© - Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all
rights reserved.
My how time flies.
While preparing a
forthcoming feature on Down Beat Magazine’s 75th
Anniversary Interviews, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles suddenly
remembered that it had been the recipient of an LP album given to all of the
magazine’s subscribers in celebration of it having reached the quarter-century
mark
in 1959.
“Recorded in Hollywood New York
Featured artists
include vocalist Ella Fitzgerald, drummer Gene Krupa, tenor saxophonist Coleman
Hawkins with trumpeter Roy Eldridge, pianist Oscar Peterson with bassist Ray
Brown, vocalist Anita O’Day, pianist Art Tatum, tenor saxophonist Stan Getz,
the Count Basie Band, drummer Louie Bellson, tenor saxophonist Lester Young and
alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges and his orchestra.
As we were unable
to find a CD reissue of this recording, we thought it might be fun to make
available the liner notes from the original LP with their point-in-time
reference to the state of Jazz in 1959. We wonder if our old friend, the late Jack Tracy , may have been one of “the editors” who
had a hand in writing them?
These notes are
followed by a video which uses graphics from the LP’s cover art as developed by
the crackerjack production team at CerraJazz LTD and the Magic track from the album played by the Basie band.
© - Down Beat, copyright protected; all rights
reserved.
“JAZZ
Down Beat's
Hall of Fame,
Volume I
Verve MG V-8320
If all the greats
in the history of jazz were laid end to end, you'd have . . . something similar
to this LP. Released to help Down Beat celebrate its 25th Anniversary, it is a
disc that attempts to achieve that kind of jazz universality.
Of course, it
would be impossible to get a full representation of the past quarter century in
jazz on five LPs, much less one. How many important figures you have to leave
out, how many great choruses go unincluded!
How, for example, do
you chose between a track by Dizzy Gillespie and one by Charlie Parker?
You take into
consideration that Bird is gone, and will make no more recordings —while the
giant Diz is alive and swinging. That simplifies the task considerably . . .
Or take another
example: the task of selecting someone to represent the mainstream of jazz
drumming. Who should it be? Jo Jones, Buddy Rich, the late Dave Tough, Shelly Manne? In the end, it has to
be Gene Krupa. Go back, if you can, to the old Krupa band recording of No Name
Jive and listen how Gene builds the band unbelievably, while never losing sight
of the basic roll with which he started out. Krupa has always had and still has
a sense of form and clarity of pattern that any drummer alive can learn from.
All things passed through Gene: he was the gatherer of what went before and the
harbinger of what was to come. Therefore, it had to be Krupa . . .
In a sense,
therefore, though the selection of material for this disc was difficult, most
choices had a certain inevitability. These are the selections:
YOUR RED WAGON —
Ella Fitzgerald, with Lou Levy, piano; Max Bennett, bass; Gus Johnson, drums;
Dick Hyman, electric organ. This is the hard-swinging Ella, rather than the
gentle Ella of balladry. One of the uncontested greats, Ella punches her way
through this old classic with a backing that demonstrates the gutsy
propensities of electric organ.
HANID—Coleman
Hawkins and Roy Eldridge, with Hank Jones, piano; Mickey Sheen, drums; George
Duvivier, bass. Here two giants of the swing era blow in a hard bebop groove.
Little Jazz barges in with a tense, rasped and swinging solo. Listen to the
wild thing that happens when the mute comes out. Hawk comes in low and virile
enough to sound as if he's blowing baritone. The tasteful Mr. Jones
demonstrates why he is one of the favorite pianists of Oscar Peterson, among
others. The tune, the title of which you might try reading backwards, is a
Hawkins original.
DEBUT — Oscar
Peterson, with Ray Brown, bass. This track, recorded in New York U.S.
LAIRD BAIRD -
Charlie Parker, with Hank Jones, piano; Max Roach, drums; Teddy Kotick, bass.
Life! From the opening phrase, the uncomplimentable Bird shows the ferocious
lust for it that he had, despite all the talk of his self-destructive-ness.
Recorded in 1953, the tune js an original whose title refers to Parker's son,
Laird.
