Jazz Profiles: Eric Alexander - Jazz Tenor Saxophonist (playlist)

Excerpted from Bill Crow's "The Band Room" - Local 802 Newsletter

Steve Wallace, up in Toronto, told me about a legendary Canadian drummer named Andy Cree. Andy was a hipster, who once played a gig with a club date band at a golf and country club in conservative Alberta. He showed up wearing dark glasses, and one of the patrons objected to the bandleader about the presence of this “beatnik slob.” The bandleader quickly replied, “Sir, our drummer is blind. Have you no shame?” The man was beside himself with embarrassment, and for the rest of the gig did everything he could to make up for his gaffe, buying the band drinks and apologizing profusely. Of course, Andy played the “blind card” to the hilt. After the gig, the guy helped Andy pack his drums, and insisted on carrying them to the car. Then, as the leader got in on the passenger side, Andy thanked the man for his help, slid behind the steering wheel and drove off.

Michel Petrucciani - Mighty Michel

Petrucciani’s style is most frequently compared to Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett for his lyricism and Oscar Peterson for his virtuosity. His playing was often quite dramatic, as well as loose and playful in a rhythm section, and gave attention to a strong articulation of the melody. Petrucciani could do anything, and more than most of the best players of the day. He played across the full span of the grand piano’s keyboard and, despite his tiny legs, was able to make full use of the instrument’s pedals – the loud one was of particular importance to him. “I don’t believe in geniuses,” he said. “I believe in hard work. Ever since I was a child I knew what I wanted to do and worked for that. “I don’t want to get too intellectual about my music. My philosophy is quite simple. For one thing – too much intellectualising is boring. Too much comedy is boring. Too much of anything is boring. We all need to know when to get off, to simply stop. Petrucciani was one of the most passionate and extrovert of soloists and the aggressive hurdling of his up-tempo work established an exciting bond with his audience. His interest was primarily in simply playing; he spent little time reharmonizing or arranging. “When I play, I play with my heart and my head and my spirit… I don’t play to people’s heads, but to their hearts.” Michel Petrucciani was a national hero in France, and his records were best sellers in Europe. French President Jacques Chirac was among the many who paid tribute to him, praising his ability to “renew jazz, giving himself up to his art with passion, courage and musical genius.” He called him an “example for everyone.”

Phineas Newborn, Jr. - Fine As Can be

Phineas Newborn Jr.’s technical command of the keyboard placed him alongside the greatest virtuosos of piano jazz, Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson. Newborn combined this raw skill with sensitivity and harmonic insights to create a style which continues to inspire admiration in every setting. One of the most technically skilled and brilliant pianists in jazz. Newborn’s bop-based style was largely unclassifiable, his technique was phenomenal, and he was very capable of enthralling an audience playing a full song with just his left hand or complex, and brisk solos with both hands in unison. Newborn’s later career was intermittent due to ongoing health problems. Despite his setbacks, many of his records, such as The Great Jazz Piano of Phineas Newborn, Jr and Phineas’ Rainbow, remain highly regarded. Jazz commentator Scott Yanow even referred to Newborn as “one of the most technically skilled and brilliant pianists in jazz.”Evidence of his technical prowess can be heard on tracks such as “Sometimes I’m Happy” on Look Out – Phineas is Back! where Newborn performs extended, complex, and brisk solos with both hands in unison. Spending most of his time in Memphis, he was an inspiration to many younger pianists including James Williams, Harold Mabern, Mulgrew Miller, Donald Brown, and Geoff Keezer, who after Newborn’s death would dedicate their work as the Contemporary Piano Ensemble to him. Phineas_Newborn_Jr1 Phineas demonstrates all the virtues and none of the handicaps (if there are any) inherent in knowing how to use the piano. Taking him on his own terms, he’s an involved, committed artist, for whom the instrument is virtually an extension of the man. Leonard Feather once said of him “In his prime, he was one of the three greatest jazz pianists of all time.”

