Jack Teagarden, J.J. Johnson & Frank Rosolino - A Trombone Triumvirate

- Steven Cerra [C] Copyright protected; all rights reserved.

If one can be said to have a genetic pre-disposition to Jazz, when my haploid genome got to the trombone part in its development, it probably found that it was already programmed to find the instrument agreeable because of my father’s love of Jack Teagarden.

For a man who had no formal musical training, my Dad could press the thumb and forefinger of his left-hand to his lips as though he was holding a mouthpiece in place, use the thumb and forefinger of the right to pantomime moving the trombone slide through various positions and accurately blurt out every note of Teagarden’s solos on St. James Infirmary, Rockin’ Chair and When It’s Sleep Time Down South.


I once met Jack in person at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival while he was fueling-up at the all-day buffet in the Viking Hotel which is located very near Freebody Park, the venue for the festival.

Much later, I would encounter this description of Jack Teagarden by Whitney Balliett from the Big T chapter in his American Musicians: 56 Portraits in Jazz [New York: Oxford University Press, 1986] and reading it made me feel as though I was once again standing in Teagarden’s presence in 1956:

“Teagarden’s demeanor and appearance always belied his travails [he had been married four times, all relatively unsuccessfully; had no head for money and was a ‘gargantuan’ drunker]. He was tall and handsome, solid through the chest and shoulders. He had a square, open face and widely spaced eyes, which he kept narrowed, not letting too much of the world in at one time. His black hair was combed flat, its part just to the left of center. He was sometimes confused with Jack Dempsey.” [p. 161].

Gunther Schuller, in his essay entitled The Trombone in Jazz, a chapter in Bill Kirchner [ed.], The Oxford Companion to Jazz [New York: Oxford University Press, 2000] offers this assessment of what Jack Teagarden meant to Jazz trombone:

“Jack Teagarden brought a whole new level of musical sophistication and expressivity to trombone playing. By 1927, Teagarden had moved to New York, where he made his first recordings, amazing his fellow musicians with his versatility, original ideas, and profoundly moving ways of playing the blues.
Teagarden had a very easy, secure high register, and as a consequence was one of the first trombonists to develop and abundance of ‘unorthodox’ alternate slide positions, playing mostly on the upper partials of the harmonic series and thus rarely having to resort to the lower (fifth to seventh) positions. Since many of these alternate positions are impure in intonation, it is remarkable how in tune Teagarden’s playing was for that time.” [pp. 631-632; paragraphing modified].

As it turned out, it was the music from another day of the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival that figured directly into my introduction to the first of the two Jazz trombonists I came to prefer when I decided to purchase the Columbia LP [932; issued on disc as SME/SRCS 9522] that featured the Dave Brubeck Quartet and Jay and Kai at Newport.

Listening to the three tracks by the Jay  and Kay Quintet on this LP, I “met” J.J. Johnson for the first time and it was love-at-bass-clef on my part. I had heard Kai Winding earlier on some Stan Kenton 78’s that a friend loaned me, but it was a new experience for me to hear his big, open sound in a small group setting.
Here’s what Günter Schuller has to say about the Kenton trombones and Kai Winding:

“Another remarkable trombone section, totally different than Ellington’s was that of Stan Kenton’s orchestra. Beginning in the mid-1940s, its style initiated and set by Kai Winding, it revolutionized trombone playing stylistically, especially in terms of the sound (brassier, more prominent in the ensemble) and type of vibrato (slower, and mostly lack thereof), as well as by adding the ‘new sound’ of a bass trombone (Bart Vasolona and later George Roberts). The Kenton trombone section’s influence was enormous and continues to this day.

Although the section’s personnel changed often over the decades, it retained its astonishing stylistic consistency, not only because of stalwarts such as Milt Bernhart and Bob Fitzpatrick held long tenures in the orchestra, but because incoming players, such as Bob Burgess and Frank Rosolino and a host of others, were expected to fit into the by-then-famous Kenton brass sound.” [op. cit., p. 637; paragraphing modified].

With the wonderful rhythm section of Dick Katz on piano, Bill Crow on bass and Rudy Collins on drums, both J.J. and Kai produced a brash, brassy, and vibrato-less sound on trombone that seem to leap out of the NJF recordings.

From what Willis Conover said when he introduced the Johnson-Winding band at the 1956 NJF, I gathered that this was one of the group’s last performance together. I was so excited by the two trombone sound that I searched out other recordings that the Jay and Kai Quintet had made during its existence from 1954-56.

A few years later, when my family moved to Southern California, I was introduced to the other half of my preferred Jazz trombone tandem when I visited The Lighthouse Café in Hermosa Beach, CA and I heard the inimitable Frank Rosolino perform as part of Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse All-Stars [LHAS].

Over the next two years, for the better part of 1958 through 1959, I was able to hear Frank five nights a week [with a double set on Sunday] with Bob Cooper [ts], Victor Feldman [piano and vibes], Howard Rumsey [bass] and Stan Levey [d] with Conte Candoli occasionally joining in to make it a sextet.

Frank and I hit it off right away because I knew that his last name was properly pronounced in Italian as “Rose-o-lino” and not the more customary English pronunciation of “Ross-o-lino.”]

It was not until much later that I came to understand J.J. Johnson’s place in the pantheon of be-bop gods as described in the following from Ira Gitler’s Jazz Masters of the 40s[New York: Da Capo, 1982]:

“As the BOP REVOLUTION spread, solo instruments other than the trumpet, alto sax, and piano began to echo the doctrines of Parker and Gillespie. The trombone, largely a rhythm instrument in the dawn of jazz before it was granted true solo privileges, had never been played in the swift, extremely legato, eighth-note style that J.J. Johnson introduced in the mid-forties. Since that time there have been few new trombonists who haven’t shown some manifestation of Johnson's style in their playing.

