Texas Tenors - David "Fathead" Newman and Curtis Amy Revisited

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

Texas tenor saxophonists ... "Texas tenors."

The first time I heard the term described as such was on a Riverside Records LP entitled The Sound of the Wide Open Spaces: James Clay and David "Fathead" Newman [12327].

I thought that it might be fun to use one of its tunes as a soundtrack for a video tribute to some of the better known practitioners of the Texas Tenor style and to have the video serve as an introduction to a re-posting of earlier features on David and Curtis Amy

“The Texas Tenor style” is defined by Ted Gioia in The History of Jazz as:

“A blues-drenched tenor sax style … characterized by honking’, shoutin’, riffin’, riding high on a single note or barking out a guttural howl.” [p. 341]

Cannonball Adderley once referred to the Texas tenor sound as "a moan within the tone."

Orrin Keepnews in his insert notes to James Clay’s Double Dose of Soul [Riverside RLP-9349/OJCCD-1790-2] states it this way:

“For Clay becomes the most recent addition to a long tradition of outstanding tenormen from the big state (among them: Arnett Cobb, Illinois Jacquet, Budd Johnson, most of whom seem to share the same compelling Texas ‘moan’ in their tone).”

Jerry Atkins in his magnificent treatment on the subject for The International Association of Jazz Record Collector’s IAJRC Journal [Vol. 33, No.2, Spring 2000] puts it more succinctly when he states:

“What is a Texas Tenor? In the world of Jazz, it’s a saxophonist born in or near the Lone Star State and playing with uniqueness in sound and ideas that many have tried to describe.”

Jerry includes in his essay on Texas Tenormen, Herschel Evans, Buddy Tate, Budd Johnson, Illinois Jacquet, Arnett Cobb, Don Wilkerson, Booker Ervin, John Hardee, James Clay, David ‘Fathead” Newman and Michael Ivery.

David "Fathead" Newman: Tough Texas Tenor

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

“It's always been a mystery to me why Da­vid "Fathead" Newman isn't one of the most popular instrumentalists of the second half of the twentieth century.

He's got the intellectual chops to play be-bop, ballads or blues with a backbeat and with feeling, creativity and authority. He's got more taste than most living musicians; his sparse obbligatos behind Ray Charles on the magnificent live version of "Drown In My Own Tears" should be required listening for anyone licensed to carry a horn.

When he plays a note with the unique Texas tenor tone, every cell in my body comes alive.

That Texas tenor sound is a phenomenon in itself. David, Don Wilkerson, Booker Ervin, James Clay, King Curtis and Wilton Felder were some of its major exponents to emerge in the fifties. As different as their styles were, they shared a rich, hard, vibrato-less sound and a clear, deliberate articulation.

The sound is strong, sure and prideful, but with an underlying vulnerability. It's pas­sionate. … Cannonball Adderley described it as ‘a moan inside the tone.’ …”

- Michael Cuscuna, 1997

“When I was coming up in Dallas, all the older guys, especially the saxophone players, had a big, wide-open sound.”

- David “Fathead” Newman

“The Texas tenor sound and concept is very much unlike, and in advance of, the Coleman Hawkins of 1929 and beyond. It is a more fluent, more melodic and blues tinged approach, perhaps more elegant, too.”

- Günter Schuller

During an interview with him, I once asked Orrin Keepnews, who for many years was the proprietor and co-owner of Riverside Records, why he labeled the album he co-produced with Cannonball Adderley for David “Fathead” Newman and James Clay, The Sound of the Wide Open Spaces [Riverside RLP 1178; OJCCD-257]?

“Because,” he said, “ like Arnett Cobb, Illinois Jacquet, Bud Johnson, Buddy Tate, and a bunch of others, David and James seem to have the same compelling Texas moan in their tone.”

Even now, after all these years, when I listen to the music of tenor saxophonist David “Fathead” Newman, it always calls to mind Orrin’s phrase – “a compelling Texas moan.”

In his notes to David’s recording entitled Resurgence, which along with Still Hard Times has been reissued on CD as David “Fathead” Newman: Lone Star Legend [Savoy Jazz SVY 17249], Michael Cuscuna offered these insight on the Texas tenor sound, David Fathead Newman’s relationship to it and the salient features of David’s career up to when these recordings took place for Muse in 1980 and 1982, respectively.

© -  Michael Cuscuna, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

The legend and aura surrounding Texas saxophonists is clearly based in fact. Whether from Houston in the south or Dallas-Fort Worth in Central Texas, that state has spawned an array of impressive artists for generations, all toting a hard veneer and a soul that can em­brace the world. Only listening can reveal the bond that links Herschel Evans, Arnett Cobb, Illinois Jacquet, Booker Ervin, Wilton Felder et al.

A geographically genetic genre. An oral tradition and a testament to environment.

Consider the dramatic differences between David Newman, James Clay, King Curtis, and Ornette Coleman, all within a couple of years of the same age, all in Dallas-Fort Worth revolving around the band of the legendary saxophonist Red Connor in their teens.

Dig beyond their obvious stylistic differences, and you will hear the same voice, the same cry, the same bending of the note, the same powerful, but vulnerable sound.

On one end of the spectrum in the forties was Ornette Coleman, the oldest of the bunch. Red Connor would often scold or fire him for memorizing and perfectly executing Charlie Parker solos, an exercise that Connor felt to be uncreative. On the other hand was King Curtis (Ousley), mastering and crystallizing the rich blues and R & B tradition, but snubbed by Connor and the Beboppers of the day. History would vindicate men as their visions focused and their contributions became irrefutable. Fusing both extremes and all the riches that lie in between were men like David Newman, a master who has yet to receive his due.

