The Penguin Jazz Guide (33 page)

In 1944, an unexplained fire at the Palisades Pleasure Park in New Jersey destroyed the instruments and music of one of the most challenging big bands of the period. Typically of Boyd Raeburn, his re-formed band and new book were even more adventurous than what had gone before, absorbing elements of Ellington, current swing and modern classicism. He was a leader at 20, and by 30 in charge of a challenging modernist group. The records weren’t hits and he reverted to sweeter fare, retiring in 1957. Raeburn’s was a musicians’ band, held in the highest esteem by his peers, regarded with some suspicion by those who believed that bands were for dancing. Raeburn had an intelligent awareness of classical and 20th-century forms and was as comfortable with Bartók and Debussy as he was with Ellington and Basie. The bands were clangorous, neither ‘sweet’ nor ‘hot’, but a curious
admixture of the two, and arrangements were full of awkward time-signatures and tonalities. Tunes such as ‘Tonsillectomy’, ‘Rip Van Winkle’ and ‘Yerxa’, from earlier and (as yet) not reissued sessions, are among the most remarkable of modern-band pieces. The Raeburn bands of the time (like Kirk’s or McShann’s) are well worth scouring for the early work of prominent modernists: Dizzy Gillespie, Serge Chaloff, Shelly Manne. It may be that simple market forces pushed Raeburn back in the direction of the swing mainstream.

Hep have put out several good-quality Raeburn sets, including transcriptions that cast George Handy’s outlandish arrangements in excellent sound. The Jubilee airshots include some scarifying arrangements of things like ‘Body And Soul’, but also include Finckel’s ‘Boyd Meets Stravinsky’. Hard to know how these were received at the time, so acute an angle on bop harmony they take. In sum, this is an inconsistent body of work, but Raeburn deserves a better shake than jazz history has so far given him.

WOODY HERMAN
^&

Born 16 May 1930, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; died 29 October 1987, Los Angeles, California

Clarinet, alto and soprano saxophones, voice

Blowin’ Up A Storm!

Columbia 503280-2 2CD

Herman; Sonny Berman, Shorty Rogers, Cappy Lewis, Billy Rogers, Pete Candoli, Conte Candoli, Chuck Frankhauser, Carl Warwick, Ray Wetzel, Neal Hefti, Irv Lewis, Ray Linn, Marky Markowitz (t); Bill Harris, Ed Kiefer, Ralph Pfeffner, Neal Reid, Bob Swift, Rodney Ogle, Tommy Pederson (tb); Sam Marowitz, John LaPorta, Les Robinson, Jimmy Horvath (as); Mickey Folus, Flip Phillips, Pete Mondello, Vido Musso, Ben Webster (ts); Sam Rubinowich, Skippy DeSair (bs); Ralph Burns, Fred Otis, Tony Aless (p); Margie Hyams, Red Norvo (vib); Chuck Wayne, Billy Bauer (g); Joe Mondragon, Chubby Jackson, Walt Yoder (b); Dave Tough, Don Lamond, Johnny Blowers (d); Martha Raye, Frances Wayne, Carolyn Grey (v). February 1945–December 1947.

Woody Herman said (1977):
‘If you’re not moving forward, you’re going backwards. Even with the war on, I didn’t want to make excuses for gaps in the band and the band book. I wanted us to get better and better.’

A brilliant rhythm section, a brass team that could top any big-band section on either coast and arrangements that crackled with spontaneity and wit: Herman’s 1945 band was both a commercial and an artistic triumph. With Burns, Bauer, Tough and Jackson (who incidentally became the first bassist to amplify his instrument) spurring the horns on, the band handled head arrangements and slicker charts such as Neal Hefti’s ‘Wild Root’ with the same mixture of innate enthusiasm and craft. There was a modern edge to the group that suggested something of the transition from swing to bop, even though it was the Second Herd that threw in its lot with bop spirit if not letter. Columbia have done their Herman recordings some justice in a full CD reissue of their best music from the period. Besides all the familiar material, there’s the studio version of Stravinsky’s ‘Ebony Concerto’ and a series of alternative takes of some of the best-known numbers – though even Ralph Burns, in his entertaining sleeve-note, says that most of these are clearly inferior to the masters. The remastering has been scrupulously done and, with 40 tracks at mid-price, this should rank as one of the great bargains in the area of big-band music on CD, with the likes of ‘Northwest Passage’, ‘Your Father’s Mustache’, ‘The Good Earth’, ‘Apple Honey’ and ‘Bijou’ all sounding terrific.

& See also
Woody Herman 1939
(1939; p. 78),
Woody’s Winners / Jazz Hoot
(1965–1967; p. 321)

MUTT CAREY

Born Thomas Carey, known as ‘Papa Mutt’, 25 December 1886 (other sources give 1891), Hahnville, Louisiana; died 3 September 1948, Elsinore, California

Trumpet

Mutt Carey And Lee Collins

American Music AMCD-72

Carey; Lee Collins (t); Hociel Thomas (p, v); Lovie Austin, J. H. Shayne (p); Johnny Lindsay (b); Baby Dodds (d); Bertha ‘Chippie’ Hill (v). February–August 1946.

