Tuesday, December 10, 2024
Eli “Lucky” Thompson [From the Archives]
© Introduction Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
Detroit Motor City
Paris France France
“Lucky Thompson was a vastly under-acclaimed tenor saxophonist.”
- Doug Ramsey
Eli “Lucky” Thompson was born on June 16, 1924 in Columbia , South Carolina Detroit
- Joop Visser
“… it seems likely that the cross-pollination of ideas so prominent among bebop era saxophonists affected Lucky less than anyone. Stylistically he has always been his own man.”
- Bob Porter
"Like Don Byas, whom he most resembles in tone and in his development of solos, he has a slightly oblique and uneasy stance on bop, cleaving to a kind of accelerated swing idiom with a distinctive 'snap' to his softly enunciated phrases and an advanced harmonic language that occasionally moves into areas of surprising freedom."
- Richard Cook and Brian Morton, Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Ed.
“There is the history of the saxophone in Lucky Thompson’s music.”
- David Himmelstein
“Music is the most interesting thing in the world.”
- Lucky Thompson
“You know I lost my interest in music. I had to run from place to place at the mercy of people who manipulated me. I never rejected music; it constitutes a great part of my soul.”
- Lucky Thompson to Mike Hennessey in MusicItalia interview
“Thompson's disappearance from the jazz scene in the 1970's was only the latest (but apparently the last) of a strangely contoured career. A highly philosophical, almost mystical man, he reacted against the values of the music industry and in the end turned his back on it without seeming regret. The beginning was garlanded with promise.”
- Richard Cook and Brian Morton, Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Ed.
I lived and worked in Seattle , WA
Given the city’s notorious commuter traffic, fortunately for me, it was easy to access my office at the downtown corner of Fourth and Pike Streets as it was a clear shot into town on the Aurora Highway Green Lake
It was a point in my work-life that often found me toiling late at the office.
Because of the manner in which one-way streets configured downtown traffic, I often exited the city along Second Street Tula
One rainy night - now there’s a surprise in Seattle
Jay Thomas, who plays both superb trumpet and tenor saxophone, was Tula
Besides the great music and tasty Greek food, I also met up that night with a couple of Jazz buddies who lived in the nearby Belltown part of the city [a downtown waterfront neighborhood that overlooks a portion of Elliott Bay
We shared a bottle of red plonk while thoroughly enjoying the music on offer by Jay’s quartet.
All of us still smoked during those days and, as a result of the club’s ban on partaking of lit nicotine within the walls of its premises, we found ourselves merrily chatting and puffing away outside the club’s entrance during the first intermission.
Thankfully the rain had abated, or a least scaled down to a soft drizzle. While the three of us were standing and smoking by the curbside, we were approached by a street person who asked if he could bum a smoke.
After we obliged him and he had continued on his way, one of my friends asked me if I’d recognized the damp denizen of the night?
I thought I was making a wisecrack when I answered that “… he looked vaguely familiar.” “He should,” remarked one of my friends: “That was Lucky Thompson!”
Obviously, my Belltown buddies had met him before, under similar circumstances.
All of us became very subdued after Lucky left.
Each of us quietly puffed our cigarette which gave us time to adjust to the sense of sadness that had come over us following the sight we had just witnessed.
Needless to say, the evening wasn’t the same after that; no more frivolity and jocularity, only a deep and abiding hurt.
When I returned home with that chance meeting still on my mind, it occurred to that while I had heard Lucky’s tenor saxophone sound with Count Basie’s band [my Dad had some V-Discs by the band with Lucky], on Miles Davis’ famous Walkin’ LP and as part of Stan Kenton’s sterling Cuban Fire album [his solo beginning at around the 4:00 minute mark of the opening track – Fuego Cubano - always touches my heart], most of his recorded music had passed-me-by.
For whatever reasons, I had missed much of Lucky’s discography when he was a force on the Jazz scene, primarily from 1945-1965.
The following day, I decided to put that omission right and I began seeking out Lucky’s recordings which, to my surprise were plentiful, and still readily available.
As is often the case with chance meetings, it was the beginning of a love affair as Lucky’s music was engaging, full of marvelous twists and turns, and alive with an almost effortless swing.
Although it is a later recording in the Thompson canon, one of my first purchases of Lucky’s music under his own name was Tricotism [Impulse/GRP GRD-135].
The insert notes to this CD are by Bob Porter and they contained the following overview and commentary of Thompson’s career which was very helpful to me as a guide for further purchases of Lucky’s music.
If you are like me and not a member of the Lucky cognoscenti, perhaps it can serve a similar purpose for you.
“The career of Eli Thompson (6/16/24 ), musician, is one of the most enigmatic in all jazz. It is an odyssey involving four cities, two instruments, big bands, small bands, popularity, poverty, stylistic changes, associations with major names, (Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Stan Kenton), and long periods of inactivity.
Lucky entered the ranks of professional musicians when he left Detroit New York
Lucky left Basic in late 1945, settling in Los Angeles
During 1946 and '47 Lucky was the most requested tenorman in the L. A. area. He worked frequently with Boyd Raeburn, but he also made over 100 recordings as a sideman during those years. He had recorded for Excelsior and Down Beat and in 1947 he made four famous sides for RCA, including his masterpiece "Just One More Chance." He won the Esquire New Star award in 1947. In 1948 Lucky migrated across country. New York
Lucky worked frequently at the Savoy Ballroom during the early '50s, but the recording slows had set in.
A couple of obscure small label sessions were Lucky's only recordings from 1947 to late 1953, when he did a date for Decca. Two dates in 1954 under his own name presaged another masterpiece: his "Walkin"' solo with Miles Davis.
