Jazz Profiles: The Art of Jazz Drumming

Fabergé, Easter Eggs, Bobby Shew and “Joy Spring”

Making Jazz and making Art require infinite dedication, skill and love. Thank goodness for the dedication of those few who bring it all to a level of genius for the rest of us to marvel at.

- the editorial staff at JazzProfiles

Some of our Jazz and Art features may be inspired, while others are somewhat of a stretch. You be the judge.

I see the world this way from time-to-time and obviously have fun developing video montages of great works of Art set to great Jazz.

Bassist, author and all-around good guy, Bill Crow is always saying that “Jazz is fun” and I am having fun combining these mysterious and magical worlds of artistic and musical creation.

I never know when The Muse is going to strike, but when it does, I run with it – hence the title of this piece which came about after a recent viewing of a museum exhibit of the work of the famous jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé, maker of the sumptuous Easter Eggs for the Russian Imperial Family.

And since I am not a believer in coincidence, the fact that Bobby Shew’s version of Joy Spring was next up when on turned on my car’s CD player after visiting the Fabergé museum exhibit pretty much decided the matter for me.

For Spring is the season for Easter, a holiday whose importance rivals that of Christmas in the Russian Orthodox Church, and the joyous celebration of this festive season gave birth to the fabeled Fabergé jeweled eggs. How’s that for a stretch?

All of this is explained in detailed below in an annotation excerpted from the current House of Fabergé website.

In his insert notes to the 1988 CD he recorded with Holland’s famed and illustrious Metropole Orchestra, trumpeter Bobby Shew described himself this way:

"I've been referred to as an 'incurable romantic." I don't know ... MAYBE! I can tell you that there is a part of me that does, in fact, seek out moments of romance in the music ... no matter what tunes, where or with whom. When I was a child first being exposed to Jazz, I loved the 'feel' of it. I loved the energy of it ... the beauty of it. I wore out copies of Clifford Brown with strings, Stan Getz's COOL VELVET, the soundtrack album to the movie THE SANDPIPER with Jack Sheldon playing those gorgeous Johnny Mandel charts. I guess if I am an incurable romantic, it's because I dreamt, as I think most horn players have, of doing a string album someday before we leave this earth. This recording with the outstanding Metropole Orchestra under the direction of Rob Pronk exceeds my wildest dreams. The real bulk of the credit here go to Lex Jasper whose arranging is absolutely magical."

Bobby is a great soloist but he is also an excellent lead trumpet player; a rare combination in Jazz.

He has appeared on numerous recording dates and has a number of albums out under his own name, none better, in our opinion, than his 1988 Mons CD with The Metropole Orchestra under the direction of Rob Pronk with its finely orchestrated arrangements by Lex Jasper.

We located the following overview of Bobby’s career on www.jazztrumpetsolos.com.

“Bobby Shew, (born March 4th, 1941, Albuquerque, New Mexico) began playing the guitar at the age of eight and switched to the trumpet at ten. By the time he was thirteen he was playing at local dances with a number of bands and by fifteen had put together his own group to play at dances, occasional concerts and in jazz coffee houses. He spent most of his high school days playing as many as six nights a week in a dinner club, giving him an early start to his professional career. During his 3 year tenure as jazz soloist for the famed NORAD band, he decided to make music his career. In 1964, soon after his discharge, he became a member of the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra.

After his stint with Tommy Dorsey, Bobby was asked to play with Woody Herman's band upon Bill Chase's recommendation. He then spent some time playing for Della Reese and Buddy Rich, who's big band had just been formed. Many other similar situations followed and Bobby played lead trumpet for a number of pop stars. This brought Bobby to live in Las Vegas where he became prominent in various hotels and casinos.

By this time Bobby was widely known for his strong lead playing rather than as a jazz soloist. So late in 1972 he decided to make a move to the Los Angeles area in order to get re-involved in developing as a jazz player. He landed a lot of studio work and many jazz gigs, working with Bill Holman, Louie Bellson, Maynard Ferguson, and a sustained period with the Toshiko Akiyoshi-Lew Tabackin big band. His spell with the band produced many fine albums, notably Kogun (1974), Tales Of A Courtesan (1975) and Insights (1976). During that time he played in many Los Angeles-based rehearsal bands as well, including Don Menza's and the Capp-Pierce Juggernaut.