Still in his teens, David built a strong repu­tation around Dallas before going on the road with Lowell Fulsom and T-Bone Walker, a road that rarely led far beyond the borders of Texas. He was playing alto and baritone saxophones at the time. He and Ray Charles had crossed paths on several occasions in the early fifties. When Charles put together a permanent working band in 1954 with the effective instrumentation of two trumpets, two saxophones and rhythm, he recruited Texas tenorman Don Wilkerson and David Newman, playing primarily baritone, but occasionally doubling on alto. A year later, Wilkerson left. David was offered the tenor saxophone chair. Of course, he accepted the new position and the new instrument. And the rest, as they say, was hysteria.

David's solos, obligate fills and ensemble voice were stunning testaments to the art of R & B. His understated, soulful creations matched the essence of Ray Charles perfectly. Charles recorded a couple of instrumental al­bums that featured Newman's talents. The band's repertoire was beginning to include pieces by James Moody, Horace Silver, Max Roach and Milt Jackson.

By 1958, Memphis-born Benny Crawford, primarily a pianist and alto saxophonist, se­cured the baritone saxophone chair with the Charles band, bringing into it his own ideas and sound. A few months later, Detroiter Marcus Belgrave would assume one of the trumpet chairs. In July, the Ray Charles band would perform (and record) at the Newport Jazz Festival. In November, at Ray's instigation, Atlantic would record the first album by David Newman with the Charles band of the time mi­nus the second trumpet. And that meant David on alto and tenor, Crawford on baritone (and contributing three tunes), Belgrave on trumpet, Ray Charles himself on piano, Edgar Willis on bass and Milt Turner on drums.

In 1959, Charles added Leroy Cooper on baritone sax, freeing Crawford to return to alto saxophone. In the process, he changed his first name to Hank and affirmed his own startling identity. He too began recording for Atlantic, maintaining the essence and style of that orig­inal Ray Charles instrumentation throughout his ten year stint with that record company. On the first three albums (1960-62), he used the band minus Charles intact. And that meant more opportunities to hear David.

But for David Newman, any outside activity after his first album seemed to be an oppor­tunity to break away from the Charles mold. In 1960, he recorded a straight-ahead date for Riverside with James Clay and his second Atlantic album. Although Marcus Belgrave con­tributed a tune, the setting was strictly quartet with Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Charlie Persip, a clear statement of hard-core jazz. His third album schizophrenically offered a hard bop quintet with Belgrave on trumpet and a funky, blusier quartet with Crawford at the pi­ano and Ray Charles' bassist and drummer.

In 1964, David left Ray Charles' orga­nization, which had been since 1960 a full-fledged and less personal big band. He gigged locally around Dallas and turned his attentions to his family in its crucial years. By 1967, he began commuting to New York. By this time, he was playing soprano sax, as well as alto, tenor and flute. He re-established his ties with Cedar Walton, who was his pianist on local Dallas gigs when they were both still in their teens. He also re-established his relationship with Atlantic Records.

In March, he made his first album in five years, using a Texas guitarist who had recently migrated to New York. His name was Ted Dunbar, and that was his first recording session. The tune that drew attention to the album was one that Walton had just given to him, when they were working out on a friend's piano. It was "To The Holy Land[Recorded on the 1967 House of David Atlantic LP 1489]." A month later, New­man and Walton would appear together on a Lee Morgan session for Blue Note, recently released as "Sonic Boom."

Throughout the late sixties, David continued to record a succession of albums under his own name and appear on dates led by organist Don Patterson, Lonnie Smith, Shirley Scott and Charles Kynard. After rejoining Ray Charles briefly in 1970, he became a member of Herbie Mann's Family of Mann, a vehicle that allowed his tenor saxophone and flute work to shine and allowed him to contribute to the band's book of compositions as well. It was this band that first recorded "Davey Blue."

Although he left Mann in 1974, David continued to record albums of his own for Atlantic (and its sister label Warner Bros.) until 1977. He did studio work for the likes of Aretha Franklin, Cornell Dupree, Nikki Giovani, T-Bone Walker and Ben Sidran and made oc­casional live appearances. But David's em­phasis shifted back to Dallas during the late seventies except for three heavily arranged albums for Prestige that were misguided in the sense that they obscured the identity of the man whose name appeared on the record cover.

In the summer of 1980, David arrived in New York and transcended his shyness, call­ing all his old friends in town to announce his presence and his availability. We all responded with delight, and many things grew out of it. Among them is this record date, his first pure effort in years. The cast featured old associates, including Hank Crawford who came to the ses­sion with "Carnegie Blues" freshly written and tucked under his arm.

There could not have been a more appropriate date to record this album than September 23, the birthdate shared by Ray Charles and John Coltrane. Welcome back to New York, “Fathead.”

It had been my plan to use the 1967 version of To The Holy Land from The House of David Atlantic LP as the audio track on the following video tribute to David “Fathead” Newman, but WMG had other ideas and muted the audio when the video was uploaded to YouTube.

So instead we turned to the 1980 version of the tune Michael references in his notes to the Resurgence LP with David on tenor sax, along with Marcus Belgrave on trumpet, Ted Dunbar on guitar, Cedar Walton on piano, Buster Williams on bass and Louis Hayes on drums.

