Duke Ellington: The Making of New Orleans Suite by Steve Siegel

 © Introduction 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, bassist Doug Watkins, pianist Sonny Clark, 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 Bob Weinstock and the Prestige All-Star Sessions over the years, 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.

Duke Ellington: The Making of New Orleans Suite

By Steve Siegel

“Duke Ellington was never offered a formal academic appointment at any institute of higher education. But if he had been offered one it could possibly create a dilemma for the university's august administrators, that being, what academic area would Ellington be most suited for.

 If members of the faculty search committee had focused just upon the names of the many suites that Ellington wrote (as opposed to actually hearing the recordings), such as the Far East Suite, The Afro-Eurasian Suite, or the Latin American Suite,  they would quite possibly concur that Ellington must have studied the indigenous folk music of these regions and that his strengths might lie in the area of ethnomusicology and assign him courses accordingly.

But if Ellington's esteemed future colleagues had actually taken the time to gather around a turntable and spin a few of the records of these suites, it would become quite clear to them that very little, if any, of the indigenous music of those regions was actually contained within them. 

Therefore his appointment would be on hold until a suitable academic unit could be found that properly utilizes the would-be professor Ellington's many other strengths. 

The confusion over the content of the suites lies in the fact that Ellington conceptualized and wrote many of these suites more from the perspective of a sociologist than he did as one studying the formal musical structure of the region. Ellington’s suites took an impressionistic view of the regions he visited and not one based upon their native traditions. The academics would soon discover that much of Ellington's suite music reflected Ellington's worldview and might characterize him as a “rooted cosmopolitan” – a citizen of the world who, in Ellington's case, borrowed musical ideas from many disparate cultures.   

When it came to writing music evocative of the people, their culture and their music, Ellington filtered all he heard through his personal experiences and what he wrote was not necessarily solely based upon the music he encountered while in those countries. It was based primarily on an amalgamation of the locals’ customs and habits, sounds (both ambient and musical) that he heard, perhaps even the unique speech patterns of the languages he encountered. One only has to listen to the records produced, such as the aforementioned Latin-American Suite, Far East Suite, Afro-Eurasian Suite and a few others of the over 20 suites that he wrote, to perceive the consistency of his rather unique approach.

Ellington on the Far East Suite:

 I hope much of this will go into (the) music… but doing a parallel to the East has its problems. From my perspective, I think I have to be careful not to be influenced too strongly by the music we heard because there is a great sameness about it, beginning in the Arabic countries and going through India all the way to Ceylon.

Therefore, Ellington was more interested in transferring his impressions of the cultural touchstones he encountered, may they be of people’s experiences, the places they populate or possessions they possess - all that serves to define the region they inhabit, as he saw it - into his musical palette.

To prove the point it might be an interesting experiment to take all of the individual compositions from, say, the Latin American Suite and from the Far East Suite and play them back for the casual listener and ask them to place each piece under the correct suite.

That exercise would probably yield a result of randomness, but that's beside the point. Ellington’s best suites are well respected within his canon simply because most of the individual pieces can stand alone as examples of Ellington at his musical best. 

Ellington:

 The minute you become academic about it, you are going to fall into the trap of copying many other people who have tried to give a reflection of the music.

This quote is consistent with Ellington's mindset of never being satisfied with simply expanding on the musical work of others, but creating something totally fresh and unique. Therefore, Ellington was not just a musician but also a master storyteller as well as an impressionistic “painter” of sound.

Not all of the many suites that Ellington wrote were impressionistic in form. There were a few that actually were highly descriptive of  place and time. A listener’s ability to identify the suites by Ellington that were descriptive and less impressionistic is wholly dependent on how a listener might personally interpret what they hear in the music or what thoughts and emotions are evoked. But three suites that might stand out as rather literal interpretations of the subject matter at hand are: A Tone Parallel to Harlem, (1959); Black, Brown and Beige (1943); New Orleans Suite (1970).

