Hank Mobley - Michael James in Jazz Monthly, 1962

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

Thanks to a Jazz mate in New Zealand, this second, rare article on Hank Mobley by Michael James from the short-lived Jazz Monthly magazine is now available as part of our ongoing series about Hank and his music.

Michael James wrote the annotation about Hank Mobley that appears in The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, Barry Kernfeld, editor, in which he references in the bibliography two articles that he wrote about Hank for Jazz Monthly; one in 1961 and another in 1962.

Along with the recent published on the blog of Simon Spillett pieces -”Hank Mobley’s recordings with Miles Davis - UPDATED” and  “Looking East: Hank Mobley in Europe 1968-1970,” the John Litweiler interview that appeared in Downbeat in 1973, Bob Blumenthal’s booklet notes to the Mosaic Records box set of Hank’s 1950s Blue Note recordings and Derek Ansell’s book Workout: The Music of Hank Mobley which was published by Northway in 2008, the two Jazz Monthly essays by James are the most extensive writings ever done about Hank’s career, especially its early years.

Of course, there’s a whole host of sleeve or insert notes to the 26 LPs that Hank recorded for Blue Note and we’ll be presenting separately from the body of article on Hank in the Jazz literature.

Yet, sadly, the James articles are virtually unknown [let alone virtually impossible to find].

For my taste, Michael’s style of writing is a bit too complicated and convoluted in places, but I doubt you’ll find a more thorough and exacting description of Hank Mobley’s style, both improvisationally and compositionally, in any other source on Hank [meager though they are].

Here is the second of Michael’s pieces on Hank which appeared in Jazz Monthly, viii/10, 1962. The paragraphing has been modified to make it easier to read in a blog format.

Only since, 1958 or thereabouts has Hank Mobley been a really consistent player. Before that he could not always be counted on to turn in performances of a high order. This weakness derived not so much from lack of imaginativeness as from an intermittent failure properly to translate into musical terms the intricacies of the ideas that entered his mind. It may be that the light tone he favoured at that time, a tone which reminds one of Ihe Stan Gelz of 1950 more readily than of any other saxophonist, aggravated the problem of executing rhythmically complex phrases with the necessary precision; and it is probably no coincidence that since 1958 the sound he has produced has been firmer texture than it usually was before. However, there are several albums from this earlier phase of his career that do contain some really brilliant tenor playing; and at least one wherein he maintains a musical level akin to that of his more recent work.

This record, entitled quite simply Hank Mobley, and released in the United States (though not, as yet, in Britain) as Blue Note BLP 1568 has further attractions in that it finds Mobley supported by a cast whose quality is as undeniable to this observer as its reputation amongst the more conservative critics wait, and in some cases still is highly dubious. For the purposes of the session, which was held on June 3rd, 1957. Mobley chose Art Blakey's current trumpeter, Bill Hardman. and Charles Mingus's alto and tenor saxophonist. Curtis Porter, now better known as Shafi Hadi, to complete the front line; whilst the rhythm section was made up of Sonny Clark on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and the ubiquitous Art Taylor ai the drums. The material was obviously selected with the same eye for variety comprising as it does three original themes, two from Porter's pen and one by the leader: an engaging but not overworked evergreen, Falling in Love With Love; and a virtual classic of the modern jazz repertoire. Milt Jackson's Bag’s Groove. It is a safe bet that not many record companies would have been prepared to chance their arm with so evidently uncommercial a choice of tunes and personnel, and a portion of the credit for the date's artistic success must go to the Blue Note directors themselves,  whose sensitive handling of musicians —witness Max Harrison's recent remark apropos of a Bud Powell release - has paid rich dividends on other occasions.

Mighty Moe and Joe, the opening tune, was written by Porter. In his helpful sleeve note Ira Gitler explains that this composition is dedicated both to bassist Ollie Mohammed and to tenor player Joe Alexander, whose robust work was so agreeable a feature of Tadd Dameron's Fontainebleau album. The first and third eights are couched in question-and-answer form with the other two horns replying to Porter's urgent alto figures. The piece also composes an opening vamp played by the horns and an eight-bar bridge passage which leads into the first solo, taken by Porter. His alto playing is distinguished by a remarkable variety of melodic shapes, the attack of a whiplash, and a tonal command whose virtuosity very nearly rivals Dizzy Gillespie's. Some notes he invests with a fast, plaintive vibrato: others, with a hoarseness which in the context emerges as the very acme of ferocity; whilst others still he plays with a hard, clean sound as if to intensify the effect of those that are coloured or distorted in any way. His style, in fact, is an original one, though evolved, broadly speaking, within the Parker tradition.

