MASTERS OF ART: RUBY BRAFF, HARRY “SWEETS” EDISON, JOE NEWMAN, JOHNNY GUARNIERI, MICHAEL MOORE, RAY MOSCA (Nice Jazz Festival, July 26-27, 1975)

Ruby Braff

This musical interlude is an absolute triumph — not a cutting contest, but a jovial conversation among three brass legends (Braff, cornet; Sweets and Joe, trumpet) with a thoroughly congenial modern-swing rhythm section (the splendid virtuosi Johnny Guarnieri, piano; Michael Moore, string bass; Ray Mosca, drums).

Harry “Sweets” Edison

Ruby, Joe, and Sweets are vehement individualists with roots in the same earth that gave us Louis and Basie.  You’ll hear florid declamatory phrases, side-of-the-mouth whispers and in-jokes, loud blasts and half-valve things a gentleman does not say in company.  They live in 1975 yet are completely aware of the half-century of music that came before.  And they live now, thirty-five years later.

Joe Newman

The songs are ROSETTA, JUST FRIENDS, CAROLINA SHOUT (Guarnieri, solo), TAKE THE “A” TRAIN, all performed at the Nice Jazz Festival, July 26 and 27th, 1975.  Heartfelt thanks to Tom Hustad, who made all this possible:

What gifts these magicians gave us.  What gifts the music continues to give us.

May your happiness increase!

EXTREMELY NICE: HOMAGE TO COUNT BASIE, with SWEETS EDISON, JOE NEWMAN, CLARK TERRY, VIC DICKENSON, EARLE WARREN, ZOOT SIMS, BUDDY TATE, LOCKJAW DAVIS, ILLINOIS JACQUET, JOHNNY GUARNIERI, MARTY GROSZ, GEORGE DUVIVIER, RAY MOSCA, HELEN HUMES (Grande Parade du Jazz, July 22, 1975)

Jake Hanna said it best, “You get too far from Basie, you’re just kidding yourself.”  So this post and the performance it contains are as close to Basie as anyone might get in 1975 — the loose jam-session spirit of the 1938-9 band at the Famous Door.  Some of the originals couldn’t make it for reasons you can investigate for yourself, but more than enough of the genuine Basieites were on this stage to impart the precious flavor of the real thing.

For the first song, JIVE AT FIVE, the composer, Harry “Sweets” Edison was on hand, among friends: Buddy Tate, Zoot Sims, tenor saxophone; Earle Warren, alto saxophone; Vic Dickenson, trombone; Johnny Guarnieri, piano; Marty Grosz, guitar; George Duvivier, string bass; Ray Mosca, drums.

Then, LESTER LEAPS IN, with the addition of Lockjaw Davis, Illinois Jacquet, tenor saxophone; Clark Terry, Joe Newman, trumpet.  And deliciously, Miss Helen Humes recalled those sweet songs from her Basie days, SONG OF THE WANDERER / BLUE AND SENTIMENTAL / DON’T WORRY ‘BOUT ME.

I’m certain Jake would have approved, and the Count also.

May your happiness increase!

 

WE INTERRUPT OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED BLOGGING

No, JAZZ LIVES is not going away.  Nor is there some crisis.  Nor am I asking for money.  However, I would like my viewers to devote themselves to what follows, which will take perhaps ten minutes.

That man is pianist Junior Mance, born in Evanston, Illinois, in 1928.  Before he was twenty, he had begun recording with the stars we revere: Gene Ammons, Howard McGhee, Lester Young, Sonny Stitt, Dinah Washington, Clark Terry, Paul Gonsalves, Clifford Brown, Maynard Ferguson, Israel Crosby, Chubby Jackson, Art Blakey, Johnny Griffin, Cannonball Adderley, Sam Jones, Nat Adderley, Jimmy Cobb, Carmen McRae, Wilbur Ware, Bob Cranshaw, James Moody, Jimmy Cleveland, Bill Crow, Art Taylor, Dizzy Gillespie (he’s on the duet with Louis of UMBRELLA MAN), Leo Wright, Harry Lookofsky, Lockjaw Davis, Johnny Coles, Ray Crawford, Paul Chambers, Bennie Green, George Coleman, Eddie Jefferson, Louis Jordan, Irene Kral, Joe Williams, Coleman Hawkins, Zoot Sims, Ben Webster, Kenny Burrell, Mannie Klein, Shelley Manne, Etta Jones, Benny Carter, Jim Hall, Joe Newman, Milt Hinton, Richard Davis, Frank Wess, Wilbur Little, Jimmy Scott, Marion Williams, Les McCann, Dexter Gordon, George Duvivier, Carrie Smith, Ken Peplowski, Howard Alden, Milt Jackson, Harry “Sweets” Edison, Al Grey, Houston Person, Joe Temperley, Benny Golson, Jay Leonhart, Jackie Williams, Andrew Hadro . . . and I know I’ve left two dozen people out.

