Joe Williams [1918-1999] - Sings The Blues and More - A Tribute

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

“There are certain individuals in jazz history who, no matter what their other credits, will always be best known through one particular association, even if it was relatively brief. Just as Ben Webster never escaped the billing "formerly with Duke Ellington" (though he worked with the band for a total of barely four years), so was Lester Young's association with Count Basic (1936-40, occasional reunions in 1943-4 and thereafter until Prez died in 1959) the one fact of his life that would always be remembered by fans and historians.

The case of Joe Williams is not dissimilar. Williams worked with a number of other name bands; he was even in Lionel Hampton's orchestra at the same time as Dinah Washington. But the magic of his years with Basie, which (not counting a brief stint with a small Basie Combo in 1950) began late in 1954 and ended slightly over six years later, stamped him forever as one of the most unforgettable of the Count's alumni.

A master of the blues (as his Basie recordings made forever clear), Joe also has been for many years a preeminent delineator of popular songs, and an occasional demonstrator of the very demanding art of le jazz scat. It was Dave Pell's brillant idea to combine his forces with those of Prez Conference in an album showing all three facets of Williams' talent.”

- Leonard Feather

While working on a recent feature about tenor saxophonist Dave Pell and his Prez Conference saxophone quartet tribute to the memory of Lester Young [with arrangements by Bill Holman], the editorial staff at JazzProfiles came across a recording that the group did with singer Joe Williams entitled Prez and Joe [Gene Norman-Crescendo Records [GNPD 2124].

This in turn led to a joyous reconnection with many of Joe Williams’ recordings and needless to say we’ve been smiling ever since.

We wanted to remember Joe on these pages by highlighting three of our favorite recordings by Joe and with a concluding video tribute to him that features his outstanding version of Foolin’ Myself with Dave’s Prez Conference in accompaniment.

Of course, its difficult to mention Joe Williams’ name without also mentioning Count Basie’s virtually in the same breath.  The two had a close association for almost thirty years. Indeed, as explained in these excerpts from John Litweiler’s insert notes to the 1993 CD reissuance on Verve of the 1956 recording of Count Basie Swings - Joe Williams Sings [Clef MG-C-678], their joining on this record became a milestone in both of their careers.

“Among the thousands of jazz albums recorded through the decades, the LP debut of singer Joe Williams with the Count Basie band, with its striking David Stone Martin cover portrait of the two, was one of the most popular. More than that, it was a milestone in the careers of both of its principals, coming at a time when both Basie and Williams sorely needed a boost.

The germ of this album came when Basie was at the virtual low point of his life as a bandleader. He was leading a septet at the Brass Rail, a night spot in downtown Chicago, when a popular local singer named Joe Williams sat in with the group. Williams was electrified by the experience; he later told interviewer Dempsey J. Travis (in An Autobiography of Black Jazz, Urban Research Institute, 1983) that it was "the swingingest seven-piece outfit you ever wanted to hear. . . . Those cats could play you into bad health!" A few years later, when Basie met Williams again in Chicago, he planted the seed by suggesting to Joe that he join the band.

This was Basie's problem: His classic late-Thirties band, one of the great ensembles of individualists in jazz's history, had broken up. Since it was impossible to replace such great soloists as trumpeter Buck Clayton, trombonist Dicky Wells, tenor saxmen Herschel Evans and Lester Young, or vocalist Jimmy Rushing, Basie in the Forties increasingly relied on his arrangers to take their place. The Swing Machine was the result. His 1950-51 septet wasn't really enough to satisfy his ambitions, and his subsequent return to leading a big band was a struggle. He not only needed the right musicians (only guitarist Freddie Green remained from Basie's earlier years), he needed the right repertoire and the right balance of composition and improvisation if his new Fifties band was not to be an anachronism.