Carl Fontana - A Class Act

Carl Fontana was one of the most talented and innovative trombonists of his generation. He became known as a lyrical, technically brilliant and inventive soloist. His fluid style was quite different from the bebop staccato of his great contemporaries, such as J.J. Johnson and Frank Rosolino. Despite having established himself as one of the most talented and innovative trombonists of his generation, Fontana did not record an album as a leader until the 1985 release of The Great Fontana, in which he leads a quintet featuring longtime associate Al Cohn on tenor sax, Ray Drummond on bass, Richard Wyands on piano and Akira Tana on drums. “I Thought About You” is one track from the album that shows Fontana’s trademark taste and skill on a standard that he performed frequently throughout his career. Fontana was also greatly admired for his mastery of the “Doodle Tonguing” technique, a technique he developed for playing rapid-fire passages with technical brilliance in double-time phrasing. This skill allowed Fontana to smoothly execute “runs of notes” at speeds many had not previously considered possible to achieve on a slide trombone. His first break into the professional jazz scene came in 1951, when he was hired to stand in for one of Woody Herman’s regular trombonists, Urbie Green. Herman was so impressed with Fontana, particularly his improvisational skills, that when Green returned Herman kept Fontana on as a permanent member of the band. “I don’t think I ever heard Carl play a bad solo,” Scott Whitfield maintains,. “He definitely did not have a big ego and he did not have a star trip going on. He was just a good guy who enjoyed life, and enjoyed going through life in a relaxed fashion.” That was Carl Fontana, a genuine person and the trombonist’s trombonist.

The Book of Jazz Times Two

"This is without a doubt one of the best books on jazz ever written. Gary Giddins and Scott DeVeaux have achieved a monumental feat by creating a history of jazz that will appeal to academicians and aficionados alike. Thoroughly researched and carefully documented, yet written in an entertaining and enjoyable narrative style, this is truly a book for jazz lovers of all backgrounds. By telling the story of jazz in its full cultural, musical, political, social, economic, and historical context, Giddins and DeVeaux have given us one hell of a kick-ass book!"

-David Baker, Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Jazz Department, Indiana University

"Gary Giddins and Scott DeVeaux's Jazz cuts through the gibberish, racial politics, and ideology that typify so much of contemporary jazz criticism. This excellent book, which not only addresses musical theory but provides insight into the history of the art as well, will serve the general reader but can also be used to stimulate discussion groups and jazz workshops."

-Ishmael Reed, author of Mixing It Up: Taking On the Media Bullies and Other Reflections

"Like no other history, Jazz involves the reader right from the start in an active listening role. The parsing of the selected recordings is brilliantly done, and this feature alone makes the book a must, for beginners and seasoned fans. But there's much more, all imbued with the coauthors' love for and understanding of the music, in all its many facets-and as a living, still evolving language."

-Dan Morgenstern director of the Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University, and author of Living with Jazz

"In an innovative departure from previous approaches to the history of American jazz, this eagerly awaited new text by Gary Giddins and Scott DeVeaux offers a unique combination of cutting-edge historical scholarship and experienced journalistic perspectives. This book is destined to become an important resource, one that confronts crucially important musical and social issues in depth-and with passion."

-George E. Lewis, Case Professor of American Music, Columbia University, and author of A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music

"This extraordinary book is the one we've been waiting for-an exhaustive, multi-disciplinary, judiciously crafted history of jazz and its culture. It is sure to become the industry standard, cherished by students as well as aficionados, who may dispute its judgments but will surely keep it close at hand as an essential reference."

-Krin Gabbard, author of Hotter Than That: The Trumpet, Jazz, and American Culture

Gary Giddins and Scott DeVeaux are the co-authors of Jazz which is available from its publisher, W.W. Norton, in both a trade and a commercial edition. The title of this feature is meant to reflect this duality of authorship and format.

Each version of Jazz offers a distinct reading experience, so much so that I urge you to consider adding both volumes to your Jazz library.

By way of background, the esteemed Jazz critic Gary Giddins is also the author of Visions of Jazz, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award; Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Rye, Rhythm-a-ning Jazz Tradition and Innovation in the 80’s, and Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker. He teaches at the Graduate Center, City University of New York and lives in New York City.

All four of Gary’s books have been reviewed on JazzProfiles and you can get to these previous posts by simply clicking on the above book titles.

