Ted Gioia – The Jazz Standards – A Review

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

“THE JAZZ STANDARDS will be indispensable for any fan who wants to know more about a jazz song heard at the club, or on the radio. Musicians who play these songs night after night will now have a handy tome, outlining their history and significance which tells how pieces have been performed by different generations of jazz artists. And students learning about jazz standards now have a reference work to these cornerstones of the jazz repertoire.”

- Christian Purdy, The Oxford University Press

“In his latest book - The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire – Ted Gioia talks about Jazz from the singular perspective of the music and not from the more accustomed standpoint of the musicians who made it.”

- the editorial staff at JazzProfiles

“lf you look up just one title in The Jazz Standards, before you realize it you will have spent an intriguing hour or two learning fascinating and new things about old songs that you have known most of your life."

—Dave Brubeck

I look forward to Ted Gioia’s next book about Jazz with the same excitement and anticipation that greets the arrival of the next recording by one of my favorite Jazz artists.

The guy can flat-out write, he’s a magnificent story-teller and he has a depth and a breath of knowledge about Jazz which rivals that of any writer on the subject.

I know his next book is always going to be good so I grudgingly allow him the necessary time to research it and write it because I can’t wait to read it.

In this regard, Ted’s The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire - forthcoming from Oxford University Press in July/2012 – doesn’t disappoint.

In his writing, Ted has a “conversation” with the reader.

His style is never polemical or didactic like those academic treatises that only twelve other people on the planet can read, let alone, understand.

Be it specifically about Jazz on the West Coast from 1945–1960 or more generally about the entire history of Jazz, Ted’s writing is personal and he teaches you stuff about Jazz.

His approach is reminiscent of your favorite high school teachers; you really wanted to learn from them because they knew what they were talking about and they made the subject fun and interesting.

This is no less the case with Ted’s latest book - The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire – in which he talks about Jazz from the singular perspective of the music and not from the more accustomed standpoint of the musicians who made it.

If you’ve ever wished for a “road map” through recorded Jazz tunes, this book is it.  It offers “… an illuminating look at more than 250 seminal Jazz compositions …, “recommendations for more than 2,000 recordings with a list of suggested tracks for each song, [each accompanied by] “… colorful and expert commentary.”

The reasons for how and why this book came together are clearly explained by Ted in the following excerpts from his Introduction.

“When I was learning how to play jazz during my teenage years, I kept encountering songs that the older mu­sicians expected me to know. I eventu­ally realized that there were around 200 or 300 of these compositions, and that they served as the cornerstone of the jazz repertoire. A jazz performer needed to learn these songs the same way a classical musician studied the works of Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart.

In fact, I soon learned that knowledge of the repertoire was even more important to a jazz musician than to a clas­sical artist. The classical performer at least knows what com­positions will be played before the concert begins. This is not always the case with jazz. I recall the lament of a friend who was enlisted to back up a poll-winning horn player at a jazz festival—only to discover that he wouldn't be told what songs would be played until the musicians were already on stage in front of 6,000 people.

Such instances are not unusual in the jazz world, a quirk of a subculture that prizes both sponta­neity and macho bravado. Another buddy, a quite talented pi­anist, encountered an even more uncooperative bandleader—a famous saxophonist who wouldn't identify the names of the songs even after the musicians were on the bandstand. The leader would simply play a short introduction on the tenor, than stamp off the beat with his foot... and my friend was expected to figure out the song and key from those meager clues. For better or worse, such is our art form.

I had my own embarrassing situations with unfamiliar standards during my youth—but fortunately never with thousands of people on hand to watch. I soon realized what countless other jazz musicians have no doubt also learned: in-depth study of the jazz repertoire is hardly a quaint his­torical sideline, but essential for survival. Not learning these songs puts a jazz player on a quick path to unemployment.

But no one gave you a list. Nor would a typical youngster of my (or a later) generation encounter many of these songs outside the jazz world—most of them had been composed before I was born, and even the more recent entries in the repertoire weren't part of the fare you typically heard on TV or main­stream radio. Some of these tunes came from Broadway, but not always from the hit productions—many first appeared in obscure or failed shows, or revues by relatively unknown songwriters. Others made their debut in movies, or came from big bands, or were introduced by pop singers from outside the jazz world. A few—such as "Autumn Leaves" or "Desafinado"—originated far away from jazz's land of origin. And, of course, many were written by jazz musicians themselves, serving as part of the legacy of Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, and other seminal artists.

My own education in this music was happenstance and hard earned. Even­tually "fake books" appeared on the scene to clear up some of the mystery, but I never saw one of these (usually illegal) compilations until I was almost 20 years old. When I first encountered The Real Book—the underground collection of jazz lead sheets that began circulating in the 19705—even the table of contents served as a revelation to me. And, I'm sure, to others as well. Aspiring musicians today can hardly imagine how opaque the art form was just a few decades ago—no school I attended had a jazz program or even offered a single course on jazz. Most of the method books were worthless, and the peculiar culture of the art form tended to foster an aura of secrecy and competitiveness. Just knowing the names of the songs one needed to learn represented a major step forward; getting a lead sheet was an unwonted luxury.

A few years later, when I started teaching jazz piano students, I put together a brief guide to the repertoire, listing the songs my pupils needed to learn and the keys in which they were normally played—a rudimentary forerunner to the work you now have in your hands. Still later, as I began writing about jazz, I continued to study these same songs, but from a different perspective. I now tried to unravel the evolution of these compositions over time, understand how different jazz artists had played them, and what changes had taken place in performance practices.

Over the years, I often wished I had a handbook to this body of music, a single volume that would guide me through the jazz repertoire and point me in the direction of the classic recordings. A few books were helpful in my early education into the nuances of this body of music, especially Alec Wilder's Amer­ican Popular Song (1972), but even the best of these books invariably focused on only a small part of the repertoire—mainly Broadway and Tin Pan Alley songs— and dealt very little with this music as it related to jazz. The book I needed didn't exist when I was coming up, and still doesn't. I wanted to delve into these songs as sources of inspiration for great jazz performances—a perspective that often took one far a field from what the composer might have originally intended. I wanted a guide to these works as building blocks of the jazz art form, as a springboard to improvisation, as an invitation to creative reinterpretation.

