The Penguin Jazz Guide (49 page)

RUBY BRAFF
^&

Born 16 March 1927, Boston, Massachusetts; died 9 February 2003, Chatham, Massachusetts

Cornet

2 × 2: Ruby Braff And Ellis Larkins Play Rodgers And Hart

Vanguard 8507

Braff; Ellis Larkins (p). October 1955.

Ruby Braff had interviewers with his morning beigel:
‘Well, Ruby …’ ‘That’s
Mr Braff
to you …’

Arguably … no, in fact definitely … one of the great cornet soloists ever, Reuben – hence Ruby – Braff left Boston at the start of the ’50s and began to record with Vic Dickenson and Urbie Green, among others. A powerful, distinctive player with an outsize and often abrasive personality – some referred unkindly to his Mr Hyde-and-Mr Hyde temperament – he was as capable of aching lyricism and a strangely elegiac quality as he was of the faster, pungent stuff that came out of Dixieland. In fact, Braff is very difficult to position stylistically. There are moments of pure Armstrong or Red Allen, but there are also hints early on of unorthodox harmony and an off-centre phrasing that anticipates the modern movement. Even so, he was considered old-fashioned for many years and suffered a long mid-career eclipse.

Braff’s early material is scattered over a variety of reissue compilations, many of which, like Black Lion’s
Hustlin’ And Bustlin’
, offer a nice impression of him in company with Dickenson and with a regular quintet co-fronted by Samuel Margolis (over whom posterity has drawn a veil) and Ken Kersey. This one, though, is a masterpiece, played by a dream ticket of such durability that Braff and Larkins got together in 1972 and 1994 to do it again, switching attention to another American great on
Calling Berlin
(meaning the composer not the city!).

This is the Armstrong–Hines instrumentation, just about, and it immediately brings into focus Ruby’s Janus-faced approach. At some formal level, this is orthodox mainstream swing, impeccably played, but listen to the playing on ‘Mountain Greenery’ (it’s from
The Garrick Gaieties
, 1926!) and it’s clear that even this early Braff is leaning towards a more modern conception in which the orthodox changes are subordinated to something more impressionistic where specific note choices answer the needs of the solo rather than the harmony. Larkins was the consummate accompanist and knew more about these songs than almost anyone living. Ruby is in full voice, pungent and lyrical on ‘My Funny Valentine’, ‘I Could Write A Book’ (compare with Miles Davis’s floating filigree), and the less well-known ‘Where Or When’ and ‘I Married An Angel’. The sound is up close and very faithful to both instruments. Flawless jazz.

& See also
Being With You
(1996; p. 600)

RED CALLENDER

Born George Sylvester, 6 March 1916, Haynesville, Virginia; died 8 March 1992, Saugus, California

Double bass, tuba

Swingin’ Suite

Fresh Sound FSRCD 458

Callender; Harry ‘Parr’ Jones, Gerald Wilson (t); John Ewing (tb); William Green, Hymie Gunkler (as); Buddy Collette (f, ts); Clyde Dunn, Marty Berman (bs); Eddie Beal, Gerald Wiggins (p); Bill Pitman, Billy Bean (g); Bill Douglass (d); Frank Bodde (perc). November 1955, April & May 1958.

Red Callender said (1987):
‘You know that feeling where you wake up from a dream and can remember something of it but not how it ends? That’s what the jazz life is like: remembering some, but trying to provide a happy end to the dream.’

A first-call player on the West Coast scene, with an experimental streak underneath the reliability, Callender was one of the first modern players to use tuba as well as string bass, and to create meaningful solos on both of them. He had a busy career, featuring on scores of West Coast sessions, but was determined enough to pursue his own musical language as well.

Callender’s octets were palpably influenced by Duke Ellington’s ensemble writing and distribution of solo space. Apart from Collette, who is excellent throughout these sides, the groups are largely anonymous, but these were professional players who were able to deliver Collette’s ideas with a modicum of swing. The 12 cuts from November 1955 are all Callender originals, mostly quite dry ideas, though ‘Dancers’ and ‘Sleigh Ride’ are more bracing (the latter managing to avoid most clichés associated with sleigh-ride music). There follow three further octets, with Gerald Wilson on trumpet and Collette on tenor only; he’s back on flute for the sextet and quartet tracks (the former again with Wilson) from April and May 1958. It’s scarcely sparkling music, but one senses bands that are fit-for-purpose and quietly adventurous. Red wrote a fine autobiography, called
Unfinished Dream
, that adds context and detail to his prolific but inevitably quite anonymous career.