Scott DeVeaux is a nationally recognized Jazz scholar and winner of the American Book Award for The Birth of Bebop: A Social and Musical History. Scott has taught Jazz history at the University of Virginia for more than twenty-five years. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

As befits writers on the subject of Jazz of the caliber of Messrs Giddins and DeVeaux, both editions are graced throughout with photographs by the acclaimed photographer, Herman Leonard.

The format of the trade edition of Jazz provides the reader with a more traditional narrative or chapter-by-chapter reading experience. Jazz fans have a tendency to become very argumentative [combative?] about what is included in comprehensive treatments on the subject [just ask Ken Burns, the director of the PBS documentary on Jazz] so it is important to note that what this book is and what it is not is clearly explained by the authors in the following excerpts from its Introduction.

“One of the great pleasures of looking into jazz — beyond the excitement and variety of the music itself — derives from its relative historical newness. To the generations born after the Vietnam War, it may seem like an old story that predates rock and hip-hop and their grandparents. But following its contours today, in the early years of the twenty-first century, is like what it might have meant to pursue Shakespeare in 1650, when you could still meet people who saw the plays as originally produced and even worked or hung out with the guy who wrote them. The pioneers of jazz, including its preeminent soloist (Louis Armstrong) and composer (Duke Ellington), worked into the 1970s and beyond. Innovators of later jazz styles and schools are with us now. Young musicians, creating tremendous excitement at this moment, will be acclaimed as tomorrow’s masters. In other words, the dust of history has by no means settled on jazz. The canon of masterpieces, far from fixed, remains open to interpretation, adjustment, and expansion.

Jazz is designed to impart a narrative arc that traces the development of jazz from nineteenth-century musical precursors to the present, while offering a few ways to understand that arc. It differs from most jazz histories on at least three counts. First, we do not treat jazz as music in a vacuum, perpetuating itself as a baton passed from genius to genius; we see it, rather, as a reflection of broader cultural, political, social, and economic factors, and attempt to line up the crucial moments in its progress with historical events that it reflected and influenced.

Second, this book requires neither musical knowledge nor ability (only a predisposition for the enjoyment of music and the imagination to feel its expressive power), but it always keeps one eye firmly cocked on illustrative jazz masterworks. To that effect, we include seventy-eight Listening Guides that analyze a broad range of recordings with mostly nonmusicological descriptions of what happens from one passage to the next. Most of these records are recognized classics, while others are fairly or very obscure. We have programmed all seventy-eight selections on four CDs, which can be ordered from the Norton website (www.wwnorton.com/books/recordings -for-jazz). We strongly recommend this collection, not least for the new transfers, which in most instances are superior to those in commercial release.

Third, we emphasize a rudimentary understanding of basic jazz techniques and structures as a corrective to the intimidation many people feel when confronted with improvisation. Toward that goal, we have front-loaded the book with two chapters on basic musical elements and how they function in jazz. The idea is to provide a musician’s-eye view of what happens on the bandstand, and to enable the listener to participate more knowingly in the now of jazz creativity. These facets, which are amplified in the glossary, are demonstrated with four classic recordings (part of the CD set and analyzed more closely in succeeding chapters): Louis Armstrong's "West End Blues" (1928), Billie Holiday’s "A Sailboat in the Moonlight" (1937), Charlie Parker’s "Now's the Time" (1953), and Miles Davis’s "So What" (1959).

Finally, a word about what this book is not: it’s not an encyclopedia of jazz—such works exist and they are invaluable. A book like this makes choices every step of the way. Just how many choices are possible became especially evident to us as we spent more than a year choosing our musical examples and debating which aspects of the story to emphasize and which to omit, usually for reasons of space or coherence—including most jazz made beyond the borders of the continental United States. If you have a love of jazz, some of your favorites are not mentioned at all or only in passing. We know that of a certainty, because some of our own favorites were relegated to limbo. Mea culpa, Carmen McRae, Art Pepper, et al.!”

What set’s the commercial or, if you will, textbook edition of Jazz apart in explained by the authors in these excerpts of its introductory, Plan of the Book:

The Plan of the Book

“Each part of Jazz opens with an introductory overview of the period in question and its music; a timeline, situating important jazz events within a broader context of cultural and political history; and dynamic photographs that capture the mood of the era.

