One of the great things about hanging out with Jazz musicians is that you’re never far from a laugh.
Whether it’s a play-on-words in a song title, a nickname, or the telling of a yarn, Jazz musicians love a good chortle.
Playing Jazz takes a lot of concentration, and humor is a great way to relieve the pressure that builds up during a performance, a recording date or even a rehearsal, especially when reading through new music.
Whether you are a Jazz musician or a fan of the music, if you like the transformational feeling that laughter brings on, you can’t do better than a perusal of the funny stories in Bill Crow’s Jazz Anecdotes [New York: Oxford University Press, 1990].
“Not having [trumpeter] Clark Terry tell this one robs it of some of its charm. You have to imagine the devilish look in Clark’s eye as he sings each song!
A guy walked into a pet store looking for a Christmas gift for his wife. The storekeeper said he knew exactly what would please her and took a little bird out of a cage. "This is Chet," he said, "and Chet can sing Christmas carols." Seeing the look of disbelief on the customer's face, he proceeded to demonstrate.
"He needs warming up," he said. "Lend me your cigarette lighter."
The man handed over his lighter, and the storekeeper raised Chet's left wing and waved the flame lightly under it. Immediately, Chet sang "Oh Come, All Ye Faithful."
"That's fantastic!" said the man.
"And listen to this," said the storekeeper, warming Chet's other wing. Chet sang, "O Little Town of Bethlehem."
"Wrap him up!" said the man. "I'll take him!"
When he got home, he greeted his wife:
"Honey, I can't wait until Christmas to show you what I got you. This is fantastic."
He unwrapped Chet's cage and showed the bird to his wife.
"Now, watch this."
He raised Chet's left wing and held him over a Christmas candle that was burning on the mantlepiece. Chet immediately began to sing, "Silent Night." The wife was delighted.
"And that's not all, listen to this!" As Chet's right wing was warmed over the flame, he sang, "Joy to the World."
"Let me try it," cried the wife, seizing the bird. In her eagerness, she held Chet a little too close to the flame. Chet began to sing passionately, "Chet's nuts roasting on an open fire!""
The short answer as to why I write is to share what I know and love about jazz, to shine a little light on a mystery for which I’ve never found a rational explanation: how can a nation produce a musical tradition as fecund and flowing as the one erected on the genius of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker and treat it as though it doesn’t exist or exists only in the past or only for those “in the know”?
I decided to be a writer when I was eight, after reading a children’s biography of Louis Pasteur that triggered an epiphany about life and language. Nothing could sway me toward a more sensible direction, especially after I discovered the work of Edmund Wilson, Dwight Macdonald, James Boswell and Martin Williams and knew that I had found my mode – criticism – if not my subject. That would come later. Criticism finds the past in the present and vice versa. It filters time’s nuggets and makes cultural signposts accessible, exciting and pertinent. Biography is another way of doing that, with the advantage of a strong narrative, balancing private failings with a critical analysis of public accomplishments that are the only reason we care about the subject. To my surprise, I found an ideal subject in Bing Crosby, which allows me to combine my interests in music and film while tracking the development of American popular culture over three-quarters of a century. I continue to write essays on movies and books as well. But jazz is different: I write about jazz because Louis Armstrong’s 1938 “Jubilee,” which ought to be included in any universal health-care system, is too good a secret to keep.
The primary reason I enjoy reading Gary Giddins' essays, reviews and books is because I learn from them; I always come away from the time spent exploring his writings with perceptions about Jazz and its makers that he informs and ideas about the music that he creates.
[By the way, ideas don’t just exist waiting for someone to “turn a light bulb on over their head” and find them. Ideas have to be made, they have to be created.]
Slowing life down to “smell the coffee” with a chapter from one of Gary’s books is a frequent occurrence in my life, but I must say that I was very surprised during a recent foray when I found a piece about Eddie Condon in his Weather Bird: Jazz at The Dawn of Its Second Century.
The book is a compendium of Jazz essays and reviews that Gary wrote from about 1990 to 2003 in his position as the Jazz “critic” [in the broadest sense of that term] for The Village Voice.
Not surprisingly then, the book contains an overwhelming number of pieces about Jazz artists in performance or on recordings which appeared during that time frame.
