“How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” is too difficult a question and even for celestial beings, perhaps a little cramped. “How much joy can two superb improvisers pack into ten minutes?” is an easier question since we have the tangible evidence.
This delightful interlude — THE CRAVE / GRANDPA’S SPELLS / IF DREAMS COME TRUE — two by Jelly Roll Morton, and a classic stride test piece by Edgar Sampson that works beautifully on its own (think of Billie’s version) were performed in concert (thanks to Dick Gibson) at the Paramount Theatre in Colorado, sometime between September 4-6, 1982. Dick Hyman, Dave Frishberg, pianos, if you were guessing:
Everyone who’s immersed in this music bows to Dick Hyman, part Eminence, part Keyboard Gazelle. For spirited inventiveness, only Art Tatum has surpassed him. But because Dave Frishberg was rarely in the foreground as a solo pianist, especially after his success as a sardonic-whimsical singer-songwriter, he’s been underestimated for too long. But he was a peerless soloist and accompanist, with this own mixture of Duke-Rowles-Basie, which once heard is unforgettable.
Here, he is shoulder-to-shoulder with Hyman, musically and fraternally. These ten minutes are expert and exact, but they are also joyous play — a too-brief interlude. But now you can share the grinning as well, and return at leisure.
As James Chirillo has been known to say after a particularly satisfying session, “Music was made.” That it was, last Sunday afternoon in the bright sunshine (and cooling breezes) in front of the Ear Inn on 326 Spring Street, Soho, New York City. The EarRegulars were Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; Matt Munisteri, guitar; Jay Rattman, bass saxophone; Ricky Alexander, clarinet and tenor saxophone. But before a note had been played, Jon-Erik noticed that theCheckEngine light was shining from his trumpet, so he absented himself for a bit to get it looked at, secure that music would be made in his absence. (He came back before the set was over.)
This was a novel instrumentation, one that might have been either earthbound or unbalanced in the hands of lesser musicians. But the synergy here was more than remarkable, and the pleasure created in each chorus was palpable. This hot chamber trio — soaring, lyrical, rambunctious — performed six songs in their trio set. Here are the first three, to be savored.
SUNDAY, which goes back to 1926 (think Jean Goldkette and Cliff Edwards) but was also a favorite of Lester Young. Here, the Mini-EarRegulars also play the verse, an unexpected pleasure:
UNDER A BLANKET OF BLUE was one of Frank Chace’s favorite songs, and I think of the tender version by Ella and Louis. A rarity, though: when was the last time you heard a group play it?
And Edgar Sampson’s rocking BLUE LOU:
A fellow listener turned to me between songs and said, marveling, “Aren’t they grand?” I agreed, as I hope you would have also.
Music like this gives me hope. It was created right in front of my eyes, at a place reachable by public transportation in New York City (with a parking garage right across the street); it was created in this century by four people I love and admire. So it can and will come again, like the little purple crocus that grows in cracks in the concrete. It has beauty; it has durability. What’s a global pandemic to this? Kid stuff.
The details? Cafe Bohemia, 15 Barrow Street, Greenwich Village, New York. Sean Cronin, string bass (sitting in for Jen Hodge that night for a few); Albanie Falletta, resonator guitar; Ricky Alexander, clarinet; Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet. Edgar Sampson, composer.
I urge you: listen. Do not take this spiritual phenomenon casually, because it is the breath of life:
Thanks to these delightful musicians, a reminder that swinging jazz is resilient and, what’s more, present: this concert was shown recently on television, a very pleasing phenomenon in itself. Its theme? Swinging jazz is thriving.
Matthias Seuffert, January 2020.
The creators are Matthias Seuffert, tenor saxophone and clarinet (hear him on the latter on AFTER SUPPER); Patrick Artero on trumpet; Thilo Wagner on piano; Lindy Huppertsberg, string bass and announcements; Gregor Beck, drums. The repertoire honors “New Testament” Basie and Neal Hefti, Fifties American pop classics, Louis and Hoagy Carmichael, Edgar Sampson and the Swing Era, neatly evoked without all those music stands: FLIGHT OF THE FOO BIRDS / AFTER SUPPER / SECRET LOVE (Thilo, Lindy, Gregor) / JUBILEE / and the encore, BLUE LOU.
Wonderful music, so expert, so warm, and so reassuring. Bless its vividly imaginative friends, making it get up and do its dance in 2019.
So you took your pills this morning with your coffee and you don’t feel any different? You walked past the bed and it said, “Come back to me until March 2021,” and you heard its call? A good friend texted you I HAVE GREAT NEWS! and you didn’t read the message? Do you feel like an elderly carrot at the back of the crisper? If you were a quart of milk, would you be lumpy and sour?
Before you call your doctor to see if she can see you today, ask yourself: “Could my Swing levels be low? Have I been neglecting a flowing 4 / 4? Have I been reading the news far too much too early in the day?”
If so, I have the cure for you. No co-pay, no long list of side effects, no waiting room with tape across the chairs. Just sit still and prepare to receive the healing infusions through ears and eyes. Several repeated immersions will be helpful. When you find yourself moving rhythmically in your chair, the treatment will be working.