Next, in the world of jazz, one would expect a tribute.  Or an obituary. Or both.

But not a love story, which is what follows.

A few days ago, I was contacted by Sarit Work, co-producer of SUNSET AND THE MOCKINGBIRD, a not-yet-finished documentary about Junior and his wife, Gloria Clayborne Mance.  They have created a Kickstarter to help them finish the documentary.  The headline is “The love story of jazz legend Junior Mance and Gloria Clayborne Mance. As he loses his identity to dementia she reckons with her own.”

Being a man (although this may not be typical of my gender) I have less ability to cope with illness than women I know.  It’s terribly irrational, but I cringe at visiting people in hospitals, visiting the ailing, the dying . . . and so on.  There must be a name for this — call it “testosterone terror”? — which makes people like me hide under the couch, if possible.  Or in the car.  And dementia is especially frightening, because I am closer to being a senior citizen than ever before.  But Sarit was very politely persuasive, so I watched the trailer.

And it hit me right in the heart.

Junior has a hard time remembering, and he knows this. But he knows he loves Gloria.  And Gloria, for her part, is a lighthouse beacon of steady strong love.  It is not a film about forgetting who you are so much as it is a film about the power of devotion.

So I urge you — and “urge” is not a word I use often — to watch the trailer, and if you are moved, to help the project along.  It will be a powerful film, and I think that helping this project is very serious good karma.  Maybe it will protect us a few percent?

Here is the link.  Yes, the filmmakers need a substantial amount of money.  But anything is possible.  And, yes, I’ve already contributed.  And from this day (or night) the filmmakers have only EIGHT days to raise the sum they need.  So please help — in the name of jazz, in the name of love, or both.  In my dictionary, the two are synonyms.

May your happiness increase!

“I GIVE UP!” TIMES TEN

Is surrender capitulating to an enemy, saying “I give up.  You are stronger.” or is it an enlightened act, a realization that there are powers we can’t conquer and that the idea of conquering anything is futile?

I’ve always found I SURRENDER, DEAR — so powerfully connected to Bing Crosby — both touching and mysterious.  As Gordon Clifford’s lyrics tell us, the singer is saying, in effect, “Take me back. Here is my heart.  I give up all pretense of being distant.  I need you,” which is deeply moving, a surrender of all ego-barriers and pretense.  But I’ve never been able to figure out whether “Here, take my heart,” is  greeted with “I’d love to welcome you back,” or “No thanks, I’m full.”  Other songs hold out the possibility of reconciliation (consider IN A LITTLE SECOND-HAND STORE or WE JUST COULDN’T SAY GOODBYE) but this one ends unresolved.  It’s also one of those songs that lends itself to a variety of interpretations: both Bing and Louis in the same year, then a proliferation of tenor saxophonists, and pianists from Monk to Garner to Teddy. And (before the music starts) probably thanks to Roy Eldridge, there’s also an honored tradition of slipping into double-time.

Here, however, are ten versions that move me.