But Eddie Condon? He died in 1973 [the same year, incidentally, that Gary began his “Weather Bird” column for The Village Voice] so how does he figure into this compilation’s chronology?
Of course, after turning a page or two, the context for the inclusion of Gary’s essay entitled The Advocate: Eddie Condon was that it served as an introduction commissioned for the 1991 reissue by DaCapo Press of the paperback edition of We Called It Music, a book that Eddie originally co-wrote in 1947 with Thomas Sugrue.
Here are a few more excerpts from Gary’s treatment of the book as well as his “take” on Condon’s music and his place in the development of Jazz.
Weather Bird: Jazz at The Dawn of Its Second Century is still available through its publisher, Oxford University Press, and through retail and online booksellers. By way of background: “Gary Giddins wrote the Village Voice's "Weather Bird" column for 30 years. His eight books and three documentary films have garnered unparalleled recognition for jazz, including a National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, two Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Awards, five ASCAP-Deems Taylor Awards, a Peabody, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He received national attention for his commentary in Ken Burns's Jazz.”
“Eddie Condon was a vigorous jazz activist whose barbed tongue and stubborn beliefs were powerful implements for spreading the jazz gospel as he interpreted it. Decades after his death, in 1973, the kind of music he championed was still widely known as Condon-style, though, inevitably, the prophet and his music receded into memory when the last practitioners passed on. They merit our respect all the same. Condon and the success he enjoyed recall a tremulous period in jazz history, when the racial divide was first breached and the very act of playing jazz or representing oneself as a jazz musician conveyed the thrill of anarchy.” …
Though not an important instrumentalist or bandleader, Condon performed on many fine — even important — recordings and fronted countless bands. His accomplishments as a composer were few, yet he helped to codify an enduring school of jazz. He was a radical in his youth and a reactionary ever after, yet he won a lasting respect as one of jazz's most effective propagandists, heralding America's brave new music on the bandstand and off, as a musician, organizer, memoirist, broadcast personality, newspaper columnist, and club owner.
The Condon-style, also known as Chicago-Dixieland (a phrase he disliked), was born in the late 1920s, reached its apex a decade later, and sustained a popular following throughout the '40s and '50s, even though it had long since jettisoned all signs of progressive development. Indeed, predictability was part of its allure. What started out as a scrappy, every-man-for-himself music, hell-bent on capturing the drive and feeling of pioneer black jazz musicians, became a conservative backwater—a respite from the anxieties and cyclical rebellions of modernism.
Played by small ensembles with a driving beat, Condon-style meant a loose-limbed music, inspired by the informality of the jam session and nourished by an intimate ambience that was far too tolerant of journeymen vocalists, roguish bandstand antics, and a petrified repertoire. But it was an honest music at its best, sometimes compellingly so, and it preserved an illusion of effortless musical camaraderie that comforted a generation.
Condon's personality mirrored his music. He worked hard at perfecting a mask of cynicism to hide the sentimentality lurking just below the surface. Had he been the scold he pretended to be, however, he could hardly have gotten away with as much mischief. A genuinely witty man, he made his impudence palatable even to his victims, who quoted Condon's jibes with pleasure. Some of his observations are among jazz's most familiar quotations. … On modern jazz: "The boppers flat their fifths. We consume ours." On Pee Wee Russell: "He's gaining weight—under each eye." … We Called It Music, the first and most valuable of Condon's three books, includes several lines that have been repeated and rephrased so often most people no longer know where they originated—for example, his elegiac recollection of first hearing Bix Beiderbecke: "The sound came out like a girl saying yes."
In addition to being the entertaining memoir of a jazz musician, We Called It Music, subtitled "A Generation of Jazz" so that everyone would understand what It referred to, is a definitive statement on the first generation of white jazzmen and how they saw themselves in relation to the black innovators they emulated. Read today, half a century after the coming of modern jazz and in light of decades of myth-making revisionism, Condon's memoir brims with far more socio-musical ironies than were apparent on first publication, in 1947. Some of that irony was underscored by a strange supplementary chapter written for an English edition in 1962, and unavailable in the United States for 25 years.
The main text emphasizes the debt Condon's generation owed Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Ethel Waters, and Bessie Smith—the royalty of the new kind of music. "When [Jimmy] McPartland mentioned King Oliver," Condon writes, "smoke came out of his eyes."” …
“Back in 1947, when Condon and Thomas Sugrue collaborated on We Called It Music, Condon was at the height of his fame as a jazz personality. His nightclub, which opened in 1945, met with great success, as did his Town Hall concerts, radio broadcasts, and records.”...