Bill Hardman, who follows him, is an individualist of the same stamp. Having dealt with his work at some length in the December 1961 issue of this magazine, I shall not go into detail here, except to mention his liking for multi-noted phrases that often start with a flourish in the high register before cascading downward through the range; his obstinately asymmetrical approach: and his use of a thin, brassy tone which, supplemented by the slurs and inflections that also characterise his style, makes for an atmosphere of nervous violence.

Hank Mobley takes over from the trumpeter so confidently that one feels sure he will play well throughout the record, and this impression, I hasten to add. is fulfilled to the letter. His solo evokes in a more logical way than Hardman's, and is also a shade better constructed than Porter's. His melodies move across and over the beat with great freedom, yet never sound gauche or rhythmically spineless, and his tone and execution contrast effectively with Porter's clipped, astringent attack.

Sonny Clark, the next soloist, programmes his improvisation intelligently. Starting with fragmented phrases that suggest he may have been affected by Silver's conception at that time, he very soon resolves the tension thus created with a succession of longer figures more reminiscent of his present keyboard approach. As always, his solo here benefits from that unforced, seemingly natural swing that he has possessed ever since be made his first records. A bowed passage by Chambers leads back into the theme and the track closes with a repetition of the bridge section which preceded Porter's opening solo and of the vamp that served as an introduction. The fade-out ending, which seems to me unjustified, is fortunately the only instance of its kind in the album.

Not unnaturally with musicians of this calibre, the various soloists do not change their basic conceptions to any marked degree in the other pieces; so rather than subject each track to the same sort of examination as I have accorded Mighty Moe and Joe, I shall ask the reader to assume that, unless otherwise stated, the members of the group function in a similar way and at a similar level, and shall limit myself to picking out the highlights.

News,  Porter's other contribution to the repertoire employed at this session, is certainly one of these. I think it its best described as a personal and very successful adaptation of Tadd Dameron's compositional method. Porter achieves the same sort of flexible melodic line m the main eights, a line that splits at times to give the piece a slight contrapuntal flavour, but which makes its impact chiefly through the richness of the trumpet-led voicings: and the release, too, recalls Dameron, comprising as it does a rhythmically contrasting section set over a Latin beat. Although this composition in less personal than the other one Porter contribute to the date, the craftsmanship of which it clearly speaks affords us a more exact notion of his potential as a writer. To leave News without mentioning Mobley's solo would be an injustice. His phrases grow more and more complex in shape until at the end of the first eight of the second chorus he resorts to some well-executed double-timing. At this point it seems that he is about to lose all sense of structural compactness, but he rescues the situation halfway through the release, and his last twelve bars, less prolix and tied more closely to the beat, imbue the whole improvisation with a unity of purpose that is paradoxically the more striking for its having tottered for a while, as it were, on the brink of incoherence. In this connexion credit must also be given to Art Taylor, whose accompaniment to the tenor solo connotes a deep understanding of Mobley's style.

In his written work Mobley has never been compromised by the uncertainty which marred certain of his earlier solos, and has often dealt in shapes that are sparer in outline if just as free of the beat. This is very much the case with Double Exposure, for each of its three main eight-bar constituents ends with a descending phrase comprising three groups of two notes each. Also of interest is the introduction, which comprises a written figure for the horns followed by a drum break, reversed, this introduction acts as a bridge between the theme statement and the solo sections, and minus the drum break is also pressed into service as a coda. Everyone except Paul Chambers is featured in this piece, even Art Taylor taking a solo chorus.

Particularly well worth noting is the two-chorus chase between the tenor players. It was a wise decision, I think, to have them share sections of eight bars rather than of the more customary four, because both like to indulge in fairly long runs. Mobley leads off this series of exchanges and to my mind emerges as slightly the more polished and inventive artist, though the emphasis is not so much on rivalry as on musical contrast. The third of his breaks, which consists of an intricate yet graceful molif that rises by degrees out of the lower register, is especially arresting.

Although Mighty Moe and Joe of is taken at a livelier pace than the other pieces so far dealt with, all three are set in a fairly bright tempo range. This is not the case with Bag’s Groove, even though the band's interpretation of it is faster than the original Miles Davis recording. My first impression on hearing this track was that the slight increase in tempo was an error of taste, but I have now come to accept this difference and feel that I was perhaps prejudiced by my great affection for the Davis version, and have also grown more partial to the piano figures with which Clark answers each of the three identical phrases that make up this simple yet highly evocative blues composition. The mood established by the soloists is less exuberant than in the three originals, and all, including Paul Chambers, who contributes two plucked choruses, reach a high creative standard in this most revealing of jazz forms. Particularly affecting is Hardman's exceptionally sober improvisation. Over the course of his three choruses he builds up the tension with extended phrases. that reveal a harmonic conception which is free but by no means wilfully eccentric, and then releases this tension at the close with a characteristically drawn-out motif. A curious point about this passage. and one that probably helps explain its insidious effect is that in contrast with conventional methods, the trumpeter plays more softly as it moves toward its climax.