In Music Is My Mistress, Ellington provided the literal interpretation of his intent when writing Harlem:

It is Sunday morning. We are strolling from 110th Street up Seventh Avenue, heading north through the Spanish and West Indian neighborhood toward the 125th Street business area. You may hear a parade go by, or a funeral, or you may recognize the passage of those who are making civil rights demands. Harlem has its heroes, too: Jackie Robinson, Ray Robinson, Chief Justice Thurgood Marshall, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Bill Robinson.

 In writing of Black, Brown and Beige, broadcast journalist, Audie Cornish opines: 

The title Black, Brown and Beige refers to three movements of a suite, and each one represents a period in black history: "black" being the lives of slaves; "brown" I understand [as] emancipation and service in American wars; and "beige" is when he was taking on contemporary black America at that time.

But of all the recorded suites, 1971’s New Orleans Suite stands out among the more literal suites. 

The suite was written by Ellington on a commission from impresario George Wein, the organizer of the 1971 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Ellington and his orchestra premiered the suite at the festival.

It was imperative that the music written and performed was very literal and evocative of the various periods of New Orleans’s musical growth. The common strain that Ellington used to accomplish this was to make liberal use of the Blues, as well as interpreting the very colorful musical history of the city.

Ellington’s success can be measured by the fact that most anyone listening to the entire suite who is a native of New Orleans or has spent a great deal of time there would easily recognize the music as clearly being descriptive of the “Big Easy” at various times during its musical history.

Ellington was far from a native of New Orleans. Unlike his experience working in Harlem as well as his experiences as a Black man, he had spent very little time in New Orleans. Though the Ellington Orchestra had toured the South and had played in many small towns, he had minimal exposure to the city probably because New Orleans, before the civil rights era, had one of the strictest and most stringently enforced Jim Crow laws in the South. He had visited the city in a professional capacity only twice, previous to his appearance in 1971.

In July of 1935 Ellington was invited to bring his orchestra down to New Orleans. Ellington was to be honored by the Autocratic Club, an all-Black social club. The Orchestra then gave two concerts – one at the Municipal Auditorium for an all-White audience and a second at another venue for people of color.

Ellington's next professional visit to New Orleans was in 1951 as part of a show called “The Big Show of 1951” which, in addition to the Ellington Orchestra, featured Nat Cole, Sarah Vaughan and other Black performers.

With that rather limited exposure to the city, what additional experiences might Ellington have  drawn upon in writing the suite? 

In 1923, Ellington heard the “father” of the soprano saxophone, New Orleans native Sidney Bechet, at the Howard Theater in Washington. Later in the 1920s, Bechet briefly toured with Ellington through New England. That exposed Ellington to the sounds of New Orleans but not to the culture directly.

Probably the biggest influence on Ellington came in December of 1927 when New Orleans native Barney Bigard joined the orchestra as their clarinetist. Bigard's clarinet sound was seeped in the sounds of New Orleans. 

Bigard brought to the band the unique New Orleans clarinet style which utilized the chalumeau register, stressing the instrument’s middle to lower range, with a big mellow sound which sounded conversational, avoiding the shriller sound of many of the clarinetists of the day. Bigard was also very adroit at the polyphonic technics that were so prevalent in New Orleans music in the 1920s and beyond.

 Ellington’s charts were influenced by Bigard. He utilized Bigard's unique sound as a fill in to offset the brassy sounds of the trumpets and trombones and his polyphonically trained ear created opportunities for Ellington to overlay Bigard's warm, woody sound over the music. adding richness and depth to it.  

Beyond the commission from Wein and the implicit expectation that the suite should be truly representative of the city, I would imagine that the pragmatic Ellington, was aware that most all the music in New Orleans is distinctive - It could not be mistaken for the music of any other region of the country. For that matter there are few parts of this country which could be easily identified through its music; one exception being the country music sounds of Nashville ( which is regional in scope). But the indigenous music of New Orleans is so tied to the city's identity and is so identifiable as to provide Ellington with a musical template to work with.

New Orleans’ music was greatly influenced by the music and routine of the daily life of the gumbo of various ethnicities found in the city, in particular the many Creole inhabitants.

To write music which ignores this tie is to risk composing a non-recognizable parody of the city.

So, Ellington was well grounded in the music of the Crescent City and understood the necessary stylistic elements which laid the groundwork for how he approached the writing of what was to become the New Orleans Suite.