ANITA'S BLUES —
Anita O'Day, with John Poole, drums; Bud Lavin, piano; Monty Budwig, bass.
Anita, one of the handful of great singers in jazz, dryly (and brilliantly)
reworks the timeless fabric of the blues.
TRIO BLUES — Art
Tatum, with Jo Jones, drums; Red Callender, bass. Callender was the favorite
bass player of the late Art Tatum. Whenever Tatum was on the West Coast,
Callender was first on call to work with him; which is how Callender, a busy
studio musician, happened to be on this date, done in January, 1956, in Hollywood
DOWN BEAT-Stan
Getz, with Jerry Segal, drums; Mose Allison, piano; Addison Farmer, bass.
Woody Herman tells a story about Stan Getz. When Getz joined Herman in 1946,
he played the band's book through once on the stand and, so far as Woody knows,
never looked at it again; he had it memorized. Such was—and is—the musicianship
of this remarkable tenor saxophonist. Derived from Lester Young, Getz became
the fountainhead of a whole new concept of tenor playing. Today, he is in the
odd position of being an immortal who is only 32 years old.
MAGIC—Count Basic
and his Orchestra. Personnel: Reunald Jones, Harold Baker, Thad Jones, Wendell
Culley, Joe Newman, trumpets; Benny Powell, Bill Hughes, Henry Coker,
trombones; Frank Foster, Frank Wess, Marshall Royal, Bill Graham, Charlie
Fowlkes, saxophones; Freddie Greene, guitar; Ed Jones, bass; Sonny Payne,
drums; Basic, piano. As it happens, Count Basic has been a bandleader exactly
as long as Down Beat has been in business: 25 years. (He took over the remnants
of the Bennie Moten band in 1934). Though this track was recorded in 1956, the
Basic personnel is pretty much the same today. Thus, the track represents not
only one of the most important bands in jazz history, but one that is generally
conceded to be the most exciting on the scene today.
DRUMMER'S HOLIDAY —Louis Bellson and his orchestra.
Personnel: Frank Beach, Don Fagerquist, Mel Moore, Bob Fowler, trumpets; Dick
Noel, Juan Tizol, Nick Di Mao, George Roberts, trombones; Bill Green, Buddy
Collette, Chuck Gentry, Mah-lon Clark, saxes; Geoff Clarkson, piano; Tony
Rizzi, guitar; Joe Mondragon, bass; Milt Holland, drums. One of the deftest of
technicians, Louis Bellson is one of the great big band drummers. Working with
another gifted drummer, Milt Holland, he leads — and pushes — this band (made
up mostly of top Hollywood studio muscians) into its tremendous
swing.
LESTER SWINGS
-Lester Young, with Gene Ramey, bass, Jo Jones, drums, John Lewis, piano. The
title of this tune (try humming Exactly Like You along with it) is superfluous;
when didn't Lester swing? The Father of the Cool, and perhaps the most
influential saxophonist of them all, Pres is heard here in a 1951 session that
was truly historic. Among its other points of interest: the driving playing of
John Lewis in the days when the Modern Jazz Quartet wasn't even a gleam in
John's contemplative eye.
EARLY MORNING ROCK - Johnny Hodges and orchestra. Personnel:
Ray Nance, Clark Terry, Harold Baker, trumpets; Quentin Jackson, trombone;
Jimmy Hamilton, Russell Procope, Harry Carney, Hodges, saxophones; Billy
Strayhorn, piano; Jimmy Woode, bass; Sam Woodyard, drums. This is the perfect
track to wind up this disc: Duke Ellington isn't here in the flesh, but his
spirit is all through this performance by some of his boys. Thus the track is a
tribute to the man who has contributed most over the longest time to the
growth of jazz.
POSTLUDE—Three of
the men heard on this record are gone now: Art Tatum, Charlie Parker, and
Lester Young. In the quarter century of Down Beat's existence, these were
primary innovators. There are no replacements for their individual geniuses.
But young talents
keep turning up. Perhaps a giant like Parker will be among them. One can only
guess at the direction —or directions—jazz will take. During the next 25 years,
Down Beat will go on looking for and reporting on the great talents— as it has
in the last quarter century.
—The Editors
1959”