I saw this video last night on YouTube (my faithful companion) and watched it four times in a row before posting it on Facebook. But I think it’s my moral duty as an upstanding American to share it as widely as possible. Here’s what I wrote:
When it’s good, you know it. And what I am going to share with you is light-years better than good. It’s what Marty Grosz would call “the real breadstick”: BLUE LOU, created by HAL SMITH’S OVERLAND SWING EXPRESS. That’s Hal, drums / leader; Clint Baker, trumpet; Loren Schoenberg, tenor saxophone; Kris Tokarski, piano; Nick Rossi, guitar; Bill Reinhart, string bass. I watched it four times in succession before writing this. Now I have to stop: Jack Kapp and John Hammond are squabbling in the next room over whether the band will sign with Decca or ARC. But judge for yourself:
We like to think that everything can be known, and in many cases answers can be found by the diligent, but I am sharing a small mystery with my readers, for their pleasure and perhaps our mutual enlightenment.
Certain jazz soloists are immediately recognizable: you can make your own list. Other superb players are less familiar because of the paucity of evidence (we know what Charlie Shavers sounds like because of his distinctive approach, but we also have hours of his recorded work to compare any unidentified playing against.) I think also of Coleman Hawkins’ comment about being on the road: that you could go to some small town and there would be a tenor player who no one ever heard of who would be as good as the famous ones.
When I saw this record — rather obscure and rare — I wanted it, for those reasons. Also because Edgar Sampson, saxophonist, composer, arranger, never produced any music that was less than superb. I knew one song — DON’T TRY YOUR JIVE ON ME — because of Fats Waller’s UK recording. When I played it, though, I was impressed and mystified. A great trumpet solo on JIVE, and rippling swing piano on both sides.
I have some vanity about knowing the great soloists of the period, and it piqued me that I couldn’t identify anyone except Sampson. But I have friends who are also experts, and I tried their knowledge as well — let me list their names in alphabetical order: Marc Caparone, Menno Daams, Jan Evensmo, Jon-Erik Kellso, Bent Persson, Rob Rothberg, Bo Scherman — but no definitive answers.
About The Three Swingsters, I can only surmise that they were a vocal group with some regional fame — I think Pennsylvania — but I do not know whether the record was made to showcase them or not.
Before we go deeper, here is the mysterious listing in Tom Lord’s online discography:
Edgar Sampson And His Orchestra : 2 tp, tb, Edgar Sampson (as) unknown p, b and d, The Three Swingsters (vcl-1)
New York, May 25, 1939
WM1023-A Don’t try your jive on me (1) Voc 4942
WM1024-A Pick your own lick (1) –
WM1025-A Sly mongoose (1) (unissued)
My experts (I apologize if that seems too possessive) came up with names of who the trumpet soloist couldn’t be, and proposed Dick Vance or Benny Carter as the trumpeter, and Tommy Fulford as the pianist, with some thoughts of perhaps Eddie Heywood or Kenny Kersey. Vance and Fulford were stalwarts of the Chick Webb band — this disc was recorded very late in Chick’s life — and at that time Sampson was the band’s musical director. I have heard Fulford with Chick’s “Little Chicks,” and he is plausible — fleet and swinging.
On first hearing, I thought the pianist was Billy Kyle, but the player does not reach for Kyle’s beloved downward run, and Billy recorded that day with Jack Sneed for Decca (of course he could have made two sessions in one day). The connection to Master Records suggests the salutary influence of Helen Oakley. And PICK YOUR OWN LICK (written by “newcomers to songdom” Roy Jacobs and Gene de Paul, according to Billboard) was published by Mills Music. de Paul went on to write DON’T TAKE YOUR LOVE FROM ME and I’LL REMEMBER APRIL, but LICK is not his finest hour. Or three minutes.
Here’s DON’T TRY YOUR JIVE ON ME:
About PICK YOUR OWN LICK: I try never to write these words, but what a terrible idea — an attempt to have a pop hit by cannibalizing bits of other pop hits. But the band sounds good, even while the lyrics pummel us with obvious hopeful thefts.
Several eBay rambles turned up a hoard of beautiful unseen portraits — from the archives of the photographic giant Brown Brothers (who, I believe, divested themselves of the print archives a number of years ago). They remind me of a time when musicians, now obscure, were known to a large audience and had their remarkable faces in print.
Here are some of the treasures: the bidding was intense, so I did not acquire any of these, but the images are here for you to admire for free. The seller, evansarchive, has only one jazz photograph for sale as I write this, but the other photographs — film and stage actors — are equally fascinating.
Let us start with a particularly rare image — an unusual shot of the John Kirby Sextet on a very small bandstand, with glimpses of Kirby, Charlie Shavers, and Russell Procope (alas, no Buster Bailey) but a remarkable photograph of the short-lived drummer / vocalist O’Neil Spencer:
And here’s another under-celebrated hero, baritone saxophonist Jack Washington, definitely in action in the Count Basie band, with Vic Dickenson and another trombonist, possibly Bennie Morton, to his right. Vic is ignoring the photographer, but Jack — I think — is a little suspicious of the flash camera so near to his face:
and the real prize (which eluded me), a portrait of Frank Newton on a job:
I suspect this is a spring or summertime gig, given the lightweight suits — at some point Newton put his hand in his right jacket pocket and the flap is half-undone. I can’t identify the pianist, and the club is not familiar to me (which makes me think of Boston rather than New York City) but Ernie Caceres is immediately identifiable — with clarinet rather than baritone saxophone — and the skeptical-looking trombonist (gig fatigue or suspicion of a flashbulb explosion) might be Wilbur DeParis. But I’d love to know where and when: perhaps this is a hall rather than a jazz club?