An innovator in areas of tone and technique, translator of bop ideas on his instrument, Johnson became the most influential and popular trombonist of the modem era. Whereas most of the giants of the forties were volatile personalities in one way or another, Johnson has always been soft-spoken, modest, and usually reserved, completely different in temperament from Gillespie, Parker, or Powell.” [p. 137]
But what I did know was how much I enjoyed listening to the sound that both J.J. and Frank produced on the trombone.

As for Frank, I had vague remembrances of his playing with Kenton on Frank Speaking and I Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good, but once again I was unaware of his ground-breaking significance concerning the instrument per the following quotation from trombonist, arranger and composer – Bill Russo – in Ted Gioia’s The History of Jazz, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997]:

“Crediting Rosolino for broadening the technique of the trombone, Bill Russo recalled: ‘We were all staggered by what he could do, not only at the speed of his technique and that he played so well in the upper register, but that he had such incredible flexibility.” [pp. 268-269].

More background about the development of Frank’s incredible facility on trombone can be found in the following from Ted Gioia, although the source for the citation changes to his West Coast Jazz, Modern Jazz in California: 1945-1960 [New York: Oxford University Press, 1992]:

"Rosolino was the son of immigrant parents from Sicily [my father who was from an area around Rome promised not to hold this against him!] who settled in Detroit, where Frank was born on August 20, 1926. His father, a talented musician who played mandolin, clarinet and guitar, started instructing him on guitar at age nine and encouraged him to study the accordion at thirteen. The old-country instrument did not appeal to the youngster. Instead, he convinced his father that he was big enough to learn the trombone. Beginning on a $25 model purchased at a pawnshop, Rosolino spent much of his practice time mimicking the exercises his brother Reso played on the violin. ‘Maybe that’s why I started thinking of playing with speed,' Rosolino later mused.” [pp. 221]

Over the years, as I heard Frank night after night with the LHAS, and later with the Terry Gibbs Dream Band at The Summit or with his own quartet with Victor Feldman on piano which appeared one night a week at Shelly’s Manne Hole, it became very easy to agree with the following assessment of Frank’s playing by Gene Lees in his Meet Me at Jim and Andy’s: Jazz Musicians and Their World [New York: Oxford University Press, 1988]:

“Frank Rosolino was … [o]ne of the finest trombone players in the history of the instrument, he had a superb tone, astonishing facility, a deep Italianate lyricism, and rich invention. Frank was very simply a sensational player. In addition he had a wonderful spirit that always communicated itself to his associates on the bandstand or the record date.” [p. 111].

Or as Bob Gordon succinctly phrased it in his Jazz West Coast: The Los Angeles Jazz Scene of the 1950s [London: Quartet Books, 1986]:

“… Frank Rosolino remains ‘sui generis,’ a trombonist with a truly unique style.” [p. 146].

And all this time, here I was messing around with these two trombonists having no idea that they were two giants; I just loved listening to them play.

Because of my proximity to Frank’s playing, J.J., who was based in New York at this time, kind of got pushed into the background a bit until one day when a copy of J.J. Inc [Columbia 1606] arrived at the door courtesy of the Columbia Record Club.

What an album! I still have the original LP and it is a miracle that it plays given the number of times a needle has cut through the vinyl.

Of course, it has been subsequently supplanted by a CD [Columbia Legacy CK 65296] which much to my delight contains an extended version of one of the tracks that appeared on the original LP and two bonus tracks that were not included on the vinyl version.

And to say that as a result of this LP, J.J. was back in my life would be an understatement, because he brought along with him Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Cedar Walton on piano, before both joined Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Clifford Jordan on tenor saxophone, Arthur Harper on bass and the ever-pulsating Albert “Tootie” Heath on drums in what is perhaps the best recording Tootie ever made and he has made a lot of ‘em.

This recording offers J.J. Johnson at the peak of his form as a Jazz trombonist and it also shows his gifts as both a composer and a arranger as he wrote seven of its nine tracks and arranged all of them.
This recording is a composite snapshot of everything that was going on in the Jazz world of its time [1960/61] from the modal sounds of Miles’ Kind of Blue to the hard bop infusion of gospel and blues into bebop, to the ¾ time craze and minor harmonies preferred by the “My Favorite Things” John Coltrane quartet to the next generation of up-and-coming, front line soloists as represented by Hubbard, Jordan, Walton and Heath.

And what a perfect context for all of this material and personnel than to have as its leader – J.J. Johnson – to unify all of these elements and have them realize their potential.

Of the six tracks that comprised the original LP, Richard Cook and Brian Morton had this to say about Aquarius in their The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD: 6th Edition [New York: Penguin Books, 2002]:

“”Aquarius’ is the best evidence yet of J.J.’s great skills as a composer-arranger. As fellow-trombonist Steve Turre points out in a thoughtful liner-note to the augmented reissue, it’s a work that is almost orchestral in conception, making full-use of the three-horn front line, and also Walton’s elegant accompaniment. Brasses are pitched against saxophone and piano in a wonderful contrapuntal development, and ‘Tootie’ Heath gets a rich sound out of the kit.” [p. 800].