During the 1950s Lucky was a close associate of light-heavyweight boxing champion, Archie Moore. Moore
Lucky and Milt Jackson have been close associates since their days in Detroit Savoy Atlantic .
I suspect that it was no accident that the trio session here included no drummer. If there has been one aspect of Lucky's playing that has been criticized through the years it is his relationship with drummers. The hard swinging sessions of the 1940s and early '50s were giving way to an almost ascetic rhythmic approach. I also suspect that some critics, in writing about the Jimmy Giuffre Three, (which had the identical instrumentation as Lucky's group), may have forgotten these performances, which predated Giuffre by 10 months.
Lucky was the first major jazzman since Sidney Bechet to adopt the soprano saxophone. He predated John Coltrane by at least 18 months; but Lucky has never been given any credit for ushering the return to popularity of the straight saxophone. In the mid-'60s Lucky returned to the U.S.A. Europe several times since and did several interesting LPs for Groove Merchant in the early '70s. He also taught at Dartmouth
When Will Powers interviewed him for Different Drummer, Lucky was completing his academic work and thinking of a new city Toronto Montreal
It is not my opinion, but consensus, that says the music on these LPs is the finest extended playing that Lucky Thompson has produced on record. As noted earlier, the sessions came at a period where Lucky had been recording frequently. He and Pettiford were a mutual admiration society and the rapport, even intimacy, they achieve in the trio tracks is nothing short of remarkable.
This is not to take anything away from the quintet sides where Jimmy Cleveland shines so brightly. The presence of Hank Jones reunites a close partnership dating to Detroit
That this music is able to appear again after years of neglect is cause for celebration. Let's hope that this release is able to shed new light on the talent of Lucky Thompson.”
—Bob Porter, Contributor—Radio Free Jazz1975 (original edited liner notes from Dancing Sunbeam, Imp ASH -9307-2)
A few years after this meeting, I learned that Lucky had passed away in Seattle
With everything he had gone through, including apparently suffering from Alzheimer’s disease during the later years of his life, somehow he had luckily [?] managed to live to be 81-years of age.
And if you are looking for a comprehensive discography of Lucky’s recordings, you can’t do better than the one that Noal Cohen has compiled.
Friday, December 6, 2024
"Where's The Melody" By Martin Williams [From the Archives]
© - Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
"A short, model primer on jazz, in which Mr. Williams triumphantly makes a difficult subject seem difficult and absolutely comprehensible. He spells out in an even, shoulder-to-shoulder manner the various kinds of improvisation, the places of the composer and arranger, jazz rhythms, and the like, and along the way he carefully knocks down those distracting and divisive genre terms 'swing/ 'Dixieland/ and 'bebop' by choosing illustrations from every walk of jazz."
-THE NEW YORKER
". . . a remarkable performance: concise, lucid, and mercifully free of fustian proselytizing. In the opening section, Williams, primarily through the analysis of key available recorded solos, clarifies the basic ways in which jazzmen improvise and the diverse functions of the composer-arranger in jazz.
The book, however, is more than a grammar. Jettisoning the traditional romanticized approach to jazz history by region and river, Williams places the evolution of the language in much more useful perspective by describing the changes in jazz made by its major innovators, from Louis Armstrong to Ornette Coleman."
- Nat Hentoff, BOOKWEEK
I can’t believe I still own a copy of Martin Williams’ Where’s The Melody: A Listener’s Guide to Jazz [New York: Minerva Press, 1963].
Dogged-eared with paper that is yellowing and book spine glue that’s hardening and cracking, it’s been loaned out so many times that it is a miracle that it ever made it back to my bookshelf.
One of the best primers on the process of making Jazz ever written, I thought it might be fun to share the book’s Introduction and Opening Chapter with you on these pages.
© - Martin Williams, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
INTRODUCTION:
"An American Art"
If we know anything about jazz at all, we have probably heard that it is supposed to be an art—our only art according to some; "America's contribution to the arts,' according to certain European commentators. It has also the kind of prestige that goes with praise from the "classical" side of the fence. One of the first men to recognize the artistic qualities of jazz was the outstanding Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet, who in 1919 wrote a tribute to the great clarinetist and soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet, adding that perhaps tomorrow the whole world would be moving along his road. And in 1965 the American composer-critic Virgil Thompson said that "jazz is the most astounding spontaneous musical event to take place anywhere since the Reformation.”
Jazz has its special publications, both here and abroad, its own journalists, reviewers, critics, historians, and scholars. Also, as most of us are aware, our State Department is willing to export jazz to answer for our cultural prestige abroad. Yet here at home, this "American art" is the subject of certain ignorance and certain misunderstandings.
It is possible to approach jazz in several ways. It is more than possible—it is in a sense almost mandatory—to consider jazz as an aspect of Negro American life and of the far-reaching and little understood effect of Negro-American life on American life in general. Jazz is, of course, a product of Negro-American culture, and that means that it represents also a unique coming together of African and European musical traditions.
It is also possible to treat jazz at second hand, as it has influenced our other music. The results of this approach might surprise some of us, for there is hardly a corner of American music that has not been touched somehow by jazz. It has touched most corners of music in Europe as well. To give one rather unexpected example, most of the trumpet players in our symphony orchestras, whether they are performing Bach or Bartok, Grieg or Gershwin, play with a slight vibrato (literally, a vibration to their trumpet sound) that they are not supposed to have, because in the past jazz musicians have generally used one. The symphonists have simply picked it up, some of them perhaps unconsciously.
