We always enjoy it when Gerald Wilson "stops by" and brings along some of his music. The tune is Patterns and it features solos by pianist Jack Wilson, Carmell Jones on trumpet, Harold Land on tenor saxophone and Joe Pass on drums with Mel Lewis booting things along from the drum chair. You can locate our previous, two-part feature on Gerald in the blog sidebar.
Focused Profiles on Jazz and its Creators while also Featuring the Work of Guest Writers and Critics on the Subject of Jazz.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Grant Geissman: Studio Jazz Guitarist
© -Steven
Cerra , copyright protected; all rights reserved.
“Grant Geissman's latest CD
looks like a five-inch homage to the album-cover artist Jim Flora, with a
cartoon of the guitarist serenading a bikini-clad redhead on the cover, and a
collage in the center spread crammed with beatnik musicians, cats, birds and a
pink elephant. The disc itself is designed like a vinyl record, complete with
fake grooves.
Musically, Geissman takes a
step into the past too, abandoning his smooth-jazz track record in favor of
rootsy sound based in soulful hard bop, with a little New Orleans and upbeat
melodies that still go down smoothly without the gloss.
From the Horace
Silver-influenced title track to "Theme From Two and a Half Men,"
which gives the guitarist and Brian Scanlon (on soprano sax) a chance to blow
over the sitcom theme, Geissman proves himself to be no wallflower when he puts
his mind to it. But often tracks like "Bossa," with wordless vocals
by Tierney Sutton, or "Wes Is More," with an excessive section of
traded fours and twos with organist Jim Cox, come off more like bossa nova and
blues without the necessary roughness.”
- Mike Shanley Review of Grant Geissman’s Say
That! CD in JazzTimes APRIL
2006
“Grant Geissman's third in a
trilogy of wildly eclectic outings once again has the versatile guitarist
indulging in more than a few of his favorite things. From loping funk to
boogaloo to earthy blues shuffles, with a haunting ballad, a beautiful samba
and an urgently swinging post-bop romp thrown into the mix —along with touches
of classical, flamenco and zydeco — he covers all the bases with authority on “Bop! Bang! Boom!
'It's all stuff I'm
interested in and like to play, so it just comes out," says the San Jose
native who is well known for his improvised guitar solo on Chuck Mangione's
1978 pop crossover hit 'Feels So Good* and more recently for co-writing the
theme for the hit CBS-TV sitcom Two and a Half Men ("Men, men, men, men,
manly men!*] ‘I have eclectic tastes and the way I play and write follows that.
And since this album is on my own label, I get to do what I want!’”
- Bill Milkowski, liner notes
“One of the reasons I created
my own label, Futurism, was so that I could explore anything I wanted—which to
me is what an artist is supposed to do.”
- Grant Geissman
Like his
counterpart, guitarist Lee Ritenour, who is affectionately known as “Captain
Fingers” for his legendary ability to play any style of guitar at a moment’s
notice, Grant Geissman really knows his way around a recording studio.
Grant is a Pro’s
Pro: he brings it; he lays it down; it’s perfect. No need for another take.
It’s done. Let’s move on.
Given the amount
of money that record producers have to spend to develop an album, Grant’s
ability to make it happen and to make it happen right the first time is why
he’s first call on most contractor’s lists.
Grant also
understands the technical aspects of the studio; he's savvy about the processes
involved with making a recording. Whether it’s the sound board, the mix, the
use of electronics and synthesizers to create and enhance the music, Grant
knows about this stuff.
More importantly,
Grant knows enough about all of these elements of engineering sound so that he
can make them subservient to the final product – good music.
Grant also
surrounds himself with musicians who are at home creating Jazz in a studio
environment.
In recent years,
Grant has taken matters a step further with the formation of his own label - Futurism
Records.
Beginning in 2006
with Say
That! and following in 2009 with Cool Man Cool, Grant has
offered eclectic Jazz stylings that appeal to a wide range on interests: some
Smooth Jazz; some Latin Jazz; some straight-head Bebop – all infused with
Grant’s sophisticated studio sensibilities.
Bop! Bang! Boom!, the latest CD in the series, was released
by Grant on July 17, 2012
In addition to a
whole host of special guest such as saxophonist Tom Scott, guitarist Larry
Carlton and keyboard artist Russell
Ferrante who join Grant on selected tracks, there is the bonus of the artwork of
Miles Thompson that graces these CDs and is very reminiscent of the classic LP cover
art that Jim Flora developed for many RCA and Columbia classic Jazz LP’s in the 1950s.
Here’s what
Michael Bloom Media Relations had to say about Bop! Bang! Boom!:
“[This CD] is the
third album in a loosely fashioned trilogy that reflects Grant Geissman's shift
to more traditional jazz expressions. The powerfully eclectic follow-up to Say
That! and Cool Man Cool includes amped-up ventures into numerous genres
that reflect Geissman's multitude of passions.
The key to making
meaningful music for me is to not limit myself stylistically. I actually can't
envision writing an album where every track sounds the same. One of the reasons
I created my own label, Futurism, was so that I could explore anything I
wanted—which to me is what an artist is supposed to do. I don't know what
happens after Bop! Bang! Boom!, it might be completely different. But it's not
about having a master plan, it's about writing and recording music that excites
and inspires me.”
Geissman co-wrote
the Emmy-nominated theme (and also co-writes the underscore) for the hit CBS-TV
series Two and Q Half Men. He also co-writes the underscore for the hit series
Mike & Molly (also on CBS). As a studio musician, he has recorded with such
artists as Quincy Jones, Chuck Mangione (playing the now-classic guitar solo on
the 1977 hit "Feels So Good77), Lorraine Feather, Cheryl Bentyne, Van Dyke
Parks, Ringo Starr, Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band, Joanna Mewsom, Inara
George, Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello.”
Here’s a taste of
the music on Bop! Bang! Boom! The tune is Un Poco Español on which Grant plays his mellow-sounding 1972
Hernandis nylon string classical guitar with Russell Ferrante featured on
piano.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Louis Stewart /Mundell Lowe. play Body and Soul. Duets#2
Put your feet up, grab a cup of coffee or tea and relax while listening to some exquisite guitar playing.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Curnow, Metheny and Mays
© -Steven
Cerra , copyright protected; all rights reserved.
I was going to add
the phrase - “not a law firm” – to the title of this piece, but then I realized
that it was an unnecessary qualifier.
Pat Metheny and
Lyle Mays are names even more widely known in musical circles outside of Jazz
and Jazz cognoscenti have been aware of Bob Curnow’s contributions to the music
for many years.
In all honesty, I
was just looking for a vehicle to present Bobby Shew’s masterful trumpet work
on Bob Curnow’s big band arrangement of Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays’ tune, Always and Forever.
As sometimes
happens, I made the video using this track from Bob Curnow’s L.A. Big Band: The
Music of Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays [MAMA Foundation MMF 1009] and then
backed into this piece.
