Ahmad Jamal on Mosaic Records - [From The Archives]

Kenny Washington: “How did you come up with your concept of less-is-more?”

Ahmad Jamal: “… I think it has to do with philosophy and how I approach the disciplines. There’s a discipline in music. There’s an amount of showiness and showing off in front of musicians, which is always a mistake. So I kind of backed off sometimes and I think it’s part of the discipline that I’ve employed through the years. I still have that. Some people call it space, but I call it discipline.”

“These sides are glistening examples of the polished skill and remarkable interplay that are the hallmarks of the Jamal trio.  Israel Crosby is on-hand to give imaginative and rock-steady support. Vernel Fournier is, as ever, fluid and quick as mercury. Jamal displays all the qualities that have elicited so much vociferous respect from fellow musicians, critics and records buyers ….”

- Jack Tracy/Original liner notes to Jamal at The Pershing, Vol. 2

“The mid fifties was a fertile time for Jazz; fresh, original ensembles were taking shape all over the country. The Modern Jazz Quartet, the Dave Brubeck Quartet, The Jazz Messengers and the Ahmad Jamal Trio immediately come to mind. Among musicians, each group had its imitators and its creative disciples who took its innovations one step further.

But no group in this era was as pervasive as the 1957 incarnation of Jamal’s trio with bassist Israel Crosby and drummer Vernel Fournier. Like the Nat King Cole Trio of the previous decade, its influence penetrated so many different aspects of music.

Jamal is first and foremost a pianist with a natural gift for the instrument. His technique, dynamics and control are something to behold, but the mind that manipulates what comes out of the piano is extraordinary.  Like only the greatest of improvising artists, Jamal is a master architect, realizing with his mind conceives with seeming ease.”

- Michael Cuscuna, Mosaic Records

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

At the time of its original posting in August, 2010, this feature did not include the tribute video to the late Nigerian artist, Ben Enwonwu [1921-1994] that uses Ahmad trio's performance of Taboo which the editorial staff at JazzProfiles subsequently developed with the assistance of the crackerjack graphics team at CerraJazz LTD.

You can now locate this video at the conclusion of this piece.

My feelings about the music contained in this nine-CD set [MD9-246] can be summed up with the expression on Ahmad’s face in the following photo:

Click on this link to Mosaic Records for more information about the set’s discography.

Around 1958, when I first heard pianist Ahmad Jamal on many of the trio LP recordings that make-up the Mosaic boxed set, I was immediately reminded of Erroll Garner.

I was vaguely aware that both Ahmad and Erroll were born and raised in Pittsburgh, but I didn’t know that Garner was his “biggest influence” [Jamal speaking to drummer Kenny Washington during a 2003 KBGO radio interview, a transcription of which is included in the insert notes to the Mosaic boxed set].

For those readers who are not familiar with Erroll Garner’s inimitable piano playing, perhaps the following description of it may prove helpful:

“Unique is an inadequate word to describe Erroll Garner. He was a musical phenomenon unlike any other. One of the most appealing performers in jazz history, he influenced almost every pianist who played in his era, and even beyond. Self-taught, he could not read music, yet he did things that trained pianists could not play, or even imagine. Garner was a one-man swing band, and indeed often ac­knowledged that his main inspiration was the big bands of the thir­ties—Duke, Basie, Lunceford, et al. He developed a self-sufficient, extremely full style that was characterized by a rock-steady left hand that often sounded like a strumming rhythm guitar. Juxtaposed against this was a river of chordal and single-note ideas, frequently stated in a lagging, behind-the-beat way that generated terrific swing.”

- Dick Katz, Pianists of the 1940’s and 1950’s in Bill Kirchner, ed. The Oxford Companion to Jazz [New York: Oxford, 2000, p. 365]

The point in comparison between Garner and Jamal styles had to do with this part of the above quotation: “rock-steady left hand that often sounded like a strumming rhythm guitar. Juxtaposed against this was a river of chordal and single-note ideas, frequently stated in a lagging, behind-the-beat way that generated terrific swing.”

You can listen Erroll’s distinctive approach in the following YouTube; be patient as his patented, left-handed comping doesn’t really kick-in until 2:55 minutes.

But why did this comparison between Ahmad and Erroll come to mind as Jamal does not do what Garner does with his left-hand?

The “…river of chordal and single-noted ideas, et al.” struck a responsive chord [bad pun intended] as both pianists seem to gush forth with improvisatory ideas, but only Garner emphasized the rhythmic pulse of a piece by playing four-beats to the bar with his left-hand.

And then it dawned on me!

Jamal had substituted bassist Israel Crosby and drummer Vernel Fournier in place of Garner’s left-hand thus freeing up both hands so that he could dart in and out of the time and play over the time using astounding runs, arpeggios, quotations from other tunes, counter-melodies and even counter-rhythms.

What sets all of this off is Jamal calculated use of space, something that rarely enters into Garner’s style because Erroll is always playing – there is no space.

As you can hear in the audio track to the above video, Garner can’t wait to finish one improvised phrase before starting another while Jamal, on the other hand, might play an idea, let it linger, leaving a space in which the bassist and the drummer continue to play before coming back into the tune again and exploring how other ideas might work. Jamal now had both hands free to build Garner-like orchestral creations.

Put another way, no Erroll Garner no Ahmad Jamal: Ahmad replaced Erroll’s always driving left hand with the always driving Israel Crosby-Vernel Fournier rhythmic pulse that he darted in and out of or played Erroll like orchestral phrases over.

But this wasn’t just any rhythm section that Ahmad was abandoning responsibility for the time to. With bassist Israel Crosby and drummer Vernel Fournier he had a well-oiled rhythm machine.

Crosby was a master of the walking bass which Gunther Schuller defines as: “In Jazz, a line played pizzicato on a double bass in regular crotchets in 4/4 meter, the notes usually moving stepwise or in intervallic patterns not necessarily restricted to the main pitches of the harmony. The style arose as the use of stride piano patterns declined, …, it has since become lingua franca for Jazz bass players, allowing them to contribute pulse, harmony and countermelody simultaneously.” – The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz [p. 1257].