It is not surprising that all American popular music, and some American concert music as well, were once commonly referred to as "jazz,” because the influence of jazz and of pre-jazz Afro-American music is everywhere in our musical life — on Broadway, in musical films, in the hotel dance band, in the "hit parade," in the concert hall. And, in one form or another, this influence has been there for over seventy years. So apparently "square" a popular song as Dancing in the Dark would not have been written without the powerful and pervasive effect of the musical force we call "jazz."
Jazz has also been treated through the biographies of its players, and some writers have treated jazzmen as what they are—creative people, most often functioning as popular entertainers. But jazzmen have also been treated as colorful old characters or as pathetic, aging men, unworthy of the callous caprice with which a delinquent showbiz has shunted them aside. It is possible, after all, for the most interesting of men, or even the most colorful of old characters, to be involved in an activity that need not detain us for its own sake. We might appreciate the personal maturity of a shop steward without being interested in owning a handbook on union organization at the local level or one on the processing of auto parts on a modern assembly line.
However, jazz is a music, and it is worthy of our attention as a music. Its musical achievements are quite high, perhaps higher than those of any other so-called "folk" or "popular" music in human history. Undoubtedly the musical level of jazz would have had to be high before it could have exerted such a strong and continuing influence upon other music. But jazz music itself is much more interesting than the subject of its influence. It has a life of its own, growing, developing, and finding its own way, taking what it needs from the European tradition and adding something of its own at each step. And, as the years pass, jazz behaves less and less like a "popular" commercial music, subject to the fads of the moment, and more and more like what we are apt to think of (rightly or wrongly) as an "art music."
Let us assume in looking at jazz that we know little or nothing about the techniques of music and little or nothing about jazz and its history.
We will assume we know little about jazz history because we want to look at it from a musical standpoint, and because very little that we can appreciate has been written on it from that standpoint. And we will assume that we don't know much about music, because many of us don't.
But perhaps lack of a detailed musical background is an advantage. Jazz has taught itself, so to speak. Jazz musicians have often taught themselves and the music as a whole has wended its selective way, almost on its own, through the techniques of European music. If we were to study music, we would of course study a system largely deduced from practice, a theory derived from what the great European composers have actually done when they wrote. But sometimes this musical system and theory applies to jazz only approximately, only insofar as jazz musicians have borrowed it, transmuted it, and used it in their own way. So in listening to a partly self-taught music, we shall probably have the gods on our side if we become self-taught listeners.
We do not learn to listen theoretically or in the abstract, of course, and almost all the comments in this book are attached to specific recordings. We shall begin by going directly to the crux of the matter, to the jazz musician as he plays combinations and sequences of notes that sound sometimes familiar, sometimes only vaguely familiar, and sometimes not familiar at all. And we shall try to understand how] jazz musicians play, what they do with a melody; how much they improvise, make up as they go along, and how much they work out ahead of time; and the kind of musical logic involved in their way of playing.
There is, after all, little point in worrying about the history of an art or the biographies of its players until we have some familiarity with the art itself. As an introduction to how jazz players play, we will look in the first section of this book, "Where's the Melody?" at what they do with more or less familiar popular songs. Then we will turn to an important original musical form that has been used by jazzmen of all styles and periods, the form called "The Blues.' With these basic forms and practices in mind, we can examine "Eight Recorded Solos" in more careful detail.
Having been thus introduced to the work of the jazz soloist, we can turn, in the section called "What Does a Composer Do?" to the jazz composer-arranger, the man who provides the player with basic material or who revises material he finds in the American popular repertory. The composer-arranger orchestrates; he gives the musicians in large and small ensembles written (or sometimes memorized) parts to play and he assigns the soloists space and duration in which to improvise. A soloist is responsible for his portion of a performance; a composer-arranger for the effect of the whole.
In these four introductory sections we have deliberately avoided chronology and avoided the sometimes careless catch-phrases of styles and schools and periods of jazz. The things that Louis Armstrong and Thelonious Monk have in common as players are more important and instructive than differences in the way they make music. Teddy Wilson, a pianist who first rose to prominence in the mid-Thirties, in those days took the same basic approach to improvised invention as did Charlie Parker, the revolutionary figure of the mid-Forties. And the music of the pianist and leader from the "swing period," Count Basie, taught the modernist John Lewis as much as did Charlie Parker's music— perhaps more.
Having examined the basics of jazz this far, we are now in a position to look at its musical history in "Last Trip Up the River." From a musical standpoint that history is made up of the contributions of certain major
jazz players who renew the basic language of the music periodically, men like Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker, and of certain major jazz composers, men like Duke Ellington, who periodically give larger synthesis and summary and form to the music.
After paying this much attention to the music itself, it is perhaps time to have accounts of the players at work on the scene—in nightclubs, in studios, and in private rehearsals. Thus, the second part of this book describes a nightclub evening of a pianist-composer, "Monk at the Five Spot"; a record date by vibraharpist Milt Jackson and a brass ensemble, "Recording with 'Bags'"; another recording session by a Mississippi blues singer of the old school, "Big Joe in the Studio"; and a rehearsal by some of the men who are involved in the avant-garde with "Jimmy Giuffre at Home.”'
The final part of this book, "Comment by a Listener," represents an effort to return to the music and its musicians with the knowledge so far acquired. In comments (some brief and some more comprehensive) on figures like Horace Silver, Billie Holiday, and Roy Eldridge, I have expanded on some of the points of jazz history described in the first part of the book and have tried to show, in a more or less casual sampling, how some exceptional musicians have developed the ideas of the great figures and have also made contributions of their own. I have also dealt with the work of some less creative figures who water down and popularize the musical ideas of others. I have used as examples some recorded performances which do not seem to me successful; the value in this is not in pointing the finger at failure (or my idea of failure) but rather in discussing how and why performances may fail. Finally, I have commented on recent developments and the jazz avant-garde as exemplified by Ornette Coleman.
