Doug Watkins - Unfinished Journey by Steve Siegel

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

With previous features on pianist Wade Legge, the Great Day in Harlem Photograph “Mystery Man” - William J. Crump, drummer Frankie Dunlop, vocalist Jimmy Rushing, critic and author Nat Hentoff, and Jazz Party: A Great Night In Manhattan featuring the Miles Davis Sextet, the Duke Ellington Orchestra, the September 9, 1958 fest that Columbia Records put on at the Plaza Hotel for its executives and guests, trumpeter Dupree Bolton, vocalist Helen Merrill and pianist Sonny Clark, Steve Siegel has assumed the role of “unofficial” staff writer for JazzProfiles.

© -Steve Siegel copyright protected; all rights reserved; used with the author’s permission.

Doug Watkins – An Unfinished Journey

By Steve Siegel

There are many reasons why jazz artists who have left large footprints in the sands of artistic achievement have been forgotten as the winds of time fill in those footprints.  One such artist is bassist Doug Watkins. 

During his relatively short career (1954-1962) it is indisputable that he was a great talent, recognized by both his peers as well as the informed jazz public. We cannot point to any singular career decision or unusual circumstance that might have led to Watkins' current relative anonymity but looking back over the 62 years since his passing, clues do exist: 

• Watkins had the misfortune to have performed in an era where his absolute mastery of his instrument is beyond question but unfortunately others on his instrument share the same era and are transcendental. Ironically, Watkins’ close friend and classmate from Cass Tech in Detroit, Paul Chambers, who arrived in NYC within a year of Watkins, was eventually perceived as the generational bassist of the era he shared with Watkins.

• Watkins died young and at an inconvenient time—inconvenient in that Scott LaFaro died seven months earlier and upon Watkins tragic passing, LaFaro was still being mourned and justly celebrated; especially after the release of the Village Vanguard recording with the Bill Evans Trio, that he had participated in 10 days before his passing.

• Early in his career, Watkins was a member of two of the greatest hard bop bands of the 1950s - the original Jazz Messengers and the spin-off group led by Horace Silver. Watkins left the Jazz Messengers just as they were gaining momentum as hard bop's first super group. He left Horace Silver's group shortly after their first acclaimed album, 6 Pieces of Silver. Following the departure from Silver, Watkins was never again willing to become a long-term member of any group. Though he benefited from his status as a first-call bassist, he spent the last five years of his life as mostly a freelance musician. Consequently, he was unable to gain much career traction and received little of the resultant publicity and exposure afforded members of the major jazz groups of the day.

Collectively, these reasons may account for much of the lack of recognition that so talented a musician as Watkins has received throughout the six decades since his passing.

Douglas Watkins was born March 2, 1934 in Detroit, Michigan to William and Elizabeth Watkins. William was a foreman at a chemical supply company for over 30 years.  Douglas was the oldest of three brothers and two sisters and grew up in a stable environment.  Unlike most of his generation of great jazz musicians who grew up in the Detroit area and found their way to New York City, his parents did not appear to be musically inclined.

Watkins attended Detroit’s “jazz factory,” Cass Technical High School where he was to meet Paul Chambers who had moved from his hometown of Pittsburgh following the death of his mother to live with his father. Chambers and Watkins, born one year apart, struck up a life-long friendship which carried over to their time in NYC. Many sources still inaccurately state that they were “cousins” or “cousins through marriage” but they were simply close friends, who very well may have referred to each other as “cuzz" or “cousin.”

After honing his skills in Detroit, in 1953 Watkins went on the road with James Moody, returning to Detroit to study and play with one of his mentors, Barry Harris.

Pepper Adams: Paul and Doug spent a lot of time with Barry Harris. He showed them what specific patterns to” walk”; this gave them a tremendous educational advantage. Apart from Oscar Pettiford, I don't think there was anyone to compare with Paul and Doug.

In 1954, at the age of 20, he headed to NYC where he played with Kenny Dorham and Hank Mobley. Much like Chambers, who had the good fortune to be an original member of the soon to be legendary Miles Davis group, Watkins joined a jazz super group in the making – the first iteration put together by Silver and Blakey using the name the Jazz Messengers. It consisted of Blakey and Silver, who had been playing together for a few years, and Watkins and his previous associates in NYC, Mobley and Dorham.

As was the case with most alumni of the Jazz Messengers, much was to be learned from working with drummer and leader, Art Blakey. Young bassists especially benefited from the association. To be able to “lock-in" with the drummer and drive the front line is task number one for any bassist. To be able to do just that with as powerful and dynamic a drummer as Blakey, is truly a challenge for any 20-year-old bassist. What most jazz followers know about Watkins is probably based upon his two years plus with the Jazz Messengers.

