MJT+3 [1957-62] - Updated with Revisions

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

With the recent passing of pianist Harold Mabern [9.19.2019], a charter member of MJT+3, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles thought it might be appropriate to republish this feature as a memoriam and to celebrate the 60th anniversary of our initial "meeting" [with the acquisition of my first recording by the group on VeeJay in 1959!].

If a generation is twenty years, then the recordings by the MJT+3 can be said to span three of them, yet they sound as fresh today as when they were first recorded over 60 years ago.

MJT+3 [1957-62] (Modern Jazz Two + 3) recorded several LPs for the Vee Jay label which, according to Jazz historian Noal Cohen, “... in hindsight, reveal the ensemble to be one of the most innovative of the many hard bop working bands of the late 1950s.”

Drummer Walter Perkins and bassist Bob Cranshaw are the founding members of the Modern Jazz Two +3. The group was formed in Chicago in 1957 and disbanded in 1962 after it moved to New York.

“Perkins’ drumming is notable for its drive and swing; he plays to support the soloist rather than to display his own technique.”  J. Kent Williams writing in The New Grove Encyclopedia of Jazz, Barry Kernfeld, ed.].

The other members of the group were pianist Harold Mabern, who as a composer is “noted for his melodic gifts” [Paul Rinzler], trumpeter Willie Thomas, who performed with many Jazz notables over the course of his long career including the Slide Hampton Octet, Woody Herman’s big band, the Al Belletto Sextet and vocalists Peggy Lee and Bill Henderson [he is also a distinguished Jazz educator, and alto saxophonist Frank Strozier.

On his Jazz History Website, Noal Cohen, who is also Frank Strozier’s discographer offers these observations about him:

“Influenced by both Charlie Parker and Lee Konitz, Strozier emerged in the late 1950s as the archetypal hard bop alto saxophonist. His playing was fluid, hard swinging and emotional and his solos beautifully constructed. Gifted with a recognizable sound and conception and an ability to constantly generate ideas without repeating himself, Strozier has always been held in high regard by musicians. Unfortunately, his contributions remain insufficiently known and appreciated by the wider jazz community.

The great multi-instrumentalist Howard Johnson, who recorded with Strozier, describes the latter’s position in the jazz continuum as more inspirational than directly influential: “No one was ever really up to the task of playing with that much technical proficiency, deep harmonic expression and all the while keeping a foot deeply in the blues. For me, Frank is joined by Harry Carney, Benny Golson, Sonny Red and Paul Gonsalves in the league of players who were never imitated because their way was too hard to figure out, much less execute. And at the same time they were as deeply inspirational as some of the widely acknowledged innovators. They gave us (me, at least) license to be unique.”

The albums that the MJT+3 made for Vee Jay Records in the late 1950’s have always been among my favorites and I thought it might be fun to profile them by reproducing on these pages the liner notes to three of them written by Ralph J. Gleason, Don Gold and Ira Gitler, respectively.

As is our custom, we will accompany these writings with video montages that offer audio samplings of the group’s music.

Walter Perkins’ MJT+3 [Vee Jay LP SR 1013] - Ralph J. Gleason

“It used to be, back in the days when jazz fans didn't exist in large enough numbers to make Miles Davis outsell Percy Faith, that you bought an occasional record and the rest of the time depended on in-person performances for your kicks.

There's still nothing to beat the thrill you get when you're there and the band is swinging. But records can come pretty close now and in one department they have actually supplanted the old way. That's in the special thrill you get when you hear somebody who is absolutely new to you, of whom you have never heard before and who just simply knocks you out.

This shock of recognition is one of the greatest kicks in jazz. Just as those rare moments when everything goes right, the whole thing falls into place and everybody is together, is what keeps the musicians going through the bad times, so the now and then discovery of a beautiful, exciting new voice in jazz is what keeps the listener plowing through all those LPs.

When I first played this LP, I recognized no one on it. After I looked at the personnel, I knew I had heard some of the men before and heard of some of the others. But what shattered me, racked me up and made me play it over and over was the work of a man I had never heard of, of whose existence I hadn't dreamt but whose music hit me with exceptional force.

