Feldman Swing Club - Jazz Journal, April 1966

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Mark Gilbert, editor of JazzJournal, granted copyright permission to reprint this article about the Feldman Swing Club that first appeared in its pages in April, 1996.

The Feldman Swing Club is where it all began for drummer, vibraphonist/pianist Victor Feldman, and, as the article points out, it was also the beginning point for many of the careers of England’s superb Jazz musicians during the second half of the 20th century.

Victor has donned formal wear in the above photo for the purpose of inviting you to come to the cabaret that was the center of the Jazz world in London from 1942-1954 – The Feldman Swing Club.

© -  JazzJournal: copyright protected, all rights reserved, used with permission.

“This is the story of Britain's first ever real jazz club, The Feldman Swing Club, where famous British and American musicians played during, and just after World War II and where many readers perhaps had their first opportunity to hear and participate in live jam sessions.  Researched and recounted by Barbara Feldman, niece of both founders, Robert and Monty Feldman and the famous international jazz drummer/vibist/pianist, Victor Feldman, it charts the central role played by her family within UK jazz history as creators of what the Melody Maker described as the 'Mecca of Swing.' The eldest Feldman brother, Arnold - Barbara's father - played trumpet, but was at that time stationed in Gibraltar with the RAF, and so took no part in the proceedings of the Feldman Club until after demobilisation.

This account is based on a series of interviews with the late Robert Feldman, Monty Feldman's wife Helen, family friends, and fellow musicians who willingly took Barbara into their confidence. It should be born in mind that prior to this the only jazz 'clubs' were 'Societies' or 'Rhythm Clubs' (which of course still exist today) where 78 rpm records were played by a recitalist who discussed a particular aspect of jazz music and illustrated his/her talk musically.

The Feldman story began in Gerrard Street in London's West End in 1942 where two brothers, Robert and Monty Feldman, worked as pattern cutters and designers in a small clothing firm managed by their father Joseph. Robert recalled that 'Business wasn't doing too well and the people in charge just muddled through.' The brothers took respite in listening to the Radio Rhythm Club Sextet led by Harry Parry blaring out of the radio. However, this would only have been a half-hour weekly slot for, according to music promoter Bert Wilcox, 'In those days the BBC saw jazz as second-rate music whose followers consisted of wild women and drug takers.' Robert, a clarinetist and saxophone player inspired by Artie Shaw, and his brother Monty, an accordionist, were becoming increasingly convinced that swing could be made commercial. Their enthusiasm was growing as well as their talent and, at home in Edgware, Middlesex, they were rehearsing with their young brother Victor as The Feldman Trio. The boys made home recordings and played at weddings, bar mitzvahs and youth club dances. They were becoming increasingly popular among local jazz enthusiasts and musicians, principally due to the unlikely talents of their young drummer, eight-year-old Victor.

Having recently moved out to Edgware, to escape the wartime bombing, their neighbor Ronnie Scott was one of many musicians who began to drop by to play with the kid whom he regularly saw in short trousers in the street. riding his tricycle.

Benny Green, who later became Victor's regular room-mate when they toured together with the Ronnie Scott band got to hear the inside story of Victor's beginnings. Victor told him how earlier Monty and Robert had been jamming and becoming increasingly annoyed with their drummer. 'Our kid brother can do better-than. that' they cried. At this point, to everyone's amazement young Victor stole the show - he said he didn't know why he could play, he just could. Benny said - 'He was phenomenal, there has never been anything like it and there never will.'

Little did the brothers know that such an event would create a sensation among musicians, culminating in Victor becoming a child prodigy and finally a top international name in the jazz world. He was groomed for adult stardom by the Harold Davison Agency, whilst American boogie woogie pianist and dancer Maurice Rocco gave him dance lessons. He would go on to play with such stars as Stephane Grappelli, Vic Lewis, Woody Herman and even Glenn Miller's wartime AAAF band, astonishing the musicians with his 10-year-old genius in 1944.

Billy Amstell, former tenor saxist with the famous Ambrose Dance band, recalls that night at the Queensbury Club (a club for wartime servicemen) when the late Ray McKinley, then drummer with the Band of the AAAF. ran up to him crying with shock at having seen and heard young Victor. 'I don't believe it!' he cried as little Victor's drumming lifted the a hole band.