John Voight describes Crosby as “… one of the earliest virtuoso double bass players, capable of improvising melodic solos, rhythmically exciting accompaniment and scalar walking bass lines.”  – The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz [p. 257].

Although he was one of the busiest drummers in Chicago by the time he joined Ahmad in 1958, Vernel Fournier was born and raised in New Orleans and his drumming never lost some of the syncopated, cadence feeling associated with the famous marching bands of the Crescent City.

According to Jack Chambers in Milestones: The Music and Times of Miles Davis:

“Despite his exposure in Ahmad’s trio, Fournier never received full credit and remains relatively unknown, but he is a percussionist of extraordinary delicacy. Jack DeJohnette, a much younger Chicago drummer says, ‘One day I heard Ahmad Jamal at the Pershing [a Chicago nightclub], and I heard Vernel Fournier on drums. His brushwork was so incredible – I mean just impeccable.’” [New York: William Morrow, 1960,p.202]

-

Vernel’s drumming has a bounce, a jauntiness and a swagger to it that seems so characteristic of New Orleans in its heyday.

His brush work has a big fat, meaty sound, his stick work is clean and crisp and his time is flawless.

Fournier is from a  period in Jazz drumming when it was almost an inviolable rule that whatever rhythmic figures you played on the snare and bass drum, you had to intersperse them within the cymbal beat.

No matter what else you played as accents, you had to keep the insistent chang-a-dang, chang-a-dang, chang-a-dang going.

This was also true of licks, kicks and fills; you played these in such a way as to return the music as neatly to the cymbal beat as possible.

[When using brushes on the snare drum, the “cymbal beat” was replicated with by crossing the right brush over a swirling pattern being made by the left brush.]

Momentum, swing, metronomic time – whatever you want to call it – were all driven off of a cymbal beat, preferably one that was in lock step with a walking bass line.

No bassist and drummer in the history of Jazz ever locked-in better in a trio format than Israel Crosby and Vernel Fournier.

Vernel also feathers the bass drum, another technique that was very much a part of modern drumming before the advent of the Elvin Jones and Tony Williams freer or looser style.

Feathering involves using the bass drum petal and the beater ball to lightly tap the bass drum, four-beats to the bar.  It is a vestige of the earliest time in the history of Jazz when drummers carried the beat on the bass drum in a more pronounced manner.

Beginning with the bebop era in the 1940s, especially with some of the more frenzied tempos associated with bop, drummers took carrying the beat off the base drum and brought it up to the ride cymbal, using the hi-hat or sock cymbal to heavily accent only the second and fourth beat of each bar.

In effect, this loosened up the sound and the feel of the rhythm so that it fit better within bebop’s melodic and harmonic framework.

It also helped prevent the poor drummer’s foot from falling off while trying to play the bass drum constantly during some of bebop’s wickedly fast tempos.

Some drummers got caught up in the changer-over from traditional Jazz and swing to bop with the result that while they could play the looser feeling time on the cymbal or with brushes, they never got away from playing four-beats-to-the-bar with the bass drum.

Instead, they toned-it-down, hence the advent of feathering.

Given how quietly it is played, the feathered bass drum generally went unnoticed particularly with the loudness of brass and reed instruments in a bop combo.

However, in a piano-bass-drum configuration, the net effect of the feathered bass drum was to give depth to the pulse of the beat, make it more insistent and drive it more.

I always thought that that the combination of Israel Crosby’s superb walking bass and Vernel’s fat sounding brush work gave Ahmad’s trio a driving propulsion and forceful swing that other trios rarely achieved.

But whether it was due to my wonky ears, the manner in which the original LPs were recorded, or my under-performing audio playback system,  I missed actually “hearing” the added ingredient in the Jamal’s trio swing: Fournier’s feathered bass drum.

However, because of the improved sound quality made possible by Mosaic’s digital transfers, the feathered bass drum is no longer hidden and is revealed throughout these recordings.

For example, as the time switches from a “two” feeling to a straight "four," you can hear Vernel’s feathering of the bass drum beginning at 1:55 on Angel Eyes, the Matt Dennis tune from the Mosaic series which is used as the audio track for the following YouTube tribute to the classic Ahmad Jamal Trio of 1957-1962.

Here’s are Kenny Washington’s thoughts about the tune:

“The Matt Dennis song Angel Eyes is one of the great torch songs of all time. Ol' Blue Eyes owned this one. I especially love the last lyric "scuse me while I disappear." A year earlier, Gene Ammons had had a hit with this standard. This tune is usually done as a ballad, but Ahmad takes it at a nice medium tempo. Ahmad reshapes the form of this standard like a sculptor, to fit the needs of the trio playing a chorus and a half of the melody. He uses the intro as an interlude. For the first chorus of his improvisation, he switches to the regular A-A-B-A song form of the tune. He then goes directly to the bridge and last A section with the interlude. This form is repeated again (bridge, last A and interlude). Listen to how he changes his dynamics to a pianis­simo and brings back the bridge melody. The Gershwin classic It Ain't Necessarily So is quoted for a second time at the last A before the intro is again stated for a powerful ending. This is another one of those performances where there's a lot happening. This marvelous arrangement sounds so natural and the trio pulls it off with such ease.”

Listening to the recordings on the Mosaic 9-disc set, it’s hard to understand why a number of critics rejected Ahmad and the trio’s music at the time of their original release. John Hammond put it more strongly when he stated that Ahmad’s music during the period from 1957-1962 was “scorned by the critics but worshipped by musicians and public alike ….”

Even the enormous appeal of his music to the likes of Miles Davis was derisively described by the noted Jazz critic, Gary Giddins, as an “… overbaked … fascination.”