LAMBERT, HENDRICKS & ROSS
^&

Formed 1957

Group

Sing A Song Of Basie

Verve 543827-2

Lambert, Hendricks, Ross; Nat Pierce (p); Freddie Green (g); Eddie Jones (b); Sonny Payne (d). 1955.

Yolande Bavan replaced Annie Ross in the group in 1962:
‘When I say they were generous, they were musically generous as well as humanly kind. That music was so intricate it might have been cold, but Jon and Dave invested difficult music, for singers anyway, with real warmth.’

Vocalese – the art of putting words to jazz instrumental solos – enjoyed a brief vogue in the ’50s. It may have begun with the Mills Brothers and their clever vocal mimicry of horns but it developed along very different lines when Eddie Jefferson and then King Pleasure and Annie Ross began to fit words to famous jazz solos. Ross’s virtuoso interpretation of Wardell Gray’s ‘Twisted’ was a huge hit. Perhaps the finest exponent, though, was Jon Hendricks, who had an unfailing facility for glib rhymes and for words to fit instrumental effects.

The Basie record is in a sense atypical. For a start, one associates the group with bebop rather than the swing masters, but it was a smart place to begin. Their intention had been to re-create the Basie band with a large vocal ensemble but, when the studio singers proved inadequate, the trio ended up singing all the lines themselves via overdubbing, and the set became a kind of novelty hit. Hendricks’s lyrics are often a hoot, and the record set a precedent for a style which many have followed, few bettered. It doesn’t have ‘Twisted’, but that can be picked up on a compilation. This is a dazzling artefact, novelty or no, and it stands the test of time.

& See also
JON HENDRICKS, A Good Git-Together
(1959; p. 246)

FRANK MORGAN
^&

Born 23 December 1933, Minneapolis, Minnesota; died 14 December 2007, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Alto saxophone

Gene Norman Presents Frank Morgan

Fresh Sound FSR CD 71

Morgan; Conte Candoli (t); Wardell Gray (ts); Carl Perkins (p); Wild Bill Davis (org); Howard Roberts (g); Bobby Rodriguez, Leroy Vinnegar (b); José Mangual, Lawrence Marable (d); Ralph Miranda, Uba Nieto (perc). 1955.

Frank Morgan said (1990):
‘Musicians became addicted because it was a badge proclaiming you as hip. There wasn’t one user didn’t know it was unhealthy, but your health was less important than your reputation on the scene.’

Frank Morgan’s story is not just about paid dues. Shortly after this record was made he was sentenced to a term in San Quentin for drugs offences. He maintained his involvement in music while in jail, jamming with the likes of Art Pepper. Though he had worked locally following his release, he reappeared on a wider stage in the mid-’80s, purveying a brand of chastened bop, his initially bright and Bird-feathered style only slightly dulled by a spell in the cage.

The son of Ink Spots guitarist Stanley Morgan, he began his career on the West Coast bebop scene, one of a group of saxophonists who hung on Charlie Parker’s coat-tails, in both stylistic and personal terms. Morgan was a highly organized soloist, each statement having a songlike consistency of tone and direction but he was also an addict. The Savoy
Bird Calls
isn’t the best place to pick up on what Morgan was doing at the time, partly because the material is relatively unfamiliar and partly because the dominant figure on the session is Milt Jackson, who is already thinking in new directions.

The GNP material on this Fresh Sound CD is a much better place to begin, though the septet tracks with Wild Bill Davis and three Latin percussionists are a touch crude; ‘I’ll Remember April’ succumbs almost completely. Wardell Gray, on his last recordings before his violent death, lends an easy swing to ‘My Old Flame’, ‘The Nearness Of You’ and four other tracks, and Carl Perkins’s bouncy clatter at the piano keeps the textures attractively ruffled. Morgan would be away from the music business for a long time. What might have been is all too obvious in these early dates.

