Sunday, June 22, 2025

Ray McKinley - 1910-1995 - "Jazz Drumming As A Rhythmic Presence"

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


“Glenn Miller was worth a million dollars a year while he was alive (an estimate had it that during the early years of the Second World War one out of every three coins put into juke boxes was for a Miller record). In financial terms the best was yet to come for Miller's dramatic disappearance in a small aircraft over the English Channel on 15 December 1944 unlocked the riches of Croesus for those who ran the "graveyard" bands which to this day play his music. Miller bands still abound, their leaders often squabbling over which is the "official" one. The best of them, most faithful to the original music, was the one led by Ray McKinley.


"Glenn Miller should have lived. His music should have died" is a tenet of the New York jazz musician's philosophy. For in truth, as you will know if you have been driven mad by the unceasing performances of the Miller hit "In The Mood" during the VE celebrations, Miller's music, skilled for the time, was carefully aimed at an audience with a low threshold of pain as far as activity of the intellect was concerned. It is a stagnant music without inspiration, to be repeated remorselessly without variation. It should be hell for the musicians who have to play it.


The sections in Miller's band were so closely knit and precise that there was rarely any feeling for swing. McKinley loosened the music up a bit when his band played it. But not much


Miller and McKinley first met in Chicago (where McKinley was almost crippled when a gangster's stray bullet smashed his leg as he played in a nightclub). An expert and tasteful drummer, McKinley, when he enlisted in the army, was Miller's first choice for the US Army Air Force Band which he formed and later brought to Europe in July 1944. ...


After Miller's death, McKinley shared the leadership of the main dance band with Jerry Gray until he left to form his own band.”
- Steve Voce, Obituary, The Independent, May 10, 1995


Sadly, for many people, the above encapsulation of drummer Ray McKinley’s time with the Glenn Miller Orchestra is pretty much the extent of what they know about his career.


Particularly disappointing about this limited view of Ray’s talents is that as Jim Chapin, author of the famous drumming method book Advanced Techniques For The Modern Drummer (1948) notes: “Ray McKinley was one of the best; he has never really had the recognition he deserves as a drummer."


According to Georges Paczynski, in Volume 1 of his Une Histoire de la Batterie de Jazz:


“Le batteur [Ray McKinley] pousse le big band avec une énergie incroyable, alliant la puissance, la souplesse et un sens de la mise en place remarquable.”


“Ray McKinley [The drummer] pushes the big band with incredible energy, combining power, flexibility and a sense of setting up [the soloists that is] remarkable.” [p. 215]


Cliff Leeman, the versatile and accomplished drummer who played with Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw and Charlie Barnet during the heyday of the Swing Era Big Bands probably sums up Ray’s contributions to the art of Jazz drumming best in the following statement:


“I caught the Dorseys [Tommy and Jimmy] on a one-nighter in Massachusetts. A buddy and I came down from Maine to hear the band. It was very much worth the trip. The band had an unusual sound and instrumentation. When it played softly, it really was a pleasure. Mac [McKinley] was just as good in person as he was on the radio. His drums had a marvelous sound; they were tuned to what seemed like different intervals. He used the set in a most musical way. I recall he played a lot of top cymbal and his rim shots were clean, sharp, and well placed. As in later years, he backed the band and soloists very well. He worked to make them sound good.


That concept was very much a part of him . . . and still is. Remember, Mac is a product of an era that preceded the emergence of the drummer bent on showing what he could do. Unlike many of the highly technical showman drummers, McKinley combined elements of showmanship and thoughtful, feeling performance. He never ignored his time-keeping duties.

Gene Krupa got the whole "showboat" trend started. I don't want to put Gene down; he was a great artist. But his effect on the field was not entirely positive. It was a healthy thing that there were a number of guys around, like Mac, whose work reminded other drummers what had to be done.” [Emphasis mine]


Burt Korall provides an excellent overview of Ray McKinley’s career as well as some insightful commentary about his drumming in the following excerpt from Drummin’ Men: The Heartbeat of Jazz - The Swing Years:


“Neither as flamboyant as Gene Krupa, nor a technical wizard like Buddy Rich, Ray McKinley has built his reputation on less obvious aspects of the craft. McKinley tends to be subtle and suggestive. A rhythm presence rather than an unrelenting force, he is aggressive only when the music calls for it. McKinley also has great humor; he brings the light touch to music more frequently than many of his colleagues. Sometimes he tickles you to a point where you laugh out loud.


His effectiveness stems from masterful and highly creative time-keeping and a deep sense of the musical. Few in the profession have his flair for color and ability to freshen material in totally unexpected ways. But McKinley is not sensational, in the most obvious sense of the word. He is, above all, highly supportive of his musical associates, a trait for which other performers and critics admire him greatly. The public probably doesn't fully grasp his importance as a keeper of the flame on drums.”


McKinley is generally considered a singer of rhythm and novelty songs first, then a band leader, and finally a drummer. Most of his fans regard him primarily as an entertainer. McKinley has done little to dispel his image as a multiple threat.


It is drumming, however, that best reveals who and what he is. Rhythm is basic to everything he does. Key recordings with the Dorsey Brothers and with Jimmy Dorsey in the 1930s, with Will Bradley and the Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band in the first half of the 1940s, and with his own bands and groups since then, tell his story well. These recordings parallel McKinley's live performances in their ease, command, and natural swing.


There are some grounds for dispute with McKinley on only one issue: his position on modern jazz. He has never taken it very seriously, and has chosen to remain a combination two-beat and straight-ahead four-beat swing drummer.


It would have been interesting to hear McKinley bringing his talent to bear on the new music of the 1940s and subsequent decades. He has often indicated a capacity for change. After all, he gave visionary composer-arranger Eddie Sauter the opportunity to create much of the library for his post World War II band. And he did update his ideas and drum style, making it possible to validly interpret, rhythmically, Sauter's modern scores.


One thing is certain: McKinley never has been a musical hypocrite. Like many of his colleagues, McKinley points out that to change radically, just for the sake of being up-to-date, is not only difficult but unnatural. The turnaround, he believes, can negatively affect performance and ultimately play havoc on a player's security and sense of identity.” [pp. 90-91; Poor Davey Tough was in some ways a victim of such insecurities as he was haunted by the fact that he couldn’t make the transition from Swing Era to Bebop drumming in the 1940s.]