PART I: MUSICAL ORIENTATION This first part introduces the vocabulary necessary for discussing the basic rudiments of music and demonstrates, by recorded examples, how those rudiments function in jazz. "Musical Elements and Instruments" analyzes timbre; rhythm, polyrhythm, and swing; melody and harmony; and texture. "Jazz Form and Improvisation" delves into the area of formal structure, chiefly the twelve-bar blues and the thirty-two-bar A A B A popular song—forms that recur throughout jazz history. It provides a musician’s-eye view of what happens on the bandstand, along with examples of essential jazz lingo like trading fours, rhythm changes, grooves, and modal improvisation.

This is the most technical section of Jazz. But we have attempted to clarify these points on our website ("Jazz Concepts"), with video and audio recordings by the Free Bridge Quintet, a band affiliated with the University of Virginia, that address each musical concept — from scales and blue notes to contrasting timbres of instruments to performance techniques. In addition, two pieces have been written specially for this book by the quintet's trumpeter, John D’earth — a twelve-bar blues and a thirty-two-bar song form — that put many of these concepts into action.

When a head is accompanied by the audio icon (>), that means you can go to "Jazz Concepts" online to hear and see examples of what the section describes—brass instruments, reed instruments, trumpet mutes, homophonic texture, major scales, harmonic progressions, and so on. We suggest that you absorb this material and listen to the examples with the expectation of returning to them periodically as you progress through Jazz.

The four main parts of Jazz, described below, cover the broad sweep of the music's history and its major figures, as illustrated by seventy-seven recordings, analyzed in laymen's terms in Listening Guides. Again, you don't have to know how to read music to enjoy the guides—only how to read a clock.

PART II: EARLY JAZZ (1900-1930)

PART III: THE SWING ERA

PART IV: MODERN JAZZ

PART V: THE AVANT-GARDE, FUSION, HISTORICISM, AND NOW

Within the chapters, key musical terms are highlighted in the text in boldface; these can also be found in the glossary at the back of the book, and most are demonstrated in the online "Jazz Concepts." Throughout the text, new terms are occasionally defined in the margin, or old terms redefined. When one such term is accompanied by an audio icon, that means you can hear an example of the concept being defined in "Jazz Concepts."

Each chapter ends with a list of suggestions for additional listening, including the date of the original recording. For three musicians whose careers span several parts, we provide a chronology at the end of his respective chapter—Louis Armstrong (Chapter 6), Duke Ellington (Chapter 8), and Miles Davis (Chapter 14). And each historical part (II-V) ends with a summary describing and outlining in detail the main style points of that era's music, along with lists of its major musicians.

In addition to the glossary, appendixes include a list of selected jazz musicians (with birth and death dates), categorized by primary instrument; a primer on musical notation; an essay on building a collection of jazz recordings; a filmography; and a bibliography.

The Art

We are very proud of the design of Jazz, and hope you will enjoy the black and white photographs—especially the work of the brilliant Herman Leonard, considered by many to be the greatest photographer ever to focus his camera on jazz. A protege of Yousuf Karsh, Leonard is distinguished in his work by his total control of light. In the late 1940s, the peak of his jazz period, he brought his equipment to clubs, blocked out the natural light, and created his own chiaroscuro effects, emphasizing the excitement of the music and the milieu — through reflected highlights and his signature use of cigarette smoke. Leonard's New Orleans studio was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, and he moved to California, where he died in 2010. In 2013, the William J. Clinton Presidential Library honored him with a five-month exhibition of his jazz photography. Leonard shot almost all of the full-page photographs that introduce each chapter.

The Listening Guides

Jazz provides a comprehensive overview of the music through seventy-seven selections, combining acknowledged classics (Miles Davis's "So What," Coleman Hawkins's "Body and Soul," Louis Armstrong's "West End Blues") with several unusual but illuminating tracks, ranging from Wilbur Sweatman's "Down Home Rag" (1916) to Cecile McLorin Salvant's "John Henry" (2013). Each selection is introduced by a passage in the text, designated with a listening icon (icon = earphones), that sets the scene for the work. This is followed by a Listening Guide (carrying the same icon), in which significant musical moments are linked directly to timings along the left.