Joe Williams seemed to have been a popular figure in Chicago jazz ever since anybody could remember. When he was only twenty he sang with clarinet great Jimmie Noone's band on the radio, and though he toured with several big bands in the years to come — most prominently with Lionel Hampton's band, in which he and Dinah Washington sang duets — he always wound up back in Chicago. There he sang for years in such bands as Jay Burkhardt's and Red Saunders's, in clubs and at one of America's great theaters, the Regal. When he finally made his first recordings, in the early Fifties, for the Parrot label, his repertoire included Leroy Carr's standard "In the Evening" and a relatively new one written by journeyman singer-pianist Memphis Slim, "Every Day I Have the Blues". But even in the best of times, popular Chicago jazz artists have always been hard-pressed to live by their music alone; and for Joe the problem was exacerbated by difficulties in his marriage.

Joe Williams was the catalyst for this new Basie band's self-discovery.   Just as he'd told Rushing two decades earlier, Basie told Williams to emphasize the blues — not that Joe needed much urging: "I love the blues because it's so natural. It's life, man."

What Williams and his collaborators, arrangers Frank Foster and Ernie Wilkins, came up with here was a new kind of Basic blues, and we may never know how much Basic, himself a gifted editor of arrangements, contributed to the scores. Frank Foster arranged most of this album; his scores are not just settings, they reinforce Williams, providing accompaniments with their own intrigue — no easy task. He and Wilkins made the Basic sound heavier, larger, higher, lower, louder, softer; they brought bop-era sonic discoveries to swing.”

Among Joe’s many other recordings apart from the Basie band, two have always stood out for me and both were produced by George Avakian when after many years with Columbia, he moved to RCA Victor in the early 1960s.

George couldn’t have found a better setting to produce his first Joe Williams LP than the Newport Jazz Festival because Joe always broke up the place whenever he appeared there.

This was no less the case with Joe Williams at Newport ‘63 [RCA LPM/LSP-2762] and album that was billed as The entire program that rocked the 1963 Newport Jazz Festival.

Aside from the fact that Joe was in fabulous form on the evening of July 5, 1963 and enjoyed his usual, ecstatic rapport with the festival audience, the group supporting Joe on this outing is made up of some of the more magnificent players in the history of the music: Clark Terry, trumpet and flugelhorn; Howard McGhee, trumpet; Coleman Hawkins and Zoot Sims, tenor sax; Junior Mance, piano; Bob Cranshaw, bass; Mickey Roker, drums.

In his liner notes to the original LP, producer Avakian commented:

“How many times has Joe Williams, the greatest break-it-up singer on the jazz scene today, stolen the show at the Newport Jazz Festival? A group of musicians were talking about it in the blue-and-white striped tent backstage, as Joe stood at the foot of the stairs ready to bound on-stage for his performance at the 1963 Festival.

"This is only the tenth year." "Count slow," said another, "and he'll have this one stolen, too."

In the next fifty minutes, as John S. Wilson wrote in The New York Times, "a responding wave of joy erupted in the audience at Freebody Park. Suddenly there was dancing in the grassy aisles and an enthusiastic, cheering surge toward the gaily colored platform where Mr. Williams was singing." A spontaneous chant went up when he had finished his last number—"We want Joe! We want Joe!" And all of it — Joe's entire program, the joyful response of the audience at the end, the clearing-off of the stage, Festival producer George Wein's spontaneous on-mike reaction and his final please for the audience to go back to its seats — is all here.

The story of this memorable evening really began exactly one year earlier. Joe Williams had done it again with a blazing set that closed the opening night of the 1962 Festival. "Gee," he said as he came off the stand, "I wish we'd recorded that!" The same night, we talked about the possibility of an RCA Victor contract when his current commitments were completed. Looking ahead, we decided then and there that if we made a deal, Joe's second RCA Victor album would be made at Newport. And that's the way it's happened.”

A few months later, George had Joe back in the studios at Webster Hall in New York City where he recorded Me and The Blues [RCA LPM=LSP-2879] with another group of stellar musicians that featured as soloists Thad Jones and Clark Terry on trumpet, Phil Woods on alto sax, Seldon Powell and Ben Webster on tenor sax and Hank Jones and Junior Mance on piano with a big band arranged and conducted by Oliver Nelson.

