Thoughts on Jazz Trombone by Martin Williams with an Introduction by John Litweiler

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

"The slide trombone is a primitive-looking instrument which, next to a trumpet, seems like a cycle to an auto. If your arms are short, don't even attempt to play it, for while you hold it to your lips with your left hand, you must move the slide back and forth in front of you through seven positions with your right, meanwhile manipulating your embouchure within a large mouthpiece in order to achieve the instrument's usual two and a half octave range. It’s no wonder that the trumpet is so vastly preferred as a Jazz instrument., far apart from  its carrying power within a higher range, its streamlined size and valves permit easy mobility where acrobatic coordination is required of the trombonist. Thus it's traditional in big bands for the trombone section to be rather simpler than those of the other winds, and indeed, in early jazz, the trombonist's role was to chuff away at rhythmic and harmonic support for the more mobile instruments.

Yet until the advent of jazz, the deep communicative power of the trombone had not been realized: its big sound, rich textures, and classic expressive techniques were the most distinctive of early jazz sonorities. Soloists emerged in the '20s as the big bands grew in versatility and the New Orleans ensemble style began to disappear, and while the liberating influence of trumpeter Louis Armstrong was a major factor in evolving trombone styles (transmitted most influentially by the young New York big band soloist Jimmy Harrison, who died in 1931 the grand manner of early masters such as Kid Ory retained its attraction, too. Surely the Swing Era was the jazz trombone's time of glory, for a diverse group if individualists flourished while, for example, trumpet and tenor sax players seemed to depend on the resources of Louis Armstrong and Coleman Hawkins. There were the majestic arrogance of J.C. Higginbotham, the powerful and subtle mastery of Dicky Wells, the suave melodism and blues interpretations of Jack Teagarden, and the elegance of Lawrence Brown to provide standards of excellence; Tricky Sam Nanton, with the Ellington band, was another world of expression entirely; outstanding players such as Trummy Young and the eclectic Vic Dickenson proved important influences themselves.

The end of the trombone's greatest significance was forecast when Lester Young introduced a wholly new sensibility to Jazz, when small combos with their emphasis on treble clef horns gained important as sources of jazz innovation, and finally when the fresh winds of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie renewed the whole atmosphere of the music. Bebop was a music wherein small note values and the clarity of the melodic line, almost the exclusive source of aesthetic values, could not in the least be obscured. The Swing trombone's nobility of sound and dramatic capacities had no place in such a completely lyrical idiom, for if even a trumpeter as accomplished as Gillespie had to sacrifice sonoric richness in order to achieve mobility of execution, how much more did the player of the ungainly slide trombone abandon. A teen-aged Indianapolis J.J. Johnson [born 1924] listened to the graceful, ornate Fred Beckett, with the bands of Harlan Leonard and then Lionel Hampton, "the very first trombonist I ever heard play in a manner other than the usual sliding, slurring gutbucket style. He had tremendous facilities for linear improvisation." Johnson's sense of musical values is important, for he is the leading modern trombonist, almost the exclusive source of '50s and '60s style — yet he maintained that tenor saxist Lester Young and trumpeter Roy Eldridge were more important to his developing art than his trombone peers; later came the impact of Parker and Gillespie on his work.

What Johnson's playing particularly offered — with Parker, Gillespie, and the other major bop figures; with the two-trombone Jay and Kai (Winding) quintets and then his own small touring groups, before he abandoned playing for a Hollywood composing career in the '60s — was fast, highly active lines played with a vibratoless tone so light that it abandoned expressive capability. These qualities made Johnson the dominating figure on his instrument, as two generations of players based their art on his perceptions; without his ideas, the trombone may not have survived in the bop hothouse. "There was a time in my life in the mid-1940s, when my aim was to play as fast as physically possible," he told Ira Gitler in an important interview (Jazz Masters Of The Forties, Macmillan, 1966). "In Philly a ridiculous club owner had a sign outside which read, 'Fastest Trombone Alive.” Inevitably, Jazz and tempos became more civilized . . ." The Johnson style made virtuoso demands on the player's stamina, dexterity, and intellect — thus Johnson was aware of the pitfalls of bop intensity, despite his natural attraction to a Romantic musical outlook."

- John Litweiler insert notes to The Trombone Album [Savoy SV-0276]

From the vantage point of when this article was written in January, 1962, many of the trombonists that Martin Williams writes about were still active in the music.

My one quibble with the piece is that it doesn’t take into consideration some excellent trombonists that were resident on the West Coast during the same period. Players like Frank Rosolino, Carl Fontana and Lou Blackburn probably escaped Martin’s attention due to the fact that his geographical vantage point was the East Coast.

But as it stands, Martin’s essay is a wonderful retrospective of the history of the Jazz trombone and the important Jazz trombone stylists.

One would be hard-pressed to find a better survey, especially one that treats as many of the more obscure early pioneers on the instrument.

“It is usually said that J.J. Johnson was the first trombonist to develop a modern Jazz style on the instrument.

There is more to it than that. It might be more nearly accurate to say that Johnson developed an individual style, which he plays on a trombone. There is not very much about that style that is peculiar to the instrument he uses, not much about it that uses the particular resources of the trombone.

Jimmy Knepper, on the other hand, is the first trombonist in quite a while to find his style specifically in the possibilities of the instrument itself.