1. Below the title of the piece, you'll find basic information about the recording: the musicians, original label, date of recording, and style and form of the piece.

2. The "What to listen for" box offers some key points to help orient your listening.

3. All boldface terms are included in the glossary at the back, and most are featured in audio and/or video demonstrations online ("Jazz Concepts").

4. Occasionally a music example is provided to illustrate a distinctive melody or rhythm.

TOTAL ACCESS to Recordings and Digital Media

This book offers some exciting.digital features to enrich and reinforce your study of jazz. First, you have instant access to all seventy-seven recordings streamed from StudySpace or your teacher's Coursepack, as well as an Interactive Listening Guide (iLG)—combining text, visuals, and music—for each selection. (wwnorton.com/total-access/jazz2).

• "Jazz Concepts" audio and video demonstrations, prepared under the direction of Scott DeVeaux and recorded by John D earth and the Free Bridge Quintet, give you an intimate look at each instrument and walk you through the main musical concepts discussed in the book. The basic elements of music theory are brought to life through clear, simple examples. In addition, these superb musicians show how improvisation works in different tempos, grooves, and meters, and how the concepts specific to jazz (breaks, trading fours) are put into practice in a jam-session-style performance.

• Author Insight Videos, engaging interviews with Gary Giddins and Scott DeVeaux, elaborate on important points made throughout the book. These are specified in the "Multimedia Resources" list at the end of each chapter.

• You also have access to a mobile-compatible ebook, integrated with music, iLGs, and video; chapter and listening quizzes; and flashcards and outlines for review.

• Available for separate purchase is a DVD containing all seventy-seven works in mp3 format as well as iLGs.

For Instructors

• Coursepacks for Blackboard, WebCT, and other course management systems include playlists that stream all seventy-seven recordings featured in the text; an Interactive Listening Guide for each recording that integrates text, visuals, and music; a tablet-compatible ebook; author videos; over 100 "Jazz Concepts" audio and video recordings; listening quizzes, and more. Download free from wwnorton.com/instructors.

• An Instructor's Resource Disc includes photographs from the book, PowerPoint bullet-point outlines, author videos, and "Jazz Concepts" audio and video demonstrations. Order or download free from wwnorton.com/ instructors.

• An Instructor's Manual (by Ryan P.Jones, University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire) provides chapter outlines, teaching strategies, sample course syllabi, suggestions for reading and viewing, and questions and prompts for class discussion and research papers. Download free from wwnorton.com/instructors.

• A Test Bank in Microsoft Word and Exam View format (by Nathan Bakkum, Columbia College, Chicago) offers hundreds of multiple-choice, true/false, short-answer, and matching questions as well as essay prompts for each chapter, covering both text and repertory. Download free from wwnorton.com/instructors.

• A Discography (by jazz critic Ted Panken) provides recording information for all pieces mentioned in the book, and additional selections as well. Download free from wwnorton.com/instructors.”

For academicians and aficionados [to use a phrase from David Baker’s opening quotation], does it get any better than Jazz? With this book, especially in its interactive format, Jazz education and appreciation has gone from near total obscurity to near total revelation in my lifetime.

Availability and affordability have not always been aligned factors in terms of information about Jazz as in the past it usually required an extensive record collection and a small library of specialized books in order to acquire an overview on the subject of Jazz.

The trade and commercial editions of Jazz, either singly or in combination, remedy this problem by making the broad sweep of the music during the first 100 years of existence available to fans, teachers and students of Jazz between the covers of one book with an interactive dimension that provides samplings of the music via online digital files [or a CD, if you prefer].

Over the years, in countless conversations with family members and friends who didn’t know the first thing about Jazz, I wished for a book like Jazz that would easily exemplify what I was trying to explain to them about the music.

In such circumstances, the examples, exhibits, exercises, explanations, definitions, descriptions and myriad other “teaching tools” contained in Jazz would have been invaluable.

There’s nothing not to like about Jazz: you get double doses of two of the best writers on the subject; impeccable research; marvelous photographs; new insights, observations and points-of-view about the stylistic development of the music, all of which enhance your understanding of the music’s growth and development. Additionally, the authors’ listening recommendations will help move your ears in new directions.