In the late 70s, Bobby toured Europe and the

with Louie Bellson's big band, appearing on some of the live recordings, including Dynamite! (1979) and London Scene (1980). In the 80s Shew's playing was mostly in small groups, as both sideman and leader. Shew has also recorded many of his own albums. Several of these received very high accolades including his albums "Outstanding In His Field" which was nominated for a Grammy in 1980, and "Heavy Company" which was awarded the Grammy for Jazz Album Of The Year in 1983.

Shew has become one of the jazz community's most in-demand clinicians and concert soloists. Bobby is well known for his fiery bebop trumpet and for over three decades has performed and recorded with the elite of the jazz world.

As an educator, he's made his mark as Trumpet Chairman of the International Association of Jazz Educators (IAJE) and as the author of numerous articles and books on trumpet performance and technique. Bobby is also on the Board of Directors of the International Trumpet Guild. An important influence through his teaching activities, Shew is ensuring that, in a period when dazzling technical proficiency is becoming almost commonplace, the emotional qualities of jazz are not forgotten.

As for Joy Spring, Ted Gioia’s wonderful new book The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire [New York/London: Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 213] offers this background information on the tune.

© -The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire

“Now that more than a half century has passed since his tragic death in an automobile accident at age 25, Clifford Brown has fallen into the unfortunate obscurity that seems to afflict many great jazz artists who never lived long enough to make stereo recordings. Jazz fans today do not enjoy listening to tracks that lack clean, crisp, seems-like-you're-in-the-same-room sound quality. The cut-off-point is around 1957. If artists recorded fine music in 1958 or 1959—as did Mingus, Miles, and Monk— they are widely celebrated today, but if they left the scene in 1956, as did Clifford Brown, they risk becoming a forgotten footnote in the music's history.

Yet the new millennium jazz fans who don't know about Brownie really must acquaint themselves with this artist, who was the most breathtaking trumpeter of the mid-1950's. There's no better place to begin than with "Joy Spring," his most famous and oft-played composition. Brown left behind two studio recordings, and both are worth hearing, although I have a slight preference for the version made with Max Roach at the August 1954 sessions that did much to establish the new hard bop sound of the period.

The song is aptly named. Brown's music captures a more jubilant and optimistic worldview than one encounters with many of the later hard bop players, who aimed for an edgier and grittier sound. His trumpet technique furthered this sense of positive energy: he had a full and beautiful tone, and even at the fastest tempos hit each note cleanly and with what my old philosophy professor would call "intentionality." But not antiseptically, as with so many virtuosos: his playing is as notable for its warmth as it is for its flawless execution. The melody line of "Joy Spring" furthers this life-embracing vibe, with its phrases that constantly return to declamatory chord tones, and the modulation up a half step for the second eight bars—a common arranger's device for making a chart seem brighter and more insistent, but one that is rarely written into the lead sheet of a modern jazz combo tune. …”

And we located this synopsis of Fabergé’s career on the current House of Fabergé website.

“The series of lavish Easter eggs created by Fabergé for the Russian Imperial family, between 1885 and 1916, against an extraordinary historical backdrop, is regarded as the artist-goldsmith’s greatest and most enduring achievement.

The Imperial Easter eggs are certainly the most celebrated and awe-inspiring of all Fabergé works of art, inextricably bound to the Fabergé name and legend. They are also considered as some of the last great commissions of objets d’art.

The story began when Tsar Alexander III decided to give a jewelled Easter egg to his wife the Empress Marie Fedorovna, in 1885, possibly to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their betrothal.

It is believed that the Tsar, who had first become acquainted with Fabergé’s virtuoso work at the Moscow Pan-Russian Exhibition in 1882, was inspired by an 18th century egg owned by the Empress’s aunt, Princess Wilhelmine Marie of Denmark.

