUES is rocking from the start, merging Western swing and the hot jazz of the time.
The Barnes-Varner duets that close the set are intricate, twining duets — compositionally rich, the sort of playing Barnes and Carl Kress, Barnes and Bucky Pizzarelli did later on.
It might be hard for some to hear how radical Barnes was in 1941, but that’s tribute to his mastery, for all of his style has been subliminally integrated into the mainstream of jazz guitar playing: the pistol-shot single notes, the audacious harmonies, the singular way of constructing a solo — in these solo guitar performances, he has the mastery of Django or Lang, weaving even the most simple material (JA-DA) into a concerto with shifts of mood and tempo.
This set — which I hope is the first of many — has been produced by George’s daughter, Alexandra Barnes Leh, who hopes to make more people aware of her father’s swinging, innovative playing. For more information on how to order this set — available only as a digital download — click here. There, you can learn more about what the Legacy Project — how you can purchase instructional materials (audio and print) created by Barnes for beginners and for advanced students — and more.
Edith, whatever else we might know about her, had excellent taste in singers, and she acquired autographed pictures of them — whether in person or by mail.
In both cases (courtesy of eBay) I believe the signatures are genuine. I would vouch for Mildred’s because her calligraphy was distinctive, and Maxine’s elegant script was the same when she autographed a record for me in the very early Seventies. It is possible that Mildred signed her name to dozens of photographs and then wrote in the recipient’s name — the ink is slightly different — but that was common practice, I think.
Mildred:
Maxine:
So, Edith, thank you for being such a diligent and discerning fan!
Bassist, cellist, and composer Oscar Pettiford is in the odd position of being both legendary and forgotten (as Whitney Balliett wrote of Pee Wee Russell). If you ask any aficionado of jazz string bass playing to name a dozen favorites — living and dead — it’s likely that the names will come easily. But Pettiford’s is often not among them.
Yes, he died young, but not before performing and recording every famous musician (with some notable exceptions) in a short career. An incomplete list would include Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Tatum, Django Reinhardt, Les Paul, Charlie Christian, Gil Evans, Sonny Rollins, Art Blakey, Woody Herman, Coleman Hawkins, Ray Charles, Stan Getz, Lucky Thompson, Charles Mingus, Zoot Sims, John Coltrane, Sonny Stitt, Julius Watkins, Ben Webster, Sammy Price, Ruby Braff, Mel Powell, Ellis Larkins, Max Roach, Shelly Manne, Billie Holiday, Red Norvo, Clifford Brown, Buddy De Franco, Phineas Newborn, Kai Winding, Roy Eldridge, Ray Brown, Lionel Hampton, Don Byas, Clyde Hart, Earl Hines, Budd Johnson, Joe Thomas, Pee Wee Russell, Jimmy Giuffre, Martial Solal, Attlia Zoller, Lee Konitz, Warne Marsh, Billy Eckstine, Cozy Cole, Shadow Wilson, Charlie Shavers, Johnny Hodges, Rex Stewart, Cootie Williams, Ed Hall, Lawrence Brown, Sonny Greer, Maxine Sullivan, Dick Hyman, Eddie Bert, Joe Derise, Ike Quebec, Jonah Jones, Buck Clayton, Helen Humes, Benny Harris, Boyd Raeburn, Serge Chaloff, Howard McGhee, Sir Charles Thompson, Wynonie Harris, Vic Dickenson, Red Rodney, Tal Farlow, Denzil Best, Jo Jones, Leo Parker, Al Haig, Al Hibbler, Nat Pierce, Bill Harris, Howard McGhee, J.J. Johnson, Art Taylor, Wynton Kelly, Lockjaw Davis, Jackie McLean, Kenny Clarke, Dave McKenna, Milt Jackson, John Lewis, Chris Connor, Hank Jones, Earl Coleman, Thad Jones, Tommy Flanagan, Donald Byrd, Billy Taylor, Chuck Wayne, Roy Haynes, Art Farmer, Gigi Gryce, Al Cohn, Frank Wess, Jimmy Cleveland, Barry Galbraith, Joe Morello, Joe Wilder, Harry Lookofsky, Jimmy Jones, Urbie Green, Ernie Royal, Herbie Mann, George Barnes, Clark Terry, Dave Schildkraut, Helen Merrill, Jimmy Raney, Horace Silver, Doug Mettome, Quincy Jones, Duke Jordan, Hank Mobley, Kenny Dorham, Cecil Payne, Toots Thielmans, Red Garland.