And if you are in the mood for contrasts, with the help of the crackerjack graphics team at CerraJazz LTD, I also developed another video that shows actual images of The Holy Land, in this case, Jerusalem, with a big band version of Cedar’s tune for the sound track as provided by the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw. Peter Beets does the solo honors on piano.

Curtis Amy: Testifyin' Texas Tenor

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

That Texas tenor sound is a phenomenon in itself. David “Fathead” Newman, Don Wilkerson, Booker Ervin, James Clay, King Curtis and Wilton Felder were some of its major exponents to emerge in the fifties. As different as their styles were, they shared a rich, hard, vibrato-less sound and a clear, deliberate articulation.

The sound is strong, sure and prideful, but with an underlying vulnerability. It's pas­sionate. … Cannonball Adderley described it as ‘a moan inside the tone.’ …”

- Michael Cuscuna, 1997

One could certainly add the name of Curtis Amy to the above list of Texas Tenor saxophonists.

Soul and Funk were the big, new discoveries of a number of Jazz record companies in the early 1960s. With their heavy backbeats and simple melodic refrains, the soulful and funky Jazz styles appealed to a wider audience, particularly those who liked their Jazz laced with a heavy dose of rhythm and blues.

The origins or “roots” [an “in” word for those times] of soulful and funky Jazz supposedly were to be found in their connection to the religious music that was sung and played in southern Baptist and Pentecostal churches. Music, as well as, prayer was one means of penitence, or, in the parlance of the times, testifyin or signifyin’ one’s spiritual allegiance.

Bluesy albums set to a boogaloo beat were another by-product of this era of Jazz commercialism and words like “funky” and “groovy” and “soulful” were plastered all over LP covers.

It was a fun music to play, especially if you were a drummer. Nothing complicated. Music played at slow-to-moderate tempos, with melodies mainly derived from 12-bar blues and lots of rim shots or two-beat shuffles tapped out on the snare and bass drums.

The vocal epitome of this style of music was “brother” Ray Charles whose tambourine-totting background singers were always there to show the audience where to clap their hands or stomp their feet on the second and fourth beats of every bar of the music.

But, hey, even Jazz musicians have to eat and pay the rent and the popularity of Soul and Funk provided lots of gigs until the dramatic rise of Rock ‘n Roll took things in a different direction in the 1960s.

Tenor saxophonist Curtis Amy came to prominence during this era and the titles of some of his recordings – The Blues Message, Meetin’ Here, Way Down, Groovin’ Blue, - are reflective of it.

Texas tenorman Curtis Amy had a long and distinguished career as a jazz artist, studio musician and  record executive. During his years with Pacific Jazz, he recorded six superb albums that revealed an artist who constantly challenged himself as an improviser and as a composer.

With the exception of Katanga which was issued as a limited edition CD in 1998 by Blue Note as part of its West Coast Classics series [CDP 94580], none of Amy’s output for Pacific Jazz was reissued digitally until Michael Cuscuna and his team at Mosaic Records collected all six of the Amy Pacific Jazz LP’s and put them out as a 3-CD Mosaic Select boxed-set in 2003.

Here is the text from mosaicrecords.com announcing this set.

The Bluesy Drive of a Great Texas Tenor.

“There’s nothing quite like the mournful cry or the bluesy drive of a great Texas tenor saxophonist. Curtis Amy was of the same generation as Booker Ervin, David Fathead Newman, James Clay and Wilton Felder, but his time in the jazz spotlight was brief. Amy had a beautiful sound and a style that was both muscular and lyrical. Although he had a long and successful career in his transplanted home of Los Angeles, much of it was spent doing high profile studio work and working with his wife, the extraordinary Merry Clayton.

During his years with Pacific Jazz (1960-63), he recorded six superb albums that revealed an artist who constantly challenged himself as an improviser and as a composer. After The Blues Message and Meetin’ Here, two soulful collaborations with organist Paul Bryant, he moved into more textured hard bop surroundings, fronting sextets with varied instrumentation. He and Frank Butler co-led Groovin’ Blue, which features Carmell Jones and Bobby Hutcherson. Way Down includes Roy Ayers, Marcus Belgrave, Victor Feldman and valve trombonist Roy Brewster among others.

Tippin’ On Through was recorded live at the Lighthouse with Ayers and Brewster among others. Amy’s final album for the label Katanga is regarded as his masterpiece; it featured the legendary trumpeter Dupree Bolton as well as Ray Crawford and Jack Wilson. From the furious be-bop of the title tune to the lament "Lonely Woman" to the hypnotic, extended performance of "Native Land", Amy's work as an improviser and composer is at its zenith. Trumpeter Dupree Bolton, who made an impressive debut on Harold Land's "The Fox" three years earlier, is absolutely dazzling with a brash attack, formidable chops and very original ideas.

Although he made two more albums (in 1966 and 1994) and recorded with Gerald Wilson and Onzy Matthews, the six albums that he made for Pacific Jazz – all contained in this Mosaic Select set represent his greatest legacy. Amazingly, five of them make their appearance on CD for the first time.”

Thomas Conrad offered the following review of the Mosaic Select: Curtis Amy set in the May 2004 edition of JazzTimes.

© -Thomas Conrad, JazzTimes, May 2004, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“For all those who have regarded Mosaic boxed sets as the gold standard among jazz reissue programs, the recently introduced Mosaic Select series requires some spirit of compromise. The seventh release in the series, for example, provides only six short paragraphs of current retrospective on the career of tenor saxophonist Curtis Amy. In a "real" Mosaic collection, we would have gotten a full-size catalog, an extravagance of session photos and a new in-depth essay by a leading Amy authority with voluminous discographical data. In this three-CD set, we get only the undistinguished original liner notes.