His name is Frank Strozier and he plays the alto saxophone. Predictions are chance-y things at best, but I'll chance one right here. We've all been waiting for something past Bird to happen to the alto. Ornette Coleman is taking it in one direction and it is welcome news. Frank Strozier, it seems to me, is taking it in a parallel direction bowing, not to Bird directly, but to John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins and possibly to Ornette, as well. He rips into his solos with the agonized wail that Coltrane has made a specialty of; he packs each long line, breath-taking in its searing irregularity, with high-voltage emotion. To come through on record as he does, he must be something else in person. Hearing him, as I did, for the first time in the context of this LP, was an exciting and thrilling experience. I am sure we will all be hearing a lot more from this Memphis-born youngster.

There's another thing that strikes me about this album and that's the feeling for the blues. Jazz is spreading out these days, crossing the ordinary borders of continents and countries and seeping through the iron, bamboo and cultural curtains all over the world to become the common language of youth. There are some and who's to say they are merely mystics? - who firmly believe that jazz will provide the integument to make us all one world eventually.

Within that common language of jazz there is a basic accent - the blues - without which even the most talented (and the hit charts are ample proof of this) end up merely playing a sort of jazz-oriented cocktail lounge music. That accent comes in only two ways: you are born with it or you are seeped in it until it is a natural sound to you. You cannot play the blues any other way. As jazz continues to spread across the musical horizon and gradually take over as the popular music of the world, the difference between those who speak with this natural accent and those who just do not have it will become more and more marked.

The MJT Plus 3 speak the same language, have the same accent and sound like five brothers, disparate geographical and cultural backgrounds notwithstanding. This is one of the most hopeful aspects of jazz. It is really one of the most hopeful things in our entire Western culture. Jazz proves it can be done and here in an album by a group of young men in Chicago you find it clearly demonstrated.

It may be a long, lonesome road before jazz fulfills its promise but efforts like this show the way, show the possibility and the glimpse of that and its rewards is enough to make the whole thing worthwhile.

A WORD ABOUT THE MUSICIANS Harold Mabern: A 22-year-old, self-taught player, Mabern comes from Memphis and writes as well as plays. Two of his tunes, "Rochelle" (named for Perkins' daughter) and "Brother Spike" (named for the son of Bassist Bill Lee) are on this LP.

Bob Cranshaw, bass: 25 years old and from Evanston, III., has been associated with Perkins for some time. Willie Thomas, trumpet, is 28 and a veteran of several big bands (Anthony, Maclntyre, Herman) and the Al Beletto Sextet.

Frank Strozier, also, is only 22. From Memphis, he studied at Chicago's Conservatory of Music and has lived and worked in that city in recent years.”

MAKE EVERYBODY HAPPY [VEE JAY LP SR 3008] - Don Gold

“Several years ago, Dave Brubeck was asked to define jazz. The skilled pianist's response included this pertinent observation: "What is jazz? When there is not complete freedom of the soloist, it ceases to be jazz. Jazz is about the only form of art existing today in which there is this freedom of the individual without the loss of group contact.... The important thing about iazz right now is that it's keeping alive the feeling of the group getting together. Jazz, to make it, has got to be a group feeling and a group feeling for everyone concerned at the time." In an era in which jazzmen are herded into studios without adequate preparation or conscientious devotion to their music, it is rare to listen to a jazz LP without feeling that it should have been chalked up as a rehearsal for a date to come. The emphasis on group performance too often is neglected; like Mickey Spillane heroes, jazz soloists are in, out and off to the next scene.

Refreshingly, the MJT Plus 3 is not one of those haphazardly assembled groups of hungry jazzmen. Hungry, perhaps. But hungry to create the sort of music in which they believe. Hungry to contribute time and infinite effort to that creation.

The members of the MJT Plus 3 are not eligible for over-30 dances, which is one of the positive indications of the future of jazz. Two of them - alto man Frank Strozier and pianist Harold Mabern - came up the mainstream to Chicago from Memphis, a voyage that has brought other able young jazzmen in recent years (Phineas Newborn, Evans Bradshaw, Booker Little and George Coleman are among the prodigies who come to mind). Willie Thomas, the group's trumpeter, knows the ways of the road and the workings of jazz; he was a mainstay in the Al Beletto sextet and in several big bands. Walter Perkins, the drummer, and Bob Cranshaw, the bassist, have been partners in jazz for several years, working with pianist Ed Higgins' Chicago-based trio and with other midwestern jazz groups.