This suggests that Oscar’s peers respected him and called him for gigs and recordings. It’s not as if he was obscure: his career was longer than, say, Blanton’s or Steve Brown’s. But, oddly for jazz, which loves to mythologize the musicians who die young and abruptly (and Pettiford died as the result of a 1960 automobile accident) he hasn’t received the benefit of the weird reverence fans and writers have for the young dead.
Of course, it could be that bass players don’t get the respect they and their instruments deserve, but it is and was hard to ignore Pettiford on a session. He offered a rhythmic foundation that was powerful rather than obtrusive, but when he soloed, his lines have the solid eloquence that any horn player would aspire to — while seeming light rather than ponderous. And as the list of players above suggests, his musical range was exceedingly broad: he wasn’t captured on record in free jazz or ragtime, but he elevated every other variety of jazz and jazz vocal performance he was part of. Had he lived longer, he might have enjoyed the visibility of a Milt Hinton or a Ray Brown, but we have only brief moments of him on film (the 1945 THE CRIMSON CANARY) and a few seconds of his speaking voice.
Surely he should be better known.
Enough words and keystrokes for the moment: listen to his 1960 feature on WILLOW WEEP FOR ME:
and here he is, playing his own BLUES IN THE CLOSET — from a little-known 1953 television broadcast — on cello (which he took to for a time after breaking an arm in a baseball game):
And his stirring solo on STARDUST:
Now, two pieces of good news that might go some distance in making Oscar’s name and music known to a larger audience. One is that there is a YouTube channel, PettifordJazz, with sixty videos of Pettiford solos, ensembles, and compositions. That means that no one has to start collecting Oscar’s music — it is being made available to all for free.
Oscar (or “O.P.”, as his colleagues called him) also spent the last two years of his life in Europe (mostly in Scandinavia and Germany), and recorded often there. Sessions with guitarist Attila Zoller have been issued and reissued on a variety of labels (in the vinyl era, they appeared on Black Lion) and a famous 1960 concert in Essen with Bud Powell, Kenny Clarke, and Coleman Hawkins was available forty years ago. Recordings made in 1958-59 for the German radio network have now been issued for the first time on compact disc, in beautiful sound, as OSCAR PETTIFORD: LOST TAPES — GERMANY 1958 / 1959, on SWR Music.
American expatriates Lucky Thompson (on soprano sax for a gorgeous, melancholy SOPHISTICATED LADY) and Kenny Clarke (drums on the final five performances of the disc) are the “stars,” but Zoller stands out as a beautifully measured guitarist.
And although some US critics of the time might have been condescending to European players, this disc shows their equal mastery. Trumpeter Dusko Goykovich duets with Oscar on the opening BUT NOT FOR ME. Other notable players here are clarinetist Rolf Kuhn; light-toned tenorist Hans Koller; baritone saxophonists Helmut Brandt, Helmut Reinhardt, Johnny Feigl; altoist Rudi Feigl; guitarist Hans Hammerschmid; drummers Jimmy Pratt and Hartwig Bartz. The songs are a mix of standards and originals: BUT NOT FOR ME / SOPHISTICATED LADY / A SMOOTH ONE / O.P. (Hans Koller) / MINOR PLUS A MAJOR (Kuhn) / POOR BUTTERFLY / ANUSIA (Hans Koller) / MY LITTLE CELLO (Pettiford) / THE NEARNESS OF YOU / YESTERDAYS / ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE / BLUES IN THE CLOSET (Pettiford) / BIG HASSLE (Hammerschmidt) / ATLANTIC (Helmut Brandt) / ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE / BLUES IN THE CLOSET — the last two are live performances.
And just because it’s accessible and stirring, here is that film clip — from an otherwise undistinguished 1945 murder mystery, THE CRIMSON CANARY, which features Hawk, Pettiford, Howard McGhee, trumpet; Sir Charles Thompson, piano; Denzil Best, on a fast SWEET GEORGIA BROWN line by Hawkins called HOLLYWOOD STAMPEDE:
Ultimately, I think if you’d asked Coleman Hawkins, Duke Ellington, or any number of jazz luminaries, “What about this O.P. fellow? Should I listen to him?” the answer would have been a very strong affirmative. So let us do just that. These tapes were lost, but have been found: spread the word about Oscar. Remind those who have forgotten; introduce those who never knew. “Learn it to the younguns!” as the youthful protagonist of Ellison’s INVISIBLE MAN hears at the start of that novel.
I had never seen these two singular musicians in duet before, but this set at the 2012 Jazz at Chautauqua was a highlight: clarinetist Bob Reitmeier bringing his own cool clear-toned lyricism alongside Keith Ingham’s more impassioned orchestral creations, rocking or pensive.
