© -Steven
Cerra , copyright protected; all rights reserved.
Guitarist Barney
Kessel, bassist Ray Brown and drummer Shelly Manne helped me to come of age in
Jazz.
Initially through
the series of “Poll Winner” recordings they made under the auspices of Les
Koenig at Contemporary Records and later through professional associations and
personal friendships, Barney, Ray and Shelly made endearing and enduring
impressions on me and on my life.
The editorial
staff at JazzProfiles thought it might be fun to revisit their work, so
along with the crackerjack graphics team at CerraJazz LTD and the production facilities of
StudioCerra, it put together the following video tribute featuring Barney, Ray
and Shelly working out on Duke Jordan
Here are some
thoughts about what made Barney, Ray and Shelly such special players and people
as excerpted from Nat Hentoff’s insert notes to The Poll Winners [Contemporary
S-7535; OJCCD-156-2].
© -Nat Hentoff, copyright protected; all
rights reserved.
The reason for the
alfresco exuberance of the Maypole wielders on the cover of this album is that
all three won all three of the major American jazz popularity polls for 1956 — Down
Beat, Metronome and Playboy.
While the election
to these non-posthumous Valhalla’s is evidently quite gratifying, I expect that
these three musicians are also deeply heartened by the sure knowledge that this
respect and appreciation for their skills and souls is shared by the most
exacting of all jazz audiences, their fellow jazzmen. Barney, Shelly and Ray
cut through the lines of style, age and temperament. They are dug by jazzmen of
all persuasions, because they in turn have not limited themselves to any one
county of jazz. They're in place almost anywhere in the whole pleasure dome. …
Barney's strength,
blues-blood, and sensitivity to others' musical needs as well as his own.
Shelly's command of the drum as a thorough instrument, not just as a
time-keeping device; his presence when needed as a third voice and the unobtrusiveness
of his presence when that quality too is required. Ray for the fullness,
firmness and tightness of his voice; his power, which propels when it's only
suggested; and the flame, like his colleagues', of the perennial ‘amateur de
jazz.’
The music in this
set is primarily conversational, and it is conversation between three spirits
with much in common in terms of life-view and way of living as well as music.
It is a
conversation between experts whose knowledge has gone so far that they can never
now regard themselves as experts, knowing not what they'll discover next time
they talk.
And it's a
conversation essentially for kicks, the kicks that come best and most
frequently when you talk with your peers and are thereby in no need to worry
whether your quick allusion will be picked up or whether you'll goof a spiral
reference. It's not often that we amateurs, literally as well as
French-figuratively, have a chance to hear this much of this kind of talk.”