In his book The Big Bands, 4th Edition, George T. Simon, who was also a drummer for a time before turning exclusively to writing about the big bands primarily for Metronome picks up on the last two paragraphs of Burt’s character and approach to drumming:


“RAY McKINLEY was always an amazing drummer. He propelled a swinging beat, very often with a two-beat dixieland basis, that inspired musicians to play better. He spent more time on getting just the right sound out of his drums than any other drummer I can recall. He had a wild, zany sense of humor, which he often expressed through his instrument. Extremely bright, articulate and sensitive, he sometimes hid his true nature beneath a veneer of sarcasm. Incompetence and fakery bugged him, and he'd show it. True talent and candor pleased him, and he'd show that too. Few musicians have acted as blunt, as independent and as honest as this sometimes hard-nosed, more often softhearted, Texan.” [p. 343]


The following by Ken Rattenbury, the author of the segment on Ray in The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, Barry Kernfeld, ed. is a succinct and accurate estimation of McKinley’s importance both as a drummer and as a bandleader:


“McKinley's swinging, tasteful drumming was the driving force behind many important groups and his bubbly, buoyant character and infectious good humor, evident in both drumming and singing, were qualities which proved considerable assets both musically and commercially.” [p. 735]


The musicians that Ray worked with over the years loved his playing.


"His approach is very individual. He uses his technique in the best way possible. It just works within the music. And you can't figure out what the hell he did!" - Bassist Bob Haggart


"Mac makes the drum set into a truly 'musical' instrument. He always is subtle, charming and executes well without being too technical." - Drummer Cliff Leeman


"We were together for a while in the Jimmy Dorsey band in the late 1930s. Ray could be a little caustic and impatient in his dealings with people. But I'll tell you one thing: musically, he didn't screw around. He was a very sincere musician. I liked that. He took care of business. Most players did back then. Musicians weren't quite as cynical as they are now."


What I particularly remember about Ray during the Jimmy Dorsey days was the way he held the band together. He was authoritative and sensitive. And he really knew how to color and fill in the open spaces. Like Davey Tough and Sonny Greer, he seemed to come up with just the right figure and little touch. Sometimes he'd get into the cowbell kind of stuff that Dixieland drummers favored — "Way Down South" things that pushed the beat long. But it always felt good.


Another thing: Most drum soloists don't make a hell of a lot of sense to me. But McKinley is an exception; he seems to go someplace when he has the spotlight.


Ray also could be very helpful, if the feeling was upon him. He did a lot for trombonist Bobby Byrne, the youngest guy in the Dorsey band. Mac took him over and more or less taught him to play jazz.” - Trumpeter Jimmy Maxwell


"He's a very solid footman. McKinley knows just how to use the bass drum. One of the top guys, he never really has gotten the recognition he deserves." Drum Instructor Jim Chapin


"McKinley is very sensitive to the beat, very concerned about swinging. He approaches everything with that in mind. No matter how commercial or far out the music is, he wants it to have that 'feel.' He likes to 'cook.’ - Pianist Lou Stein


"Mac could have been a good all-around modern drummer if he had allowed himself to be concerned with that type of playing. He is much better than most musicians realize.


After I joined the [post war] band, I knew it was going to be something great. And that's how it turned out. Of course the charts were fantastic. But even more important to me: I learned most of what I know about playing in big band settings from McKinley. He had a very definite idea about the function of each instrument and how it fit into a jazz orchestra. I have to thank him for that.


And he's a hell of a drummer. A lot of guys I've worked with are wonderful soloists; they can play fast and read well. But what they bring to the band and the rhythm section doesn't make it. Mac's way with music and rhythm is outstanding. It always felt terrific in the McKinley rhythm section. And let's face it, if the rhythm section works, then the rest of the band can get on with playing the music.


In some ways, though, Mac was a paradox. He hired Eddie Sauter and really played his music. On the other hand, he didn't let himself become involved with modern jazz, even though he had the talent to play it.


Paradox or not, Mac had the courage to organize and keep going a wonderful, musically memorable band. For that and numerous other things he has done for music and musicians, he must be deeply respected. He's a dear man who I will always consider one of my best friends and, of course, my mentor. - Guitarist Mundell Lowe


"Mac makes it a pleasure for the player. You never have any doubt about the 'time.' He locks it in from beginning to end. You can make book on it. He plays for the other musicians . . . and so naturally. That's why he's one of my favorites." - Alto saxophonist Lenny Hambro.


Although I would eventually work backwards chronologically to Ray’s days with the Dorsey bands and the band he co-lead with Will Bradley, the real starting point for me was the great band featuring the composition and arrangements primarily by Eddie Sauter that he led from 1946-50.


In the following excerpts from  Burt Korall’s Drummin’ Men: The Heartbeat of Jazz - The Swing Years: Ray explains how that great band it came about this way:


McKinley: We arrived back in the States late in August, 1945. Shortly thereafter, I got out of the Army on points. And I began rehearsing my own band. New ground was broken. Eddie Sauter, an arranger and composer who Glenn said was way ahead of his time, wrote most of the charts. Deane Kincaide did the rest. The players were young and enthusiastic—guys like Mundell Lowe (guitar), Vern Friley and Irv Dinkin (trombones), Nick Travis and Rusty Dedrick (trumpets), Ray Seller (alto saxophone) and Lou Stein (piano).


We got something real good going. If I hadn't been the leader, with all the headaches that go with the job, I would have enjoyed it even more than I did. But I had the sense to know I had an important band.


The recordings we made, however, don't do the band justice. The industry didn't have the capacity to capture the best of any large group of musicians in those days. Much of what was played in the studio was lost. Recording techniques were just too primitive.


Korall: Late-night remote broadcasts from various spots, including the Hotel Commodore in New York City, got the band's message across. As a youngster, I remember waiting anxiously, night after night, to hear McKinley and his men; though not completely aware of the implications of the music and the performances, I did realize it was quite hip and special.


Central to the McKinley band's impact were the Sauter charts which were well knit and often quite melodic. Unexpected harmonies, interesting rhythmic juxtapositions, a variety of colors moved quickly past as one listened. Sauter used the orchestra and its individual players to create provocative musical experiences.


In McKinley, Sauter had a very supportive leader who, despite his traditional background, played the music with extraordinary understanding and taste and sense of adventure. During many of the broadcasts (and later when I bought the Majestic recordings of the Sauter creations), I was agreeably surprised by McKinley's performances. Though his style hadn't radically changed over the years, he made the music work and swing. He had discarded the two-beat, inner coating of his playing. The music moved in "four," though as the scores unfolded, they sometimes suggested other meters.