This book aims to be that type of survey, the kind of overview of the standard repertoire that I wished someone had given me back in the day—a guide that would have helped me as a musician, as a critic, as a historian, and simply as a fan and lover of the jazz idiom. To some degree, this work represents the fru­ition of all my experiences with these great songs over a period of decades. The compositions that were once mysterious and even foreboding have now become familiar friends, the companions of countless hours, and I have relished the opportunity to write about these songs and discuss my favorite recordings. Cer­tainly those readers familiar with my other books will note a more personal tone here, a more informal approach—one that felt natural to me as I delved into a body of work that has become, by now, such a vital part of my life….”

The Jazz Standards is a resource guide and a browser's companion to more than 250 of the most popular Jazz songs and includes a listening guide to more than 2 000 recordings. For each of these tunes, Ted “… explains their role in the art form, compares different performance practices, and serves as a tour guide to the historic recordings that define how these works are played today.”

To give you the “flavor” of the book’s contents, here are three examples drawn from Ted’s annotations about songs reviewed in The Jazz Standards that have always been among my favorite to play on.

Airegin [Sonny Rollins, composer]:

“The song first came to prominence via the 1954 Miles Davis project Bags' Groove, an album that is far less well known than the trumpeter's work from later in the decade. The album presented several songs destined to become standards, including three of Rollins's best compositions: "Airegin," "Doxy," and "Oleo."

"Airegin" offers the most interesting conception of the batch, with an opening that hints at a minor blues at the outset, then morphs into a lop­sided 36-bar form—an oddity, with 20 bars elapsing before the repeat, but then running only 16 bars before coming back to the top of the form—all packed with plenty of harmonic movement to keep things interesting for the soloists.

The opening chords look back to "Opus V," a piece by J. J. Johnson that Rollins had recorded back in 1949, while the second eight bars are remi­niscent of the bridge to Billy Strayhorn's "Day Dream." But the whole as con­structed by Rollins is distinctive and the work ranks among the most intricate of the saxophonist's better known pieces. Certainly "Airegin" showed that in an era when other jazz players were expanding their audience by moving toward either a cool melodicism or an earthy funkiness, Rollins was intent on writing songs that would appeal to other horn players rather than patrons at the jukebox.

"Airegin" did just that. Two years later, Davis resurrected the song for another Prestige session, and this time featured John Coltrane, Rollins's leading rival as reigning tenor titan of modern jazz. Davis made a surprising choice to substitute an 8-bar vamp over an F minor chord for Rollins's orig­inal chord changes during the second A theme; by doing so, he anticipated the modal approach that would come to the fore in his music later in the decade. The tempo is faster here, and the mood much more aggressive, with Trane serving notice that he could play this composition just as well as the composer.

Other prominent soloists followed suit. Phil Woods recorded "Airegin" on his 1957 session with Gene Quill, and periodically returned to the song in var­ious settings over the years. Art Pepper tackled it on his Art Pepper Plus Eleven….

The song has kept its place in the standard repertoire …. For two invigorating [and more recent examples], check out the treatments by Chris Potter and Michael Brecker, both from 1993.”

Love for Sale [Cole Porter, composer and lyricist]:

“Many songs have overcome nonmusical obstacles in gaining acceptance and popularity, but few tunes faced a stiffer challenge than "Love for Sale." For decades, radio stations refused to allow its lyrics on the air. The song, which made its debut in the 1930 Broadway musical The New Yorkers, is sung from the perspective of a Prohibition-era prostitute, and composer Cole Porter did not mince his words in presenting "appetizing young love for sale." Charles Darnton, the reviewer for the Evening World, accused the song of being "in the worst possible taste." The Herald Tribune called it "filthy."

Porter, perhaps in a mood of defensiveness, claimed that it was his favorite among the songs he had composed. "I can't understand it," he griped. "You can write a novel about a harlot, paint a picture of a harlot, but you can't write a song about a harlot." Perhaps most revealing: audience outrage subsided after the Broadway production shifted the setting of the song to Harlem, in front of the Cotton Club, and assigned the number to African-American vocalist Elizabeth Welch instead of Kathryn Crawford, a white singer.

“… jazz artists seldom turned to "Love for Sale" until the late 1940s and early 1950s. Billie Holiday recorded a definitive version, and her persona as a troubled diva who, by her own account, was working as a prosti­tute when this song first came out, gave her a kind of credibility that few singers would want to match. Despite her advocacy, singers long avoided this song. During this period a jazz fan was more likely to encounter the Porter tune in instrumental arrangements by Erroll Garner, Sidney Bechet, Art Tatum, or even Charlie Parker, who recorded it as part of a Cole Porter tribute project for the Verve label shortly before his death. …

Cannonball Adderley recorded a well-known version for his 1958 project Somethin' Else—a rare date that found Miles Davis working as a sideman. …

By the 1960s, the taboo associated with "Love for Sale" had faded, and it became entrenched in the repertoires of jazz players. And for good reason. The opening theme is suitable for vamps of all stamps, from Latin to funky, and the release offers effective contrast both rhythmically and harmonically. A tension in tonality is evident from the outset: this song in a minor key nonetheless starts on a major chord, and seems ready to go in either direction during the course of Porter's extended form. A composition of this sort presents many possibilities, and can work either as a loose jam or bear the weight of elaborate arrangement.”

Poinciana [Nat Simon, composer, Buddy Bernier, lyricist]

“In the jazz world, “Poinciana” is inextricably linked with Ahmad Jamal, whose successful reading of the composition from 1958 helped keep his album Ahmad Jamal at the Pershing: But Not for Me on the Billboard chart for more than two years. But the song long predates Jamal's interpretation, and was composed back in 1936. Glenn Miller performed it in the late 1930s, Benny Carter enjoyed a modest hit with "Poinciana" in February 1944, and Bing Crosby did the same the following month. Carter's version is especially interesting, with its strange groove, half Latin and half-R&B—a stark contrast to the pop-oriented approach Miller had adopted in his treatment.

Around this time, a number of name bandleaders embraced "Poinciana" and it shows up on live broadcasts by Duke Ellington, Jimmy Dorsey, Jack Teagarden, and other jazz stars of the era. … Other recordings that predate Jamal's success include versions by Erroll Garner, Lennie Niehaus, Red Callender, and George Shearing.

But Jamal eclipsed these precedents with a vamp-based arrangement that superimposed the pianist's unhurried phrasing over an insistent, appealing beat—so appealing that his "Poinciana" earned repeated jukebox plays and dance-floor loyalty at a time when modern jazz had largely abandoned these public platforms for crossover success.

