The Penguin Jazz Guide (46 page)

June Christy said (1981):
‘I believed in
Something Cool
when no one else did. None of us thought it would ever sell. It was just something I wanted to do, for myself and maybe to look back on. But it took off, and here I am.’

June Christy’s wholesome but peculiarly sensuous voice is both creative and emotive. Her long controlled lines and the shading of a fine vibrato suggest a professional’s attention to detail and a tender, solicitous feel for the heart of a song. Her greatest moments are as close to creating definitive interpretations as any singer can come.

She sounds amazingly confident just out of her teens on early recordings with Kenton, already a swing-era canary with a feel for the cooler, more knowing pulse of the years ahead. But her best work was done with Rugolo (although husband Bob Cooper’s charts shouldn’t be forgotten). The masterpieces are
Something Cool
and
The Misty Miss Christy
, both perfectly programmed and meticulously tailored to June’s persona. ‘Something Cool’ itself is a story that bears endless retelling, but ‘Midnight Sun’, ‘I Should Care’ and several others seem like definitive interpretations, a marvel for Christy’s perfect breath control and vibrato as well as her emotional colouring. Rugolo’s inventiveness is unstinting, often using the orchestra in surprising ways but nothing that unsettles or diverts attention from the singer.

AL HAIG

Born 22 July 1922, Newark, New Jersey; died 16 November 1982, New York City

Piano

Esoteric

Fresh Sound FSRCD 38

Haig; Bill Crow (b); Lee Abrams (d). March 1954.

Mal Waldron said (1983):
‘Al Haig was a genius, but he was also a very strange man. I don’t think you’d ever have known what was going on in that head. The good stuff came out on the piano.’

In 1969, Haig was charged with strangling his third wife, but acquitted at trial. After his death, research suggested that he had been persistently violent in the marriage; there was even some suggestion that Haig had confessed the murder to a friend. In his musical incarnation, he seems the perfect example of creative sublimation, any violence channelled into beauty.

If Haig denied himself the high passion of Bud Powell’s music, he was still a force of eloquence and intensity, and his refined touch lent him a striking individuality within his milieu. The early sextet material, now on OJC, was made for Dawn and Seeco, though Al was also recording under Getz’s leadership for larger imprints. The first trio album, originally released on Esoteric, is a masterpiece – one of the finest records of its era, we’d propose – that can stand with any of the work of Powell or Monk. Haig’s elegance of touch and line, his virtually perfect delivery, links him with a pianist such as Teddy Wilson rather than with any of his immediate contemporaries, and certainly his delivery of an unlikely tune such as ‘Mighty Like A Rose’ has a kinship with the language of Wilson’s generation. Yet his complexity of tone and the occasionally cryptic delivery are unequivocally modern, absolutely of the bop lineage. Voicings and touch have a symmetry and refinement that other boppers, from Powell and Duke Jordan to Joe Albany and Dodo Marmarosa, seldom approached.

PERCY HUMPHREY

Born 13 January 1905, New Orleans, Louisiana; died 22 July 1995, New Orleans, Louisiana

Trumpet

Percy Humphrey’s Sympathy Five

American Music AMCD-88

Humphrey; Waldron Joseph, Jack Delany (tb); Willie Humphrey, Raymond Burke (cl); Stanley Mendelson, Lester Santiago (p); Johnny St Cyr (g, bj, v); Blind Gilbert (g, v); Richard McLean, Sherwood Mangiapane (b); Paul Barbarin (d). January 1951–June 1954.

Photographer Jean-Luc Magnan says:
‘I think tourists went to Preservation Hall thinking it was going to be this swanky nightclub, with hostesses and cocktails and gourmet food. It’s
plain
, man, and so’s the music they make there.’

The youngest Humphrey brother – Willie played clarinet, Earl trombone – started out as a drummer, worked with George Lewis in the ’50s, and led the Eureka Brass Band and others, including his own Joymakers outfit. He seldom played outside the city in earlier years and had a day job selling insurance, but the formation of the Preservation Hall touring band made him something of an international star. The Sympathy Five (the name derives solely from the handwritten title on a discovered reel of tape) offer six 1954 titles on this American Music CD. Humphrey sounds in good spirits and his solos have a lean, almost wiry quality, played in the slightly breathless style of the New Orleans brass men. There’s some danger of him seeming outshone by Burke and the splendid Delany, but Humphrey’s ability to sound as if he might be doing his accounts while playing, nonchalant to the point of detachment, is what makes him attractive. There’s a coiled-spring impression to some of the music, as if he might leap into action if anything worthwhile crops up.