Here’s composer, arranger, alto saxophonist Edgar Sampson in a photograph by Otto Hess:
Another Otto Hess photograph: Albert Nicholas and Zutty Singleton. Does the wall covering suggest Jimmy Ryan’s?
Stuff Smith in action (the photographer crouched behind the drum kit and the flashbulb rendered the underside of the cymbal bright white:
Bobby Hackett at Carnegie Hall, Eddie Condon behind him:
and just in case anyone needed confirmation:
Erroll Garner:
Now, a few masterful percussionists. Jimmie Crawford:
Ray Bauduc:
and someone identified as Bauduc, but clearly not. Who’s it?
and some well-dressed luminaries who can certainly be identified, as well as the occasion — World Transcription session, 1944 — Wilbur DeParis, Bob Casey, and Pee Wee Russell:
From another source, Sidney Catlett in full flight. I can hear this photograph:
As I said, once upon a time these people were stars in larger orbits. Rather than mourn the shrinking of interest and knowledge, I celebrate the glorious circumstances that made these photographs “news.”
The gorgeous music below is sent out as a moral inducement, less of a rebuke, to the people who “don’t know how to Act Nice.”
The boss who raises his voice at a subordinate; the salesperson who tries to flatter us to make the sale; the insecure person who bullies; the driver who tailgates; the liar; the self-absorbed person too busy recounting their own exploits to ask how you might be or too busy to leave that smartphone alone . . . the list is, sadly, long, and there is no need to add to it here.
To these people I send Jonathan Doyle’s instructive but also healing gift of this performance — called DON’T BE THAT WAY — performed at the 2019 Redwood Coast Music Festival. The artful creators are Jonathan Doyle, tenor saxophone; Jacob Zimmerman, alto saxophone; Charlie Halloran, trombone; Kris Tokarski, piano; Jamey Cummins, guitar; Steve Pikal, string bass; Hal Smith, drums. This easy rocking performance (not too fast, thank you!) summons up Teddy Wilson, Lester Young, Lionel Hampton small-group recordings rather than the famous Benny Goodman one.
Incidentally, I don’t espouse Goodman-bashing, but the 1934 Webb recording of the song, an instrumental, has Edgar Sampson as composer; later, Mitchell Parish added lyrics; Benny added his name, as the sheet music bearing his image, twice, shows.
The Swingtet scales peaks without stressing itself or us. How splendidly they glide. Bless them! And bless Mark and Valerie Jansen for making this life-changing music happen at the Redwood Coast Music Festival, a sweet explosion of joys which will nuzzle our faces once again on May 7-10, 2020. For now:
So, please. Be any way that’s kind, easy, and compassionate. Be aware that we are all connected. Be candid, be loving. Be aware.
Yesterday’s post of PARDON MY SOUTHERN ACCENT by Dave Stuckey and the Hot House Gang received a great deal of attention and praise . . . so here is a second helping. But I confess that I am posting more music by this band for an even simpler reason: they make me feel jubilant, and I can’t dismiss that reaction.
Here are three more rocking performances by Dave and the Hot House Gang from February 8-9th at the “Sounds of Mardi Gras” in Fresno, California. The swing luminaries on the stand in addition to Dave, guitar and vocal, are Gareth Price, drums; Sam Rocha, piano; David Aus, piano [taking the place of Carl Sonny Leyland for this gig]; Nate Ketner, reeds; Marc Caparone, cornet; guest star Riley Baker, trombone.
The first, ‘T’AIN’T NO USE, comes from the 1936 book of Stuff Smith and his Onyx Club Boys:
Another reproachful meditation on romance that hasn’t quite reached the target, WHY DON’T YOU PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH? — renowned because of Henry “Red” Allen and the Boswell Sisters. Here it has a little glee-club flair, which works so well:
A splendid swing classic by Edgar Sampson, BLUE LOU:
Don’t they just rock the building? I’ve known almost all of the Gang — on disc and in person — through my California Period — but I would especially call out for praise and attention a few Youngbloods, Messrs. Price, Baker, and Rocha. How very inspiring.
Dawn Lambeth, Kris Tokarski, Larry Scala, Nobu Ozaki, Hal Smith, Jonathan Doyle, Marc Caparone at the San Diego Jazz Fest
Oh, how they swing. This band is one definition of happiness.
See here for their version of MY GAL SAL which continues to bring great pleasure, with the same heroes: Kris Tokarski, piano; Hal Smith, drums; Larry Scala, guitar; Jonathan Doyle, clarinet and tenor; Nobu Ozaki, string bass; Marc Caparone, guest nobleman, on trumpet.
And Edgar Sampson’s fervent wish, IF DREAMS COME TRUE:
Don Redman’s CHERRY:
and Alex Hill’s I WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR YOU:
Not only might they do anything for us, or would do anything for us: they DO. And so splendidly. I recorded another four sets (if memory serves) so there might be a few more delicacies to come. Such joy, such generosity of spirit, such art.
I will indulge myself in a slight repetition of the first part of this blogpost, which you can read and hear here. It explains the beautiful image above.