Falling in Love With Love, which has Porter playing alto, as in the opening selection, is taken at the kind of ambling pace which best brings out its wistful charm. Hardman, working over the rhythm section's relaxed beat opens with a highly personal reading of the melody, similar to the treatment he was later to accord Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise in Lou Donaldson's Sunny Side Up album. Obviously inspired by the trumpeter's incisive statement of the theme. Mobley takes over from him to construct an essentially romantic variation on its melody, and then, after choruses by Porter and Clark, returns to like vein to bring the performance to its close. His work here, distinguished by acute melodic sensitivity and a tonal command that is all the more impressive in view of the leisurely tempo and the sustaining of notes it induces, seems to me the artistic peak of the album, and serves. incidentally, to remind us of the emotional breadth of Mobley's talent.

Any musician who can interpret a ballad with the finesse of a Stan Getz — and this is no casual comparison — and then, only three years or so later, delineate, in his solo in on Roll Call, a state of mind that can only be termed the epitome of aggressiveness, is clearly possessed of extraordinary potential. Bearing this in mind, it seems lively that although he has already matured as a consistently engaging player, his expressive powers will continue to broaden as the years go by. The thought that one is privileged meanwhile to follow the unfolding of such talent makes listening to records like this still more enjoyable.”

Afro Cuban - Kenny Dorham

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

Here’s another of our features based around favorite recordings, this time focusing on trumpeter Kenny Dorham’s Afro Cuban album for Blue Note which has been reissued on CD as CDP 7 46815 2.

Leonard Feather, the distinguished Jazz critic, producer and author of The Encyclopedia of Jazz, wrote the following insert notes Afro Cuban, Kenny’s first session for Blue Note as a leader

“THE contents of this LP provide a revealing dual portrait of Kenny Dorham. One side of him, the side with the Afro-Cuban leanings, can be observed in the first four tunes, featuring an eight-piece band, previously released on a 10" LP. The other side, both of Kenny and of the record, can be observed in the last three tunes, which were recorded with a quintet and have never previously been released.

It has taken McKinley Howard Dorham quite a few years to earn the recognition that should have been his during the middle 1940s. For a long time, during the halcyon era of the bop movement, Kenny was Mr, Available for every trumpet choir in every band and combo. If Dizzy wasn't around and Howard McGhee was out of town, there was always Kenny. And so it went from abou! 1945 to '51, always in the shadow of those who had been first to establish themselves in the vanguard of the new jazz.

Slowly, in the past few years, Kenny has emerged from behind this bop bushel to show the individual qualities (hot were ultimately to mark him for independent honors. Numerous chores as a sideman on record dates for various small companies led to his inclusion in the important Horace Silver Quintet dotes for Blue Note (BLP 1518), and, as a result of his fine work on these occasions, to the signing of a Blue Note contract and his first date for this label as a combo leader on his own.

If the Kenny Dorham Story were ever made into a movie (and the way things are going in Hollywood at the moment, don't let anything surprise you) it would begin on a ranch near Fairfield, Texas on August 30,1924. The actor playing Kenny as a child would be shown listening to his mother and sister playing the piano and his father strumming blues on the guitar.

Then there would be the high school scenes in Austin, Texas, with Kenny taking up piano and trumpet but spending much of his time on the school boxing team; and later the sojourn at Wiley College, where he played in the band with Wild Bill Davis as well as majoring in chemistry. In his spare time Kenny would be seen making his first stabs at composing and arranging.

After almost a year in the Army (during which his pugilistic prowess came to the fore on the Army boxing team) Kenny went back 1o Texas, joining Russell Jacquet's band in Houston late in 1943 and spending much of 1944 with the bond of Frank Humphries.

From 1945 to '48 Kenny was on the road with several big bands, including those of Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Eckstine, Lionel Hampton and Mercer Ellington in that order. Then he spent the best part of two years playing clubs as part of the Charlie Parker Quintet. Lurking on the edge of the limelight occupied by the immortal Bird, he began to lure a little individual attention as something more than the section man and occasional soloist he had been for so long. One of his important breaks was a trip to Paris with Bird in 1949 to take part in the Jazz Festival.