JIMMY RANEY
^&

Born 20 August 1927, Louisville, Kentucky; died 10 May 1995, Louisville, Kentucky

Guitar

A

Original Jazz Classics OJC 1706

Raney; John Wilson (t); Hall Overton (p); Teddy Kotick (b); Art Mardigan, Nick Stabulas (d). May 1954–March 1955.

Jimmy Raney said (1984):
‘There really weren’t many bop guitarists around in the early days, which I guess made it easier. But there were those who thought the instrument wasn’t suitable for bop, so in terms of visibility it was robbing Peter to pay Paul!’

Of the bop-inspired guitarists Raney perhaps best combined lyricism with great underlying strength. His style approximately synthesizes Charlie Christian and Lester Young. Essentially a group player, he sounds good at almost any tempo but is most immediately appealing on ballads.
A
, which contains some of his loveliest performances, remains an overlooked classic. Overton anticipates some of the harmonic devices employed by Hank Jones, and bebop bassist Kotick plays with a firm authority that synchronizes nicely with Raney’s rather spacious and elided lower-string work. On the first date, he overdubs a second guitar part over the intros and coda, an interesting device so smoothly done many listeners aren’t even aware of it. ‘Minor’ (which has a familiar chord structure) clips along at an impressive pace, but never drops a stitch. ‘Some Other Spring’ is a perfect study-piece for improvising guitarists, intricate but completely logical. Wilson adds a dimension to the lovely ‘One More For The Mode’ (which uses fragments of Bach) and to four more romantic numbers, including ‘A Foggy Day’ and ‘Someone To Watch Over Me’.

& See also
Wisteria
(1985; p. 498)

BUD SHANK
^&

Born Clifford Everett Shank Jr, 27 May 1926, Dayton, Ohio; died 2 April 2009, Tucson, Arizona

Alto saxophone

Jazz In Hollywood

Original Jazz Classics OJC 1890

Shank; Shorty Rogers (flhn); Jimmy Rowles, Lou Levy (p); Harry Babasin (b); Roy Harte, Larry Bunker (d). March–September 1954.

Bud Shank said (1985):
‘With Kenton, Art [Pepper] played the alto solos. It was my job to lead the saxophone section. I think I learned more doing that, never felt particularly frustrated. I got my chance to play at the Haig, Monday nights, when Gerry [Mulligan] and Chet [Baker] were there. It started to fall into place.’

Bud Shank has been the quintessential West Coast altoman for more than 40 years. He has appeared on numberless sessions but his playing has remained sharp, piercingly thoughtful and swinging in a lean, persuasive way. Originally a tenor-player, he switched and added flute while working with Charlie Barnet and Stan Kenton. The Ohioan’s light, tender touch – and brilliantly individual flute-playing – was a significant component of the Lighthouse All Stars, and the L.A.4. He was once considered cool to the point of frigidity, but he eventually embraced bebop and his later work has grown fiercer and more inclined to collar the listener; but the early albums have a kind of snake-eyed ingenuity.

Jazz In Hollywood
is an interesting find, two rather rare albums for the Nocturne label combined on one disc. One was Shank’s debut, with a quintet including frequent partner Rogers; the other features a trio date for Lou Levy. The air-conditioned tone and slightly remote delivery perhaps sounds just right for someone who’d been through the Kenton machine, but there is Kentonian power as well. Even at this juncture, Shank is a musician who buttonholes attention, without seeming to. His lines are neat and crisp without being excessively original, but it’s the delivery that makes them arresting.
Live At The Haig
is the obvious companion piece from the time, but it has flaws and is less individual than this early compilation.

& See also
Lost In The Stars
(1990; p. 546)

CHRIS BARBER

Born 17 April 1930, Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England

Trombone

The Complete Decca Sessions 1954/55

Lake LACD 141/2 2CD

Barber; Pat Halcox (c); Monty Sunshine (cl); Bertie King (as); Lonnie Donegan (bj); Jim Bray (b, bb); Ron Bowden (d); Beryl Bryden (wbd); Ottilie Patterson (v). July 1954, January 1955.

Chris Barber says:
‘That first Festival Hall concert in 1954 was very important for us. We’d only played in jazz clubs before that. There was a rumour that Princess Margaret was going to attend, so the press were all there. Ottilie sang very well and got good write-ups, as she should have done, but it was Princess Margaret they were really there to see. She didn’t turn up!’