The object was said to have captivated the imagination of the young Maria during her childhood in

Denmark

. Tsar Alexander was apparently involved in the design and execution of the egg, making suggestions to Fabergé as the project went along.

Easter was the most important occasion of the year in the Russian Orthodox Church, equivalent to Christmas in the West. A centuries-old tradition of bringing hand-coloured eggs to Church to be blessed and then presented to friends and family, had evolved through the years and, amongst the highest echelons of St Petersburg society, the custom developed of presenting valuably bejewelled Easter gifts.

So it was that Tsar Alexander III had the idea of commissioning Fabergé to create a precious Easter egg as a surprise for the Empress, and thus the first Imperial Easter egg was born.

Known as the Hen Egg, it is crafted from gold, its opaque white enamelled ‘shell’ opening to reveal its first surprise, a matt yellow gold yolk. This in turn opens to reveal a multi-coloured, superbly chased gold hen that also opens. Originally, this contained a minute diamond replica of the Imperial Crown from which a small ruby pendant egg was suspended. Unfortunately these last two surprises have been lost.

The Empress’s delight at this intriguing gift with its hidden jewelled surprises was the starting point for the yearly Imperial tradition that continued for 32 years until 1917 and produced the most opulent and captivating Easter gifts the world has ever seen. The eggs were private and personal gifts, and the whole spectacular series charted the romantic and tragic story leading up to the end of the mighty Romanovs.

Each egg, an artistic tour de force, took a year or more to make, involving a team of highly skilled craftsmen, who worked in the greatest secrecy. Fabergé was given complete freedom in the design and execution, with the only prerequisite being that there had to be surprise within each creation. Dreaming up each complex concept, Fabergé often drew on family ties, events in Imperial Court life, or the milestones and achievements of the Romanov dynasty, as in the Fifteenth Anniversary Egg of 1911, commemorating the fifteenth anniversary of Nicholas II’s accession to the throne, or the Romanov Tercentenary Egg of 1913 that celebrated 300 years of the House of Romanov, showing portrait miniatures of the Russian dynastic rulers.

Although the theme of the Easter eggs changed annually, the element of surprise remained a constant link between them. The surprises ranged from a perfect miniature replica of the Coronation carriage - that took 15 months to make working 16-hour days - through a mechanical swan and an ivory elephant, to a heart-shaped frame on an easel with 11 miniature portraits of members of the Imperial family.

Alexander III presented an egg each year to his wife the Empress Marie Fedorovna and the tradition was continued, from 1895, by his son Nicholas II who presented an egg annually to both his wife the Empress Alexandra Fedorovna and to his mother the Dowager Empress Marie Fedorovna. However, there were no presentations during 1904 and 1905 because of political unrest and the Russo-Japanese War.

The most expensive was the 1913 Winter Egg, which was invoiced at 24,600 roubles (then £2,460). Prior to the Great War, a room at Claridges was 10 shillings (50 pence) a night compared to approximately £380 today. Using this yardstick, the egg would have cost £1.87 million in today’s money.

The Winter Egg, designed by Alma Pihl, famed for her series of diamond snowflakes, is made of carved rock crystal as thin as glass. This is embellished with engraving, and ornamented with platinum and diamonds, to resemble frost. The egg rests on a rock-crystal base designed as a block of melting ice. Its surprise is a magnificent and platinum basket of exuberant wood anemones. The flowers are made from white quartz, nephrite, gold and demantoid garnets and they emerge from moss made of green gold. Its overall height is 14.2cm. It is set with 3,246 diamonds. The egg sold at Christie’s in New York in 2002 for US$9.6 million.

Of the 50 eggs Fabergé made for the Imperial family from 1885 through to 1916, 42 have survived.”

Bobby’s brilliant trumpet playing and the stunning Fabergé jeweled eggs along with other works of art by his studio are all on display in the following video tribute to both of them.

Making Jazz and making Art require infinite dedication, skill and love.

Thank goodness for the dedication of those few who bring it all to a level of genius for the rest of us to marvel at.