Berlin’s PUTTIN’ ON THE RITZ, which summons up Fred Astaire:
The Carmichael-Mercer SAY IT WITH A KISS, evoking Maxine, Billie, Teddy, and Bobby Hackett:
Bing and Bob, anyone? Here’s the Burke-Van Heusen THE ROAD TO MOROCCO:
The Carmichael-Loesser HEART AND SOUL (explored fully this time):
Memories of Louis, Dizzy, and a Benny Goodman Camel Caravan before Charlie Christian burst on the scene — UMBRELLA MAN:
The Gershwins’ STRIKE UP THE BAND:
There’s a good deal of summer’s-not-over frolic here, but with an awareness that the leaves are starting to turn. And I can look out my window and see the trees weighed down by a November mini-blizzard; I suggest we turn away from the Weather Channel and find our comfort and elation in the beautiful music.
The trumpet master Joe Thomas, aplacid, reserved man, didn’t make as many recordings as he should have. But he played alongside the finest musicians: Jack Teagarden, Vic Dickenson, Red Norvo, Roy Eldridge, Coleman Hawkins, Herman Chittison, Benny Carter, Barney Bigard, Joe Marsala, Buck Clayton, Teddy Wilson, Sidney Catlett, Edmond Hall, Art Tatum, Pete Brown, Claude Hopkins, Kenny Kersey, Big Joe Turner, Pee Wee Russell, Buddy Tate, Tony Scott, Dicky Wells, Oscar Pettiford, Lil Hardin Armstrong, Maxine Sullivan, Benny Morton, Bobby Gordon. Harry Lim (of Keynote Records) was a special champion of Joe’s and featured him on many sessions.
Here is a 1945 recording — during the great flourishing of small independent jazz labels — on the Jamboree label, which issued perhaps twenty discs in all, most featuring Don Byas; one session under Horace Henderson’s name; another was the only session under Dave Tough’s name — featuring our Mr. Thomas. One of the Byas discs, recorded by Don, Joe, and the mighty rhythm section of Johnny Guarneri, Billy Taylor, and Cozy Cole, is JAMBOREE JUMP — a groovy 32-bar head arrangement:
My ears tell me that JUMP has a close relationship with STOMPIN’ AT THE SAVOY, exceedingly familiar chord changes for that period. The line sounds at first simple, something out of a child’s scale exercise — but it turns more adventurous. There is a suggestion of a phrase we know from DIZZY ATMOSPHERE as well. Swing and Be-Bop were adjacent, simultaneous, rather than two epochs as the journalists wanted us to believe.
Byas swoops and hollers, evoking Ben, over that concisely effective rhythm section, with Guarneri offering his own synthesis of Waller and Basie over Taylor’s powerful bass and Cole’s restrained drums — their sound somewhat swallowed by the whoosh of the 78 surface, although his bass drum is a swing heartbeat.
The quartet glides for two minutes until Thomas announces himself with one of the upwards arpeggios he loved, a sea creature leaping gracefully through the ocean’s surface. His repeated notes never seem mechanical or over-emphatic: he just states he has arrived! Joe, as Whitney Balliett pointed out, had listened hard to the Louis of the Hot Seven period, although Joe always kept his cool. What follows might seem simple, undramatic for those anticipating the attack of an Eldridge or an Emmett Berry. But Joe knew how to structure a solo through space, to make his phrases ring by leaving breathing room between them. Like Bix or Basie, Joe embodied restraint while everyone around him was being urgent. His pure dark sound is as important as the notes he plays — or chooses to omit. Although his bridge is a leisurely series of upwards-moving arpeggios, it is more than “running changes.”
A simple phrase, in Thomas’s world, is a beautifully burnished object. And one phrase flows into another, so at the end of the solo, one has embraced a new melody, resonant in three dimensions, that wasn’t there before, full of shadings, deep and logically constructed. The band returns for the last statement of the theme, but it’s Joe’s solo I return to.
Louis, speaking about playing the trumpet, praised as the greatest good “tonation and phrasing.” Joe’s tone, dark and shining, makes the simple playing of a written line something to marvel at, and each of his notes seems a careful choice yet all is fresh, never by rote: someone speaking words that have become true because he has just discovered they are the right ones for the moment.
I offer JAMBOREE JUMP as prelude to something even more marvelous.