George Avakian had this to say in his liner notes to the LP:

“As someone once said, the blues have what you need to get over them. The blues are a personal view of a slice of life; even if the slice is a good-sized sliver of trouble, the view of it can be ironic or even humorous.

Joe Williams is the blues, but like the blues he's a lot of things, too. As a brilliant entertainer, he knows how to gauge an audience and enlarge on its mood. He is equally at home in ballads and in up-tempo songs; his wide background and his ability to project both the meaning of a lyric and the emotional nuances of a turn of melody make him a singer for whom composers love to write. He is a superb showman who never relies on exaggerated movement or facial expression to punch a song across to an audience; he has no tricks or mannerisms of style; all he has is a splendid voice, warmth, and that rarest of qualities, sincerity.

Joe Williams grew up with the blues in Chicago, where he served a thorough apprenticeship among the great musicians and singers who flocked to the Windy City from all over the country just before and after the World War II years.

Broad as the blues are in subject matter and structure, there are several songs in this album which are not strictly blues at all, but Joe is the element that makes them all come out blues.

Ryan Kisor: [Still] Simply Splendid

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles is reprising this posting in order to add a video playlist at its conclusion that will offer you the opportunity to listen Ryan in five, different musical settings.

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

“Kisor has some of the ebullience of the young trumpet masters of hard bop yore … there’s a kind of kindred energy in his playing, and he has quite a personal, immediate sound.”

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

“Ryan Kisor has grown into one of the most mature trumpeters of his generation.

- Christopher Hovan

“He’s always developing and playing new things…. He’s a natural. He’s always played music, and he can play whatever he wants to at will.”

- guitarist Peter Bernstein

The Jazz Trumpet Gods must be smiling over Ryan Kisor.

Pops [Louis Armstrong], Harry James, Little Jazz [Roy Eldridge], Dizzy, Miles, Lee, Freddie and Woody are all looking down with pleasure at the trumpet stylings of this fiery, young trumpeter.

Ryan’s got it all: legit tone; superb technique; juice and energy in his solos.

Plus, with Ryan, the old movie title applies: "With Six You Get Egg Rolls” in the sense that he’s always in the company of today’s finest Jazz musicians be it saxophonists Chris Potter, Grant Stewart and Eric Alexander, pianists Peter Zak and Mike LeDonne, bassists John Webber and James Genus or drummers Gene Jackson, Willie Jones III and Gregory Hutchinson.

But the musical format that Ryan really shines in is an organ Jazz format involving guitarist Peter Bernstein, Hammond B-3 Organist Sam Yahel and either Willie Jones III or Gregory Hutchinson on drums.

Since he won the prize at the Thelonious Monk competition in 1990 at the ripe old age of seventeen [17], Ryan has kept on getting better and better.

To my ears, he has developed more of a command of the instrument in the intervening years, a bigger and brighter sound and improvised ideas that come so fast and furious that he’s barely able to phrase one before the others come flowing through the horn.

Wow! Can this guy bring it.

Some forms of Jazz, most notably Muscle Jazz [think Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers], are best kept as the province of the young. To play them at a high level and consistently, you need the stamina and the vigor to make it happen again and again.

This is not to take anything away from older players as they would be among the first to admit that the passion and the power of youth allow for a different approach to making the music.

During the earlier years. it’s not about savvy and slickness, but more about the adventure of exploring the new and different and a pell-mell rush into the unknown; both of which require strength and endurance.

All too often, what is lacking for the young players is an environment of knowledge and experience in which to hone their art.

Fortunately, this has not been the case with Ryan as, from a very early age, he has been able to participate in some of the great Jazz ensembles such as the Gil Evans Jazz Orchestra, Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra and the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band under the leadership of John Faddis, one of the great Jazz lead and solo trumpet players on today’s Jazz scene.

Here’s more about Ryan’s background and what his colleagues think of his playing from Ted Panken’s insert notes to the Battle Cry CD [Criss Cross 1145]:

“Ryan Kisor, 24 years old, a man of few words, makes heads turn when he puts the trumpet to his lips. Veteran of two Columbia recordings by age 20, Kisor has spent recent years smack in the New York City mix, honing his craft. 