The 1950s was the decade of the heroin scourge in NYC as well as some other major cities where jazz groups were booked into. Both Silver and Watkins were not addicts but all other members of the Messengers at that time were. Because of that, Silver and Watkins grew weary of the indignity of constantly being searched for drugs as word got around to the police that the Messengers were all addicts and were now in town. Finally, due to this situation, in 1956, Horace Silver left the Messengers to form his own group, with Watkins joining him.

Watkins spent less than a year with Silver. After leaving, Watkins began to freelance and was never again to have any long-term associations with a touring group. Generally, such associations are necessary for the exposure that a musician receives through live performance and recordings. During the intervening five years before his death, Watkins most likely had offers to become part of a group but he declined them. Might his reticence have had something to do with the unsettled situations that led him to resign from the Jazz Messengers as well as from Horace Silver's group? That, along with his talent, could have led him to believe that studio work and short-term involvement with ad hoc touring would serve his musical needs best. 

So, Watkins generally went his own way musically during his remaining years.

In an interview I conducted with N.E.A. Jazz Master, Louis Hayes—another of the great Detroit musicians—he touches upon how Watkins helped Hayes get to NYC, his time living with Watkins, as well as Watkins’ personal traits:

Siegel: How did Doug help get you to NYC and into Horace Silver's band?

Hayes: Donald Byrd (Detroit native) and Doug were with the Messengers and they came back to Detroit for a visit in 1956. There was an after-hours bar called the West End where artists would come to eat and hang out and perform. I was there that night and I struck up a relationship with them and we played a little music together.

A while later, back in New York City, Silver and Doug had left the Jazz Messengers to start his own group with Blakey, keeping the name the Jazz Messengers. Art Taylor was the original drummer with Silver's group but he and Silver did not get along, so Taylor left. After Doug told him about me, Silver said “get me the baby boy out of Detroit.” That's what they called me, I was only 19 at the time Silver called and hired me.

I initially stayed at the Alvin hotel, across from Birdland but soon Doug and I got an apartment on 81st St., between West End and Riverside. That’s how we started our relationship. As I mentioned, I was 19 and Doug was 22.

Our first recording date with Horace was “6 Pieces of Silver.” Eventually Horace and Doug had some conflict and Doug left the band in 1957 and went to California.

After he returned, we got an apartment on 101st street with Curtis Fuller. Tommy Flanagan lived in the same building downstairs and John Coltrane was at 103rd street, around the corner.

Siegel: What was Doug like as a person?

Hayes: Doug was a very intelligent person. He was also very clever and very good with words. He was very respectful of his fellow musicians.

Siegel: As a drummer who worked with Watkins, what can you say about his approach? 

Hayes: He had a great mind about the bass. His bass playing was magnificent. The tips of his fingers on his left hand were like little spoons from the pressure of holding down the strings. He had a sound that featured long held tones – one note went together with the next note.

Siegel: What was his impact on you personally:

Hayes: Doug loved to dress nice. He changed my way of dressing. At that time, it was very important about the way you looked. Doug actually would take me out to pick out clothes.

It was a real challenge for me at 19 to be in NYC. Doug introduced me to Pee Wee Marquette at Birdland (the midget “Master of Ceremonies”) so he would know who I was and he explained to me that if you didn't tip Pee Wee he would not mention your name when he introduced the band. He also introduced me to Max Gordon, the owner of the Village Vanguard.

In 1959, when I was still with Horace, Sam Jones, Cannonball Adderley's bassist, asked if I was interested in joining Cannonball's band. It was a really difficult decision but Doug and his wife Angie served as a sounding board and helped me through it and I think I made the right decision.

I was the best man at his wedding and he was the best man at mine.

Watkins had impressed many other musicians during his time with Blakey and Silver and that recognition put him in the category of “first-call bassist" for recordings and appearances in clubs as a fill-in bassist or as part of ad hoc groups put together for club engagements. 

Over the next five years Watkins appeared on many classic recordings as well as many others that were well received. On almost all recording sessions, sidemen were selected by the leaders of the session and in NYC there were many first-call bassists. It was truly a tribute to Watkins that many of the most well-known and prolific musicians used him—many on multiple occasions.

Watkins only recorded two albums as a leader—one of which found him solely on cello, so to fairly evaluate his work you must seek out a rather wide spectrum of albums on which he appeared.