Ivory "Dwike" Mitchell: 1931-2013 R.I.P. - "The Catbird Seat"

I’m always asking Jazz musicians and Jazz fans what they are listening to or for their opinions about my current listening and/or favorite recordings.

It’s a fun way to get differing opinions about the music.

But when I asked Italian Jazz pianist Dado Moroni what he thought of Dwike Mitchell’s performance on The Catbird Seat from the Atlantic album of the same name, I was momentarily surprised by his answer.

“I cried,” he said.

Although I was taken aback for an instant, I intuitively understood why Dado would react this way to Dwike’s playing on this piece on which he is joined by bassist Willie Ruff and drummer Charlie Smith.

As George T. Simon describes it on the album’s sleeve notes:

“The Catbird Seat, a slow, swinging blues, gets its title because, as bassist Willie Ruff points out, ‘it has such a groovy feeling. There's an old Southern expression, “sitting in the catbird seat” which means you're sitting pretty and everything is groovy, and that's how we felt on this number. In fact, it's how we feel most of the time when we're at home in the club [Dwike and Willie owned The Playback Club in New Haven, CT].’ The piece projects a tremendously funky feel, but it's also full of musical polish, such as Willie's marvelous articulation, Dwike's tremendous technique and Charlie's beautifully controlled brush shadings. Note too the contrast between the long, tremulous, two-chorus build-up into the lovely, relaxed statement of the theme.”

The Catbird Seat is a slow burn all the way. The very unhurried tempo at which it is played is one that is rarely heard today and very tricky to execute because there is a tendency to rush or drag.

The intensity is there but you have to let it quietly capture you. The track builds and builds and builds until it reaches an exciting climax. And just when you think it is finished, Dwike offers a different ending from the one that “your ears” are expecting.

Elsewhere in his liner notes, George T. Simon has this to offer by way of background information on what came to be known as the Mitchell-Ruff trio.

“This is thrilling jazz. I know you read such superlatives in almost every liner note, but believe me, the music herein is really something special.

It's modern jazz with the emphasis on the jazz. Like many modernists, both Dwike Mitchell and Willie Ruff are thoroughly-schooled musicians. But, unlike most modernists, they haven't forgotten the basic romping, swinging beat of jazz, and the results here are pretty electrifying.

Maybe, like me, you remember Dwike and Willie when they were just the Mitchell-Ruff Duo. They achieved international fame in 1959 when, as members of the Yale Russian Chorus that was touring the

USSR

, they temporarily tossed aside their tonsils, hauled out piano and bass, and proceeded to regale the Russians with American jazz.

At that time the group's jazz feeling was highly personal - almost completely implied. Now though, with the addition of Charlie Smith's drums, you can't possibly miss it. Before his advent, what they were playing had relationship to themselves only, just as in modern art a painting on an infinite canvas can only relate to itself. But now, thanks to Charlie, they have been supplied with a rhythmic framework inside which they are able to create jazz masterpieces with a spatial, or rhythmic relativity that all of us can feel and understand.

Mitchell, a Floridian who graduated from the Philadelphia Musical Academy, and Ruff, an Alabaman who earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees in Music at Yale (they once played together in Lionel Hampton's big band) joined forces last year with Smith, a New Yorker, who has played for Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington and Billy Taylor, at a New Haven club called The Playback. It was founded by Ruff himself, ‘because we needed a place in which we could work out things the way we wanted to, and just stay on until we felt we were really ready to show the rest of the world what we could do.’

For close to a year, the trio worked, played, and, in the case of Ruff and Smith and their families, even lived together. ‘We got so that each of us could feel what the others were going to do without even looking,’ says Smith. By early autumn of 1961 when they felt they were ready, they brought portable recording equipment into the club and recorded the numbers heard herein. The first Artist and Repertoire man to hear the tapes, Atlantic's astute jazz-loving V.P., Nesuhi Ertegun, flipped, and - well, here's the result.”

Dwike Mitchell passed away on April 7, 2013 at the age of eighty-three.

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles wanted to remember him on these pages with this feature and the following video tribute on which the music is – what else but - The Catbird Suite.