He reads flyspecks, as the saying goes, and he's played with the Mingus Big Band, the Carnegie Hall Jazz Orchestra, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and the Vanguard Orchestra among others.

He's much in demand for gigs with New York's finest young improvisers in venues all around the city. Those include organist Sam Yahel, guitarist Peter Bernstein and drummer Brian Blade, who match Kisor idea for idea, phrase for phrase on the trumpeter's Criss-Cross debut and first recording since 1993, Battle Cry.

Battle Cry showcases a young master on fire. Kisor articulates with tremendous authority through the entire range of the trumpet. He's internalized the lexicon of styles on his instrument (Clifford Brown, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Shaw, Freddie Hubbard, Blue Mitchell and Kenny Dorham come to mind) so thoroughly that he's not beholden stylistically to anyone. 

For all his virtuosity, he's an egoless improviser with a seemingly instinctive sense of proportion, in total synch with the ensemble.

Let Kisor's peers sing his praises. “Natural’ is the trope of choice.

‘Ryan is an incredible musician,’ comments the 26-year-old Yahel, who has employed Kisor and tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander as his front line in quartets for several years at Augie's and Smalls in Manhattan, gestation points for much good music in the '90s.

‘He's at a level of musicianship where nothing is lacking, so talented that he's able to do anything.  He can play lead in a big band, sub for the lead and read the part down, then turn around, go to the jazz gig, sound fabulous on the jazz tunes.  His ears are so great that he's able to react to what you do, or maybe lead you a little bit, as soon as he hears you do it - he's always listening. Though a record is a little more cautious than a live performance by nature, this is a very interactive date. Ryan's always un-self-conscious, very natural, playing in the moment.’

‘He's always developing and playing new things,’ cosigns 30-year-old New York City native Bernstein, leader of four Criss-Cross sessions, who's played with Kisor since the trumpet prodigy arrived in New York in 1992. ‘He's a natural. He's always played music, and he can play whatever he wants to at will.  He isn't bogged down with a lot of worries about the instrument, or what kind of player to be, or what concept to follow. He's flexible, and he can go a lot of different directions, wherever the music goes. Not that it comes easy for him; he's definitely worked hard. But he understands music on a highly intuitive level.’ ….

‘Ryan plays standards in a very fresh way,’ Yahel continues. ‘He knows the music so well that a standard becomes just another vehicle for him to express himself, for lack of a better phrase. Some people bring agendas to their playing, with an attitude like 'I'm going to play modal on this tune, then here I'll play another way, and another way on this standard.' Ryan has no agenda.  He plays with fire. All his musical influences come out at all times.’

Intended or not, the title Battle Cry works metaphorically on several levels.  It comments on Kisor's joy at taming his intractable instrument to earn a hard-won virtuosity. It notes the improviser's struggle to remain focused on playing from the heart in a world increasingly given to concept albums and image marketing.

Battle Cry is an early salvo, foreshadowing what undoubtedly will be lives of incessantly creative music-making by all its participants.”

February 22, 1998.”

To help you better familiarize yourself with the sound of Ryan’s music, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles with the assistance of the crackerjack graphics team at CerraJazz LTD, has developed the following two, videos . Both feature Ryan along with guitarist Peter Bernstein and organist Sam Yahel.

The audio track on the first video is Lee Morgan’s Mr. Kenyatta with Willie Jones III on drums while the video tribute to Woodies has Gregory Hutchinson on drums with Ryan, Peter and Sam on the standard, Candy.

Ryan’s earlier CDs are available directly through Criss Cross Records and his recordings on other labels can be located and purchased through online retailers.

One hears often these days from Jazz fans that there isn’t enough “new” music being issued on recordings. An investment of time and available funds in the music of Ryan Kisor and his young friends might correct that view while providing hours of listening enjoyment.

By comparison to any stage of Jazz’s development, Ryan Kisor is the real deal.

Have a listen to hear why the Jazz trumpet Gods are smiling.