The following
annotation details the evolution of Bob Curnow’s career as a composer and
arranger for big bands, as well as, his current activities as the proprietor of
Sierra Music. You can checkout more about the later at www.sierramusicstore.com. The site
also includes a biography on Bob.
Its almost
impossible to encapsulate the overarching musical careers of Pat Metheny and to
a somewhat lesser extent that of Lyle Mays.
I first became
aware of their music on a 1978 ECM LP entitled The Pat Metheny Group [1-1114].
Although I was
never a big fan of the Jazz-Rock-Fusion genre, some aspects of it appealed to
me because in the hands of capable musicians, aspects of it could offer new
approaches to developing melodies and alternative harmonies. I
also liked the looser feel to rhythm that some of this music conveyed.
Of course, the
overall texture or sound of the genre was heavily influenced by the use of
electronics, particularly synthesizers.
What attracted me to the music of The Pat Metheny Group was the fact that it was easy on
the “Rock” while being heavy on the use of electronic instruments to advance
beautiful themes and interesting new approaches to harmonies such as the use of
different tonal centers and chromaticism.
Pat and Lyle
created music that was lighter in sonority and that just seemed to float,
rhythmically.
Their music evoked
moods and was easy to “visualize.” It had a down home feel to it and contained
some elements of blues, country-and-western and folk.
As described by
Richard Cook and Brian Morton in their Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th
Ed.:
“Metheny seemed content to
drop his playing into whatever context it might find. …. At this time Metheny
favored a clean, open tone with just enough electronic damping to take the
music out of 'classic’ jazz-guitar feeling, but he clearly owed a great debt to
such urban pastoralists as Jim Hall and Jimmy Raney, even if he seldom moved
back to bebop licks.
The Metheny Group albums
settled the guitarist's music into the niche from which he is still basically
working: light, easily digested settings that let him play long, meticulous
solos which can as often as not work up a surprising intensity. Pat Metheny Group and American Garage each have their ration
of thoughtful improvising which the guitarist settles inside a gently
propulsive rhythm, more ruralized than the beefy urban beats of the contemporary
fusion bands.
That strain also colors the
playing and composing of Mays, who has been Metheny's principal collaborator
for 20 years. Scarcely a major voice in his own right - … - Mays is the perfect
second banana. He feeds Metheny all kinds of tasteful orchestration without
getting too much in his way.
New Chautauqua is a rare all-solo album in the Metheny
canon. A pleasant, sweet-toned diversion, it hints at the multifarious-ness;
with various electric and acoustic settings, including a i5-string harp-guitar,
with which Metheny has grown fascinated in recent times.”
Given these
descriptions of the form and format of the music of Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays,
imagine my surprise when in 1994 I stumbled upon a recording entitled Bob
Curnow’s L.A. Big Band Plays The Music of Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays [MAMA
Foundation MMF 1009].
I had a fledgling
awareness of Bob Curnow as a budding arranger for some of the bands that the
legendary Stan Kenton led in the 1970s before his passing in 1979 and I knew of
his work with Stan in marketing and distributing the band’s music through
Kenton’s Creative World enterprises.
But never in a
million years would I have figured the Metheny/Mays musical canon fitting into
the big bold sound of a Kenton-like orchestral setting.
If anyone had
proposed it to me conceptually, I would have thought of it as a musical
contradiction in terms.
And yet, I was
holding the realized promise of such a union in my hand; all I had to do was
buy it, take it home and play it.
Which is exactly
what I did and much to my delight, the combination of Pat and Lyle’s music as
orchestrated and arranged for big band by Bob worked extremely well together.
As Bob Curnow alludes in his insert notes to
the recording: the big band arrangements of Metheny and Mays music became one
example of what Stan Kenton’s Orchestra might have sounded like in the 1980's and beyond.
© -Bob
Blumenthal , copyright protected; all rights reserved.
Acoustic and
electric. These are the categories most frequently employed to compartmentalize
jazz these days. Many diehards in each
camp will tell you that never the twain shall meet. Obviously, they have not
heard this incredible album.
Bob Curnow’s L.A. Big Band
Plays The Music of Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays
is an amazingly
successful translation to the idiom of jazz big band of music originally
created in an electric context. The source material, a dozen compositions from
the book of the Pat Metheny Group, was created by musicians who have never
allowed simplistic categories to place restrictions on their imaginations. It has been adapted by a kindred spirit who,
while working from a more traditional base, has an equally open mind and the
requisite big ears.
Bob Curnow's name
is not as familiar as Pat Metheny's, yet he too has enjoyed a rich and diverse
career. Curnow was a trombonist with The Stan Kenton Orchestra (which also
performed his compositions and arrangements) and served as A&R Director,
General Manager and Producer for Kenton's Creative World label.
His conducting
career has brought him to the podium of symphony orchestras and jazz ensembles
throughout the United States, and his extensive experience as an educator
includes the presidency of the International Association of jazz Educators,
teaching positions at California State Los Angeles, Michigan State and Case
Western Reserve Universities, and an eight year directorship of the McDonald's
Ail-American High School jazz Band during which he helped to discover and
nurture many now-prominent jazz musicians.
Sierra Music Publications, his publishing company, carries charts from
the likes of Bill Holman and Maynard Ferguson and Bob's own arrangements of the
music of the Yellowjackets and others.
Finally, he is a long-standing fan of the Pat Metheny Group.
"The music
inspired me from the first time I heard it," Curnow explains. "I initially transcribed If I Could just to find out how the
piece worked and exactly what Pat was doing." Curnow then went on to
complete some 12 arrangements of compositions by Pat Metheny and/or Lyle
Mays. Working from source material
heavily steeped in electronic and synthesized sound was no deterrent to
Curnow's labors. He was responding to
the strengths of Metheny's music — to its heart, its sophistication and its
ability to simultaneously communicate to a mass audience while still providing
a musical challenge.
Further, Curnow
recognized that the dynamic and coloristic range of the Metheny Group was not
that far removed from the directions he had pursued with the Stan Kenton
band. "From my perspective,"
he says, "the earliest keyboards, going back to violin and flute stops on
organs, were frequently trying to emulate acoustic sounds. When I hear Pat's
group, I layer in acoustic sounds in my mind. To my ears, the possibility of
presenting this music in a big band context has always been there."
Possibility is not
realization, however, and Curnow has done a magnificent job of writing
arrangements that preserve the integrity of the originals without deviating
from the big band tradition he knows so well. In each case, Curnow's rendering
retains the nucleus and builds logically upon it, using the larger palette of
the jazz orchestra and its expanded timbral possibilities to transform these
already sublime pieces. The result is nothing less than a series of masterworks
for jazz ensemble. Fans of the Metheny Group who spend little or no time
listening to big bands will feel immediately comfortable here, just as big band
fans who may never have listened to Metheny could be forgiven for assuming that
these pieces are simply original works of uncommon quality. It was all there in
Metheny's music, and now it has been preserved in a new context by Curnow.