Even after Jamal redefined "Poinciana," the song enjoyed a surprisingly varied career. It has been popular with vocal groups, as demonstrated in recordings by the Four Freshman and the Manhattan Transfer. It has appeared on albums de­voted to musical exotica, getting the full Les Baxter "bring-the-Third-World-to-your-bachelor-pad" treatment, and has also been adapted for big bands, Afro-Cuban ensembles, and easy listening orchestras. But I am still under Jamal's sway, and feel "Poinciana" is best served by small combo versions that avoid the mood music baggage and let the song swing. For three striking examples, check out Shelly Manne's fast romp in straight 4/4 walking time from his 1959 performance at the Black Hawk, Sonny Rollins's hot work on soprano sax backed by George Cables's electric piano from 1972, and Keith Jarrett’ s convivial trio rendition from 1999.”

Aside from just devouring the book from cover-to-cover, as I did, you can approach The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire in any number of ways.

You can select one tune, read what Ted has to say about it and then immerse yourself in the example recordings the he lists in the accompanying discography.

You can take Ted annotations for one or more of the Jazz standards and add your own thoughts and list of favorites versions to it.

Or you can create playlists from Ted’s track suggestions and upload them to you favorite media player

Perhaps you might wish to get together with some of your Jazz buddies at a Jazz standards party in which you read and discuss Ted’s take on a tune and play your preferred versions.

I doubt that you will ever come across a book on Jazz that will give you more pleasurable reading while, at the same time, affording you an such interactive platform in which to experience its contents.

However, you approach it, The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire is sure to become a constant companion to your Jazz listening.

Ted has his own website and you can find out more about him by visiting it via this link.

The nice folks at The Oxford University Press who are responsible for publishing the book can be reached here.

For those of you who may have missed it’s first posting of the JazzProfiles editorial staff’s Conversation with Ted Gioia About Jazz, we have brought it up again in the blog’s sidebar [left-hand or columnar side of the blog].

The Brussels Jazz Orchestra – Meeting Colours

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

“The music on this record is absolutely outstanding, both in terms of artistic content and in superior form of presentation: within the framework of Bert Joris’ beautiful big band arrangements.

As for the many new compositions included in this album, they represent Philip Catherine’s most recent and successful attempt to develop a new thematic composition language, without sacrificing his well-established and very personal form of musical expression both in writing and on the guitar.

Each new piece has a peculiar and strong musical personality. …

The Brussels Jazz Orchestra’s sound and performance are impeccable and always great and it is incredible how each arrangement, with the perfectly balanced dynamics of this great big band, enhances the beautiful melodies of the compositions. …”

- Adriano Pateri

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles plans to have a lot more to say about the Brussels Jazz Orchestra [BJO] in a future profile [perhaps, two] about this talented, musical aggregation.

Until then, you can sample the music of the BJO on the audio track to the following video tribute to the photography of the late, Helmut Newton which features his intriguingly beautiful portraits of many of the world’s famous actresses.

The tune is entitled On the Ground, one of twelve [12] composed by Belgian guitarist Philip Catherine for his meeting with the BJO entitled Meeting Colours, a compact disc that was recorded and released in 2005 on Dreyfus Jazz [FDM36675-2].

Trumpeter Bert Joris, one of the founders of the BJO, arranged all of Philip’s tunes for the band.

On the Ground is a medium tempo tune that “cooks,” or shall we say, “slow burns,” from beginning to end.

The melody is initially stated with Philip’s guitar voiced in unison with the trombones and blended in places with muted trumpets.

Philip’s solo begins at 1:42 minutes.

Be sure to checkout the shout chorus that Bert creates starting at 3:03 minutes with Philip’s guitar phrased an octave higher, but again, in unison with the band, especially the closing portion with the sax section from 3:53 – 4:23 minutes.

Peter Bernstein Plays Monk

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

“I’ve heard other guitarists play Monk and really stress the oddness and the angularity and to a degree I like what Peter did because its very counter to how most people would approach the [repertoire].

- Greg Scholl, president and chief executive of Xanadu/The Orchard

“To his credit, the translation goes almost unnoticed. What sticks out instead is Bernstein’s soulful affinity to the material and the dapper chatter of his partners, Doug Weiss on bass and Bill Stewart on drums.”

- AllAboutJazz website publicity department

“The way Monk approaches basic harmony is fascinating. He could be playing something within a chord with his right hand and strike one note with his left hand that was right in the middle of that chord. It’s the constant surprises.”

-Peter Bernstein, Jazz guitarist

You don’t often hear Monk’s music played on guitar.

One would suspect that this is primarily because Monk’s songs are physically scaled for the piano and its sharp intervals and tangled clusters don’t fall as naturally on a guitar’s fret board.

On the other hand, as guitarist Peter Bernstein observed: “There lots of space in Monk’s music and you don’t have to fill up all the space. And in his music the rhythmic element is already there – it’s already swinging.”

So it would seem that for a Jazz guitarist to play Monk’s music, one would have to complement the affinities while at the same time finding ways around the challenges it represents to the guitar.

Commenting about his Monk [Xanadu/The Orchard] CD, guitarist Peter Bernstein further explained to Eric Fine in his April 2009 JazzTimes article on Peter:

“‘Monk’s music is very sophisticated music and also very rooted and it has great strength in its simplicity. When I got into it, I found that certain voicings did lay on the guitar because of the spacing. It’s really not the sound of the piano … it’s the sound of Monk playing the piano.’

Even so, Bernstein struggled at times to translate the music to the guitar because of the instrument’s technical limitations.

‘I’ve always been frustrated as a guitar player harmonically,’ he said, ‘because you can’t play all the notes like a piano player can. The range is smaller, and it’s harder to play closer voicings on the guitar because you have to stretch between strings.'”

George Kantzer in his review for AllAboutJazz.com offered these thoughts about Peter’s accomplishments on his Monk CD:

“Thelonious Monk  never employed or recorded with a guitarist (save early bootlegged jam sessions with Charlie Christian and a big band with Howard Roberts) and his piano playing and arranging can hardly be called guitar-like. Hearing guitar play Monk's music is like hearing an orchestral version of a Wagner opera aria; it reveals a wholly different aspect of the music. …

And Bernstein is a graceful guitarist who polishes the rough pianistic edges Monk gouged into his tunes."