To say it another way, and exaggerate it a bit, you could play Johnson style on any horn, but you could play Knepper style only on trombone.

Cannonball Adderley spoke of the distinction and his opinion of it in a review of an LP featuring Knepper a couple of years atzo:

"Knepper is a very good trombonist. But J. J. has spoiled me with regard to a trombone sounding like a trombone. I mean that Knepper, though he's very good, is too tied to the instrument. J. J., on the other hand, is a good soloist who happens to use the trombone. Therefore, if you call Knepper an 'original' trombonist, you may be right. If you mean an 'original' soloist, in the same sense in which I'd use the term for J. J., that's something else.

"Similarly, I think Jimmy Cleveland is an original trombonist but not the original jazz soloist J. J. is. J. J. has a style, and it's the kind of style that allows men on other instruments beside the trombone to emulate it, and they wind up sounding in part like J. J.

"I'd say Knepper is like a modern Jack Teagarden. A man like Curtis Fuller emulates J. J. from a trombone point of view, and a player like Kai Winding was originally a J. J. emulator (not in content but from the viewpoint of the trombone). Knepper's influences, however, sound more traditional — Teagarden, Urbie Green. Even his sound sounds similar to Teagarden's in some spots."

Nowadays, then, jazz trombone has a dual role. It always has had, although the distinction that is now made between an almost abstract style, like Johnson's and a more "trombone-istic" style, like Knepper's, has not always been the distinction that applied.

It is obvious enough and well established enough that jazz first began at least partly as an instrumental imitation of vocal music.

It happens that the characteristics of the trombone are very close to those of the human voice, perhaps closer than those of any other instrument. Therefore, the temptation among early jazz trombonists to imitate human sounds must have been enormous. A surviving practitioner of the early style is, of course, Kid Ory. There are trombonists who probably play the "tailgate" New Orleans ensemble style with more technique than Ory uses (Georg Brunis does), but surely that are few who can play with more expressiveness. And even when Ory is playing the simplest parade smear, he is obviously a man singing on a trombone.

There were some marvelously guttural (and gutter-al) trombone comments recorded in the 1920s by a man named Ike Rodgers.

It has been said that Rodgers could play only two notes but that when he played the blues, they seemed to be the only two notes anybody ought to need. There are examples of Rodgers' work on an available LP, playing with blues pianists Roosevelt Sykes and Henry Brown and commenting on the woes of singers Edith Johnson and Alice Moore (Riverside 150). Rodgers had a trick of his own, of stuffing the end of his horn with window screening. He got a sound that words fail to describe—he still seemed to be talking away on his horn but with a different voice.

Charlie (Big) Green, who graces many an early Fletcher Henderson and Bessie Smith record, carried this vocal tradition further along.

But it reached another kind of development in the work of Duke Ellington's plunger man, Joe (Tricky Sam) Nanton. There are Nanton solos from the late 1930s and early '40s that are so uncannily like projections of the male human voice that they are nearly unbelievable.

Sidewalks of New York was a particularly striking example, because there Nanton was playing a well-known melody, and he seemed almost to be singing it wordlessly. It might be said with only slight exaggeration that Nanton had but one solo, which he put together in various ways. But Ellington used that solo, and the impact of its sound and emotion, so resourcefully and with such variety of settings that to this day there must be a capable Nanton imitator in the Ellington trombone section. He not only must play the old pieces, but he must re-create some of the old effects even on many of the new tunes.

Before Nanton, jazz trombone had already taken another step that gave it its first duality.

There were trombonists in the early 1920s who were playing the horn as a brass instrument, not just using its slide in limited and obvious ways and not using its resources only to re-create human sounds. The first such men to be celebrated in jazz history, were, of course, Jack Teagarden and Jimmy Harrison, and independently they worked out rather similar approaches. (Actually, Miff Mole did the same sort of thing concurrently, if not slightly before them, and Mole was a fine instrumentalist if not quite so good an improviser.)

Coleman Hawkins, who was in the Henderson band with both Big Green and Harrison has put the story this way:

"Jimmy, he was quite a trombone player. . . . I'll never forget it. You know I used to kid Jimmy a lot. I'll never forget the first time we ever heard Jack Teagarden. It was in Roseland. This other band played the first set. I'd heard about this Teagarden ... so I went up to hear him, you know. I went downstairs to get Jimmy and the fellows, to start kidding about it. So I said, 'Umm, man, there's a boy upstairs that's playing an awful lot of trombone.'

'Yeah, who's that, Hawk?'

I said, 'what do they call him . . . Jack Teagarden?'

I said, 'Jimmy, you know him?'

" 'No, I'm not gonna know him. I don't know anything about him. What's he play? Trombone player, ain't he? Plays like the rest of the trombones, don't he? I don't see no trombones. Trombone is a brass instrument. It should have that sound, just like a trumpet. I don't want to hear trombones that sound like trombones. I can't see it.'

"So I said, 'But, Jimmy, he doesn't sound like those trombones. He plays up high, and he sounds a whole lot like trumpets to me.'

"I'll never forget it. Jimmy and Jack got to be the tightest of friends."

So they did, and played together nightly. Sometimes they played all night long in Hawkins' apartment. They did it out of mutual respect, of course, but Hawkins adds slyly that they also did it because each was trying to find out what techniques and ideas the other had that he hadn't learned yet.