Dan Block, one of the most consistently inspired creators I know, respects the music of the Swing Era and knows it deeply, but has chosen his own path through these two polarities. It’s hard to explain verbally, but it works in the same way the Möbius strip does: one reveres the original but opens it up innovatively (the artists we respect now were in some way all radical innovators) before returning home to the Palace of Swing. Dan and his comrades: Godwin Louis, alto saxophone; Adam Birnbaum, piano; Jennifer Vincent, string bass; Alvester Garnett, drums, did this ten times at an ecstatic musical evening at Smalls on February 3.
The three performances I’d already posted were HARLEM CONGO, NIGHTFALL, and BUGS PARADE. And here are four more uplifting explorations. I thought these performances were explosions of sensory pleasure when I heard and recorded them on the spot; they reveal more each time I listen.
Mary Lou Williams’ WALKIN’ AND SWINGIN’:
And the 1934 Henderson romp, which I think featured Red Allen, among others:
Edgar Sampson’s BLUE LOU:
and, finally, for this segment, a masterful reconsideration of DON’T BE THAT WAY that, to me, owes more to Lester’s 1938 solo than to any big-band (possibly industrial) version:
A wonderful musical intelligence and deep feeling here, for which I am immensely grateful.
My title comes from Ezra Pound, whose serious instruction to hopeful modernists was MAKE IT NEW. In its own way, jazz has always been about making it new; even when one generation was paying tribute to preceding ones, the act of homage was in some ways grounded in newness. If, in 2016, one decides to play note-for-note recreations of an Alcide Nunez record, that act is bound to have 2016 sensibilities and nuances built in. But what animates Dan Block is much deeper than that. Dan, who embodies an extraordinarily wide range of music, is one of the most imaginative shape-changers I know.
For his most recent gig at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Dan assembled a surprising quintet: himself on clarinet and tenor saxophone; Godwin Louis on alto; Adam Birnbaum, piano; Jennifer Vincent, string bass; and for this rehearsal-session, Pete Van Nostrand, drums (Alvester Garnett played drums at Dizzy’s on June 7). The videos here are from an informal session held at Fat Cat on May 31. I present them here with Dan’s encouragement: although the crowd was its usual boy-and-girlish self, the music was spectacular. The band was advertised as “The Dan Block Quintet: Mary Lou Williams and Benny Carter Meet Hard Bop.” Intriguing, no?
Dan took half a dozen venerable songs from the Thirties — with connections to Chick Webb, Fletcher and Horace Henderson, Edgar Sampson, Mary Lou Williams, and Benny Carter — and reconsidered them, as if he were a very imaginative couturier. Take the song down to its sparest elements: strong melody, strong rhythm, familiar harmonies, and ask, “How would this look in lime green? What about a very short denim jacket?” and so on. As if he were fascinated by the essential self of the song — that which could not be harmed or obliterated — and started to play with the trappings — new rhythms, a different approach, new harmonies and voicings — to see what might result.
What resulted was and is terribly exciting — a blossoming-forth of exuberant energies from all the musicians.
HARLEM CONGO (from the Webb book):
PUDDIN’ HEAD SERENADE (Andy Kirk):
HOTTER THAN ‘ELL (Henderson):
BLUES IN MY HEART (Carter):
LONESOME NIGHTS (Carter):
BLUE LOU (Edgar Sampson for Chick Webb, then everyone else):
I think the originators, who were radical for their time, would certainly approve.
As an aside: everyone’s a critic, and cyber-communications have intensified this feeling. If readers write, “I like the original 78 versions better! This is not the way these songs should sound!” such comments will stay hidden. I revere the originals also, but I won’t have creative musicians I admire be insulted by comparisons of this nature.
How do you honor the past? By being yourself and letting the ancestral beauties and lessons flow through you. Here are three young musicians who not only understand that deep truth but embody it: Rob Adkins, string bass; Evan Arntzen, tenor saxophone (and a surprise vocal on DREAMS); Ehud Asherie, piano. I offer you two lovely performances recorded at Casa Mezcal on February 7, 2016.
I knew this gorgeous song through Louis’ Decca recording, then through Ruby Braff and Scott Hamilton (separately) but it was a thrill to hear this trio explore it with such deep fwwling but such a light tread. And its title — and unheard lyrics — ask the eternal question:
Then, a Swing Era anthem — beloved of James P. Johnson, Lester and Billie, and many more. The sheet music below credits Benny Goodman and Irving Mills along with Edgar Sampson, but I’d give the latter full credit.
Incidentally, I’ve left the Louis version of WAS I TO BLAME? and the James P. and Billie-Lester versions to those willing to embark on a few YouTube clicks. I revere those records and have done so for decades, but comparison is — not necessarily odious — to me, disrespectful. We should honor the giants who walk and create among us, shouldn’t we? And thank them, not posthumously, but now, for their gracious, eloquent playing and singing.
Some performances are magical — so much so that I hate to see them come to an end. But “an end” only means that there are no more video surprises to post; it also means that I have been able to share eleven leisurely delights from one Sunday afternoon at Casa Mezcal (86 Orchard Street, the Lower East Side of Manhattan) featuring Rob Adkins, string bass; Ehud Asherie, piano; Dan Block, clarinet and tenor saxophone. Hereand hereare the first two helpings of delight from that day.
