The Penguin Jazz Guide (47 page)

Much of the earlier material here is akin to dance band music with a jazz leaning, but the later sides, such as a vivid reworking of ‘How High The Moon’ and ‘Jive At Five’, achieve the more purposeful jazz feel of the Seven recordings. None of the soloists betters Dankworth’s own creamy contributions and it’s a point of mild regret that he doesn’t feature himself more. Except that wasn’t the point and Dankworth, who died while this book was in production, has always been engagingly modest as a man and a player, letting the band appear to set the agenda.

JOHNNY ST CYR

Born 17 April 1890, New Orleans, Louisiana; died 17 June 1966, Los Angeles, California

Guitar, banjo

Johnny St Cyr

American Music AMCD-78

St Cyr; Thomas Jefferson (t, v); Percy Humphrey (t); Jim Robinson, Joe Avery (tb); George Lewis (cl); Jeanette Kimball (p, v); Leo Thompson (p); Ernest McLean (g); Richard McLean, Fran Fields (b); Paul Barbarin, Sidney Montague (d); Jack Delany, Sister Elizabeth Eustis (v). July 1954–May 1955.

Lonnie Donegan said (1983):
‘The funny thing is that on some of those terrible old recordings Johnny St Cyr is the loudest thing you can hear and you realize that it’s him who’s stoking the engines.’

The self-taught doyen of New Orleans rhythm guitarists – who worked with both Armstrong and Morton – was seldom noted as a group leader (and in fact doubled his music career with a day job as a plasterer), but American Music have pieced together a CD’s worth of material. The first two tracks are rather dowdy treatments of ‘Someday You’ll Be Sorry’ by a band with Percy Humphrey, Lewis and Robinson; but more interesting are the five previously unheard pieces by a quintet in which protégé Ernest McLean is featured rather more generously than Johnny himself, both men playing electric. The rest of the disc is jovial New Orleans music, fronted by the hearty Jefferson and the imperturbable Percy Humphrey. St Cyr, as always, is no more inclined to take any limelight than Freddie Green ever was, so it’s nice to have a disc under his name.

BENNY GOODMAN
^&

Born 30 May 1909, Chicago, Illinois; died 13 June 1986, New York City

Clarinet

B.G. In Hi-Fi

Capitol 92684-2

Goodman; Ruby Braff, Charlie Shavers, Chris Griffin, Carl Poole, Bernie Privin (t); Will Bradley, Vernon Brown, Cutty Cutshall (tb); Al Klink, Paul Ricci, Boomie Richman, Hymie Schertzer, Sol Schlinger (saxes); Mel Powell (p); Steve Jordan (g); George Duvivier (b); Bobby Donaldson, Jo Jones (d). November 1954.

Mel Powell said (1989):
‘Benny may have got hives when he heard bebop – or any of his players doing bebop – but you have to listen to that band [1954] and hear how much classical music, conservatory music, “art music” there is there. He’d listened to Bartók and Stravinsky, and it showed. Plus, I was there.’

Goodman left the big-band era with his finances and his technique intact, and although this was a more or less anachronistic programme of trio, quintet and big-band sides in 1954, the playing is so good that it’s a resounding success. Benny was interested in the new music, but he never felt very comfortable with it, and by the mid-’50s the bop accents are relatively few and confidently assimilated to his natural idiom. He had, by this stage, built an audience who wanted him for himself, not for his attentiveness to fashion. A few Goodman staples are mixed with Basie material such as ‘Jumpin’ At The Woodside’, and Benny’s readings match the originals. Shavers, Braff, Richman and Powell have fine moments; Goodman is peerless. The sound is dry but excellent, and the CD reissue adds four tracks, including a beautiful trio version of ‘Rose Room’.

& See also
The Complete Small Group Sessions
(1935–1939; p. 52),
At Carnegie Hall 1938
(1938; p. 65)

OSCAR PETTIFORD

Born 30 September 1922, Okmulgee, Oklahoma; died 8 September 1960, Copenhagen, Denmark

Double bass, cello

Nonet & Octet 1954–55

Fresh Sound FSRCD 453

Pettiford; Donald Byrd, Ernie Royal, Clark Terry, Joe Wilder (t); Jimmy Cleveland, Bob Brookmeyer (tb); Gigi Gryce, Dave Schildkraut (as); Jimmy Hamilton (cl, ts); Jerome Richardson (ts, f); Danny Bank (bs); Don Abney, Joe Earl Knight (p); Osie Johnson (d). 1954–August 1955.