I have not tried in this book to disguise my enthusiasm for jazz and for most of the players and performers I have discussed. But I have tried not to include too many of my own specific emotional responses to the musicians and their work. My purpose in this book has been to clear the way, to help listeners discover their own responses by putting them more directly in touch with the music itself. I have suggested my own feelings about jazz, I trust, largely as a means to such an end.
Finally, I think that each reader should undertake a book of this sort at his own pace—even at his own leisure—and that for some a gradual alternation of reading and listening can be the most rewarding. With that purpose in mind, I have included suggestions for a "Basic Library of Jazz" and have, in various sections, added "Record Notes" which list representative works of the artists discussed. The reader will, I hope, take it from there. …
Where's the Melody?
Let us assume that we are following two men as they enter a jazz nightclub or arrive, a few minutes late, at a jazz concert. One of them is an avid fan, an insider who has been following the music enthusiastically for years. His friend is not an insider; he is curious and sympathetic but a little puzzled. As they move inside the club or concert hall, the music is underway. The novice turns to the insider and asks, "What are they playing, do you know?"
The master replies, 'That's A Foggy Day"
At this point we can discern puzzlement, and perhaps despair, on the face of our novice. He knows perfectly well what A Foggy Day in London Town sounds like, and he hears nothing whatever like its melody coming from the musicians in front of him. Yet his friend is sure that it's A Foggy Day.
Jazz must be some kind of musical puzzle.
In effect, our novice has asked a prevalent question, "Where's the melody?" Or, to put it more crudely, "What are those musicians doing up there?" It is a question that is considered so square by some jazz fans, and even some musicians, that they refuse to answer—or even hear it. Yet I think it is a perfectly valid question, and answering it can be enlightening. For what those musicians are "doing up there" is not very obscure. It is not wholly unprecedented in the Western European music from which American music partly derives. And it is certainly no kind of musical game or puzzle.
Most of us probably know that jazz musicians make variations on a theme and that these variations are often improvised, invented on the spot as they play. For many people the primary quality in jazz is its rhythm—jazz is a particular rhythmic way of playing music. And anyone who has ever watched a group of jazz fans will be led to suspect that more than a few of them are responding to jazz rhythm—and very little else. There is nothing invalid about such a response, for its particular way of handling rhythm is indeed one of the unique things and one of the most compelling things about jazz music. But on the other hand, jazz rhythm, on the surface at least, is a readily recognizable quality. For our novice it is probably the thing that for him makes jazz jazz. He hears it, he feels it, and he says, "That's jazz." He may not always be right and he may not sense the fine details of whether the musicians are handling jazz rhythms well (that is, whether they are "swinging"), but he will be right most of the time.
Let's take a familiar popular song, which is what jazzmen do about half the time. There is nothing in the popular song that necessarily makes it jazz. It may have been influenced by jazz, even heavily influenced, as most American popular music has. But if a jazz musician plays it, he will play it with jazz rhythm. He will make it "swing/' give it a particular kind of momentum and movement. Thus, a jazz musician has already made a rhythmic variation on a piece by performing it at all. But so far he has given us no problems, for he has used the familiar melody in a recognizable way— let us say it is A Foggy Day or Pennies from Heaven or Embraceable You or any of thousands of American popular songs that are familiar to most of us and that are commonly used by jazz musicians.
Almost any jazz performance of familiar pieces like those will have at least an opening chorus based on the familiar melody itself. However, many jazz musicians use the melody not just for their opening statements, but as a basis of everything they do. There are players from every style and school of jazz who play that way; if you came in in the middle of one of their performances you would probably know right away what they were playing.
But such performances are not a matter of playing the same thing over and over again. These players make variations. For example, they will embellish the melody in various ways: they will add decorative notes and phrases, they will fill in in places where the melody comes to rest, and they will make slight changes in the notes as written.
At the same time they may improvise with the harmony of a piece (particularly if they are pianists) altering the simple chords that you and I would find on a piece of sheet music and even adding to the chords.
Now, of course, these things can be done badly. Some decorations can be cluttering and affected. The point of the melodic embellishments and of the richer harmony is to enhance the piece, to bring out its good qualities or modify its poor ones, and, at best, to discover hidden qualities and make a better piece of music of it. The great master of this particular embellishment approach to jazz improving was the pianist Art Tatum whose additions and fills were often dazzling, and whose sense of rich, improvised harmony was probably the most developed that our popular music has ever seen.
But besides filling out and elaborating the melody, a jazz musician can subtract from it, can reduce it to a kind of outline with fascinating musical experience thereby. Thelonious Monk, because of his exceptional and subtle sense of rhythm, can take even a silly popular ditty and make it sound like a first-rate composition for piano — his version of You Took the Words Right Out of My Heart is a good example, or, to take a better song, his rephrasing of I Should Care.
Another player who uses this melodic approach to variations is Erroll Garner. And there are horn players, particularly from older generations, who are excellent at this kind of paraphrase of familiar melodies.
The greatest of all is Louis Armstrong, who can work with good popular material like I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues and improve it, or who can work with poor material like That's My Home and make it sound like deathless melody.
Thus a great deal of jazz variation is recognizably made on a familiar melody, and there are players from all styles and schools who use this approach. They may elaborate the melody, they may decorate it, or they may reduce it and simplify it (basically, these are what a classicist would call kinds of "melodic variation"), and they may re-harmonize it. But it is — always there somewhere. The art lies in how well they transmute it, in how good a paraphrase they come up with while transforming what was written.