Jimmy Dorsey

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

“I think the real root of the problem with the Dorsey brothers as jazz players was that in their formative years they never really heard—or did not hear sufficiently—the great black jazz innovators of the calibre of King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Duke Ellington, Bubber Miley, and Bessie Smith.

Though Dorsey senior, the boys' original music teacher, was a strict disciplinarian and undoubtedly gave the youngsters a solid technical foundation (and lots of experience in his parade and concert band), I suggest the contact with real jazz at best was intermittent, at worst superficial. Moreover, living and working on the East Coast and touring in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Ohio was not quite like working in Chicago, where the young Bix could hear Louis Armstrong every night, or where Benny Goodman could absorb the rich lessons of a Jimmy Noone.

The Dorsey brothers, raised in a milieu of hard-working, struggling, unaffluent Pennsylvania coal miners, never lost that drive to hustle for a living, in whatever musical ambience or style, so long as it would keep poverty at bay. Somehow neither of them drank long enough at the true fountainhead of jazz. And it didn't take much to pull them away from jazz.”

- Gunther Schuller, The Swing Era

During my formative Jazz years, I didn’t know much about alto saxophonist and clarinetist Jimmy Dorsey.

I recall seeing a film about Jimmy and his more famous brother, trombonist, Tommy Dorsey. The film was entitled The Fabulous Dorseys although judging from the preview of coming attractions which emphasized their constant arguments, a better title may have been“The Battling Dorseys.” Throughout their careers, they seem to look for every opportunity to scrap with one another.

John Lissner in his insert notes to Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra: Contrasts [GRP/Jazz Heritage 513817M] explains the roots of their combative relationship this way:

“While thinking about the career and music of alto saxophonist and clarinetist Jimmy Dorsey … , I was reminded of an Irish proverb: ‘Contention is better than loneliness.’ Indeed, one basic thing to remember about Jimmy Dorsey and his brother Tommy is that they were Irish. They had Irish eyes, smiles and tempers. Their brooding Irish moods often grew into grand, contentious, and infuriating passions, and their conflicts came to a head on the night of May 30, 1935. The excellent Dorsey Brothers big band was in the middle of a successful gig at the East Coast's prime dance spot, the Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle, New York. They were about to play a Tin Pan Alley tune called "I'll Never Say Never Again" Tommy kicked off the tempo. Jimmy rose from his seat with the comment: "Isn't that a little too fast, Mac?" Tommy put down his trombone, walked off the bandstand, drove to New York City and never looked back. Had the brothers gotten along better, the Big Band Era might well have had only one Dorsey band. As it turned out, the Dorsey brothers created two separate traditions— each musically vital, artistically impressive and commercially successful.”

I also knew that Jimmy enjoyed considerable success with his recording of So Rare in the early 1950’s and that Jazz musicians like Benny Carter, Charlie Parker and Lester Young had the greatest respect for his playing.

According to John Lissner:

“Dorsey had become a master technician, probably the most accomplished and influential of hot alto saxophonists. His textbook became the standard for any aspiring dance band altoist. [Paul] Whiteman featured him as a virtuoso, and many of his solos of this period became models for such young musicians as Lester Young, then an alto player with bands in the midwest and southwest. Jimmy's distinctive bright tone on alto and clarinet would also fascinate Charlie Parker in later years.”

In his definitive The Swing Era, Gunther Schuller offers one explanation for this admiration:

“Jimmy Dorsey was, of course, a formidable technician, on both the alto and clarinet; and if one searches for an answer to the perplexing question of why so many saxophonists, black and white — from Hodges to Parker and even Ornette Coleman — admired Jimmy Dorsey's work, one must turn to that aspect of his playing. It may come as a surprise to the passionate jazz fan reader with unalterable allegiances and strong musical/ideological leanings that most jazz musicians are not truly purist in their tastes.

They will more readily admire an outstanding instrumental technician, of whatever stylistic persuasion, than a player who is creatively strong and individual but technically, say, ''unspectacular.”