It has not been possible during the last few years to hear Harrison on currently available LPs, but Columbia's recent four-record set, The Fletcher Henderson Story (C4L 19; also available as a CD boxed set), presents a great deal of Harrison, and also of Big Green. It is also possible on that set to hear Harrison, J. C. Higginbotham, and Dickie Wells all taking solos on various versions of King Porter Stomp during the evolution of that important Henderson arrangement.

Teagarden remains a superb instrumentalist, and he can be a first-rate improviser. Bill Russo said of him in a recent tribute, "... it was not until a few years ago that I realized that Jack Teagarden is the best jazz trombonist. He has an unequaled mastery of his instrument, which is evident in the simple perfection of his performance, not in sensational displays; the content of his playing illustrates a deep understanding of compositional principles. ..."

A favorite, representative Teagarden solo is the variation he played on Pennies from Heaven during a Town Hall concert with Louis Armstrong (on RCA Victor 1443). It is a free invention within the harmonic framework of the piece that makes little reference to melody itself.

Once Harrison and Teagarden had shown the way, a number of trombonists followed. One of the best was Dickie Wells. Another was J. C. Higginbotham, whose style humorously carried both the vocal tradition and the trombone-instrumental tradition as one. One of Higginbotham's later heirs decidedly is Bill Harris.

Wells has been most highly praised by French critic Andre Hodeir as one of

those who need only "blow into their instruments to achieve something personal and move the listener. Dickie Wells gets this expressive quintessence out of the most thankless instrument of all. When played without majesty, the trombone easily becomes wishy-washy and unbearable. Dickie Wells is majesty personified, in style and particularly in tone."

Wells is also praised for his sense of balance and for the fact that he also knows how to use contrast within a solo. Among the solos Hodeir cites are those on Fletcher Henderson's 1933 version of King Porter Stomp and on Count Basie's Texas Shuffle (Brunswick 54012), Panassie Stomp (Decca 8049), Taxi War Dance (Epic LN 6031-2), and his accompaniments to Jimmy Rushing on Nobody Knows and Harvard Blues (Columbia 901).

And then there is Benny Morton. A compliment once was extended to Morton on the originality and compositional balance of his solos. It was a half-humorous remark: "I don't see why you throw them away by just playing them. You really ought to publish them, they are so lovely and complete." His modest reply was, "Well, I don't have an awful lot of flashy technique so I figured the best thing for me to do was to work on making melodies in my playing."

One of Morton's other contributions was inadvertent and came about because one of his solos happened to get orchestrated.

Even into the late '30s, the written parts and section effects for trombones, although sometimes highly effective, were likely to be rudimentary. In fact, the trombone style that still was used in many swing arrangements can be heard in scores from the mid-1920s by King Oliver's and Jelly Roll Morton's groups.

However, there is included in The Fletcher Henderson Story a remarkable pair of pieces, originally sold back to back on a 78-rpm single, called Hot and Anxious and Comin' and Goin'. Bits of those two orchestrations were lifted by swing arrangers to make "originals" (including In the Mood). The most notable "borrowing" was the Count Basie arrangement Swinging the Blues, which comes directly from these Henderson pieces, and during the course of which Morton's trombone solo on Comin' and Goin' is orchestrated for the entire Basie section.

So far no mention has been made of a singular trombonist in American popular music, Tommy Dorsey. There is hardly a man on the instrument who does not look up to Dorsey as a player, and Dickie Wells recently dedicated a piece to him with a tribute-title: Bones for the King.

On the other hand, it is quite possible to maintain that Dorsey was not a very good jazzman, perhaps not a jazzman at all, although he was in several respects a dedicated musician, and there was never anything phony or patronizing about his use of jazz or of jazz musicians. About Dorsey as a jazzman, one remembers the story of the Metronome all-star date on which both he and Teagarden appeared. Dorsey would not agree to solo with an improviser like Teagarden in the studio, but he did agree to ad lib an accompaniment, using his lovely sound, when Teagarden played The Blues. The result is now available on Camden 426.

Another trombonist who was celebrated in the late '30s and early '40s among musicians was Jack Jenney, who had a lovely tone and ballad style and some fine variations on Stardust. He recorded them with his own band in 1939, and repeated them with Artie Shaw in 1940 (the latter reissued on Victor LPM 1244).

As was indicated, J. J. Johnson gave the trombone an almost abstract style that depended neither on the fact that a trombone can be made quite readily to imitate the human voice nor on the specific resources of the instrument.

As Johnson himself has indicated, he was inspired by one predecessor in this, Fred Beckett.

The more vocal style of trombone continues in J. C. Higginbotham, in the Ellington trombone section, in Al Grey's plunger style, in Bill Harris, and in Bob Brookmeyer, who punctuates his fluent improvising with allusions to the sighs, laughs, grunts, and other yeahl-sayings of the vocal-trombone tradition.

Brookmeyer has spoken with deep respect of Vic Dickenson. To Brookmeyer, Dickenson's horn has gone beyond being an instrument and is an extension of himself, not only of his voice but also of his whole being, so that it is hard to know which is Dickenson and which is trombone. And Dickenson also combines the instrumental tradition and the vocal tradition in a very personal way.

