The Penguin Jazz Guide (30 page)

COUNT BASIE
^&

Born 21 August 1904, Red Bank, New Jersey; died 26 April 1984, Hollywood, Florida

Piano, bandleader

The Jubilee Alternatives

Hep CD 38

Basie; Harry ‘Sweets’ Edison, Al Killian, Ed Lewis, Snooky Young (t); Eli Robinson, Robert Scott, Louis Taylor, Dicky Wells (tb); Jimmy Powell, Earl Warren (as); Buddy Tate, Lester Young, Illinois Jacquet (ts); Rudy Rutherford (bs, cl); Freddie Green (g); Rodney Richardson (b); Jo Jones, Buddy Rich (d); Thelma Carpenter, Jimmy Rushing (v). December 1943–October 1944.

Former Staff Sergeant Joe McGann remembers:
‘That was the sound of the war for me, “Jumpin’ At The Woodside”, and Jimmy Rushing singing. I know there was a recording ban on, but Basie was above all that. He was like the Manhattan Project, our secret weapon. I hummed that stuff crossing the Rhine.’

During the Musicians’ Union recording ban, few groups were able to record and those mostly for broadcast on the American Forces Radio Service. Splendidly remastered, the studio ‘alternatives’ to AFRS Jubilee show broadcasts give a useful impression of a band in transition. Rich and Jacquet are in on some tracks and the brass section is largely different from previous recordings. There’s a new quality to the playing, perhaps a younger and more urgent sound, which might be put down to the wartime atmosphere, but might just as likely be a new, pre-bop generation asserting itself in jazz. Some good charts include Andy Gibson’s ‘Andy’s Blues’, Clayton’s excellent ‘Avenue C’ and Smith’s ‘Harvard Blues’, one of the best of the later Columbias. There’s a great early version of Harry Edison’s ‘Beaver Junction’ and two of ‘Jumpin’ At The Woodside’, a signature Basie performance. Though their provenance is somewhat unusual, and there are some signs of a group not quite yet settled to its task, these are definitive Basie recordings.

& See also
The Original American Decca Recordings
(1937–1939; p. 61),
The Complete Atomic Mr Basie
(1957; p. 216)

ART HODES
^&

Born 14 November 1904, Nikoliev, Ukraine, Russia; died 4 March 1993, Harvey, Illinois

Piano

The Jazz Record Story

Jazzology JCD 82

Hodes; Duke DuVal (t); George Brunies (tb); Rod Cless, Cecil Scott (cl); George ‘Pops’ Foster (b); Joe Grauso, Baby Dodds (d). 1943–1946.

Art Hodes said (1981):
‘You have to admit it’s ironic. Your family emigrates and you end up in Chicago, the one place on the planet that’s colder than Russia.’

Hodes arrived in Chicago from his native Ukraine when he was only a few months old. As player, writer and broadcaster, he was a lifelong devotee and exponent of classic jazz, blues, stride and ragtime, but though better known in later years as a solo performer, he began his career in groups run by Wingy Manone, Joe Marsala and Sidney Bechet.

Until a decade or so ago it was believed that, apart from a couple of cuts with Wingy Manone, Art didn’t record on his own account before the summer of 1939, though it was known that he had used a Victor Home Recording machine to make half a dozen discs at a gig in Racine, Wisconsin. These were thought to be unplayable and incapable of being
dubbed, but Barry Martyn has managed to reconstruct four of them, and they stretch Art’s recording career backward in time.

By the start of the war, he was an established artist. The
Jazz Record
material restores to circulation many of the sides Art cut and released with his own label. The very first tracks, ‘103rd Street Boogie’ and ‘Royal Garden Blues’, appeared at the end of 1943, credited to the Columbia Quintet, which had played a residency at Childs’ Restaurant in New Haven. The wonderful trio with Pops Foster and Baby Dodds is a little later, and there are further group recordings made by the band co-led by Art and three horns, including big Cecil Scott (who had 13 children, eating in shifts and sleeping in tiers); peppy and joyous, an unalloyed delight for anyone who loves traditional jazz.