Now let's go back to our jazz fan and his novice friend who were entering the club or concert. Let's assume that now they are comfortably in their seats, that the Miles Davis ensemble is performing, and that they begin Bye Bye, Blackbird. In the first chorus of this piece our novice would hear a transmutation of a familiar, perhaps appealing, but obviously and deliberately lightweight popular ditty from the Twenties. He will realize that there is indeed a sea change taking place, however, for although Davis' trumpet is keeping recognizably to the written melody, he has transformed it, making it a kind of buoyant dirge. Then, in Davis' second chorus, there suddenly seems to be no more Bye Bye, Blackbird. What is going on?
What is going on is that Miles Davis is offering a new melody, one which he is improvising on the spot. This melody does continue the mood and the musical implications he was sketching in his first chorus, but it offers some very new ideas of melody.
Davis is using as his guide for this new melody what we may call an "outline" or "framework" of Bye Bye, Blackbird. Technically speaking, he is using what musicians call the “chord changes, the harmonic understructure of Bye Bye, Blackbird as the basis for this melody of his own. (Classicists would call this a harmonic variation, incidentally.)
The way to listen to him now is to listen not for something we already know or have already heard, but for the music that Miles Davis is making as we hear him. If we also hear, or sense unconsciously, that "outline," that related chord structure the player is using as his guide, fine. But we don't have to. Jazz is not a musical game or puzzle.
Sometimes jazz musicians will a familiar structure, a familiar set of chord changes from a standard popular song, without using the theme melody at all, even for their opening chorus. They simply invent, from the very beginning, without any theme statement or paraphrase. Classic examples are Lester Young's 1944 version of These Foolish Things and Charlie Parker's Embraceable You. In each case the player is using the familiar harmonic outline for his guide — but not necessarily for ours. Again, jazz variation is not a guessing game or a puzzle. Where's the melody? Well, again, the melody is the one that Lester Young or Charlie Parker is making up, the one he is playing. It is not something we have heard before; it may even seem to be like nothing we have heard before. It is what he is playing. Hear it, enjoy it. And hear it well, for it may not exist again.
Similarly, jazz musicians sometimes introduce their improvising with new themes, written or memorized, which are also patterned to old chord structures. Thus, Ornithology takes its outline from the How High The Moon; Count Basie’s Roseland Shuffle came from Shoeshine Boy; Moten Swing came from You’re Driving' Me Crazy; and there are probably at least two thousand jazz originals, from Sidney Bechet's Shag through Ornette Coleman's Angel Voice, based on the chords to Gershwin's I Got Rhythm. An obvious reason for this is that the new themes have a more jazzlike melodic character than the popular songs which were their harmonic origin.
Thus, there are three kinds of variations—those that involve rhythm, which are intrinsic in jazz performances, as we have seen; those that involve embellishing or paraphrasing a written melody, either decorating it or subtracting from it or both; and those that involve the invention of new melodies within a harmonic outline. They are all found, alone or more often in combination, in all styles and schools of jazz except the most recent.
At this point, let's try a summary by example. Let us assume that we play a little bit of piano and read a little bit of music. We are attracted to a particular popular song and purchase a piece of sheet music for that song to try it out on the parlor spinet. The sheet music will probably present the song in a fairly simple manner. The right-hand piano part, the treble, will give its melody. The left-hand part, the bass, will give simple chords that fit that melody; usually the chords given on sheet music are simple, and often they are quite simple. We take the piece home and play it over a few times until we've got it, as written down, fairly smoothly.
For most people this is the end of the matter. They have learned to play the song as the sheet music presents it. But let us assume that there is a jazz musician inside us and he takes over. The first step would be to play the piece with jazz rhythm. Automatically, this will mean at least some changes in the values of the notes and some personal interpretations of the accents. We have begun to make the piece "swing." Actually, an authentic "swing" is not an easy matter, but let's assume we're getting one fairly well.
Incidentally, in doing this we have discovered that making a piece of music "swing" has nothing to do with playing it fast or loud. It is a matter of giving it a particular kind of rhythm. It can be done slowly and quietly. (Actually, it is very difficult to swing at extremely slow tempo or at extremely fast tempo—but that technicality needn't detain us now.)
Now let's say that under the impetus of that swing and its unique momentum, we begin to try changing certain of the melody notes more boldly. What we have already changed suggests more changes, and we extend some, we shorten others, we leave out some, we add others. We begin to get a different piece of music. At the same time, perhaps we hear more interesting harmonies for the left hand. We change a few of the chords to make them richer, and, in passing, we perhaps add a few appropriate tones that weren't there.
Now, the final step: suppose we gradually diminish the original right-hand part—the treble, the melody notes—altogether. We keep the left-hand part (or our version of it) and with the right hand we make up a new melody part that fits that left-hand part.
It used to be said that modern jazzmen, of the generation of the Forties, began the business of writing new themes to old structures and of inventing new solo melodies to chords alone. But this is obviously untrue. It is untrue of the blues form, as we shall see. Furthermore, our example of Moten Swing comes from 1932, and there are earlier examples of jazz originals with their chords borrowed from, let's say, After You've Gone, or I Ain't Got Nobody, or Sweet Sue, or a dozen others. And, almost all of the great players of the late Thirties—men like pianist Teddy Wilson; tenor saxophonists Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, and Lester Young; alto saxophonists Johnny Hodges and Benny Carter; guitarist Charlie Christian —did much of their playing on chord structures alone, with little or no reference to a theme. Indeed, even earlier players were capable of it, and there are many recorded examples of "non-thematic" variations, of variations that invent original melodies, by Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, Jack Teagarden, Sidney Bechet, and even by Bunk Johnson whose style dates from the early days of New Orleans jazz.