Perkins has fostered a dream for quite a few years - to sustain the fivesome on a working basis throughout the country, not simply as a local group existing on scale jobs and inspired rehearsals. For a long period of time, the stigma of "the local group" blocked advantageous bookings. The personnel of the group fluctuated. Perkins and Cranshaw never had difficulty in finding jobs, but the desire to see the MJT Plus 3 make it prodded Perkins. He spoke of it whenever and wherever he could, propagandizing writers, editors, record company executives, booking agents and club owners. Finally, this year his efforts paid off. The group could be held together by more than dedication. In a New York appearance, Perkins and men made it clear that they had something to say, that they were exceptionally talented musicians with a string of contributions - as individuals and, most important, as a group - to make in the constantly whirling world of jazz.

After several successful out-of-Chicago appearances, the group's reputation spread; it could return for a Chicago booking without worrying about ever leaving town again. A concern for the group was rewarded. In this, the second volume of the MJT Plus 3 on Vee-Jay, the group cooks as cohesively as ever. When jazz critic Ralph J. Gleason noted, in his comments on their previous LP, that they sound "like five brothers," he was being as accurate as he was flattering. The sounds on this disc merit such comment, too.

Harold Mabern's "Make Everybody Happy" does just that, in its down-home, gospelish, funky, soulful, sanctified, Bobby Timmons-ish (select your favourite term) manner. There are crackling solos from Strozier (Chicago's Conservatory of Music can be proud of this student) and Thomas and a piano passage from Mabern that would delight Ray Charles. In the hands of the group, "The Trolley Song" (remember the 1944 Hollywood epic, Meet Me in St. Louis) turns into a streetcar named Desire, thanks to inventive, offbeat use of the horns; during it, note how Mabern can be fleet when he has to be and economical when that is appropriate. Booker Little's tune, "Sweet Silver", is an obvious tribute to pianist Horace Silver - a hip-wiggling, bluesy salute to a sterling jazzman.

The familiar "Don't Get Around Much Any More" is a relaxed excursion, highlighted by Thomas-Perkins and Strozier-Cranshaw exchanges. Strozier and Thomas share the melody line of "My Buddy" and solo, along with Mabern, between statements of that line. Mabern's Richard's "Dilemma" is a rippling Latin opus, with biting comments from all but the pace-setting Perkins, who's content to provide the impetus. Thomas and Strozier have "Love Letters" their own way, but aren't neglected by the conscientious rhythm section.

To Perkins, who has observed virtuosity in working with Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Sonny Rollins and others, this must have been a satisfying session. It marks a dream come true. And to me it's an encouraging sign that there's plenty of jazz to be played in our time and plenty of eager musicians to play it. Togetherness in jazz apparently didn't die with the first free-for-all blowing session. Groups like the MJT Plus 3 may well restore the benefits jazzmen can acquire simply by listening to each other and respecting each other.”

MJT+3 [Vee Jay LP SR 3014] - Ira Gitler

“In today's intense open competition for the jazz ring of success, a new group must have some quality which will interest record companies and hookers. Most groups have a leader who is an established name; others are composed of several "names" who have banded together under one identifying phrase.

The Modern Jazz Quartet is an example of the latter. In the early Fifties, when they began playing as a unit, club owners were reluctant to book them under their cooperative title. Instead, they wanted to present them as the Milt Jackson Quartet. In time, as they became established, MJQ became a jazz byword. To think of calling them by any other name, would now not smell sweet to their representatives.

The MJT + 3 is another case entirely. Here is a group without a "name" leader and without "name" musicians. It is a group, however, that is going to establish its call letters as a familiar and welcome sound in the ears of jazz listeners. MJT stands for Modern Jazz Two: drummer Walter Perkins and bassist Bob Cranshaw. These are two Chicago musicians who, working together extensively in the past several years, have developed into a tightly-knit rhythm duo.

The "+ 3" is made up of Frank Strozier, Willie Thomas and Harold Mabern.

Alto man Strozier, out of Memphis, Tennessee, came to Chicago to study at the Chicago Conservatory of Music. After graduation in 1958, he worked around town with his own groups and bassist Bill Lee's orchestra. Out of the tradition created by Charlie Parker, Frank is nevertheless a distinctive player and not only because his sound is his own. His excellent academic training never gets in the way of his jazz feeling; it only helps him to communicate it.