Because the band was unconventional, McKinley had a struggle on his hands. Those who sought the comfortable and easy-to-understand—and this included hookers, musicians, fans, and critics— forced the McKinley crew to play more accessible music and to become progressively more "versatile," though the band continued to play the Sauter material. McKinley and his men recorded an increasing number of novelties such as "Hoodie Addle" (Majestic, 1946), "Red Silk Stockings and Green Perfume" (Majestic, 1947), "Pancho Maximilian Hernandez" (Majestic, 1947), and "Arizay" (Victor, 1947), generally featuring McKinley vocals. Some of these enjoyed great success. The focus was on McKinley the entertainer, in order to keep the band afloat and in the black.


MCKINLEY: We had a few good years. But in the late 1940s, the band business started to wobble and get sick. As a matter of fact, it began to die. To survive, I changed the format, let some of the fellows go, shaving down the band to a size that was "workable" as far as the hookers were concerned. We played a simpler library. But in the long run, it made no difference.


In 1951, after an attack of amoebic dysentery, I broke up the band, got off the road, and took it easy. It was over. It seemed the right time to work in and around New York. I did a variety of things on radio and TV—a DJ show, weather reports incorporating some drumming, and several TV variety shows as a leader of a studio band. Only occasionally did I take a big band job nearby. And then I just picked up some guys in town and played the easier charts in the library.


The great post-war McKinley band rapidly became a memory, as far as the public was concerned. But those who helped shape it and the critics who were around remember it with great affection.


LOU STEIN: I love Ray for many reasons. Not the least of these: he hired me to play with that great post-war band. The players were so involved. They really wanted to play well. There was such enthusiasm. You never forget that. That attitude is not too prevalent these days.


MUNDELL LOWE: After I joined the band, I knew it was going to be something great. And that's how it turned out. Of course the charts were fantastic.” [pp. 110-112]


George T. Simon’s recollection of Ray’s postwar band are contained in the following excerpts from The Big Bands, 4th Edition:


“After the war, McKinley started the kind of band few ever thought he'd front, a highly sophisticated musical outfit. At the suggestion of band booker and builder Willard Alexander, Ray joined forces with one of the most progressive of all arrangers, Eddie Sauter, about whom Glenn Miller had
once exclaimed admiringly, "Eddie Sauter is just about ten years ahead of every other arranger in the business."


Sauter's wonderfully inventive scores were musically superb. But they were difficult to play, requiring intensive rehearsing and concentration. The results were sometimes good, sometimes not so good, as I noted in my April, 1946, review of the band, which began: "Ray McKinley's new band is new in age, maturity and ideas. Therein lies its assets and liabilities with the former far exceeding the latter." ...


As the McKinley band mastered the magnificent Sauter arrangements, it developed into one of the most musically exciting groups of all time, one that combined artistic creativity, color and wit with a true swinging beat. It created a batch of great Sauter instrumentals for Majestic, most of which, unfortunately, were badly recorded. But musicians still rave about sides like "Hangover Square" (for me one of the greatest of all time by any band!), "Sandstorm," "Tumblebug" and "Borderline," which featured a brilliant young McKinley discovery, trombonist Vern Friley. The new band also housed several other excellent young musicians: guitarist Mundell Lowe, who was followed by Johnny Gray, clarinetist Peanuts Hucko and trumpeter Nick Travis.


Ray developed his commercial appeal too. Both Sauter and arranger Deane Kincaide produced many novelties, which Ray sang. Most successful: "Red Silk Stockings." There was also a number that Ray recorded with just a small group for RCA Victor, "You've Come a Long Way from St. Louis," which proved to be the band's biggest hit.” [pp. 344-45]


There’s also this brief reference to the post war McKinley Orchestra in Gunther Schuller’s monumental The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz, 1930-45:


“McKinley spent the late war years in Glenn Miller's Air Force Band, but upon his return to civilian life formed a new band featuring this time the advanced arrangements and compositions of Eddie Sauter, as well as excellent young musicians like trumpeter Nick Travis, guitarist Mundell Lowe, and trombonist Vern Frilcy. Sauter's brilliant modern scores— Sandstorm, Tumblebug, Borderline, and, above all, the outstanding Hangover Square — unfortunately poorly recorded on the Majestic label, will be discussed in detail in the subsequent volume of this History.” [p. 765. Sadly, to the great disappointment of Jazz fans everywhere, there was not to be a “subsequent volume].


We are fortunate to have one further elucidation on the McKinley-Sauter post war collaboration in Jeff Sultanof’s recently published Experiencing Big Band Jazz: A Listener’s Companion:


“Once out of the army, agent \Villard Alexander suggested that McKinley start a new band with Eddie Sauter as chief arranger; Sauter wrote innovative scores for Red Norvo and Benny Goodman before the war. The idea was to balance modern composition with pop hits. The result was a unique ensemble that featured McKinley as drummer and vocalist with Sauter's instrumentals. The music was demanding, but once the band mastered Sauter's unique scores, it became one of the notable ensembles of the era.


What: "Hangover Square" by Eddie Sauter
Where: New York
When: July 9, 1946

These times are approximate as the original YouTube upon which they are based has been deleted.

With "Hangover Square," we experience one of the shifts in big band music. Though danceable, the form of this composition is different from what we've beard before and it sounds abstract. Repeated listening helps us determine how logical Sauter is in introducing and elaborating on his musical materials. Accented offbeats open this recording. In fact, the first part of the record doesn't even have a melody; it's mostly based on variations on the offbeat phrase heard from the very beginning. A repeated note on the piano brings us the second part (1:10), which does have a lovely melody in the saxes, repeated with trumpets playing offbeats (1:24). The B section of this part is played by trombonist Vern Friley (1:36), and when the A section is repeated, the trumpet of Nick Travis is heard (both of these statements are written in the music itself) (1:48). A transition brings us back to the beginning (2:04), which features the guitar of Mundell Lowe (2:15). Eventually the piece ends with a totally different musical phrase played and repeated bb the entire band (2:57).” [p. 79]


The following video features the McKinley band’s version of Eddie Sauter’s Hangover Square.