Max Bacon the Feldman's cousin. was the drummer with Ambrose, and he started Victor banging on a child's tin drum when he was as four-years-old. Later he set the ball really rolling by promoting Victor using his contacts and agents. He helped him into major movies: King Arthur Was A Gentleman (with comedian Arthur Askey) and Theatre Royal, where Robert Feldman led the band and wrote the arrangements.. Ted Heath played trombone in that band with George Shearing on piano and Jimmy Skidmore on tenor saxophone among others. Victor was also in the Flanagan and Allen show and starred at The Royal Albert Hall, The London Palladium and The Piccadilly Theatre with Sid Field in Piccadilly Hayride. Meanwhile he was watched over by his increasingly anxious father 'Grandpa' Joseph who begged Benny Green to 'encourage him to get a proper job.'

However, on that cold September night in war-torn London, 1942, Robert and Monty were yet to realise the extent of the creative potential that was beginning to brew around them. Robert switched off the radio, left his pattern cutting and began his journey home. Passing number 100 Oxford Street, a sign indicated Mac's Restaurant. As if hypnotised he went downstairs and he later recalled how there were posts (pillars) all over the place and: 'Suddenly I imagined them turning into palm trees, and I thought to myself, this would make a nice little club.' Old Ma Phyllis, later nicknamed 'The Dragon' by club goers, was the manageress of Mac's and she was only too pleased to charge the young enthusiasts 4 pounds a night to start The Feldman Swing Club. According to Bert Wilcox, she was to become a central figure of the club, 'always licking her lips, bossing everyone around to put their coats in the cloakroom and the only person to make money from the event by charging people 6d (21/2p) for a plate of crisps.'

Despite having tentatively hooked Mac's for three weeks' time, Robert had no capital and no musicians, but he was convinced that swing music could be successfully promoted in a club. Their father, a guiding hand behind Windsmoor Clothing was at first unenthused by his son's brainwave and refused to give financial backing. 'That's not a proper business, do something sensible!' was his initial response and a not unfamiliar one at that, according to Ronnie Scott; 'For those creative Jews who didn't want to be butchers or go into the gown business, to be involved in music would have been one of the few possible ways out of "the ghetto'.' Ironically Joseph was later to become, according to Ronnie, like the Godfather, taking the money at the door with his wife Kitty, and was to form, with Bert Wilcox, The National Organisation For the Promotion of Jazz in Great Britain.

Robert and Monty had to be inventive. The penniless brothers marched towards Archer Street - then the haunt of unemployed musicians--by the Windmill Theatre, where musicians gathered in the streets and surrounding pubs and cafes hoping to be booked for gigs (weddings and dances, etc.). Benny Green and Ronnie Scott were regularly among the crowd. 'On Monday morning there could be as many as 500 people in the street, and every night around midnight, the owner of the Harmony Inn would give Ronnie the key for us to hang out.' Nearby was the American Forces Club, the Queensbury, where Glenn Miller's AAAF band sometimes played. It was to Archer Street that Robert and Monty went to book musicians for their opening night. 'We spoke to the bassist, and said "you're getting 2 pounds 10s? We'll pay you 3.00 pounds to play for us." He agreed, so I told him: 'Get George Shearing, Kenny Baker and six other top musicians!'. Robert then contacted the Melody Maker (then a dance and swing music weekly) and put in the following advert: No. 1 Swing Club ... 100 Oxford Street, opening night, for members only ... Listen and dance to the following line-up: Kenny Baker, Tommy Bromley; Bobby Midgley; Tommy Pollard; Jimmy Skidmore; Frank Weir. Guest artists: The Feldman Trio. Subscriptions 5s. 0d. (25p) per annum to be sent to: The Secretary, Oakleigh Gardens, Edgware. 'The idea' said Robert, 'was that only those who sent their five shillings could get in free on the opening night, and in future it would be 3s. 6.d 'for members and 5s. 0d. for visitors.'

The boys were inundated with enough members to book Mae's for three consecutive weeks. Thus on October 24, 1942 at 7.30pm The Feldman Swing Club was born. According to The Melody Maker, it would provide London enthusiasts with what they had always lacked, a regular home for swing music where they could meet, dance, and listen to jazz music from star players. However, the possibilities of the club were seen as wider than this. Its creation would bring to a climax that hoary old argument once and for all: whether swing can be made commercial. Excitement was in the air.