With the upcoming holiday gift giving season, you can’t go wrong putting both editions of the Giddins-DeVeaux Jazz at the very top of your wish list.

Thanks to the generosity of Susan Gaustad, Senior Developmental Editor, and the nice people on her staff at the publishing house of W.W. Norton, both of my wishes have already been granted.

Now if I can just get my wife to give me back the copy of the interactive edition!

The Big Bands - George T. Simon

"The definitive volume in its field."

— Los Angeles Times

"A fat slice of pure nostalgia for everyone who is old enough to remember the big band era, and a good source book of information."

—New York Post

"Stirringly evocative of the fervid period when so many groups... 'swung freely and joyously,' filling listeners with an 'exhilarated sense of friendly well-being."' —Time

"George Simon could justifiably claim to have invented the big bands. He was their reviewer, reporter, booster, adviser, confidant, critic, and No. 1 fan...This book is the great and glorious record of it all."

—Christian Science Monitor

"Simon tells it like it all was."

— Frank Sinatra

It is almost as though you are reading a book of imaginative fiction; a genre that was once referred to as “science fiction.”

When I found a copy of the 4th edition of The Big Bands [New York: Schirmer Books, 1967] in the dollar bin at the local bookstore and started thumbing through its Table of Contents, the first thing that came to mind was that I somehow happened upon a Lost World.

The subheadings in Part One: The Big Bands - Then had subchapters entitled: The Scene; The Leaders; The Public; The Musicians; The Rise, the Glory and the Decline; The Vocalists, The Arrangers; The Businessmen; Recordings; Radio; Movies; The Press.

And these are only references to what’s contained in the first seventy-five pages of the book!

Part Two - Inside The Big Bands has subchapters on 72 major big bands.

Part Three Inside More of the Big Bands has sub chapters with titles like The Arranging Leaders, The Horn-Playing Leaders, The Reed-playing Leaders, The Piano-playing Leaders, The Violin-playing Leaders, The Singing-Leaders, The Mickey Mouse Bands, The Veterans, “And Still More Bands.” And it concludes with a listing of “two hundred more bands.”

Can you imagine?

For all intents and purposes, Mr. Simon’s book is a description of what was popular music in the USA for two decades, from about 1930-1950 and then it all disappeared with the exception of about a dozen or so big bands that eked out a living when the taste of the country turned to other kinds of music.

But while it lasted, the era of the Big Bands sure put on some show.

George T. Simon was certainly one lucky fellow as he got to live through all of the music from what Chuck Cecil refers to as “The Swinging Years.” Not only that, he got to earn a living while writing about it for Metronome magazine.

GEORGE T SIMON joined Metronome magazine in 1935, at the dawn of the big band era, remaining there for twenty years, the last sixteen as editor-in-chief.

He had begun his musical career by leading his own band at Harvard, and later helped organize the Glenn Miller orchestra, for which he played drums. Winner of a Grammy for distinguished writing and of the first Deems Taylor/ASCAP award, he has contributed articles and reviews to leading newspapers and magazines. A producer, writer and music consultant for network television and radio, he has also produced jazz and pop recordings for many major labels.

He is the author of The Best of the Music Makers, The Big Bands Songbook, Glenn Miller and His Orchestra, Simon Says: The Sights and Sounds of the Swing Era, and The Feeling of Jazz.

We wanted to remember the Big Band Era and Mr. Simon’s marvelous book about this “Lost World” on these pages with the following excerpts as published in Robert Gottlieb, editor, Reading Jazz: A Gathering of Autobiography, Reportage, and Criticism from 1919 to Now [New York: Pantheon, 1996].

THE SCENE

Do you remember what it was like? Maybe you do. Maybe you were there. Maybe you were there in New York two-thirds of the way through the 1930s, when there were so many great bands playing—so many of them at the same time. You could choose your spots—so many spots.

You could go to the Madhattan Room of the Hotel Pennsylvania, where Benny Goodman, the man who started it all, was playing with his great band, complete with Gene Krupa.