Only the youngest players have broken away from using either the melody of a piece or its chords as direct guides for making their variations.
A good paraphrase of a melody by a good jazz musician is frequently quite superior to its point of departure, the original popular song in the standard repertory. And a good melodic invention by a great jazz musician is a piece of spontaneous composition that may be miles ahead of its point of departure. 1 would not denigrate George Gershwin's achievements; he was one of our best popular composers— indeed, one of our best musicians. But Gershwin was usually writing songs, fairly simple melodies intended to be sung, usually by relatively untrained voices. And Charlie Parker's recorded variations on Gershwin's Embraceable You and Lady Be Good are instrumentally brilliant in a way that Gershwin's songs are not and were not intended to be.
However, Parker, like most great jazzmen, was also a melodist. He was a great instrumental melodist when judged by quite exacting musical standards. When we remember that Parker (again, like most great jazzmen) was a player and did his "composing" as he played, by improvisation, then we realize how astonishing his achievement was.
And so, we come back again to our question and our answer. Where's the melody? The melody is the one the player is making. Hear it well, for it probably will not exist again. And it may well be extraordinary.”
Thursday, December 5, 2024
Capp Pierce Juggernaut - Big Band Power and Precision [From the Archives]
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
For some musicians, big bands are a way of life.
For others, they are a way to waste time, tantamount to “sitting in a section, counting measures and listening to a few guys take solos.”
But for those musicians who have been bitten by the big band bug, sometimes, when they can’t find a big band to play in, they create their own.
In many cases, such groups are little more than local rehearsal bands that meet on a regular basis. In other cases they evolve into institutions such as the Thad Jones - Mel Lewis Big Band which played Monday nights at the NYC Village Vanguard for years and has evolved into its current form - the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra.
The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra under the direction of trumpeter Wynton Marsalis is the exception to the rule with its $50 million endowment and an international performance schedule that keeps its musicians on the payroll year around.
Most of the other regional bands based in big cities throughout the world are labors of love with the musicians accepting union scale wages just for the privilege of being able to play in them. They in effect subsidize the existence of the big band because they want to experience the pleasure of making music in this format.
These days young musicians who want the opportunity of experiencing big band Jazz are fortunate to find them on many college and university campuses that offer a Jazz studies program.
Dedicated big band devotees like Bob Curnow at www.sierramusicstore.com, Rob and Doug DuBoff at www.ejazzlines.com and Michelle and Michael Pratt and Cheryl Scott at www.bigbandcharts.net perform the amazing service of providing published big band arrangements at reasonable fees so that the difficult task of finding interesting and exciting charts to play is easily remedied through online shopping.
Of course, many of these bands are formed as “arranger’s bands” which allow musicians who are adept at writing big band arrangements to have a platform for them to be heard. Notes on paper are one thing; how they sound coming through a horn in combination with other horns is quite another.
Repertoire big bands are sometimes formed by musicians who are enamored with a particular style of music as played by some of the legendary bands of yesteryear. These include Glenn Miller, or Woody Herman and Stan Kenton or more often as not Count Basie.
Basie is a particular favorite because his big band music is blues based, usually arranged in a fairly straight forward manner [ie. - not that complicated] and generally swings like crazy.
The sonorities of Duke Ellington’s music, the complexities of Kenton’s or the beautiful tight sections of Glenn Miller’s lovely refrains are all well and good, but there’s nothing quite like the Basie Boogie Train coming down the tracks for out-an-out toe-tapping joy while sitting in a big band playing Basie-oriented charts.
[Is my bias showing here?].
One such band that fits the Basie model “to a T” is the Capp Pierce Juggernaut.
Formed in 1975 with drummer Frankie Capp and pianist Nat Pierce as co-leaders and using Pierce’s Basie-style charts, the band was a great success; they began to perform more and eventually were heard by writer Leonard Feather, who headlined his newspaper article: ‘A Juggernaut On Basie Street’.
Naming their band as the Capp and Pierce Juggernaut, they made records for the Concord label, the first of which sold well, and continued to work whenever and wherever they could, concentrating on Basie-style material played with enormous zest and enthusiasm, but also displaying great versatility when the occasion demanded. The precision and accuracy of the musicians playing these charts is the envy of all who hear them and I’m guessing that The Count himself would like to return from the Pearly Gates to front such a powerful band made up of these monsters players.
Unfortunately, the initial, collective personnel made it a band far too expensive ever to tour. Among the personnel have been Bill Berry, Bobby Shew, Marshal Royal, Blue Mitchell, Herb Ellis, Chuck Berghofer and Richie Kamuca, while the singers who have worked and sometimes recorded with the band have been Ernie Andrews, Joe Williams, Ernestine Anderson and Nancy Wilson.
In later years the band would include tenor sax battles between Rickey Woodward and Pete Christlieb, trombones “chases” with the like of Andy Martin, Thurman Green and Alan Kaplan and trumpet duels between Conte Candoli and Bob Summers. Hearing these in person at Jazz festivals in the greater Los Angeles area literally took your breath away.
Still led by Capp, the Juggernaut proved sufficiently well founded to survive Pierce’s death in 1992 and continues to appear on occasion to this day.
From 1977 to 1997, the band made nine [9] recordings for Carl Jefferson’s Concord label. Here are some excerpts from a few of them to better describe the special qualities of the band and why big band formats are so endearing to my Jazz musicians
Let’s begin with Leonard Feather’s notes to The Frank Capp/Nat Pierce Juggernaut Featuring Ernestine Anderson - Live at The Alley Cat [CJ-336, 1987]:
From the Los Angeles Times, February 24. 1976: "King Arthur's in Canoga Park might of well have changed its name to Basie Street on a couple of recent nights when Frankie Capp and Nat Pierce took over the bandstand with their 16 man juggernaut."