Martin Williams, another Jazz literary luminary, went even further when he stated that:

“Pianist Ahmad Jamal is a success: he has several best-selling LP's, a supper-club following (which otherwise displays little interest in jazz), and several direct imitators. He has also re­ceived the deeper compliment of having admittedly affected the work of an important jazzman. His success should surprise no one, and his effect on Miles Davis should prove (if proof were needed) that good art can be influenced by bad.

Clearly, Davis responds to some of Jamal's interesting and very contemporary harmonic voicings and the very light, and impecca­bly accurate rhythmic pulse of Jamal's trio, particularly in the support he got from his bassist, the late Israel Crosby, and from his drummer, Vernel Fournier. Further, Jamal has the same interest in openness of melody, space, and fleeting silence that Davis does. But for the trumpeter these qualities can be aspects of haunting lyric economy. For Jamal they seem a kind of crowd-titillating stunt work. Indeed, in a recital like "Ahmad Jamal at the Blackhawk," recorded in a San Francisco night club, it appears that Jamal's real instrument is not the piano at all but his audience. On some numbers, he will virtually sit things out for a chorus, with only some carefully worked out rhapsodic harmo­nies by his left hand or coy tinklings by his right. After that, a few bombastic block chords by both hands, delivered forte, will absolutely lay them in the aisles. And unless you have heard Ahmad Jamal blatantly telegraph the climax of a piece, or beg applause en route with an obvious arpeggio run which he drops insinuatingly on the crowd after he has been coasting along on the graceful momentum of Crosby and Fournier, then you have missed a nearly definitive musical bombast. …” Jazz Changes [New York: Oxford, 1992, p. 281].

But while Giddins, Williams and others thought Jamal’s approach to be limited and limiting, drummer Jack DeJohnette observed:

"Ahmad's always been his own man - way ahead of his time in terms of using space and chord voicings, which is one of the reasons Miles liked him so much. Ahmad knew how to get the most out of his instrument, so that a piano trio sounded like a symphony orchestra. He's a great organizer, and his concept is so sophisticated and intelligent, yet so loose and funky." [Jack Chambers, Milestones: The Music and Times of Miles Davis, pp. 202-203]

And Jack Chambers offers these engaging explanations by Ahmad:

To his persistent critics, Jamal replies, "Sometimes people don't identify with pur­ity - that's what my music was then and that's what it is now. I've endured some of the harsh statements, but for every harsh statement there have been 99 compli­mentary ones. What I've done and am still doing is a product of years of blood, sweat and tears, and as long as I am completely secure in the knowledge that what I am doing is valid, then eventually even the most stupid critic has to acknowledge the validity of my work."

Part of the problem critics have with his music, according to Jamal, is that it is understated. "Anybody can play loudly," he says. "It is more difficult to play softly while swinging at that same level of intensity you can get playing fortis­simo. To swing hard while playing quietly is one of the signs of the true artist." Almost completely overlooked by the most negative critics is Jamal's flawless technique. It is a virtue that other musicians, especially piano players, talk about with reverence. Cedar Walton says, "I never heard Ahmad even come close to playing anything without a great deal of technique, taste and timing. When he goes across the piano, he just doesn't ever miss a note - there's never any question. For me, that's still a great thrill, just to hear somebody do that." Milestones: The Music and Times of Miles Davis, p. 203]

Summing up Jamal genius, his influence and the significance of the Mosaic set, Michael Cuscuna offered these observations:

“He certainly exercised a profound influence on pianists and his trio set a new standard for what the piano trio in jazz would aim for and achieve. His knack for finding obscure but viable material which lent itself to a jazz treatment was equal to that of Sonny Rollins and Jimmy Rowles. But when Ahmad put an overlooked tune into circulation, it often stayed in the jazz repertoire forever thereafter. And with songs like "Poinciana" and "Billy Boy," it was Jamal's unique and imaginative re-arrangement of the tune which would become the standard form with which to play the piece.

Much like Miles Davis (who incidentally was greatly influenced by him), his influence is felt in music that attempts to replicate his and in great music that sounds nothing like his. But unlike musicians of similar or even lesser impact, the music of the 1957-62 Ahmad Jamal Trio has been mysteriously and distressingly hard to come by, even in the "reissue everything" era of the Compact Disc.

Literally years in the making, this set introduces 23 previously unreleased gems approved by the artist himself. It was delayed by a fire on the Universal Studios lot in California which took much of the original Jamal trio LP masters with it and our search to reconstruct the music on the set from a variety of analog and digital sources sitting in vaults around the world.

It's been a hell of a long time coming and we hope you enjoy The Complete Ahmad Jamal Trio Argo Sessions.”

Metamorphosis

The term "metamorphosis" can mean a striking alteration in appearance and that certainly occurred in the body of work of the late artist Jackson Pollock [1912-1956] when he developed his technique which involved throwing paint on a canvass placed on the floor.

Metamorphosis is also the title of a tune that guitarist Peter Bernstein wrote for his Earth Tones [Criss Cross 1151] CD with Larry Goldings on Hammond B-3 organ and Bill Stewart on drums.

Given the editorial staff at JazzProfiles penchant for viewing art while listening to Jazz, we thought the two would go very well together.

See what you think.

Art Tatum – Sheer Brilliance

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

“Tatum is the greatest Jazz pianist of all time, the songs he chose the very finest of a much-maligned but nonetheless sublime repertoire. That is why these performances are immortal, because they show the best player interpreting the best material in the best conditions….”

“Art Tatum was one of the major American creative artists of his epoch, not just in the Jazz context but in the sense of the arts generally. The claim may still seem a shade bombastic to those unaccustomed to searching for the muses in saloon bars and nightclubs, but it is true for all that. The wise fool takes his art where he finds it, and when Tatum was around, he found it in any number of small rooms whose only significant item of furniture was a piano.”

- Benny Green, Jazz author, essayist and critic [emphasis, mine]

“The enormity of Tatum’s achievements makes approaching him a daunting proposition even now.”

= Richard Cook and Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6^th Ed.

I know that it may be hard to believe, but I didn’t know who Art Tatum was.