The trombone-instrumental style— or as it may somewhat awkwardly be called, the trombone-istic style—that reappeared in Urbie Green's and Jimmy Knepper's work may find its following again.

This discussion has not been an exhaustive treatment of the history of jazz trombone, or of all its major players in any sense, but it was intended to indicate that there long have been at least two jazz trombone traditions and that now there are three. A young player whose ears are really open to the past has a varied tradition to draw on.”

Source:

Down Beat Magazine

January 8, 1962

The Trombones Inc. - Heat Wave

Leo Parker - Rollin' With Leo ( Full Album )

The Forgotten Ones - Leo Parker by Gordon Jack

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

Gordon Jack is a frequent contributor to the Jazz Journal and a very generous friend in allowing JazzProfiles to re-publish his insightful and discerning writings on various topics about Jazz and its makers.

Gordon is the author of Fifties Jazz Talk An Oral Retrospective and he also developed the Gerry Mulligan discography in Raymond Horricks’ book Gerry Mulligan’s Ark.

The following article was published in the November, 2015 edition of Jazz Journal. 

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

© -Gordon Jack/JazzJournal, copyright protected; all rights reserved; used with the author’s permission.

"Just like Cecil Payne, Sahib Shihab, Gary Smulyan and many others Leo Parker began on the alto saxophone before eventually switching to the baritone which became his instrument of choice. Born on the 18th. April 1925 in Washington D.C. he studied the alto in high-school and Sonny Stitt remembered him playing at local sessions there with Roger ‘Buck’ Hill and Leo Williams.

By 1944 he was living in New York and sitting-in at Minton’s with among others Eddie ‘Lockjaw’ Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk and Max Roach. It was because of his appearances at the club that he was invited to take part in what is considered to be the first bebop recording date on the 16th. February 1944 for the Apollo label. Coleman Hawkins was the leader and he was keen to record with some of the younger musicians like Gillespie, Roach, Don Byas and Oscar Pettiford. He told Budd Johnson who played baritone on the date and was responsible for some of the arrangements, “I want to see what these cats are doing. What better way to do it than to get them together on a record date?” A twelve-piece group recorded three titles including the premier of Woody’n You and six days later they did Disorder At The Border, Feeling Zero and Rainbow Mist. The latter was Hawkins’s fresh look at Body And Soul and although Parker does not solo on either session, his presence reveals how highly he was rated by his peers.

Later that year he joined the trail-blazing Billy Eckstine band eventually sitting in a section with Sonny Stitt, John Jackson and Dexter Gordon who were known as “The Unholy Four” possibly because of their extra-musical activities. Jackson is a somewhat obscure figure now but he was a well-respected lead alto man at the time. Gordon told Ira Gitler in Jazz Masters Of The ‘40s, “The band was a little rough. I thought the reed section was the best - the most cohesive and the most together.” Initially Leo played second alto (Charlie Parker – no relation - was very briefly there on lead) but when Rudy Rutherford left, Eckstine bought him a baritone and persuaded him to make the switch.

He left the Eckstine band in 1946 and in March of that year he worked at the Spotlite club first with Benny Carter and then with Dizzy Gillespie. Dizzy’s group (Milt Jackson, Al Haig, Ray Brown and Stan Levey) had been appearing in Los Angeles with Charlie Parker. On their return to New York, Charlie had stayed on the west coast so Leo was selected to take his place on baritone. In an interview for JJ (September 1999) Stan Levey told me, “Leo was a very good player. He got all over the horn and had all of Bird’s licks down but he died much too young”.

His first recorded baritone solo took place two months later on a Sarah Vaughan date with a string section and a small group featuring Bud Powell, Freddie Webster and Kenny Clarke. Tadd Dameron did the arrangements which included his classic If You Could See Me Now and Leo is heard on My Kinda Love. In January 1947 he recorded four sides with Fats Navarro for Savoy where he proved to be a fluent and mature soloist with a big sound that owed something to Harry Carney and a conception that owed everything to Charlie Parker. Indeed, in a Metronome interview that year with Barry Ulanov he said, “I learned to blow from Charlie Parker”. One of the titles –Ice Freezes Red – was dedicated to “Ice” – an ardent Eckstine fan and “Red” - Eckstine’s valet. It is a Navarro original based on Indiana, notable for a Bebop quote from Parker.

1947 was the year he joined Illinois Jacquet who had just signed an exclusive recording contract with RCA. The Jacquet group who appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1948 was one of the most popular in the country. He remained with the band off and on until 1954 and Illinois was once asked if his approach had influenced Parker’s playing, “Yes, I think so but remember that Leo was one of the leaders of the bop school so he had that thing going too.”  The tenor-man also claimed that Leo was one of his favourite soloists – “He had big ears. You couldn’t play anything that would get past him”. Joe Newman who was in the band was similarly impressed, “Leo Parker was undoubtedly the best baritone player I had heard at that time. He didn’t sound like a baritone. He played it like a tenor more or less and he had such fire in him whatever he played. Plus he played good ballads.” Leo had numerous solos with the band – Jumpin’ At The Woodside, Music Hall Beat, Diggin’ The Count, Embryo, Mutton Leg, Symphony In Sid, For Truly, Saph and Jivin’ With Jack The Bellboy. The latter recorded in January 1947 included Miles Davis who had just left Billy Eckstine. He was in the section but does not solo.