“Condon kept active in the years following the appearance of We Called It Music. His nightclub changed premises in 1958—relocating from West 3rd Street to East 56th Street—and managed to survive until 1967, for an impressive run of 22 years. He collaborated on two more books: Eddie Condon's Treasury of Jazz (1956), a wide-ranging anthology of writings with an accent on literary flair, edited by Condon and Richard Gehman; and Eddie Condon's Scrapbook of Jazz (1973), a hugely entertaining collection of pictures and captions, collated by Condon and Hank O'Neal. From 1964 on, illness prevented him from traveling much, though he embarked on occasional tours and appeared from time to time in clubs and at festivals—his last performance was at a tribute to him at the Newport Jazz Festival-New York in 1972, the year before he died. Two years later, bassist Red Balaban opened a new jazz club called Eddie Condon's on 54th Street. The walls were covered with enlarged photographs of Condon and his favorite musicians; the music was Condon-style, plain and simple; and the place prospered through 1985—40 years after Condon opened his original saloon.”
[We Called It Music, Da Capo Press, 1986, revised 1991]
Both the preparations for this festive time of the year and the song with that title which the late pianist Vince Guaraldi wrote in celebration of it are once again ubiquitous.
Department stores, car radios, television commercials - one can’t go anywhere without hearing some or all of the twelve [12] tracks for the CBS television special “A Charlie Brown Christmas” that pianist Vince Guaraldi laid down on October 26, 1964 at Glendale, CA Whitney Studios with his reunited “classic trio” of Monty Budwig, bass [whom he’d worked with during a stint with Woody Herman’s band in the mid-1950’s] and drummer Colin Bailey.
The full details of how Vince’s role in the television special came about and what went into the development of his score for it can be found in Darren Bang’s masterful biography - Vince Guaraldi at the Piano.
Another perspective on the artistic value of what Vince achieved from the music he wrote for the television program can be gleaned from the following excerpts from the liner notes that respective Jazz columnist RJG wrote for the original Fantasy LP - A Charlie Brown Christmas: Vince Guaraldi Trio.
For those of you who may not be familiar with Ralph and his accomplishments, Ralph along with San Francisco Jazz radio DJ Jimmy Lyons, was the co-founder of the Monterey Jazz Festival which began in 1958.
A long-time Jazz columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle Ralph also covered Rock ‘n Roll for the paper when the “San Francisco Sound” first appeared in the 1960’s. He was the founding editor of Rolling Stone Magazine and authored books on both Jazz and Rock. His work was honored with three Deems Taylor Awards for excellence in music journalism, two Grammy nominations for liner notes and two Emmy nominations for his documentaries on Duke Ellington. He died in 1975. He was only 59-years old at the time of his death.
The note Jazz author and critic Ira Gitler said of Ralph: “... he was both avuncular and avant-garde. He was the younger brother of one of your parents who talked to you about things that they didn't, took you places they wouldn't, and brought you presents other than socks or underwear. I didn't have an uncle like that.”
RALPH J. GLEASON - “The hardest task an artist faces is not just to achieve self-expression; that almost comes by definition even if it's difficult to hone that self-expression into something good enough to be art.
It is another kind of thing altogether (and it strikes me as more difficult) to look at, hear, feel and experience somebody else's artistic expression and then make something of your own which shows empathy, which relates to the other but which still has your own individual artistic stamp.
This is what, is seems to me, Vince Guaraldi achieved with his scores for Charlie Brown. He took his inspiration from the creations of Charles Schultz and made music that reflects that inspiration, is empathetic with the image and is still solidly and unmistakably Vince Guaraldi.
It was natural for him to do this — he's been reading Peanuts for years, as who hasn't? — but he brought some very special talent along to the process.
Vince has big ears, a wide range of feeling and a poetically lyrical manner of playing and of writing jazz music. Off stage he's flip and funny, salty and serious and sometimes stubborn. At the piano, he's all music, all lyricism and all jazz.