He died in 1956, just about the time that I stumbled into the world of Jazz by listening to a bunch of 78 rpm records that my parents had stashed the away in the basement [called a “cellar” in new England].

The closest I unknowingly came to Art’s approach to piano was Teddy Wilson’s playing with the Benny Goodman trio.

I discovered Art Tatum through a Norman Granz Clef LP that I found in a record store discount bin.  The record sleeve was in pretty bad condition which may have been why it was on sale for 25 cents, a hefty sum for me in those days as you could see a double feature at the local movie house for that price.

The David Stone Martin cover art of a bust of Art’s head was intriguing to me so I thought I’d give it a try. Perhaps, Art playing would help me “see out a little,” to use pianist Barry Harris apt expression for expanding one’s view of Jazz.

Despite the record store owner’s reassurances, the LP was in horrible condition.

Listening to it was the aural equivalent of eating Rice Krispies cereal when the milk first hits it – all “snap, crackle and pop.”

I could have cared less as what came through immediately was the magnificence of Art Tatum’s piano playing. I’d never heard anything like it [nor have I ever heard anything like it since].

The sheer brilliance of Art’s piano interpretation literally took my breath away.

His technical command of the instrument and his effervescent improvisations are astonishing, so much so that I can only take his playing in limited bursts.

I simply can’t absorb anymore.  It’s an exhausting pleasure to listen to his work.

Fortunately, for all of us in the Jazz World,  there is plenty of it to listen to because Norman Granz, who did so many important things for the music and its makers during his lifetime, brought Art Tatum into the recording studio in the early 1950’s.

The rest is history as described in Benny Green’s insert notes to the eight volumes of Solo Masterpieces that Art recorded for Norman’s Clef label and which have all subsequently been reissued to CD on the Verve.

“In 1954, Art Tatum (1910-1956) began recording a series of performances for Norman Granz's Verve label which were to occupy the rest of his life. This series included 121 piano solos,* all of which were committed to tape without rehearsal or preamble or reference to stopwatch; Tatum simply sat at the keyboard, the machines were switched on and the marathon began.

It was, of course, a marathon for which the artist had inadvertently been preparing all his life, for Tatum's repertoire was as stupefying as the art he brought to it. As there is no such thing as a specialized Jazz repertoire, the Jazz musician has been obliged to commandeer for his own purposes a quite alien repertoire, originally conceived for the musical comedy or vaudeville stage, the song-plugger's booth, the celluloid charade. For which reason Tatum's marathon was a watershed in the history of popular music, for it represents the confluence of the two great indigenous streams in American musical life, Jazz and the Art Song.

Tatum is the greatest Jazz pianist of all time, the songs he chose the very finest of a much-maligned but nonetheless sublime repertoire. That is why these performances are immortal, because they show the best player interpreting the best material in the best conditions. There is a greater preponderance on this disc than on some of the others in the series of what might be called conventional Jazz making, always remembering that in the context of a musician like Tatum, a word like conventional is no more than comparative. Sweet Lorraine and Sunny Side of the Street are fairly straightforward examples of improvisations on a standard 32-bar theme, without recourse to many orchestral effects like key-changing or switches of tempo, although in Sweet Lorraine a few of the quotes are facetious.

Obviously the same comments do not apply to the ballads and the more ambitiously-structured songs, one of whose most revealing passages comes in the bridge of I Won't Dance, where Tatum's baroque harmonic ingenuity is confronted by the equally baroque stratagems of Kern's creative patterns; the result is an exercise in subtlety, the beautifying of an already beautiful composition. The variations in These Foolish Things are of quite a different order. As the performance gathers creative momentum, it becomes clear that Tatum sees this song as one of those whose contours suggest not so much an improvisation as a fantasia based on the original.

As early as 1933 Tatum had recorded his famous version of Tea for Two, in which the innocent structures of Vincent Youmans were made to perform dizzying modulatory cartwheels; something similar occurs in the last eight-bar section of the first chorus of These Foolish Things; by the end of the track we are faced with a sort of series of variations on a theme. Some of the very best Jazz moments of all come in In a Sentimental Mood, one of Duke Ellington's most sumptuous ballads, and in the altogether more direct piece She's Funny That Way is so great a piece of out-and-out ja// playing that if anyone else but Tatum had been responsible for it we would all have been running round frothing with excitement. It is interesting that on this track Tatum, restricting himself more or less to only three of his effects, crotchet-triplet runs, occasional flurries of semi­quavers, and the contrasting measured tread of Stride left hand, still produces a solo rich and complex.

And as the final cadences of the final chorus of the final number of the final track fade away, marking the end of the most ambitious undertaking by a major Jazz figure, something remains to be said of the musician who rose to the challenge so triumphantly.

Art Tatum was one of the major American creative artists of his epoch, not just in the Jazz context but in the sense of the arts generally. The claim may still seem a shade bombastic to those unaccustomed to searching for the muses in saloon bars and nightclubs, but it is true for all that. The wise fool takes his art where he finds it, and when Tatum was around, he found it in any number of small rooms whose only significant item of furniture was a piano.

Tatum's piano solos reappear at a moment in social history when the fortunes of popular music are problematic. The age of live performances would seem to be in eclipse; now is the winter of our discotheque. For that reason Tatum's art is more vital than ever it was before, because it is a living proof that the artist of genius laughs at the limitations of his environment and sometimes even takes a truculent delight in brushing them aside. Tatum is a jewel in store for posterity, which might sound a little unfair. After all, as a cynic once asked, what has posterity ever done for us? In the case of Tatum, posterity has much to do. It has to come to terms with the greatest baroque musical artist so far produced by American culture. Tatum's day of reckoning will come. In the meantime, there remains this set of superlative piano solos. They will unquestionably prove to have been the outriders to his belated recognition.”

—Benny Green

[*Four additional solo tracks were recorded by Tatum at an August 1956 Hollywood Bowl concert. The long available material is included in Volume Eight.]