As Teo Macero points out in the liner notes to the LP, “When J.J. finished composing In Walked Horace, he exclaimed, ‘Look what I’ve done! It’s Horace Silver.’” The medium tempo tune is based on “Rhythm Changes” and contains the total surprise of Clifford Jordan taking over in the middle of a Freddie Hubbard chorus and continuing it as though nothing had happen! J.J.’s “solo” on the tune consists of trading 8’s, then 4’s, then 2’s and then 1’s with Tootie Heath before Cedar ends the soloing with one of his perfectly crafted solos based on evenly spaced eight-note phrases with more than their share of funk.

There are two versions of Fatback, a straight-ahead F blues with a slick head in 6/8 time that is punctuated by Tootie playing eight-note triplets on the cymbal along with a stiff back beat on the snare drum. Besides a cooking introduction by Cedar, the extended version of Fatback “… shows just how funky J.J. could be when he let go.” [Ibid]. In my opinion, this is the best extended solo that J.J. ever put on record; you’ll hear phrases and ideas on this track that he has never repeated on any other solo. He takes the opening solo so well that he inspires great performances from the other members of the band, including one with Freddie playing over stop time, as they all stretch out magnificently on this slow blues [Clifford Jordan’s tenor solo verges on being a ‘bar-walker’ in places!].

Minor Mist [named by a member of the audience at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco] is according to J.J. – “a dark pulse” [the ‘pulse’ part being reinforced by Tootie’s use of tympani mallets on tom toms.] It is held together by a vamp around which J.J. weaves its beautiful melody.

Shutterbug is an up-tempo minor blues written in a 20-bar form whose series of solos are separated by interludes that have the same rhythm [played in time], but are based on different harmonies. Tootie plays the “line” [melody] using the stick across the snare drum “knocking sound” on the 4th beat of each bar that Philly Joe Jones used to drive the original Milestones [on the Miles Davis Columbia album of the same name]. This cut will swing you into next week.

Written in 3/4 time, Mohawk, is a minor blues that was so named by J.J. after he wrote the tune because of “the Indian flavor in its harmony.”

Added to the augmented version that was released on CD are Dizzy Gillespie’s Blue ‘n Boogie, an up-tempo cooker and J.J.’s Turnpike both of which find all the members of the sextet in fine form. Each of these bonus tracks offer excellent, extended solos by J.J. who is obviously feeling very comfortable being backed by the Walton-Harper-Heath rhythm section. J.J.’s playing on these two tracks is ineffable and must be heard to be believed.

The best summary one could offer for J.J.’s music and playing on J.J. Inc. is contained in Steve Turre’s closing insert notes paragraph:

“There are many wonderful trombone players in America's classical music – jazz - and they have different areas of excellence that they bring to the music. The profundity of J.J. Johnson is that he is totally balanced in all areas - as a trombonist, as a musician and as a beautiful human being. (What you are as a person comes out of the horn in the music') He has no one area of excellence - at the expense of other areas. He has range both high and low, a huge sound, a flawless attack, dynamics. speed, swing and soul, and yet all these great powers are only used to serve the music. They are never used superficially for their own sake. He did for the trombone what Charlie Parker did for the saxophone. He brought the trombone into the modern world with a unique conception that affected all those who came after him and set the standard that is yet to be matched. He still "Chairman of the Board" and I love him and thank him all the beautiful music, inspiration and guidance.”

In the late 1950’s, listening to Frank Rosolino play trombone night after night at the Lighthouse, and later at other venues in and around Hollywood, was an experience I’ll never forget. The man was a phenomenally inventive instrumentalist.

Aside from the Mode-LP # 107 pictured above [which has some splendid tenor sax playing by Richie Kamuca on it], I also possessed copies of his two, not-easy-to-find Bethlehem LP’s, I Play Trombone: Frank Rosolino [BCP -26; released as a Japanese CD by Toshiba-EMI, TOCJ-62051] with the marvelous Sonny Clark on piano,

and the Russ Garcia arranged Four Horns and a Lush Life [BCP-46; released as a Japanese CD by Toshiba-EMI, TOCJ-62052],

Although I did not own any of them at the time, I was even fortunate enough to hear some of the 10” and 12” LP’s that Frank recorded for Capitol under the “Kenton Presents Jazz” banner all of which have been collected and subsequently released as Mosaic Records MD4-185:

With outstanding arrangements by Bill Holman, trumpeter Sam Noto and alto saxophonist Charlie Mariano joining Frank on the front line and a brilliant rhythm section of Pete Jolly [p], Max Bennett [b] and Mel Lewis [d], it is regrettable that these recordings didn’t have a wider distribution thus giving Frank a greater national exposure.

But it was through an association that I had with pianist-vibist [and drummer] Vic Feldman that I kept hearing about the “Wait until you hear Frank on the date we just did with Harold Land and Stan Levey.” Victor was an unassuming and understated fellow who took his own talents for granted and didn’t throw around praise lightly, if at all. So when he got excited you just knew it had to be over something very special.

Unfortunately, it was to be a long wait, for although the music in question had been recorded in December of 1958, it wasn’t released until 1986, eight years after Frank’s death.

When the music was ultimately released as the album Free for All [Specialty SP 2161; OJCCD- 1763-2, Leonard Feather commented in the original liner notes:“The existence of the present volume was unknown except to those who had taken part in it – and, particularly, the man who produced it, David Axelrod. ‘Frank and I were excited about this album,’ Axelrod recalls, ‘because it was going to be the first hard bop album recorded and released on the West Coast. We wanted to get away from that bland, stereotyped West Coast image. We worked for weeks on planning the personnel and the songs; the results were terrific. It was a great disappointment to us both that the record, for reasons which we never understood, wasn’t released.’”