In the Educational Television three-part film, "Anatomy of a Hit," Vince was shown as a sensitive introspective little man whose dreams became music. This is true. Ever since he was a student at San Francisco State College he has dreamed music and music has been his dream. In the years of apprenticeship he spent with Cal Tjader and Woody expressed only in their own playing. With Vince, the personal sound, the personal voice and the individual musical personality is expressed not only in his playing but in his composing as well.
All the characters in Peanuts are artists confronted with the illogical, blind and mechanistic world. It was natural that Vince Guaraldi's music should fit so well.
Incidentally, “The Hit” that’s referenced in the title of the 3-part film refers to Vince’s 1962 recording of Cast Your Fate to the Wind from the movie Black Orpheus. Vince was awarded a Grammy for this recording in 1963
It was this tune the producer Lee Mendelson heard on his car radio one day while crossing the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, CA that prompted him to hire Vince to write the music for the TV Special - A Charlie Brown Christmas. The hiring would begin a long collaboration between Guaraldi and Mendelson that would see Guaraldi compose for numerous Peanuts television specials until his death in 1976.
On the off-handed chance that you haven’t heard the Guaraldi-Peanuts-Christmas music in a while, you can listen to the entire album on YouTube via this link [and skip the commercials rather quickly].
“The nice thing about this record is the choice of material. Davis on alto along with Nicholas Payton on trumpet, Robert Trowers on trombone ably supported by a rhythm section of Dado Moroni on piano, Peter Washington on bass and Lewis Nash on drums all contribute to a record that sounds confident, unfussy and … completely individual. This is how contemporary Jazz is supposed to sound: balance, wry and aware.” [Richard Cook and Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Ed.]
As Gary Giddins so succinctly put it - “Davis is a commanding presence out of Parker and Adderley.”
And that’s exactly why I like Jesse’s playing in general and in particular on High Standards [Concord Jazz CD 4624].
Ken Franckling offers these interesting perspective on Jesse and performing Jazz in a group context in the 1990s when this recording was made [1994] at the conclusion of which you’ll find a video montage made up of CD cover art and photographs as set to Isms, one of Jesse original compositions featured on the recording.
“Given the economics of jazz in the 1990s, it is difficult for any musician today to hold together a full-time working band. And if you are a young player, that prospect is near-impossible regardless of your name or abilities.
Jazz for the most part has become a freelance performance world. Lineups shift from city to city as players grab whatever opportunities come their way. While that may expose individual players to many varied musical situations over the course of a year, Jesse Davis finds it unsettling.
"The band mentality doesn't seem to be around anymore," laments Davis, one of the most promising journeyman alto saxophonists on the scene today. "The purpose for having a band is to bring together players who could grow together as musicians and grow to a point where they could achieve a distinctive sound."
The concept worked well for many bands in the 1950s and '60s and a lot longer for some, including Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. It still works for the Modern Jazz Quartet and outfits led by high-profile leaders like Dave Brubeck, Phil Woods and Jackie McLean — but even they don't perform as regularly as they used to.
Suffice it to say, Jesse Davis doesn't have a working band of his own despite being blessed with the talents and temperament to lead one. For this recording, his fourth as a leader on Concord Jazz since 1991, Davis did the next best thing.
He brought together the five people he'd like to have in a permanent Jesse Davis band: fellow New Orleans native Nicholas Payton — a stunning young voice on trumpet — Basie Band veteran Bob Trowers on trombone, pianist Dado Moroni — with whom Davis often works in Europe — and two of the best and busiest young rhythm aces in jazz, bassist Peter Washington and drummer Lewis Nash.
Much like Davis, each is a gifted player and knows how to make music that swings mightily. All of them have crossed musical paths frequently in various performance settings. As a result, this recording has the feel of a true working band from start to finish.
Jesse's alto sound is bittersweet yet leans more toward the joyful side of expression. At times, I can hear traces of Jackie McLean and Phil Woods in his playing. But mostly I hear Jesse Davis, a young man whose purposeful sound is always ready to explode with musical passion.
His credentials speak volumes about his talent: Studies with Ellis Marsalis at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts; a raft of outstanding musicianship awards during and after college; tours with George Wein's Newport All-Stars, the Philip Morris All-Stars and Clark Terry; guest opportunities with Wynton Marsalis at Lincoln Center in New York; and collaborations with pianist Walter Bishop, Jr.