Helen, who met Monty at the club whilst on a date with an American officer. recalls the opening night. 'The atmosphere was electric with the low ceiling vibrating from the sound. From then on there were queues halfway Oxford Street.’

The club became so popular that it opened on a Saturday as well. Helen describes how Robert and Monty's lives began to change. 'I remember that in fact lots of money was made from the club, enough for the boys to give up their work as pattern cutters. They started to wear silk hand-painted ties, suede shoes and sports jackets. They spent their time booking musicians, filling out PRS (Performing Rights Society) forms and making demos at Carlo Krahmer's lovely recording studios in Tottenham Court Road.'

Until the formation of The Feldman Club the main places to hear live jazz were all night unlicensed clubs known as 'bottle parties' - here licensing laws were evaded by ordering a bottle and having it stored at the off licence close by with your name on it until you wanted it. They were, according to Ronnie Scott, 'peopled by ladies of the night and wartime guards officers out for a good time. . ..’ Here many musicians started their careers. The Feldman Club also allowed dancing and it was here that American Servicemen patronising the club introduced the free-style jiving (jitterbugging) which was then a new improvised style of dancing.

Dance promoter Tony Harrison confirms that 'jitterbuggers' (sic) would often collide with nicely dressed people in the 'posher clubs' and there would be signs saying 'no jitterbugging' or 'no jiving' (later) and if they dared, the owners would say ‘stop, or get out.’  At Feldman's they could relax and dance. There were also Rhythm Clubs -as mentioned in the introduction - where there were also occasional jam sessions. However, dancing was not permitted and a concert atmosphere prevailed.

The Feldman was a club with an open-minded atmosphere that would, according to Tony Harrison, 'open its doors to everybody'. There were no class, racial or religious distinctions, and the average working man earning 2.00 pounds per week could afford the 3s.6d. (l7 ½ p) to get in.

Visiting American musicians would always make a beeline for the club which became the number one place to go, and was advertised as The Mecca of Swing. At one point, Glenn Miller decided to visit the club only to be refused entry until Joseph Feldman himself intervened. However, on other occasions for Joseph this attitude worked to his disadvantage. Guitarist Pete Chilvers, who played with the band every Sunday night, recalls arriving at the door and asking if he could bring in a few pals. 'Any friend of yours is a friend of mine' was Joseph's amicable response. However, Chilvers chuckles, ‘you should have seen his face as I trooped in with an endless line of Yanks.’

Once inside, Chilvers recalls eight-year-old Victor, with braces on his teeth, running up and sitting on his knee, whilst Freddie Crump took the place to pieces playing on his own teeth with drumsticks' into the microphone.  Eighty-year-old bassist Coleridge Good remembers watching little Victor in amazement: 'He was so small his feet were too tiny to reach the drum pedal; he could just touch it with the tips of his toes. He was wonderfully agile.' Such scenes were to last for around ten years.

The club hosted every British jazz musician of note and many Americans including: pianist Mel Powell, drummer Ray McKinley, clarinetist Benny Goodman, saxophonists Art Pepper and Spike Robinson, plus French violinist Stephane Grappelli. British saxophonist Kathy Stobart stresses the importance of the club in jazz history: 'The Feldman Club was the place where we all blossomed and made our contacts; that is where I first met John Dankworth'.

Ballad and blues singer Jimmy James remembers with a nostalgic glaze in his eyes some now famous musicians starting out. 'I can see them there now along the back stage right; there's young Tony Crombie (19), Johnny Dankworth (17), Carlo Krahmer, Phil Seamen (18) and 10-year-old Victor Feldman playing with 17-year-old Ronnie Scott' (this would have been in 1944-Ed). James recalls Glenn Miller's boys (sic) coming down for the big band evening and Joseph, smartly dressed, filming a line of fans with a cine-camera.

Vocalist and percussionist Frank Holder confirms the celebrity status 'Everybody was dying to play there and they knew Robert only went for star names'. He also stresses the importance of the Feldman for black musicians such as himself. 'When I arrived from Guyana in 1944 with the RAF I was hungry for jazz. At Feldman's you could prove yourself and get into the scene. People like Coleridge Goode, Ray Ellington and Lauderic Caton would play there. The guys got to know you and my reputation got around. When there was a sudden influx of blacks with the RAF I was then able to introduce them into jazz. What mattered to Robert and Monty Feldman was that you were musical.'