Art Tatum in Retrospect:

Gary Giddins, Visions of Jazz – The First Century

“… if Tatum was a product of jazz, he was by no means a conventional jazz pianist and disdained the tag. He was too prolix to be an effective accompanist, and he was diminished rather than emboldened by collaboration. Although best known to the public for his piano-guitar-bass trio, which was modeled after Nat King Cole and inclined toward unison riffs and jokey juxtapositions, he was — like Chopin or Scriabin — a creator of sui generis piano music.

Tatum has always mystified jazz fans. … Too many jazz lovers are seduced by and dependent on the beat, which Tatum withholds and reshapes. What is most astonishing in his music is not the digital control, but the shifting harmonies and rhythms that he modulates and controls as no other musician has. His unequaled knowledge of chords profoundly influenced Coleman Haw­kins, Charlie Parker, and Charles Mingus, among others, but he used it as only a pianist can: in contrary patterns that demand parity for both hands, in rapid key substitutions, in entering and exiting chords at oblique angles. Oscar Peterson has speed, but his arpeggios are harmon­ically dim and therefore predictable. Tatum is as a rainbow, his music glimmers and cascades.”

Whitney Balliett, American Musicians

“Tatum did not fit comfortably in jazz, for his playing, which was largely orchestral, both encompassed it and overflowed it. He occupied his own country. His playing was shaped primarily by his technique, which was prodigious, even virtuosic. Tatum had an angelic touch: no pianist has got a better sound out of the instrument. He was completely ambidextrous. And he could move his hands at bewildering speeds, whether through gargantuan arpeggios, oompah stride basses, on-the-beat tenths, or sin­gle-note melodic lines. No matter how fast he played or how intense and complex his harmonic inventions became, his attack kept its commanding clarity….

Tatum was a restless, compulsive player who abhorred silence. He used the piano's orchestral possibilities to the fullest, simultaneously maintain­ing a melodic voice, a harmonic voice, a variety of decorative voices, and a kind of whimsical voice, a laughing, look-Ma-no-hands voice. The effect was both confounding and exhilarating.

Tatum had two main modes—the flashy, kaleidoscopic style he used on the job, and the straight-ahead jazz style, which emerges in fragments from his few after-hours recordings and from some of the recordings made with his various trios (piano, guitar, and bass), which seemed to galvanize him. (Tatum did not have an easy time playing with other instruments; he tended to compete with them, then overrun them.) He offered the first style to the public, which accepted it with awe, and he used the second to delight himself and his peers.”

Len Lyons, The Great Jazz Pianists

“From roughly 1935 until the early 1940's most jazz pianists worked with some combinations of the elements heard in the playing of Johnson, Waller, Hines, and Wilson. Although the basic approach to playing jazz on the piano had reached, at least temporarily, a point of definition, there were many pianists who created original and influential styles out of these basic building blocks.

By all accounts it was Art Tatum (1910-1956) who cast the longest shadow among them. There has been no more complete master of the instru­ment, and to no other pianist does the cliché ‘a legend in his own time’ apply more readily. Born in Toledo, Ohio, Tatum played in local clubs and on the radio until he went to New York in 1932 as the accompanist for singer Adelaide Hall. The cornerstones of his music were the harmonies of Hines, the driving left hand of Waller, and the flowing, legato melody and moving left-hand tenths that he heard in the playing of young Teddy Wilson.

The most obvious difference between Tatum and the other pianists was his conspicuous virtuosity. Despite his extremely limited vision in one eye (to the extent that he was judged legally blind), Tatum seemed to play everything twice as fast as his peers, while increasing the level of swing and harmonic variety. His influence on other pianists was profound, if not devastating. It is said that he intimidated many of them into taking up other instruments. But Tatumesque passages are evident in the music of many undaunted pianists who followed him, especially in the music of Bud Powell (in his ballads), Oscar Peterson, Billy Taylor, and Hank Jones, though these are only a few of the most obvious examples.

Tatum's repertoire was vast but not otherwise unusual. Some of the songs he played early in his career-such as Tea for Two, Tiger Rag, Someone to Watch over Me, dozens more standards, and a few light classics-he con­tinued to record in the 1950's. Yet he rarely repeated himself in his treatment of the material. His harmonic variations were startling, especially when he soloed. Where another pianist might go directly from one chord to the next, Tatum's left hand would walk crablike through a cycle of four to six new chords between the original two. Meanwhile, his right hand would spin out a web of interconnecting lines of thirty-second notes. Tatum could keep up these magnificent circumlocutions for eight bars or more and never drop a beat. Jazz pianists idolized Art Tatum….

During the forties Tatum worked frequently with a trio that included Slam Stewart on bass and Tiny Grimes on guitar. The group was celebrated for the intuitive communication among the players as well as for Tatum's blister­ing speed, as they achieved a unity of sound that was rare at any tempo.

While Tatum was virtually without deficiency as a pianist, his improvising sometimes amounted to ornate, if not rococo, interpretations of his material. There was no doubt that those ornaments were gorgeous, but they were at times more decorative than creative. Most of Tatum's music, however, is gen­uine artistry amplified by awesome virtuosity. Moreover, those who knew him claim that he played best of all beyond the reach of recorded history and without the inhibiting presence of the public or recording microphones, at private, after-hours parties.”

 It is impossible to have a favorite Art Tatum recording, but if, mind you IF, I had to chose just one, it would be the version of Sweet Lorraine that accompanies the following video montage.

JazzHaus III: Oscar Pettiford and Jutta Hipp

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

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles has written extensively about the previously released CD’s on the JazzHaus label, all of which you can locate to the left of this feature in the blog sidebar.

JazzHaus has recently continued it’s CD issuance of “Lost Tapes” with Oscar Pettiford: The Lost Tapes, Germany 1958-1959 [#101719] and Jutta Hipp: The Lost Tapes, The German Recordings , 1952-1955 [#101723].

Both bassist Pettiford and pianist Hipp were somewhat tragic figures in modern jazz history, each for different reasons, as Oscar died in an automobile accident in 1960 at the age of forty-eight and Jutta mysteriously turned her back on the music and retired from the scene in 1958 at the age of forty-three.