For this recording, Jesse wanted to put a fresh imprint on the traditional values of jazz. The most natural starting point was standards from the American Songbook and jazz repertoire and a handful of spirited originals. …”
“Vito Price isn't famous. He isn't the world's finest saxophonist. He isn't suffering from the pangs of public disapproval. He isn't a newly-discovered figure out of the past.
To state it simply, he is a musician satisfied to play the way he wants to play. He's not attempting to set precedents or unify forms or set inspirational harmonic patterns. When I asked him about this LP, his first as a leader, he said, "I'm thrilled that I finally got the chance to record. I felt ready. This is my idea of happy, swinging music."
- Don Gold, Managing Editor, Down Beat Magazine
Youth provides a different view of the world.
On the one hand, this view is broad and all-encompassing brought on by a wide-eyed fascination with the world and everything in it. It all seems so fresh and exciting.
On the other hand, it’s limited because there is little judgment based on experience or the ability to discern based on acquired knowledge.
As a case in point, the first time I heard the music on tenor saxophonist Vito Price’s 1958 Swinging the Loop [Argo LP 631] album, it really thrilled me. I thought it swung like mad and I just couldn’t get enough of it. I played it all the time.
Although I came to own the LP as a gift from a family friend, a DJ who was always passing on “Demo” copies that he couldn’t play on his AM radio show which featured more popular music, I had no idea who Vito Price was.
Frankly, neither did any of the other musicians in my circle of friends at the time. Mention the name “Vito Price” and it was sure to be greeted with a number of blank stares.
And yet, for a while, I knew more about the tenor sax playing of Vito than I did that of Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young; chronologically, knowledge of the music of these “Giants” of the tenor was to come later after my view of the Jazz world had become a bit more sophisticated and informed.
Swinging the Loop is made up of 5 tracks that were recorded with a 9-piece group with Vito out front on tenor and 5 cuts using a combo: each set of 5 tunes comprised Side One and Side Two of the LP, respectively.
For some reason, I only played the side featuring the quintet made up of Vito along with Freddie Green on guitar, Lou Levy on piano, Max Bennett on bass and Gus Johnson on drums. Too lazy to get up from my practice pads [used in lieu of actual drums to keep the neighbors from rushing the front door] and turn the record over on the changer?
As its title would imply, the album was recorded in Chicago, which was to later become an oft-visited city for me due to business and professional activities. One of the great things about most Jazz LPs from the 1950s was that they included informative liner notes. The honors for Vito’s album go to Don Gold who, at the time, was the Managing Editor of Down Beat Magazine.
So that you, too, might become more familiar with Vito Price and the music on this album in the same manner as I did, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles has reprinted Don’s insert notes below.
It also asked the crackerjack graphics team at CerraJazz LTD to develop the video at the conclusion of this feature using the Beautiful Love quintet track from the LP.
Ironically, after playing the album on an almost daily basis after it was first issued, I had all but forgotten about it until one day, when a Jazz buddy picked me up for a luncheon get-together with mutual friends and the music from it was playing on his car CD changer!
Much to my delight and surprise, Jordi Pujol had reissued Swinging the Loop on his Fresh Sound label [FSR CD #110].
I couldn’t believe my ears: after 50 years, it seemed that there were now three people familiar with the music of Vito Price!
They behave erratically much of the time, searching for the attractive approach to the specific subject involved. This endless search, proceeding from one LP to the next, is characterized by constant anguish and inevitable frustration.
This situation is not at all unusual. After all, LPs are cranked out today with the machine-like rapidity so characteristic of our production line age.
What, then, does the liner note author do? Obviously, he searches for new adjectives, new ways of interpreting music and its performers, new gags to enchant the record buyers. There are a variety of ways to accomplish these ends.
The writer with a substantial background in jazz can, for example, say that he has "discovered" the talent presented on the LP. He can, in essence, tell his own life story.
Another approach calls for writing an extensive treatise on a subject not necessarily related to the LP. This takes the form of discussing elementary geometry or the sartorial brilliance of Adolph Menjou.
Another writer might compare the featured performer on the LP with another performer who plays the same instrument. This allows the liner note creator to state his own preferences rather discreetly. If he is not fond of the performer on the LP for which he is writing the notes, he can simply discuss another performer. This is a mild form of escapism, a kind of facing the monetary benefit without facing any of its accompanying annoyances.