Art Ensemble Of Chicago bassist Malachi Favours said (1982):
‘Pettiford was the most melodic bass-player I ever heard, and his solos were on a different level to anyone else. I heard him when I was starting out, and it almost discouraged me, but he showed what was possible.’

Pettiford’s playing career began in a family orchestra, under the tutelage of his father. His wonderfully propulsive bass-playing marks a middle point between Blanton and Mingus, whose visionary genius and volcanic temperament he shared. He spent his last years in European exile. Pettiford’s facility on the cello is unparalleled in jazz, even by such gifted doublers as Ron Carter, and the freedom and fluency of his solo line on the early ‘Pendulum At Falcon’s Lair’ are genuinely exhilarating. Oscar’s placing of notes, his unfailing harmonic awareness and his sheer musicality will win over all but the hardest-hearted sceptics.

The octet and nonet performances and the big-band ABC recordings offer the best evidence for the suggestion that Pettiford’s experiments might even have eclipsed Mingus’s, had he lived long enough to see them through. The smaller groups are elegance itself, coolly turbulent, if such a thing is possible, and packed with subtle musical ideas. The tracks that made up
Another One
mark a high-point in jazz writing and ensemble playing at the period. Pettiford helms with a brooding authority, his personal sound always evident, his compositional ideas ever more logical when heard in bulk. ‘Bohemia After Dark’ and the little-known ‘Kamman’s A-Comin’’ are classic modern performances, and should be in every collection, as should the slightly later big-band material.

CHARLES THOMPSON

Born 21 March 1918, Springfield, Ohio

Piano

For The Ears

Vanguard 79604

Thompson; Emmett Berry, Joe Newman (t); Benny Morton, Benny Powell (tb); Pete Brown, Earle Warren (as); Coleman Hawkins (as, ts); Skeeter Best, Steve Jordan (g); Aaron Bell, Gene Ramey (b); Osie Johnson (d). 1954–1956.

Drummer Ed Thigpen said (2000):
‘Sir Charles is like one of those sequel trios, what do you call them?
Sequoia
trees. Thousands of years old but still standing! And still playing like a dream.’

Sir Roland Hanna was knighted by the President of Liberia; Charles Thompson was ‘knighted’ by Lester Young; which is the more impressive depends on your standpoint. Something of a journeyman, Thompson nevertheless helped to define the new ‘mainstream’ in jazz during the ’50s and was relatively quiet after that, though he has enjoyed an Indian summer in his late 80s and beyond, which means that he has been playing professionally for a staggering 80 years. Thompson made his debut aged ten and played privately with Bennie Moten until he was picked up by Basie.

The interesting thing about Thompson’s style is that even in the swing era he sounded boppish. Perversely, he sounds old-fashioned to most ears now, but that’s relative. For a player who has never left the lists, he’s not often listed among the modern greats and that
has had a self-reinforcing impact on his availability. Thompson’s vintage sessions for Vanguard – harbingers of the entire mainstream style – have never been satisfactorily around for long enough so that a new generation might pick up on him, and he shares the now-you-see-them fate which seems to attend everything cut for that label. This, then, is a valuable bulletin from Thompson’s highly personal journey through the frontier land of swing and bop. There’s some interesting material from 1956 with just Best and Bell (no drums) that includes a terrifically individual ‘Stompin’ At The Savoy’, but the main interest is bound to be the tracks with Hawkins, who’s in imperious form. He gets second billing on the date, though. It’s emphatically Thompson’s music, original, individual and sharply flowing, with hardly a phrase wasted.

RICHARD TWARDZIK

Born 30 April 1931, Danvers, Massachusetts; died 21 October 1955, Paris, France

Piano

Complete Recordings

Lone Hill Jazz LHJR 10120

Twardzik; Carson Smith (b); Peter Littman (d). December 1953–June 1954.

Chet Baker said (1981):
‘I don’t really like to talk about him …’
Then, after fully a minute of silence:
‘He was rather special, a special musician, with a great gift.’