Three months after Bellboy was recorded Parker was booked into Smalls Paradise in Harlem for a “Battle of the Baritone Sax” with Serge Chaloff who was working with Georgie Auld at the time. Miles and Hal Singer were on the bill and the rhythm section included Jimmy Butts and Art Blakey. There is a mystery concerning the pianist whose name on the flyer was Earnie Washington aka “The Mad Genius of the Piano”. There has been speculation over the years that Earnie Washington might have been a pseudonym for Thelonious Monk, or more lightly it was just a typo for Ernie Washington who was active in New York jazz circles in the ‘40s and often played at Smalls.

In 2013 Uptown Records released a previously unknown 1947 Toronto concert by the Jacquet band. The enthusiastic audience can be heard responding to the JATP-style excitement generated by the ensemble and although Parker is given equal billing with the leader he only solos on Music Hall Beat, Lady Be Good, Bottoms Up and Mutton Leg. Illinois’s brother Russell has an effective vocal on a slow, down-home blues – Throw It Out Of Your Mind Baby - the burlesque tempo being a perfect setting for his Jimmy Rushing-style delivery. Russell later worked with Ike and Tina Turner. The dynamic, hard swinging Illinois approach with its rich mixture of bebop and R&B was an ideal environment for Parker. It allowed him to indulge in one of his favourite devices of repeatedly accenting the tonic in the lower register. Dexter Gordon who was Parker’s roommate when they were with Billy Eckstine once said, “Leo could play – lots of bottoms”. This occasionally led to him being dismissed by some critics as merely a crowd-pleasing R&B-style honker.

For most of 1947 Parker was busy in the studios whenever Jacquet was on the road with JATP.  His recording of Mad Lad with Sir Charles Thompson in the late summer helped raise his profile sufficiently for him to start working with his own groups around town. It became his nickname and his inspired performance was something of a hit. In October while working with Gene Ammons in Chicago they recorded four titles for the Aladdin label with Junior Mance who was making his recording debut. His first date as a leader later that month was for Savoy with Ammons again together with Howard McGhee. In December he was featured with Dexter Gordon on the famous Settin’ The Pace Parts 1 & 2, an up-tempo riff based on I Got Rhythm. Leo successfully stands toe to toe with Gordon in the sort of duel the tenor-man had made all his own with both Wardell Gray and Teddy Edwards. Two weeks later a session with Joe Newman, J.J. Johnson and Gordon included Solitude which revealed a tender more lyrical side of his musicality not always apparent when on-stage with Jacquet’s high-energy organization.

After 1948 his career was frequently interrupted by the personal problems that were so common among musicians of his generation.  A 1957 Nat Hentoff survey of 409 NYC jazz musicians found that 16% were regular heroin users and over half smoked marijuana. He continued working intermittently around NYC, Washington and Chicago and in 1953 his booking office – Universal Attractions – placed the following item in Down Beat’s Band Directory: “Leo Parker, after a short recent stint with Gene Ammons is now out on his own with a six-piece group playing many R&B locations, one-niters and some clubs.  Band is gutty, frenetic and features Oscar Pettiford’s brother Ira on bass and trumpet”.

The following year he recorded with Bill Jennings who had worked extensively with Louis Jordan but nothing else is known of his activities for the remainder of the ‘50s. His friend pianist John Malachi who had worked with him in the Eckstine band said that he carried on playing possibly in some R&B venues, but he was certainly not forgotten by his fellow performers. In 1956 Leonard Feather interviewed several leading musicians for his Encyclopaedia Yearbook of Jazz asking them to nominate their favourite instrumentalists.  Erroll Garner, Bud Powell and Lester Young all listed Parker on baritone.  He was hospitalised with lung problems for a while and he may have toured Europe with Ray Charles around 1960 but I have been unable to confirm this.

He managed to get his career back on track thanks to Ike Quebec who arranged for him to make two Blue Note albums in 1961 which find him in top form.  Let Me Tell You ‘Bout It (by Robert Lewis) and Low Brown (by Yusef Salim) reflect a sixties soul-influence without laying it on too thick but a highlight is TCTB aka Taking Care Of  The Business. A theme-less up-tempo romp on Sweet Georgia Brown it has Leo and tenor-man Bill Swindell storming through a series of exciting choruses in the free-wheeling manner of his 1947 date with Dexter Gordon.

He started getting brief club engagements again and things seemed to be improving for him. However on the 11th. February 1962 after arranging a further recording session with Blue Note he returned to his hotel where he suffered a heart attack and died while running a bath."

SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY

As Leader

Leo Parker 1947-1950 (Classics 1203)

Legendary Bop, Rhythm & Blues Classics (Essential Media 94231 33512)

Rollin’ With Leo (Blue Note 50999 2 65140 2 4)

Let Me Tell You ‘Bout It (Blue Note 0946 3 11491 2 2)

The Last Sessions (Phono 870337)

As Sideman

Sir Charles Thompson (Delmark CD DD-450)

Illinois Jacquet: Toronto 1947 (Uptown UPCD 27.73)

Dexter Gordon: 1947-1952 (Classics 1295)

Bill Jennings: Architect Of Soul Jazz (Fresh Sound FSR-CD 816)

Road Song - by Chris Bacas

 © Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Chris Bacas is a saxophonist, flutist and writer living in Brooklyn, NY. He is featured on more than 60 recordings, including 3 as leader/co-leader. He's a longtime member of Stefan Bauer's Bauer's Voyage and MJ12. In the 1980's he toured and recorded with Buddy Rich, Artie Shaw and Tommy Dorsey (Buddy Morrow). 