Saturday, June 21, 2025

Duke Jordan: Flight to Europe

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


“His style is an amalgam of Art Tatum and Bud Powell, the parts not always cohering with absolute authority. A player of great facility, he may have recorded too much to be absolutely distinctive.”


“There are very many recorded versions of some of the pianist's most successful themes. 'Jordu', in particular, has become a popular repertoire piece. A Jordan theme tends to be brief, tightly melodic rather than just a launching-pad of chords, … “
- Richard Cook and Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th E

“Duke Jordan was a pianist whose work with the saxophonist Charlie Parker endures in the jazz pantheon. Jordan was regarded as one of the great early bebop pianists, the sound that he helped to create in the postwar era was something new, and it remains a cornerstone of jazz.”
- www.allaboutjazz.com


“Steve, I had the pleasure of working with Duke Jordan when we were on Stan Getz’s quintet and quartet. We became a quartet, with Kenny Clarke, when Jimmy Raney left.  I was a beginning bassist at the time, and Duke’s playing helped me be a much better player, just by listening to him.  His four bar introductions to tunes were little gems of composition, and sometimes they were so beautiful, we hated to come in for fear of spoiling the mood.  His elegant touch put him in a class with Hank Jones, Al Haig and Ellis Larkins.  His knowledge of harmony and form gave me a lot to work with, and I appreciated every moment we played together.  When Miles Davis trashed his playing in his autobiography, I was terribly offended.  Duke always came to play as well as he knew how, and he certainly knew what he was doing. I was very pleased when, a few years after our time with Getz, he called me to play a few gigs with him when Teddy Kotick, his first choice, was unavailable.  He was a fine person and a fine musician.”
- Bill Crow, bassist


For those of you who are familiar with pianist-composer-bandleader Duke Jordan’s writings, the subtitle of this feature will readily remind you of one of his most famous and often-played compositions - Flight to Jordan.

Besides the play-on-words in the song’s title associated with Duke’s familial name, “Flight” was to have a continuing and important connotation in Duke’s career, as well.

You see, Duke was one of the Jazz musicians that gave impetus to Jazz writer and historian Mike Zwerin’s assertion that “... Jazz went to Europe to live.”

Following some early recordings under his own name in the late 1950s and early 1960s the most famous of which was his one and only recording for Blue Note - Flight to Jordan [1960] - and after scuffling to find music gigs and being forced to drive a cab in Manhattan for a while to make ends meet, Duke made some trips to Europe and eventually moved to Denmark.

There he was to make 24 recordings for Nils Winther’s Steeplechase label from 1973-1985 and to tour and perform through Europe and Japan until his death in 2006.

Duke was an imaginative and gifted pianist who was a regular member of Charlie Parker’s quintet from 1947-48. He also worked with Miles Davis, Sonny Stitt and Stan Getz before performing regularly and recording occasionally in a trio format.

Duke Jordan's career has an odd trajectory. At 25, with an apprenticeship under Coleman Hawkins behind him, he was thrust into the limelight with Charlie Parker and proved himself an able and frequently resourceful accompanist. Thereafter, though, his progress has been curiously elided, wilh long disappearances from the scene. Perhaps as a consequence, he is by far the least well-known of the bebop pianists, surprisingly diffident in performing manner and little given to solo performance, Though he is a fine standards player, he has from time to time preferred to rework a sizeable but tightly organized body of original compositions.

Of Jordan’s two dozen recordings on Steeplechase Richard Cook and Brian Morton have said:

“These have been documented by the Danish Steeplechase label with a thoroughness bordering on redundancy and seemingly quite inconsistent with the pianist's rather marginal reputation ….

What all this amounts to is very difficult to judge. Jordan's annus mirabilis had been and gone. Nils Winther of Steeplechase was a sympathetic and attentive patron, but it must be said that few collectors will want more than two or three of these discs at best, and none of them makes a genuinely pressing demand on the casual listener. This is a vast body of work, with only the most obvious reference-points in the shape of oft-repeated themes and compositions. Doubtless there are aficionados who can speak with authority on the question of their respective merits.”

[N.B. - annus mirabilis literally means “The Wonderful Year” although it is also defined as “several years during which events of major importance are remembered.” It can also be used as a phrase to refer to an artist’s period of peak performance.]

Yet, one wonders after reading the Alun Morgan, Jazz Monthly and the Mark Gardner Jazz Journal articles below about the heart-rendering and gut-wrenching scuffling that Duke had to endure in New York during until his relocation to Europe and his permanent residency in Denmark in 1978 whether Richard Cook and Brian Morton aren’t being a bit too harsh in their assessment of Jordan’s prolific output on Steeplechase.

I remember talking with drummer Ed Thigpen about Duke's relocation to Denmark [Ed also took up residence there] in general and the many recordings he made for Nils Winther's Steeplechase label in particular and Ed cautioned that I had to keep in mind the context of Duke in New York, struggling to find work, driving a taxi to make ends meet and then, going to Europe and all of a sudden being treated with respect as a performing artist and also being accorded a long-standing recording contract.

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles is deeply indebted to internet Jazz mates in England and Australia for making possible access to the Mark Gardner and Alun Morgan essays. While I recognize that because of the reliance that Mark Gardner writing in 1967 has on the Morgan piece results in some duplications, I wanted to maintain the integrity of both essays due to their rarity.


Duke Jordan - An Introduction and Discography by Alun Morgan, January, 1957 edition of Jazz Monthly.

“Duke Jordan was born on April-fool-day 1922. It seems that Fate decided to make it a long-term joke, because Jordan's career has been furthered only through his own perseverance and hard work: luck has played only a small part in Duke's musical life. A survey of his past history shows that he has spent a large proportion of his thirty-four years in casual. insecure employment with only occasional regular engagements to break the monotony. The jazz story runs true to form in the respect that the degree of talent possessed by a musician is no measure of his success. If it was then Jordan would be one of the busiest men in Jazz today.

Born in Brooklyn. New York. he earned the name "Duke" at the age of fourteen through his fanatical hero-worship of Duke Ellington via a carefully hoarded collection of Ellington records. He was seventeen when he played in an amateur band which won a prize at the New York World's Fair in 1939: one of his colleagues m this band was trumpeter Jimmy Nottingham. In 1941 Duke joined a sextet led by Clarke Monroe and later worked with the band that Coleman Hawkins fronted at Kelly’s Stables. A year with Al Cooper's Savoy Sultans preceded a return to the New York clubs where he spent some time in Jay Jay Johnson's group.