Guitarist Cliff Dunne recalls 'that there was a real family atmosphere at Feldman's which became an important refuge for Jews and blacks living in wartime London'.

New Orleans style bands such as George Webb's Dixielanders and the Crane River Jazz Band also appeared at the club. George Webb remembers that late in 1943, Ray Sonin the then editor of The Melody Maker, persuaded Robert to book the Dixielanders, who had a large following among traditional fans in greater London. Freddy Mirfield and his Garbage Men (another traditional band from East London) were due to play. Personnel included Freddy Randall (t), Johnny Dankworth (cl) and Dennis Croker on trombone. Croker never got to play however on this special Sunday afternoon as he was injured by a 'Doodlebug' (German flying bomb used to raid London from launch pads in occupied France). Eddie Harvey stood in for him.

The club continued until 1954 but then Robert said he started to lose interest. 'Some weeks it was doing all right, but towards the end, not so much. Other clubs started opening (The London Jazz Club and the Humphrey Lyttelton Club were using the same premises on different nights of the week - Lyttelton was appearing twice per week – Ed.) and there was too much competition. ‘I thought, I'm not taking it on for another year. If there were three new clubs opening I'd end up with a smaller audience and only one top musician, say Johnny Dankworth, and the rest would be just ordinary'.

Robert Feldman decided to try his luck in New York, but this wasn't a great success. He said later: 'It was hopeless.'

Unfortunately the Feldman brothers are no longer with us to give us more details of Robert's New York venture. Joseph died on July 31, 1957, Monty on March 9, 1979 (aged 53); Victor on May 14, 1987 (also 53) and Robert on November 2, 1992 aged 69. However, The Feldman Club is still alive in spirit where jazz still flourishes at The 100 Club and to mature jazz fans it will still be remembered as Feldman's!

(Editor's note: This feature is largely based on information given to Barbara Feldman during interviews, since she is too young to have actually experienced the events described. However, memories dim over the years and it has been necessary to adjust certain reports to conform with known facts and birthdates, etc.)”

Victor Feldman and Frank Rosolino: The "Lost" Recordings

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

For about two years in the late 1950s, I had the pleasure of hanging out with pianist/vibist Victor Feldman and trombonist Frank Rosolino who were then regular members of bassist's Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse Cafe All-Stars in Hermosa Beach, CA.

These were my formative years in Jazz and I always thought of the many nights at I spent at the club listening to set after set of the Lighthouse All-Stars as my “undergraduate education.”

The drummer with the All-Stars at that time was Stan Levey When I mentioned to him something about lessons, he turned me over to Victor saying: “He even knows the name of the rudiments.” [Stan was just being defensive as he was self-taught and not all that technically conversant with “drum speak.” He just played his backside off instead.]

As to Victor's skills as a drummer, I soon found out that before he turned to vibes and piano, Victor had been a World Class drummer [think Buddy Rich - Yes, he was that fast].

The closing time for the club was 2:00 AM, but on weekdays, most of the patrons were gone by midnight. At the witching hour, the musicians sometimes congregated in the back of the club to relax, have a smoke and conduct Jazz 101 with aspiring, young musicians before playing a last set.

Often, Jazz 101 consisted of war stories and one night while I was sitting in the back of the club with Victor and Frank Rosolino, Victor told a heart-breaking tale of the “lost tapes” he had made a few years earlier with a rhythm section of Hank Jones on piano, Bill Crow on bass and Kenny Clark and Joe Morello on drums [they split the two, recording sessions].

Before leaving Woody Herman’s Big Band and settling in with Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse All-Stars for a three year stint beginning in 1957, Victor had made a prior arrangement to record an album for Keynote Records and set about making arrangements for the date.  Bassist Bill Crow tells the tale of this ill-fated Feldman, Keystone recording session in his book From Birdland to Broadway [New York: Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 119-120].

“One night [in 1955] a young man sat at the Hickory House bar listening and smiling as we played [the Marian McPartland Trio featuring Bill Crow on bass and Joe Morello on drums]. When our set was finished, he introduced himself as Victor Feldman. The talented English vibraphonist had just arrived in New York, and had come to meet Marian. He said he liked the way Joe and I played together.