This post is his maiden voyage on the blog and we sincerely hope that it will be the first of many visits as a guest writer.

His “Road Song” piece is one of the best behind-the-scenes portrayals of the reality of going on the road with a big band that I’ve ever read.

© -  Chris Bacas, copyright protected; all rights reserved, used with the author’s permission.

“I took a road gig the spring of 1986, I was 25 and coming off a year of one-nighters.  The band leader was a legend; a supreme virtuoso who wrote his own ticket in the business. Though his genius was indisputable, he was known to musicians for his deliriously profane tirades. Many colleagues and friends played hissy cassettes of my new bosses' best tantrums for me as preparation. I joined the band in New York along with 5 new recruits. We met at Carroll studios, hosts of big bands for more than 50 years.

Minus the leader, we rehearsed a new suite, arranged by a long time collaborator. The composed sections amounted to more than 10 minutes. The theme came from a 1950's Hollywood film, transformed into Dixieland, waltz, blazing uptempo swing, and a soaring ballad. Making witty references to previous set pieces and opening into a dramatic solo and all out ending. Its arranger, hovering, tracked our fitful progress, while the leader sat silently in a captain's chair, sunglasses and scowl. A numbing and exhilarating full day of rehearsal showed my new colleagues' skills and the weariness of road life. After the music portion, the boss addressed us directly-laying out his rules( on the bandstand, I own you) and peccadillos (no beer bottles, no slamming the bus door, no onions). The next morning, we drove to Jilly's in Dayton for my first gig. At a brief rehearsal, arranger in tow, the leader unceremoniously reduced the new chart to theme, extended solo and final chord. The next night, its author on his way home, the piece failed to make our set list and was never mentioned again.

The grind began immediately. The boss favored hit-and-runs, making miles by night, our driving formula-one fast and roads clear. The schedule provided a means of control; our work and travel blurred together, diurnal cycles sputtered and reversed. All available energy gets focused on the bandstand. I evolved a way of dealing with the brutal, nocturnal life. If we left early, I rose a few hours before, started a meal on my hot plate, exercised, showered, carefully packed my food and boarded fresh, eating my breakfast and napping as the day wore on. Night drives threatened to turn me into a vampire, but I slept when I could. On arrival, I scoured the yellow pages for shopping options and my overhead resembled a pantry. None of this endeared me to my band mates. They were pleasant to me and though we had friends in common, I remained on the periphery.  I also didn't share their enthusiasm for all-night revelry.

My section leader, a year or two older than me and a grizzled veteran of this outfit, showed great concern for my acclimation and coached me paternally. Able to translate the leader's shouts and growls, we depended on him for our spontaneously chosen program. To me, He relayed dire warnings from the leader about my progress. Occasionally, while we steamed through a piece, his hand darted to my page, pointing out nothing I could discern. When pleased, he encouraged me with openhanded slaps on my thigh. My chair, recently vacated by a long-time and beloved player, had seen a quick succession of occupants, none lasting much more than the requisite two-weeks. The biggest change in personnel, though, was the bass chair; a tough position musically and personally as interaction with the boss was uninterrupted and often harrowing. All the new guys saw job security hanging on the thinnest of threads. After all, we knew by heart the same sibilant bootleg rantings.

When we set up for a week-long run at the shabbily magnificent Fairmont in New Orleans, I began to see how far from my mates I was. We accompanied a female singer, iconic for her improvisational talent, beauty, and unrepentant opiate use. In the bar after a set, eyeing us up, she radiated robust sexuality at nearly 70 years. Unable to digest the combination of advanced age and female lust, the cats crept to the exit and headed upstairs for fellowship. All around me, madness swirled. The band's pianist, its most brilliant and charismatic player, was a heroin addict. Each of us, at close quarters, had to confront our boredom, insecurity and yearnings through the prism of his syringes. Our hero carried a fishing tackle box packed with potent drugs of every type and received "packages" at our lodgings. Surrounded by books, music, yoga, and my hot plate, I was nourished in all ways. The opportunity to ingratiate myself with them, reached me too late. Peripherally aware that my colleagues gathered around the tackle box after work,  I kept my head down and asked no questions. Our leader, a child star schooled in vaudeville and deified in the swing era, was laissez-faire on substances or behavior of any kind. As long as you walked on stage ready, willing and able to play, your personal life was your business. Addiction is not easy to hide when the bus travels two thousand miles per week. The one-nighters continued....