Once Ellington completed the Suite, it was imperative that the orchestra have adequate rehearsal time to fit all the pieces together for the festival appearance on April 25 and 26, 1971 and for the subsequent recording. 

Ellington's orchestra arrived in New Orleans on April 20, 1970 and immediately began a five-night appearance at trumpeter Al Hirt's club from April 20 to 24. Presumably Ellington arrived with a complete suite – or at least the five pieces that eventually were recorded at the first recording session a week later. Originally there were six pieces in the suite but a piece titled “Rex" was not recorded and therefore left off the album.

There is no record of what Ellington played that week at Hirt's club but we must assume that those five pieces of the suite were rehearsed during the day and played at the evening performances.   

Oddly, recorded evidence supposedly indicates that only one selection from the suite was performed at the Festival, “Blues for New Orleans.” If this is true, could Ellington have been unhappy with how the rehearsals went and didn't feel that the other pieces were ready to be performed in public? George Wein's commission to Ellington was for a complete suite and we might presume that Wein was paying Ellington for the entire suite to be premiered. Given that Ellington had just spent five days of rehearsals and performances at Al Hirt's club and that the five pieces were soon to be recorded, we might assume that the suite was completed and performance ready. Therefore, it’s reasonable to conclude that all or most pieces were likely performed at the festival.

The album, on Atlantic Records, was recorded during two sessions at National Recording Studios in New York City, with the first session on April 27th, 1970. Recorded were “Blues for New Orleans,”  “Bourbon Street Jingling Jollies,” “ Thanks for the Beautiful Land on the Delta,” “Second Line” and “Aristocracy a la Jean Lafitte.” These were all the non-“Portrait" pieces that comprised the original portion of the suite that was performed at the festival. The “Portrait” pieces, which would serve to complete the album, were Ellington's homages to four of the greatest New Orleans musicians.

Ellington and the band then headed up to Toronto for a six-day stay at the Imperial Room of the Royal York Hotel. During the engagement Ellington played selections from the Suite and most likely worked on and rehearsed the four “Portrait” pieces which were to be recorded soon after the band returned to New York from Toronto. 

The Portraits (all subjects were natives of New Orleans) were recorded back at National on May 13th and included “Portrait of Wellman Braud” (one of Ellington's early bassists), “Portrait of Louis Armstrong,”  “Portrait of Mahalia Jackson” and “Portrait of Sidney Bechet.”

On May 11th , two days before the second recording session, back in New York, Johnny Hodges died in the office of his dentist, suffering a massive heart attack. Ellington had been hopeful that Hodges would play his soprano saxophone, which he had not played on a recording in decades, for the Sidney Bechet “Portrait.” Instead Ellington gave the assignment to tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves.

The completed album was released in May of 1971.

The album contains excellent liner notes from Ellington's longtime friend and jack-of-all-trades, Stanley Dance. Dance provides short, concise and informative comments about each composition.

A few additional observations on my part…

The centerpiece of the album is the first band on the album, “Blues for New Orleans.” Ellington brought in his occasional guest artist with the orchestra, organist “Wild” Bill Davis. Davis played the Hammond B3 organ. But unlike Jimmy Smith, Davis favored a fuller sound playing fat block chords, with all of the organ's drawbars pulled out. He sometimes created a sound like you might hear at a roller-skating rink but he was essentially a small orchestra on to himself and very adroit at playing the Blues. In the late 1960s when Ellington might be on hiatus from touring, Davis played gigs with Hodges at Atlantic City and they had recorded a few albums together. So musically, they were very familiar with each other.

In “Blues for New Orleans” Ellington essentially created a piece for Hodges and Davis to solo over a repeated background figure provided by the orchestra, with excitement building throughout the piece as the orchestra really digs in. This is one of the deepest blues that Ellington had ever created and given that this was the last recording that Hodges ever made he definitely went out in style, doing what he had excelled in for so long with the band – playing the Blues.