& See also
Reflections
(1988; p. 514)

CARL PERKINS

Born 16 August 1928, Indianapolis, Indiana; died 17 March 1958, Los Angeles, California

Piano

Introducing

Boplicity 8

Perkins; Leroy Vinnegar (b); Lawrence Marable (d). 1955.

Leroy Vinnegar said (1983):
‘Disability? I didn’t hear any disability when he sat down at the piano. He had his own thing going, but he played as good as anyone around at the time and it was a crying shame he passed so young.’

Despite a left hand crippled by polio, Perkins developed an individual style that involved a curious crabwise articulation. The disability wasn’t the only problem he suffered in his short life, though his drug use might in part be explained by his physical infirmity. The
Introducing
sides are mostly brief and punchy, driven along by Perkins’s indefinably odd left-hand chords (which make sense once you’ve seen a photograph of him at the keyboard). The originals ‘Carl’s Blues’ and ‘West Side’ (aka ‘Mia’) – there is an alternate take of the latter on the CD – are pretty generic, but there’s energy in the playing and Perkins was an interesting original. Issued on Dootone, this material is also usually available on Fresh Sound.

CLIFFORD BROWN
^&

Born 30 October 1930, Wilmington, Delaware; died 26 October 1956, Pennsylvania Turnpike, west of Bedford

Trumpet

Alone Together

Verve 526373-2

Brown; Harold Land, Hank Mobley, Paul Quinichette, Sonny Rollins (ts); Danny Bank (bs); Herbie Mann (f); Ray Bryant, Jimmy Jones, Richie Powell (p); Barry Galbraith (g); Joe Benjamin, Milt Hinton, George Morrow (b); Roy Haynes, Osie Johnson, Max Roach (d); Helen Merrill, Sarah Vaughan (v); strings. August 1954–January 1956.

Helen Merrill said (1992):
‘It’s supposed to be a compliment to a singer to say she sounds like she’s playing a horn. I’d say that Clifford Brown always sounded like he was singing a song. He played with real
understanding
, not just the notes, as if he felt what was happening, moment to moment.’

All the material Brown recorded for Emarcy between 2 August 1954 and 16 February 1956 was included on a ten-CD box which sometimes turns up. Inevitably, the best of the music is in the Roach–Brown sessions. The drummer’s generosity in making the younger man co-leader is instantly and awesomely repaid. The group sound on Bud Powell’s ‘Parisian Thoroughfare’ (Richie Powell would perish with Brownie in the fatal accident) and the other August cuts is coach-built and graceful, and Brown’s solo statements are crafted with such intuitive skill that they are almost beyond analysis. As an accompanist to a singer, Brown was so refined that one almost wants to hear what Miles Davis might have done in the same situation, just for comparison. Brownie was lucky with his colleagues during his short career. Merrill is exactly the kind of songful, mature singer who would highlight his voice most effectively and, in the same way, Roach’s leadership and personal authority gave him a solid foundation. The wrench of Brown’s departure is still felt in the music. Many jazz lives were cut short, and many of them at a moment when high promise looked ready to be delivered. The difference with Clifford Brown is that he was already nearing his peak as a performer and looked ready to make a fresh transition. Where that might have taken him is impossible to say, but it seems certain that it would have changed the shape of modern jazz.

& See also
Memorial Album
(1953; p. 142)

THE ’50s:
1956–1960

Charlie Parker died in New York City on 12 March 1955. Despite the ‘Bird lives!’ graffiti that began to appear round town, it was widely understood that an era had ended, and for many conservative observers 1955 marks a distinct end-point in jazz history, after which there is nothing but muddle and hysterical noise. Some radicals share the view, though for different reasons. At Parker’s post-mortem examination, a doctor mistook a 34-year-old man for 60, so heavy a toll had drugs, alcohol and overeating taken on Parker’s body. Unlike Peter Pan, who was currently wowing audiences on Broadway, Parker had grown up or grown old too fast, and there was a sense that something similar had happened to jazz as well, outrunning its own technical resources and the ability or willingness of its audience to keep up.