Now, I offer — with mingled joy and regret — the final three improvisations from that very rewarding afternoon: a swing classic by Edgar Sampson that brings Billie and Lester and James P. to mind; a melancholy, rueful tone poem from the late Twenties, originally called LITTLE BUTTERCUP and (I believe) premiered with lyrics by Mildred Bailey — but also memorable thanks to Lester and Billie; and the tale of a jungle beast running wild in the best New Orleans way, whether or not Jelly Roll Morton composed it by adapting part of a French quadrille. All wonderful. Thank you, gentlemen-magicians Rob, Ehud, and Dan.
Where? The Savoy Ballroom, of course. The Home of Happy Feet in Harlem stopped being a Swing mecca in 1958, but its spirit remains.
That spirit was very much in evidence at this year’s Atlanta Jazz Party, and on April 18, 2015, Rebecca Kilgore and a wonderful small band brought it even more sharply into focus with a performance of Edgar Sampson’s STOMPIN’ AT THE SAVOY. Her Stompers were Dan Barrett, trombone; Johnny Varro, piano; Wayne Wilkinson, guitar; Nicki Parrott, string bass; Danny Coots, drums. (Does that closing riff owe its existence to Coleman Hawkins and Roy Eldridge?)
You don’t need a ballroom with these wonderful musicians.
Someone unknown to me — a generous anonymous benefactor — has posted on YouTube two of the irreplaceable 1939 piano solos by James P. Johnson. I think they are uplifting creations that never grow over-familiar.
BLUEBERRY RHYME, Johnson’s own musing original composition, has not only several strains but feels multi-layered, as if two moods were moving along in time and sound throughout the piece. One is sweetly, sadly ruminative — thoughts of a solitary seeker in a meadow, perhaps, with calm and loss intermingled. The other is joyous — all of James P.’s most elegant trickeries offered to us at half-speed and half-volume, so that we could think, for an evanescent moment, “Hey, I could play the piano like that if I only practiced.” In this stratum, we hear what so many pianists — Tatum, Fats, Basie — worshipped and borrowed from him. (There’s a tinkling figure at :20 that Tatum nipped off with and made his own.)
Is BLUEBERRY RHYME sweet thoughts of home, or of a love that might have been, musings on a pie, or something private to James P.? We cannot know, but we can enter this world for a few minutes, its gently rocking motions and lingering melodies both comforting and elusive.
BLUEBERRY RHYME is followed by one of my favorite interludes, a joyous yet stately romp on Edgar Sampson’s IF DREAMS COME TRUE. This recording has been one of my consolations and dear musical friends for perhaps forty-five years, and it not only provides happiness but embodies it. Within the first ten seconds — that prancing bassline, the treble chords announcing the melody — we know we are somewhere elation is the common language, where all will be given over to the dance.
Each chorus is a complete utterance in itself, and each chorus’ variations look backwards to its predecessor and anticipate what is to come. Stride piano is also misunderstood by some as a metronomic left hand with a freer but rhythmically-obedient right hand creating variations in its own realm, but notice the playful elasticity between the steady bass lines and the widening rhythmic freedom of the treble, in a playful push-and-pull that we feel as the performance continues. The dance gets more and more ambitious, but James P.’s time and volume are both steady delights, and form is never abandoned.
Compare, for instance, the opening chorus where the melody is explicitly stated in contract to what happens at 5:30, magical in itself. Although the performance has offered a certain ornateness, the thrilling competitive display the Harlem players loved, here James P. seems to pull back into softer enigmatic utterances, offering space and an abstraction of what he has been playing instead of attempting to dazzle the hearer even more. And the three ascending chords at 6:19! So simple and yet so memorable. On my admittedly untuned piano, they are a C, D, and E — the first do re mi of a beginning student, but what ringing sounds they are here.
Should I end my days in a hospice, I hope I will have these recordings with me to take on the journey. And I exult in them now.
Hear for yourself:
Coincidentally, James P. was the subject of a brief cyber-discussion the fine pianist Michael Bank and I were having, and Michael (lyrical in prose and music) wrote that James P. “creates a portal to the universe.” James P. Johnson was and is his own universe, vast, inviting, heartfelt. How fortunate we are to hear such beauty!
(Blessings on the often-imperious John Hammond, who booked the studio time in 1939 to make these recordings and treasured them when Columbia Records would not issue them, saving them for future generations.)
I have heard that Mosaic Records is preparing a James P. Johnson set. Talk about DREAMS coming true.
In the early nineteen-thirties, Edgar Sampson (alto saxophone, composer, arranger, lyricist) wrote an irresistible song which he called IF DREAMS COME TRUE. Benny Goodman’s name is on the sheet music, but I take that as evidence of the repellent practice of bandleaders and stars “cutting themselves in” on royalties for a composition they had nothing to do with in exchange for performing it and recording it. Many beautiful recordings of this song — James P. Johnson’s, Billie Holiday’s, and Chick Webb’s come to mind.
Here is a contemporary version by some Masters of their Art (my posting inspired by Scott Ricketts) recorded on November 30, 2014, at the San Diego Jazz Fest — Tim Laughlin, clarinet; Connie Jones, cornet; Doug Finke, trombone; Chris Dawson, piano; Katie Cavera, guitar; Marty Eggers, string bass; Hal Smith, drums.