& See also
Keepin’ Out Of Mischief Now
(1988; p. 525)

DUKE ELLINGTON
^&

Born Edward Kennedy Ellington, 29 April 1899, Washington, DC; died 24 May 1974, New York City

Piano

Black, Brown And Beige

RCA Bluebird 86641 3CD

Ellington; Taft Jordan, Cat Anderson, Shelton Hemphill, Ray Nance, Rex Stewart, Francis Williams, Harold ‘Shorty’ Baker (t); Claude Jones, Lawrence Brown, Joe ‘Tricky Sam’ Nanton, Tommy Dorsey, Wilbur De Paris (tb); Jimmy Hamilton, Russell Procope (cl, ts); Otto Hardwick (as); Johnny Hodges (as); Al Sears (ts); Harry Carney (bs); Fred Guy (g); Junior Raglin, Sid Weiss, Oscar Pettiford, Al Lucas, Bob Haggart (b); Sonny Greer, Big Sid Catlett (d); Al Hibbler, Joya Sherrill, Kay Davis, Marie Ellington, Marian Cox (v). December 1944–September 1946.

Broadcaster Charles Fox said (1982):
‘There was a huge fuss when Duke Ellington was made “Composer of the Week” on the BBC, letters from hither and yon complaining and demanding heads. And yet when you listen to this music, from the band’s greatest period, it seems self-evident that, whatever else, a truly great composer – doesn’t matter in what form – is at work.’

This was a band in its pomp, sweeping all before it. Ellington had begun giving annual Carnegie Hall concerts in 1943 and they became an institution, stiffening wartime morale on the home front and bringing a new stratum of cultural confidence to African-American music in the US. Ellington was an impossible figure to ignore in the culture of the time, but not one who was easy to bend to the PR needs of wartime bi-partisanship. He remained loftily, sardonically aloof from a culture that seemed, for the moment (and Duke always understood the fickleness of fame), eager to embrace him.

While this stands a notch below the music on
Never No Lament
, it is still an essential Ellington collection. Besides numerous further examples of the composer’s mastery of the three-minute form, there are the first of his suites to make it to the studios, including most of ‘Black, Brown And Beige’ – never recorded in its entirety in the studio – and ‘The Perfume Suite’. New Ellingtonians include two brilliant individualists, Anderson and Jordan, as well as the lyrical Baker, Sears and Procope. Ellington’s confidence may have been sagging a little from the loss of major soloists – Webster, Williams – and the indifference to some of his higher ambitions as a composer, but the orchestra itself is still inimitable.

& See also
Duke Ellington 1927–1929
(1927–1929; p. 28),
Duke Ellington 1937–1938
(1937–1938; p. 64),
Never No Lament
(1940–1942; p. 81),
The Duke At Fargo
(1940; p. 81),
Ellington At Newport
(1956; p. 189),
The Far East Suite
(1966; p. 336)

NAT COLE
^&

Born Nathaniel Adams Coles, 17 March 1919, Montgomery, Alabama; died 15 February 1965, Santa Monica, California

Piano, voice

Nat King Cole 1943–1944

Classics 804

Cole; Shad Collins (t); Illinois Jacquet (ts); Oscar Moore (g); Johnny Miller, Gene Englund (b); J. C. Heard (d). November 1943–March 1944.

According to a much-repeated story, drummer J. C. Heard said:
‘When Nat Cole gave up playing piano, everyone got sick!’

Nat didn’t play much jazz after 1950, after his voice made him famous. It was to be a relatively short spell in the sunshine, for chain-smoking ended his life early. He began leading what became a hugely successful trio in 1939 and his piano style, influenced by Hines and Wilson, suggested a transition from swing to bop.

He began with a deceptively lightweight, jiving music (‘Scotchin’ With The Soda’, ‘Ode To A Wild Clam’) which masked the intensity of his piano style. Smooth, glittering, skating over melodies, Cole’s right-hand lines were breaking free of his original Earl Hines influence and looking towards an improvisational freedom which other players – Haig, Marmarosa, Powell – would turn into the language of bebop. Cole was less inclined towards that jagged-edge approach and preferred the hip constrictions of songs. With pulsing interjections from Moore and bassist Wesley Prince (subsequently Miller), this was a surprisingly compelling music.