Summing it up, Bernstein said: “Monk has his own musical universe. For me he was the sound of New York – like home.”

The following video which was developed in conjunction with the ace graphics team at CerraJazz LTD and StudioCerra Productions offers a sampling of Bernstein Plays Monk on its audio track which is comprised of Peter performing Monk’s Brilliant Corners along with Doug Weiss on bass and Bill Stewart on drums.

Lester Young on Clarinet 1938-39

Kate McGarry – “Smoking My Sad Cigarette”

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

 “The positive and lightly quavering sound of Kate McGarry’s voice doesn’t send up any flares identifying her as a Jazz singer. But she certainly deserves that distinction ….”

- Nat Chinen, The New York Times

"...evocative lyricism, superb control and ample vocal and emotive range. Her voice would be iconic in any genre."

- Gary Fukushima – L.A. Weekly

“She is developing into one of the most dependable and refreshing singers in jazz"

- Bob Karlovits, The Pittsburgh Tribune

Someone should tell vocalists today—at least the ones we see on those TV talent hunts—that singing doesn't have to be some exercise in screaming self-annihilation, that beauty and style is more about composure and command. You could tell them, or you can hip them to … Kate McGarry.

- Mark Corroto, Allaboutjazz

If you are not familiar with Kate McGarry’s brilliant Jazz vocalizations, her singing on the following video will serve as a proper introduction.

On it, Kate sings Smoking My Sad Cigarette which was arranged by Gil Evans in 1957 and has never been previously recorded. She is joined by The Gil Evans Centennial Project Orchestra under the direction of Ryan Truesdell.

You can find out more about Kate and her forthcoming appearances on her website: http://www.katemcgarry.com/

A Chuckle from Clark As Told By Crow

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

One of the great things about hanging out with Jazz musicians is that you’re never far from a laugh.

Whether it’s a play-on-words in a song title, a nickname, or the telling of a yarn, Jazz musicians love a good chortle.

Playing Jazz takes a lot of concentration, and humor is a great way to relieve the pressure that builds up during a performance, a recording date or even a rehearsal, especially when reading through new music.

Whether you are a Jazz musician or a fan of the music, if you like the transformational feeling that laughter brings on, you can’t do better than a perusal of the funny stories in Bill Crow’s Jazz Anecdotes [New York: Oxford University Press, 1990].

Here’s an example.

© -Bill Crow, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Not having [trumpeter] Clark Terry tell this one robs it of some of its charm. You have to imagine the devilish look in Clark’s eye as he sings each song!

A guy walked into a pet store looking for a Christmas gift for his wife. The storekeeper said he knew exactly what would please her and took a little bird out of a cage. "This is Chet," he said, "and Chet can sing Christmas carols." Seeing the look of disbelief on the customer's face, he proceeded to demonstrate.

"He needs warming up," he said. "Lend me your cigarette lighter."

The man handed over his lighter, and the storekeeper raised Chet's left wing and waved the flame lightly under it. Immediately, Chet sang "Oh Come, All Ye Faithful."

"That's fantastic!" said the man.

"And listen to this," said the storekeeper, warming Chet's other wing. Chet sang, "O Little Town of Bethlehem."

"Wrap him up!" said the man. "I'll take him!"

When he got home, he greeted his wife:

"Honey, I can't wait until Christmas to show you what I got you. This is fantastic."

He unwrapped Chet's cage and showed the bird to his wife.

"Now, watch this."

He raised Chet's left wing and held him over a Christmas candle that was burning on the mantlepiece. Chet immediately began to sing, "Silent Night." The wife was delighted.

"And that's not all, listen to this!" As Chet's right wing was warmed over the flame, he sang, "Joy to the World."

"Let me try it," cried the wife, seizing the bird. In her eagerness, she held Chet a little too close to the flame. Chet began to sing passionately, "Chet's nuts roasting on an open fire!""

Blue

Medium tempo blues practically play themselves especially when the rhythm section just lays it down and stays out of the way, which is exactly what bassist Peter Washington and drummer Joe Farnsworth do on the audio track to the following video. The tune is entitled Systems Blue. Trombonist Steve Davis wrote it and performs on it along with Mike DiRubbo on alto saxophone, David Hazeltine on piano and, of course, Peter and Joe.

Jazz musicians like to open the first set of club dates or concerts with a medium tempo blues.  The easy tempo, simplified song structure [usually 12 bars which repeats once] and the groove generated all serve to get the juices flowing.


Smiles all round after listening to "the kids" making it happen on this one.


Jazz is in good hands.


Click on the direction arrows in the lower right hand corner to play the video at full screen and, should they appear, ads can be eliminated by clicking on the "X."

Memorializing Paul Desmond

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

Alto saxophonist Paul Desmond died on Memorial Day, 1977.

On this Memorial Day weekend, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles thought it might be appropriate to commemorate the 35^th anniversary of Paul’s passing with the following videos that feature his superbly unique alto playing in different musical contexts.

To ours ears, Paul’s sound is associated with everything that we find beautiful in the music.  His was a masterful command of the alto saxophone and his conception took the instrument to new heights, both figuratively and literally.

Paul’s music was like a good book: you could put it down and pick it up again anytime the mood suited you or you could stay up all night reading it. It was full of melodic “stories,” humor, and great depth of feeling.

Listening to Paul play was always a satisfying experience; and like the reading of that good book, one generally came away wanting more.

Stardust – Paul with pianist Dave Brubeck, bassist Ron Crotty and drummer Joe Dodge.

You Go To My Head – Paul with Don Elliott on trumpet and mellophonium, Norman Bates on bass and Joe Dodge on drums.

Chorale – Paul with Dave van Kriedt on tenor saxophone, Dave Brubeck on piano, Norman Bates on bass and Joe Morello on drums.

I’ve Got You Under My Skin – Paul with Jim Hall on guitar, Milt Hinton on bass, Robert Thomas on drums and strings and horns arranged by Bob Prince. [Click on the “X” to close out of the ads when these appear on the video].

Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw - Henk Meutgeert/Riffs n Rhythms

It's great when the TV director knows the music and can focus on what's going on now and put cameras in positions to catch what's coming up next.

Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw

From a concert performed by the orchestra on April 28, 2011 at The Bimhuis in Amsterdam, the composition is entitled Black, Whiter and Brown and features Peter Beets on piano, Joris Roelofs on bass clarinet, and Jan van Duikeren on trumpet with Martijn Vink booting things along in the drum chair.