It takes more than
a skilled arranger to bring off a project of this scope, which is where the
talented ensemble that Curnow has assembled comes in. "As exciting and challenging as it was
to score these pieces for big band," Curnow states, "it was even more
thrilling to hear them played by these magnificent musicians. It was truly the culmination of a ten-year
dream."
"These
arrangements have gone through a real metamorphosis in preparation for the
recording," Curnow adds.
"Several were altered to fit the players, and to create solo space
for as many members of the band as possible." The role of guitarist Paul Viapiano is
indicative. "There was originally
very little guitar in these charts, but I loved the way Paul played and wanted
him to be heard." As his feature
track See the World makes clear,
Viapiano was creating very much in the spirit of respectful individuality that
characterizes Curnow's arrangements. The
same can be said for the other musicians.
Examples abound, from Bobby Shew's heartfelt flugelhorn on Always and Forever and Danny House's
alto sax on If I Could to Bob
Sheppard's volatile soprano sax on The
First Circle and the simple eloquence of Bill Cunliffe's piano throughout.
…
And we could go on
listing such treats (the liquid clarinets behind Lockart earlier in the piece,
those brass shakes at the start of See the World ...) for pages. These are
Curnow's gems, his way of honoring music that clearly means a great deal to him
in its original form. A string of such gems has created one large triumph — an
album which will be enjoyed alike by every Pat Metheny Group fan, big band fan
and plain old music fan who hears it.”
The liner notes
also contains these thoughts by Bob Curnow a about the project.
© -Bob Curnow, copyright protected; all
rights reserved.
To many people,
the words "big band" conjure up an image of music from the ‘30s and
‘4Os. But I have never felt that the big band should be limited by a style
created long ago. While I have a deep and abiding respect for the older music,
I also know that the music of the '70s, '80s and '90s works beautifully in this
medium. To me, a "big band" is simply a band that's big — in this
case big enough to include twenty of the best jazz musicians in the world.
There are two
unmistakable and pervasive influences on this body of work. The first is, of
course, Pat Metheny and his unique and timeless compositions — often created in
collaboration with his partner Lyle Mays. The second is the arranging styles of
those who wrote for the Stan Kenton Orchestra during its almost 40 years of
existence. Whether it was Bill Holman, Pete Rugolo, Johnny Richards, Lennie
Niehaus or Stan himself, my love of the big band comes from years of listening
to, studying and playing the music created by these men for that great
orchestra. Kenton's composers were
always on the cutting edge, using the entire dynamic range and colorful palette
of the big band. Stan would have it no
other way.
The question has
been asked: "What would the Kenton band sound like today?" Perhaps a little like this CD. In retrospect, I think I wrote these arrangements
as though the Kenton band still existed. I certainly tried to use the hallmarks
of that
band — the many colors,
the powerful soloists, and the range of dynamics, from quiet and pensive to
roaring ….”
The following
video contains a track from Bob Curnow’s L.A. Big Band Plays The Music
of Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays in the form of “ …Bobby Shew's heartfelt
flugelhorn on Always and Forever.” Caution, Bobby’s gorgeous playing on Bob
Curnow’s arrangement is guaranteed to make your heart skip a beat.
Perhaps after
you’ve had a chance to listen to this music you’ll understand why I found it to
be so impressive and enjoyable.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
The Expatriate Life of Stan Getz: Getz In Denmark
© -Steven
Cerra , copyright protected; all rights reserved.
While the
editorial staff at JazzProfiles puts the finishing touches on a piece about Stan
Getz in Sweden , the Scandinavian country he moved to in
1955, we thought you might enjoy reading the following essay about Stan’s
subsequent stay in Denmark .
Despite the fact
that in the article, both the author and Stan revel in the qualities of
European life circa 1960, Stan would return to the United States a few years later just in time to become
involved in a series of widely popular bossa nova recordings that would ensure
his future and his fortune.
Few Jazz musicians
have ever been so fortunate.
© - Jack Lind, Down Beat, 4/14/1960,
copyright protected; all rights reserved
“An American tourist who had picked up enough Danish to become aware of Danish radio’s predilection for lecture series on turnip growing, and similar heavy fare, was surprised, when he turned on his car radio not long ago, to hear a broadcast of live jazz.
To add to his
bafflement, he thought he recognized one of the soloists with the big, swinging
band. The tenor saxophonist sounded for all the world like Stan Getz. It can’t
be, he muttered.
But it was. Getz,
Joe Harris, Oscar Pettiford, and other American stalwarts were wailing over the
staid Danish airwaves.
Getz, one of the
most creative and influential of American jazzmen and a consistent favorite of
the U.S. public, is today living in Copenhagen —or rather, in one of its suburbs. With his
pretty Swedish wife, Monica, and his four children (three by a previous
marriage), he occupies a palatial home in Lyngby, which he rents from a
university professor. It is not far from the summer residence of the Danish
Royal family.
The Getz family
has sunk itself into the life of Denmark . His children, with the linguistic ease of
the young, have come to speak fluent Danish, and one of them even appeared
recently in a play at his school. For his wife, the language presents no
problem, since Danish is quite close to Swedish (the Swedes traditionally
wisecrack that Danish isn’t a language, it’s’ a throat disease). Getz himself
speaks only a few words of Danish. It’s impossible to learn, he says. Besides,
everybody in Denmark speaks English and everybody wants to
practice his English on you.
All the evidence
suggests that Stan Getz has found in his expatriate life more health and
happiness than his career has ever before given him.
Nor has living and
playing far from the roots of jazz led to stagnation for the young saxophonist
(he is only 33). He has found, like many American jazzmen who have become
voluntary expatriates, that in the European life he has more time to develop,
to try out new ideas. There are those who think that Getz is playing better
today than ever before. American critic Ira Gitler , reviewing a European-made Getz LP in Down
Beat recently, observed: “Getz sounds as if he is enjoying his expatriate
life…He has reaped the benefits of relaxed living without being complacent about
his playing…”
The musician
himself verifies this view.
”I’m tired of
competition. I’m tired of tearing around making money,” says Getz who, until he
settled in Denmark , was constantly on the go with concert
tours, the nightclub circuit, and recording work, among many activities.
“There are other
things in life than making money. Here, I have more time with my family. I dont
make as much money as in the States, but it’s cheaper to live here.
And it’s
unhurried. I enjoy the relaxed way of living in Europe . I wanted to find peace of mind. That’s
hard to find in the States.”
Getz is by no
means the only American jazzman to take this view of America and leave. Europe today has a large and growing colony of
American jazzmen. Getz’s constant companion and best friend in Copenhagen has been bassist Oscar Pettiford, with
whom he often works.
The first of the
American jazz musicians to settle in Europe was, of course, Sidney Bechet, for whom France , where he died last year, had become home.
Kenny Clarke moved to France ; so did Bud Powell and Lucky Thompson.
