EDDIE JEFFERSON by Gordon Jack

                                                           

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

                                                         

“Eddie Jefferson is a jazz singer — in the fullest sense of the words.

It is hoped that such an opening remark will not involve us in that age-old war waged over the question of exactly what is a jazz singer. It's an issue that gets writers endlessly tangled in definitions and explanations, with pitched battles involving the credentials of pop vocalists who on occasion are able to swing, the legitimacy of scat-singing, how many points are to be awarded for hitting a flatted fifth without sounding just plain flat, etc., etc. In this instance, however, then is no need for such carryings-on.

Eddie Jefferson is a jazz singer for the simple and conclusive reason that what he sings is jazz, firmly imbedded in modern music and fully equivalent to what a horn might seek to do with the same material.

Furthermore, although others (most notably Lambert, Hendricks and Ross) have in recent years done much with such things as the setting of lyrics to specific recorded jazz solos, all evidence indicates that Jefferson was the pioneer of the vocal technique he and others now employ.”

- Peter Drew, insert notes to Letter from Home: The Voice of Eddie Jefferson [Riverside RLP 9411, OJCCD 307-2]

Gordon Jack is a frequent contributor to the Jazz Journal and a very generous friend to these pages in his allowance of JazzProfiles re-publishings of his excellent writings. Gordon is the author of Fifties Jazz Talk An Oral Retrospective and he developed the Gerry Mulligan discography in Raymond Horricks’ book Gerry Mulligan’s Ark.

The following article was first published in Jazz Journal September 2018.

For more information and subscriptions please visit www.jazzjournal.co.uk

“Vocalese, not to be confused with scat singing is the art of adding words to the harmonic and rhythmic shifts of an improvised jazz solo and Eddie Jefferson was a pioneer of this particular musical form.  We’re not talking Sondheim, Cole Porter or Oscar Hammerstein here but his hip, street-wise lyrics were perfect for the context in which he worked. He was born on the 3 August 1918 in Pittsburgh the hometown of Art Blakey, Earl Hines, Erroll Garner, Ahmad Jamal and Billy Eckstine among others.  He played the tuba, guitar and drums but he made his show-business debut as a tap dancer at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. During the 30s in Pittsburgh he performed as a dancer and scat singer doing occasional Cab Calloway impressions with Art Blakey on piano. It was his friend Leo ‘Scat’ Watson - a big influence - who suggested the idea of adding words to instrumental solos. Eddie considered Watson to be “The greatest scat singer who ever lived” and Leonard Feather was similarly impressed calling him “The James Joyce of jazz”.

Count Basie’s Taxi War Dance was Eddie’s first attempt at vocalese but years later he told Feather, “I was a dancer in those days. I sang it for friends but nothing ever came of it and I don’t know what happened to the lyrics.”  In 1939 he worked opposite Coleman Hawkins’ big band in Chicago after the great man’s return from Europe and Nat King Cole was the intermission pianist. During WW2 he played drums in the army band but little is known of his musical activities during the 40s although he did tour with Bob Crosby and the Bobcats and he appeared on the Sarah Vaughan radio show in 1950. It was not until 1952 that he really concentrated on singing.

It was his lyric for King Pleasure’s big hit Moody’s Mood For Love in 1952 which really put him on the map. James Moody had recorded the solo (based on the Dorothy Fields-Jimmy McHugh standard) in 1949 in Sweden using a borrowed alto from Lars Gullin.  He turned in a gem of a performance in one take although it was his first recording on the instrument. Eddie loved the solo because in a little under three minutes “It told a story”. King Pleasure who was working as a waiter at the time heard him performing Moody’s Mood at the Cotton Club in Cincinnati where Eddie was appearing with Jack McDuff. On his return to New York Pleasure sang it at the Apollo Theatre Amateur Hour in 1951. He won the prize which led to his first recording and Moody’s Mood was named Record of the Year in 1953 by Down Beat magazine.  He usually performed in clubs from a throne with a microphone attached but despite his initial success King Pleasure’s career was a brief one.