Jimmy Giuffre and Scintilla Revisited

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

“It’s just one way and every man must go his own way.”

- Jimmy Giuffre, Down Beat, November 30, 1955

“Jimmy is an innovator and much has been written about his contributions to clarinet playing style and to Jazz composition, but this is secondary. It is the basic quality of his music, with its uncontrived simplicity and glowing inner feeling that sets Jimmy apart.”

- Gary Kramer, liner notes to The Jimmy Giuffre 3 [Atlantic 1254]

“the spirit of Jazz suffuses all of these performances …and important step in the long Giuffre musical odyssey …  they are simply marvelous, full of life brimming with ideas, and chock-full of rich, rewarding, imaginative writing and playing.”

- Peter Keepnews, liner notes to the PAUSA: Jazz Origins reissue of Giuffre’s 1950 Capitol LPs

“When one listens to Giuffre's music for what it is—and not for what one thinks it should be—the beauties of this rich and strange musical land­scape begin to emerge. Or rather, landscapes. For Giuffre never found a single musical Garden of Eden, a definitive style or format he could stay in for long. Like his more celebrated contemporary Miles Davis, Giuffre remains a musical chameleon, a distinctive stylist who constantly feels compelled to change his sonic setting.”

- Ted Gioia, West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California, 1945-1969 [p.227]

Almost forty years after I first heard it, I tracked down Jimmy Giuffre and wrote him a letter about how much I enjoyed the music on his Capitol LP – Tangents in Jazz [T-634].

Jimmy was living in Massachusetts and I in San Francisco at the time. Because of  health issues, his wife Juanita helped compose his response. Juanita, a professional photographer, also kindly enclosed a portrait of Jimmy which he had autographed,

In my letter to him, I explained that I had been particularly taken with the four relatively short pieces on the Tangents in Jazz LP entitled Scintilla I-IV.

On the album, the four-parts of Scintilla are sequenced: Scintilla II, Scintilla I, Scintilla IV and Scintilla III.

On a lark, I had decided to re-track these four Scintilla parts and record them in consecutive, numeric sequence.

I had included a copy of a tape recording with the re-sequenced Scintilla I-IV along with my letter to Jimmy.

In his reply, Jimmy shared that this was the first time that he had heard this music in its original order since he wrote and recorded it in June, 1955!

He also explained that although Will McFarland’s liner notes to the LP indicate the four Scintilla pieces being played in numerical order, somehow when the album was being prepared for pressing, it was sequenced according to the Master numbers assigned to each track when they were recorded on June 6,7,10, 1955.

Interestingly, when Mosaic Records reissued these recordings as CDs & LPs as part of their The Complete Capitol and Atlantic Recordings of Jimmy Giuffre [Mosaic MD6-176], Mosaic also used the master track sequence instead of grouping the four Scintilla tracks as a consecutive, inter-connected musical “suite.”

The audio track in a video tribute to Jimmy with the four-part Scintilla suite in the original sequence  has been taken down due to copyright issues. But I was able to find a YouTube of the entire album with the original sequence interspersed in the correct sequence between other tracks on the Tangents in Jazz album. 

The video is followed by Jimmy’s “Questions and Answers” about the music on the album which form the original LP’s liner notes, excerpts from Will McFarland’s descriptions of Scintilla I-IV and a postscript on the album by Ted Gioia.

As an aside, I got to know Artie Anton, the drummer on these tracks, quite well as he was for many years a drum shop proprietor and drum teacher in near-by North Hollywood, CA. He always considered his playing on Jimmy’s 1950s Capitol recordings as “one of my most enjoyable times in music.” He would also declare to anyone who would spare him the time to listen to them that his “… playing on these cuts proves that the drums are a musical instrument [big smile – His]!.”

The puckish trumpet work is provided by the inimitable Jack Sheldon; also prominent on all these performance is the robust bass tone of Ralph Pena who sadly left us much-too-quickly at age 42 because of his involvement in a fatal car accident in Mexico.

“A top-level soloist and writer makes his most daring move to date: Jimmy Giuffre sets forth a bold new form for improvised music.

The music is revolutionary; yet its advent was a foreseeable, logical step in jazz maturation. Giuffre's new concept is con­troversial ; its evidence here is a must for serious jazz-followers, yet the range of its appeal is so unpredictable that its cham­pions could include bouncing dilettantes, hard-shell tradition­alists, even jazz-apathists.

Specifically, this music puts on view a quartet that functions without an audible beat — no walking bass, no riding cymbal; yet thanks to Giuffre's indomitable folksiness, this flouting of tradition results in jazz that out-thumps the music of most of his heavy-handed neighbors.

Jimmy answers some leading questions...

Q What is this music?

A Jazz, with a non-pulsating beat. The beat is implicit but not explicit; in other words, acknowledged but unsounded. The two horns are the dominant but not domineering voices. The bass usually functions somewhat like a baritone sax. The drums play an important but non-conflicting role.

Q Why abandon the sounded beat?

A For clarity and freedom. I've come to feel increasingly in­hibited and frustrated by the insistent pounding of the rhythm section. With it, it's impossible for the listener or the soloist to hear the horn's true sound, I've come to believe, or fully concentrate on the solo line. An imbalance of ad­vances has moved the rhythm from a supporting to a com­petitive role.

Q But isn't the sounded beat an integral part of jazz?

A The sounded beat once made playing easier, but now it's become confining. And to the degree that the beat was there to guide dancers, it is, of course, no longer necessary to con­cert jazz. I think the essence of jazz is in the phrasing and notes, and these needn't change when the beat is silent. Since the beat is implicit, this music retains traditional feel­ing; not having it explicit allows freer thinking.

Q Hasn't this been done before, particularly by you?

A Several of today's writers have dropped all sounded beat for contrast, but never for an entire work. I've written works completely lacking sounded beat, but the difference between this music and all previous work is the use of the drums. My previous attempts at this approach, while achiev­ing some of the clarity I sought, were always vaguely un­satisfactory to me until I realized the trouble: the drums, by their nature, cannot carry a simultaneous or overlapping line; when the drum is struck, any other note is obliterated, and attention is torn away from any other line. In this music, the drums' lines are integrated but isolated.

Q How is it possible to ensure this isolation during solos, when tacit is usually unpredictable?