A partial listing of leaders, with the number of recording sessions that Watkins participated in and some examples of the best recordings that came out of those sessions:

Session Leader (number of sessions) /Album/Year:

Sonny Rollins (2) /Saxophone Colossus/1956; Newk’s Time/1957

Gene Ammons (8) /Boss Tenor/1960; Angel Eyes/1960

Donald Byrd (9) /Fuego/1959; Byrd in Flight/1960

Hank Mobley (7) /Hank Mobley Quartet/1955; Hank Mobley Quintet/1957

Lee Morgan (2) /Candy/1957

Jackie McLean (6) /Bluesnik/1962

Pepper Adams (4) /10 to 4 at the 5 Spot/1958

Of all the sessions that Watkins participated in, Saxophone Colossus is the best known. Its reputation greatly enhanced through Guenther Schuller’s essay focusing on the piece “Blue 7,” which he analyzes and provides commentary upon the piece’s thematic content and christened the piece as being a landmark in jazz improvisation.

Because Schuler's thesis was based upon Rollins and in particular “Blue 7,” he makes no substantive mention of Watkins’ performance. But the fact that Rollins chose Watkins, who he had never previously recorded with, to join such veterans as Tommy Flanagan and Max Roach, is a tribute to Watkins and his maturity as a musician at the age of 22.

In an interview with Brian Glasser, bassist Steve Swallow, in a discussion of Saxophone Colossus, turns his attention to Doug Watkins:

Doug Watkins is nearly perfect - a greatly undervalued bass player, who died young. He had an enormous unrealized potential that was snuffed out by a car accident. For me, he had the ultimate left hand: he was better able to shape a note than anyone – the attack, the decay, there’s so much you can do with the left hand that’s often not perceived on a conscious level by listeners other than other bass players. Shaping the envelope of a note was something I was made aware of by him and by this record, and it’s a lesson I haven’t exhausted yet.

Saxophone Colossus – this was not the jazzman-as-noble-savage myth. As a young middle-class guy, I was susceptible to that myth - it was even part of the attraction of jazz. Listening to Doug, I was deeply aware that his approach to playing this music was studious, disciplined - everything that I was being told to do in the study of Latin literature at school applied equally well to jazz.

I was moved by this recording to search him out in the clubs; and I got to know him a bit - which is also a memory I cherish - to ask him questions, to enlist him as a teacher. That’s how it was done in those days: I learned to play by approaching bass players and asking them questions. I found them all remarkably forthcoming, because it was understood that what we operated on was an apprenticeship system. I asked Doug all kinds of questions about how he positioned his hand and his elbow relative to his hand and so on. He was extremely articulate. I was doing the same thing with Paul Chambers and Percy Heath, Wilbur Ware and my other heroes. All were happy to help – even Mingus, in his gruff way!

So, I need to stress again, Doug Watkins meant so much to me. 

Max is not the easiest drummer to play with – he’s very forthright and didactic and controlling. Doug was much younger than Max, and yet he was able to cajole from Max one of his greatest performances. Especially at mid-tempo - and there’s a lot of mid-tempi on that album. Max is usually at his best at fast tempos; but Doug just nailed him on tracks like “Blue 7”; and he didn’t do it by bullying – he did it by cajoling. 

Watkins was very good technically and effectively used his technique to produce his art. As Louis Hayes had mentioned in my interview, Watkins’ fingertips on his left hand allowed him to sustain a note which allowed him to “fatten up" the following note, providing a fuller sound to his lines. 

He was also able to maintain his attack, length of notes and intonation at very fast tempos for sustained periods – an invaluable skill in studio sessions with the necessity of long multiple takes, often at extremely fast tempos.

Watkins also makes frequent use of what is referred to in painting as “negative space" which is the open white spaces between the objects painted on the canvas. In music this would be not rushing the beat and varying the open spaces between the notes which can serve to create tension and engagement in the listener as they anticipate the next note. Watkins never appeared rushed at any tempo—much like Miles Davis' use of negative space.

Though Rollins, in interviews has always treated his performance on “Blue 7” as just another day at the office, to Watkins it was probably an important session because not only was he accompanying Rollins, who could be notoriously fickle about his sidemen's accompaniment (e.g., replacing his bassist and drummer between sets during the Village Vanguard recordings, also in 1957) but his rhythm section partners were fellow Detroit native Tommy Flanagan who was seven years Watkins’ senior and someone who Watkins might wish to impress, as well as one of the most important and respected drummers in jazz, Max Roach. Roach had a history of playing with Rollins while Watkins had never recorded with the duo.