Willie Thomas' trumpet was heard around the Midwest (and sometimes the East) with the Al Belletto Sextet and Woody Herman's band when the Belletto group joined Woody en masse. Originally, his influence seemed to be Red Rodney and he echoes this in places here. Some of Art Farmer's lyricism seems to have crept in too, but Willie, like Frank, has his own things to say and his own way of saying them.

Harold Mabern is another Memphis migrant to Chicago. He and Strozier, in their early twenties, are the youngest of the group. Harold is a two-fisted, blues-rooted pianist who also comps with great authority. He has heard Horace Silver, to be sure, but his keyboard approach is vastly different.

And so the "3" came to Chicago and eventually merged with the MJT who had previously headed a group with other horn men. A new group was born without a particular star to hang its hopes on. As I said before, a new outfit must have some aspect which will attract the attention of the powers that present such groups to the public.

The MJT + 3 adheres to the old adage: "In unity there is strength." The collective spirit of the quintet and their ability to play well together is an outstanding feature. Strozier, Thomas and Mabern all contribute to the book, which while not avant-garde or terribly different, is personal, varied and, in several places, extremely unique. The ample space allotted to the soloists soon enables you to realize that talent transcends, whether the musicians are well-known or not.

The above sounds like this is the first recording by the group. Those of you who have followed them on Vee-Jay know better. However, there are many of you who are picking up on the MJT + 3 for the first time. This album, made after a successful invasion of New York (the Five Spot and Smalls') in early 1960, is representative of a new kind of achievement. They have crossed over that intangible line that separates the promising young group from the one with that air of confidence that is the mark of a polished professional combo. They haven't reached their apex yet, but they are on their way.

THE TUNES: Mabern's "Branchin' Out" is a finger-snappin' blues that is 'funky' but not 'corn-fed'. Solos by the "3". "Lil'Abner", Thomas' 'rhythm' swinger, is not from the score of the Broadway-Hollywood musical but rather a tribute to Mr Vee-Jay. The composer's Rodney influence is evident here. Cranshaw has a walking solo and there are exchanges between Perkins and the two horns.

"Don't Ever Throw My Love Away" by Strozier is not a blues by bar-structure, but it has enough blue feeling to paint countless predawn skies. Its lazy, down home, reflective atmosphere is well carried out by soloists Strozier, Thomas and Mabern. Strozier's flute and Thomas' muted trumpet combine to give Willie's wistful "Raggity Man" the proper raggle toggle quality. The march tempo in the bridge and the flute conjured up a weird image for me of a "spirit of 76er" with the blues, limping away from a battle with some Redcoats. Thomas was in his time-machine when he wrote this. It is an odd melody that you can't get out of your head.

"Sheila", by Strozier, has a haunting theme of its own in another groove. The three soloists are exceedingly tender as they show another side of their musical personalities. It is not necessary to play in ballad tempo to communicate a soft mood. The closer, Cole Porter's "Love For Sale", is a swift, well-integrated showcase for Perkins. After the theme, he trades two-bar thoughts with Strozier and Thomas and makes a longer solo statement on his own. Throughout the album, he demonstrates that you needn't play loud in order to swing.”

All three MJT+3 Vee Jay LPs have been compiled and reissued on CD by JORDI PUJOL (FRESH SOUND RECORDS).

Here are three video montages set to the MJT+3’s versions of Ray Bryant’s Sleepy, Harold Mabern’s Brother Spike and Booker Little’s Sweet Silver.

Top Secret Drum Corps - Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo 2022 Throwback

Stomp Off, Let's Go: The Early Years of Louis Armstrong by Ricky Riccardi

 © Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Though Louis Prima recorded widely and well throughout the '30s, achieving great popularity and visibility, his name is often conspicuous by its absence from standard jazz histories. Dealing with him seriously means confronting one aspect of New Orleans jazz which chroniclers, almost as a point of honor, seem to find distasteful.

That, of course, is the matter of showmanship. The flamboyance of Prima's latter career, in which his identity as a trumpeter became almost totally subordinate to his role as a high-energy showman, seems to offend those who would represent Jazz as an art music of solemnity and unstinting high purpose. The Las Vegas image, the raucous sound of Sam Butera and the Witnesses, the risque badinage with singer Keely Smith—such make it all too easy to mistake this showbiz aspect of Prima for the creative substance, ignoring his past achievements and core musicianship.