A By writing rests in the ad lib parts, allowing the drums to fill. I strive to write the rests at natural phrase endings, holding restriction to a minimum.

Q But isn't there generally more restriction — don't the solo­ists have a good deal less freedom than before?

A In a sense, they have more freedom. No longer fed a stream of chords, or fighting a pounding beat, they are free to get a more natural sound out of their horns, and try for all sorts of new effects.

Q Didn't you have to select your musicians with extra care?

A Yes, I discussed my plans at length with each of them to make sure they were completely attuned to the project. Artie Anton, the drummer, has had wide band experience; from the beginning he was sympathetic to my new ideas. He is a skilled reader, as is Ralph Pena, a bassist with great sound, jazz feeling and a classical background, who has worked with many big bands and Stan Getz. Pena has re­corded previously with me, as has Jack Sheldon, an ex-Lighthouse trumpeter who has also recorded under his own name. Sheldon is a major soloist, and fits perfectly into my conception of the quartet.

Q This music is such a sharp departure; do you have any mis­givings about making the leap?

A This music is no novelty; it's the result of almost a decade of formal study, the culmination of all my thinking, writing and blowing. To me, it seems like sheer insanity to continue to play against that hammering beat. Classical music, once the rhythm is stated, assumed the freedom to move un­accompanied, and if jazz is going to continue to grow, it needs this same freedom.

Q New styles usually provoke extreme reaction; what sort of general judgment do you hope for?

A Early works in a new style necessarily grope; each new tune helps to expand and define the form; this album is not final. All I really ask for this music is an isolated judgment —for what it is, rather than for what it isn't. It isn't an attempt to compete with, or supplant other forms; I knew when I took the step that I must sacrifice a large segment of the usual jazz audience. It is, I think, jazz, and a swinging music, but those are ambiguous terms. Does it excite in­terest? Is it pleasurable? Does the interest hold up? These are the real questions.

Q You've been considered one of the great blowers with the very sort of rhythm you now flee; are you abandoning it for good?

A As a working musician, I must continue to play other music until the quartet works more steadily, and there are prob­lems — such as the extreme awkwardness of any turnover in personnel. I still enjoy playing with a stomping rhythm section occasionally, but my heart lies here; I believe in this music.

Will McFarland comments on the four Scintilla selections ...

Scintilla One — This bright brief opener, mostly ensemble work, serves both as an introduction to the album and as a basis for three subsequent sparkling variations. There is no improvisa­tion or development as yet, but extensions of the form are heard.

Scintilla Two — The ensemble plays the first eight bars of Scintilla One to introduce a development of that theme — minus extensions. This fast, tough, earnest variation is used as a basis for blowing; it's Giuffre's tenor all the way, very free.

Scintilla Three — Another variation on the root Scintilla, lighter and cute this time, stars the trumpet. Jack Sheldon's depth in running ideas is given plenty of leeway, and the clarinet comments from the middle-ground, half written, half spontaneous.

Scintilla Four — Climaxing the album, Giuffre unveils a stir­ring development and finale: the drums are fingered; there is imitation; all four players take a final four; all previous Scintilla material is recapitulated and used; a couple of canons, and the concert closes.

– Ted Gioia,  West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California, 1945-1969 [pp. 235-36, paragraphing modified]

“Despite Giuffre's rhetoric, the pieces on Tangents in Jazz do swing. In many ways the listener is even more drawn to the rhythmic element of the music, by the way it moves from instrument to instrument, instead of resting solely with the "rhythm" section. On Tangents Giuffre was again joined by Pena, Sheldon, and Anton, and though none of them stretches out at length during the course of the album, each is very much put in the spotlight as Giuffre employs a wide range of compositional de­vices: call-and-response figures, two- and three-part counterpoint, unison and harmony lines, canonic devices. These take the place of solos in Giuffre's new conception.

As a filmmaker conveys a sense of momentum through a sequence of rapidly shifting camera angles, Giuffre's constant movement from one musical device to another achieves a similar effect. Part of the achievement of Tangents in Jazz is that, despite the leader's stated disre­gard for a "propulsive" beat, these pieces are constantly propelled, if not by a metronomic beat, certainly by Giuffre's constant changes in compo­sitional focus. If anything, Giuffre overcompensates on Tangents, avoiding lengthy solos and shifting musical gears with abandon. The result is a highly concentrated music—which may be pleasing to the listener, but also makes severe demands on the attention.”

Balliet on Bean

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

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles has long wanted to have a piece on the site in honor of the memory of Coleman Hawkins, the man most responsible for bringing Jazz to the tenor saxophone.  And what better way to do this for the man who was affectionately known to his peers as “Bean,” than with more of the writing of Whitney Balliett, this time from his anthology entitled Dinosaurs in the Morning: 41 Pieces on Jazz [Philiadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1962].

At the conclusion of Mr. Balliett’s essay, you will find a video tribute to Coleman Hawkins made with the assistance of the ace graphics team at CerraJazz LTD. The audio track is Frank Foster’s “Juggin’ Around” on which Frank is joined on tenor saxophone by Gene Ammons and Frank Wess, along with Nat Adderley on cornet, Bennie Green on trombone and a rhythm section of Tommy Flanagan, Ed Jones and Albert “Tootie” Heath on piano, bass and drums, respectively. All three tenor saxophonists were heavily influenced by Bean.

© -  Whitney Balliet, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“IMPROVISATION, the seat of jazz, is a remorseless art that demands of the performer no less than this: that, night after night, he spontaneously invent original music by balancing‑with the speed of light ‑emotion and intelligence, form and content, and tone and attack, all of which must both charge and entertain the spirit of the listener. Improvisation comes in various shapes. There is the melodic em­bellishment of Louis Armstrong and Vic Dickenson; the similar but more complex thematic improvisation of Lester Young; the improvisation upon chords, as practiced by Coleman Hawkins and Charlie Parker, and the rhythmic-thematic convolutions now being put forward by Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins. There are, too, the collective improvisations, such as, the defunct New Orleans ensemble, and its contrapuntal descendants, which are thriving in the bands of John Lewis and Charlie Mingus. Great improvisation occurs once in a blue moon; bad improvisation, which is really not improvisation at all but a rerun or imitation of old ideas, happens all the time. No art is more precarious or domineering. Indeed, there is evidence that the gifted jazz musicians who have either died or dried up early are primarily victims not of drugs and alcohol but of the insatiable furnace of improvisation. Thus, such consummate veteran improvisers as Armstrong, Dickenson, Hawkins, Buck Clayton, and Monk are, in addition to being master craftsmen, remarkable endurance runners. One of the hardiest of these is Hawkins, who, now fifty-four, continues to play with all the vitality and authority that be demonstrated during the Harding administration as a member of Mamie Smith's jazz Hounds.