But if the Select series is budget-challenged, it is also free to go where big Mosaic boxed sets cannot-for example, to artists whose recorded output is sparse, and/or whose appeal is limited to (in Mosaic founder/producer Michael Cuscuna's words) "a relatively small but discerning audience."

Case in point, Curtis Amy. He came out of Houston, Texas-a fact that is announced with his entrance on the very first track of disc one, "Searchin'." After Paul Bryant's plaintive prologue on Hammond B3, Amy emerges with a huge, long, braying wail, a sound that only emanates from one (Lone Star) state.

Unlike the other great Texas tenors who came up in the '40s and '50s (Illinois Jacquet, Arnett Cobb, Booker Ervin, David "Fathead" Newman, et. al.), Amy went west. He settled in Los Angeles in 1955, became active on the L.A. scene and recorded six LPs for Richard Bock's Pacific label between 1960 and 1963. All six are here, and only one of them, Katanga!, has ever been previously reissued on CD. Between 1963 and 1994, Amy recorded only once under his own name. During these years he played in L.A. big bands, toured with Ray Charles, and worked as a studio musician, record company executive, and actor. He died at the age of 72 in 2002.

Amy was more than just a special player. He was a commanding figure with a big, blustering sound and chops to burn, a teller of definitive tales of the soul. The first two albums represented, The Blues Message and Meetin' Here, with the little known Bryant, are examples of the tenor/organ combo genre as powerful as anything that ever came out of New York. Amy could testify with anyone, and he was also an exceptional ballad interpreter ("Come Rain or Come Shine," "Angel Eyes").

The progress of these six albums moves from deep blues grooves to more textured and sophisticated-but still soulful-approaches. Along the way, a door is opened to a subset of West Coast jazz much earthier than the famous "cool school," while still reflecting a sunnier environment than that of East Coast hard bop. Amy surrounds himself with some of the best players of that time and place, like Carmell Jones and Dupree Bolton and Frank Strazzeri and Frank Butler. But his own clarion, assertive voice always dominates.

The collection culminates in what Michael Cuscuna calls "Amy's masterpiece," Katanga!. It is indeed an album where everything magically works, from inspiration through execution. Pianist Jack Wilson and guitarist Ray Crawford use their allotted space beautifully, and Amy, in a stunning purity of tone, introduces his new instrument, soprano saxophone. But Katanga! will always be remembered as the last documented appearance on record of trumpeter Dupree Bolton, one of the most mysterious and tragic figures in the history of jazz. Bolton could spit fire and turn the flames into music on a level approaching Clifford Brown. But after Katanga! he disappeared into prisons, institutions and a life on the streets.”

The following video montage features Curtis Amy on soprano saxophone playing his original composition Lonely Woman. The tune is included on the Mosaic Select set and the Katanga CD. Curtis is joined by Dupree Bolton on trumpet, Ray Crawford on guitar, Jack Wilson on piano, Victor Gaskin on bass and Doug Sides on drums.

The New George Shearing Quintet: That Shearing Sound

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

“Shearing has always been a bit of a puzzle. At the keyboard he could do almost anything he put his mind to—as demonstrated by his various recordings of "Lullaby of Birdland," over the years, in a daunting range of styles; yet the question remains of what it was he really wanted to achieve as an artist. He earned his best sales with a sound that veered dangerously close to elevator music, and even his finest work seems to convey the facile elegance of a player who didn't want to work up a sweat. But just when one was tempted to dismiss Shearing as a shallow popularizer, he would deliver some very deep performance that would show the levels this artist was capable of reaching.”

- Ted Gioia, The Jazz Standards, A Guide to the Repertoire [p. 248]

At the time he wrote the insert notes to That Shearing Sound: The New George Shearing Quintet [Telarc CD-83347],  Leonard Feather and George Shearing had been friends for over a half century.

Its all here in Leonard's essay including why George decided to re-establish his quintet after a hiatus of almost 20 years.

“Although the name of George Shearing has been known worldwide for at least four decades, one of the least familiar aspects of his story is that he has enjoyed two separate careers.

He began at square one, an unknown making his record debut just before the onset of World War II. Over the next few years he made his way swiftly to the top, winning popularity polls, playing with England's top bands, recording regularly. He had scaled the heights, but one puzzling question remained: where do you go when you have done it all?

The answer, of course, was that he had done it all exclusively in England. The United States remained unknown territory for him, his recordings having remained unreleased there. As he found out during a brief visit to New York, if he had an American career in mind he would have to go back once again to square one.

That was how things went during late 1947 and all of 1948. The unknown youngster from England worked sporadically around 52nd Street, alone or with a trio. Word got around, but aside from a couple of sessions for Savoy he had no U.S. credits on record.

The turning point came when Albert Marx, a keen-eared talent scout, heard George leading a quartet at a club on the site of what later became Birdland. George was teamed with Buddy De Franco. The quartet might have enjoyed a fabulous life, had it not been for one hitch: De Franco was under contract to Capitol Records, but Marx wanted him and George for his own Discovery label.

Having known George from the early days in England, I talked over the problem and came up with a suggestion: why not try a quintet, with guitar and vibes instead of the clarinet? This had worked well in a couple of sessions I had organized, a Mary Lou Williams date with Margie Hyams on vibes, and a Slam Stewart session with Chuck Wayne on guitar.