Jimmy Dorsey's technical skills did allow him, in turn, to be the versatile, wide-ranging eclectic he was—more than, in these respects, his more limited brother Tommy. While Jimmy was never a creative innovator, he was a gifted assimilator and could perform convincingly in a variety of idioms.

Once one has accepted that, one is not quite so startled to hear Jimmy's remarkably beautiful and "authentic" blues-clarinet-playing as early as 1929 on Praying the Blues, an expressive tour de force. It is, of course, indebted to Dodds and Bigard and Omer Simeon, but it at least is the real thing. The real issue, then, is: if he could produce one such distinguished, convincing true sample of jazz, why not more often?” [p. 648]

Gunther Schuller goes on to offer the assessment of The Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra:

“JIMMY DORSEY

When Tommy, in one of his famous fits of temper, walked off the bandstand at the Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle, New York, in May 1935, the two brothers remained separated and not in communication for over ten years, until finally reunited temporarily in working together on the 1947 biographical movie, The Fabulous Dorseys.

While in the wake of this breakup Tommy appropriated one of Joe Haymes's bands as his own, Jimmy simply continued with the personnel of the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra but now called it the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra. His, and the orchestra's, popular and financial success were instantaneous. Continuing with the "sweet-swing" style the brothers had finally evolved before the big breakup,

Jimmy's band managed a fairly broad repertory with taste (for the most part), as well as impressive instrumental skill and ensemble discipline. The many technically challenging arrangements (by Joe Lippman, Larry Clinton, Fud Livingston, Toots Camarata, Bobby Van Eps) were always carried off with efficiency and skill, the result of careful rehearsing. The expressive and emotional substance, on the other hand, was often rather thin, and the lightweight novelty numbers like By Heck, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Jibe, Parade of the Milk Bottle Caps were still always there. But in balance, it was an orchestra which could with some justice regard itself as operating within the jazz arena, at least as jazz was viewed in the Swing Era by most white bands.”

The 4th edition of The Big Bands, George T. Simon has a lengthy chapter on Jimmy’s music which includes these observations about him and his orchestra:

“JIMMY DORSEY never had the drive or the ambition or the boundless energy that his brother Tommy had. Quite possibly he would have been content to sit there in the sax section of the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra, letting Tommy take over, for the rest of his life. There are those who saw him in the fifties, when he and Tommy had been reunited and Tommy was again calling the shots, who submit that they hadn't seen Jimmy as happy and as relaxed in a long, longtime.

Happy and relaxed is basically what Jimmy was by nature. He was not a competitor, so that the idea of having to lead a band against all the hard-nosed leaders who had been around and who were coming around as the big band boom got under way was probably not too much to his liking. But he had a job to do — and he did one hell of a great job!

Of course he had the basic ammunition, for Jimmy was an excellent musician—in some ways better rounded than Tommy. He also knew instinctively how to get along with people, and though his band may never have reached the dynamic heights that Tommy's did, it managed to exist on an evener keel, with fewer flare-ups and crises and with a more consistent esprit de corps. Jimmy was extremely well-liked by all his men— not just by those, as was more prevalent in Tommy's case, whom he happened to like. And like Tommy, he too had a keen sense of humor. There were many laughs in the Jimmy Dorsey band, and Jimmy supplied lots of them.

There was a softness, too, about Jimmy that was very lovable. He cared about people and their problems. …

The band had reached its zenith in 1943, surpassing even lommya m popularity and in musicianship. At that time, Jimmy sported a nine-piece brass section (five trumpets instead of the original one) and some exceptional soloists, such as tenor saxist Babe Russin, trumpeter Nate Kazebier and pianist Johnny Guarnieri. During the following years, the band kept up its high standards, and by the end of the war, Jimmy had the swingingest band he had ever led. In early 1946, I reviewed it at the 400 Club in New York and was enthralled with its bite and vigor, the guitar playing of Herb Ellis, the piano of Lou Carter and the drumming of young Earl Kiffe.”

One of the keys to the success of the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra was the popularity of its “boy singer” - Bob Eberly and its “girl singer” - Helen O’Connell. When each first joined the band in the late 1930’s they sang individually, however, their lasting appeal was to be formed when they began to sing a series of duets.