‘I’m doing an album for Keynote,’ Victor told us, ‘and I’d like you guys to do it with me. I’ve already sort of promised it to Kenny Clarke, so I’ll have him do the first date and Joe the second. I’ve got Hank Jones on piano.

Both dates went beautifully. Victor had written some attractive tunes, and he and Hank hit it off together right away. We couldn’t have felt more comfortable if we’d been playing together for years. Victor was glad to have the recording finished before he left town to join Woody Herman’s band.

The next time I ran into Vic, he told a sad story. The producer at Keynote had decided to delay releasing the album, hoping Victor would become famous with Woody. But the next Keystone project ran over budget, and when he needed to raise some cash, the producer sold Victor’s master tapes to Teddy Reig at Roost Records. Vic came back to New York, discovered what happened, and called Reig to find out when he planned to release the album.

‘Just as soon as Keystone sends me the tape,’ said Reig.

Vic called Keystone to ask when this would take place, and was told the tape had already been sent. A search of both record companies offices failed to locate the tape, and as far as I know it was never found. It may still be lying in a storeroom somewhere, or it may have been destroyed.

Since Keystone announced the album when we did the date, it was listed in Down Beat in their “Things to Come” column, and that information found its way into the Bruyninckx discography, but now that Vic and Kenny are both gone, that music exists as a lovely resonance in the memories of Joe, Hank and myself.”

Frank and I were horrified. “Some Christmas present,” Frank said, reflectively. He went on to say: “That better not happen with the tapes from the session we just finished.”

The recording session that Frank was referring to occurred on December 22, 1958 and while the outcome was not as irrevocable as was the case with the never-found tapes of Victor’s Keystone tapes, it DID happen that the Rosolino tapes were also, never released, at least, not until almost thirty years later [Frank died in 1978].

In 1987, Fantasy acquired the tapes from the December 22, 1958 Rosolino session and finally released them on LP as Frank Rosolino: Free For All [SP-2161]. The date was also released on CD in 1991 [Specialty Jazz Series OJCCD 1763-2].

Leonard Feather explains the story this was in his insert notes to the CD.

“Surprises of the kind represented by this album are as rare as they are welcome. The appearance of a hitherto undocumented album by Frank Rosolino makes a valuable addition to the discographical annals of an artist whose memory is cherished by admirers around the world.

His career seemed, on the surface, to have been reasonably successful. Born in Detroit in 1926, he came up through the big band ranks, playing with Gene Krupa, Bob Chester, Herbie Fields and Georgie Auld, then leading his own group in Detroit before joining Stan Kenton in 1952.

Two years later, he settled in Southern California and became, for several years, a regular in Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All Stars in Hermosa Beach. His free-wheeling, extrovert style did not conform to the then prevalent image of West Coast jazz as tightly organized, laid back and somewhat derivative.

Moreover, Rosolino was known from the early days as an incurable comic, whose bop vocal on "Lemon Drop" with the Krupa band marked his first appearance on film. As Benny Carter once commented, "Frank was a fantastic musician, but behind that cut-up personality was a troubled man. He was like Pagliacci.”

Frank made his recording debut as a leader with a 1952 session for the short lived Dee Gee label. There were other dates for Capitol, Bethlehem and Mode, but by the mid-1960s the only available Rosolino album was a Reprise set that featured him mainly as a comedy singer. The existence of the present volume was unknown except to those who had taken part in it — and, particularly, the man who produced it, David Axelrod.

"Frank and I were excited about this album," Axelrod recalls, "because it was going to be the first hard bop album recorded and released on the West Coast. We wanted to get away from that bland, stereotyped West Coast image. We worked for weeks on planning the personnel and the songs. The results were terrific. It was a great disappointment to us both that the record, for reasons we never understood, wasn't released."

Rosolino confirmed this view in a letter he sent to Specialty some nine months after the session. "I feel it's the best album I have ever recorded; everyone who was on the date feels the same. I've played the dub for numerous musicians and they all think it's just great."

Harold Land, whose tenor sax shared the front line with Frank's trombone, was already well established as a proponent of the more vigorous California sound; he had toured with the Max Roach-Clifford Brown Quintet in 1954-5 and went on to lead various combos in addition to working, off and on ever since 1955, in the Gerald Wilson Orchestra.

