The Penguin Jazz Guide (15 page)

MIFF MOLE

Born Irving Mildred Mole, 11 March 1898, Roosevelt, New York; died 29 April 1961, New York City

Trombone

Slippin’ Around

Frog DGF 19

Mole; Red Nichols (c, t); Leo McConville, Phil Napoleon (t); Dudley Fosdick (mel); Jimmy Dorsey (cl, as); Fud Livingston, Pee Wee Russell (cl, ts); Frank Teschemacher (cl); Babe Russin (ts); Adrian Rollini (bsx); Arthur Schutt, Lennie Hayton, Ted Shapiro, Joe Sullivan (p); Eddie Lang, Carl Kress (g); Dick McDonough (bj, g); Eddie Condon (bj); Joe Tarto, Jack Hansen (tba); Vic Berton, Ray Bauduc, Chauncey Morehouse, Gene Krupa, Stan King (d). January 1927–February 1930.

Trombonist Paul Rutherford said (1985):
‘Mole’s probably the first of those guys who’s playing modern jazz trombone. You listen hard enough you can hear him doing things that guys like me are supposed to have invented. To some extent, we just went back to what the classics were doing.’

Miff Mole was one of the master jazz musicians of the ’20s. Though subsequently eclipsed by Teagarden, Dorsey and others, he was the first trombonist to make any significant impression as a soloist, sounding fluent and imaginative as far back as the early recordings of the Original Memphis Five and Ladd’s Black Aces at the beginning of the decade. His partnership with Red Nichols was as interesting in its way as that of Armstrong and Hines or Beiderbecke and Trumbauer. Though sometimes seen as a kind of jazz chamber music, or at worst a white New York imitation of the real thing, their records were a smart, hard-bitten development out of their hot-dance environment and, with no vocals, little hokum and plenty of space for improvisation, the music has an uncompromising stance which may surprise those who’ve heard about it secondhand. This compilation brings together most of the sessions by Miff’s Molers for OKeh, along with four Victor titles by Red And Miff’s Stompers and a further pair of tunes credited to the Red Nichols Orchestra. The earlier dates have no more than five or six musicians on them, and titles like ‘Hurricane’ and ‘Delirium’ are intense little set-pieces. The later sessions have more players and feel more orchestrated, less private, though no less intriguing: two versions of Fud Livingston’s ‘Feeling No Pain’ are remarkable, and so is the furious charge through ‘Original Dixieland One Step’. Nichols, Russell, Rollini and others all have their moments, but Mole himself, alert and quick-witted and always able to find a fruitful line, has no peers here. The final two sessions, with the much-praised ‘Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble’ among them, seem rowdier and less personal.

EDDIE CONDON

Born 16 November 1905, Goodland, Indiana; died 4 August 1973, New York City

Guitar

Eddie Condon 1927–1938

Classics 742

Condon; Jimmy McPartland, Bobby Hackett (c); Max Kaminsky, Leonard Davis (t); George Brunies, Floyd O’Brien, Jack Teagarden (tb); Mezz Mezzrow, Frank Teschemacher, Pee Wee Russell (cl); Bud Freeman, Happy Caldwell (ts); Alex Hill, Jess Stacy, Joe Sullivan (p); Jim Lannigan, Artie Bernstein, Artie Shapiro, Art Miller (b); George Wettling, Gene Krupa, Johnny Powell, George Stafford, Big Sid Catlett (d). December 1927–April 1938.

It’s a well-worn gag, but … :
‘I envy Eddie Condon. He has achieved perfect equilibrium: half man, half alcohol.’

Condon was the focus of Chicago jazz from the ’20s to the ’40s, garnering a personal reputation that far exceeds his actual musical significance. He is now best seen as a catalyst, a man who made things happen and in the process significantly heightened the profile of Dixieland jazz in America. He was rarely anything other than a straightforward rhythm guitarist, generally avoiding solos, but he had a clear sense of role and frequently laid out to give the piano-player more room. His chords have a melancholy ring but are always played dead centre.

After rolling in from Indiana, he became the quintessential Chicago jazzman despite spending little time there and being virtually inaudible on many of his own records. Ringleader of a gang of young white players in the ’20s, he arrived in NY in 1928 and hustled his way to prominence, forming famous associations with the Commodore label, Nick’s club and eventually his own place on West Third Street.