The liner note writer, then, is a kind of displaced person, unable to write at great length and equally unable to freely state his views with regularity.
In this case, I'm not faced with any of these problems.
Vito Price isn't famous. He isn't the world's finest saxophonist. He isn't suffering from the pangs of public disapproval. He isn't a newly-discovered figure out of the past.
To state it simply, he is a musician satisfied to play the way he wants to play. He's not attempting to set precedents or unify forms or set inspirational harmonic patterns. When I asked him about this LP, his first as a leader, he said, "I'm thrilled that I finally got the chance to record. I felt ready. This is my idea of happy, swinging music."
In other words, Price is hoping that the taste of some record buyers will coincide with his own. This kind of uncluttered approach is rather rare these days.
For the amateur musicologists, here are some basic facts on Price.
He's 28, New York-born, and has been playing the tenor and alto saxes since he was 14. During his high school days he worked with jazz groups in the New York area. After high school, he served an apprenticeship on the road, with the bands of Bob Chester, Art Mooney, Tony Pastor, and with Chubby Jackson's small group.
In 1951 he entered the marines and spent two years serving in a marine band. He enrolled at the Manhattan school of music in 1953 and stayed on for two years, supplementing his studies with work as leader of his own group and as a member of Jerry Wald's band.
In the summer of 1955 he came to Chicago. In February, 1956 he joined the staff orchestra at station WGN and has been a member of the orchestra there ever since.
He participated in both Chubby Jackson sessions for Argo in recent months.
When I solicited his thoughts on this LP, he stated them readily.
"I had wanted to record so badly," he said. "I guess I never had been at the right place at the right time. This is my first opportunity. And I was given a clear road to do just what I wanted to do.
"I'm not a far out musician. I'm not trying to blaze new paths. These sides are pure, clean, and honest. I just tried to swing. I play because I like to play. I dig it," he concluded.
It is natural that a WGN staff man would look to his compatriots at the station for assistance on his first LP as a leader. Price did just that. Except for the rhythm sections utilized, all the members of the band on this LP work with Price at WGN.
They're used to playing together, as Price noted to me. All the big band charts for this date were prepared by Bill McRea, another WGN staff man, making the existing compatibility that much greater.
Joining the WGN corps are Remo Biondi, a fine Chicago guitarist; Marty Clausen, the excellent drummer with the Dan Belloc band, both present on the big band tracks. When Price was ready to cut this LP, he discovered that Ella Fitzgerald was working in Chicago. Astute enough to know a good rhythm section when he heard one, he persuaded Lou Levy, piano; Max Bennett, bass, and Gus Johnson, drums, to make the session. Johnson, due to illness, was able to participate in just the small group (Price-with-rhythm section) tracks, but the Levy-Bennett combination appears on all the tracks in this LP. Finally, the incomparable Freddie Green, guitarist and pivot man of the Count Basic band, joined in to make the small group tracks that much more of a delight.
Essentially, this is Price's LP. On the five big band tracks he is the major soloist, with Levy the only other soloist. The same holds true for the five small group tracks. In addition to being featured on tenor (and alto on In A Mellow Tone), Price contributed three originals — Swinging the Loop, Duddy, Eye Strain (dedicated to Price's wife, who, in knitting a sweater for him, discovered that she needed glasses).
This, then, is a set highlighted by the warm-toned horn of Vito Price. It features Price in big band and small group settings, on ballads and blues, up-tempo and medium tempo approaches.
If you've purchased this LP, the Argo Records management will be pleased. If you've read this far, I'll be pleased. But if you enjoy this LP, Vito Price would like to know. Drop him a card it his home—561 Arlington Place, Chicago 14, ILL. After all, a little encouragement can't do any harm.”
To paraphrase Joseph Epstein’s comments about Literature in a recent issue of The Wall Street Journal, one doesn’t traditionally think of Jazz as art, but as played by Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck or Bill Evans, it indubitably is.
Jazz is a house with many mansions and musicians such as these and the occasional newcomer provide some of the more stately among them.
One such mansion dweller was the late trumpeter Freddie Hubbard [1932-2008] who literally burst on the scene as a member of trombonist J.J. Johnson’s sextet in the late 1950’s and gained a more established prominence when he joined drummer Art Blakey’s quintet/sextet in the early 1960’s.