To me, it is the very epitome of floating swing lyricism — a leisurely cross-pollination of the Bobcats and a Teddy Wilson small group, a triumph of sweet individualism in this century:
I have only one problem with the song’s title, and it is a semantic one. The song exists in the fragile realm of the doubtful, the conditional. Dreams may come true but we aren’t at all sure. Even changing it to WHEN DREAMS COME TRUE puts the happy consummation somewhere in the indistinct future.
Let’s be bold. When Connie and Tim lead this band, DREAMS COME TRUE. I will brook no arguments on this. I know that they did and do for me, and for many in the audience.
James Dapogny’s Chicago Jazz Band is one of my favorite groups — whether they are expertly navigating through their leader’s compact, evocative arrangements or going for themselves. The noble fellows on the stand at the 2014 Evergreen Jazz Festival were Dapogny, piano / arrangements; Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; Chris Smith, trombone, vocal; Kim Cusack, clarinet, alto saxophone, vocal; Russ Whitman, clarinet, tenor, baritone saxophone; Rod McDonald, guitar; Dean Ross (a Denver native), string bass; Pete Siers, drums.
The CJB was one of the absolute high points of Evergreen (which I documented here) and I offer five more tasty main dishes:
DON’T BE THAT WAY was one of Edgar Sampson’s great compositions, most often known through Benny Goodman’s rather brisk performances (it worked even better at slow glide, as Lester Young proved) but one of the most memorable recordings of this song was done by a Teddy Wilson small group in 1938 — featuring those Commodoreans Bobby Hackett and Pee Wee Russell. The CJB pays tribute to both the song and the performance here (although I point out that the CJB is not copying the solos from the record). Tell the children not to be afraid: Mr. Kellso growls but he doesn’t bite:
IS YOU IS OR IS YOU AIN’T MY BABY? is a deep question, whether or not Louis Jordan was asking it. Here Professor Dapogny and the Chicago Jazz Chorus make the same inquiry with renewed curiosity:
She just got here yesterday, and already she made an impression (I hear Ethel Waters pointing out these facts) — that’s SWEET GEORGIA BROWN:
I know that pianist / composer Alex Hill, who died far too young, is one of Dapogny’s heroes — mine too — someone responsible for memorable melodies and arrangements as well as fine piano. DELTA BOUND is (for those who know the lyrics) one of those “I can’t wait to get home down South” songs both created and thrust upon African-Americans in the Twenties and Thirties, but its simple melody is deeply haunting — especially in this evocative performance, as arranged by Dapogny:
Valve trombonist Juan Tizol’s CARAVAN has been made in to material for percussion explosions for some time (perhaps beginning with Jo Jones in the Fifties) but here it is a beautifully-realized bit of faux-exotica (camels not required) harking back to the late-Thirties Ellington small groups:
Splendid playing and arrangements. And more to come.
By any estimation, the pianist Clarence Profit (June 26, 1912 – October 22, 1944) was immensely talented and short-lived. People who heard him play live, uptown, said he was a match for Art Tatum. He was proposed as a replacement for Teddy Wilson with Benny Goodman in 1939; Profit’s sleek drumless trio may have inspired Nat Cole’s. Although his approach was spare rather than exhibitionistic, his harmonic subtleties were remarkable for their time, and his gentle touch and elegant playing are remarkable today. One could collect every recording he made (fewer than fifty three-minute sides, less than half of them under his own name) on two compact discs, and his recording career was exceedingly brief: dates with the Washboard Serenaders, the Washboard Rhythm Kings, and Teddy Bunn in 1930 and 1933, then Profit’s own piano trio (guitar and bass) and piano solos in 1939 and 1940. John Chilton’s WHO’S WHO OF JAZZ (1978) sums him up in a paragraph:
His father, Herman Profit, was professional pianist; his cousin was pianist Sinclair Mills. Played piano from the age of three, led own 10-piece band during his teens including Bamboo Inn, Renaissance, and the Alhambra. In 1930 and 1931 worked with Teddy Bunn in the Washboard Serenaders. In the early 1930s visited his grandparents in Antigua, remained in the West Indies for a few years, led own band in Antigua, Bermuda, etc. Returned to New York in November 1936 and began leading own successful trio at many New York clubs including George’s Tavern (1937-9), Ritz Carlton, Boston (1938), Yeah Man Club and Cafe Society (1939), Village Vanguard (1940), Kelly’s (1940-3), Performers and Music Guild Club (1942), Village Vanguard (1944). Was part-composer (with Edgar Sampson) of “Lullaby in Rhythm.”
I knew Profit’s work — solo, trio, and as a band member — for many years, but he has come back to my mind and ears because of a purchase made a few nights ago at the Haight Street Amoeba Music in San Francisco: a red-label Columbia 78 of BODY AND SOUL (take B) / I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TIME IT WAS, both Profit solos. I was so taken with them that I had to share them with you.
Each of the two performances begins with an exposition of the theme — simple yet quietly ornamented, with a spareness that is masterful, a peaceful, almost classical approach to the melody (but with elegant, often surprising harmonic choices beneath). He is patient; he doesn’t rush; he doesn’t attempt to impress us with pianisms. His playing verges on the formal, but it is based on a serene respect for the melody rather than a tied-to-the-notes stiffness.