You could go a block or so farther to the Terrace Room of the Hotel New Yorker, and there you'd find Jimmy Dorsey and his Orchestra with Bob Eberly and Helen O'Connell ... or to the Blue Room of the Hotel Lincoln to catch Artie Shaw and his band with Helen Forrest ... or to the Green Room of the Hotel Edison for Les Brown's brand-new band.

Maybe you'd rather go to some other hotel room—like the Palm Room of the Commodore for Red Norvo and Mildred Bailey and their soft, subtle swing ... or to the Grill Room of the Lexington for Bob Crosby and his Dixieland Bobcats . . . or to the Moonlit Terrace of the Biltmore for Horace Heidt and his huge singing entourage ... or down to the Roosevelt Grill for Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians and their extra sweet sounds.

And then there were the ballrooms—the Roseland with Woody Herman and the Savoy with Chick Webb. Not to mention the nightclubs—the Cotton Club with Duke Ellington, or the Paradise Restaurant, where a band nobody knew too much about was making sounds that the entire nation would soon recognize as those of Glenn Miller and his Orchestra.

Maybe you didn't feel so much like dancing but more like sitting and listening and maybe taking in a movie too. You could go to the Paramount, where Tommy Dorsey and his band, along with Jack Leonard and Edythe Wright, were appearing ... or to the Strand to catch Xavier Cugat and his Latin music ... or to Loew's State, where Jimmie Lunceford was swinging forth.

And if you had a car, you could go a few miles out of town ... to the Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle to dance to Larry Clinton's music with vocals by Bea Wain ... or to Frank Dailey's Meadowbrook across the bridge in New Jersey to catch Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra with Peewee Hunt and Kenny Sargent.

Of course, if you didn't feel like going out at all, you still were in luck— and you didn't have to be in New York either. For all you had to do was to turn on your radio and you could hear all sorts of great bands coming from all sorts of places—from the Aragon and Trianon ballrooms in Chicago, the Palomar Ballroom in Hollywood, the Raymor Ballroom in Boston, the Blue Room of the Hotel Roosevelt in New Orleans, the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco, the Steel Pier in Atlantic City and hundreds of other hotels, ballrooms and nightclubs throughout the country, wherever an announcer would begin a program with words like "And here is the music of-------!"

The music varied tremendously from style to style and, within each style, from band to band. Thus you could hear all types of swing bands: the hard-driving swing of Benny Goodman, the relaxed swing of Jimmie Lunceford, the forceful Dixieland of Bob Crosby, the simple, riff-filled swing of Count Basie, the highly developed swing of Duke Ellington, and the very commercial swing of Glenn Miller.

Many of the big swing bands were built around the leaders and their instruments—around the clarinets of Goodman and Artie Shaw, the trumpets of Harry James and Bunny Berigan, the trombones of Jack Teagarden and Tommy Dorsey, the tenor sax of Charlie Bar net, the pianos of Ellington and Count Basie and the drums of Gene Krupa.

And then there were the sweet bands. They varied in style and in quality too. Some projected rich, full, musical ensemble sounds, like those of Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra, Isham Jones, Ray Noble and Glenn Miller. Others depended more on intimacy, like the bands of Hal Kemp and Guy Lombardo and of Tommy Dorsey when he featured his pretty trombone. Others played more in the society manner—Eddy Duchin with his flowery piano and Freddy Martin with his soft, moaning sax sounds. And then there were the extra sweet bandleaders. Lombardo, of course, was one. So was his chief imitator, Jan Garber. So was the Waltz King, Wayne King.

And there were the novelty bands, generally lumped in with the sweet bands—Kay Kyser, with all his smart gimmicks, including his College of Musical Knowledge and his singing song titles; Sammy Kaye, who also used singing song titles and introduced his "So You Wanna Lead a Band" gimmick; and Blue Barron, who aped Kaye . . . and so many others who aped Barron, who aped Kaye, who aped Kyser, who aped Lombardo.

There were so many bands playing so many different kinds of music— some well, some adequately, some horribly—all with their fans and followers. The Metronome poll, in which readers were invited to vote for their favorite bands in three divisions (Swing, Sweet and Favorite of All), listed almost three hundred entries in each of the four years from 1937 through 1940. And those were merely the bands that the readers liked most of all! There were hundreds more all over the country that didn't even place.