January 1931: Bing Crosby with the Gus Arnheim Orchestra.  Note the orchestral flourishes:

Later that same year: Victor Young and the Brunswick Concert Orchestra, featuring Frank Munn, not enough of the Boswell Sisters (acting as their own concert orchestra) and a few seconds of Tommy Dorsey.  I think this was an effort to show that Paul Whiteman didn’t have a monopoly on musical extravagance, and I’ve never seen a label credit “Paraphrased by . . . “.  I also note the vocal bridge turns to 3/4, and Munn sings “are doing” rather than “were doing,” but we wait patiently for the Sisters to appear, and they do:

Imagine anyone better than Ben Webster?  Here, in 1944, with our hero Hot Lips Page:

Forward several decades: Joe Venuti, Zoot Sims, John Bunch, Milt Hinton, Bobby Rosengarden 1975:

1978 — a duet of Earl Hines and Harry Edison:

Raymond Burke, Butch Thompson, Cie Frazier in New Orleans, 1979:

and something I was privileged to witness and record, flapping fan blades and all, from February 2010 (Tamar Korn, Gordon Au, Dennis Lichtman, Marcus Milius, Debbie Kennedy):

Ray Skjelbred, Marc Caparone, Jim Buchmann, Katie Cavera, Beau Sample, Hal Smith, at the San Diego Jazz Fest in November 2014:

Nobody follows Louis.  1931:

and the majestic version from 1956:

A little tale of the powers of Surrender.  In years past, I would drive into Manhattan, my car full of perishables, and search for a parking spot.  Of course there were none.  I could feel the gelato melting; I could feel my blood pressure rising contrapuntally.  Frustrated beyond belief, I would roll down my window and ask the Parking Goddess for her help.  “I do not ask for your assistance that often, and I admit that I cannot do this on my own.  I am powerless without your help.  Will you be merciful to me?”  And I would then circle the block again and a spot would have opened up.  My theory is that such supplication works only if one is willing to surrender the ego, the facade of one’s own power.  Of course it has also been known to work for other goals, but that is an essay beyond the scope of JAZZ LIVES.

For now, surrender whole-heartedly and see what happens.

May your happiness increase!

GENEROSITIES OF SOUND: CELEBRATING TED BROWN (Part Three) — with BOB ARTHURS, JON EASTON, JOE SOLOMON, BARBARA MERJAN at Somethin’ Jazz Club, Dec. 13, 2012

This is the third set of video performances celebrating the ongoing achievement of tenor saxophonist / composer Ted Brown — who turned eighty-five in December 2012.  Here, Ted was the featured attraction with his friend, trumpeter / vocalist Bob Arthurs, at Somethin’ Jazz Club  (212 East 52nd Street, 3rd Floor, New York City).  Aiding and abetting most nobly were Barbara Merjan (drums); Joe Solomon (string bass); Jon Easton (piano).

The music made that night was “modern,” lyrical, swinging, and sweet — as if Lester Young and Harry “Sweets” Edison had taken their wisdom and delight in sound into this century.  This isn’t to say that anyone on the stand was imitating the departed masters — but the living players honored the great tradition of melodic improvisations, lighter-than-air and memorable at the same time.

The evening began with a delightful exploration of YARDBIRD SUITE:

Ted’s SMOG EYES (a wry celebration of the hazards of Southern California in the Fifties):

A soulful LOVER MAN:

Bob is emerging as a singer as well as a singing trumpeter — hear him make his own path through FOOLIN’ MYSELF:

Lennie Tristano’s song and address, 317 EAST 32nd STREET:

A cheerful MY MELANCHOLY BABY, sung by Mr. Arthurs:

BODY AND SOUL — a feature for Ted, Joe, and Barbara:

Warne Marsh’s BACKGROUND MUSIC, with swing to the foreground:

May your happiness increase.

REMEMBER! HARRY EDISON RECALLS WALTER PAGE

My friend Oran Purvis (he plays trumpet) told me this one:

One of the great thrills of my life was meeting Harry “Sweets” Edison when he appeared at a San Francisco area concert.  I was able to meet him briefly — he was very interested in the Selmer trumpet I had — and I asked him what it was like to play with the Basie band back when Lester Young, Walter Page, and Jo Jones were in the band.  Now I realize that that was kind of like asking Leonardo what painting the Mona Lisa was like, but Sweets handled the question very well:  he told me a story of being on the road with the band, which went like this:
Man, it was great, but, you know back in those days, there were no hotels for black musicians, so we had to stay in rooming houses.  Now Walter Page liked to drink, and one night he came back to this rooming house in the middle of the night and fixed himself a snack.   The next morning when we were leaving, he told the lady who owned the place, “‘Ma’am, last night I got a little hungry and I ate a can of your potted ham.”  The lady said, “I don’t have any potted ham, but someone ate up a can of my dog’s food!”  We laughed about that for a long time.”