"Let's try it," said George, taking the two musicians I had suggested — Hyams and Wayne — along with two who were already working with him, the bassist John Levy (who later gave up playing in order to concentrate on managing George and many other artists) and Denzil Best, a fine drummer and composer.

The Discovery session went off well, but meanwhile an offer had come from MGM Records to sign George exclusively with the quintet. In order to save his own original material for the first MGM session, George let me contribute several pieces for Discovery. There were hints here of the beginning of what came to be known as "the Shearing Sound," for which George's upper melody note was doubled on vibes with the lower note doubled on guitar.

In the course of working with the quintet, George achieved a blend that would soon establish this as the most popular new jazz group in America, or, for that matter, the world. After working his first in-person gig at Cafe Society, he soon found offers coming in to keep the format together, and following the recording of "September in the Rain" at the first MGM date, it was evident that the Shearing sound would produce a long series of hits.

Over the years the quintet became a launching pad for many soloists who went on to individual success: Toots Thielemans and Joe Pass on guitar, Gary Burton on vibes, Cal Tjader on percussion and vibes, Andy Simpkins on bass. By the 1970s George felt the time had come to vary the format, and began working in the duo setting that has served him well over the past two decades.

The present CD features an entirely different quintet. Neil Swainson had been George's regular bassist for six years; Louis Stewart had played guitar on a couple of previous dates. New to the Shearing entourage were the impressive vibraphonist Steve Nelson and the ex-Basie drummer Dennis Mackrell, of whom George comments: "If I ever have a record date coming up that calls for a drummer and Dennis is not available, I'll postpone the session. He's that good." ...

What struck me immediately on listening to this album was the extent to which the Shearing sound, now well over forty years old, has retained its validity. There have been many other Shearing settings over the years, each successful in its own way, but this innovative blend, which remained in power for many years, is as uniquely attractive today as it was when it enabled George Albert Shearing to conquer the world jazz scene.

— Leonard Feather”

Here’s George’s postscript:

“The year 1948 found me co-starring with Buddy De Franco at New York's Clique Club. Though Buddy and I have remained very good friends through the years, the time came, in 1949, for us to go our separate ways. Leonard Feather, with whom I have enjoyed a friendship since 1938, entered into the picture with a most useful idea. He advised keeping John Levy on bass and Denzil Best on drums and using Chuck Wayne on guitar and Marjorie Hyams on vibes. I had heard both players many times, so I had no trouble implementing Leonard's suggestion.

The rest is history until I disbanded the group in 1978. The main reason for the change was that I found myself putting the music on automatic pilot most of the time.

Through the years, the requests for the Quintet have been so numerous that I felt the time had come to address this issue "one more time." I must say that once I started writing the arrangements for this album, I was like a kid with a new toy. I woke up every day with another musical idea for the project. I trust that you will have as much fun listening to this album as I had writing for it and recording it.

In closing, I should like to thank Leonard Feather for his most valuable assistance and counsel throughout my career, both in America and in England. Leonard was an important part of my life long before the advent of the Quintet, and I felt it would be appropriate to ask him once again to make his contribution to another Quintet project.

— George Shearing”

And what better way to close this posting than with a video featuring images of Birdland, then and now, George Shearing , Louis Stewart, Steve Nelson, Neil Swainson and Dennis Mackrell performing George’s Lullaby of Birdland.?

Steve Wallace: Why the Melody Revisited

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

"I began to realize here that chord changes are defined and dictated by the melody note on top, that seemingly plain melody notes can lead to interesting chord possibilities and that none of this happens unless you pay attention to a song's melody. Really, the melody tells you what the chords mean, otherwise they're just clumps of notes."

- Steve Wallace, Jazz bassist

This piece by bassist Steve Wallace is one of the best I have ever read on how a Jazz musician develops melodic sensibilities.

Melody is one of the keystones of Jazz or, for that matter, any music.

Along with rhythm [and meter], harmony and texture [sonority, the actual 'sound' of the music], melody is one of the four atoms that helps create a Jazz composition.

When we listen to Jazz improvisations, essentially what we are hearing are alternative melodies created in real time and those solos that endure in our minds seem to have just the right amount of order, balance, grace and elegance in these substituted melodies.

Interestingly, improvised Jazz melodies can be long complete, musical sentences that have a form and structure all their own [alto saxophonist Lennie Niehaus comes to mind as an expert in weaving lengthy "lines'], but more often, the more effective Jazz solos are generally made up of short phrases, generally four or eight bars in length, which are usually heard in combination with other, similar phrases. 

The musical effect is something like a mosaic, with individual pieces joining together to create a beautiful whole.

Melody writing is the most mysterious aspect of music - the aspect that is almost impossible to teach - and yet, Jazz musicians are constantly inventing melodies on the spot each and every time they improvise.

How do they do it?

Enter Steve Wallace's essay.

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

I wanted to do something to celebrate the onset of Spring, so when a knowledgeable Jazz fan and friend sent me this piece by the Canadian bassist Steve Wallace, I thought it would make a perfect blog feature to herald the arrival of the season of renewal.

The late Jazz author and critic Martin Williams authored a book entitled Where’s the Melody? for those interested in gaining a better understanding of how Jazz works. For similar reasons, the subtitle of this feature is a take-off on Martin’s title.

At the end of the biographical information about Steve, you’ll find a video tribute to Spring featuring pianist Bill Evans performing Spring is Here with Scott LaFaro on bass and Paul Motian on drums.