As George Simon describes:

“The series of famous Eberly-O'Connell duets was born out of necessity. On its radio series for Twenty Grand cigarettes, one of several dime-a-package brands that had become popular, the band was allotted a three-minute spot near the close in which it was supposed to feature all its stars. And so arranger Tutti Camarata devised a special routine during which Bob sang the first chorus as a ballad, the tempo would pick up and Jimmy would play part of a jazz chorus of the tune, and then the tempo would slow down again for Helen to come on for a semi-wailing finale.

The gimmick proved to be a sensation. Eberly notes that an important Decca Records executive was dead set against recording the routine because "people would break a leg trying to dance to all those tempo changes." But he was out-argued, obviously happily for his sake, because, according to Bob, "Green Eyes" sold ninety thousand copies in the first few days, at a time when twenty-five thousand copies was considered a great seller….

The Eberly-O'Connell relationship, according to Bob, "could have made the perfect setting for one of those happy family TV situation series, the way Helen and I would kid and tease each other while Jimmy guided and watched over us." …

Certainly his two singers played vital roles in the success of Jimmy Dorsey's Orchestra. But, of course, his musicians, though not as well known as Bob and Helen, were every bit as important and impressive, for Jimmy always insisted upon a high level of competence in all who worked for him.”

The following video features Jimmy and his Orchestra with Bob and Helen’s performance of another of their biggest hits - Tangerine.

Nat Adderley and Alto Saxophone Players Redux

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

“Julian ‘Cannonball’ Adderley’s enormous personality and untimely death, together with his participation in such legendary dates as Miles’s Kind of Blues, have sanctified his memory …. But brother Nat was a big part of the band they had together from 1959 until Cannonball’s passing in 1975 at the age of 45.

One of the few modern players to have specialized on the cornet, … Nat was always the more incisive soloist, with a bright ringing tone that most obviously drew on the example of Dizzy Gillespie  but in which could be heard a whole raft of influences from Clark Terry to Henry ‘Red’ Allen to the pre-post-modern Miles Davis of the 1950s.”

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

“Nat Adderley received top billing in the Cannonball Adderley Quintet from 1959 to 1975. Although overshadowed by his brother Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, Nat's own contribution to the band's success was substantial….

Nat contributed to the quintet as both player and composer. He wrote several hits that became jazz standards, including "Work Song," "Sermonette," and "Jive Samba." His instrumental style bears the influence of Clark Terry, Miles Davis, and, in brassier moments, Dizzy Gillespie.

How­ever, Nat's solos are often highly personal in their use of half-valve (slurred) effects, unusual tone color, and a wry sense of humor.

Without him, the quintet would have been an altogether different, and perhaps more somber, band.”

Len Lyons and Don Perlo, Jazz Portraits

“Nat Adderley became a bandleader in 1975 without really wanting to ….”

- Orrin Keepnews

As I have mentioned before on these pages, business travel was a constant part of my life, especially during the last two decades of my career.

Most of it was national, some of it was international. Occasionally, and much to my relief, it was local.

One such local trip that I made on a quarterly basis involved visiting a client who owned a business based in Stockton, CA, which is about 80 miles due east of my office in San Francisco.

Since the purpose of these visits involved an early morning meeting with the company’s Board of Trustees, I would usually drive out for dinner with my client the previous evening to discuss the agenda, and then stay the night in a nearby hotel. It was easier than battling the morning traffic and the especially-dangerous morning fog.

A big box bookstore was located in the same complex with the hotel, and as I was restless following dinner, I wandered over to it to kill some time before turning in.

The store carried an extensive display of CD’s [remember those?] and while browsing its collection, I came across some music by Nat Adderley’s group featuring “Vincent Herring,” an alto saxophonist whose name was new to me.

I’d always dug Nat’s playing, the discs were being offered at half price and the “kicker” was that Jimmy Cobb was the drummer on two of the three that I purchased.

Boy, was I in for a treat.