Years later Jefferson said, “He copped those lyrics but in a way it opened it up for me.” Talking about it in the New York Times Jon Hendricks said “It opened a whole new world for me. I was mesmerized…it was so hip”. Moody’s Mood For Love found favour with many non-jazz artists like Sheena Easton, Amy Winehouse, Aretha Franklin, Queen Latifah and Patti LaBelle who have all covered it over the years. The only time Pleasure, Jefferson and Hendricks recorded together was in 1954 when they performed Don’t Get Scared (aka Don’t Getz Scared) and I’m Gone.

Living in Cambria Heights in Queens he took a day job as a manager in a men’s clothing firm supplemented with occasional club dates.  One night in 1953 when he was doing a dance act with Irv Taylor at Harlem’s Apollo Theatre he met James Moody. Babs Gonzales had been travelling with Moody as vocalist and band manager but he was leaving so the tenor-man offered the job to Jefferson. “I really dug what Eddie was doing” he said at the time. They stayed together until 1962 when Moody disbanded to join Dizzy Gillespie. In 1957 when they appeared at the Zebra Lounge in Los Angeles they worked there for a time with King Pleasure. The following year when Moody was briefly hospitalised in Overbrook, New Jersey, Jefferson sat in with Miles Davis at the Café Bohemia in New York. Miles was so impressed he apparently said to the club owner “Eddie’s gonna be part of the band. Put him on the payroll”.

In 1959 he recorded his celebrated Body And Soul with a lyric set to Coleman Hawkins’ 1939 masterpiece and the words make it clear just what Hawkins meant to him. During the 60s he and Moody often performed with Dinah Washington because they were all represented by the Billy Shaw Agency in New York. In a 1980 Coda interview Eddie said, “A couple of times our bass player was late and she would get on the bass and hold down the whole set.  She also played piano and cello”. During his time with Moody the singer was featured on several albums performing Workshop, Disappointed, Birdland Story, Parker’s Mood, Summertime, Sister Sadie, Hey Herb! Where’s Alpert?, I Got The blues, I cover the Waterfront and Last Train From Overbrook. Each title is a fine example of his unique sound with its soulful and very earthy delivery.

Soon after James Moody went back to working with Dizzy In 1962 Eddie recorded with Johnny Griffin for Riverside but the 60s and the 70s were a difficult time for him and for jazz too. Moody’s decision to reform his group was celebrated with their well received 1968 Body And Soul album. Eddie featured some new material like Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, Psychedelic Sally (words by Horace Silver) and Filthy McNasty (words by Ira Gitler – which might be a first for him). He revisited Moody’s Mood For Love titled as There I Go, There I Go Again which is the first line of the lyric. Blossom Dearie performed the bridge on the King Pleasure hit but Eddie sings it in falsetto. So What features his lyric to Miles Davis’ famous Kind Of Blue solo which concerns itself with the trumpeter’s habit of leaving the stage when not performing. He also doffs his cap to Charlie Parker’s 1945 recording of Now’s The Time with lyrics to Parker’s three choruses and Miles’ two. It’s worth pointing out that the nineteen year old Miles Davis created an elegantly well-constructed statement that belied his tender years. In 1958 when Davis recorded Straight No Chaser with his sextet, Red Garland quoted this solo in its entirety during his turn at the solo mike. Lambert, Hendricks and Ross also recorded Now’s The Time with Hendricks’ lyrics and Annie Ross carried off Miles’ solo with remarkable aplomb.

He revisited Body And Soul on the album and when Manhattan Transfer recorded it in 1979 with Jefferson’s lyrics they added their own in the second chorus which became a tribute to Eddie who they said was “Twenty years ahead of his time” (Atlantic CD 7567-81565-2.) Just as an aside Manhattan Transfer’s 1985 Vocalese album which was a collaboration with Jon Hendricks is well worth tracking down. They bring their own special magic to numbers like Killer Joe, Airegin, Meet Benny Bailey, Night In Tunisia, Blee Blop Blues, Joy Spring and Move. The recording received an unprecedented twelve Grammy nominations with Dizzy Gillespie, Richie Cole and James Moody making guest appearances (Atlantic 7-81266-2).