In addition to having more of Oscar and Jutta’s music available, the latest JazzHaus CD’s also provide an introduction to the less familiar, but nonetheless excellent, local Jazz musicians who were making the German Jazz scene a happening place in the 1950’s such as trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff, pianist Hans Hammerschmid, clarinetist Rolf Kuhn, tenor saxophonists Hans Koller and Joki Freund, guitarist Attila Zoller, bassist Franz “Shorty” Roeder and drummers Karl Sanner and Rudi Sehring.

Ulli Pfau produced both CD’s and wrote these insert notes after which you’ll find tribute video montages celebrating both Oscar and Jutta with audio tracks selected from these new CDs.

PIONEER OF THE BASS

“Oscar Pettiford first arrived in Germany in 1958 and could scarcely believe the enthusiasm with which his music was received. Not that he had ever been short of success - even before Charlie Parker's breakthrough he had been a bebop pioneer in his quintet with Dizzy Gillespie. This was the dawn of a new jazz era - one that heralded the bass as a solo instrument. In Stuttgart, Pettiford met up with Joachim-Ernst Berendt, who invited him to studio re­cordings and enlisted the finest soloists Europe had to offer at the time: Hans Koller and Attila Zoller; Dusko Goykovich, Hans Hammerschmid, Rolf Kuhn. Kenny Clarke and Lucky Thompson flew in from Paris. Everyone extolled his bold melodic ideas, the bounce and swing of his playing. Between autumn 1958 and the summer of 1959, the sessions resulted in historic recordings -standards, mostly, which gave the alternating ensembles a harmonic orienta­tion.

Pettiford's brisk but elegiac duo with Goykovich in Gershwin's But Not For Me; gossamer-like, Lucky Thompson in Sophisticated Lady, followed by Koller with an uber-cool interpretation of The Nearness Of You and a bass solo; then Pettiford shows his cello skills in All The Things You Are.

O.P. moved to Baden-Baden, later Copenhagen, touring and playing frenetically - like a man possessed. He died following a car accident in September 1960. His colleagues played charity concerts for Pettiford's children, whose welfare had always been his primary concern - he himself had been one of fourteen brothers and sisters.”

[Bassist Oscar Pettiford performing his orignal composition "Blues in the Closet" with Hans Koller on tenor saxophone, Attila Zoller on guitar, Hans Hammerschmid on piano and drummer Kenny Clarke.]

DEAR JUTTA

“A woman from Leipzig. By the age of 13, Jutta Hipp had completed her classi­cal piano studies. With the war in full flow she embarked on an art degree and got to know all the jazz greats of the day: Emil and Albert Mangelsdorff, Joki Freund, Hans Koller, whose admiration for Lester Young would wonderfully complement her own relaxed performance style. A redhead with striking good looks, hypersensitive and outrageously talented - she quickly became an object of attention in the early 1950s. The great Leonard Feather wrote ‘Dear Jutta’ and promised her a great career in the USA. So in late 1955 she left for New York. Alfred Lion signed her to Blue Note; three recordings in just eight months; an object of awe in the clubs - the "Frauleinwunder".

And then it was all over as quickly as it had started. She fell out with Feather, withdrew from the jazz scene altogether, ran into financial difficulties, turned to drink. In 1958 she found a job as a seamstress in Queens, took photographs, painted in her spare time. She retired in 1995, devoted herself to making traditional dolls. She died in 2OO3, aged 78, reclusive, alone. She had never been back to Germany.

Her volume of work is slender and erratic. The Koblenz recordings from November 1952 reveal a precocious talent: entirely at ease in the standards, creatively original with the tunes and headstrong in improvisation. Dieter Zimmerle's studio recordings with her quintet were made just before she left for the USA - and what a legacy it turned out to be! What Is This Thing Called Love? asks Cole Porter of all the great jazz soloists. Jutta Hipp had an answer. But she never told anyone.”

[Pianist Jutta Hipp performing "Daily Double" with Albert Mangelsdorff on trombone, Joki Freund on tenor saxophone, Franz "Shorty" Roeder on bass and Karl Sanner on drums.]

Deborah Latz – An Accomplished Artist

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

"Deborah is a beautiful singer and a great talent. Fig Tree is wonderful. Really wonderful!"

— Sheila Jordan, 2012 NEA Jazz Master

"... few are in Deborah Latz's league..."

— Scott Yanow, L.A. Jazz Scene

"...a bold singer with a strong sense of her own musical identity."

 — Suzanne Lorge, NYC Jazz Record

"She draws out the melodies, making each note count, and may be one of the finest balladeers in some time."

— Kyle O'Brien, Jazz Society of Oregon's Jazz Scene

I’m always hesitant to call anyone a “Jazz vocalist” these days because I think the connotation of what that implies is different now.

It’s almost as though the use of that reference consigns someone back to the days when Pops, Ella, Billie Holiday, Mel Torme, Peggy Lee and others vocalists of that ilk reigned supreme.

It’s an unfair comparison because the nature of the contemporary music scene is much broader and much more cosmopolitan and provides a Jazz-oriented vocalist with a more sweeping array of influences.

Today, there is no New Orleans scene, Chicago scene, New York scene, West Coast scene, et al. These local, cultural entrepôts have been replaced by a music scene that is international in scope and one that affords myriad, world music influences.

Today’s Jazz is more diffuse, more diverse.

But according to bassist and author Bill Crow, “Jazz is supposed to be fun,” and today’s young performers seem to be having a good time coloring Jazz with Acid Rock, South African chants, Indian Raga rhythms and a whole host of other, stylistic elements.

I suppose the point I’m trying to make is that today Jazz vocalist is going to come at the music with many new and different musical perspectives. Therein, lies the blessing or the curse of the interesting times in which they live [to paraphrase the Chinese proverb].

How do you find your own style as a Jazz vocalist today with all these competing influences?