As Randy Sandke notes in his essay on the trumpet in Jazz in Bill Kirchner, Ed. - The Oxford Companion to Jazz:
“The various bands led by drummer Art Blakey established the most significant trumpet dynasty in modern jazz. His first unit featured Kenny Dorham, whose harmonic inventiveness influenced sax and trumpet players alike. Dorham was followed by Clifford Brown. Later groups included Lee Morgan, a soulful player of great wit, and Freddie Hubbard, who went on to become one of the major voices in jazz of the sixties and seventies. Hubbard displays a warm and vibrant tone as big as the great swing players' yet with a thoroughly modern conception. He is a prodigious technician, and his solos, on both ballads and up-tempo numbers, are full of passion and fire.”
Richard Cook and Brian Morton in their Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Ed., offer the following description of Freddie’s importance by focusing on his early recordings under his own name that he made for Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff at Blue Note:
“Freddie Hubbard was one of the liveliest of the young hard-bop lions of the late 19505 and early '6os. As a Jazz Messenger, and with his own early albums for Blue Note, he set down so many great solos that trumpeters have made studies of him to this day, the burnished tone, bravura phrasing and rhythmical subtleties still enduringly modern. He never quite had the quickfire genius of Lee Morgan, but he had a greater all-round strength, and he is an essential player in the theatre of hard bop. His several Blue Note dates seem to come and go in the catalogue, but we are listing Open Sesame, Goin’ Up (though it is a 'Connoisseur' limited edition) and the new Rudy van Gelder edition of Hub-Tones, each a vintage example of Blue Note hard bop. Open Sesame and Goin’ Up were his first two records for the label and their youthful ebullience is still exhilarating, the trumpeter throwing off dazzling phrases almost for the sheer fun of it. The brio of the debut is paired with the sense that this was the important coming-out of a major talent, and Hubbard's solo on the title-track is a remarkable piece of brinkmanship: in the bonus alternative take, he's a shade cooler, but that more tempered effort is less exciting, too”
What has always struck me as odd is that although it was one of his earliest recordings under his own name [the 5th if I’m counting correctly], there is very little mention of The Artistry of Freddie Hubbard [Impulse IMPD-179]in the Jazz literature.
Recorded in 1962, Dan Morgenstern had this to say about it in the following excerpts from his liner notes to the LP:
“In a recent interview in Playboy [1962], Miles Davis was asked about trumpet players. Among the dozen names Miles mentioned having set his criteria “does the man project and does he have ideas” such as Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Eldridge, Bobby Hackett, Kenny Dorham and 24-year old Freddie Hubbard. Miles made a point of stating that, unlike Jazz critics and pollsters, he wasn’t rating or comparing artists but talking about men with individual ideas and styles. Freddie Hubbard, though his musical ancestors clearly include Miles himself and the late Clifford Brown, is a young player with a style and a mind of his own.
Indianapolis born Hubbard has behind him work with the groups of Slide Hampton, Max Roach and J.J. Johnston prior to embarking on his association with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.
His bright, bold and unashamedly brassy trumpet sound has done much to make the current edition of that durable ensemble one of the best.
Hubbard can get around on his horn, but he has not sacrificed range for speed or sound for ingenuity.
His ability to produce a good tone in all registers is one of the things that make him stand out from the flock, as is his way with long notes.
In an era of Jazz dominated by saxophonists, Hubbard’s command of the horn is almost a throwback to the trumpet-reigned 1930’s.
But only in terms of instrumental approach can this be said about Freddie Hubbard. His musical ideas are definitely of today …. [He] has a gift for conceiving harmonically challenging original lines and is fond of the “freedom from four-four” which the “new thing” seems to strive for. His sound execution and control enhances these pursuits. No matter how advanced his style of playing may become, it never moves to the stage where it becomes a disadvantage.”
Among the pleasures I receive from preparing the features for this blog is revisiting - in some case, rediscovering - favorite records and sharing thoughts and impressions about them on these pages.
Such is the case with The Artistry of Freddie Hubbard.See what you think as the following video tribute to Freddie is set to Caravan, the opening track on this recording. Curtis Fuller is on trombone, John Gilmore in on tenor saxophone with a rhythm section of Tommy Flanagan, piano, Art Davis, bass and Lewis Hayes drums.