Far from being exclusive to such as Prima, the idea of hot music as an arm of highly commercialized show business runs throughout the early years. It's present in the singing, dancing, and impromptu comedy skits of the dance bands, including those that prided themselves on their dedication to jazz. Its absence is a root cause of the failure of the great Jean Goldkette orchestra, an ensemble which either stubbornly resisted advice to "put on a show" or acquiesced in a manner landing somewhere between perfunctory and downright hostile.

For New Orleans musicians, especially, showmanship was—and remains—a fact of life. Was it not Louis Armstrong, above all, who understood the relationship between music and entertainment, and never wavered in his application of it, even in the face of critical hostility? "You'll always get critics of showmanship," he told British critic Max Jones. "Critics in England say I was a clown, but a clown—-that's hard. If you can make people chuckle a little; it's happiness to me to see people happy, and most of the people who criticize don't know one note from another.""

-

- Richard Sudhalter, Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contributions to Jazz, 1915-1945. [1999]

I had no idea that the reverse chronology that Ricky Riccardi, Director of Research Collections for the Louis Armstrong House Museum, used to write his Pops Trilogy wasn’t intentional until I read the following in the Acknowledgement that closes Stomp Off, Let's Go: The Early Years of Louis Armstrong - “It was never my intention to write the Armstrong saga in reverse chronological order, but it ended up being a blessing thanks to the sudden accessibility of several important sources that turned up in the last decade.”

Here Ricky’s statement of non-intent within the contents of the full extract:

“The more I learned about Armstrong, the more it seemed that everyone agreed about the greatness of his early years; it was after 1928 when the biographers, critics, historians, and fans disagreed regarding his later career path: did he sell out? Did he go commercial? Did he waste his talent? Was he nothing but an Uncle Tom? I knew my response — a resounding no to each of those questions — and sought to learn as much as I could about Armstrong's post-1928 career, interviewing friends of his and the surviving musicians in his band, and eventually listening to all 700+ reel-to-reel tapes compiled by Armstrong himself, now a part of the Louis Armstrong House Museum, where I have served as director of research collections since 2009.

The results were two books, What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong's Later Years and Heart Full of Rhythm: The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong, as well as a slew of CD, LP, and streaming reissues I co produced and/or wrote notes for, shining a big, broad spotlight on Armstrong's post-1928 career. I toyed with the idea of writing about his early years, but I felt that after his own Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans and the work of writers such as Gary Giddins, Laurence Bergreen, Thomas Brothers, Terry Teachout, Brian Marker, Gunther Schuller, and Robert O'Meally, there wouldn't be much more to add to the story.

If I had written about Armstrong's early years first and done the trilogy in strict chronological order, I would only have been able to rehash what had already been in print for many decades. It was never my intention to write the Armstrong saga in reverse chronological order, but it ended up being a

a blessing thanks to the sudden accessibility of several important sources that turned up in the last decade.”

These recently “turned up important sources” include:

[1] a copy of Louis Armstrong’s original typewritten manuscript for Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans as discovered by Michael Stearns the son of Monroe Stearns who served as the editor for Prentice Hall which published Louis autobiography,

[2] a 1960 draft copy of Lillian Harding Armstrong’s autobiography as told to Danish Jazz writer and historian Chris Albertson which allowed Lil’s voice to play a bigger role in the telling of Pops’ story,

[3] the acquisition of drummer Zutty Singleton's personal photo collection, some of which was used to populate the images used in Stomp Off, Let’s Go,

[4] Yoshio Toyama - “The Satchmo of Japan” - 1973 interview with Louis sister, Beatrice “Mama Lucy” Collins
[5] Bruce Raeburn at Tulane Hogan Jazz Archives “made available hundreds of interviews with Jazz pioneers,”

[6] Melissa Webster also at Tulane’s Jazz Archives “helped me access the research of the late Tad Jones who had been working on the definitive book of Louis Armstrong’s early years, 

[7] the research of James Karst about whom Ricky states: “ Since Tad Jones' passing, no one in New Orleans has made as many ground-breaking discoveries about Louis Armstrong’s early years,”

[8] access to the William Russell notes of the interviews he conducted for the 1939 book Jazzmen courtesy of the Historic New Orleans Collection.