Enter Deborah Latz!

Deborah’s latest CD – Fig Tree – is scheduled for release today, May 7, 2013 and it is an artistic feast for the senses, let alone, one’s Jazz sensibilities.

The artwork and graphics under the direction of Kristopher Pelletier and Todd Weinstein’s photographs of Deborah that populate the jewel case make the CD a joy to behold and to hold.

The recording and mixing of Michael Brorby, the mastering of Gene Paul and the attention to detail of co-producer Don Flagg has created a recorded sound so intimate you’d swear you were sitting in the middle of the music as it is being performed.

And the musicianship on display here is simply startling; it’s what differentiates the recording from so many of today’s self-produced efforts.

Deborah Latz has something to say and she has the talent and the ability to say it.

Deborah Latz is not putting on airs, she’s not aping or miming or imitating, she is an accomplished Jazz vocalist in her own right.

She is accomplished in the fullest meaning of the word: highly trained, skillful, finished, complete, polished, refined, realized.

Deborah’s Jazz vocals have a presence and once you’ve been in their presence your enraptured by it.

When she sings the following lyrics from the legendary Alberta Hunter’s I’m Having a Good Time she infuses them with such a strong mixture of sincerity and humor that you find yourself nodding with approval:

“I’m livin’ my life while I’m livin’

‘cause tomorrow I may die.

That’s why I’m havin’ a ball today,

And I ain’t passin’ nothin’ by.

Her voice is rich; her enunciation is clear; she has a great sense of time. And depending on the mood she is trying to evoke, Deborah’s voice has just the right amount of punch and pop or just enough gentleness and tenderness. She is in command because she knows what she is doing and she knows what she wants to do.

Deborah Latz is an accomplished artist and so are the musicians who work with her on Fig Tree: pianist Jon Davis, guitarist John Hart, bassist, Roy Parker, drummer Willard Dyson and guest stars Peter Apfelbaum on tenor sax and percussion and the voice of Abdoulaye Diabate.

All of them are interesting soloists and Deborah offers generous dollops of the solo spotlight to each of them throughout the CD’s fourteen tracks. In this regard, she reminds me of vocalist Tierney Sutton who maintains that “I make music with the guys in the band, not in spite of them.”

I’ve mentioned this previously in blog features - when I’m listening to a Jazz artist for the first time, I need some place to set my ears – something that gives me a known frame of reference in which to understand what the vocalist/musician is doing with and in the music.

There are a number of such reference points on Fig Tree.

But although you are familiar with Irving Berlin’s Blue Skies, or Randy Weston ‘s Hi-Fly with Jon Hendricks’ lyrics, or Jobim’s Corcovado [Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars] with Gene Lees’ lyrics, you’ve never heard them rendered like this before. This is where the diversity and diffused musical influences are brought to bear and they serve to help make Deborah a Jazz vocalist of her time.

You Are and She Was are lyrical love poems penned by Deborah and she also contributes another original as the title tune Fig Tree which as Scott Yanow describes in his insert notes “weaves a fantastical tale using offbeat phrasing, unusual syllables and unexpected sounds with swinging bass and drums. Deborah’s whimsical lyrics surprise and delight.”

Scott’s always masterful insert notes afford the following background information on Deborah and “the guys in the band.”

“Inventive, edgy, fearless, delicate, fun, a passion for music — these are some of the words Deborah Latz brings to mind. A consummate performer, Deborah gives us a range of expression extending from intimate to raucous to otherworldly, and all with a beautiful voice. Following her previously acclaimed discs, Toward Love and Lifeline, Fig Tree is a wide-ranging and ambitious project, backed by a remarkable set of players, that includes acid jazz, spellbinding ballads, songs in Portuguese and Greek, and three originals worthy of becoming new standards.

Latz attacks each genre with verve and style, demonstrating skills reminiscent of Mel Torme in her purity and pitch, but also of Joao Gilberto when she brings us to velvety intimate moments. Deborah has a distinctive sound that matches her broad musical interests — gentle pianissimo at times, and edgy and brassy when she is showing us a spark of fire. And, like Betty Carter, she can deconstruct a song to create a surprising new sound, uniquely her own.

In June 2011, Latz formed a group with pianist Jon Davis, guitarist John Hart, and bassist Ray Parker. Within a short time, they knew they needed to record the magic that they were creating. Deborah notes, ‘We found an organic place, where we all created in the moment. Taking our time, the ideas started to flow, and within just a few sessions we found our groove. I realized we had to capture it, while it was still fresh.’

Jon Davis, who played and recorded with the late, great bassist Jaco Pastorius, is a superbly skilled and exceptionally intuitive pianist. ‘I feel a musical telepathy with Jon,’ Latz said. ‘We challenge one another, and suddenly we're moving, dancing, down an unexpected and unknown path. It's exhilarating!’

John Hart, known for his long tenure with organ master Jack McDuff has also played guitar with trumpeter Randy Brecker and jazz singer Jon Hendricks, among other greats. ‘John is a connoisseur of the guitar. And he has a sly sense of humor — in a flash second he can send us off in an entirely new direction!’ Latz observes, ‘We always have a super great time!’

Bassist Ray Parker, who worked with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and vocalist Bobby McFerrin, has a distinctive sound and impressive versatility, highlighted here in some outstanding duets and solos. ‘Like when Ray gets behind the wheel and puts the pedal to the metal, he is always on the move,’ Latz explains. ‘Yet at times, when he takes on a slow ballad, he can create some of the most languid, sensitive lines.’

Willard Dyson, who joined the group on drums, has worked regularly with singers Michael Franks, Regina Belle, and Jimmy Scott. Dyson is both a powerful player and very sympathetic in his support of the lead voices. ‘Willard can funk it up! His rhythmic choices are inspired and unconventional, it's a thrill to play together!’