Guitarist Teddy Walters tillered Jordan a job with his Trio, an innocent-sounding beginning to what was to become one of the most cherished periods of the pianist's life. Charlie Parker was looking for a new pianist and happened to hear Duke play with the Walters Trio. He came over to the piano between sets ughi and offered Jordan a job with his Quintet which resulted in an association which lasted nearly three years. During this period Parker made most of his "Dial" records and it was Duke who was to be heard on piano. His melodic introductions, (always a strong point on any record which features Jordan) and solos tend to be overshadowed by the masterly brilliance of Parker, but their inclusion does much to enhance the value of the records.

At the beginning of 1949 Parker was temporarily out of work and Jordan filled in with an accompanying job in Detroit. When Parker was offered an engagement at the first Salon du Jazz in Paris during May of that year he sent for Duke to rejoin the Quintet. Jordan answered the telegram by returning post-haste 10 New York only to find that in his anxiety not to fail the French concert promoters Parker had already hired pianist Al Haig.

Duke remained in New York and played on a few isolated record sessions. He spent a short time with the rocking Gene Ammons-Sonny Stitt band the following year then, in 1952, he joined Stan Getz’s Quintet. He told pianist Henri Renaud (vide Jazz Hot magazine for June, 1955) that his nine months with Getz were not entirely satisfactory.  "Stan is a difficult man to work with,”  Duke told Henri,  "he rarely let me take a solo and on top of that, Jimmy Raney used to play guitar accompaniment at the same time as I was playing piano". When Jordan mentioned to Getz the problems of feeding piano chords which, at the same time, did not conflict with Raney’s harmonic interpretations, the tenor man informed him that his job was to play piano and that the Quintet leader was Stan Getz.

In the early part of 1954 Renaud looked up Jordan at his home in Brooklyn amd found a business card in the window. "Irvine Jordan, Modern Piano Teacher". Jordan told Henri that he had had no regular engagements since his departure from the Getz Quintet and to provide a living for his wife Sheila and daughter Tracey he had been giving piano lessons at home. Henri was surprised to find a musician of Duke's capabilities was not only reduced to such circumstances but had no prospects of a record date under his own name in the offing. A projected Trio session for "Savoy" had come to nothing. Jordan was immediately interested in Henri's suggestion that he, Renaud and George Wallington should make a three piano LP for "Prestige" using arrangements provided by Renaud.

A search commenced for a recording studio which contained three pianos and the only location which filled the bill was the hall belonging to RCA Victor. On the day of the session the three pianists accompanied by Curley Russell and Art Taylor recorded the first Renaud arrangement when an official of the AFM entered and asked for proof of Renaud's authority to record in America. What had promised to be a helpful gesture to Duke in his hour of need was quashed bv bureaucracy..

Jordan did record a Trio album for Renaud however (Vogue LDE 099) but its release was confined to France and Britain, although it was offered to a number of American record companies. Vogue LDE 099 contains some typically charming Jordan piano and the prototype versions o! three originals, Minor Encamp, Scotch Blue, and Wait and See. Under the later title Jor du a play on the composer's name, Minor Encamp has emerged as one of the best jazz tunes of recent years and the fact that the tune has already been recorded by several prominent groups is an indication of its popularity amongst musicians. Forecast and Flight to Jordan promise to become standard material in the better-class jazz libraries of the future.

Of late Jordan has been working with the Art Farmer and Gigi Gryce Quintet and played on what is undoubtedly the group's best record session (Prestige PRLP 70I7). In the summer of 1956 Duke accompanied trumpeter Rolf Ericsson to Sweden for a season in the country's National Parks. An unpublicised incident cut short the Scandinavian tour for Jordan, baritone saxist Cecil Payne and bass player John Simmons, but not before Ericsson’s Quintet had recorded for the "Metronome" company in Stockholm.

The LP issues from these sessions contain fresh-sounding small group jazz with Jordan playing a major role both as composer and pianist. He creates the atmospheric setting on Flight to Jordan for Ericsson’s best recorded solo and plays extremely well on his own Forecast, Visby Groove Alley and Vaca Flicka (a twelve bar blues).

Duke Jordan has professed a great liking for the work of Thelonious Monk, although his own plasing is less esoteric and more conventionally melodic. His touch is brilliant and definitive, his use of notes economic and the overall effect is one of complete instrumental control at all tempos. He swings prodigiously but in a way which eschews the use of heavily overstressed chordal work and unnecessary displays of technique. As an accompanist it is no exaggeration to say that he comes close to the standard set by one of his idols. Teddy Wilson: his supporting work is full and reliable as exemplified by the four tracks on Signal S 101, the most successful rhythm accompaniment record yet produced.

For the "student participation" side, alto saxist Gigi Gryce, wearing headphones, was placed in a separate cubicle so that although all four musicians could hear each other only the rhythm section was actually recorded. Duke's best record to date is Signal S 102 issued under his own name. The lirst side contains trio versions of Jordan's own Sultry Eve and Forecast as well as a beautiful solo version of Summertime prefaced by a brilliantly conceived introduction.

Duke Jordan. Al Haig, John Lewis and Tadd Dameron form the core of a lamentably small school of modern jazz pianists. They have shown that the piano is more than a mere percussive extension to the contemporary rhythm section. They have in common a love of melody and an extensive knowledge of harmony, qualifications so necessary to the accompanist. It is saddening to find that with the exception of John Lewis (through his work with the Modern Jazz Quartet) none of these pianists has been well represented on record in recent years. The jazz public at large continues its tradition of preferring superficiality and sensationalism to genuine talent. Meanwhile, men like Duke Jordan find that regular, secure employment is still one of life's most evasive necessities.”

[Alun’s Duke Jordan Discography is not reproduced here because the references are too archaic some 60 years later. Most of Duke’s recorded output from 1945 to 1957 can be found by searching under the names of Roy Eldridge, Charlie Parker and Stan Getz for the years in question.]


Mark Gardner, Duke Jordan: Forgotten Pianist? JazzJournal xvi/11, [1963], p. 15

“It’s no secret that Duke Jordan, the pianist who first jumped into the spotlight with Charlie Parker's Quintet of 1947 has been unemployed for long periods under-recorded and generally neglected by the Jazz public at large, save for the recognition accorded him by a handful of perceptive individuals like Alun Morgan and Henri Renaud.