Trumpeter Bill Coleman lived abroad so long that he is virtually forgotten in America . Tenor saxophonist Don Byas chose Holland for a home, married a Dutch girl, and has
been living abroad for 10 years.
Others chose Sweden , another country that is particularly
hospitable to jazzmen and their talents. Former Dizzy Gillespie drummer Joe
Harris hopped off during a tour and stayed, and is now married to a Swedish
girl.
Quincy Jones has
spent more time in Europe than in America in the past three or four years, working a
great deal in Sweden . Trumpeter Benny Bailey, another Gillespie
alumnus, had been living in Sweden for three years until he joined Quincy ’s big band during its European tour
recently.
Some of these
expatriates are fugitives from the American scene—fleeing from personal
problems, or from the American concept of the Age of Anxiety. A few are
fugitives from more tangible things—high taxes, the racial situation, the
disjointed family life that is so often forced on the American jazzman.
Getz and Pettiford
evidently got tired of the pressures of life in America .
In Copenhagen , the two musicians are most likely to be
heard in the Club Montmartre, a jazz room tucked away behind the facade of one
of the ancient buildings that line a meandering street in the inner city. In
many ways Europe ’s most unique jazz spot, the Montmartre has no sign outside its door. Indeed, it
has no other identifying mark than a giant photo of Count Basie that stares at
you from the outside wall. Yet jazz fans and musicians have no trouble finding
it. They gravitate toward it with the unerring instinct of a Sahara desert camel galloping toward an oasis for
replenishment.
The Montmartre is run by Anders Dyrup, a tall, good-looking,
blond Dane who first heard jazz 16 years ago when someone played him Artie Shaw’s
recording of Traffic Jam. He was
smitten on the spot, and long ago began making plans for a jazz club—plans that
came to fruition last year with the Montmartre .
The Montmartre is dark and smoky, lit only by candles
that cast long, moving shadows, like claws, across the walls. You have trouble
discerning the grotesque puffed-up heads set in relief on the walls.
The hipsters who
come to dig jazz sit on long benches at rough-hewn tables, sipping heady Danish
beer. The girls wear tight skirts, low-cut blouses, Brigitte Bardot hairdos,
and no makeup. The men wear beards and sweaters and Caesarean haircuts and
smoke pipes. They look terribly earnest and sit in frozen postures while the
musicians are blowing. The dance floor remains polished from lack of use, and
the boor who dares to tap a finger to the rhythm is caught in the crossfire of
a dozen icy stares.
Owner Dyrup and
his pretty wife, Lotte, who is hostess, chef, and waitress in the place, have
in the last year been hosts to such assorted dignitaries as Buck Clayton, Gerry
Mulligan, Helen Merrill, Art Farmer, Mose Allison, Kenny Clarke, Kid Ory, Bengt
Hallberg, Jimmy Rushing, Art Blakey, and sidemen from the bands of Benny
Goodman, Duke Ellington, and Dizzy Gillespie. Gillespie himself tried to get in
during a recent visit to Copenhagen but gave up when he saw the waiting
crowds.
The Montmartre also has a very good house band, the
personnel of which has, at various times, included Don Byas, Oscar Pettiford,
Benny Bailey, Joe Harris, Kenny Clarke, and Dan Jordan, a young bassist from Detroit . The leader of this group is Stan Getz.
Why, of all the
places where Getz might have chosen to live in Europe , did he choose Denmark —which is better known for its Tuborg beer,
atom-splitter Niels Bohr, pretty girls, and Hans Christian Anderson, than for
jazz?
For one thing,
there is the nature of the people The Danes never seem to fail to enchant
foreigners. The screwball style of humor of Victor Borge, which seems so unique
to an American, is not uniquely Borge; it is uniquely Danish—and it is
commonplace here. The Danes have a remarkable flair for living, and have no
hesitation in giving in to their inner desires and yearnings. We all remain
children at heart, but only the Danes have been willing to admit to it. Only
they could have built a remarkable establishment such as the Tivoli , the charming amusement park for adults as
well as children that seems to give physical being to the fairy tales.
Then there is the
Hans Christian Anderson mermaid of bronze that sits on a rock in Copenhagen harbor. What other people would build a
statue not to the poet but to the product of his imagination?
Then, too, Denmark is an inexpensive place to live. And there
is virtually no poverty in the country. There are no slums, there is no hunger.
On top of that,
audiences here are remarkably receptive to jazzmen. “More people like good
music here,” Getz says flatly.
Finally, Getz has
encountered a particularly sympathetic audience in the Danish jazz critics, on
whom it might be well to spend a few moments of consideration.
The Danish jazz
critics have an amazing knowledge of what is going on both in Europe and (thanks largely to records) in America . If they have a fault, it is that they are
analytical to the point of pedanticism. At times, their deadly seriousness
becomes amusing.
Probably the most
influential Danish jazz writer is Torben Uhlrich, a musician and tennis star.
He is also by far the most ponderous and cantankerous of the critics, rarely
missing a chance to take his fellow critics to task for their inferior
judgment. In this way, he is not unlike some of the American members of the
critical brotherhood.
In a recent column
in Politiken, one of Denmark ’s two largest papers, which has too weekly
jazz columns, Uhlrich told me some of the things that pain him about Danish
jazz. Danish musicians, he contended, tend to rush headlong into each new
direction in jazz without a firm grasp of what they are doing. ”I’d like to see
a bit more contemplation,” he chided the Danish jazzmen. “Slow down and give
yourselves time to absorb.”
He told the story
of a local musician, who after he had been listening to Getz, Zoot Sims, and
Lee Konitz, then became aware of Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane. “He suddenly
discovered that Rollins and Coltrane had been deeply hidden within him all
along,” Uhlrich scoffed, and added: It’s precisely because Europeans are able
to discard Sims, Getz, and Konitz so easily and so carelessly that one doubts
that they are able to get something out of jazz which is closer to its roots.
In other words,
the critical devotion to Getz in Copenhagen is great. “Getz has a fabulous technique,”
another critic wrote. “Hearing him strengthens your belief that he may well be
the best instrumentalist in jazz today.”
Actually, despite
what Uhlrich’s criticism would seem to suggest, Getz is not taken for granted
by the local jazzmen. If anything, they, like the public, tend to idolize him.
As yet, Denmark has not contributed to jazz any musicians
of international stature, such as Sweden ’s Arne Domnerus, Belgium ’s Bobby Jaspar, France ’s Martial Solal, Germany ’s Rolf Kuhn. But the day will no doubt
come, as Danish musicians come under the increasing influence and stimulation
of their American colleagues—and particularly with men of the caliber of Getz
and Pettiford living and working in their midst.
Among the top men
on the jazz scene in Denmark are Max Bruel, a baritone saxophonist who is also
a top Danish architect; Erik Moseholm, an accomplished bass player who doubles
as a school teacher; and Louis Hjulmand, vibist, who is also a bank clerk.