After an extraordinary night with Tony Bennett before a huge crowd at Blossom Music Center near Akron, we slept a few hours, flew to Texas and met our bus to play a giant new shopping mall in Amarillo. Under-publicized and culturally out of place, we attracted a small, politely curious afternoon audience, a bizarre and all too common juxtaposition for road bands. Luckily, our volatile leader was either sated or distracted. Chastened, we headed to LA for Memorial Day Weekend. The stark vistas of West Texas enervated us and by Albuquerque, we were starving and restless. Our star tenor man begged for a chicken stop and tried to gather a minion to bolster his case. We parked at a dim truck park with fast food joints beside I-40 and I watched the piano man head to a phone booth. While we lugged our takeout bags to the curb ("no fuckin' onions on my bus!" our leader commanded), the piano man climbed into the passenger side of a dark boat-like car. I lost track of him until we climbed back on the bus and drove off. In His seat across the aisle from me, he looked like a church choir director from the Midwest. He was quite rotund, with a fleshy face and side parted brown hair. Add large thick glasses, a chortling voice, and he was the least-likely junkie I'd ever known. He fixed in the back seat. The lead trumpet had to move across from me so the bathroom and back seat were available for cooking, shooting and nodding out. It was a multi-step process, usually repeated. We gave him plenty of space for privacy and thoroughness. The leader smugly offered a trifecta of VHS porn and the bus TV came to life with "Inside Seka". I watched, became bored, read, watched again and finally tried to sleep. The lead trumpet man, missing his triple wide back seat, found it Impossible to get comfortable. We all suggested he move back. He jerked his thumb toward the huge belly and flopped legs visible by the bathroom door. "He won't get up." I surfed my way through a sea of legs and glanced at the beached body. He lay peacefully asleep with thick folds of flesh bulging under his chin. I used the stinking, sloshing head and returned to my seat for fitful sleep.

As we roared past Flagstaff, it was clear something was wrong. The road manager, a grim but supremely intelligent man with a rich bass voice, went to inspect the back seat and its occupant. He walked front as legs and bodies rearranged. "He's dead" he said, followed by a string of rueful curses. My colleagues took turns peeking to confirm the diagnosis. The band leader stayed front. A stationary panic set in mixing grief, disbelief, judgement, fear, guilt and strangely, relief. At dawn, we pulled off in Kingman, AZ. It took three strapping orderlies to carry him. As they struggled to lift the body over our seats, His pants sagged under his butt crack and in the desert light, his face was darker than I remembered it. We spread out in stiff ER seats; a weary disheveled Eastern clan of road warriors. Tears fell as each recalled a personal epiphany with the departed predicting this day. Our leader had rare moments of gravitas talking with the staff until they asked him to fill out forms and needed his birth name, then he assumed his usual hauteur. The pay phone received a steady diet of quarters.  A young intern addressed us, gravely acknowledging the tragedy of losing such a gifted young man. The doctor assured us that his heart had stopped, likely because breathing was restricted and likely that due to excess fat around his throat (those thick folds I noticed!). They would perform an autopsy as required by state law.

Within an hour, we watched the parking lot fill with police cars, like those time-lapse shots where objects multiply exponentially and comically. The officers asked us all to step outside. Now, cold fear ran alongside our fatigue and sullen grief. The cops were deferential. The silence around us in the parking lot was crushing.  One told us in his best no nonsense voice: "just take your shit, and you know what I mean by shit, off the bus. We're looking for what killed your friend"

We filed through the door; all muffled voices and grunted syllables above the zipping and repacking. I didn't have any contraband to take, but went along reverently as if observing a rite,  sharing the anxiety of my mates in silence. After the last of us stepped off, the police went onboard. Through tinted windows and desert glare, we caught glimpses of action. Some of us narrated the search and joked about what they would find amid the musty suits, expensive horns and CD jewel cases.

I wasn't privy to negotiations with the police. I did learn that a lump of "black tar" heroin, known for potencies near 75%, fell from the departed's pants' pocket. We left Kingman, our course and circumstances legally and materially unchanged, except for the empty seat across from me. We rolled west in mental fog. I don't remember speaking to anyone on that leg of the trip. In a stage whisper, my section leader reported the sought after syringe was floating in the head. Darkness overtook the bus. We reached our hotel late at night, I fell into bed and watched TV.  My roommate, a precocious young trumpet player, plucked from his junior year at a prestigious conservatory, swore off drugs of any kind and rolled over to sleep for most the next day.

While the band paid the toll of the previous days, our somber road manager worked overtime to find an LA pianist for a Lake Tahoe run beginning in two days. The manager took note of my shopping, stretching and food prep. In the morning, When I arrived in the lobby, He introduced me to the pianist, hoping that my sunny lifestyle would keep the macabre events of the weekend from scaring off the new cat.

We hit it off immediately, helped by his friend , a second-generation jazz musician with a manic sense of humor. We ate well, listened to charanga music (my first time!), hung out with his wonderful family and enjoyed LA sunshine. Memorial Day, we headed to Tahoe, driving the night shift. The boss looked haunted and I heard him say he hadn't slept. That made 4 days  by my count. We arrived at sunrise, navigating switchbacks to see the lake swathed in mists and mountains flashing spring. Our lodgings were condos with kitchens and 4-6 individual bedrooms. At Harrah's casino, we shared a bill with Don Rickles, the premier "insult comedian". The Vegas with a western shirt vibe of Tahoe felt incongruous after the grim reaper, Hollywood and an arboreal night drive.