Victor Feldman, who had arrived from England in 1955 and settled in Los Angeles after touring with Woody Herman, has worked for many years in studios, often playing mainly percussion and vibes, but his jazz reputation (primarily on piano) is a formidable one. Two years after these sides were made he joined Cannonball Adderley; in 1963 he recorded and gigged with Miles Davis.

Stan Levey, one of the foremost bebop drummers of the 1940's, played with everyone from Dizzy and Bird to Herman and Kenton, then joined the Rumsey group at the Lighthouse. By 1972, tired of boring studio jobs, he gave up playing in order to concentrate on his growing success as a commercial photographer.

Leroy Vinnegar, born in Indianapolis, settled in Los Angeles in 1954 and has worked with innumerable groups led by Stan Getz, Shelly Manne, Jimmy Smith, Shorty Rogers, Buddy Collette, and the Crusaders.

Typical of Frank Rosolino's ingenuity is the opening cut; he tackled Love for Sale in 6/4, moving into a fast 4/4 for the bridge. His own solo and Land's establish immediately that this is a tough, no-holds-barred blowing session.

Twilight is a beguilingly pensive example of Victor Feldman's talent as a composer.

There is no improvisation here until the solo by Land, who also plays under Frank's eloquent excursion.

Frank deals with the melody, while Harold offers appropriate fills on Henry Nemo's Don't Take Your Love From Me. Note the easy moderate beat sustained behind Frank's solo, the typically inventive Land outing, and Feldman's evolution from single note lines to chords.

Chrisdee, an original by Stan Levey, was named for his sons Chris and Dee and is a bebop line based on a cycle of fifths, with a somewhat Monkish bridge. After Frank and Harold have adroitly negotiated the changes, there is a series of fours, with Leroy walking a passage and Stan in a couple of brief solo statements.

Stardust is Rosolino throughout, a masterful example of his approach to a well-worn standard into which he breathes new life. The verse is played slowly, the tempo picks up a bit for the chorus, and the beat is later doubled, with Frank's sinuous lines growing busier before he closes it out on the dominant.

Frank composed Free Fall the album's title tune as a funky blues theme that offers 24 bars to Leroy, four choruses (48 bars) to Frank, three to Harold and two to Victor before the theme returns, ending with a suddenness that was typical of the hard bop era.

Frank worked out the routine on There is No Greater Love, an Isham Jones standard that dates back to 1936 and is as much in use as ever at jam sessions a half century after its debut. The unison horns kick it off at a bright pace,- after Harold's and Frank's solos, Victor gets into a single-note bop bag.

Finally, Frank's own Sneakyoso provides the quintet with an ingenious vehicle, its attractive changes providing good opportunities for Frank to work out. Note the fine comping Victor furnishes for Harold Land before taking over for his own solo. The two horns engage in an exchange with Stan Levey before the head returns.

All in all, this is a superior, even superlative example of the genre of music it represents. Frank was right to be so proud of it. Talking to Stan Levey while preparing these notes, I was not surprised when he remarked: "I never heard anyone else quite like Frank. He put into his music much more than he ever achieved out of it. I remember this session well, and I'm happy it's being made available."

Sadly, Frank did not survive to see its release. … [He died under tragic circumstances] in November of 1978 …..

Free for All is a very welcome reminder of an exceptionally gifted artist who left us much too soon.”

Leonard Feather, 1986 (Leonard Feather is the Los Angeles Times jazz critic.)

The following video features Frank, Harold, Victor, Leroy and Stan on Chrisdee.

Who knows Maybe one day, someone will find the tapes of Victor’s 1955 session for Keystone and I can change the title of this piece from “lost” to “found.”

"The Man I Love" - Composed by Gershwin Performed by Feldman

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

As Victor Feldman recounted to John Tynan in a 1963 interview for Downbeat, “I was newly married and Cannonball had called me about a month before I went back to England in 1960 to introduce my wife to my family and friends.  He called me to make a record with Ray Brown, Wes Montgomery, Louis Hayes and himself. [Cannonball Adderley and the Poll Winners Riverside S-9355; Landmark LCD-1304-2].”

While we were in England, I got a cable from him with a definite offer as a pianist-vibist with his group.”