Then, Profit moves into a more loosely swinging approach, which superficially sounds much like Wilson’s or a pared-down Tatum, but his choices of notes, harmonies, and his use of space are all his own. (There are suggestions of Waller in the bridge of the second chorus of I DIDN’T KNOW, but it is a cerebral, yet warm version of the stride motifs Waller tossed off to amaze and delight.)
Listen for yourself. The beauties of his style will not fully appear on one listening):
BODY AND SOUL:
I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TIME IT WAS:
I know nothing of Profit’s early death, and can only speculate. Did he, like so many musicians of the time, succumb to tuberculosis or pneumonia? I am not simply asking a medical question here, but a larger one: where did Clarence Profit go? How could we lose him at such a young age? How many pianists under the age of sixty have heard these recordings? He left a void then, and it remains unfilled today.
Perhaps some readers have the Meritt Record Society issue above, or the Memoir CD devoted to Profit’s work, and can offer more information.
My own story of his elusiveness comes from this century. The parents of one of the Beloved’s New York friends had frequented Cafe Society and Fifty-Second Street. Oh, yes, they had seen Clarence Profit — the name supplied voluntarily by the friend’s octogenarian mother — but it was so long ago she didn’t remember any details. Like the jazz Cheshire Cat, all that remained was her smile as she said his name.
This wonderful quintet session took place on the first day of the 2012 Atlanta Jazz Party — April 20 — and it honored the King of Swing. The living practitioners of the jazz art on the bandstand were swing kings in their own right: Allan Vache, clarinet; Rossano Sportiello, piano; Bucky Pizzarelli, guitar; John Cocuzzi, vibraphone; Richard Simon, string bass; Chuck Redd, drums.
Ruby Braff once told an interviewer (I am paraphrasing here) that after the world ended, there would still be two men sitting on an island telling Benny Goodman stories. And it’s true much of the posthumous attention paid to BG has been for his odd, often unappealing personality traits. But the music is what remains, and I wonder if it were possible to listen to some of his great melodic improvisations without a heavy layer of preconceptions (not only was he eccentric, but he was famous, Caucasian, Jewish, successful, popular — someone to be viewed with distrust in certain academic circles as being both an exploiter and a thief) would they not rank alongside, say, Benny Carter and Teddy Wilson, among others, for their beauty and clarity?
The music for this set came for the most part from the period in Goodman’s life when Charlie Christian was a transforming force. It amuses me that the people who decry post-1945 jazz as too ornate, too intellectual, too fast (think of Bird and Dizzy) don’t usually acknowledge that the very fast original lines the Goodman Sextet played in the years 1939-1945 lead directly into the “excesses of bebop.” (Blame John Kirby, too, while you’re at it.)
But music is more durable than the whims of its creators, the fictions created by ideologues, the dividing lines drawn by academics. Here is 2012 swing with a fine awareness of the past co-existing with its contemporary enthusiasm.
Variations on SLIPPED DISC, a title saying something about Goodman’s quite painful sciatica:
A SMOOTH ONE, the aptly titled line over LOVE IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER:
STEALIN’ APPLES, which owes its existence to both Fats Waller and Fletcher Henderson:
A feature for jazz master Bucky (a mainstay of later Goodman groups), Richard Simon, and Chuck Redd: Edgar Sampson’s STOMPIN’ AT THE SAVOY:
And a rousing THE WORLD IS WAITING FOR THE SUNRISE:
I mean my title literally. This band is at its easy playful best — but what they offer us won’t erode with time. The music that Rebecca Kilgore, Tim Laughlin (clarinet), Dan Barrett (trombone and cornet), Eddie Erickson (guitar, banjo, vocal), and Joel Forbes (string bass) created at the September 2011 Sweet and Hot Music Festival will last.
It’s energetic, personal, lively, sweet, as you;ll see and hear. And Ms. Kilgore, our Becky, is in top form — her opening choruses are thirty-two bar seminars in melodic invention over a swinging pulse; her second choruses say, “There’s always another way to sing these words and these notes,” and I know she could go on from one set of subtle variations on the theme to another all night long. (A Kilgore chorus has the same subtlety and structure as the solo of a great instrumentalist.)
Dan, Eddie, and Joel work together beautifully — their inventiveness, pulse, and swing — but the guest star, the limpid-toned Tim Laughlin, fit in as if he’d been working with this group for years. Maybe he should be!