Bruel and Moseholm can be heard on an EmArcy disc, Cool Bruel. There is also
Bent Axen, a gifted pianist who directs the Jazz Quintet - 60.
The trouble with
most of the Danish jazz musicians, however, is that they are hobbyists—though
very good ones—for whom it apparently doesn’t pay to play for a living. Perhaps
as the interchange of jazzmen increases, the climate will be more propitious
for careers in jazz. It is already getting better, as evidenced by the fact the
daily press devotes a considerable amount of space to jazz columns and reviews.
Denmark also has two regularly-publishing
magazines devoted to jazz.
Two of the best jazzmen in Denmark are Jan Johansson, a lean young Swede with a beard and a modest manner, who has been influenced considerably by Horace Silver and Lenny Tristano; and William Schioppfe, a poll-winning drummer who has learned from the two Joneses—Jo and Philly Joe—and is the only Danish musician who makes a full-time living from jazz.
Both have played
extensively with Getz, in the house group at the Club Montmartre.
Johansson recalled
his first few nights of playing with Getz and Pettiford. “They were, of course,
excellent,” he said. “I was terrible. American musicians like Stan and Oscar
not only play better than most Europeans, but in many ways quite different from
us. They have more nuances, they are more forceful, bolder. The rest of us are
so busy trying to keep up with them that we rarely reach the great moments. European
musicians spend a lot of time listening to American jazz on records; we seem to
be less independent in our playing.”
Another young
musician, Lars Blach, a Danish guitarist who occasionally sits in with Getz and
Pettiford, speaks with even greater awe.
Of course, it’s
wonderful to be allowed in with such company. At first you think it’s strange
that they’ll have you sit in at all. There you sit — waiting for that knowing
smile that tells you that you’ve failed. But suddenly you realize that the
other guy gets something out of even your worst blunder! Then afterwards you
rush home with your head full of new ideas and try them out.”
This, then, is the
present world of Stan Getz: a favorable, relaxed atmosphere in which he is able
to play without pressure, in which his work is able to grow and his influence
take root among musicians who need the inspiration he and Pettiford can give.
And make no mistake: he is making a real effort to grow as an artist.
He sat down to
talk about it one night at the Montmartre .
As it happened, it
was one of those wrong nights. The Montmartre was half empty (a rarity) and the first few sets by the group were
undistinguished to the point of being restive. Getz had had a bad day. Yet
suddenly he launched into a 12-minute version of I Can’t Get Started, during which he poured out his soul with
extraordinary beauty and lyricism. The audience was transfixed.
Afterwards he seemed
to feel better.
“My music gets
better when I have time for meditation and working new things out,” he said. “I
have been working a lot with my tone over here. I’ve been trying to set it more
naturally. I’m trying to get away from too much vibrato. I started off the
wrong way, learning the practical aspects first. It’s a blind alley.”
To achieve his
ends, Getz plans to enroll at a Danish music conservatory to study theory, and
learn to play piano. He has, believe it or not, never had a formal music lesson
since he began playing professionally in New York at the age of 15.
This devotion to
improvement is already paying off. As Gitler detected from the Getz recording,
his playing has reached a new maturity. The style has become more lyrical, yet
increasingly forceful. He doesn’t seem dry and intellectual as he used to, said
one Danish jazz critic. He has soul in every note he plays.
Getz demonstrates
that the modern school isn’t as bloodless as people have been thinking. He
builds up his themes with unerring logic, and it is almost incredible that he
can give his tone so much richness and fullness without vibrato & Getz has
no intention of leaving Denmark at this time. Why should he?
He and Pettiford
do considerable radio work, mostly with the intelligent planning of Borge Roger -Henrichson, a jazz pianist who is in
charge of jazz programming for the Danish state radio. And there is recording
work. Pettiford does some recordings with small European groups for Dyrup, the Montmartre proprietor, who also owns a record firm
and distributes in Denmark American labels such as World Pacific, Savoy , and Roulette. Getz said that he plans to
join Pettiford when his contract with Verve runs out.
Getz and Pettiford
usually play four nights a week at Montmartre . During the weekends, they either play to one of the hundreds of
jazz societies that have sprouted up all over this little country in recent
years or they hop a flight to some other European city for a weekend gig.
And that is one of
the main appeals of Copenhagen to Getz: it is so located that no major European city is
more than a few hours away by air.
In point of fact,
Getz at this time is away from Copenhagen , traveling the Continent with Norman Granz’s
Jazz at the Philharmonic troupe. With him are the Oscar Peterson Trio, Miles
Davis—and Jan Johansson and William Schioppfe. The pianist and drummer, so
modest in evaluating their roles in the present career of Stan Getz, so
impressed Granz when he went to Montmartre to talk to Getz recently that he
hired both of them to work with the saxophonist on the tour.
When they return
from the tour, it will be time for Getz to start thinking about the summer.
During the summer months, he and his family rent a large home facing Oresund , the sound that separates Denmark from Sweden .
It is an easy
drive into town for Getz, who uses a small German car. He explained that he
brought a large white Cadillac with him from America , but promptly traded it in. “I didn’t want any notoriety,” he grinned.
But chances are
that in the vicinity of his home, you’ll find Stan Getz using an even more
modest mode of transportation. Adapting himself to the local atmosphere, Getz
does what the Danes do: as often as not, he travels by bicycle.
“Yes, I like this
life,” the quiet-spoken musician said.
“It’s a good life.””
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
The Original Paul Horn Quintet Revisited
© -Steven
Cerra , copyright protected; all rights reserved.
“The Paul Horn album,
entitled Something Blue, was
obviously influenced by the Miles Davis album, and indeed the Paul Horn group
was one of the first fully to explore the new territory opened by Miles.
Paul Horn's 'Dun-Dunnee', for
instance, is a forty-bar AABA tune with but one chord or scale for the
eight-bar A sections. (It can be thought of as either one long G7 chord or a
mixolydian scale; that is, a scale starting on G using the white keys of the
piano.)”
- Bob Gordon , Jazz West Coast: The Los Angeles Jazz Scene of the 1950’s
“Though the Paul Horn Quintet
has a readily identifiable sound through the blending of the leader's alto
saxophone or flute with Richards' vibraphone, it is the writing rather than the
instrumentation that lends these performances their most personal quality. Paul
and his sidemen alike, instead of relying on horizontal melodic values alone,
tend to create compositional structures in which the harmonic setting, and
often the metric variations, are striking characteristics that give these works
much of their originality of color and mood.”
- Leonard Feather, The Sound of Paul Horn
“One final word: if you are
not a musician and can't tell a bar from a saloon, don't let this deter you. As
Paul cogently observed: ‘Any layman could listen to this music and tap his foot
to it without knowing there is anything so different about our approach to time
or meter.’ Then he thought a moment, smiled, and added a postscript: ‘Except,
of course, the layman might wonder once in a while why his foot was out of
step.’"
