© -
Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
It seems that you
couldn’t walk a block in the Hollywood
Walking a few
blocks down Vine Street Franklin Hollywood Blvd. Music City
A quick stroll
west would bring you to Cahuenga Blvd Selma Street
Although I had
both walked and driven by it a number of times, I had never been inside the
Ivar. I had heard from friends that it
was a small, intimate theater and a great place to watch stage plays.
That was about to
change when I noticed tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon’s name on the marquis
announcing his appearance in the West Coast version of Jack Gelber’s The
Connection, a play that had premiered in New York City in July, 1959.
Dexter’s name was
legendary in some West Coast Jazz circles, particularly those associated with Central Avenue Hollywood 52nd Street
I stopped at the
Ivar’s box office to pick up some tickets, although I must confess to knowing
absolutely nothing at the time about Jack Gelber’s play.
This was going to
be my first opportunity to hear “long tall Dexter” in person which was reason
enough for me to check out Jack’s play.
Shades to come of
his role in the movie ‘Round Midnight, Dexter “acted” in
the play along with performing the music from pianist Freddie Redd’s wonderful
score with Gildo Mahonnes on piano, Bob West on bass and Lawrence Marable on
drums.
Shortly thereafter
I picked up the Blue Note LP The Music from the Connection: Freddie Redd
Quartet with Jackie McLean [[B2-89392] with Jackie on alto sax, Freddie
on piano, Michael Mattos on bass and Larry Ritchie on drums.
I had been a fan
of Jackie McLean’s music for some time, but I knew hardly anything at all about
Freddie Redd’s music or the details about Jack Gelber’s play and how he came to write it.
We recently wrote
to Ira and asked his permission to present on these pages his original liner
notes to The Music from the Connection: Freddie Redd Quartet with Jackie McLean.
He graciously
agreed to allow them to be posted to the JazzProfiles blog with the proviso
that anyone also wishing to publish them in any form or fashion seek his
consent before doing so.
At the conclusion
of Ira’s writings, you’ll find a video tribute to Jackie Mclean which has as
its audio track Theme for Sister
Salvation from Freddie Redd’s score to The Connection. We will have more to
say specifically about Freddie and his music in a future feature.
Like Leonard
Bernstein, I came away from the play whistling this theme and I haven’t
forgotten it since.
© - Ira
Gitler , copyright protected; all rights reserved.
Used with the author’s permission
THE CONNECTION by Jack Gelber is a play about junkies but
its implications do not stop in that particular circle. As Lionel Abel has
stated in what is perhaps the most perceptive critique yet written about the
play (Not Everyone Is In The Fix, Partisan
Review, Winter 1960), "What adds to the play's power is that the
characters are so like other people, though in such a different situation from
most people."
The situation in
which the four main protagonists find themselves is waiting for Cowboy (Carl
Lee), the connection, to return with the heroin. These four, Solly (Jerome
Raphel), Sam (John McCurry), Ernie (Garry Goodrow), and Leach (Warren Finnerty)
are in attendance at the latter's pad with the bass player. One by one, the
three other musicians drift in. They are also anxiously awaiting Cowboy's
appearance. Also present, from time to time, in this play-within-a-play, are a
fictitious playwright Jaybird (Ira Lewis), producer Jim Dunn (Leonard Hicks)
and two photographers (Jamil Zakkai, Louis McKenzie), who are shooting an avant garde film of the play.
The musicians not
only play their instruments during the course of the play but, as implied
before, they also appear as actors. Some people have raised the question,
"If they are actors, why are they using their real names?"
Pianist-actor Freddie Redd, composer of the music heard in The Connection answers
this simply by saying that he and the other musicians want recognition (and
subsequent playing engagements) for what they are doing and that there would be
no effective publicity if they were to appear as John Smith, Bill Brown, etc.
Author Gelber concurs and says that having the musicians play themselves adds
another element of stage reality.
When The
Connection opened at The Living Theatre on July 15, 1959 , it was immediately assaulted by the
slings and arrows of outrageous reviewers, a group consisting, for the most
part, of the summer-replacement critics on the local New York
A week later, the
first favorable review appeared in The Village Voice. It was one of
many that followed which helped save The Connection and cement its run.