That night, a championship team after a devastating defeat, we were shaky. The boss began to roar. He fixed on the bass man. The bass parts were a dozen or more pages, duct taped together into long-jointed prostheses. Calling a tune and immediately counting off, the boss prevented him setting his pages. He then excoriated him with cascades of guttural curses. An up-tempo moved from sprint to accelerating free fall, our fingers falling behind and the bass playing machine gun chromatic loops. The set was all out war. Soon, The boss screamed and pointed offstage "Get out! Never darken my bandstand again!" The bass man unplugged and headed for the exit. After a few more tunes sans bass,  we finished with our usual closer, temporarily relieved by its long solo. There were no announcements.  The boss bolted for his dressing room raging. Stunned, We walked off and stood backstage. The boss emerged, red-faced, towel draped over his neck and bellowed "the man's gone, he's gone! You can't bring him back. You understand? Get over it!" The door slammed shut. Our funereal manager appeared and summoned the section leaders. Outside, expecting the worst, we waited. My section leader emerged and stepped toward me.  "He fired you. You just weren't  cutting the parts.  I'm sorry, man." He was conciliatory, but firm.

The taped rantings rehearsed this moment for me. The boss never directly dismissed me, though. I wasn't immortalized by a fusillade of abuse for future generations' edification. In total, four of the new hires were fired. I heard the term "cleaning house" used knowingly by the veterans. Self-pity and petty defiance followed for the rest of us. The next day, I hiked a ski trail into the woods. With sneakers, a cotton t-shirt, cut offs and no water or food, I was courting disaster. In that moment, the mountains brought me more peace than I had a right to. After walking around the summit, I headed back to the top of the steepest descent. I saw a pale skinned young hiker there, the first to cross my solitary path. We began to talk.  He was preternaturally serene and spoke expansively.  We surveyed the scree and fierce brush that funneled down the long trail. I admitted my fears of falling and cuts. He advised me to run full tilt, no holding back. With a lithe approach and small cry, he attacked the hill; arms windmilling and legs churning. I waited and joined uneasily. From the first steps, I was lashed by brush, pain knifing my calves. I watched him plunge ahead, accelerating and disappearing into the woods. Pain dogged me. I slowed to pick my way around the worst of the hillside. When I reached a level spot, he was waiting, magically, not even a scratch on his bare legs and amused at the blood splattering mine. He offered his place to clean up and have something to eat. In his Spartan apartment, I applied first aid and he brought snacks. When his girlfriend returned, greeting me with feline grace and little surprise, he followed her to the kitchen to confess taking that morning the hit of acid they'd been saving. Seeing their domestic situation and explanation for his unaffected poise on the mountain, I excused myself and returned to my real life in the condo.

On arrival, A colleague spilled the story: for weeks,  my section leader had been lobbying the long time occupant of my chair, asking him to return, using European festivals and a record date as incentives. He'd also been telling the boss I was failing in the section and getting lost. Now those mysterious hand gestures made sense, as did the constant second-hand warnings. The old timer agreed to return just after we left a corpse in Arizona. The timing was perfect. In Tahoe, exhausted and plagued by guilt, the boss agreed to the plan. Now my self-pity turned to anger.  The only viable plan was to approach the leader and ask for my job back.

In the meantime, I had gigs to play before my time was up. The manager, in rescue mode, found a substitute bass player in the wilds of Nevada. The guy was a refugee from LA, working little gigs and driving a vegetable truck to pay bills. He played upright bass and was double our age. Before the set, bass man was ecstatic to play and glad-handed us like a political candidate, disarming our Eastern cynicism. The boss, cleansed by his own Olympian anger, was jocular. On stage, the warmth of the big bass made the music feel more earthy and swinging. When the boss called a tune and went into his count off, the bass man, still wrestling his five-foot fossil of a part onto the stand shouted "Hey, give me a chance to get the music up, man!" while continuing to right his part. We sat stunned, waiting for the explosion. The boss turned, smiling. Drumming his fingers on the floor tom, he looked toward us "These fuckin' union cats" he shrugged. The set felt more fun than ever, now that some of us had nothing to lose. After the closer, the boss, drenched and spent, walked off with us. The bass man threw his arm around the boss' neck, pulled him close and gushed into his ear . "We did great, didn't we, old man?" The leader grimaced and walked on stoically.

The Tahoe run ended with new piano and bass players-young guys ready for the road. When the bus arrived to load up, I steeled myself and walked on alone to meet the boss. He sat relaxed in his mobile living room replete with entertainment center, food and drink, and shoe box full of joints. I asked only to know why I had been fired. He cut me off. There was something "going on around here", he told me. "It's my fucking band. I make the decisions. Nobody else. You understand that? Nobody!" I agreed. "The job is yours as long as you want it, kid". I thanked him, fifty pounds lighter. 

One step remained. Backstage at the theater we played that night, my section leader approached me smiling tightly. "I guess he changed his mind. Looks like..." I cut him off. "Don't ever say anything about my playing again. Don't say hello to me and don't fucking touch me again. If you ever say anything to me about the music, I'll punch you in the fucking face. I'll fucking kill you. Got it?" He said nothing. No apology. Nothing. We spoke occasionally after that, always cordially.

I played six more months with the band, including the boss' last gig. The boss passed less than a year after the piano man; his brutal wit often tempered by waves of adulation and surer knowledge of mortality.  His absolute mastery was and remains a divine visitation, truly "a god paring his nails". To see that magic every night was an incalculable privilege. At the time, I didn't know how I could deserve it. I did learn what it meant to earn it.”