- Leonard Feather, Profile of a Jazz Musician
Some of this has
been previously posted on these pages, but I just realized that this is a 50th
anniversary year in my life and I wanted to revisit some of these memories on
the blog.
Or to put it
another way, my goodness, where have the last 50 years gone?!
In April, 1962 during what was then called
"Easter Week", I was the drummer in a quintet that won the
Intercollegiate Jazz Festival which was held annually at The Lighthouse Cafe
located in Hermosa Beach , CA .
Much of the music
that our quintet played was inspired by and/or derived from the Paul Horn
Quintet. Although it was formed in 1959, our quintet didn't catch-up to Paul's
group until 1961 when Paul started to make a regular mid-week gig at Shelly's
Manne Hole in Hollywood . Once we heard Paul's group, its music was to have a huge
and lasting impression on us.
The original group
consisted of Paul Horn [alto sax/flute], Emil Richards [vibes], Paul Moer
[piano], Jimmy Bond [bass] and Billy Higgins [drums], although by the time it
made the gig at Shelly's, Billy Higgins was in New York making all of those wonderful Blue Note
recordings and Milt Turner had replaced him as the drummer.
The quintet that I
performed with at the 1962 Lighthouse Intercollegiate Jazz Festival had the
same instrumentation as Paul Horn's quintet except that guitar replaced vibes.
By 1962, nearly
every Jazz fan was familiar with the modal Jazz played by the Miles Davis
Sextet in the Kind of Blue album, and
with "unusual" time signatures immortalized by the Dave Brubeck Quartet's Time Out! album.
Modal Jazz uses
scales instead of chord progressions as the basis for its themes [melodies] and
improvisations. For “unusual time signatures” think the 5/4 of Paul Desmond’s Take Five or Dave Brubeck’s Blues Rondo a la Turk which is in 9/8 time but counted as 2-2-2-3 .
In other words, those in other than the more standard 2/4 and 4/4 time.
What made the Paul
Horn Quintet particularly appealing to our us was that it was playing modal
Jazz in combination with unusual time signatures, just the thing to peak the
musical interest of 5 young lads ranging in ages from 18-22.
So there we were
for almost a year, spending our Wednesday nights [or was it Thursdays?]
straddling chairs with their backs turned toward the stage, nursing Coca Colas
for over four hours while we soaked in this wonderfully different music. On
many nights, the five of us made up half the crowd at the opening set and the
entire crowd by the closing set!
Of course, none of
these tunes were available as published music so we had to memorize them and
later notate them, correcting any flaws through subsequent listening at the
club.
To their credit,
both Paul and Emil, who composed all of the group's original music, were
extremely helpful in correcting mistakes and explaining alternatives how their music
worked.
And they couldn't
have been nicer about stopping at our table when a set had concluded to answer
any questions before going out for a smoke or to visit the den of metabolic
transmigration.
Sometimes we had
so many questions that they didn't get treated to a break between sets. I guess
our enthusiasm and energy was contagious and they were pleased to be with
others who shared their musical interests.
We listened to
this music so often that thinking and playing modal Jazz in complex time
signatures became almost second-nature to us.
By the time of our
1962 performances at the Lighthouse Intercollegiate Jazz Festival no one in our
group needed to count the unusual time signatures - we just felt them!
We effortlessly
breezed through Count Your Change, a
blues in 4/4 time for the first 8 bars of the theme followed by six measures in
5/4 time concluding with two measures again in 4/4. I mean, your basic 16 bar blues, right!?
Or how about Half and Half with its two
introductions, the first centered around the piano and bass improvising on two
chords and the second introduction consisting of a 12-bar section in 6/8 time
with the tune breaking down into three phrases: [1] the first 12-bar phrase in
4/4 and is made up of 8 bars of ensemble or horn solo and 4 bars of drum solo,
[2] an 8-bar phrase in 6/8 and [3] a final 8-bars in 4/4.
I particularly liked this one because as the drummer I got to finish the last four bars of every one's solo in the first 12-bar phrase. :)
By the time we
started playing Paul Moer's Fun Time it was imperative that we "felt"
the time instead of having to count it as the measures in the choruses run
3/4,3/4,/5/4 [repeated 4 times] followed by a chorus of 5/4,5/4,3/4,3/4.5/4!
I could continue
with many more of these musical roller coaster rides contained in the quintet's
musical repertoire, but I hope you get the idea from these brief descriptions
about how intriguing and adventurous this music was and how proud we felt to be
able to accomplish it.
I think perhaps
the uniqueness of the music that our group featured at the 1962 Lighthouse
Intercollegiate Jazz Festival may have played a major role in our wining the
competition both as a group and on all of our individual instruments,
respectively; another reason for us to be indebted to the Paul Horn Quintet.
Much of this
wonderful and intriguing music is preserved on the Collectibles two-fer CD that
includes the Columbia albums Profile of a Jazz Musician and The
Sound of Paul Horn [Collectibles COL-CD-7531, Sony AZ 61328 ] and Something Blue [HiFijazz J-615
reissued on CD as OJCCD 1778-2].
The Paul Horn
Quintet will always have a special place in my heart for making this musical
journey possible in my life.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Teddy Wilson: Elegant, Refined and Swinging
© -Steven
Cerra , copyright protected; all rights reserved.
In her essay, Beauty By The Numbers [Smithsonian
Magazine, November 2012], Dana MacKenzie argues that the essential
requirements for mathematical beauty are simplicity, surprise and depth “ … in
the sense that the best theorems contain many layers of meaning and reveal more
as you learn about them.” [paraphrase]
Perhaps, the same
can be said about the aesthetic beauty of the Jazz piano stylings of Teddy
Wilson – he executes them in a simple, straightforward manner, he often
astonishes by going to new places in his solos and the more you listen to him
the more he reveals about the essence of a song’s structure [i.e.: it’s
“theorem,’ if you will].
Teddy Wilson was –
noticeably – the first Jazz pianist I ever heard.
I say “noticeably”
because the big band recordings that gave me my first taste of Jazz had the
occasional piano introduction by Duke Ellington, Count Basie, or Stan Kenton,
but the piano in most Swing-era big band Jazz largely functioned as a part of
the rhythm section.
Of course, there
were some notable exceptions such as Jess Stacey’s extended solo from the Benny
Goodman Band’s performance of Sing, Sing,
Sing on the famous 1938 Carnegie Hall recording, but, for the most part,
the piano player in these bands thumped out four-beats-to-the-bar along with
the other members of “the engine house” that powered Swing music.
Listening to recordings
of the trio and later the quartet performances that clarinetist Benny Goodman
featured as “the-band-within-a-band” from around 1935-1938, gave me my extended exposure to what author
Len Lyons in his book The Great Jazz Pianists has termed
“an instrument that has been central to the evolution of Jazz.”