Remembering Gene Lees: 1928-2010

"In the past few years, I have been only too aware that primary sources of jazz history, and popular-music history, are being lost to us. The great masters, the men who were there, are slowly leaving us. I do not know who said, "Whenever anyone dies, a library burns." But it is true: almost anyone's experience is worth recording, even that of the most "ordinary" person. For the great unknown terrain of human history is not what the kings and famous men did — for much, though by no means all, of this was recorded, no matter how imperfectly — but how the "common" people lived. When Leonard Feather first came to the United States from England in the late 1930s, he was able to know most of his musical heroes, including Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton. By the end of the 1940s, Leonard knew everybody of significance in jazz from the founding figures to the young iconoclasts. And when I became actively involved in the jazz world in 1959, as editor of Down Beat, most of them were still there. I met most of them, and became friends with many, especially the young Turks more or less of my own age. I have lived to see them grow old (and sometimes not grow old), and die, their voices stilled forever. And so, in recent years, I have felt impelled to do what I can to get their memories down before they are lost, leading me to write what I think of as mini-biographies of these people. This has been the central task of the Jazzletter."

The Drums in Jazz

"The basis of Jazz has always been rhythmic. The development of jazz and its innovation from the early days of ragtime at the turn of the century to the many highly sophisticated, exciting and challenging styles of jazz that can be heard today, has always derived from that basis. In the European concert tradition, the drums serve as a noise-making device, aiming to create additional intensity or dramatic fortissimo effects. They do not effect the continuity of the music and could even be left out without creating the breakdown of a Beethoven or a Tchaikovsky symphony. In Jazz the drumbeat is the ordering principal which creates the space within which the music happens. The beat of a swinging drummer forms the basis of the musical continuity of a jazz performance." - Introduction to the Properbox set - THE ENGINE ROOM: A History of Jazz Drumming from Storyville to 52nd Street."

The Piano in Jazz

"At the turn of the century-before the age of radio, television, high-fidelity recording, and computerized video games-the piano was one of the focal points of American family life in the home. The image of Mother seated at the keyboard with the children gathered around her and Father in his pinstriped shirt and suspenders looking on proudly epitomized the American dream. White American families purchased moderately priced "uprights" at the rate of nearly 250,000 per year. In black family life the piano was one of the first major purchases made by those who could afford it. Although they were less likely than white families to own instruments, blacks frequently heard piano music in churches, which were the center of community life, or in the urban "tonks" and "juke" houses (the ancestors of the jukebox). Indeed, black pianists were largely responsible for the instrument's acceptance as "part of the family." The music they played and composed during the late 1890's, eventually known as ragtime, was a major source of the piano's popularity in the two decades that followed."

Jazz Improvisation

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Jazz Profiles

Friday, March 5, 2010

The Art of Jazz Drumming - Part 2

Deborah Latz - "Hi Fly"

Buddy Childers - "Come Home Again"

Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra - "Invitation"

Tom Kubis Orchestra - "Alexander's Big Time Band"

Bobby Shew, The Metropole Orchestra - "My One and Only Love"

Bobby Shew, The Metropole Orchestra - "Speak Low"

Bobby Shew, The Metropole Orchestra, Nadalin

Fabergé, Easter Eggs, Bobby Shew and “Joy Spring”

Doug Ramsey of Rifftides on JazzProfiles

Dado Moroni - "Ghanian Village"

The Victor Feldman All-Stars - "Polyushko Polye"

Shelly Manne and His Men - "Goofin' at the Coffee House"

Dado Moroni and Tom Harrell - "Poinciana"

Google Translator

Ivory "Dwike" Mitchell: 1931-2013 R.I.P. - "The Catbird Seat"

Jazz Writers and Critics

Big Band Jazz from St. Petersburg, Russia

Remembering Gene Lees: 1928-2010

What Heaven Looks Like to a Drummer

"Jazz is only what you are." - Pops

Alain Gerber - "Portraits En Jazz"

A Note of Appreciation

Something To Think About

The Drums in Jazz

The Piano in Jazz

Noal Cohen - Jazz Historian and Discographer

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