Note that juggernaut is spelled with a small j; however. reading the headline on my review. ("A Juggernaut on Basle Street"). Capp and Pierce decided that this might be a good name for the orchestra, which they had inherited bo accident when Ned Hefti decided on short notice that he didn't want to lead a band [circa 1975].
It was at King Arthur's (a long gone San Fernando Valley dub) that the band made its first LP that year, 1977, on Concord CJ-40. A live date at the Century Plaza (CJ-72) the following year, and a studio session In 1981 (C -183) further enhanced the reputation of this exceptionally powerful team of Los Angeles based musicians.
Ernestine Anderson, o Concord Jazz pride and joy for more than a decade, is the third vocalist to guest star (two previous albums featured Ernie Andrews and CJ-72 hod Joe Williams).
The Alley Cat Bistro in Culver City, an important cynosure In the fast-growing Los Angeles Jazz dub scene, provided the ideal ambience for the band's two night gig. and for the taping that took place on the second evening.
Originally tied to a strong identification with the Count Basie repertoire, the band has moved significantly toward Its own identity. "You'll notice," Frank Capp points out, "that except for Queer Street, nothing in this album was taken from the Basle library. Also, over the years we've kept the personnel pretty consistent, which helps us to establish our personal image."
Seven men heard here (Berry. Brown, the two Coopers. Green, Roy Pohlman and Berghofer) were on the original album; Szabo was on the second LP and Snooky Young on the '81 date Marshal Royal, though replaced here on lead alto by Dave 6dwards, still plays with the band from time to time. …
Everything seemed to go right at this session: the recording quality, as well as the band's performance, the level of the solos, and the interaction between Ernestine and the ensemble. All that seems to be called for now is a joint concert tour reuniting this brilliant band and Its irresistible guest vocalist. New York, Nice, Copenhagen, Tokyo -what are you waiting for?”
Herb Wong contributed the following notes to The Capp/Pierce Juggernaut Featuring Joe Williams: Live at The Century Plaza Hotel.
Fasten your seat belts! This inspired band will bolt you straight out of your seat and send you flying on a joyous swing ride!
Thank God there are still bands playing in the tradition of timeless classic big hand swing without the shackles of formulated inflexibility The validity of ihe Capp/Pierce Juggernaut is faultlessly clear Predicated on the essence of swing, it is anything but a band that dwells on nostalgia ad nauseum or on rubber-stamped replications. As Frankie Capp said, "Basie's band, our band, the old Woody band … the secret is happy music, no anger or hostility or any cross overstuff."
Frankie Capp and Nat Pierce created this splendid hand by virtue of a quirk, 3 years ago at the now dissolved King Arthur's in Canoga Park As Neal Hefti could not fulfill an assignment at the jazz bistro. Frank and Nat contemplated on the numerous charts they had collected since the I950's in NYC. They decided to launch their own band as co leaders. Thus, in brief, the C/P Juggernaut was born in 1975 loaded with sharp professionals and dyed-in the-wool jazz musicians. The tag 'juggernaut' was derived from a reference by Leonard Feather in a review of the band.
The sum of Frank and Nat's combined credentials would cram a booklet printed in small type. Frank is one of the most prominent and hotly pursued and. therefore, extremely busy percussionists in ihe Hollywood studios. He first came on the jazz scene with Stan Kenton's band as Shelly Manne's' replacement, leaving Boston University before graduation. His impressive credits have been piling up for welt over 25 years. He is easily one of the idiom’s premium drummers although his immersion in studio work has not reflected the long earned recognition he amply deserves. The music of C/P Juggernaut should, however, promptly refill the cups of praise. Frankie is just one helluva drummer!
Nat Pierce’s status in Jazz has been secured cumulatively for decades with his Basie-ish piano and his substantial compositions and arrangements for his own bands and for many other bands, notably Basie's and Woody Herman's. His playing career has inked a lengthy roll call of many of Ihe greatest jazz musicians in history- instrumentalists and vocalists. The logic of his multiple roles in the Capp/Pierce Juggernaut is transparent. It is needless to elaborate. Nat is a helluva complete musician!
Favorable circumstances prefaced the making of this 'in person' band performance Firstly, the debut Capp/Pierce LP last year (Concord. CJ-40) has lit torches of enthusiasm wherever it has been accessible. It’s common reception stretches from top ratings in Japanese jazz journals to cresting the jazz charts for many months in England. Next, the new music penned or resurrected from obscurity by Nat fired up the hand for another record. Lastly, a gig at the Westside Room of the Century Plaza Hotel was the right time and place to capture the sounds au natural. The room holds about 400 people and il was packed during both sets on the evening of this recording session. It was one of the hottest over 100 degree days in recent history in the Los Angeles area. And so was the hot C/P hand, adding its own brand of heat to the equation. The word was out and hordes of musicians and others in the music industry attended. High anticipation was matched by the marvelous music of the band and Joe Williams. The record at hand is a healthy portion of the night's most mellow and throbbing moments. The luxuriously appointed 'joint' was really jumpin'!”
Comedian and television celebrity Steve Allen penned these thoughts for the premier Capp/Pierce Juggernaut LP which appeared on Concord [CJ-40] in 1977.
“I think the swing-lover who will most enjoy this album is Bill Basie himself, so faithfully does the Capp-Pierce Juggernaut Orchestra reproduce not only the general Basie sound, but more importantly the right swinging feel, not too loose and not too tight.