Teddy Wilson was
the pianist in Benny first trio and quartet and I was so taken with his
approach to Jazz piano that I memorized his solos on Nice Work If You Can Get It ,
China
Boy, Sweet Lelani, Moonglow, and Nagasaki .
Teddy is rarely
discussed today with pianists such as Herbie Hancock. Chick Corea, Keith
Jarrett, McCoy Tyner and Brad Melhdau being more in vogue, but when he first
came to prominence in the mid-1930s, Teddy was quite an innovator having
developed his own style from influences derived from Earl “Fatha” Hines, Art
Tatum and Thomas “Fats” Waller.
Teddy is often
referenced by “modernists” such as Bud Powell, George Shearing, Nat King Cole
and Bill Evans as someone who had a great influence on their playing and they
in turn influenced those Jazz pianists who predominate today.
I love listening
to all Jazz pianists because as a friend was fond of saying: “When you sit down
at a piano, the entire range of music theory and harmony is in front of you in
black and white,”
Or, to put it
another way: “The piano is the most versatile and autonomous of all the musical
instruments. No more perfect tool (…) for expressing music has ever been
developed.” [Len Lyons, Ibid].
Fortunately, there
has been much written about Teddy that analyzes and discusses his piano style
including Loren Schoenberg’s essay for The Complete Verve Recordings of the Teddy
Wilson Trio [Mosaic Records MD5-173, Gunther Schuller’s chapter on Teddy in the
Swing Era [pp.502-12], an annotated description of his recordings in
Richard Cook and Brian Moron, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th
Ed., and a marvelous interview that Len Lyons conducted with Teddy
which is included in Len’s The Great Jazz Pianists [pp.60-74].
One of my favorite
expositions about Teddy is by Dick Katz, the late Jazz pianist and educator,
which he prepared as the liner notes to a recording that Columbia Records
issued in 1977 entitled Teddy Wilson: Statements and Improvisations,
1934-42.
This double LP was
produced in conjunction with The Smithsonian Institute when its Jazz Program was
under the direction of the esteemed, Martin Williams.
Thanks to a
Canadian internet friend, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles was able to
obtain a copy of Dick’s excellent liner notes to Teddy Wilson: Statements and
Improvisations, 1934-42 which are particular valuable because of his
pellucid comments about Teddy Wilson’s significance in Jazz history and the
salient characteristics of his Jazz piano style.
© -Dick Katz/The Smithsonian Institute,
copyright protected; all rights reserved.
“Anyone who has
involved himself with that beguiling, consuming presence called "jazz
piano," either as player or listener, probably has his own list of
innovators and essential contributors. But it seems to me that Teddy Wilson
should be .included on anyone's list as one of the most significant artists.
As a jazz pianist
myself, and one who was fortunate enough to have been Teddy Wilson's pupil, my
remarks on his work are necessarily somewhat subjective. In any case, it will
be best first to establish some historical reference points in order to gain
some perspective on his sizable contribution.
We will not deal
with the body of ragtime music developed by Scott Joplin, James Scott, Joseph
Lamb, and others, but begin with the great keyboard improvisers (ragtime was
not an improvisational music). My list goes like this: James P. Johnson; Willie
"The Lion" Smith; Fats Waller; Earl Hines; Art Tatum; Teddy Wilson;
Count Basic; Duke Ellington; Nat "King" Cole; Erroll Garner; Thelonious
Monk; Bud Powell; Bill Evans; McCoy Tyner.
Each of these men
added new dimensions and they are the names I hear discussed most among other
pianists as key influences.
Of course, Chick
Corea and Keith Jarrett are names mentioned today, but at this writing it is
perhaps too early to assess their impact on the future. Oscar Peterson is also
a favorite topic but the jury is still out on whether the content of his
playing matches his technical prowess. And there are many other pianists, of
course—Hank Jones, Al Haig, Horace Silver—who perform with excellence and have
exerted a considerable influence.
Reducing this list
to those whose innovations have proven essential, and to those, each of whom
have created a whole "school" of playing, we get:
James P. Johnson,
"the father of stride piano." Earl Hines, the father of horn-like
piano concepts and the first true rhythmic virtuoso. Teddy Wilson, the father
of elegant, subtly swinging, lyrical playing. Art Tatum, every pianist's father
and mother, inasmuch as he covered it all. Count Basie, the father of modern
"comping," who also showed us the importance of knowing what not to
play and how to use silence effectively, as did Thelonious Monk later. Bud
Powell, the father of "bop" piano and pioneer of the long,
across-the-bar-line, single-note melodic line on the piano. Bill Evans, who
enriched the standard song with fresh harmonies and voicings and who helped
add a new suppleness to the rhythmic line. McCoy Tyner, who seems at this date
important because he applied the modal concepts of John Coltrane to the piano
successfully —i.e., a running, "sheets of sound" right-hand against
an insistent, stabbing left-hand accompaniment, using chords often voiced in
fourths.
The records in
this collection offer examples of Teddy Wilson's work between 1934 and 1942. By
1934, Art Tatum had thoroughly shaken up every musician within earshot,
including many outside jazz. Teddy, too, was forever smitten by Tatum's
genius. Earl Hines, who was then probably the most famous jazz pianist, led a
scintillating big band and was exerting his monumental influence on most
pianists, including the young Teddy Wilson. Count Basie was still plain Bill
Basie, and had not yet burst onto the national scene with his innovative rhythm
section. Boogie woogie piano was all but unknown except to black patrons in
rural and big city gin mills and rent parties and to a few white record
collectors. Many were still under the spell of Fats Waller and the stride piano
masters. Cecil Taylor was one year old. Herbie Hancock wasn't yet born.
Except for Duke
Ellington's work (which, to use a phrase he never applied to himself, was
always "beyond category"), piano accompaniment in the jazz ensemble,
large and small, usually took the form of rather relentless, stiff (to today's
ears) left-hand-right-hand-left-hand-right-hand "oom-pah" thumping,
regardless of tempo. This often resulted in an intense kind of rolling
swing—but it became a rhythmic box, and was quite limiting to many horn
players who were beginning to want a looser, more sensitive background for
their improvisations.
String bass
technique was (except for a small few players) far behind that of the other
instruments in jazz and the bass had mainly a percussive, timekeeping
function. It is interesting to contemplate what direction the music might have
taken if bassist Jimmy Blanton had arrived five or ten years earlier than 1939.
For examples of pre-Blanton rhythm sections, listen to early records by the
Fletcher Henderson orchestra or by Fats Waller's ebullient little band.
In such a milieu
Teddy Wilson shaped a more sophisticated way both to accompany and to solo in
the jazz ensemble.