While taking some exception to the claim about the first hard bop album on the West Coast [and deservedly so as he notes the pioneering work in this regard by Clifford Brown, Curtis Counce and Harold Land], Ted Gioia in West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California, 1945-60 [New York: Oxford University Press, 1992] goes on the state:

“With a strong supporting band of composed of Harold Land, Stan Levey, Leroy Vinnegar and Victor Feldman, Rosolino created some of his finest work of the decade. The arrangements are well crafted; familiar standards such as ‘Star Dust’ and … [‘Love for Sale’] take on a new luster through provocative tempo and rhythm changes.” [p. 221].

Love for Sale opens the album with the melody played behind Stan Levey’s 6/8 Latin figure that resolves into a wickedly fast, double-timed 4/4 bridge. The blowing takes place in a slower, medium tempo and Frank’s and Harold Land’s solos "… establish immediately that this is a tough, no-holds-barred blowing session” [Leonard Feather’s liner notes].

A similar, finger-popping medium tempo is employed on Chrisdee an original by drummer Levey whose foot sounds like it’s going to snap through the high-hat pedal as he emphatically shows the soloists where 2 and 4 are and “don’t you dare try to speed this thing up.” It has been said of Levey that when he was playing time you can set your watch to it and this cut is a perfect example of that truism. The tune “… is a bebop line based on a cycle of fifths, with a somewhat Monkish bridge.” [Feather]

The ballad Twilight is an original Victor Feldman composition that also puts on display his skills as an arranger as there is no improvisation until Land begins a solo well into the tune. Frank plays the “beguilingly pensive” melody with Land sounding the chord root in the background over Feldman’s full chording and comping. It is a stunningly beautiful piece. Star Dust is the other ballad featured on the album.

The title track Free for All is a 24-bar blues original by Rosolino on which he employs his considerable arsenal of trombone techniques [including effortless sounding triple-tongued licks] to demonstrate that he really can play the blues. Land and Feldman join in for a few choruses to demonstrated that they too are card-carrying members and the chart comes to a close with a surprise ending!

There is No Greater Love is played in unison by the horns and taken at a crisp tempo that shows how wonderfully well Levey and Vinnegar work together and why the tune has been a jam session stand-by ever since it was written in 1956. The tunes chords “lay” so easily so as to make all of the solos sound effortless and uncontrived.

Sneakyoso is a Rosolino original that Leonard Feather describes as offering the quintet “an ingenious vehicle, its attractive changes providing good opportunities for Frank to work out. Note the fine comping Victor furnishes for Harold Land before taking over for his own solo. The two horns engage with Stan Levey before the head returns.”

As was the case with most of his recorded output, Frank was always interested in tempo and harmony changes to help the music sound fresh and new, and this is no less the case with everything that appears on Free for All.

Paired with J.J. Inc, I can think of no finer recording than Free for All to recommend to anyone wishing to hear the best of J.J. and Frank at work.

Many years later, after all of the East Coast versus West Coast nonsense had died down, I saw J.J. [who had, by then, been in Hollywood for a number of years writing for TV and the movies] sitting with Frank at Donte’s, a Jazz club and musicians hang-out in North Hollywood, CA. It was early in the evening before the set began and the two were having a quiet dinner together.

I must admit to not thinking very much about it at the time, after all, given the number of TV, motion picture and recording studios located there, musicians having a meal or a drink together in Hollywood and its environs is a common enough occurrence.

Also, since that occasion, and especially after 1978, it was always difficult for me to think about Frank and his music, given the tragedy associated with his death. Matters weren’t help much in this regard with the news of J.J.’s suicide in 2001 after a protracted struggle with cancer.

However, some 30 years later, I came across the following quotation from J.J. and it helped me to recall the memory of that quiet dinner meeting and reminded me of how much I loved the playing of both of these trombone giants. That memory and this quotation prompted me to write this piece as a loving tribute to both of them:

“Frank Rosolino was a towering genius and a trombone virtuoso in the jazz genre. His style was unique and instantly recognizable. He was a warm, fun loving, charming human being and I miss his infectious giggle.”

Remembering Don Friedman - 1935-2016

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

Pianist Don Friedman died on June 30, 2016.

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles has fond memories of the four LP’s he did for Riverside Records in the mid-1960s including A Day in the City, Circle Waltz,  Flashback and Dreams and Explorations which featured the talents of guitarist Attila Zoller, bassist Chuck Israels, and drummer Pete LaRoca, among others.

His Hot Knepper and Pepper which finds him in the company of trombonist Jimmy Knepper and baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams and his solo piano ventures - I Hear A Rhapsody and At Maybeck Recital Hall  - are also among our favorite recordings.

The editorial staff thought that it would be nice to remember Don on these pages with the following article by Don Nelson which featured in Down Beat magazine in 1964 during the early years of Don Friedman’s career in Jazz.

“The talk at Friedman's place turned to recognition of jazz musicians, The host sat on his piano bench and carefully dusted a new but growing paunch with his fingertips.

"Well," he observed with a smile—followed by a laugh, "if I don't win that New Star award soon, I'll be  too old to care.”