The Classics series offers an overview of a career that didn’t get seriously under way on record until the ’40s. The five ’20s dates here are key staging-posts in the evolution of Chicago jazz, starting with the four classic titles cut by the McKenzie–Condon Chicagoans in 1927, in which McPartland and the ill-fated Teschemacher made up a superbly vibrant front line. Two 1928 sessions feature top-notch early Teagarden, and the 1933 band date includes the original versions of Freeman’s famous turn on ‘The Eel’. It then goes quiet until the first sessions for Commodore in 1938, the start of another classic Condon era. It’s arguable that Condon would have been equally important if he hadn’t played a note and simply cleared a path for others, but that does injustice to his musicianship, which was as steady and sure as his matutinal hand was shaky.

MEADE ‘LUX’ LEWIS

Born 4 September 1905, Chicago, Illinois; died 7 June 1964, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Piano

Meade Lux Lewis 1927–1939

Classics 722

Lewis; Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson (p). December 1927–January 1939.

Blue Note founder Alfred Lion said (1980):
‘Just before Christmas in 1938, I saw and heard Meade “Lux” Lewis and Albert Ammons at the “Spirituals To Swing” concert at Carnegie Hall. Two weeks later, I brought them into the studio. That is where Blue Note was born.’

Lewis encapsulated his contribution to jazz in his first three minutes as a soloist with his 1927 Paramount record of ‘Honky Tonk Train Blues’. He recorded it again at his second session, and again at his fourth. All three are on this CD, along with 15 other variations on the blues and boogie-woogie. His signature-piece remains a marvellous evocation of a locomotive rhythm, perfectly balanced through all its variations, and if he became tired of it his listeners never did, though they overlooked equally good music. His 1936 session for Decca includes two extraordinary pieces on celeste, ‘I’m In The Mood For Love’ and ‘Celeste Blues’, and his 1939 session for Blue Note – which supplied the first Blue Note issue, ‘Melancholy’ and ‘Solitude’ – opens with a five-part investigation of ‘The Blues’, all rejected at the time but a remarkable sequence, at least as personal and imaginative as his train pieces. The sound on the CD is poor, but the music is marvellous.

DICKY WELLS

Born Williams Wells, 10 June 1907, Centerville, Tennessee; died 12 November 1985, New York City

Trombone

Dicky Wells 1927–1943

Classics 937

Wells; Bill Coleman, Shad Collins, Bill Dillard, Kenneth Roane, Gus McLung (t); Frankie Newton (t, v); John Williams, Fletcher Allen (cl, as); Cecil Scott (cl, ts, bs); Howard Johnson (as); Lester Young (ts); Don Frye, Ellis Larkins (p); Django Reinhardt, Roger Chaput, Freddie Green (g); Hubert Mann, Rudolph Williams (bj); Chester Campbell, Mack Walker (tba); Richard Fulbright, Al Hall (b); Lloyd Scott, Bill Beason, Jo Jones (d). January 1927–December 1943.

Dicky Wells said (1979):
‘I made myself a nice pepperpot mute, punched with holes and some wire and paper. You’re going to express yourself on the horn, you need to have something that gives you your very own sound.’

Wells worked with various New York bands in the early ’30s before spending eight years with Count Basie from 1938. Alcohol made him inconsistent but he was a gifted writer and was still playing in the ’80s.

The important tracks here are the dozen Wells headed up in Paris on two memorable July days in 1937. The first two groups feature the trombonist with Bill Coleman and Django Reinhardt, with Dillard and Collins making up a three-man trumpet section on three titles. With no piano and Reinhardt driving all before him, the ensembles have a sound at once mercurial and light and limber, with quite magnificent playing from Coleman and Wells. There isn’t a note out of place on ‘Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea’, ‘Sweet Sue’, the blues ‘Hangin’ Around Boudon’ and ‘Japanese Sandman’. The next session is comparatively lightweight, but it ended on what were effectively two trombone solos with rhythm accompaniment, and Wells’s seven choruses on ‘Dicky Wells Blues’ make up one of the great pieces of trombone improvisation on record. His sound introduces a sober gaiety into the instrument’s lugubrious temperament, and his vibrato and sudden shouting notes make every chorus fresh and surprising.

The disc opens with seven tracks with which Wells made his debut, with Lloyd Scott and Cecil Scott: lively if unexceptional New York jazz of the ’20s. It ends on a septet date for Signature, from 1943, with Coleman, Young and Larkins (playing the Basie role). They take ‘I Got Rhythm’ far too fast, but there’s compensation in the next three titles, with Dicky playing a beautiful slow introduction to ‘I’m Fer It Too’.