Indeed, were it not for the fact that Jordan composed the frequently-played Jordu, it is doubtful whether his name would be known at all. Aside from an occasional appearance as a sideman on record dates, relatively very little has been heard from Jordan in the last few years. One of my main objectives on visiting New York, therefore, was to seek out, meet and hear Duke, if at all possible. Cecil Payne, one of Duke's close friends and associates, who was acting as my pilot around the hectic Manhattan and Brooklyn scenes, was none too sure of the pianist's whereabouts and had not seen him for several months.

So we were momentarily hung up. Then, one evening, passing by the Metropole Cafe, we had a lucky break. Bassist Franklin Skeet, a bouncing little man in his ochre band jacket, hailed us from the stand .where he was performing with Henry Red Allen's outfit. By way of hand signals, we arranged to call by later in the evening and sure enough, when we returned from Birdland a couple of hours later, "Skeets" was waiting outside the Met. After hearty introductions, we got round to gossiping about various musicians and their situations. "Skeets", an excitable fellow, was literally raving over Duke Jordan whom he had heard playing solo piano at a small club the previous night.

"Duke was something else. He was playing such beautiful things I could have stayed listening all night," reported Franklin. He understood that Duke was playing nightly at a certain 50th Street location. So we were at last on the scent. The following evening Cecil and I headed for the club in question — a place called "Jazzland." Cecil sported Duke taking a between-sets breather in front of the nightspot and we were quickly introduced and soon deep in conversation.

A slightly-built man with a lean face, which bears the marks of the years of pain and frustration he has suffered as an uncompromising artist, Jordan is understandably bitter. He spoke of the Roger Vadim film Les Liasons Dangereuses for which he wrote a beautiful and fitting score, yet received not a penny piece or any credit, the music being credited to a fictitious "J. Marret." Jordan also talked of his troubles with a certain record company, "X", which started business in a blaze of publicity claiming it would treat musicians in a fair manner. To date, the company has failed to give the pianist any royalties whatsoever. So much for the new deal proclaimed by the two directors of label 'X".

Duke said he had not worked steadily for months and had only recently landed the "Jazzland" job where he began by playing on Sunday nights only. But the owner, bless him, had been pleased with Jordan and had decided to hire him for seven nights a week.

"Due to lack of playing, my fingers are pretty stiff and having to play solo, without even bass and drums, means I have to get around the piano a lot more. Already my fingers are loosening up, but if I was with a band the comping would make them stiffer than ever," Duke said.

Although  Jordan's life has been filled with anguish, he has not allowed self-pity or anger to creep into his music. Essentially a melodist, he plays in a dry, sparse manner which embraces a welcomed sense of humour. Seated at the tiny upright piano, without even the benefit of a microphone, he treated the Jazzland audiences to some of the most intense, solo piano it has ever been niv privilege to hear. But, alas, he might as well have been practising in his Brooklyn home for all the impact it made on the club's clientele. The noisy patrons were far too busy drinking, laughing and chatting up the visiting chicks to pay any attention to the lonely pianist, perched on his box-shaped stool. The customers were probably blissfully unaware that they were listening to Jordan, for he had been given no billing outside the dim-lit cabaret.

"It  gets to be a bit of a drag here." Duke explained apologetically. "Some of these chicks come up and try to sing. And most of them are so bad, you know, really out of metre. Still, I have to make bread the best way I can.”

Disillusioned with the continuous scuffle that is New York, he wants to move to European climes. “When I was  last over in Paris, Kenny Clarke took me over to his pad. He seems to be doing pretty well for himself. If I make it to Europe again I won't come back." he affirmed.

Talk of Europe led to Duke to ask if knew what had happened to drummer Al Jones. Receiving a negative reply, he explained that Jones, Jackie McLean, Michael Mattos and himself had toured Europe in 1962 with the Living Theatre's production of The Connection, but at the conclusion of the trip Jones vanished in Belgium and did not return to the States.

Both Cecil Payne and Duke expressed their admiration for Barney Wilen, the young, Paris based tenor saxophonist who made a couple of records with Jordan and Kenny Dorham in Paris four years ago. [These were reissued as CDs on Vogue under Barney’s name]. "I heard that Barney suffered a collapsed lung and is hanging out in Switzerland now. That’s an awful thing to happen to a promising kid of that age,” sympathised Duke, who has experienced more than his share of misfortune. Jordan added that here was a distinct possibility that The Connection would return to Britain next year                  and he was hoping to make the gig. "You know I very much dig Ted Heath's band? I heard them a couple ol times when they came over here.

I mention Jordan’s trio date taped by Henri Renaud when he visited New York nine years ago and Duke replied: "I remember that well, I still have that record at home - it was issued on the Vogue label."

Queried as to the reason why Blue Note never recorded him in a trio setting —Duke cut one quintet album for the company with Stanley Turrentine, Dizzy Reece. Reggie Workman and Art Taylor —he said: "I guess the quintet line-up was pretty fashionable at that time. But I would like to do another trio date sometime."

Jordan collectors will know that his only other trio recording apart from the excellent Vogue set he mentioned, were waxed for the now defunct Signal Record Corporation in 1956. One half of an album was devoted to five selections by Jordan, Percy Heath and Art Blakey. The other side comprised numbers by the trio augmented by Cecil Payne (baritone sax) and Eddie Bert (trombone). But the record, in spite of its exceptional quality, failed to sell, like all the Signal issues. Perhaps the company was too ambitious in expecting a fickle public to accept non-commercial music from horn men of the caliber of Payne, Jordan,  Red Rodney, Gigi Gryce and Thelonious Monk. In   any event, Signal went under and their slim catalogue of half a dozen   outstanding albums was taken over by Savoy, who have since I understand, deleted the Jordan LP.

The Blue Note release, titled Flight to Jordan, is by far the best collection of Jordania available. All six of the compositions stems from the pianist's fertile mind and in this recording his composing abilities are shown to be exceptional. And his own playing and that of his sidemen is equally impressive

On the strength of his work on this session, and from what I heard at Jazzland, he must be ranked with Teddy Wilson, his old idol, as the most melodic pianists that Jazz has yet produced. Of the post-war men, only Al Haig can match him melodically and the two men have much in common. Both shun the cliches and are more concerned with beauty than ugliness. Each worked with Charlie Parker and both have been thrown into obscurity through indifference and the passing fads of the jazz public.