Hawkins, in fact, is a kind of super jazz musician, for he has been a bold originator, a masterly improviser, a shepherd of new movements, and a steadily developing performer. A trim, contained man, whose rare smiles have the effect of a lamp suddenly going on within, he was the first to prove that jazz could be played on the saxophone, which bad been largely a purveyor of treacle. He did this with such conviction and imagination that by the early thirties he had founded one of the two great schools of saxophone playing. In 1939, Hawkins set down, as an afterthought at a recording session, a version of "Body and Soul" that achieves the impossible - perfect art. A few years later, he repeated this success with "Sweet Lorraine" and "The Man I Love." Unlike many other jazz musicians, who are apt to regard anything new with defensive animosity, Hawkins has always kept an ear to the ground for originality, and as a result he led the first official bebop recording session, which involved Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, and the late Clyde Hart. Soon afterward, he used the largely unknown Thelonious Monk in some important recordings. Then his playing inexplicably began to falter and he went into semi-eclipse, from which he rocketed up, without warning, in the early fifties, landing on his feet with a brand-new style (his third), whose occasional febrility suggests a man several decades younger.

Hawkins's early style was rough and aggressive. His tone tended to be harsh and bamboo-like, and he used a great many staccato, slap-tongued notes. But these mannerisms eventually vanished, and by the mid-thirties he had entered his second and most famous phase. His heavy vibrato suggested the wing beats of a big bird and his tone halls hung with dark velvet and lit by huge fires. His technique had become infallible. He never fluffed a note, his tone never shrank or overflowed-as did Chu Berry's, say-and he gave the impression that he had enough equipment to state in half a dozen different and finished ways what was in his head. This proved to be remarkable, particularly in his handling of slow ballads.

Hawkins would often begin such a number by playing one chorus of the melody, as if he were testing it. He would stuff its fabric with tone to see how much it would take, eliminate certain notes, sustain others, slur still others, and add new ones. Then, satisfied, he would shut his eyes, as if blinded by what he was about to play, and launch into impro­visation with a concentration that pinned one down. (Hawkins's total lack of tentativeness ‑ the exhilarating, blind man tentativeness of Pee Wee Russell or Roy Eldridge ‑ suggested that he had written out and memorized his solos long before playing them.) He would construct‑out of phrases crowded with single notes, glissandos, abrupt stops, and his corrugated vibrato‑long, hilly figures that sometimes lasted until his breath gave out. Refilling his lungs with wind‑tunnel ferocity, he would be off again‑bending notes, dropping in little runs like steep, crooked staircases, adding decorative, almost calligraphic flourishes, emphasizing an occasional phrase by allowing it to escape into puffs of breath. He often closed these solos with roomy codas, into which he would squeeze fresh and frequently fancy ideas that bad simply been crowded out of his ear­lier ruminations. If another soloist followed him, he might terminate his own statement with an abrupt ascending figure that neatly catapulted his successor. When Hawkins had finished, his solo, anchored directly and emphatically to the beat, had been worked into an elaborate version of the origi­nal melody, as though be had fitted a Victorian mansion over a modern ranch house. At fast tem­pos, Hawkins merely forced the same amount of music into a smaller space. There seemed to be no pause between phrases or choruses, and this pro­duced an intensity that thickened the beat and whose vehemence was occasionally indicated by sus­tained growls. Yet for all this enthusiasm, Hawkins' playing during this period often left the listener vaguely dissatisfied. Perhaps it was because his style had an unceasing - and, for that time, unusual - intellectual quality, with the glint of perfection and a viselike unwillingness to let any emotion out, lest it spoil the finish on his work. One kept waiting for the passion beneath the surface to burst through, but it never did-until five years ago.

Hawkins can now be volcanic. His present style is marked primarily by a slight tightening of tone, which sometimes resembles the sound he achieved at the outset of his career; the use of certain harsh notes and phrases that, not surprisingly, suggest Charlie Parker and Sonny Rollins; and an almost dismaying display of emotion. This exuberance has been costly. In his pursuit of pure flame, Hawkins sometimes misses notes or plays them badly, and he falls back, perhaps out of fatigue, on stock phrases of his own, such as a series of abrupt, descending triplets. When everything is in mesh, however, the results are formidable. …”

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Erroll Garner - The Piano As Orchestra

When we prepared our earlier book review of Timme Rosenkrantz's Harlem Jazz Adventures we came across the following information about how Erroll's career in Jazz almost didn't happen. I wonder how many other talented players got discouraged and were never "discovered" in the world of Jazz during it's heyday?


We decided to "re-discover" the wonder that was Erroll Garner by reposting our earlier piece about him on the left columnar sidebar while displaying below these excerpts from Timme's book as well as an earlier video tribute to Erroll.

- “Young Garner's father was a singer who played several instruments, as did his older brother, Linton. Erroll was an entirely self-taught musician who hit the keys when he was three years old and never did learn how to read mu­sic. But he played like no other pianist, and his flamboyant style was a delight to the ears. He would start a ballad with a long, discordant introduction that didn't even hint at the melody to come. At last when he swung into it, his left hand lay down chords like a guitar, keeping up a steady pulse, while his right hand never seemed to catch up, improvising chords or playing octaves that lagged way behind the beat for the rest of the number. Just a pinch of Fats Waller added spice.

I was fascinated by this fellow's joyously swinging piano, and I sought him out while Louis Prima was on [Garner was the intermission pianist at the Tondelayo Club on 52nd St. in NYC where Prima was the featured act]. Erroll was anything but happy. He didn't know many people in New York and was downhearted. No one was inter­ested in listening to him—Louis Prima was the showman attraction. And Erroll was only making forty dollars a week!

He told me he thought he'd go home soon, as it seemed nothing was going to happen for him in New York. Somehow, I had to stop him. I invited him home to 7 West 46th Street, showed him my rented Krakaur grand, and once he got started, it was impossible to pry him off the bench. Little did I know at the outset that he had a bad case of asthma and couldn't sleep lying down!” [p. 176]


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To Lester from Dexter With … “Cheese Cake”

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

I could listen to Dexter Gordon play the tenor saxophone all night.