In it, Jerry Tallmer didn't merely praise the jazz but in lauding Gelber as the
first playwright to use modern jazz "organically and dynamically",
also pointed out that the music "puts a highly charged contrapuntal beat
under and against all the misery and stasis and permanent crisis."
This the music
does. It electrically charges both actors and audience and while it is not
programmatic in a graphic sense (it undoubtedly would have failed it if had
tried to be) it does represent and heighten the emotional climates from which
it springs at various times during the action.
The idea to
incorporate sections of jazz into The Connection was not an
afterthought by Jack Gelber. It was an integral part of his entire conception
before he even began the actual writing of the play. If Gelber did not know
which specific musicians he wanted onstage, his original script (copyright in
September 1957) shows that he knew what kind of music he wanted. In a note at
the bottom of the first page it is stated, “The jazz played is in the tradition
of Charlie Parker." (The Connection is published by Grove
Press Inc. as an Evergreen paperback book.)
Originally Gelber
had felt the musicians could improvise on standards, blues, etc., just as they
would in any informal session. When the play was being cast however, he met
Freddie Redd through a mutual friend. Freddie, 31 years young, is a pianist who
previously has been described by this writer as "one of the most promising
talents of the '50s" and "one of the warmer disciples of the Bud
Powell school". During the Fifties he played with a variety of groups
including Oscar Pettiford, Art Blakey, Joe Roland and Art Farmer-Gigi Gryce,
all of whom recognized his talent.
After he had
gotten a quartet together at Gelber's request, auditioned for him and was given
the acting-playing role in The Connection, Freddie told Jack of
his long frustrated wish to write the music for a theater presentation. Armed
with a script and the author's sanction, he went to work. In conjunction with
Gelber, he decided exactly where the music was to occur. By familiarizing
himself with the play's action, he was able to accurately fashion the character
and tempo of each number. What he achieved shows that his talent, both the
obvious and the latent of the '50s, has come to fruition. He has supplied
Gelber with a parallel of the deep, dramatic impact that Kurt Weill gave to
Brecht. His playing, too, has grown into a more personal, organic whole. Powell
and Monk, to a lesser degree, are still present but Freddie is expressing
himself in his own terms.
The hornman he
chose to blow in front of the rhythm section and act in the drama, has done a
remarkable job in both assignments. Jackie McLean is an altoman certainly
within the Parker tradition but by 1959 one who had matured into a strongly
individual player. His full, singing, confident sound and complete control of
his instrument enable him to transmit his innermost musical self with an
expansive ease that is joyous to hear. It is as obvious in his last Blue Note
album (Swing, Swang, Swingin' — BLP 4024) as it is here or on stage in
The Connection. As an actor, Jackie was so impressive that his part has grown
in size and importance since the play opened.
During the early
part of the run, Redd's mates in the rhythm section were in a state of flux
until Michael Mattos and Larry Ritchie arrived on the scene. Mattos has worked
with Thelonious Monk, Randy Weston, Max Roach and Lester Young among others.
Ritchie came out of B. B. King's band to play with Phineas Newborn and later,
Sonny Rollins. Together they have given the group on stage a permanence; the
fusion of many performances' playing as a unit is evident here.
The first music
heard in the play is introduced by a mute character named Harry (Henry Roach)
who comes into Leach's pad early in the first act with a small portable
phonograph on which he plays Charlie Parker's record of Buzzy. Everyone listens religiously. When the record is over, Harry
closes the case, and leaves. With this, the musicians commence to play Buzzy (not heard here) but are
interrupted by Jaybird who rushes up on stage exclaiming that his play is being
ruined by the junkies' lack of co-operation. After some argument, he leaves and
the quartet begins to play again. This is Who
Killed Cock Robin? The title was suggested by Warren Finnerty because the
rhythmic figure of the melody sounds like that phrase which he, as Leach,
screams in his delirium when he is close to death from an overdose later in the
play. It is an up tempo number, yet extremely melodic as most of Freddie's
compositions are. In the composer's words, "It is intended to plunge the
music into the action of the play and to relieve the tension of the confusion
which had begun to take place."
One of the devices
employed by Gelber is having his main characters get up and solo like jazz
musicians. Sam, a Negro vagabond junky goes on at length, promising to come out
into the audience at intermission and tell some of his colorful stories if they
will give him some money so that he can get high until he goes to work on a
promised job. As he finishes, he lies down and asks the musicians to play. They
respond with Wigglin', a
medium-tempo, minor-major blues which Redd explains, "accentuates Sam's
soulful plea to the audience. It is humorous and sad because we suspect that
they know better."