All of which provided Ricky with a kind of primary-source-heaven to tell a more accurate and enhanced story of Pops’ formative years.

And what an inspiring story it is made even more so by Ricky’s wonderful ability as a storyteller. He never gets in the way and lets the story tell itself.

As Ricky unfolds it year-by-year we witness a heart rendering example of a classic Horatio Alger rags-to-riches tale with an ascendancy replete with colorful chapter titles that include “Blessed Assurance [1912],” “Destined to be Great [1914-1915],” “The Memory of the Bullies and Trouble Makers [1916],” “Just Wasn’t My Time to Die, Man [1917],”  “Had to Eat [1917-1918], “Descending the Sky Like a God [1919-1920],” and “Big-Headed Motherf***ers, [1924 -1925].”

Ricky takes us on a journey that helps us understand the circumstances and influences that shaped the musician that Louis grew up to be. While doing so, he also stresses that his values as embodied in “Pops - The Musician as Entertainer” - never changed even if his repertoire did. 

Louis’s primacy as an entertainer is stressed over and over.

As early as the age of eleven, Louis was hamming it up with his friends as part of a Barbershop quartet the benefits of which were, as Ricky recounts it:

“Armstrong couldn't have known it at the time, but harmonizing with his friends developed his ear and provided an invaluable music education that would last a lifetime. Though he rarely liked to get into the nuts and bolts of music theory, in one interview from 1954, Armstrong shared advice he gave to a young trumpet player who struggled to improvise. "I said, 'Well, all you gotta do is think of you singing in a quartet and if somebody's playing the lead on a trumpet, you just play the second to every note he hits, the same as if you're singing a duet,'" Armstrong related. "He said he never thought of it that way. That's the only way to look at it."

Thus, for the rest of his career as both a vocalist and a trumpeter, Armstrong fell back on the lessons he learned in the quartet. When he needed to play or sing lead, he always had the melody front and center in his mind; when he needed to blend in an ensemble, it was never a problem; and even when he was improvising, the lead would be running through his head at all times, allowing him the freedom to create new melodies as if he was "singing a duet." Historians and critics have long debated whether Armstrong played like he sang or sang like he played but the truth is both were connected to the same soul. "You make the same notes, you know, like the horn," Armstrong explained about his singing. "That's why we could scat and do things like that I always would sing. I was singing before I played the horn, see." Armstrong's later bassist Arvell Shaw once said of him, "He would have been a singer regardless if he had played trumpet or not."

Although it may be hard to credit, as early as the age of thirteen, Pops was also an astute observer of trends in popular music, for example:

"It's a Long Way to Tipperary" achieved worldwide popularity after Irish tenor John McCormack recorded it in November 1914, a few months after the start of World War I. The Onwards choice of "Tipperary" is yet another example of men like Oliver and Perez playing the most popular songs of the era, a lesson not lost on Armstrong.” [Emphasis mine.]

Another feature of Ricky’s writing that I find to be particularly helpful is the way in which he summarizes certain milestones in Pops’ career. For example:

“The story of the Karnofskys buying a cornet for Armstrong would not be widely known until Gary Giddins published it in his 1988 book Satchmo. Thus, Finola's statement does seem to tie everything together: in late 1914 or early 1915, Armstrong returns to live with Mayann, works on the coal cart with Morris Karnofsky and selling newspapers for Charlie Wilson, falls under the spell of Joe Oliver at Pete Lala's, spots a cornet at Uncle Jake's pawn shop near the Karnofskys' new residence at 427 South Rampart, gets the Karnofskys to advance him the money for the instrument, and pays it off with funds earned from both the coal wagon and from selling newspapers.

However it happened and whenever it happened, Armstrong never forgot the importance of the Karnofsky family in his early life. "As I said before I must have been born with talent," he wrote in 1969. "All that I needed was a little encouragement to bring it out of me. And they did thank God. I was just a kid trying to find out which way to turn. So that Mayann and Mama Lucy could feel proud of their Louis (me). Not trying to be too much, just a good ordinary horn blower. The Jewish people sure did turn me out in many ways." Armstrong would wear a Star of David around his neck for much of his adult life, a way of remembering the impact the Karnofsky family made on him.”