Cornetist Alex Welsh said (1978):
‘Mutt Carey was at the beginning of things, but he wasn’t a front-man, really. He even sounds shy and a bit awkward and I suppose he was happiest when there were other horns around him. But that’s how it was at the start of jazz: the group was more important than the soloist.’

Carey played with his brother Jack’s orchestra before the First World War and was in contact with most of the leading early figures in the music, including Buddy Bolden and Joe ‘King’ Oliver, but like so many of this generation he had to bide his time for the revival before he received much recognition. A player who sounded best in the confines of a group rather than a stellar soloist, he was none the less on hand when Kid Ory’s group made the first jazz sides ever by a black group, so his place in the histories is relatively secure, even if his body of recorded work is vestigial.

Inevitably, much of Carey’s early work went undocumented, but he was still around for the revival and there’s a reasonable representation of his sound on record. An Upbeat compilation includes some fine players – Ory, Jimmy Archey, Minor Hall, Joe Darensbourg, Albert Nicholas – but much of the material is accompaniments to classic blues singer Hociel Thomas, another who had been recently plucked from obscurity. Their duets are also included on this American Music compilation, and she comes across in surprisingly good voice, though Carey, unfortunately, sometimes sounds uncomfortable and hesitant. That’s typical of a musician who clearly didn’t like to be exposed. He was a player for the collective. There’s nice interplay on ‘Go Down Sunshine’, but it’s the unsung Collins who often sounds better on his eight tracks. Good, rough music.

WOODEN JOE NICHOLAS

Born 23 September 1883, New Orleans, Louisiana; died 17 November 1957, New Orleans, Louisiana

Trumpet

Wooden Joe Nicholas

American Music AMCD-5

Nicholas; Jim Robinson, Louis Nelson, Joe Petit (tb); Albert Burbank (cl); Johnny St Cyr (g); Lawrence Marrero (bj); Austin Young, Alcide ‘Slow Drag’ Pavageau (b); Josiah Frazier, Baby Dodds, Albert Jiles (d); Ann Cook (v). May 1945–July 1949.

Clarinettist Kenny Davern said (1992):
‘When I was coming up in New York, there was this very smooth “Dixieland” style around, shiny but dull, if you know what I mean. With the confidence of the very young, I started to speak up for the old New Orleans players, and particularly people like Wooden Joe Nicholas. If you want to hear the roots of jazz, that’s where you have to go, and we’re kind of blessed that he made any records at all. Buddy Bolden didn’t.’

A legend calls down the years. He himself was Albert Nicholas’s uncle, but Wooden Joe’s own main idol was Buddy Bolden, and hearing him play may offer us the best idea of what
Bolden himself might have sounded like. Nicholas blew a very powerful open horn, and was famous for dominating a dance hall sound. There was very little recording in New Orleans during the first jazz generations, but Wooden Joe was still around for the revival. These were his only recordings, and they are clustered together from a session at the Artesian Hall and two later dates. A lot of New Orleans history is tied up here: the fearsome blues singer Ann Cook is on one track, the legendary trombonist Joe Petit on another. Nicholas and Burbank are the main voices on all the tracks (Wooden Joe also played clarinet, and does so on two numbers): compared with the clarinettist’s weaving lines, Nicholas is reserved in his phrasing and takes only a few breaks and solos. But much of his power and stately delivery was intact.

KENNY CLARKE

Known as ‘Klook’, and formally as Liaqat Ali Salaam; born 9 January 1914, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; died 26 January 1985, Paris, France

Drums

Klook’s The Man

Properbox 120 4CD

Clarke; Benny Bailey, Donald Byrd, Dick Collins, Kenny Dorham, Claude Dunson, Henry Goodwin, Roger Guerin, Fats Navarro (t); Nat Adderley (c); Eddie Bert, Billy Byers, Henry Coker, Nat Peck (tb); Rudy Powell (cl, as); Cannonball Adderley, John Brown, Hubert Fol, John LaPorta, Frank Morgan, Hubert Rostaing, Sonny Stitt, Michel De Villers (as); Ernie Wilkins (as, ts, arr); Ray Abrams, Walter Benton, Jean-Claude Fohrenbach (ts); James Moody (ts, arr); Jerome Richardson, Frank Wess (ts, f); George Barrow (ts, bs); Charlie Fowlkes, Armand Migiani, Cecil Payne, Eddie De Verteuil (bs); Ronnie Ball, Jacques Denjean, Tommy Flanagan, Edgar Hayes, Hank Jones, Bernard Peiffer, Bud Powell, Ralph Schecroun, Horace Silver, Martial Solal, René Urtreger, Gerald Wiggins (p); Milt Jackson (vib); Kenny Burrell, John Collins, Eddie Gibbs, Al McKibbon, Charles Montaggioni (g); André Hodeir (vn, arr); Jean Bouchety, Paul Chambers, Frank ‘Coco’ Darling, Al Hall, Percy Heath, Eddie Jones, Wendell Marshall, Alf Messelier, Pierre Michelot, Jean Warland, James Anderson (v); Walter Fuller (arr). March 1938–November 1956.