JOHNNY HODGES
^&

Known as ‘Rabbit’; born John Cornelius Hodge, 25 July 1907, Cambridge, Massachusetts; died 11 May 1970, New York City

Alto and soprano saxophones

Classic Solos 1928–1942

Topaz TPZ 1008

Hodges; Bunny Berigan, Freddy Jenkins, Bubber Miley, Ray Nance, Arthur Whetsol, Cootie Williams (t); Rex Stewart (c); Lawrence Brown, Joe ‘Tricky Sam’ Nanton, Juan Tizol (tb); Barney Bigard (cl, ts); Harry Carney (bs, as, cl); Otto Hardwick (as, bsx); Ben Webster (ts); Duke Ellington, Teddy Wilson (p); Fred Guy (bj); Lawrence Lucie, Allan Reuss (g); Hayes Alvis, Jimmy Blanton, Wellman Braud, John Kirby, Grachan Moncur, Billy Taylor (b); Cozy Cole, Sonny Greer (d); Mildred Bailey (v). October 1928–July 1941.

Saxophonist John Dankworth said (1993):
‘There has never been a saxophone sound like it, but I think too much emphasis on the beauty of Hodges’ playing has taken away from the logic and intelligence of his solos. They don’t just sound good, they’re perfectly formed.’

There is probably no other voice in jazz more purely sensuous. Subtract Hodges’ solos from Duke Ellington’s recorded output and it shrinks disproportionately. He was a stalwart presence right from the Cotton Club Orchestra through the Webster–Blanton years and beyond. Sadly, perhaps, for all his pricklish dislike of sideman status in the Ellington orchestra, Hodges was a rather unassertive leader, and his own recordings under-represent his extraordinary qualities, which began to dim only with the onset of the ’60s, and were often cast in jump styles which sit strangely with the lyrical role he took on in the Ellington band.

He studied with Sidney Bechet and took his place in Willie ‘The Lion’ Smith’s group. In 1928, he joined Duke and remained for the next four decades. Influenced by Bechet, he played a good deal on soprano saxophone in the early days. It’s a rougher sound in some respects than he got later on the larger horn, but it has a plain-spoken directness that goes to the heart.

This Topaz disc – and a similar ASV package – does a fairly good job of compiling a representative profile of Hodges at this period. Oddly perhaps, they don’t overlap very much, which suggests that there is an alternative image of the younger man to the one painted here, which has him in plainer and more musicianly form. Topaz ignores things like the 1940 ‘Good Queen Bess’ and the slightly earlier ‘Warm Valley’, but material from the 1929 Cotton Club Orchestra
is
included, filling in an important gap in the transition from blues and jump to the lyrical majesty of later years. Still combining alto and soprano, he stands out strongly wherever featured and ‘Rent Party Blues’ is a key early showing.

& See also
Everybody Knows Johnny Hodges
(1964–1965; p. 301)

MCKINNEY’S COTTON PICKERS

Formed 1926; disbanded 1934

Group

Put It There / Cotton Picker’s Scat

Frog DGF 25 / 26

John Nesbitt, Langston Curl, Joe Smith, Leonard Davis, Sidney De Paris, George ‘Buddy’ Lee (t); Rex Stewart (c); Claude Jones, Ed Cuffee (tb); Don Redman, George Thomas (reeds, v); Milton Senior, Prince Robinson, Jimmy Dudley, Benny Carter, Coleman Hawkins, Ted McCord (reeds); Todd Rhodes, LeRoy Tibbs, Fats Waller (p); Dave Wilborn (bj, g, v); Ralph Escudero, Billy Taylor (tba); Cuba Austin, Kaiser Marshall (d); Jean Napier (v). July 1928–December 1930.

Mary Lou Williams said (1976):
‘When McKinney’s Cotton Pickers came to town, that was the best band most of us had ever heard. Todd Rhodes became a kind of mentor to me. He’d get me to play on jams and even once let me sit in with the band. Prince Robinson was a good player, too.’

Originally led by drummer Bill McKinney, the Cotton Pickers were hired by Jean Goldkette for a residency at his Detroit Graystone Ballroom in 1927. Hugely popular, they eventually recorded several sessions in New York, but the band declined when several key players left in the early ’30s, It was primarily John Nesbitt who built McKinney’s Cotton Pickers (although Goldkette gave them their name). Redman’s arrival in 1928 brought his distinctive touch
as arranger to the band’s book, but Nesbitt’s driving and almost seamless charts were as impressive, and they remain so, more than 60 years later. McKinney’s Cotton Pickers were among the most forward-looking of the large bands of their era: while the section-work retains all the timbral qualities of the ’20s, and the rhythm section still depends on brass bass and banjo, the drive and measure of the arrangements and the gleaming momentum of their best records both suggest the direction that big bands would take in the next decade.