At the time of writing, the pianist is working at the Open End Club on 77th Street, New York and, the first record to be issued in this country under Jordan's name for nine years has just been put out by MGM. Duke leads Charlie Rouse (tenor), Sonny Cohn (trumpet), Eddie Kahn (bass) and Art Taylor (drums) in new interpretations of his film score for Les Liasons Dangereuses and the result is a consistently interesting album. Conn's horn is rather out of context, but the album features exquisite Jordan and powerful Rouse.

Born on April 1st, 1922, Irving Sidney Jordan started his musical career with Steve Pulliam's Manhattan Sextet, which won a prize as an amateur combo at New York's World Fair in 1939. He left the group and went to work in 1941 with Clarke Monroe in the sextet which later performed under Coleman Hawkin's leadership at Kelly's Stable, New York. He spent a year with Al Cooper's famous Savoy Sultans, but it was while he was with guitarist Teddy Walters' Trio at the Three Deuces that Charlie Parker heard him in 1946. In Robert Reisner's book Bird—The Legend of Charlie Parker, Jordan recalled that night in the -2nd Street Club:

"Charlie was seated at a front table, and I heard him say : 'Wow. listen to that guy,' and he was talking about me. Then he came over and asked me if I would like to work for him, and I jumped at the chance." Later, in the same interview, Duke said: "Working with Bird was one of the tremendous experiences. He always came on with a new musical line that would make my hair stand on end. He used to say to me: *lf you do something out of the ordinary between sets, when you come back to play you will have a different thought, and it will come out in your playing.'"

One night, Duke found Bird in front of the Onyx Club lying across a garbage disposal steel box, rolling back and forth. Apparently, Parker was just trying his in-between-sets experience experiments. Jordan also remembered that Miles Davis wanted John Lewis in the Parker Quintet instead of Duke, but Bird silenced him by quietly and firmly saying that he chose the guys and Miles could form his own outfit if anything displeased him. That was all that was heard from Miles. For three years, off and on, Jordan worked steadily with Parker. He is to be found on all the Dial recordings waxed by Bird's group in New York and he was present on one Detroit date for Savoy, as well as some air shots, taken down on a small tape recorded at the Onyx Club early in 1948. His last recorded appearance with Parker, as far as I know, was a Birdland engagement in September, 1952. I possess an acetate on which there are two quartet performances by Bird, Jordan and an unknown bass player and drummer. They are Ornithology and 52nd Street Theme and both include beautiful solos by the saxophonist and pianist. Perhaps these items will be made available to a wider public in due course.

Duke's next job of importance, after a brief spell with Gene Ammons-Sonny Stitt Band, was a nine-month stint with the Stan Getz Quintet. "Stan is a difficult man to work with. He rarely let me take a solo and on top of that, Jimmy Raney used to play guitar accompaniment at the same time as I was playing piano,” Jordan told Henri Renaud in 1954. It seems that when the pianist mentioned the clash between his chords and Raney's, the tenorist informed him that his job was to play piano. In other words: Mind our own business.

After quitting the Getz group. Duke spent four months with Roy Eldrige whose big band he had played in just after the war for a brief period, and apart from a stav with the Art Farmer-Gigi Gryce Quintet, he has since functioned on a freelance basis, being often out of work for months at a time. A Spring visit to Paris in July enabled Jordan to record the soundtrack for a French movie Witness in Town. Kenny Dorham and Barney Wilen also appeared on this soundtrack which was released on a French Fontana LP. These three musicians were also taped at the Lett Bank Club St. Germaine. This record, cut in front of an enthusiastic audience, contains some of Duke's finest work— on his own Jordu and Tadd Dameron's Ladybird he is nothing short of brilliant. His assimilation of aspects of Horace Silver's style enhances, rather than detracts from, his usually more reserved approach.

I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that Jordan has never recorded a bad solo. His work has always been above accepted standards, no matter what his personal hardship. And it is a tribute to his unswerving belief in his own music that he has not once pandered to popular tastes. His rewards have been few: One can only wish that it will not always be so.

Acknowledgement*: Some of the material used in this article has been drawn from Leonard Feather's New Encyclopaedia Of Jazz; Robert Rentier's Bird-The Legend of Charlie Parker and an article on Jordan by Alun Morgan in the January, 1957, edition of "Jazz Monthly." I would like to express my thanks to all three writers.”


More about Duke and his background is also contained in the following detailed insert notes that the distinguished Jazz writer, critic and historian Leonard Feather wrote for Flight to Jordan [BNST-84046; CDP 7 46824 2]. One of the great things about Leonard’s notes, at least during his early years of writing them, are his descriptions of how tunes are musically structured.

"JORDAN, Duke. Piano. Born Brooklyn, N.Y., 1922. An early bop pianist, a swinging one, still very much part of jazz."

This very brief biography, from Barry Ulanov's A Handbook ol Jazz (Viking Press, 1957), is Duke's only individual mention as far as I have been able to determine, in any American textbook on jazz other than the Encyclopedia of Jazz.

In all the other books you will find either no mention at all, or passing references lumped together with several other names (my own Book of Jazz and John Wilson's Collector's Jozz were guilty in this respect).

Yet  Irving Sydney Jordan, son of Brooklyn, has been paying his dues as a professional musician since shortly before World War II, and those of us who have heard him intermittently during most of the past two decades con hardly be unaware by now that this is no run-of-the-mill musician.

Duke was born of musically inclined but non-professional parents who, when he was eight, placed his musical education in the hands of a private teacher. He continued to study piano until he was 16, playing in the school band at Brooklyn Automotive High. After graduation in 1939 he joined the septet of trombonist Steve Pulliam, a group that included Jimmy Nottingham, now a top studio trumpet man. This combo, appearing in an amateur contest at the New York World's Fair that summer, won a prize and earned the attention of John Hammond, who was impressed by the teen-aged efforts of young Mr. Jordan. The unit stayed together for a year or two, after which Duke entered what was almost certainly the most important formative phase of his career.
Jazz was undergoing a quiet but vital upheaval in 1941.

Around the time when Duke Jordan went to work ot a club called Murrain's, on Seventh Avenue in Harlem, the experiments that were to crystalize in the form of bebop had gotten underway at several uptown clubs. The group in which Duke now worked was led, in effect, by me tenor saxophonist Ray Abrams, but it was under the nominal leadership of Clark Monroe, the veteran night club host who was involved in the operation of a series of clubs, including his own [Monroe’s] Uptown House where Charlie Parker first worked in New York.