Perhaps the only time during the five years that Watkins free-lanced, that he could be considered part of a working group, was in 1958 when Watkins joined Donald Byrd for a European tour, taking up extended residence at Le Chat Qui Pêche, a jazz club on Paris' Left Bank. The band consisted of  Byrd, Watkins, saxophonist Bobby Jaspar, pianist Walter Davis, Jr. and drummer Art Taylor. Watkins participated in two albums with Byrd during this time, both were live recordings, one in the club and another at a concert featuring Byrd's quintet. 

Watkins’ first album as a leader, 1956’s Watkins at Large, was a “friends and family” effort bringing together fellow Detroit natives Kenny Burrell, Hank Mobley, Donald Byrd and Watkins, joined by Art Taylor and Duke Pearson. The men from Detroit got together for what was essentially a blowing session. Watkins is the nominal leader, only taking solos with the other players and not really being featured on any selection. 

The album was for the new Transition label, an undertaking of recent Harvard graduate Tom Wilson. Wilson had borrowed $500 to start the label in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The label put out some interesting material but was rather short lived with the project going bankrupt and Wilson eventually moving on to United Artists, Savoy and finally, Columbia Records where he produced albums for Bob Dylan and Simon and Garfunkel, among other famous acts. 

One interesting choice of material on the album is “Return to Paradise,” a song written by Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington for the rather obscure 1953 movie of the same name, starring Gary Cooper. The song was originally recorded by the “sweet" orchestras of Percy Faith and David Rose and then Nat Cole provided a vocal, all in 1953. The song, in its instrumental form, was never again to be recorded by a serious jazz group. Somebody in the Watkins group must have seen the movie and the group seemed to improvise primarily off of the melody.

The story behind Watkins’ second and final album as a leader is rather suspect. According to Ira Gitler’s (who produced the session) liner notes, three days before the session Watkins replaced his bass with a borrowed cello, never took it out of the case until the session and with no preparation, showed up with it for the session. 

It's surprising that an artist who in his lifetime had only done one album as a leader would, three days before his second chance at leadership, suddenly decide to abandon his instrument and show up at the session with an untested new instrument, a cello which is tuned in 4ths, not 5ths as is a bass. I would imagine that even Bob Weinstock, owner of Prestige, who was known for recording loose sessions with no rehearsals, was a bit taken aback when he heard that Doug showed up with the cello as well as with another musician, Herman Wright, who subbed for Watkins on bass and who had to be paid. 

The album entitled Soulnik, was recorded not on Weinstock’s Prestige label but on one of Prestige's sub-labels, New Jazz – a label created to support the recording of a more creative and progressive approach to jazz. This might serve to explain the looseness of the preparation for the session as well as the unique front-line instrumentation. 

Regardless of how the session came about, it turned out to be one of the more unusual front-line pairings in the history of small group recorded jazz.  It consisted of Detroit native Yusef Lateef on flute and oboe, with Watkins on cello. To fill out the group Watkins turned to fellow musicians from Detroit, with Hugh Lawson on piano and Herman Wright on bass and “outsider" Lex Humphries on drums.

Though the instrumentation is progressive, the music itself is not and includes three Popular genre songs: “Confessin',” “I Remember You,” and “Imagination.” It is also very melodic music with much of the improvisation working off the melody and not the chord structure.

Watkins never plays with his bow and must have chosen the cello primarily for its six-octave range, versus four octaves for the bass, which allowed him the much more expressive presentation necessary in his role as a front-line player.

Beyond being a bit of a curiosity piece, it is a very interesting and well played album, though difficult to find on vinyl. Symbolic of Watkins’ diminished status, the album has occasionally been reissued under Yusef Lateef's name.

Final Days:

In early 1962, Philly Joe Jones’ band included Sonny Red, Dizzy Reece, John Gilmore, Elmo Hope, and Larry Ridley. Proof of their existence is found on a recently released CD recorded live at Birdland on January 5, 1962 [Fresh Sound]. 

By late January, when his band headed west for a tour which was to end at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco, the three original front-line players had been replaced by Roland Alexander on saxophone and Bill Hardman on trumpet. The rhythm section remained Hope, Ridley and Jones.

But for some reason Ridley did not join the group for the trip west and Watkins replaced him. Evidently an understanding existed that Ridley would resume his duties when the group returned to NYC. Supporting this scenario is that the same Birdland CD also contains another performance by the same group members (with Ridley) on February 24 and March 3, 1962, again at Birdland.

With the addition of Watkins, this was the group that was booked into the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco from Tuesday, February 6 until Sunday February 11. A notice in the San Francisco Chronicle on the day of their opening, confirms the group’s scheduled appearance. 