© -  Steve Wallace, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“I heard a cardinal in high-fidelity just as I left my house the other morning – ‘bwordy, bwordy, bwordy’ echoing down the street. The trees being still bare, it was easy to spot him by following the song - he was up in the top of a maple about forty yards away. He shifted briefly from one branch to another and the light caught him at just the right angle, a brilliant rush of crimson, even at that distance. A morning thrill, a rarity these days, trust me. I stood listening and admiring him for a few seconds and then noticed some rustling in the big tree just overhead. Two robins were flitting about, not singing much. Just as I spotted them they flew off and again the sunlight hit them and I was treated to a flash of their rusty-orange breasts. A sure sign, I thought with a smile - spring is here.

There's a song for every occasion and this took me straight to Rodgers and Hart's great Spring Is Here - its melody began running through my head as I walked to the subway. It struck me that this song is a kind of analogy for my aging as a musician (and hopefully my growth as one) - when I was younger, I didn't have much use for it, but it's become a favorite tune in recent years. I think the difference is that I appreciate melody a lot more than I used to, understand it better.

Bassists like myself are often slow in developing a melodic sense, because the instrument doesn't often get to play melodies - being low-pitched, it's usually much more involved with rhythmic and harmonic duties, providing the floor for other people to dance on. When you're starting out, there's so much to learn and so many things to work on that it's tempting, maybe even necessary, to take some short cuts, leave some stuff out. I largely left out melody because it didn't seem all that relevant while I was busy learning the bass, the fingering positions, scales, developing intonation, a tone and endurance. Not to mention learning how to play walking bass lines, to handle different rhythmic feels at various tempos, developing a repertoire by learning and memorizing the chord changes of songs. Then there was the mental aspect of music - the theory, ear training, harmony, modes and chord scales and on and on. Who the hell had time for melody? I was too busy being a grunt in the engine rooms of bands, a sweat-hog grinding out the quarter-notes, trying to keep the tempos up and make things swing. It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.

Melody was for singers or the lead instruments to take care of and besides, in jazz, the melody is only played in the first and last choruses - in between came the important part, or so I thought - the improvisation, or "blowing" as we call it. I was so caught up in sound, quarter-note groove and chord changes that I almost developed a chauvinism about melody - it was for sissies, not hard swingers, and the further I stayed away from it, the more "bass-like" and functional my playing would be. I made some progress on the bass with this approach, but it never occurred to me back then that knowing and being able to play the melody of a song would make me a better improviser, or lead to lots of other useful information and technique. I also didn't realize that learning the melody would let me remember a tune much better than memorizing its changes. When I had difficulties playing a decent solo back then I rationalized it in all kinds of ways. I was tired from laying down all those quarter-notes and by the time a bass solo came around I didn't have much left - besides, bass solos are over-rated, right? If you're going to play one though, it might as well be musical and sound good, and this is where my melodic deficiencies began to show, to cost me. My ears had spent too long rumbling around in the basements of tunes, moving from root to root. My touch was powerful but not very supple or subtle.

My taste in songs back then was governed by this non-melodic outlook too. I tended to like tunes because of their interesting or logical chord changes, or if they had a strong blues element like say, Come Rain or Come Shine, or if their melodies tended to swing themselves, like As Long As I Live or I've Got the World On A String. And of course, I loved pieces by jazz composers like Ellington, Monk, Horace Silver, John Lewis and many others because they were made for blowing and swinging. Spring Is Here was an example of the kind of song I didn't like back then. First of all it was originally a ballad, meant to be played slowly (yawn) and I didn't care much for ballads unless they had interesting chords and lots of them, like Body and Soul or 'Round Midnight. Like a lot of young guys, I wanted everything to be fast, hard, dense and raging, to have a lot of energy, just as I did.

Spring seemed limp and vanilla to me. The melody was kind of static both in its rhythm and notes - the first part of each half was mainly dotted half-notes and whole-notes and the second sections were just quarter notes ascending diatonically from the third up an octave to a whole-note outside the key - I completely missed the drama and crescendo of this. The song had awkward chord changes too - its melody was so Plain-Jane that I couldn't hear any interesting ways to harmonize it. The opening phrase starts on the major seventh, goes up briefly to the tonic and resolves back down to the sixth, and this repeats. Big deal, I thought, what are you supposed to do with that? Where's the swing, the action here? I was too green to realize the diminished harmony implications of this type of melody and I seemed to have missed the class where they taught the diminished scale, one of the only really useful ones. I just couldn't get anything out of the tune at all, grimaced whenever it was called.

My opinion of Spring began to change after I heard Bill Evans play it on his great Portrait In Jazz record - hearing a genius play a song will tend to sell you on it. Bill's version is in A-flat, slow and lyrical as you'd expect but it's also really intense, there's lots of heat there. As always, he gets the piano to really sing the melody and found great chords for the song. He uses an E7 in the first bar, so the melody note G is the sharp nine of that chord, then resolves to an A-flat chord with an F on top and E-flat in the bass. This melody phrase repeats, but he keeps the chords moving downward with a Dmin7-flat5 and a D-flat7, avoiding monotony. When I first heard this, I thought my head was going to explode, it was just so brilliant. He also harmonizes every one of the ascending quarter-notes beautifully, breaking up the seeming static quality of the tune. Evans brings a lot of motion to the song even at this tempo and on a basic level that's what music is - tones moving in rhythm. I began to realize here that chord changes are defined and dictated by the melody note on top, that seemingly plain melody notes can lead to interesting chord possibilities and that none of this happens unless you pay attention to a song's melody. Really, the melody tells you what the chords mean, otherwise they're just clumps of notes.