Harry Lim, the guiding genius of Keynote Records — which, session for session, was consistently rewarding — loved Joe and featured him often. The Pete Brown All-Star Quintet had a splendid rhythm section and the contrast between Joe’s stately sweetness and Pete’s lemony ebullience. IT’S THE TALK OF THE TOWN shows off not only the contrast between them, stylistically, but also in tempos — this 12″ 78 (another one of the independent labels’ of the time’s great ideas — thank Milt Gabler and Alfred Lion) contrasts sweeping elegance with double-time romping.
That song might well have been Joe’s choice. I was fortunate enough to see him in person a few times in the early Seventies, and he took this song as a kind of personal utterance. I don’t know if the lyrics meant something deep to him — he was happily married to the singer Babe Matthews for many years — or if he associated the song with some event or place in his past, but he played it and sang it as if he had composed it. And given Joe’s delight in the possibility of repeated notes in his soloing, TALK provides ample opportunities in its written melody. (Like DARN THAT DREAM, it is a song that — played mechanically — could grow wearisome quickly.)
Here’s the Keynote recording, beautifully annotated by its generous YouTube creator:
If you’ve heard little of pianist Kenny Kersey, his chiming, serious solo introduction is evidence that he is another unheard master.
Then Joe comes to the fore in a sorrowing embellishment of the theme. Hear his vibrato, his tone — without stating anything in melodramatic capital letters, he says, “What you are hearing is very serious to me. It comes from my heart.” Indeed, I think of the great later Louis of THAT’S FOR ME. Joe is somber and tender at once, lingering over a note here, adding a small ornamental flourish, as he does at the end of the first sixteen bars, almost in a casual whisper, his brass voice trailing away.
Around him, the elements are in place: the warm resonance of Milt’s notes; the gentle timekeeping of J.C. Heard; Kersey, pointing the way; the sweet understated agreements provided by Pete’s alto.
When Joe would sing TALK OF THE TOWN, he would get even more emphatic on the bridge. A song that begins, “I can’t show my face” already starts passionately, but the bridge is a drama of disappointment and betrayal: “We sent out invitations / To friends and relations / Announcing our wedding day. / Friends and relations gave congratulations. / How can you face them? / What can you say?” Here, Joe’s trumpet rises to depict this heartbreak without increasing his volume or adding more notes. The run that begins the second half of the bridge is Joe’s version of an early Thirties Louis phrase in sweet slow-motion.
Something startling comes next, and although I have known this recording for several decades, I can’t prepare myself for it: Pete Brown and the rhythm section go into double-time. Pete loved to push the beat, and perhaps the idea of playing TALK OF THE TOWN as an extended ballad seemed too much of a good thing. I also wonder if Pete knew that to follow Joe in the same fashion was not a good idea*. Whatever the reason, the spirit of Roy Eldridge playing BODY AND SOUL at double-time is in the room. Although Pete’s rough bouncy energy is initially startling, his bluesy vocalized tone is delightful, and the rhythm section digs in (Heard’s soft bass drum accents suggest Catlett). And there’s the SALT PEANUTS octave jump at the end of the bridge, too.
It’s left to Kersey to return everyone to the elegiac tempo set at the start, and he does it beautifully, although the section has to settle in. Joe returns, declamatory and delicate. Where many trumpeters of the period might have gone up for a high one, Joe repeats the title of the song as if to himself.
I have loved Joe Thomas’ work for forty-five years, having heard him first on an Ed Beach radio show with the Keynote SHE DIDN’T SAY YES and then on a Prestige-Swingville session led by Claude Hopkins and featuring Buddy Tate. His playing still moves me. Although his simple notes are not difficult to play on the trumpet, to play them as he does, to learn how to sing through metal tubing is a lifetime’s work. There were and are many compelling Louis-inspired trumpeters, and they all brought their own special joy. But there was only one Joe Thomas.
Thanks to SwingMan1937 for posting JAMBOREE JUMP and to sepiapanorama for IT’S THE TALK OF THE TOWN. These generous YouTube folks have excellent taste!
*About Pete Brown’s double-time section. I came across another YouTube presentation of IT’S THE TALK OF THE TOWN — Connee Boswell’s lovely 1933 reading with the Dorsey Brothers in an orchestra directed by Victor Young — and she lifts the tempo, too. Perhaps it was a swing convention when the song was first introduced? (The picture of the singer isn’t Connee but Jo Stafford, by the way.)
I would have been eager to visit clarinetist Ron Odrich’s monthly session at San Martin on East 49th Street, New York City (it happens the first Tuesday of each month) for his swooping playing — and the lovely work of his colleagues James Chirillo (guitar); Gary Mazzaroppi (string bass); “Cenz” (drums). But last Tuesday’s session was even more special because it allowed me to hear one of the quiet masters of jazz in person.