There was a time in my life when I often did.

Dexter made a batch of LP’s for Alfred Lion’s Blue Note label in the 1960s and his playing on them was a revelation.

His solos on these recordings were exciting and explosive, his time hard-driving and impeccable and his sound was big and wide-open.

Dexter’s ideas and inventions flowed so effusively that I couldn’t keep up with them; I couldn’t absorb them.

Anything that came into his mind came out of his horn; effortlessly.

Cascade after cascade of the hippest phrases simply flowed and flowed and flowed.

Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane received more public notice, awards and accolades, but Dexter was right up there with all of them.

When Jazz went to Europe to live, so did Dexter, performing and hanging out in Paris and Copenhagen for most of the last two decades of his life.

By the time of his triumphant return visits to the Village Vanguard in NYC and Keystone Korner in San Francisco in the late 1970s, he had become a different player; more laid back, lyrical and laconic, but still a force to be reckoned with.

Here are a few thoughts and observation about Dexter from Garry Giddins’ marvelous five-page essay on him in Visions of Jazz: The First Century [pp.330–335]:

“The King of Quoters, Dexter Gordon, was himself eminently quotable. In a day not unlike our own, when purists issue fiats about what is or isn't valid in jazz, Gordon declared flatly, ‘jazz is an octopus’—it will assimilate anything it can use. Drawing closer to home, he spoke of his musical lineage: Coleman Hawkins "was going out farther on the chords, but Lester [Young] leaned to the pretty notes. He had a way of telling a story with everything he played/' Young's story was sure, intrepid, dar­ing, erotic, cryptic. A generation of saxophonists found itself in his music, as an earlier generation had found itself in Hawkins's rococo virtuosity. …

Gordon's appeal was to be found not only in his Promethean sound and nonstop invention, his impregnable authority combined with a steady and knowing wit, but also in a spirit born in the crucible of jam sessions. He was the most formidable of battlers, undefeated in numer­ous contests, and never more engaging than in his kindred flare-ups with the princely Wardell Gray, a perfect Lestorian foil, gently lyrical but no less swinging and sure. …

Gordon was an honest and genuinely original artist of deep and abiding humor and of tremendous personal charm. He imparted his personal characteristics to his music—size, radiance, kindness, a genius for dis­continuous logic. Consider his trademark musical quotations—snippets from other songs woven into the songs he is playing. Some, surely, were calculated. But not all and probably not many, for they are too subtle and too supple. They fold into his solos like spectral glimpses of an alternative universe in which all of Tin Pan Alley is one infinite song. That so many of the quotations seem verbally relevant I attribute to Gordon's reflexive stream-of-consciousness and prodigious memory for lyrics. I cannot imagine him planning apposite quotations.”

Bruce Lundvall and Michael Cuscuna collected all of the albums that Dexter made for Blue Note into a six compact disc, boxed set that includes some omitted tracks along with photographs by Francis Wolff and selected commentary.

It’s great to have all of this music by Dexter in a digital format and it provides a convenient means to sample the music of this Jazz giant if you are not as yet familiar with it.

In line with Gary Giddins’ characterization of Dexter as “The King of the Quoters,” Dexter composed an homage to Lester Young by making a few minor [literally] chord alterations to “Tickle Toe,” an original composition that Lester made famous while performing with Count Basie’s Orchestra.

Dexter entitled his piece “Cheese Cake” and you can listen to his performance of it on the audio track to the following video on which he is joined by Sonny Clark on piano, Butch Warren on bass and Billy Higgins on drums.

To experience the sheer joy and delight of a brilliant Jazz tenor saxophonist “at work,” you can’t do much better than Dexter’s solos on “Cheese Cake.”

Stefano Bollani is "Looking for You"

Another quick visit to our Jazz in Italy series this time featuring the talented pianist, Stefano Bollani, performing In Cerca Di Te [which roughly translates as Looking for You]. Stefano plays the piece with Ares Tavolazzi on bass and drummer Walter Paoli.


As is the case with many of today's Jazz musicians, Stefano has his own website which you can locate by going here.

Chet Baker With A Song In His Heart

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

“In 1953, upon the success of his best-selling recording of "My Funny Valentine" with the Gerry Mulligan Quartet, Chet Baker became an instant star. He began winning polls here and abroad with rhythmic regularity for five .years. His "Valentine" solo was soft and lyrical. Lyricism seemed to be Baker's stock in trade, although he was capable of playing crackling bop lines of great intricacy and inventiveness.

And he sang. He sang with.. .well, let Rex Reed describe it... "an innocent sweetness that made girls fall right out of their saddle oxfords." Before he had time to digest the fact of his sudden celebrity as a trumpet soloist, Chet found himself win­ning polls as a vocalist. In one, he was tied with Nat Cole. From obscurity to status among the jazz public as a more popular trumpet player than Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, and as a singer the equal of Nat King Cole. All in the space of slightly more than a year.”

- Doug Ramsey

Was there ever a more photogenic Jazz musician than Chet Baker?

Despite the ravages of time accelerated by an unhealthy lifestyle [or maybe because of it?], Chet seemed to maintain a welcoming presence in front of the camera.

In some cases, this may have more the result of the skills of the photographer than Chet photographable qualities.

Musically, one thing is certain, Doug Ramsey is right when he states that … “Lyricism seemed to be Baker's stock in trade.”

You can judge both his lyricism and his camera-friendly qualities for yourself by sampling the following video in which Chet sings and plays “With a Song In My Heart.” [Click on the “X” to close-out the ads when they appear on the video].

"Some Good Fun Blues" with The Jack Montrose Sextet

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles will have more to say about composer, arranger and tenor saxophonist, Jack Montrose in a future feature. Until then, Jack's "Some Good Fun Blues" is on tap as the audio track to the following video on which he is joined by Conte Candoli [trumpet], Bob Gordon [baritone saxophone], Paul Moer [piano], Ralph Pena [bass] and drummer Shelly Manne.

Biréli Lagrène Trio - Jazz in Marciac 2010

When you have a moment to put your hands behind your head, sit back and stop your world for a bit, you might want to take in the sheer artistry on display in these videos. Oh, and did I mention, everyone is having fun, too. Mustn't take it all too seriously.


Biréli Lagrène - guitare


Frank Wolf - saxophone


Jürgen Attig - bass