Later, I heard recordings of Spring by singers like Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan and came to like it more from also hearing the words. They're by Lorenz Hart, who I think is in a class of his own as a lyricist. He was an unhappy, nasty, screwed-up guy but very gifted with rhyme, rhythm and wit, a poet really. I also played the song with a singer named Anne-Marie Moss, who was truly an awful bitch but could really sing slow ballads and this helped me appreciate the delicate, special mood of this song. The clincher for me though was recording it with singer John Alcorn on an album of all Rodgers and Hart songs about ten years ago. John sang it in the same key as Evans and used his chords, but did the song as a slow bossa nova, which really suits it. This type of tempo played with lots of space can be mesmerizing and when we finished the take I was soaked with sweat, barely aware of time or place. I thought to myself, ‘Jesus, Wallace, how could you have been such a dope? What a great song this is.’ Really, it's a singer's song, but many of the great ones are. The trick when playing it instrumentally is to maintain that vocal quality, as Evans did. Here are the words:

Spring is here.
Why doesn't my heart go dancing?
Spring is here.
Why isn't the waltz more entrancing?
No desire, no ambition leads me.
Maybe it's because nobody needs me.

Spring is here.
Why doesn't the breeze delight me?
Stars appear.
Why doesn't the night invite me?
Maybe it's because nobody loves me.
Spring is here, I hear.

Hart wrote some lyrics better than this, but not many, and not by much - they're just deadly and fit the melody beautifully. Beyond knowing the melody, Lester Young always insisted musicians should know the lyrics of the songs they play, even though they wouldn't be sung. He said knowing the words leads you to play the song at the right tempo, phrase it properly and breathe in the right places. Some find this ethereal but I think he's dead right - too often I've heard musicians wreck songs by playing them at the wrong tempo (usually too fast) and it's because they don't consider the words. Above all, knowing the words tells you what the song means, what it's about, which affects your approach to it, or should. At its best, playing a song is like telling a story, and it at least helps to know what the story is before you start talking or blowing your horn.

After playing the bass for several years I finally got more in touch with melody after seeking the advice of a great local musician, Don Thompson. Don does many things really well, I just hate him - plays great piano, vibes, bass, composes and arranges, you name it. In the late '70s he was playing a lot of bass and I heard him often. His left hand amazed me - his solos were really melodic and eloquent, he seemed to range all over the bass effortlessly with great articulation and pitch, it was scary. I finally worked up the nerve to ask him how he'd developed his left hand and he answered in his typically deadpan, slightly bland manner – ‘I practiced the melodies of songs in all twelve keys, really slowly, making sure I got the notes right.’

This gob smacked me, I was stunned - melodies in all twelve keys?!? The advice had come from God himself though, so I started working on it, with simple tunes like Georgia and Bye Bye Blackbird at first. It was slow going, hard work and mentally tiring, but it beat the hell out of scales and Simandl exercises and gradually I found that practicing this way improved all facets of my playing. I became freer ranging around the bass without thinking about the finger positions, letting my ear guide me, and different keys became less foreign and scary. My articulation and pitch improved, my ears opened up and I started to hear more, get more flow and ideas in soloing. Above all, I was learning about phrasing melodies, how they have contours and shapes. It began to occur to me that a song's melody is like its DNA, contains a code of interval patterns and relationships that define it and these can be used in improvising, in hearing counter-melodies, guide tones and even in finding better bass notes in accompaniment. I was beginning to almost feel like a housebroken musician, I only went all over the carpet occasionally now. Despite this foray into the lofty, romantic, ozone layer of melody though, girls continued to give me a pretty wide berth. I guess the glamour of the jazz life was just too much for them - yeah, that must have been it.

Ironically, areas like rhythm and harmony that seemed to have nothing to do with melody also improved. My walking bass lines and time feel sounded better because the articulation, pitch and note choices were better and my understanding of harmony became sharper because I was more aware and heard better. I started to relax a little when playing, rather than trying to hammer everybody over the head with fat quarter notes all the time. Much as people mistakenly think of the mind and body as being separate, I'd thought of melody as being distinct from rhythm and harmony, but really they're all intimately connected and melody leads straight to the other two and vice versa. Don Thompson's bass playing and mine are about as dissimilar as you could imagine, so it's also ironic that the best piece of musical advice I've ever received should have come from him, and I can't thank him enough.

Drums can't really play notes, but melody has a rhythmic component and good jazz drumming is informed by melody too, believe it or not. The really good drummers I've played a lot with - Terry Clarke, John Sumner, Barry Elmes, Ted Warren - all have a strong sense of melody and form, listen well and know how the tunes go, adjusting their phrasing, sounds and textures according to the melody, its shapes and dynamics. Jerry Fuller played pretty good bass and was an excellent scat singer. He often saved my butt if I wasn't sure of a tune - he'd hum the right bass notes to me while playing the drums. He was a great musician and a prince - God, how I miss him. Jake Hanna used to travel with a miniature xylophone and the melodies to lots of songs written out - he'd practice playing them every day. This kept his ears sharp, he called it "taking his melody vitamins." He used to say the melody chorus is also a jazz chorus and unless someone plays a stupendous solo, it's often the best chorus. Andrew Miller is a friend of my son Lee, a good young drummer and we played some together as a trio before he moved back to B.C. He kept a small pad and pencil and after certain tunes he'd lean over and ask me the name of the song, then he'd write it down. I asked him about this and he said if he didn't know a tune, he wanted the title so he could find a recording of it and listen - he said he played the tune better if he knew how it went. That's it in a nutshell - even if you don't play the melody, you'll play better if you know it. From the mouths of babes.