The laugh clearly showed it wasn't worrying him.  But if perhaps it had, the Aug. 13 edition of Down Beat carried the news that the International Jazz Critics Poll had named Friedman top man in the wider-recognition piano category. He could stop worrying. And at 29, he isn't too old to carry it,

But why the delay in recognition? Did the critics think other players more deserving? There are many fine pianists around, and it isn't difficult to get lost in the shuffle. A possible explanation.

ln Friedman's case, the delay is a bit harder to understand. Certainly, such critical mal de memory does not operate among his fellow musicians. The San Francisco-born pianist works more steadily than most jazzmen - and at playing jazz, not at the transcription or studio work that provides extensive moonlighting opportunities for many jazz musicians.  He is one of the few white musicians whom Negro players seem to have no hesitancy in hiring.   His very range of  musical   sidemanship — invitations to work with such differing minds as Herbie Mann, Harry Edison, Don Ellis, and Jimmy Giuffre — suggests the high.repute in which lie is held.

A less patent factor in this delayed recognition  may  be  his ' supposed debt to Bill Evans.

"Friedman? Yeah, he plays good. Sounds like Bill Evans.”

Then talk promptly switches to Evans and his influence on Jazz pianists.

This rather damn-with-faint-praise dismissal may have a modicum of justification; but anyone who has glued his ears to Friedman’s recent records or heard him in person must conclude  - with one reservation — that he sounds no more like Evans than does, say. Hank Jones.

The reservation concerns Friedman's approach to a ballad.  He agrees that his approach is lyric and romantic, like Evans'.  He says further that Evans' playing has deeply impressed him.  Beyond this he sees little similarity in their playing. And rightly so, for the evidence is on record -and live, too— that in his choice of harmonics and rhythmic patterns, Friedman's IOU to Evans is for small change only.

Furthermore, Friedman differs philosophically from Evans in regard to attitude toward music.   Evans has deplored an  over-intense involvement with music, fearing too complete a commitment to music, to the exclusion of other interests, would pervert the art and the artist. A whole man, he said, should be able to function in a whole world.

Friedman might not disagree specifically, but his outlook is more optimistic.

"I'm wrapped up in music, but I don't fear being that way," he said. "I feel I can become more and more interested in music every day. I think that my discoveries in music will force me to learn more about other things. A stimulated interest can become interested in various subjects."

A part of this wrapping — a substantial part — is practice.

"I get more enjoyment out of practicing than I ever did before because I've begun to accept it as part of my life. I've been playing since I was 5, and by the time I reached 16 I was sick of both piano and practice, and I stopped playing. Then I got with jazz, and the picture changed. Now I look forward to playing and figuring things out.

"I practice mainly two types of music — jazz and classical. Classical for my hands, not so that I'll have more technique in jazz. Classical music gives me a certain feeling in my hands that I dig. I have no practice schedule. But there is a point in every day when I feel like getting to the piano. I usually have something in mind that I want to look into. I start off and go on from there."

Friedman's practice hall is one of three first-floor rooms he rents in a tenement on Manhattan's upper east side. From the entrance, his apartment door is 30 feet down a dark, grimy hallway whose stale odor is occasionally relieved by the fragrance of freshly baked bread, which osmosed through the walls from a bakery next door. He lives there cozily by himself, preparing for the great things to come.

He weighs, in condition, 145 pounds. He is not now in condition, although he would probably deny this and explain his paunch is the result of a clean and pure life during the last couple of years.

Recently, he shaved off a mustache he considered a stylish decoration. He just got tired of it, but it was great while it lasted.

"Anyway," he observed, "I only grew it as a test to see if I could grow one. When it appeared, I liked it. My father had a mustache when I was a kid, so I guess I was always envious of the fact that he had one and I didn't and couldn't."

Thus the Friedman urge to overcome keeps revealing itself.

His musical problems are overcome — at least the attempt is made — in his living room, which contains a sagging sofa, a television set, a few books, and a scarred upright piano. There, overlooking a barren backyard that is the playground of his landlady's two rawboned cats, he invites his hand and brain to grapple with unanswered questions.

OUTSIDE, by the front door, a mailbox nameplate identifies the source of the sounds he makes as the Friedman-LaFaro apartment. The LaFaro is Scott, the muse-touched young bassist who died in an auto accident three years ago. The two, close friends, shared these quarters for about a year after LaFaro had arrived from Los Angeles. Friedman has never bothered to take the nameplate down.

"I just wanted Scotty's name up somewhere," he said.

With these two fertile imaginations in close communication, the question arises as to whether either exercised any influence on the other. "Influence" is, of course, a term indispensable to the critical lexicon, and hardly an article can be written without it. Friedman took the question with good grace, however. His answer was that he really couldn't be certain.

"I do know that I picked up on his way of voicing chords," Friedman said. "He had a particularly beautiful way of voicing half-diminished chords. Other than that, I don't know. I do feel — although again I don't know — that in the last part of his life he might have been influenced by my thinking too. I know he got very interested in Schoenberg, Bartok, and Berg, things he wasn't into before. But I really don't know how much of a part I played in his thinking in this direction."

The pianist will also, not surprisingly, remark of saxophonists Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, and Charlie Parker in his work, primarily in the area of harmony.

"I dig the way they break up intervals," Friedman said. "They have ways of playing changes that make new things possible. I once heard Coltrane resolve a 2-5-1 in some original of his. I never heard anybody do this before, and I tried to incorporate it into my playing."

Of course, in working it out, it became less Coltrane and more Friedman. A creator always will use an idea, not be used by it. He does not copy, he transfigures.

Friedman also digs players such as Stan Getz, Miles Davis, Lee Konitz, and Lennie Tristano for their ability to build a song.

"The biggest thing I learned from studying composition," he said, "was that you could take a few notes or an idea, which consists of a rhythmic pattern, a certain series of chords, or certain intervals, and develop a whole section of a piece or a whole piece. That's what makes the great musician—the ability to build steadily to a climax, relax, then do it again and have it all hang together as one piece, as one song."