Or when in 1917, King Oliver joins the Original Creole Band for the grand opening of the Royal Gardens [to become more famous as the Lincoln Gardens] in Chicago, Ricky writes:

“Louis Armstrong was also at the train station that day to see Oliver off. He called it "a sad parting" but also summed it up as "that's Show Business for you." He had no time to sulk because he had to go to work. "The minute the train pulled out, I was on my way out of the Illinois Central Station to get back up on my cart, and continue to deliver my load of coal, when Kid Ory called to me," Armstrong recalled.

Ory told Armstrong he "had heard a lot of talk about Little Louis" and that the boys in the band "told him to go get Little Louis to take Joe's place," Armstrong recalled. "I went to see him and told him that if he got himself a pair of long trousers I'd give him a job," Ory said.

Louis was ecstatic and immediately ran home to share the news with his mother. "I had been having so many bad breaks, until I just had to make a beeline to Maryann," he wrote. "She was the one who had always encouraged me to carry on with my cornet playing, since I loved it so well." "Within two hours, Louis came to my house and said, 'Here I am. I'll be glad when 8 o'clock comes. I'm ready to go,'" Ory said. Looking back, Ory reflected, "There were many good, experienced trumpet players in town, but none of them had young Louis' possibilities."

Armstrong's whole life had seemingly been building up to this moment. Shooting off the gun on New Years Eve, learning the cornet in the Waif's Home, playing for Ory at the Labor Day parade, the encouragement of the Karnofskys, the lessons and mentoring of Oliver, the protection of Black Benny and Slippers, the countless hours of playing honky-tonks such as Pons's and Matranga's with the countless bullets sizzling past him, the excitement of the Brown Skin Jazz Band, the battles with Kid Rena, all of it had led him here.

He was ready.”

The last third of the book deals with developments in Louis’ life that led to his fame with more of Ricky’s excellent summations on hand. For example:

in 1919, Louis began an association with Fate Marable’s band on the Streckfus Mississippi River Steamboats and aside from his famous gravel voice which he got from a persistent cold while on the river boats, Ricky observes:

"There was a saying in New Orleans," drummer Zutty Singleton once said. "When some musician would get a job on the riverboats with Fate Marable, they'd say, 'Well you're going to the conservatory.'" Armstrong's three seasons with Marable represented his conservatory years in every sense of the word. He entered the world of the riverboats in 1919, armed with only a trout sandwich and a jar of olives, unable to read arrangements, too bashful to take a featured solo, derided for puffing when he blew, all while doing his best to ignore racist comments from ignorant passengers. By 1921, he was reading, soloing, singing, scatting, dancing, playing slide whistle and slide trumpet, doing comedy, coining slang, inspiring youngsters, and "descending the sky like a god" in the words of Jack Teagarden.”

As to where Louis’ career stood when he got the call in 1921 to leave New Orleans to join his beloved Papa Joe Oliver in Chicago at the newly renamed Lincoln Gardens, Rickey astutely puts it this way:

“Armstrong was leaving with a musical education that would get him through the rest of his career. "He was gathering knowledge all the time," Danny Barker said of Armstrong's New Orleans years. "When Louis went to Chicago, Louis was prepared."76 His cornet style now dipped into four separate buckets: the tone of Bunk Johnson, the fire of Joe Oliver, the high notes of Henry "Kid" Rena, and the harmonic knowledge of Buddy Petit. He had mastered their styles, mastered what was called "jazz," mastered the blues, which he played for countless hours in the honky-tonks.

But there was so much more to his musical upbringing than just blues and jazz: the experience of playing ragtime from the "red back book"; playing waltzes, rhumbas, foxtrots for dancers; learning Art Hickman and Paul Whiteman arrangements directly from the records; interpreting the latest pop music hits in every band he played in; singing and harmonizing with his quartet; scatting and playing slide whistle and slide cornet on the riverboat; instilling his heart into funeral marches with the Tuxedo and Excelsior Brass Bands; humming along with the Yiddish lullabies sung by the Karnofsky family; gobbling up the operatic stylings of Enrico Caruso, Amelita Galli-Curci, and Luisa Tetrazzini on his Victrola; reciting Bert Williams's comedic monologues; singing all those songs about "Katie" and her assorted body parts. Armstrong's goal was to be a complete musician, one who could master every style, and he achieved it by the age of 21.