When I returned to the room, I popped one of the CDs into my portable player, put on my ear phones and there went my early night as I stayed up half of it being blown away by Vincent Herring.

Poor Nat; here he was with another fantastic alto sax player.

As was the case with brother Julian, Nat more than held his own, but, man, Vincent Herring was somethin’ else [no pun intended].

As Nat described to Alwyn and Laurie Lewis in his March 1992 interview with them for Cadence Magazine: “Vincent plays Vincent; he has the style of Cannonball’s, but he does not play Cannonball’s licks. And that’s why I like him.” [paraphrased]

Elevating, exciting, electrifying - whatever the best words are to describe Vincent Herring - one thing is certain, you can’t expect to listen to his playing and easily go to sleep, afterwards.

Although a little groggy from lack of sleep, I showed up to the Trustees’ meeting the following morning with a big smile on my face. That and saving the client a good deal of money on their reinsurance placement must have won the day as I was able to renew the contract for one more year.

I owe it all to Nat Adderley, at least, the smile on my face, as if it hadn’t been for him, I most probably wouldn’t have discovered Vincent Herring.

Judge for yourself whether it was a worthwhile finding as Vincent is featured on the audio track to the following video tribute to Nat. As Nat explains in the introduction,  Work Song is one of his more famous tunes. Walter Booker on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums are old friends from their days together with Nat in the Adderley Brothers Quintet. Art Resnick does the honors on piano.

Pat Metheny - Downbeat Hall of Fame

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

The December 2013 Downbeat carried the headline news that guitarist Pat Metheny had been elected to its Jazz Hall of Fame while winning the guitarist of the year poll for the seventh year in-a-row.

Who would have thought that a kid growing up in Lee’s Summit, Missouri would reach such heights [sorry, I could resist], let alone having sold 20 million records worldwide since his first trio recordings were released on ECM in the mid-1970s.

In the introduction to his Downbeat interview with Pat, Ken Micallef observed:

“Metheny's music is melodically rich, harmonically advanced and global in its compositional reach. It embraces the vanguard of recording technology, and with 2010's Orchestrion (Nonesuch), visits the outer reaches of the human-computer interface.

Metheny's collaborations with Ornette Coleman, John Zorn, Joni Mitchell, Milton Nascimento, Derek Bailey, David Bowie, Chick Corea, Michael Brecker and Gary Burton express a desire to work beyond preconceived notions of what jazz is and isn't. Indeed, there's jazz, and there's Pat Metheny. …”

Keith’s interview with Pat is deeply probing and well-written and, as a result, it provides an engrossing look into the career of one of the most successful musicians in modern music irrespective of genre.

For example, in response to Keith question - “Do you think a lot about your conception of music, or is it innate?” - Pat responded with this detailed explanation:

“...I spend a lot of time imagining music and imagining sound and trying to think about what I really love about music— what is that? That's been the main thing for me from the time I first heard [Miles Davis’] Four And More and Tony Williams' ride cymbal on Seven Steps To Heaven. What is that? For me, it's more to do with how music is connected to life.

The quality that I admire in the musicians and music I love is something that always transcends the style it's played in. I don't put a lot of emphasis, obviously, on playing this way or that way.

I am happy to play free, I love to play on changes, I can play loud and I can play really soft. I can play with tons of space or with no space. These are all movable elements in a much larger pursuit, which is to try to set things up so there's some kind of resonance which fits with the resonance that I feel to just be a person on earth right now.

In that sense, the aspects of music that are the most interesting to me have very little to do with chords and notes. It's much more about "what is music?" How did this happen that we have this unbelievable connection to so many things through sound?”

Keith’s interview with Pat in the December 2013 edition of Downbeat in entitled Singular Intention and it continues the tradition of in-depth conversation with Jazz musicians that the magazine has been noted for over the years. Highly recommend as is the following version of Pat’s beloved composition Never Too Far Away which serves as the soundtrack for the following video montage.

It was recorded in performance at the 2003 North Sea Jazz Festival with The Metropole Orchestra, Jim McNeely, conducting. Vince Mendoza wrote the arrangement.