The godfather of British jazz and blues, Barber has an extraordinary following at home and in Europe, selling records mostly through his concerts and fan club in a way that anticipated internet and other non-retail sources. Barber had been leading bands in his teens, but his first serious attempt was a cooperative group pulled together in 1953 during Colyer’s extended ‘vacation’ in New Orleans. Though they subsequently worked together, the band split over their ultimate direction, and while Colyer (who felt the Armstrong Hot Fives were too modern!) went back to elemental New Orleans playing, Barber assumed not only leadership but the mantle of the entire trad movement, with Humphrey Lyttelton already moving towards swing mainstream. While the ensemble’s the thing, Barber thinks more creatively about arrangements, the place of solos, counterpoint and rhythm, and it’s surprising to hear how strongly this music survives the years. It sounds youthful and energetic, and it reminds us that it was still being played by men in their early 20s. The very first track, the highly improbable ‘Bobby Shaftoe’, works up a terrific head of steam, yet it’s clearly all under control. Some of the shibboleths of the trad movement – such as the plink of the banjo – are there to be sure, but Barber’s men were too good to let them seem like anything but a necessary part of the music. Halcox is still a bit green, but Sunshine is already masterful, and the leader’s own playing has a terrific bark. Donegan contributed his ‘Skiffle Group’ session, which yielded the hit ‘Rock Island Line’ and paved the way for British beat music. Barber likes to joke that he earned more money playing bass on Donegan’s record than he ever did playing jazz trombone. The live tracks on disc two are just as impressive and are greeted with applause the like of which hasn’t been heard again at a jazz concert in Britain (until the Jamie Cullum era). And with guest spots for Bertie King and material as diverse as ‘Skokiaan’ and ‘Salutation March’, Barber was serving notice that his musical remit was going to be as wide as he wanted.

JOHN DANKWORTH

Later Sir John Dankworth, born 20 September 1927, London; died 5 February 2010, Wavendon, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England

Alto and soprano saxophones, clarinet

The Vintage Years

Sepia RSCD2014

Dankworth: Derrick Abbott, Dickie Hawdon, Bill Metcalf, Eddie Blair, George Boocock, Charlie Evans, Tommy McQuater, Stan Palmer, Colin Wright, Dougie Roberts (t); Maurice Pratt, Keith Christie, Eddie Harvey, Bill Geldard, Laurie Monk, Gary Brown, Harry Puckles, Danny Elwood, Tony Russell, Gib Wallis (tb); Geoff Cole, Maurice Owen, Rex Rutley, Lew Smith (as); Tommy Whittle, Rex Morris, Pete Warner, John Xerri, Freddie Courteney (ts); Alex Leslie (bs); Dave Lee, Derek Smith, Bill Le Sage (p); Jack Seymour, Bill Sutcliffe, Eric Dawson (b); Allan Ganley, Kenny Clare (d). 1953–1959.

John Dankworth says:
‘You know, the British boys all learned to play by listening to records, not hearing those bands in a club. We’d copy what we heard on Mel Powell and Glenn Miller recordings and they were very quiet. What a shock when the bands came over or we went there and saw them and it was
loud
! But it taught me that you can be quiet and still swing. You just maybe have to wait for a club audience to get the idea and calm down a bit!’

One of the bop pioneers at Club Eleven in the later ’40s, his Dankworth Seven and big bands were important in the ’50s and ’60s and the orchestra played Newport in 1959, with a short season on the same bill as the Ellington band. In later years, Dankworth worked more extensively in film and also became a force in music education from his and wife Cleo Laine’s base at Wavendon. It’s easy enough to argue that Dankworth was more important as a catalyst than as a musician. That, however, is belied by the early records. Unfortunately, the discography is in a poor state and only rather recently with the establishment of a ‘home’ label has it seemed at all likely that the big-band records will return to the light. In the meantime, there are a few good recent small-group discs to enjoy and it’s worth searching out this excellent compilation of early singles and album material by the orchestra he formed after disbanding the Johnny Dankworth Seven in 1953. One obvious conclusion is how much Dankworth’s musical ambitions were compromised by British jazz surroundings at the time. However, there are some very worthy names dotted through these personnels and the compilation as a whole does reflect his core values: rigorous harmony, subtler than usual dynamics (though one senses the sections resisting that), idiomatic voicings and part-writing, all qualities that stood him in good stead as a film composer.