I'll always be attracted to the more extroverted and greasy aspects of jazz, that's just hard-wired into me. But now. playing lyrical tunes with beautiful melodies is also right up there among my favorite things to do. One of the nicest compliments I've ever received was from saxophonist Mike Murley a few years ago after he'd heard me play a set or two with somebody at the Montreal Bistro. ‘Wanker’ he said, ‘you really know how to play songs.’ It made me proud to hear this, because playing songs is important to me, I think of them as the basic unit of musical civilization, the same way having people over for dinner is the basic unit of social civilization. I try to impress this on younger music students whenever I'm talking with them - by all means, work on all the technical and theoretical stuff they're shoving at you in school, but don't lose sight of the big picture, keep your eye on the prize. The prize is playing songs - at the end of the day all your skills and everything you've learned should boil down to being able to stand up in front of people, play a song and make it your own, take it somewhere, have it sing, move people, excite them, hold their attention. If you can't do that, then what is the point of playing music at all?

When I go out to play or hear jazz, I want to hear musicians listening to one another, playing together. I'm not interested in any particular style, but I want to hear some lyricism, some space, some intensity, some feeling of the blues and swing. By these last two, I don't mean I literally want the music to sound like Big Joe Turner or Benny Goodman, although that wouldn't be the worst thing. I mean I want the music to have some dirt and cry in it, to show its ass a little bit, have a dancing quality and get off the ground. There should be lots of sweat and laughter - music is hard work and serious business, but it has to be fun too - after all, you don't work music, you play music. Above all, I want to hear some songs, or at least some music that has the quality of song in it. I don't want to hear what musicians know, I want to hear them translate what they know into what they feel - feeling is all that music is, really. You can't see it or touch it, you can only hear it and feel it.

I also don't want to hear mere cleverness or virtuosity, music that's all just about harmony or rhythmic algebra. Guys trying to outplay each other, not listening or leaving any room, running a bunch of notes together in an endless dirge of tuneless, limp drivel. Take this show-off, "jazz from the neck up" back to whatever school you learned it in, boys. This may sound old and cranky, and maybe it is - I'm gettin' there. Most of what I'm trying to say is nicely illustrated in a story about the great, unique pianist Jimmy Rowles, who knew as much about songs and harmony as anybody who ever lived. He was playing a piano-bass duet gig for a while and one night his regular bassist sent in a sub, who decided to try and impress the master with his knowledge of harmony by hitting him with a whole slew of super-hip bass notes and chord substitutions, playing everything but the kitchen sink. After a couple of tunes worth of this, and working on his second double vodka, Rowles turned to this Einstein of the bass with a glare and rasped "I'm aware of the possibilities … let’s just play the f---ing song the way it goes and make some music, OK?"

Betty Carter pushed the boundaries of jazz singing by trying to make the voice a fully-fledged improvising instrument like the others. This led her to more and more abstraction, making sounds with her voice that weren't conventional for singers, using a huge range, and often eschewing the melody. It was daring and difficult, a challenge for her, her musicians and audience. Some liked her singing, others shrugged and asked "Aren't singers supposed to sing the melody?" She was feisty, to put it mildly, and answered this by naming one of her records "It's Not About the Melody." While I have a lot of admiration for her and any other artist who hoes a hard, lonely road by going their own way, I have to respectfully disagree - it's always about the melody, that's where the music lives. Hear it and it will set you free, like a bird.”

© -  Canadianjazzarchive.org, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“STEVE WALLACE (bassist) was born on August 16, 1956 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and is today regarded by many as the most powerful bass player that Canada has produced. He is almost certainly the most experienced, having begun working with visiting jazz greats in Toronto clubs such as Bourbon Street, Lytes, and George’s Spaghetti House while he was still in his twenties, backing some of the music’s most famous names including Clark Terry, Harry ‘Sweets’ Edison, Eddie ‘Lockjaw’ Davis, George Coleman, Zoot Sims, and Pepper Adams.

He has also recorded and toured with some of the biggest names in Canadian jazz including Fraser MacPherson, Rob McConnell, Oscar Peterson, and Oliver Jones. In 1982 Steve became associated with the Concord Jazz label, touring the Soviet Union, Europe and Japan, and recording albums as a sideman with Rosemary Clooney, Ed Bickert, Mel Torme, and others.

He became bassist with Rob McConnell’s ‘The Boss Brass’ in 1983 and remained with the band for ten years. In 1985, he replaced ailing bassist George Duvivier to tour Europe, Japan, and Australia with Woody Herman's All Stars, a group that included Al Cohn, Buddy Tate, Urbie Green, John Bunch, and Jake Hanna. In more recent years Wallace again toured Europe frequently as a member of the Oscar Peterson Trio.

He has been bassist with the Barry Elmes Quintet since its formation in 1991, and a founding member of D.E.W. East (Dean, Elmes, Wallace), for whom Wallace also contributes his own new compositions. He is also a member of Rob McConnell's Tentet, the Mike Murley Trio, the David Braid Sextet, and the Sam Noto Quintet.

Steve Wallace is likely the most-heard musician in the three-decade-plus history of the “Sound of Toronto Jazz” Concert Series at the Ontario Science Centre, having played bass on no fewer than 24 individual concerts.”