Settling permanently in New York, Kenny became a freelance musician whose services alongside such notabilities as Bud Powell, Sonny Stitt, Thelonious Monk and Mary Lou Williams gradually impressed his name and style on jazz audiences.

During 1954-5 Kenny worked most frequently around the east with a combo that constitutes the nucleus of the outfit heard on these sides - Hank Mobley, Horace Silver and Art Blakey.

Mobley is an Eastman, Georgia product, born there in 1930 but raised in New Jersey. Making his start with Paul Gayten in 1950, he rose to prominence with Max Roach's combos off and on from 1951 -53 and with Dizzy in '54.

Mobley as well as Silver and Blakey are of course familiar figures at Blue Note, abundantly represented in the catalogue through their sessions with the Jazz Messengers (1507,1508,1518). Horace and Art are also on such other sessions as the Horace Silver trio (1520) and A Night At Birdland (1521,1522).

Jay Jay Johnson, whose eminence was saluted on 1505 and 1506, was recently elected the "Greatest Ever" by a jury of 100 of his peers in the Encyclopedia Yearbook of Jazz "Musicians' Musicians" poll.

Cecil McKenzie Payne, a baritone sax man with a long and distinguished record in modern jazz circles, is a 34-year-old Brooklynite whose career as a bopper began right after his release from the Army in 1946 and took him through the U.S. and Europe with Dizzy Gillespie until '49, when he began freelancing in New York with Tadd Dameron, James Moody and Illinois Jacquet.

Carlos "Potato" Valdes, the conga drummer; come over from Cuba a couple of years ago. It was Gillespie who first told Kenny Dorham about him and "Little Benny" Harris who dug him up and brought him to Kenny's rehearsal. "He gassed them all," recalls Alfred Lion succinctly.

Completing the octet, Oscar Pettiford provides the indomitable boss sound that won him the Esquire Gold Award in 1944 and '45 and the Down Seat Critics' poll in 1953.

For the four tunes with the Afro-Cuban rhythm motif, Kenny says, "I tried to write everything so that the rhythm would be useful throughout and would never get in the way." As a consequence, the Cuban touch sounds as if it is a part of the whole, rather than something that has been superimposed on a jazz scene, as is sometimes the case.

Afrodisia is a title that has been used before, but this is a new composition. The theme and interpretation recall somewhat the Gillespie approach to material of this type. Like the patriot who is plus royaliste que le roi, Kenny and his cohorts achieve a more interesting and more Cuban atmosphere here than you will hear on many performances emanating direct from Havana. The "Potato" is really cooking on this one.

Lotus Flower, after Horace's attractive intro, shows how the Cuban percussion idea can be applied effectively to a slow, pretty melody. Jay Jay's solo, though short, has a melancholy quality that compliments the mood set by Kenny's delicately phrased work here.

Minor's Holiday didn't get that title only because of its minor key; it was also named for Minor Robinson, a trumpet player in New Haven. A mood-setting rising phrase characterizes the opening chorus, leading into a loosely swinging, pinpoint-toned trumpet solo that shows, like all his work on this date, the high degree of individuality Kenny has achieved. Mobley and Jay Jay also have superior solos.

The session ends with an original commissioned by Kenny from Gigi Gryce, the talented ex-Hampton reedman. Basheer's Dream has a minor mood of singular intensity sustained by Kenny, Hank and Jay Jay, with Valdes and Blakey allied as a potent percussion team and Horace, the Connecticut Cuban, contributing some discreet punctuations.

The reverse side features four of the principal protagonists from the Afro-Cuban dale — Dorham, Mobley, Payne and Blakey - with Percy Heath of Modern Jazz Quartet fame replacing Pettiford. The session opens with K. D.'s Motion, a medium-paced blues, partly in unison and portly voiced. After an eight-measure bridge, Kenny dives into four choruses of fluent ab libbing. The blues being at once the lowest and highest common denominator of oil true jazzmen, Kenny is greatly at ease here, the solo offering a first-rate sample of his ideation and continuity. Payne, Mobley and Silver also cook freely before the theme returns at the end of this effective five-minute exploration of the 12-bar tradition.

The Villa, another Dorham original like all the music on these sides, is a melodic theme that could make a good pop song, though at this fast tempo it serves as a fine framework for trumpet, tenor and baritone solos, with Horace comping enthusiastically like a coach urging his team on from the sidelines. Kenny and Art trade fours for 24 measures before the ensemble returns.