In my 1999 interview with Orrin Keepnews of Riverside Records when we were both residing in San Francisco, I asked him about how Victor Feldman came to be on  Cannonball’s “Poll Winners” in May, 1960.

According to Orrin, he and Cannonball had decided to use guitarist Wes Montgomery and bassist Ray Brown on the album and this led them to think further about “unusual instrumentation.”  Although there was some talk about Les McCann, the feeling was that he was primarily blues player, but more importantly, Cannonball just didn’t want to use a piano player.The rest of the conversation went as described by Orrin in the album’s liner notes:

“With all the established musicians (including the regular Adderley drummer, Louis Hayes) living fully up to expectations, the surprise element was provided by the then-unknown Victor Feldman.

In view of the unconventional feeling of guitar and bass, Cannon had wanted something less routine than just a piano player. West Coast friends recommended a highly skilled young L.A. studio vibraphonist, recently arrived from England; figuring that we only need him for coloration, we took a chance and invited him up [to San Francisco where the album was being recorded by Wally Heider at Fugazi Hall near North Beach].

At rehearsal, Victor sat down at the piano to demonstrate a couple of his compositions. I can still clearly visualize all of us standing there, open-mouthed and thunderstruck, as we listened to a totally unexpected swinging and funky playing of this very white young Britisher.

Finally one of us, struck by an apparent facial resemblance, expressed our mutual amazement. “How can the same man,” I asked, “look like Leonard Feather and sound like Wynton Kelly?”

“The Man I Love” by George and Ira Gershwin tune has always been among my favorite Great American Songbook standards, especially the version by Victor Feldman which accompanies the video tribute to the Gershwins that concludes this feature.

It would appear that the tune is also a favorite of many Jazz musicians as there are over 80 versions of it in my LP, tape and CD collection.

While with Cannonball Adderley’s Quintet and living in New York, Victor had the opportunity to record his own album on Riverside, Merry Olde Soul [Riverside RLP-9366; OJCCD-402-2] which was recorded in December, 1960 and January, 1961.

As Orrin Keepnews, the co-owner and producer for Riverside Records recalled: “There was no question of using Sam Jones and Louis Hayes on it as by now they had formed quite a rhythm section in Cannonball’s quintet; I think I was the one who suggested Hank Jones on piano for one session to free up Vic to play vibes on three tracks.”

Ira Gitler was selected to provide the liner notes to Merry Olde Soul and he had this to say about some aspects of the recording:

“There are not many albums where all the tracks deserve some comment. Here, each one has something to offer and bears mention. Various influences on Feldman’s style are in evidence, yet because of his own strong personality, he does not emerge as a mere eclectic. There is a great difference between intelligent absorption and imitation.”

Although all of the nine tracks are the album show off various aspects of Victor’s developing style and technique, here are Ira’s comments about four of the tunes. I would only add that Victor’s vibes solo on The Man I Love is one for the ages – an absolute marvel of building tension and release brought about by a musician with an incredible sense of syncopated rhythm, a well-developed feeling for melody and an ever deepening knowledge of harmony.

“Victor opens on piano with ‘For Dancers Only,” a happy, swinging interpretation of the Sy Oliver tune immortalized by the old Jimmie Lunceford band. His chording seems to show a Red Garland influence. Sam Jones has a strong solo and the integration of the trio is perfect: they literally dance. ‘Lisa’ is a collaboration between Feldman and Torrie Zito; its minor changes cast a reflective but Victor’s touch here on vibes still swings. …

‘Bloke’s Blues’ is a rolling line that I find somewhat reminiscent of Hampton Hawes. There is an easy natural swing and much rhythmic variety in Feldman’s single line. His feeling is never forced.”

“In this album, his first for ‘Riverside’ as a leader, the spotlight is really on Victor. His piano and vibes are both given wide exposure, and there is a substantial taste of his talents as a composer (of blues and ballads in particular). He proves more than equal to the task of filling a large amount of space with music that consistently sustains interest.”

On ‘The Man I Love’ (the only no-piano vibes number), Feldman starts out with a light touch similar to his work on ‘Lisa.’ Then he intensifies into a more percussive attack that wails along Jacksonian lines, in a spirit that may put you in mind of Milt’s solo on Miles Davis’ famous version of the tune, but without copying Jackson. He builds and builds into highly-charged exchanges with Hayes before sliding into a lyrical tag.