This nimble quintet began their set with an old favorite — but one whose optimistic message is always needed — BACK IN YOUR OWN BACKYARD. With the little Louis-touches, that backyard might well have been the garden next door to his house in Corona:
Because of Tim’s home town and the love it evokes from all the musicians in this idiom, Becky called for DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO MISS NEW ORLEANS?:
Then, the perennial Harold Arlen – Ted Koehler declaration of fidelity (based on BASIN STREET BLUES, more or less), AS LONG AS I LIVE:
The jazz pedigree of I’LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS goes all the way back to Louis with Fletcher Henderson. Often this song is played as the last one of the night — I’m glad there was more to come in this set. And the Barrett – Laughlin riff behind Becky’s first chorus is somewhat reminiscent of “With no pants on” in some versions of THE SHEIK. Listen to Becky’s pearly phrasing, then dig the hilarious horn conversation of Dan and Tim — bringing Vic Dickenson and Ed Hall into the twenty-first century, with the best aupport from Eddie and then Joel:
I had the original Kapp 45 of MIDNIGHT IN MOSCOW by the Kenny Ball Jazz Band — but with all respects to them, this version is even better. Dan is one of the finest cornetists you’ll ever hear — careful and headlong at the same time, while Tim weaves leafy lines around him, Eddie and Joel rocking the room without strain:
Readers of JAZZ LIVES know the name of Edgar Sampson (as well as his main instrument) but it’s always lovely to hear IF DREAMS COME TRUE again, with its echoes of Billie, James P., and Dick Wellstood:
I wonder how many listeners get all the clever Thirties references in the lyrics of TANGERINE (look up Lilly Dache sometime) but the song stands on its own, sinuous and sly — let’s raise a toast to Becky’s choice of tempo and Joel’s eloquent playing:
And as a tribute to New Orleans and the romping early days, the band closed with THAT’S A PLENTY — fitted out with tongue-twisting lyrics perhaps thirty years after its initial recording — Buster’s gang came to town, with Eddie adding his smooth voice in sweet harmony:
This was such a superb set — the only thing missing was a rendition of IT’S ONLY A PAPER MOON (appropriate to the decor): maybe next year?
I had a minor jazz-history epiphany last Sunday at The Ear Inn (326 Spring Street, Soho, New York City) early in the second set, when past and present coincided.
The Ear Inn, for those who have never been there, isn’t a huge space (it is New York real estate) but everyone gets comfortable.
The second set at the Ear began with that Sunday’s edition of the EarRegulars: charter members and co-founders Jon-Erik Kellso and Matt Munisteri on trumpet and guitar, respectively; Greg Cohen on string bass; Michael Blake (a risk-embracer who loves Lester Young) on tenor saxophone.
Here, they embark on RIFFTIDE, a variation on LADY BE GOOD chord changes that began with Coleman Hawkins and ended up in the hands of Thelonious Monk as HACKENSACK:
For good reasons, musicians often come to the Ear — not only to sit in, but to enjoy the sounds. Last Sunday the musicians were bassist Jon Burr and singer Lynn Stein, reed master Dan Block, then (slightly later) tenorist Nick Hempton and drummer Dan Aran (toting a snare drum). The observant Nan Irwin was there, also, keeping everyone reasonably honest.
Michael Blake thought aloud about a great tune whose title he couldn’t quite remember — one of those riffy Basie things connected (like so many jazz classics) to trains — and Jon-Erik or Matt remembered it, 9:20 SPECIAL. They invited Dan Block to join them, and the two tenors had much pleasing interplay:
Then, Jon-Erik invited Nick and Dan to join in, and what marvels ensued!
The first was a long, swaying WABASH BLUES — with Jon-Erik using both his metal mute and an empty beer glass to make growling, hallooing, far-away Cootie Williams musings. That interlude (Beery or Hoppy?) lasted only a minute, but it was remarkable and remains so now. And the ensemble swelled and reinvented itself throughout:
And that nifty swing tune of Edgar Sampson’s, beloved by stride pianists and bands, by James P. and Billie, Lester and Dick Wellstood, a masterpiece of quiet optimism, IF DREAMS COME TRUE:
For a finale — JUMPIN’ AT THE WOODSIDE — where Jon-Erik, for a moment, becomes a hilarious three-man Basie trombone section:
At some point during those final three performances, I looked at the bandstand, saw the musicians and their instruments — trumpet, guitar, bass, drum, and three tenor saxophones jammed in (my choice of words is no accident) shoulder to shoulder, having a good time.
I thought, “Where have I seen this before?” And — as my UK friends might say — the penny dropped.
Basie. 1938. The Famous Door.
Some will know the story of that Fifty-Second Street paradise. A small club with a low ceiling, it had been host to a variety of bands in the middle Thirties but — with no air-conditioning — had always closed in the summer. John Hammond, always full of ideas, paid for the installation of an air-conditioning system so that his favorite band, led by one Bill Basie from New Jersey, could play there in the summer. The Basieties had to play softly at first, but it’s clear from the radio airshots that exist — not enough for my taste! — that they had a wonderful time and made irreplaceable music.
Here’s a photo essay from the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University(photographs from the Frank Driggs Collection) of that musical splendor. Look for Herschel Evans, short-lived and insufficiently-photographed:
Yes, the physical resemblance between The Famous Door and The Ear Inn is not exact, but the two places share the same ebullient spirit, with brilliant musicians improvising at the peak of their powers in a small space.
Henceforth, I dub 326 Spring Street THE FAMOUS EAR. It well deserves the new name!
And to finish the thought: the EarRegulars continue to swing as beautifully and as joyously as the 1938 Basie band. No doubt about it!
P.S. If you’re reading this in real time (however you wish to define it) you might want to know that The EarRegulars will be celebrating their fourth anniversary of steady Sunday-night gigs at The Famous Ear this Sunday, June 19, 2011. Gifts, please! (I meant their gifts — not that people have to show up with trinkets, although trinkets might be pleasant, too.)
P.P.S. On June 12, I was able to savor Abigail Riccards and Michael Kanan, creating music with delicacy and strength — then I drove from Brooklyn to Soho to capture these five performances, hilariously creative. This, to me, says only one thing: JAZZ (emphatic pause) LIVES (exultant exclamation point)!
JAZZ LIVES 