RIGHT NOW, Friedman is going through a stage that some might call musical schizophrenia. He would deny that the term is appropriate and hold that music is music, or jazz is jazz, and that there is no contradiction between playing free-form music and music with traditional chord changes and enjoying both equally. In fact, he claims that playing free-form music with such as Jimmy Giuffre and Don Ellis has enhanced his command of ideas and techniques in "traditional" jazz.

His own view vis-a-vis the direction his playing is taking is equivocal.

"I don't know yet which way I'm traveling," he said. "I sincerely enjoy playing both types of jazz. I dig playing with Herbie Mann just as much as I do with Jimmy Giuffre. As long as I get that feeling that playing jazz gives you, it doesn't make much difference which way I get it."

Possibly. But an audit of Friedman's four albums for Riverside—the last, Dreams, Explorations, and Episodes, was not released before the company went out of business—reveals an increasing use of nonchordal or free-form techniques. His first LP — A Day in the City — is built entirely on traditional structures, as is his second, Circle Waltz. But Flashback, the third, contains two free-form pieces, while Dreams and Explorations offers four. Friedman discounts these "statistics."

"Maybe," he said, but added, "Anyway, I'm not at the stage yet where I can consider discarding the traditional system. Frankly, I don't know if I ever will."

There is no doubt, however, that free-form music was directly responsible for Friedman's development of The System, a method designed to enable the pianist to develop his musical capacities to the fullest. But it almost defies lucid explanation in precise terms. It is ... well... a way of concentrating all one's energies on the solution of a particular question. More.

It treats of the problem, when playing, of putting certain notes in certain places at certain times so that everything fits just right.

Further, The System's ingredients form a part of an overall attack on a problem more and more jazz musicians may come to face. Friedman said:

"My system is my solution to the problems which develop when a jazz musician, who has been playing jazz based on the traditional chord scheme, suddenly finds himself faced with a non-chordal, free-form music. The system developed as I tried to find a way to play the new music."

At first, Friedman says, he more or less groped his way in free-form music, even though "I could improvise at 5, and I didn't know a damn thing about chords then."

His first non-chordal flight was, perhaps oddly, on a public bandstand while playing a song based on usual chord progressions.

"I was in the middle of a tune and suddenly discarded the frame of the tune altogether and started improvising," he said.

"I evolve my melodic ideas from classical music and try to develop them in a compositional way. But rhythmically I rely entirely on my jazz experience."

Currently, his jazz experience is much concerned with getting a quartet off the ground, the quartet that made the Dreams album. His partners are another new poll winner, guitarist Attila Zoller, bassist Dick Kniss, and drummer Dick Berk. Together they are investigating — mostly at home, Friedman admits ruefully — more and more the uncharted territory of free-form ideas.

A key goal of The System is, along with the solution of problems posed by free-form music, to "conscious-ize" his intuition. Like other superior musicians, Friedman can improvise intuitively, but he wants more than that.

"The finest musicians have been able to take fragments and build compositions from them," he said. "I don't know whether they've done it consciously or unconsciously, but there it is. I know I did it intuitively at first and then consciously.

My greatest feeling comes from doing something intuitively and realizing it consciously at the same time."

What all this system business may amount to, however, is a recasting of a familiar story into a new mold: the story of an artist's creativity discovering itself constantly, perhaps expressed at first unconsciously but then consciously as the artist becomes aware of a new idea or feeling and tries to attain control of expression so that he can say what he wishes in just the way he wishes. Friedman appears able to do this with increasing skill. System schmystem.”

"Stan Levey, Jazz Heavyweight: The Authorized Biography" [From the Archives]

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

"Stan Levey is without a doubt one of the greatest drummers ever and one of the founding fathers of modern music. Along with Klook, Max, and Art, there was Stan Levey, who learned directly from Dizzy when they were both living in Philadelphia, As a result, Stan contributed to this beautiful art form and played on some pivotal recordings. Jazz Heavyweight is fascinating!"

—Wallace Roney, Grammy Award-winning jazz trumpeter

"I think Jazz Heavyweight is a piece of jazz history that's very important to document. Stan is a link. His life is an amazing story and he was a lovely man. I was totally in awe of meeting him and the legacy that he carries.”

—Charlie Watts,, Rolling Stones drummer

"Stan Levey was the drummer every bebopper wanted in his rhythm section. And with good reason. Jazz Heavyweight illuminates his role as an ultimate insider and important player—musically and otherwise—during one of jazz history's most vital eras.”

—Don Heckman, International Review of Music

"Jazz Heavyweight embraces the life and times of a Renaissance man in a topsy turvy world, rich with personalities and celebrities. Having lived through some of this crazy world with Stan and my Dad, this biography really hit home. A must-read.”

—Frank Marshall, motion picture director and producer

"It has been my privilege to have known and worked with Stan Levey. Stan was one of the greatest drummers of our time. While reading this book I was reminded of the many facets of Stan, and it invoked several memories of our years working together in the early 1960s with Dizzy Gillespie. He truly had a strong sense of musicality and most importantly soul, which was evident in each and every performance.”

—Lalo Schifrin, Grammy Award-winning pianist and composer

"Stan Levey was a superb, yet underrated drummer on both the New York bebop scene and the West Coast milieu. Frank Hayde's engaging biography shines a welcome light on this remarkable percussionist and delivers choice stories, a great many in Levey's own voice, lending a deep credibility to this book.”

—Zan Stewart, ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award recipient

“The Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie era of modern Jazz that Stan is associated with has been referred to as a time ‘when giants walked the earth.’  If so, both physically and creatively, Stan Levey was a Giant among giants.”