“Second Line” depicts a New Orleans tradition of attendees at one of the city's many parades (some were for festivals, others for funerals) falling in line behind the marching band and dancing their way down the parade route to celebrate either the life of the living or the life lived by the deceased.  Having personally been present at this spectacle, this piece in the suite might be where Ellington best captured the sheer joy and high spirits that these omnipresent parades can create.  

“Aristocracy a la Jean Lafitte,” Frenchman Lafitte and his gang of pirates were instrumental in helping General Andrew Jackson win the Battle of New Orleans by offering crucial material and tactical support in exchange for a full pardon for all his gang for the crimes they had committed. The music is in 3/4 time and starts out sounding like a French minuet and then accelerates in tempo (as well as about a century or two) into more of a waltz.

“Portrait of Louis Armstrong,” Cootie Williams evokes the young as well as the mature playing of his idol, clearly expressing both the power and sheer exuberance of Armstrong’s playing. 

“Portrait of Mahalia Jackson” is Ellington's love letter to his dear friend, which in musical terms showcases the dignified and gracious manner that she demonstrated throughout her life. As Dance pointed out in the liner notes, the piece acknowledges the importance of the church in New Orleans.

‘Portrait of Sidney Bechet:” Gonsalves utilizes the upper range of the tenor and softens his tone. It's interesting that Ellington did not utilize either of his alto players, Norris Turney or Russell Procope for the solo voice. If only Hodges had lived and dusted off his soprano…

The album was well received by the jazz media: 

Dan Morgenstern's glowing review of the album in 1971 for DownBeat magazine awarded it a perfect five stars.

 The music is evocative, highly atmospheric and marked throughout by the gorgeous ensemble textures that set this orchestra apart from every other big band in the history of jazz, This is a great record, and by any standard one of the major musical events of 1971.

Jack Chambers points out in his book Sweet Thunder (2019):

The period from 1970-1972 was “ … an extraordinarily productive period for Ellington…” and New Orleans Suite might have been the prime recorded accomplishment of that period.

Critic Max Harrison:

New Orleans Suite…was jazz without pretense.

And went on to say about the Suite: 

 The strength of the Ellington unit as a self-perpetuating phenomenon is well instanced here. Four years prior to Ellington's death there were, in the orchestra, players providing links with the beginning and the middle period, and new men also who, like many who had come and gone, were borne up in the collective inspiration which had helped to make those veterans what they had become.

The record was honored at the 1971 Grammy Awards, receiving a Grammy for “Best Jazz Performance by a Big Band” (also referred to as Best Large Jazz Ensemble Performance). 

As Duke Ellington was entering his “Golden Years" in the mid 1960s, he could have retired, taken his Social Security check and every Wednesday meet up with some of his retired compatriots at McDonalds for breakfast and engage in some reminiscing about the “old days.”

 But instead he preferred to enter into another of his many “Golden Eras” composing additional iconic pieces. This period lasted from around 1966 until his death in 1974. In doing so he not only defied the grim reaper (for a while) but quite surprisingly he managed to hold his own against a dramatically changing demographic (young baby boomers); purveyors of the new sounds such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Elvis's comeback, etc.; newer genres - soul music, modern folk music, progressive rock; the loss of many of his best musicians to retirement (e.g. , Jimmy Hamilton) and death (e.g. , Johnny Hodges, Billy Strayhorn) or studio work (e.g. , Clark Terry).

His productivity during this period produced a profound boost to Ellington’s legacy. It provided a generation of young people, the early Baby Boomers, an opportunity to experience in essentially real-time, the genius  of Ellington - with many eventually becoming lifetime devotees. If Ellington had not produced such fresh well recorded music during this period, few of this generation would have bothered to look back at the music of what they might have considered their parents’ generation and considered Ellington (if they considered him at all) an anachronism. As Ellington entered his sixth generation of music making in 1970, New Orleans Suite sated the appetite of both Ellington's older followers and provided a gateway for new converts who, having discovered Ellington for the first time, purchased his older works and carried his legacy forward.”

Doug Watkins - Unfinished Journey by Steve Siegel [From the Archives]

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

I have some preliminary work coming together on a Reader featuring Jazz bassists and I'm definitely going to include this marvelous feature in the forthcoming anthology. Thought I'd share it with you once again in this form before I formalize it.

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.