Kenny Clarke said (1978):
‘Michel Legrand fixed me up with his uncle’s jazz band in Paris. I saw Michel on TV, on a Maurice Chevalier special, and phoned him up. In the fall I got sent a first-class liner ticket and I took everything I had with me and I’m still over here.
J’aime bien Paris!
’

If there were a ballot on who actually invented bebop, Kenny Clarke would be a good outside candidate. ‘Klook’, so called because of the distinctive ‘klook-mop’ sound of his favourite cadence, is one of the most influential drummers of all time. He made his recording debut at 24 in Sweden with the dire James Anderson on vocals (it’s all here on this Properbox), but while working with Dizzy Gillespie in the early ’40s Clarke began to depart from normal practice by marking the count on his top cymbal and using his bass drum only for accents. It became the distinctive sound of bebop, imitated and adapted by Blakey and Roach, and it remains essential background work for drummers even today. Clarke had a strong but also quite delicate sound and he remained swing-oriented all through his career, even after bebop became the norm. His big band with Francy Boland kept the music alive during lean times.

The Properbox picks up the story after military service in 1946 with Klook and his 52nd Street Boys (including Navarro, Dorham, Stitt and Powell) recording ‘Epistrophy’ (which he co-wrote with Monk) and some other tunes. The rest of disc one was taped in Paris. There’s then another big jump to the mid-’50s in Hollywood and New York following Clarke’s short tenure
with the Modern Jazz Quartet. The best stuff comes at the start of the third disc, and the June 1955 septet date with Byrd, both Adderleys, Richardson, Silver and Chambers, with cracking reads of ‘Willow, Weep For Me’, ‘Bohemia After Dark’ and ‘Hear Me Talkin’ To Ya’. The fourth begins strongly with the Pittsburgher meeting up with Detroit’s finest at Rudy Van Gelder’s. Thereafter, though, the selection tails away. Compilation boxes aren’t ideal (though some of these volumes might be separately available, in which case the early two are best) but
Klook’s The Man
provides a perfect introduction to one of the prime movers of the modern scene.

BILLY ECKSTINE

Born William Clarence Eckstein, 8 July 1914, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; died 8 March 1993, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Voice, trumpet, valve trombone

Billy Eckstine 1944–1946

Classics 914

Eckstine; Dizzy Gillespie, Freddy Webster, Shorty McConnell, Al Killian, Gail Brockman, Boonie Hazel, Fats Navarro, Raymond Orr (t); Trummy Young, Howard Scott, Claude Jones, Jerry Valentine, Taswell Baird, Alfred ‘Chippie’ Outcalt, Walter Knox (tb); Budd Johnson, Jimmy Powell, John Jackson, Bill Frazier, Sonny Stitt, John Cobbs (as); Gene Ammons, Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray, Thomas Crump, Arthur Sammons (ts); Rudy Rutherford, Leo Parker, Teddy Cypron (bs); John Malachi, Clyde Hart, Richard Ellington (p); Connie Wainwright (g); Oscar Pettiford, Tommy Potter (b); Shadow Wilson, Art Blakey (d); Sarah Vaughan (v). April 1944–October 1945.

Saxophonist Gerry Mulligan said (1992):
‘In the ’40s if you mentioned “the Band”, it was universally understood who you meant, and it wasn’t Duke or Basie. It was Eckstine. That was the place to be.’

He changed the spelling of his name because a promoter thought ‘Eckstein’ was ‘too Jewish’. Though he was a competent brass-player, it was Mr B’s voice that was his fortune, a rich bass-baritone that caressed, but could also deliver a slap. He arrived in Chicago in 1938, found success as a vocalist with the Earl Hines band, and subsequently ran his own big band. He turned to small-group work in 1947 and enjoyed MOR success, though usually with a jazz flavour.

Eckstine’s orchestra was a legendary incubator for young bebop talent, as a glance at the personnel shows, and it’s a pity that the band’s surviving performances are mostly of ballads and features for the leader. Not that one should decry anything that Eckstine himself does. His massive, smooth, sumptuous voice has its own virtues, and on the rare occasion when he handles an up-tempo piece – ‘I Love The Rhythm In A Riff’ – he is just as adept. There are glimmers of Gordon, Ammons, Gillespie and Navarro here, as well as Vaughan’s debut on ‘I’ll Wait And Pray’, but it’s the power of the band as a whole, the lift given by the young Art Blakey and the rapt power of Eckstine’s balladeering which are the merits of these tracks.