Having so many talented sidemen who themselves are products of the swing-band era participating in this session at “King Arthur’s,” the popular jazz club in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, gives much vitality to this record.”
And Stanley Dance penned these thoughts in his liner notes to The Capp/Pierce Orchestra Featuring Ernie Andrews - Juggernaut Strikes Again!
The music played by the Capp Pierce Orchestra is neither a sentimental attempt to revive the glories of the past nor a matter of providing imitations for the nostalgic There has been plenty of that during the past three decades, not to mention a great many vainglorious ventures in search of the strange and gimmicked. But Frankie Capp and Nat Pierce are concerned with the spirit that animated the big band tradition, and it is this they seek to perpetuate in performance.
"We pay homage to three godfathers." Frankie Capp once said. "Count Basie. Woody Herman and Charlie Barnet Each of them has heard, helped and encouraged us "
The inspiration of Duke Ellington is never far away either." Nat Pierre added thoughtfully
This, their third album, is the first they have made together in a recording studio, among the advantages of which is the fact that alternative takes are possible. An exciting live performance sometimes occurs in a charged atmosphere, but to experienced musicians such as these the studio atmosphere is by no means inhibiting. It may even be warmer and more comfortable, with fewer dlstractions. As it happened, in several cases the takes used in this album were the first recorded, thus confirming Ellington's theory that the original take is usually the best in terms of freshness, vitality and invention Repeated takes may bring improved ensembles, but if the feeling of spontaneity deteriorates, then by jazz standards the gain is decidedly questionable
Besides their overall guidance, the co leaders of this band make important rhythmic contributions on their instruments Nat Pierce ably fulfills a role played in the past by some of the great pianist-bandleaders in jazz history, such as Count Basie. Duke Ellington. Farl Mines. Fletcher Henderson. Jay McShann and Claude Hopkins Variously gifted as soloists, they all knew how to submerge self in the interest of the band, just as Pierce invariably does But no band can get far without a good drummer;and Basie. for one. has often expressed the opinion that the drummer is the boss. Frankie Capp, like the pianist, puts the band first, and the studio recording does more justice to his capability and taste than the live recording of the two preceding albums. ...
Arrangements are sometimes subjected to profound technical analysis, but unless they are suited to the players they do not bring forth the surging vitality that is the essence of big band jazz Everyone is swinging together here with a gathering impetus that is infectious to listeners and musicians alike.”
A couple years after Nat Pierce’s death in 1992, Frank Capp took the Juggernaut into the recording studio to record a series of Neal Hefti arrangement for the Basie Band. Nearly 20 years after Frank and Nat took over a band that Neal decided not to lead, Frank and Neal returned with In A Hefti Bag [Concord CCD-4655].
Mark Ralston wrote these introductory notes for the recording:
A decade after the end of the Swing Era, the partnership of composer/arranger Neal Hefti and Count Basie and his Orchestra set the tone for what big hand jazz would sound like for years to come, and virtually ensured the ongoing popularity of big bands during a period of tumultuous shifts in musical business and public taste.
Through the singular creativity of Hefti, the Basie band prospered and the big band movement adopted a fresh, contemporary personality that allowed it to weather the storm of rock and roll and an ever expanding array of traditional and modern jazz styles. Indeed, it’s unnerving to imagine where the big band tradition might be today if it had not been for the fortuitous pairing of Hefti and Basie four decades ago.
And that’s precisely why drummer and big band leader Frank Capp, long an admirer of Hefti’s writing and arranging, decided it was time to point his juggernaut in the direction ol a full-blown Heft program. In A Hefti Bag ,the band s fifth Concord Jazz album (the first since former co- leader and pianist Nat Pierce passed away three years ago) is a lovingly crafted reminder of the timeless qualities that make the Hefti library so rewarding for both listeners and musicians.
"People often ask me why I play these old arrangements" Capp observes, "and my answer is why does the New York Philharmonic still play Beethoven and Tchaikovsky? Because it's great music and it demands to be replayed." he states with more than a little conviction. "Just because Heft’s music was recorded by Basie’s band doesn't mean that had to be the end of it. These songs are classic arrangements. They’re like perennials. They desene lo be heard again."
And as Scott Yanow points out in his AllMusic Review of In A Hefti Bag, there are many new faces to help keep the band vibrant and full of energy.
The Frank Capp Juggernaut's interpretations of 16 Neal Hefti compositions (which were originally written and arranged for the 1950s-era Count Basie Orchestra) bring new life to the highly appealing music without directly copying the earlier recordings. Capp and his 16-piece orchestra are in typically swinging form on obvious classics such as "Cute," "Whirlybird," and "Li'l Darlin'"; several songs whose ensembles are more familiar than their titles (such as "Flight of the Foo Birds," "Scoot," and "Bag-A-Bones"); and some high-quality obscurities. Many soloists are featured, including the late altoist Marshall Royal (who takes his last recorded solo on "It's Awf'lly Nice to Be with You"); tenors Rickey Woodard and Pete Christlieb; altoist Lanny Morgan; trumpeters Conte Candoli, Bob Summers, and Snooky Young; and trombonists Thurman Green, Alan Kaplan, and Andy Martin. Special mention should be made of the work of Gerry Wiggins, who is former co-leader Nat Pierce's permanent replacement and fits right into the Count Basie chair with enthusiasm and obvious skill. As for Frank Capp, he gets his share of drum breaks (including on "Cute" and "Whirlybird") while thoroughly enjoying himself driving the ensembles. Fans of swinging big bands cannot do much better than picking up this highly recommended release.
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