When a friend spotted him at the train station and asked, "Where are you going, Dipper?" Armstrong responded with pride: "Yeah man, I'm going up to Chicago to play with my idol, Papa Joe."”

Ricky is also fond of setting up “surprises” in his narrative with transitional statements like -

“Oliver also occasionally took Armstrong out on the town to hear Chicago's other jazz bands. One night they ended up at Bill Bottoms's Dreamland Café, where the orchestra was led by violinist Mae Brady. Oliver pointed at the band's pianist and told Armstrong, "That there is Miss Lil."

Oliver couldn't have known it at the time, but that simple gesture would change the sound of twentieth-century music — and eventually drive Louis Armstrong out of his band.” [Emphasis mine].

He follows this provocative statement with the chapter entitled “The Hot Miss Lil [1922-23] which of course sets the stage for their union as a couple and the resulting landmark Hot Five and Hot Sevens recordings under Pops’ leadership which “changed the sound of twentieth-century music.”

In his closing chapters of Stomp Off, Let’s Go, Ricky discusses these recordings in a way that makes them an informal track-by-track annotated discography. But this is not just any annotated discography, this one is brimming with a staggering bunch of original insights like the following one about Cornet Chop Suey:

 “But two caveats must be mentioned when discussing Armstrong's ‘ideas’ on "Cornet Chop Suey"—they weren't improvised, and they might not even have been his to begin with.” [!]

Or this fascinating assessment of what the introduction to West End Blues may represent in terms of a broader perspective of Louis’ life:

“The "introduction" turned out to be an unaccompanied trumpet cadenza that would soon take its place as one of the most iconic moments of twentieth-century music. In about 13 seconds, Armstrong drew on nearly everything that had inspired him up to this point in his career: the blues he immersed himself in in New Orleans, the tone of Bunk Johnson, the chromaticism of Buddy Petit, the classical patterns shown to him by Lil Hardin, the high notes of Kid Rena and B. A. Rolfe, the operatic stylings of Enrico Caruso, the drama of everyday life itself, the strength garnered from working on the coal cart, the hunger forged from not knowing where his next meal was coming from, all coming together to service a composition by Joe Oliver.”

The concluding chapters are also full of interesting anecdotes including Louis and Bix Beiderbecke jammin’ in Louis’ Chicago hotel room when Bix was in town with Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra, Pops’ engrossing interest in the “sweet music” of the Guy Lombardo Orchestra and Armstrong’s time on the sweet music band headed up by Carroll Dickerson.

The closing Epilogue recounts the roles of Lil Hardin and King Oliver as the “architects of Louis’ stardom,” the incredibly nostalgic 1949 reunion with Captain Joseph Jones of the Colored Waif’s home in New Orleans and contains this poignant description of Louis’ New Orleans roots in the book’s closing paragraph:

“Armstrong may have never moved back to New Orleans, but the lessons he learned in that city were present every time he stepped on stage or in a recording studio.

‘You know, I never did leave New Orleans,’ he claimed in 1950. ‘Right now I keep the essence of New Orleans every time I play.’

“‘They say, 'Where would you live?'” Armstrong asked in a tape-recorded conversation made in 1965. "I said I don't care where, I'm born in New Orleans, that's my hometown. That's it. I don't care where, I'll go to Guadalupe, wherever it is— [I'm a] New Orleans boy, and that's it."

Thus, it was fitting that the last words he sang on stage at the Waldorf in 1971 was the phrase "Boy from New Orleans." Armstrong knew what it meant to miss New Orleans, to love New Orleans, to celebrate New Orleans, to be hurt by New Orleans, and to hate New Orleans —but through it all, he knew that in many ways, he was New Orleans, with all of its complexities.

And over 50 years after his passing, he's still New Orleans.”

Aside from being a totally delightful reading experience, Ricky’s Pops trilogy deserves to be cherished by every Jazz fan because with a nod to Dizzy Gillespie when asked about Louis’ influence on his playing: “No him, no us.”

My trilogy of the Jazz equivalent of The Greatest Story Ever Told is up on my bookshelf right next to The Bible and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.

Where are you going to put yours?

For order information, go here.