Avant garde jazz instrumentalist Peter Apfelbaum and singer Abdoulaye Diabate are special guests on Fig Tree. ‘I heard Peter play with Omar Sosa at the Blue Note in May 2011 and I was blown away,’ remembers Deborah. ‘He played the flute, put it down, blew the tenor, put it down, and went on to various Brazilian and African percussion instruments. Every one of them amazing! I knew at that moment I'd like him to play on my CD.’ And later, Latz heard Diabate sing with Apfelbaum’s band, Hieroglyphics. ‘Abdoulaye is an extraordinarily gifted Griot (storyteller) singer from Mali, and I am so happy that he lent his soulful voice, and heart, to my original, She Was.'

Nancy Hudgins of Ann Braithewaite find team at Braithwaite & Katz sent along the following media relations information about Deborah’s forthcoming Fig Tree CD:

“From the opening selection, Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies" with an acid jazz feel, to Latz' offbeat and eccentric title track "Fig Tree," to a beautiful and haunting piano duet on Mercer and Mancini's, "Moon River," Deborah Latz' third CD, Fig Tree, is a breakout performance, proving her artistic mastery as vocalist, songwriter and arranger. The CD will be released on the June Moon Productions (JMP) label on May 7, 2013.

Latz' recording career began in 2004 with her debut CD, Toward Love featuring Jimmy Wormworth, which earned immediate praise: "Her voice rings with a fetching richness...I'm Bewitched." (Dan McClenaghan, AllAboutJazz.com,) "...one of the BEST new voices I've heard in a LONG time...." (Jan Jenson, Jazz Now). Her 2008 sophomore release Lifeline featuring Joel Frahm, received even wider critical acclaim: "’I Didn't Know’ hits glory strides a la Carla White." (Fred Bouchard, DownBeat). "I hadn't heard this lady until I played 'Lifeline,' but I'm now an ardent fan." (Steve Emerine, Arizona Daily Star), "...a sensibility that incites a lyric with her innate dramatic instincts..." (Alan Bargebuhr, Cadence). "Latz knows how to deliver the songs with a different slant... jazz vocal fans have a new star to celebrate."(Chris Spector, Midwest Record).

Latz comes to jazz after an award-winning career in dramatic and musical theater, where she garnered a Best Actress Award at the Jerzy Grotowski Theatre Festival in Poland for her one-woman performance of Juliet, and recorded the original song, "I'm Neurotic Over You" for the off-Broadway comedy, High Infidelity starring John Davidson and Morgan Fairchild. Latz received rave reviews in New York and Europe for Travels With Ma Own Self, the one-woman musical that she wrote, produced and performed. She studied theater at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, at the British American Drama Academy in Oxford, England, and in New York City with Richard Edelman best known for his work with the Living Theater and the Neighborhood Playhouse.

With a creative take on both the Great American Songbook and contemporary jazz, Latz has recorded dynamic and unpredictable interpretations of standards on Fig Tree, and her original pieces are, indeed, worthy of becoming new standards.

On "Blue Skies" Latz shows her funk chops, and allows the lyrics to breath, while offering some signature scatting. John Hart sets up hip, clean guitar lines, while Ray Parker and Willard Dyson hold down the rhythm on bass and drums. Latz' original and title track, "Fig Tree" weaves a fantastical tale combining offbeat syllables and unexpected sounds with a swinging bass and drums. Latz' whimsical lyrics surprise and delight, and the solos alternate in and out of time with Latz, Davis and Hart clearly digging in and having a ball. "You Are" another Latz original, opens with the prodigious Peter Apfelbaum on tenor sax. Apfelbaum lays the groundwork for this indelible love poem told with Latz' fresh and poignant delivery intertwining with the tenor sax, while Willard Dyson's sparse percussion lends an otherworldly take. And on the breathtakingly beautiful duet, "Moon River," Jon Davis is a genius as he caresses the keys, while Latz answers with a devastatingly heartfelt delivery.

Fig Tree is richly shaped and supported by veteran jazz artists Jon Davis on piano, John Hart on guitars, Ray Parker on bass, Willard Dyson on drums, and special guests Peter Apfelbaum on saxes, flutes, percussion and Abdoulaye Diabate, guest voice on Latz' original "She Was." Collectively these jazz veterans have played and recorded with Sonny Fortune, Stan Getz, James Moody, Maria Schneider, Randy Brecker, Dizzy Gillespie, Jimmy Cobb, Regina Belle, Michael Franks, Rosa Passes, Jon Hendricks, Jimmy Scott, Don Byron, Jaco Pastorious, and Omar Sosa, among many others.

Latz most recently played at CD Blues Cafe in Beijing, China and was invited to sing in duo with Beijing's celebrated jazz pianist, Liang Heping. In Paris, she has played with Alain Jean-Marie, France's jazz piano luminary, at Cafe Universel, Le Neuf Jazz Club, Sept Lezards and Atelier de la Main d'Or and will continue her collaboration with Jean-Marie in Fall 2013. On her 2011 West Coast tour she headlined in Seattle, Portland and Eureka, CA and in 2010 she played to packed houses in Kansas City at Jardine's Jazz Club.

Fig Tree is truly a major accomplishment. It is, in fact, Latz' breakout performance as vocalist, songwriter, and arranger. From the acid jazz interpretation of "Blue Skies," to the dead-on rendition of "S'Wonderful," to the delightful, funky rhythms of "Fig Tree," Deborah Latz demonstrates an outstanding range of technique and creative musicality that places her at the forefront of jazz today.”

Fig Tree is available through iTunes and Amazon.com and for those of you with ease of access to New York City, Deborah will be celebrating the CD’s release with a May 18th appearance at the Somethin’ Jazz Club.

Deborah has two websites: www.deborahlatz.com and www.sonicbirds.com/deborahlatz.

With the help of the crackerjack graphics team at CerraJazz LTD and the production facilities of StudioCerra, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles, put together the following video which features Deborah singing Alberta Hunter’s I’m Having A Good Time with John Hart on guitar, Jon Davis on piano, Ray Parker on bass and Willard Dyson on drums.

Why not pick-up a copy of Fig Tree and join the party?