It’s not every day that you get to learn more about one of your earliest musical influences and enduring heroes.

Imagine my delight, then, when Jeffrey Goldman sent me a preview copy of Stan Levey, Jazz Heavyweight: The Authorized Biography by Frank R. Hayde and Charlie Watts. The book has an “On-sale-date” of March 15, 2016 and you can locate order information at www.santamonicapress.com. The book is also available through Amazon both in print and digital editions.

As Jeffrey’s media release explains:

“Stan Levey is one of the most influential drummers in the history of modern jazz. During his extraordinary career, the self-taught Levey played alongside a who's who of twentieth century jazz artists: Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Stan Getz, Coleman Hawkins, Art Tatum, Ben Webster, Dexter Gordon, Lester Young, Thelonious Monk, Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Ella Fitzgerald ... the remarkable list goes on and on, and includes dozens of the most distinguished names in the annals of jazz and popular music.

Jazz Heavyweight follows Levey's prolific and colorful life, from his childhood days in rough-and-tumble North Philadelphia as the son of a boxing promoter and manager with ties to the mob, to his stint as a professional heavyweight boxer, to his first gig as a drummer for Dizzy Gillespie at the tender age of sixteen and his meteoric rise as one of the most sought-after sidemen in the world of bebop, to his membership in the Lighthouse All-Stars and his prominent role in the creation of West Coast Jazz.

Coinciding with his years anchoring the Lighthouse All-Stars, Levey recorded over two thousand tracks while doing session work with such, vocalists as Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, and Barbara Streisand. Levey ended his music career as a prolific player on literally thousands of motion picture and television show soundtracks under the direction of legendary composers Lalo Schifrin, Henry Mancini, Nelson Riddle, and Andre Previn, among many others.

Jazz aficionados will relish Jazz Heavyweight for its new, never-before-published information about such hugely influential musicians as Parker, Gillespie, and Davis, while jazz neophytes will find a fast-paced, colorful encapsulation, of the entire history of modern jazz. This book is essential reading for anyone seeking an up-close-and-personal look at jazz in. the latter half of the twentieth century.”

I thought it might be fun to append an earlier blog feature on Stan as part of the review of the new book about him in order to add some personal dimensions to the story of a drummer, who along with Shelly Manne, Mel Lewis and Larry Bunker, was one of the predominant drummers on the West Coast Jazz Scene during its heyday in the 1950s.

Ironically, Stan’s style of playing drums was shaped by Max Roach who was, along with Kenny Clarke, Art Blakey and Philly Joe Jones, one of the mainstays of the East Coast Jazz scene during the same decade!

The concluding video features Stan with bassist Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse All-Stars for which Stan was a mainstay from 1954-1960 The tune is tenor saxophonist Bob Cooper’s Jazz Invention. Joining Stan, Bob and Howard on this track are Conte Candoli, trumpet, Frank Rosolino, trombone, and Victor Feldman on vibes.

While you are reading all these deserving words of praise about Stan and his storied career I can’t emphasize enough the magnitude of his accomplishment. No one taught him how to create music at a consistently high artistic level in a wide variety of settings whether it be in big bands, or in small groups, or in backing vocalists. He did all of this primarily through his own desire to succeed.

The Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie era of modern Jazz that Stan is associated with has been referred to as a time “when giants walked the earth.” If so, both physically and creatively, then Stan Levey was a Giant among giants.

“En fait, Stan a été influence par le jeu de Kenny Clarke sur la cymbal ride en accompagnement et par Max Roach pour les solos.”

- Georges Paczynski, Une Historie De La Batterie De Jazz, Vol. 2

“The art of jazz drumming has come a long way since the days of the bass drum player in the marching bands of ole New Orleans. Today we have come to expect a drummer to be an excellent technician, a well rounded percussionist, capable of improvising as well as any solo instrumentalist in any musical aggregation. It would take a very thick book to discuss the requirements of being a jazz drummer, and even then, it would be necessary to interpret the printed word through skins, sticks, cymbals, and mechanical contrivances in order to express yourself and your feeling for the music.

No doubt about it, drums and drummers are popular subjects; whether you're an avid jazz enthusiast or a bandleader, it is always interesting to hear and compare notes on the way different drummers play.”

-Howard Rumsey, Bassist and Jazz Club Operator

“You could set your watch to his time. It was one less thing for me to think about when I was playing.”

- Victor Feldman, Jazz pianist, vibraphonist and drummer

I initially learned to play Jazz drums by sitting just below where this picture was taken at The Lighthouse Cafe in Hermosa Beach, California and observing Stan Levey do it for almost two years.

Driving down to the club through the fog on Pacific Coast Highway, I couldn't wait to get there and here the thrill and excitement of Stan's drumming with bassist Howard Rumsey's [also pictured] Lighthouse All-Stars.

Stan Levey was my hero.

“Mechanical, my foot. You try playing his stuff and see how ‘mechanical’ it is.”

The late drummer, Stan Levey, is the fellow using the strong language [“foot” is substituted here for another part of the anatomy which was actually used by Stan in the quoted remark].

The context for Stan’s reply was his response to a statement that another drummer made about the playing of Max Roach to wit: “Oh, I don’t listen to Max much. He’s too mechanical.”

There is a reason why in his two volume Une Historie De La Batterie De Jazz, which won the 2000 Prix Charles Delauney, author Georges Paczynski follows his chapter on Max Roach with one on Stan Levey.

Stan adored Max.