Born in Austin , Texas , Wilson was raised from the age of six in Tuskegee , Alabama , where his father was head of the English
Department at Tuskegee Institute and his mother, chief librarian. He dutifully
studied both violin and piano and went on to major in music theory at Talladega College , also in Alabama . Early exposure to classic jazz recordings
like Louis Armstrong's West End Blues, Fats Waller's Handful of Keys, and the
Bix Beiderbecke-Frankie Trumbauer records had a great impact on him. After
moving to Detroit in 1929 and hearing the touring bands
there, he made his commitment to be a full-time jazz musician. Early experience
with Milton Senior's band took him to Toledo , where he met and came under the awesome
spell of Art Tatum about 1930. From 1931 to 1933 he worked in Chicago with several well-(continued inside) known
bands, including Louis Armstrong's.
One night in 1933,
John Hammond, that irrepressible jazz super-fan who became the music's first
and most active patron and benefactor, heard Wilson on a radio broadcast with Clarence Moore's
band from the Grand Terrace in Chicago . Hammond knew that alto saxophonist and
composer-arranger Benny Carter needed a pianist.
He secured Teddy
the gig and facilitated Wilson 's subsequent move to New York . Hammond also supervised an important recording
session with the "Chocolate Dandies" (imagine an all-black jazz
group with that name today!) that featured both Carter and Wilson.
Once Teddy was in New York and was widely heard, opportunities to
play and record became plentiful. He made records with Red Norvo's group and
records accompanying singer Mildred Bailey, and these did much to attract a
wider, well-deserved attention.
It was also
Hammond who arranged for Teddy to lead the all-star recording groups that
featured Billie Holiday. By now it is almost superfluous to point out how marvelous
and timeless these records are. They used the very best players available,
including Lester Young, Ben Webster, Jo Jones, Buck Clayton, Roy Eldridge,
Johnny Hodges, Benny Goodman, and others. And on them, Wilson achieved a recorded legacy that is
indispensable to anyone who is serious about jazz. Two of these collaborations
are happily included in this album— These Foolish Things and More Than You
Know—and notice the dates, 1936 and 1939 respectively.
For the larger
public, however, the real emergence of Teddy Wilson came with the birth and the
impact of the Benny Goodman Trio, and later the Quartet when vibraphonist
Lionel Hampton joined. The Trio was informally conceived at a party at Mildred
Bailey's apartment in June, 1935, and it seems that fate fortuitously brought
together two of the most technically adroit performers since Louis Armstrong
and Earl Hines collaborated in 1928. Prodded by Gene Krupa's "hot"
brushes, Goodman and Wilson took collective improvising to a new level of
clarity and precision, and attracted listeners who had previously thought of
jazz (quite wrongly, to be sure) as a crude and even primitive musical idiom.
Aside from
Goodman's obvious virtuosity and keen sense of the jazz pulse, what really made
the Trio unique was Wilson 's vitalizing and strikingly original concept of contrapuntal
harmonic movement. He revised the conventional stride left-hand by outlining
the harmonic structure of a piece with an uncannily well-placed series of both
consecutive and "walking" tenths. This produced many interesting
voice leadings and meshed beautifully with the work of the soloists. Against
this smooth, flowing left-hand constant, his right hand in his solos spun out
stunning, metrically immaculate, and exceedingly lyric melodies in single-note
lines or feather-light octaves. All this with a mellow, pearly touch. As Earl
Hines before him had successfully adapted much of Louis Armstrong to the
keyboard, so did Teddy absorb the messages of major figures like Benny Carter,
Ben Webster, and Roy Eldridge.
And whereas Hines
was a musical tightrope walker, Wilson purred along like a finely tuned Rolls
Royce with soul, imparting to the listener a sense of security and balance. He
was the first authentically cool and controlled—but deeply involved—solo and
ensemble pianist. He proved, as did Lester Young, that understatement can
swing. But when called upon, Wilson could also generate terrific heat, as his
fast, florid, and flag-waving pieces vividly demonstrate.
It is evident that
Teddy's interest in "classical" piano and his diligent study and
practice of keyboard techniques were an essential part of his development. Like
Waller and Tatum, he helped explode the myth that, to be authentic, jazz
pianists had to sound self-taught and crude. That he was able to adapt something
as foreign as the "pianoforte" methods of Tobias Matthay to jazz verifies
Wilson 's resourcefulness and dedication to
self-improvement.
Teddy, like Art
Tatum, brought about a natural amalgam of European and Afro-American musical
practices. In this regard, Benny Goodman said of playing with him, "What I
got out of playing with Teddy was something, in a jazz way, like what I got
from playing [Mozart] with the string quartet." Certainly Wilson expressed his ideas with a delicacy and a
symmetry otherwise then unheard in jazz. He was years ahead in his skill in
sustaining a flowing melodic and harmonic line that perfectly complemented the
soloist both in ensemble and solo. True, Waller and Tatum (one can't get away
from those two) performed with great control and polish. But they completely
dominated any situation in which they might have been found, primarily because
they were soloists who usually sounded best when they played alone.
Teddy's style
immediately caught on and captivated pianists everywhere. Even Tatum, his
idol, incorporated some Wilson into his own work—for example, the running
tenths and some of Teddy's right-hand octave passages —and Wilson is naturally very proud of that fact.
Indeed, I believe that Art Tatum's medium-tempo conception and even his
approach to ballads was also affected by Teddy's graceful way with the pulse,
by his flowing sense of phrase and legato touch. Tatum was a self-contained,
one-man orchestra. His impact was rather like the fallout from a huge musical
explosion—no one could get close to the center, but everyone was touched.
Teddy's methods were more accessible, so long as your left hand could negotiate
tenths easily. Thus, Wilson 's influence is in some ways just as far-reaching as that of Hines
or Tatum.
It is my opinion
that the two pianists who came closest to sounding like Teddy, both in content
and spirit, were the late Sonny White and the Mel Powell of the middle and late
1940s. Clyde Hart was also a pianist who creatively assimilated much of Wilson , particularly the left hand, and was on
his way to becoming an important and original piano voice in the burgeoning bop
movement at his untimely death. And I am certain that younger pianists like
Hank Jones, Al Haig, and Tommy Flanagan, among many others —and, to be quite
immodest, myself—owe so very much to the Wilson magic.
The eight years
represented here, from 1934 to 1942, span most of the swing era. In 1934 Teddy
was unknown except to a few perceptive musicians, and by 1942 he was probably
second only to Tatum as the world's most esteemed jazz pianist. Only Count
Basic (basically a traditional stride player) enchanted the public anywhere
near as much, mostly because of his deceptive simplicity and ability to imply,
both of which he best expressed within his rhythm section of Jo Jones, Walter
Page, and Freddie Greene.
It was only a few
short years until Wilson 's all-pervading influence finally gave way to the revolutionary
flights of Bud Powell and the "new" music.
I am fully aware
that all styles overlap to some extent, but I believe that there was a strong
link between Teddy Wilson and Bud Powell in Nat "King" Cole during
his years as a jazz pianist.
[And because] … Cole
was a major force in their own stylistic development. He managed to distill the
substance of both Hines and Wilson … [in the styles of many contemporary
pianists such as Tommy Flanagan, Hank Jones, George Shearing and Bill Evans] ….”
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