Twardzik was something of a one-off, a pupil of Margaret Chaloff, celebrated for his composition ‘Yellow Waltz/Tango’, but otherwise only known as one of jazz’s many drug casualties. Twardzik worked with Charlie Mariano, Serge Chaloff and Chet Baker, and it was while on tour with Chet, shortly after recording the fine record
Rondette
, that he succumbed to an overdose. Plaudits to Lone Hill for scratching together the few things, solo and trio, that this singular talent recorded for Pacific, along with a few rehearsal extracts and concert tapes.

Twardzik never got the chance to spread his wings as a composer, but his revoicing of ‘Round Midnight’ (it features twice here) and a lovely version of ‘I’ll Remember April’ are sufficient to suggest he might well have developed in a fascinating new direction that parallels some of the less orthodox boppers: Elmo Hope, Herbie Nichols. He also had a strong sense of the narrative underpinning of a song: ‘Bess, You Is My Woman Now’ seems to fit right back into an operatic context, moody and ambiguous. The quality of recording is inevitably variable, but as a snapshot of a lost figure who might well have been a significant presence, it’s hard to beat.

DINAH WASHINGTON

Born Ruth Lee Jones, 29 August 1924, Tuscaloosa, Alabama; died 14 December 1963, Detroit, Michigan

Voice

Dinah Jams

Emarcy 814639-2

Washington; Clifford Brown, Clark Terry, Maynard Ferguson (t); Herb Geller (as); Harold Land (ts); Junior Mance, Richie Powell (p); Keter Betts, George Morrow (b); Max Roach (d). August 1954.

Drummer Jimmy Cobb said (1986):
‘Dinah could be cruel, but I don’t remember her being crazy. She was raised in the church and could read music pretty well, so she always knew what she was doing with the band.’

Dinah joined Lionel Hampton in 1943, then went solo, in the end aspiring to a grand torch singer role in the ’50s. She finally referred to herself as ‘The Queen’, and her gospel-and-blues methodology undeniably influenced the next generation of soul singers. She was married seven, eight or nine times. Even she seemed to lose count. Increasingly erratic, she died from an accidental pill overdose. Whether or not she counts as a ‘jazz singer’, Washington frequently appeared in the company of the finest jazz musicians and, while she was no improviser and stood slightly apart from such contemporaries as Fitzgerald or Vaughan, she could drill through blues and ballads with a huge, sometimes slightly terrifying delivery.

Washington’s major ‘jazz’ record is fine, but not as fine as the closely contemporary Sarah Vaughan record with a similar backing group, and therein lies a tale about Washington’s abilities. She claimed she could sing anything – which was probably true – but her big, bluesy voice is no more comfortable in this stratum of Tin Pan Alley than was Joe Turner’s. Still, the long and luxuriant jams on ‘You Go To My Head’ and ‘Lover Come Back To Me’ are rather wonderful in their way, and there is always Clifford Brown to listen to.

LENNIE NIEHAUS

Born 11 June 1929, St Louis, Missouri

Alto saxophone

The Quintets & Strings

Original Jazz Classics OJCCD 1858

Niehaus; Stu Williamson (t); Bill Perkins (ts); Bobby Gordon (bs); Hampton Hawes (p); Monty Budwig (b); Shelly Manne (d); Thomas Hall, Christopher Kuzell, Barbara Simons (vla); Charlotte Harrison (clo). March–April 1955.

Lennie Niehaus said (1993):
‘I wanted the strings to be part of the linear approach, not just an accompaniment, so I had to get them to play eighth notes in a particular way, so that it swung and the saxophone could play over the top of a “section”.’

Niehaus is certainly best known now for his soundtrack work for close friend Clint Eastwood. He provided music for
Play Misty for Me
and for
Bird
and has remained a close collaborator of the actor/director. The association doesn’t seem to have made Niehaus any more visible as a recording leader and the body of recording that goes back to the ’50s. The smooth West Coast veneer – a sound some consider reminiscent of Lee Konitz – belies a substantial portfolio of imaginative compositions and standards arrangements. He worked with Kenton before and after a period in the services, and though much of his recorded work is in the rather anonymous context of Stan’s reed sections, his own most distinctive work has tended to be for mid-size bands. He made innovative use of voicings in such a way as to make three saxophones sound like a larger section but without the weight that would involve. His quintets and octets were full of innovative ideas, many of them the result of study with the émigré composer Ernst Krenek, who brought Second Viennese ideas to the US and was perhaps more directly influential in America even than Schoenberg.