Mosaic’s comprehensive survey of the trios (out of print, now) ran to 18 CDs but Classics offers a way of collecting these tracks, albeit without much finessing of the material. The early ones throw up some interesting associations, including appearances by drummer Lee Young, Pres’s brother, but for a one-volume sampling, the best is this
1943–1944
volume, with ‘Straighten Up And Fly Right’ and some deft standards interpretations. Nat’s luxuriant swing, dextrous touch and intelligent arrangements all seem inexhaustible and Moore is almost his equal in their dazzling parallel runs.

& See also
After Midnight
(1956; p. 190)

JAZZ AT THE PHILHARMONIC

Established 1944

‘Supergroup’

Best Of The 1940s Concerts

Verve 314534

Buck Clayton, Roy Eldridge, Joe Guy, Howard McGhee, Shorty Sherock (t); Bill Harris, J. J. Johnson, Tommy McTurk, Trummy Young (tb); Charlie Parker, Willie Smith (as); Coleman Hawkins, Illinois Jacquet, Jack McVea, Flip Phillips, Lester Young (ts); Nat Cole, Meade ‘Lux’ Lewis (p); Les Paul (g); Red Callender (b); Gene Krupa, Lee Young (d); Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday (v); and others. July 1944–18 September 1949.

Norman Granz said (1982):
‘I had to borrow $300 to put on the first Jazz At The Philharmonic concert. How much would it cost me now? I don’t know … Do you have an abacus?’

Norman Granz was the jazz-loving son of Russian immigrants. Born in 1918, he came of age at the end of the swing era, organizing desegregated jam sessions in his home town of
Los Angeles. On 2 July 1944, his ambition extended to an all-star event at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Auditorium featuring Meade ‘Lux’ Lewis and other younger names. Around the same time, Granz and film maker Gjon Mili were involved with making a jazz movie called
Jammin’ the Blues
, which went on to secure an Oscar nomination. So successful was the first Jazz Concert At The Philharmonic Auditorium (as the event was originally billed) that Granz planned further events and then tours, bringing together swing and bop stars and singers like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald (whom he later managed) under the JATP umbrella. Much of the music from these was released on Granz’s Norgran imprint – he also ran Clef and Verve and consolidated his record interests under the latter name from 1956. After he sold out the main label to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and emigrated to Switzerland, he founded Pablo records in 1973, largely to release jam material from Jazz At The Philharmonic events. In turn, Pablo was also sold, to Fantasy.

At a time when mainstream jazz’s public profile was at its lowest, Pablo was a valued source of good mainstream playing by big stars. Granz was shrewd enough to recognize that more very definitely meant more. There is often a sense of ‘never mind the quality, check the personnel’ on a JATP record, and finesse and expressive sophistication were sometimes lost in polite cutting sessions which put high-note playing and amicably fiery exchanges at a premium. Granz was criticized for favouring a relatively fixed roster of established reputations (Basie, Ella, Oscar Peterson, Joe Pass among them) and an older style of music over more innovative jazz, but audiences lapped up the records, either as gig souvenirs or as vicarious snapshots of high-price events in California or Montreux. Any further criticism of Granz stumbled on his dogged commitment to securing proper recognition and equal status for black artists. Few who worked for him had a negative word to say.

The very first Jazz At The Philharmonic concert, available as
The Beginning
and
The First Concert
on Charly and Jasmine, makes for surprisingly dull listening, and the ten-CD box set with which Universal eventually rationalized the shambolic JATP catalogue was too much and too expensive for most tastes. This single CD sampler brings together the best of the early years, including Flip Phillips’s celebrated solo on ‘Perdido’, Billie and Ella on ‘Flying Home’, Bird on an astonishing ‘Oh, Lady Be Good’ and many others.

Granz lived on until 2001, an admired elder statesman whose cheerful vulgarization of jazz as a concert phenomenon nevertheless helped keep the music – and some of its great exponents – alive during the cold years.

TINY GRIMES

Born Lloyd Grimes, 7 July 1916, Newport News, Virginia; died 4 March 1989, New York City

Guitar

Tiny Grimes 1944–1949

Classics 5048

Grimes; James Young (tb); Charlie Parker, Red Prysock (as); John Hardee (ts); George Kelly (p, cel); Clyde Hart, Marlowe Morris, Joe Springer (p); Lucille Dixon, Charles Isaacs (b); Clyde Butts (b, v); Ed Nicholson, Sonny Payne, Jerry Potter, Harold ‘Doc’ West (d). September 1944–1949.