Why were some so much more successful than others? Discounting the obvious commercial considerations, such as financial support, personal managers, booking offices, recordings, radio exposure and press agents, four other factors were of paramount importance.

There was, of course, the band's musical style. This varied radically from band to band. A Tommy Dorsey was as far removed from a Tommy Tucker as an Artie Shaw was from an Art Kassel or a Sammy Kaye was from a Sam Donahue. Each band depended upon its own particular style, its own identifiable sound, for general, partial or just meager acceptance. In many ways, the whole business was like a style show—if the public latched on to what you were displaying, you had a good chance of success. If it rejected you, you'd better forget it.

Generally it was the band's musical director, either its arranger or its leader or perhaps both, who established a style. He or they decided what sort of sound the band should have, how it should be achieved and how it should be presented, and from there on proceeded to try to do everything possible to establish and project that sound, or style.

Secondly, the musicians within a band, its sidemen, played important roles. Their ability to play the arrangements was, naturally, vitally important. In some bands the musicians themselves contributed a good deal, especially in the swing bands, which depended upon them for so many solos; and in the more musical bands, whose leaders were willing to listen to and often accept musical suggestions from their sidemen.

But the musicians were important in other ways too. Their attitude and cooperation could make or break a band. If they liked or rejected a leader, they would work hard to help him achieve his goals. If they had little use for him, they'd slough off both him and his music. The more musical the band and the style, the greater, generally speaking, the cooperation of its musicians in all matters—personal as well as musical.

Salaries? They were important, yes, in the bands that weren't so much fun to play in. But if the band was good musically and if the musicians were aware that their leader was struggling and couldn't pay much, money very often became secondary. Pride and potential, and, most importantly, respect usually prevailed.

Thirdly, the singers—or the band vocalists, as they were generally called— often played important roles in establishing a band's popularity, in some cases even surpassing that of the band itself. A good deal depended upon how much a leader needed to or was willing to feature a vocalist. Most of the smarter ones realized that any extra added attraction within their own organization could only redound to their credit. Even after many of those singers had graduated to stardom on their own, their past relationships with the bands added a touch cf glamour to those bands and their reputations.

Thus such current stars as Frank Sinatra and Jo Stafford still bring back memories of Tommy Dorsey, Doris Day of Les Brown, Ella Fitzgerald of Chick Webb, Peggy Lee of Benny Goodman and Perry Como of Ted Weems.

And there were many others who meant very much to their leaders— Bob Eberly and Helen O'Connell to Jimmy Dorsey, Ray Eberle and Marion Hutton to Glenn Miller, Dick Haymes and Helen Forrest to Harry James, Kenny Sargent and Peewee Hunt to Glen Gray, Bea Wain to Larry Clinton, Ivy Anderson to Duke Ellington, Mildred Bailey to Red Norvo, Anita O'Day to Gene Krupa, June Christy to Stan Kenton, Ginny Sims to Kay Kyser, Dolly Dawn to George Hall, Wee Bonnie Baker to Orrin Tucker, Amy Arnell to Tommy Tucker, Jimmy Rushing to Count Basie, Al Bowlly to Ray Noble, Eddy Howard to Dick Jurgens, Bon Bon to Jan Savitt, Skinnay Ennis to Hal Kemp and, of course, Carmen Lombardo to brother Guy.

But of all the factors involved in the success of a dance band—the business affairs, the musical style, the arrangers, the sidemen and the vocalists— nothing equaled in importance the part played by the leaders themselves. For in each band it was the leader who assumed the most vital and most responsible role. Around him revolved the music, the musicians, the vocalists, the arrangers and all the commercial factors involved in running a band, and it was up to him to take these component parts and with them achieve success, mediocrity or failure.”

Given the enormous range of big bands, it was very difficult to select one as a video example for this piece, but I decided to go with one that features the Benny Goodman Orchestra as in many ways, Benny’s initial success at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles on August 21, 1935 paved the way for the craze that became The Big Band Swing Era in American Popular Music.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Eric Alexander - Jazz Tenor Saxophonist (playlist)