There could have been many reasons why Watkins took off on a 3,000-mile cross country trip as a fill in for Ridley – maybe Ridley simply did not wish to go or couldn't. But it turns out that a very good reason existed for why Watkins signed on for the cross-country trip.

If Watkins had reached San Francisco, he would only have completed about one-third of his planned trip. Frisco was only to be the first leg of a long journey and was also to be Watkin's last days as a resident of the United States.

Unbeknownst to all but a few people, Watkins was carrying with him an airplane ticket to Japan.    

One sentence at the end of an email exchange I had with bassist Peter Washington about Watkins, tipped me off to this possibility. “Herbie Lewis told me (Washington) more than once, that after the Philly Joe Jones, San Francisco job, Doug was headed to Japan for good.”

Corroborating this claim is a story told by Paul Chambers’ son Pierre, to Rob Palmer, the author of Paul Chambers’ biography:

… William Bennett, a cousin of Ann Chambers, spent some time at Doug Watkins home. Bennett had made a tiepin for his father and had engraved his father's name “Henry” on it. Watkins wanted to borrow the tiepin and didn't mind that the pin had someone else's name on it. Watkins was excited about an imminent trip to Japan and had shown Bennett the ticket he had bought for the trip…

And finally… In the mid-1960s, Clifford Jordan composed a piece that ultimately bore the title “Doug's Prelude/Dreams of Japan” – as a tribute to Watkins and his dream of going to Japan. Words to the composition were eventually added and Abbey Lincoln recorded it.

Therefore, rather compelling evidence exists that Watkins, at the time of his death, was about to start a new chapter in his life, halfway around the world from his home in NYC.

Why Watkins decided upon Japan as a destination, is a mystery. Was he going for a new start musically? Probably not. Though following Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers trip to Japan in 1961, where the Japanese jazz fans treated Blakey and his bandmates as royalty, American jazz musicians became aware of Japan as a rapidly emerging jazz crazed nation. But in Japan in 1962, there was little in the way of financial opportunities for a lone bassist—no matter how talented he was—and by 1962 Japan had yet to produce the quality of jazz musicians that Watkins would have been satisfied to play with.

Was he escaping racism as the many U.S. expat jazz musicians in Europe were doing at that time or perhaps he was simply enamored by Japanese culture and wished to immerse himself in it?

Conjecture might lead us to believe it could well be a combination of these theories or a completely different reason. Unfortunately, 62 years after his passing, there are few if any people still living who have the answers.

In any event, somewhere along the way to San Francisco, the group had split up with Watkins, Hardman, Alexander (Roland Hanna was not in the vehicle as most accounts claim) * and a non-musician named Fred Green in one car and presumably, Jones and Hope in another vehicle. Perhaps the travel arrangements were determined by the fact that Jones and Hope were heavy narcotics users and the Watkins group probably wished to avoid being stopped with any drugs in the vehicle they were traveling in, which would call for the arrest of all occupants.

As previously stated, Watkins was not a narcotics user and there exists no evidence that Alexander or Hardman were either. Therefore, the travel arrangements probably suited them just fine. 

“Doug's Dream" ended at milepost 310 on U.S. Route 66 a few miles east of Holbrook, Arizona at 1:30 PM on February 5, 1962 when Watkins fell asleep at the wheel of the vehicle and crashed head-on into a pickup truck. Miraculously, the other three occupants were not badly injured as Hardman and Alexander were back at Birdland with Jones on February 24.

Watkins' Legacy:

Liner notes by Peter Washington from a Wilbur Harden/John Coltrane set that Watkins appears on, eloquently sums up his impact on bass playing: 

“He was different from everybody else playing at the time. When he came on the scene in the mid-50s, nobody really had the length of note he had. Bass players had heavy attack and a shorter ring to the note with the exception of Percy Heath, who was Doug's big idol. He took what Percy had done, and by softening the attack and lengthening the note gave the beat a more supple quality. It's a much more flexible way of playing, which allowed him to play in many more situations than some of the more famous players. He wasn't concerned with projecting his sound through sheer volume and playing hard. It was a very sophisticated concept whereby Watkins used his intonation and his placement of the note to be heard rather than sheer power. In this sense he pointed the way towards Ron Carter. Doug brought something to the jazz bass that no one did - not even Ray Brown, Paul Chambers and Heath. I think he died too soon for recognition to catch up with him. He continued to improve as the years went by, and if he hadn't died in that tragic car crash when he was only 27, Watkins might very well have given even Ron Carter a run for his money as the first call jazz bassist.”

* The Pittsburgh Courier, February 17, 1962, Sect. 2, p. 23.