Thus, though Duke gained his first experience in jazz through Ihe records of Teddy Wilson, Art Tatum and their contemporaries, he was exposed early to the work of Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, as well as to Gillespie and Parker. As I recall it, when bop burst full-fledged on the downtown scene, Duke was one of Ihe very first to play in what was then a revolutionary new style; in fact the only other bop pianists of any note on itie 52nd Street horizon, aside from Powell himself, were Al Haig, Billy Taylor and George Wallington.

For a while Duke played with Coleman Hawkins at Kelly's Stable, in a combo similar to the one that had been organized by Clark Monroe. After this he returned to the uptown front, working for a year with a "jump band" called the Savoy Sultans, which functioned as a part-time house bond ol the late lamented Savoy Ballroom. But it was when he was downtown again, playing in the trio of guitarist Teddy Walters at the Three Deuces, that Charlie Parker was sufficiently impressed by Duke to hire him for his Quintet. Duke worked intermittently for Bird during Ihis period (1946-8), the other members of the group being Miles Davis, Max Roach and Tommy Potter.

"Working with Bird was a fantastic experience," says Duke. "He was such an inspiration and often I heard him play things that were greater than anything he could do in a recording studio. My greatest regret was that I missed a chance to go to Europe with him. Bird had no work at one time, so I look the chance to go to Detroit with Paul Bascomb, and while I was there Bird was invited to France for the first jazz festival. As it turned out, I didn't get another opportunity to visit Europe until 1956, when I went to Sweden with Rolf Ericson."

During the Bird years Duke played for a few months with Roy Eldridge, recording on a big band date with Roy. Later, after leaving Bird, he worked with the Stan Getz combo in 1949. During the 1950s he free-lanced around New York, gigging with Oscar Pettiford, with off-night groups at Birdland, and also spending some time with Gene Ammons' band. In 1958 he was in Europe for a time with Kenny Dorham, Don Byas and Kenny Clarke.

It was about 1954 that Duke began lo develop as a composer. His first and best known original, Jordu, was recorded first by the Max Roach-Clifford Brown quintet soon after. Duke cut it as a sideman with a Julius Watkins group for a ten-inch LP on Blue Note. He has written many attractive lines since then, of which the most successful have been the title tune of this album, already very popular in English jazz circles, and Scotch Blues, which was recorded by Kenny Burrelll (Blue Note 1596}.

This is the first album composed entirely of Duke Jordan compositions. To interpret his work Duke used a carefully selected combo of mutually sympathetic sidemen. Dizzy Reece had already impressed him through the Blue Note LPs under Dizzy's own name; more recently he played a few nights with Dizzy at the Left Bank in midtown Manhattan, in a combo that also included Reggie Workman, the promising young bassist on these sides. Stanley Turrentine, a 26-year-old tenor man from Pittsburgh, worked with Ray Charles and Earl Bostic, but is best known in jazz through his dates in the post couple of years with Max Roach. Arthur Taylor, a 31-year-old New Yorker, has been on many Blue Note scenes with Bud Powell et al.

Flight To Jordan is a minor-mode theme melodically patterned along the lines of the spiritual Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho. The 32-bar chorus has an A-B-A-B pattern. Veteran Jordan fans will recall that Duke recorded it originally for a now-defunct label. The new treatment has a brighter tempo and maintains a consistent groove throughout the solos by Reece, Turrentine and Jordan. The mood established by Turrentine puts to valuable use both his tonal reflection of Coleman Hawkins and his stylistic debt to Sonny Rollins. (He names Hawkins, Rollins and Byas as his favorites and early influences.)

Of Starbrite Duke says, "I noticed that Dizzy has a fine, big sound on slow tunes, so l wrote this with him in mind." Dizzy has the spotlight throughout the first chorus, outlining the simple, pretty, largely diatonic melody. Duke's own solo is gentle, pensive and relaxed, leading logically to a sinuous tenor passage in which Turrentine reveals both the breathiness and the warm, tender quality of a Ben Webster. Dizzy takes over again for the close, displaying his fine sustained tones and well-controlled vibrato all the way to the tasteful unpretentious coda.

Squawkin' was inspired by an incident that occurred one day not far from Duke's home: "I saw a scene on the street in Brooklyn, a cab-driver and some other cats squawking away, and I thought of writing a theme to express the mood." It's a 12-bar blues with Turrentine at his most fluently impressive, and it cooks all the way, with Dizzy muted and Duke playing long, flowing single-note lines.

Deacon Joe, the longest [and, to these ears, the most impressive] track in the album, was also inspired in this manner, when Duke passed by a storefront church in Brooklyn. There is in this performance none of the pseudo-funk, crypto-gospel music of which we have heard so much during the past year. After Duke's two-chorus opening solo we hear the theme expressed as a simple, blues-drenched unison line. Dizzy ot his most lyrical offers a solo that shows the qualities of a truly sensitive musician: simplicity and complexity, direct rhythmic statements and oblique implication, are ingeniously interwoven to produce a performance that ranks among his best on record to bate. Duke, too, shows the depth of his feeling for the blues and even ends the performance with a delightfully basic four-bar tag, complete with a C-13th-Flat-5 final chord.

Si-Joya has no deep significance in its title. Duke confesses that he doesn't know Spanish too well and merely wanted to convey this flavor in the name of the tune, which, as you'd expect, is a Latin-type affair. Opening with slicks-on-cymbal by A. T. it progresses to the exposition of the theme followed by solos from Turrentine, Reece and Jordan. Notice, throughout this track- and for that matter throughout the entire album - the steady and supple support offered by A, T., who has been an intermittent associate of Duke's for some years and was a member of the group in which Duke visited Scandinavia. "I just wanted a really happy feeling for this one," says Duke, and there's no doubt that he achieved his objective.

It is good to find Duke Jordan so well represented by an album thai displays his dual talents as composer and pianist. For those who are reading these notes before deciding whether to embark on the flight to Jordan, may I recommend that you get your passport validated right now.”                      
-LEONARD FEATHER

(Author of The New Encyclopedia of Jazz]

[“Diamond Stud and I Should Care are previously unreleased and complete this session and are added to this CD.” - Michael Cuscuna]