This is effective
"funk" that is not self-conscious or contrived. Jackie and Freddie
are heard in moving solos; Michael Mattos has a short but effective spot before
the theme returns.
The last piece in
Act I is detonated by Ernie's psychopathic out-burst. Ernie is a frustrated
saxophonist whose horn is in pawn. He sits around bugging everyone by blowing
on his mouthpiece from time to time. In his "confession" he digs at
Leach. In turn, Leach ridicules his ability and laughs at him for deluding
himself into thinking he is a musician. Music
Forever calms the scene and in Freddie's words, "expresses the fact
that despite his delusions, Ernie is still dedicated to music."
The attractive
theme is stated in 2/4 by McLean
while the rhythm section plays in 4/4. Jackie's exhilarating solo at up tempo
shows off his fine sense of time. He is as swift as the wind but never
superficial. Freddie, whose comping is a strong spur, comes in Monkishly and
then uses a fuller chordal attack to generate great excitement before going
into some effective single line. The rhythm section drives with demonic fervor.
This track captures all the urgency and immediacy that is communicated when you
hear the group on stage. In fact, throughout the entire album the quartet has
managed to capture the same intense feeling they display when they are playing
the music as an integrated part of The Connection.
The mood of Act II
is galvanized immediately by the presence of Cowboy who has returned with the
heroin. Jackie comes out of the bathroom after having had his "fix"
and the musicians play as everyone, in their turn, is ushered in the bathroom
by Cowboy. The group keeps playing even when they are temporarily a trio. In
this
album they are
always a quartet. Since this is the happiest of moments for an addict, the name
of the tune is appropriately Time To
Smile. Freddie explains, "The relaxed tempo and simplicity of the
melody were designed to have the audience share in the relaxing of
tensions."
The solos are in
the same groove; unhurried, reflective and lyrical.
In order to escape
from a couple of inquisitive policemen, Cowboy had allied himself with an
unwitting, aged Salvation Sister on the way back to Leach's pad. While everyone
is getting high, she is pacing around, wide-eyed and bird-like. Sister
Salvation, (Barbara Winchester), believes Cowboy has brought her there to save
souls. She sees some of them staggering and "nodding", and upon
discovering empty wine bottles in the bathroom thinks this is the reason. She
launches into a sermon and Solly makes fun of her by going into a miniature
history of her uniform. The music behind this is a march, heard here in Theme For Sister Salvation. When she
tells them of her personal troubles, the junkies feel very bad about mocking
her. This is underscored by Redd's exposition of a sadly beautiful melody in
ballad tempo. Here, in the recorded version, McLean plays this theme before Freddie's solo.
Then the march section is restated. The thematic material of this composition
is particularly haunting. I'm told Leonard Bernstein left the theater humming
it.
Jim Dunn is in a
quandary. Jaybird and one of the photographers have rendered themselves useless
by getting high. The chicks that Leach supposedly has invited have not
appeared. Leach asks Freddie to play and the group responds with Jim Dunn's Dilemma, a swiftly-paced,
minor-key theme. Redd especially captures the feeling of the disquietude in his
two-handed solo.
From the time of
the first fix, Leach has been intermittently griping that he is not high.
Finally Cowboy gives him another packet as the quartet starts to play again. He
doesn't go into the bathroom but makes all the preparations at a table right
onstage. The tune O.D., or overdose,
is so named because this is what Leach self-administers. Where in the play the
music stops abruptly as he keels over, here the song is played to completion. McLean is again sharp, clear and declarative.
Redd has another well developed solo with some fine single line improvisation.
I first saw the
play the week it opened. My second viewing was in March 1960. To my amazement,
I found myself injected into The Connection. As the musicians
left the pad of the supposedly dying Leach, they reminded one another that
"Ira
Gitler is
coming down to interview us for the notes."
The above is just
a small part of why The Connection helps The Living Theatre justify its name.
Gelber's dialogue, which still had the fresh feeling of improvisation on second
hearing, is one of the big reasons. Another large one is Freddie Redd's score.
Effective as it is in the play, it is still powerful when heard out of context
because primarily it is good music fully capable of standing on its own.
—IRA GITLER”