Indeed, Paczynski subtitles his chapter on Stan :”Stan Levey le virtuose: à l'école de Max Roach.”

Stan was a gruff, no nonsense guy who, at one time, was a prize fighter. He left school at fourteen to make his way in the world, taught himself how to play drums, and did this well enough to be playing with Dizzy Gillespie in his hometown of Philadelphia at the age of sixteen.

Four years later, in 1945, he was working with Diz and Charlie Parker on 52nd Street along with Al Haig on piano and Ray Brown on bass.

Not a bad way to begin a career as a Jazz drummer before even reaching the age of twenty-one [21]!

The early 1940s was also about the time that Max Roach was coming up in the world of bebop and he and Stan were to become lifelong friends. As Howard Rumsey, Jazz bassist, who also was in charge of the music at the Lighthouse Café for many years, explains in his insert notes to Max and Stan’s Drummin’ The Blues:

“Ever since they first met on New York's famous 52nd Street in 1942, Max Roach and Stan Levey have felt intuitively that each was the other's personal preference. Their professional careers are closely paralleled, starting with almost four years on the "Street" with "Diz" and "Bird". In fact, Max was with Diz at the Onyx and Stan was across the street at the Spotlight with Bird when the modern period of jazz was officially born. Since then they have exchanged jobs many times with many great bands.”

Max would eventually recommend that Stan take his place with Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse All-Stars at the famous 30 Pier Avenue Club in Hermosa Beach, CA and Stan stayed at the club from about 1955 to 1960.

Stan described his early years in the business this way to Gordon Jack in Fifties Jazz Talk, An Oral Perspective:

“I was completely self-taught because we couldn't afford a teacher, and that's why I play left-handed although I am right-handed; it just felt easier that way. I didn't learn to read really well until I joined Kenton's band in 1952, once again teaching myself. By the time I was doing studio work in the sixties and playing all the mallet instruments, I had become an accomplished reader. My first big influence was Chick Webb, who I saw with Ella when my father took me to the Earle Theater when I was about ten years old.” [p. 129]

And, about his first impressions of Max Roach’s drumming, Stan had this to say:

"The ferocity of the playing was new to me. I had never heard time split up like that. Max's playing had music within it. . . he changed the course of drumming." [p. 130]

I got to know Stan quite well during the last three years of his stint at The Lighthouse and I came to understand that he always had a chip on his shoulder about being self-taught.

Young drummers bugged him; they were always asking him technical questions about the instrument.

And because he couldn’t explain his answers in terminology or “drum speak,” he usually mumbled something and walked toward the back of the club.

What were you going to do, chase after him? The man was huge. He blocked out the sun.

Stan was never menacing or unkind in any way, he was just self-conscious about the fact that he didn’t have a studied background in the instrument.

Even though he was self-taught, Stan took the most difficult path to becoming a Jazz drummer.

By this I mean that he played everything open; he didn’t cheat or fudge. He didn’t press; didn’t finesse; didn’t adopt shortcuts.

Ironically, for someone who had never formally studied drums, he played them in a more “legit” way than most of the other Jazz drummers in the 1940s, 50s and 60s – many of whom were also self-taught.

To comprehend an open or “legit” sound, think of the crackling snare drums that almost sound like gunshots while listening to a Scottish Black Watch fife, bagpipe and drum corps or, most other drum and bugle corps.

Every drum stroke is sounded; nothing is muffled; nothing is pressed into the drums. Everything is struck. Art Blakey’s famous snare drum press roll would be unacceptable in such an environment.

To play in this manner, one’s hands need to be strong and they need to be fast.

Enter Stan Levey.

Enter Max Roach.

Although they came to their respective styles from different directions – Max had taken lessons - both approached drums the same way. Each relied on open strokes.

In Max’s case, because he had a sound grasp of the basic, drum rudiments and learned to cleverly combine them in a syncopated manner that particularly fit the Bebop style of Jazz, his playing could be described as a “mechanical” in the sense of structured or fundamental.

This is especially the case when Max’s solo style is compared to that of other bebop and hard bop drummers such as Roy Haynes, Art Blakey and Philly Joe Jones.

But Stan didn’t hear the looser and freer drumming of Blakey and Philly Joe when he was putting things together, he heard Max [and also Kenny Clarke, Sid Catlett, and Chick Webb].

And even though he didn’t know the technical names for them, he learned to play solos in a manner similar to Max’s “mechanical” or rudimental style.

I knew Stan to be a fiercely loyal person and a very competitive one.

When your hero and your friend is being “put down” or “disrespected,” isn’t it all the more reason to be defensive and perhaps curt with those implying such disapproval?

Stan knew that what Max was playing wasn’t easy to do. But to his everlasting credit, he broke it down and incorporated many elements of Roach’s approach into his own. And, he did it all by ear!

Stan didn’t like to solo. He loved to keep time. He referred to it as: “Doing my job back there.”

And “keep time” he did, with the best of them.

Louie Bellson once said: “Stan’s time is alive. It has a pulse that you can always feel.”

Ray Brown declared him to be – “A rock, and a magnificent one, at that.”

Ella Fitzgerald said: “He never strays and never gets in the way.”

Peggy Lee “loved the intensity [of his time-keeping].”

The other thing that Stan loved to do was keep time FAST!

Few could rival him, and this from a naturally right-handed guy who was playing an open, three stroke cymbal beat with his left hand!!

Some of the best recorded examples of Stan’s time-keeping speed can be found on the Bebop, Wee [Allen’s Alley] and Lover Come Back to Me tracks on Dizzy Gillespie’s For Musicians Only album [Verve 837-435-2].