In August 1970 he appeared at Chicago’s North Park Hotel at a Charlie Parker Memorial concert where he performed Now’s The Time and Parker’s Mood. Lee Konitz then joined him on Disappointed and Lady Be Good. A little later James Moody moved out to Las Vegas to work with the Hilton Hotel Orchestra and Eddie carried on working locally supplementing his income by driving a New York cab. In 1973 he and his wife Yvonne separated because of long-standing money problems although they remained on good terms. Around this time he joined forces with Billy Mitchell. The tenor-man had re-joined Count Basie in the late 60s and for a time had been musical director for Stevie Wonder. He told writer Leslie Gourse in her book (American Jazz Singers) that occasionally he repaired pool tables when work was scarce – “Eddie wasn’t depressed about driving a cab and I wasn’t depressed about pool tables but we weren’t jumping up and down about it. He was a very nice, quiet, upstanding man… he knew how hard it was to get a dollar and he was thrifty. We were going to start a band together the old fashioned way with uniforms.” One summer they taught a jazz course at Bennington College in Vermont and in 1974 they made their only album together with the optimistic title Things Are Getting Better. It included Thank You – an anthem to Eddie’s friends and influences like Hawkins, Moody, Herschel Evans, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt, Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin and Gene Ammons. It also featured Joe Newman and the singer introduced some fresh material to his repertoire like Bitches Brew, Trane’s Blues and Freedom Jazz Dance.

A little late in the day he won the 1975 Downbeat Critics’ Poll as Talent Deserving Of Wider Recognition. That was also the year he sat in at a Greenwich Village club with the sensational, young bebop alto player Richie Cole. They were to have a long and productive relationship until Jefferson’s murder in 1979. They toured together and recorded no less than seven albums. One of the finest was their 1977 date – The Main Man – which also featured Charles Sullivan, Junior Cook, Hamiet Bluiett and Slide Hampton. The trombonist who wrote the arrangements told Leslie Gourse, “Instrumentalists generally liked to work with Eddie…he had the same kind of drive and rhythmic intensity”. Both those qualities are very much apparent on Jeannine and Night Train but the album highlight has to be Benny’s From Heaven which as the name implies is a hilarious send-up of Bing Crosby’s 1937 hit. A year earlier he had appeared on Chicago’s WTTW Public Television station on a celebration of Vocalese with Jon Hendricks, Annie Ross and Leon Thomas. The show was hosted by Ben Sidran and Eddie performed Freedom Jazz Dance and Moody’s Mood before joining Hendricks and Ross for Cloudburst.

In March 1979 he appeared with Sarah Vaughan and Betty Carter at New York’s Carnegie Hall and with bookings lined up at the Monterey and Newport Jazz Festivals as well as some European summer concerts his career seemed to be on an upward trajectory at last. He was filmed along with Cole performing at Chicago’s Jazz Showcase on 6 May. The DVD – F for Films 2869003 - shows him commanding the stage in an exuberant set of staples like Night In Tunisia, I Got The Blues, How High The Moon and Summertime but it is yet to be released on CD. Three days later the group was booked into Baker’s Keyboard Lounge in Detroit and Eddie was shot and killed as he left the club around 1 a.m. The suspect who was known to him was arrested but later released. “The tragic part is that he was cut down when things were starting to happen for him” Bill Mitchell said at the time. Ironically Jefferson had been presented with the key to the city the previous year by Coleman Young, Detroit’s first African-American mayor.

In 1980 Jon Henrdicks hosted a tribute to Eddie Jefferson at a packed Carnegie Hall titled There I Go, There I Go, There I Go which featured Bobby McFerrin, Manhattan Transfer, James Moody, Richie Cole, Dizzy Gillespie and the comedian Professor Irwin Corey.”

SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY

As leader

Eddie Jefferson: The Jazz Singer (Inner City 1016)

Eddie Jefferson: Body And Soul (Prestige OJCCD-396-2)

Eddie Jefferson: The Main Man (Inner City (IC 1033)

Eddie Jefferson: Letter from Home: The Voice of Eddie Jefferson [Riverside RLP 9411, OJCCD 307-2]

As Sideman

King Pleasure/Annie Ross Sings (Prestige OJCCD-217-2)

The Bebop Singers (Prestige (PRCD-224216-2)

James Moody: Hey! It’s James Moody (Lonehill Jazz LHJ 10195CD)

Richie Cole (Muse MCD 5207)