As to the song itself, here’s some background about its evolution and information about notable recorded versions by Ted Gioia from his The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire [New York: Oxford University Press, 2012].

“This song had a long, troubled history before becoming a hit. "The Man I Love" initially appeared in the 1924 musical Lady Be Good, where it served as a feature for Adele Astaire — but only lasted a week before getting yanked from the show. The tune was recycled in 1927 for Strike Up the Band, but that production never made it to New York, and when the musical was retooled and revived in 1930 the song was no longer part of it. "The Man I Love" was next assigned to the 1928 Flo Ziegfeld show Rosalie but was cut before opening night (and, if Ira Gershwin can be believed, wasn't even heard in rehearsals before getting axed). At this point, the Gershwins' publisher Max Dreyfus, in a desperate gesture, convinced the composers to take a one-third reduction in their royalty rate as an incentive for bandleaders to release "The Man I Love" on record.

This last-gasp strategy worked, and four different recordings of "The Man I Love" — by Marion Harris, Sophie Tucker, Fred Rich, and Paul Whiteman — were top 20 hits in 1928. The latter version features a dramatic arrangement by Ferde Grofe and includes a sax interlude by Frankie Trumbauer, best known for his collaborations with Bix Beiderbecke but here delivering one of his better solos from his stint with the Whiteman orchestra. The composition also became closely associated with torch singer Helen Morgan, and Gershwin himself gave her much of the credit for its eventual popularity; but, strange to say, she made no commercial recording of this signature song.

Benny Goodman brought the piece back into the limelight almost a decade later, enjoying a hit with his 1937 quartet recording of "The Man I Love." Goodman continued to feature the work in a variety of settings — with a combo at Carnegie Hall in 1938, in an Eddie Sauter big band arrangement from 1940, with his bop-oriented band from the late 1940’s, with symphony orchestra in the 1950’s, with various pick-up bands in later decades — for the rest of his career. But equally influential in jazz circles was Coleman Hawkins's 1943 recording, which finds the tenorist constructing a harmonically expansive solo that ranks among the finest sax improvisations of the era. Over the next 18 months, more than two dozen cover versions of "The Man I Love" were recorded — more than in the entire decade leading up to Hawk's session.

This song's popularity has never waned in later years. The hand-me-down that couldn't find a home in a Broadway show eventually became one of Gershwin's most beloved and recorded compositions. British composer and musicologist Wilfrid Mellers would extol "The Man I Love" as the "most moving pop song of our time." Others have been equally lavish in their praise. "This is the music of America," proclaimed Gershwin's friend and patron Otto Kahn. "It will live as long as a Schubert lieder."

In truth, the melodic material employed here is quite simple — many of the phrases merely move up and down a half or full step before concluding up a minor third. Gershwin employs this device no fewer than 15 times during the course of a 32-bar song. Yet the repetition of this motif contrasts most markedly with the constant movement in the song's harmonies. The contrast gives added emphasis to Gershwin's repeated use of the flat seven in the vocal line, an intrinsically bluesy choice that transforms what might otherwise sound like a folkish 19th-century melody into a consummate Jazz Age lament.”

RECOMMENDED VERSIONS

Paul Whiteman (with Frank Trumbauer), New York, May 16,1928

Benny Goodman (with Teddy Wilson, Lionel Hampton, and Gene Krupa), live at Carnegie Hall, New York, January 16,1938

Billie Holiday (with Lester Young), New York, December 13,1939

Coleman Hawkins, New York, December 23,1943

Lester Young (with Nat King Cole and Buddy Rich), Los Angeles, March-April 1946

Art Tatum, live at the Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, April 2,1949

Miles Davis (with Thelonious Monk and Milt Jackson), from Miles Davis and the

Modern Jazz Giants, Hackensack, New Jersey, December 24,1954

Art Pepper (with Red Garland), from Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section, Los Angeles, January 19,1957

Mary Lou Williams, from Live at the Cookery, live at the Cookery, New York, November 1975

Fred Hersch, from Heartsongs, New York, December 4-5,1989

Herbie Hancock (with Joni Mitchell and Wayne Shorter), from Gershwin's World, New York (March-April 1998) and Los Angeles (June 1998)