I refer to trombonist George Masso: veteran of the late Forties Jimmy Dorsey band (a band whose trumpet section had Charlie Teagarden and Maynard Ferguson!) and then right-hand man to Bobby Hackett, Ken Peplowski, Barbara Lea, Spike Robinson, Harry Allen, Wild Bill Davison, the World’s Greatest Jazz Band, Warren Vache, Ed Polcer, Joe Wilder, Urbie Green, Helen Ward, Al Klink, Scott Hamilton, Ruby Braff, Tom Pletcher, Maxine Sullivan, Mike Renzi, Kenny Davern, Carl Fontana, Dave McKenna, Eddie Higgins, Randy Sandke, Charlie Ventura, Dan Barrett, Dick Hyman, Bob Wilber, Lou Columbo, Ralph Sutton, Jake Hanna, Woody Herman, and the King of Swing himself.
Obviously, if all those people had called upon Mr. Masso, he was special: this I already knew from the recordings: his accuracy and fine, broad tone — his remarkable combination of swing-time and ease with a broad harmonic palette and astonishing technique, always in the service of melody and logical improvisations.
Two additional facts you should know before you watch the videos that follow (featuring superb playing by everyone in the group). George Masso is one of the most gentle, humble people it will be my privilege to know — so happy that a fan (myself) would make a small pilgrimage to hear and capture him (his lady friend June is a dear person too, no surprise).
Mister Masso is eighty-five years old, obviously one of the marvels of the age. Cape Cod and Rhode Island must agree with him. And his playing certainly agreed with everyone there.
They began their set with TANGERINE:
I’M OLD-FASHIONED, taken at a walking tempo:
BLUE BOSSA, lilting and graceful:
A romping I FOUND A NEW BABY:
And — not dedicated to anyone in the room! — George’s ballad feature on OLD FOLKS:
Masterful.
P.S. I hope George comes back to New York City — with his trombone — soon! In April, Ron’s guest star will be baritone saxophone wizard Gary Smulyan.
That title, I hope, says it all. This session took place at the 2011 Sweet and Hot Music Festival in Los Angeles — on September 4, 2011, at the upwardly mobile aerie called Cheap Seats, a tiny room on the eighteenth floor. It was crowded, for very good reason, and I had to use all my wiles and obstinacy to get in, stay in, and video-record over the protests of a well-intentioned volunteer concerned about the fire laws, but I am glad I practiced my passive resistance a la Thoreau and captured this session for JAZZ LIVES.
It began as yet another chamber-jazz outing for the trio of Dan Levinson (clarinet and tenor); Mark Shane (piano); Molly Ryan (voice and rhythm guitar), with the astronomical marvel (much more than “guest star”) cornetist Connie Jones. Later in the set a noble visitor came in: the title gives it away, but Howard Alden is always welcome on the bandstand: here he brought his acoustic guitar and added so much to the proceedings.
The quartet began the set with a sweet / silly Thirties song I associate with Shirley Temple in a film — but more to the point, with Edythe Wright and Tommy Dorsey’s Clambake Seven. Kevin Dorn wasn’t on the stand, so you have to imagine “Take it away, Davey,” all on your own:
Next was BACK HOME AGAIN IN INDIANA, which went from sweetly rustic / nostalgic very quickly. Don’t look away from the monitor to check on dinner, for around 2:20 Dan comes back into camera view apparently dragging a miscreant (a jazz “perp”) onto the stand . . . Mr. Alden, who manages to unpack and join in the choruses:
Molly Ryan is a very agreeable young woman, so it would make perfect sense for her to sing the anthem of assent, ‘DEED I DO:
On a Hines-Noone kick? Here’s BLUES IN THIRDS:
I’LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS usually closes the night’s entertainment, but here it shows off the brilliance of Howard Alden, who performed it so memorably (behind the scenes) in Woody Allen’s SWEET AND LOWDOWN:
One of the wonderful quasi-spiritual exhortations of the early Thirties, suggesting that music could cure one’s tendencies towards evil, SING YOU SINNERS:
The set ended most beautifully — not with a rouser full of climaxes, but with something tender and most sweet, SAY IT WITH A KISS (echoing Maxine, Billie, and a bygone era of love songs):
Just a family note: the fellow to the left (blue flowered shirt, video camera) isn’t me by some trick of telekinesis: that’s Molly’s devoted father, eager to record every note for posterity. And rightly so!
JAZZ LIVES 