Venita's Dance is a rhythmic yet somehow reflective and wistful theme, taken at a medium pace. Kenny's solo, constructed mostly in downward phrases, maintains the mood established in the opening chorus, after which Mobley's virile, assertive tone and style are in evidence, followed by excellent samples of Payne and Silver.

Whichever side of Kenny Dorham intrigues you most, whether you dig him particularly as composer or trumpeter, Afro-Cuban specialist or mainstream jazzman, most of what you will hear on this disc will offer a high protein diet of musical satisfaction.”                                                                   

The CD’s producer Michael Cuscuna added this postscript about its two additional tracks:

“K.D’s Cob Ride was an unfitted composition that first came out in Japan in the early 80's in a boxed set anthology entitled The Other Side Of the 1500 Series. We titled it as such because Hank Mobley confirmed that it was a Kenny Dorham composition and was the sort of tune that he might write in the cab on the way to a record date. It has since come to light that Kenny had already titled this piece "Echo of Spring" The alternate take of "Minors Holiday" preceded the master take in recording order and was marked on the session logs as being equal to the master take.”

You can check out Afrodisia, the opening track of Afro Cuban, on the following video montage.

Count Basie by Alun Morgan - Part 7

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

Born in Wales in 1928, Alun Morgan became a Jazz fan as a teenage and was an early devotee of the bebop movement. In the 1950s he began contributing articles to Melody Maker, Jazz Journal, Jazz Monthly, and Gramophone and for twenty years, beginning in 1969, he wrote a regular column for a local newspaper in Kent. From 1954 onward he contributed to BBC programs on Jazz, authored and co-authored books on modern Jazz and Jazz in England and wrote over 2,500 liner notes for Jazz recordings.

Chapter Seven

“The period when Basie was making records for Roulette found the band at its best. Just before the The Atomic Mr Basie album was made, Basie completed 13 weeks in the roof ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, another 'first,’ for his was the first big Negro band to play the Waldorf. And in November, 1957 he was chosen to play a Royal Command performance in London. It seemed that Basie was picking up honours in every direction and it is not surprising that his record company was anxious to use the band in some high-powered studio dates. Basie made LPs with Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughan and Tony Bennett; (he made two with Bennett, due to a contractual arrangement between Roulette and Columbia, Bennett's record company). Pleasant though these pairings were, they tended to take the spotlight away from the band although one of the best, the first Frank Sinatra-Count Basie LP, was made immediately after the Roulette contract expired.

From October, 1962 up to May, 1966 Basie moved easily from the Reprise label to Verve and back again to Reprise. Norman Granz had sold his Verve catalogue to MGM in 1960 and therefore played no part in Basie's recordings during this period. The 'concept' album idea still prevailed with LPs being devoted to the work of individual arrangers or to tunes which had some other connexion. Neal Hefti wrote yet another album (On My Way And Shoutin' Again for Verve) and Quincy Jones wrote his second set for Basie Li’l Ol' Groovemaker... Basie also on Verve). There was also a preponderance of ephemeral or below standard LPs such as 'Basie's Beatles Bag’ and 'Basie Meets Bond' plus a number of albums based on the idea of popular hits played by the band. One curiosity on Verve, titled 'More Hits Of The 50's & 60’s’ and arranged by Billy Byers, comprised a dozen songs very closely associated with Frank Sinatra (in fact one of the tunes was co-authored by Sinatra) but with no reference to any relationship between the singer and the songs on the album sleeve. A frequent member of the brass section on record at this time was trombonist Urbie Green, although Green does not appear to have played other dates with the band.

Apart from the two Sinatra-Basie LPs for Reprise there were also Verve albums on which the band provided the accompaniment to singers Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis and Arthur Prysock. Compared with the Neal Hefti and Quincy Jones LPs from the period none of the Basie-plus-vocalists albums was particularly memorable. Away from the recording studio the band was to be found in settings previously denied to it. In his 'Encyclopedia Of Jazz In The Sixties' Leonard Feather noted that 'the band toured the British Isles and the European continent in '61 '62,'63 and '65 and enjoyed a triumphal tour of Japan in May-June, 1963. Basie made motion picture appearances in Sex and the Single Girl, Made in Paris and Cinderfella as well as TV guest shots with Fred Astaire, Andy Williams, Tony Bennett, Edie Adams, Garry Moore, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Ed Sullivan and the Bell Telephone Hour'. A number of Basie's most important sidemen and soloists had left the band to go their own way including Frank Wess (who had been switched to alto by Basie when Bill Graham was sacked), Thad Jones and Sonny Payne. On the plus side, Eric Dixon had come into the reed team playing a rich-toned, Lucky Thompson-like tenor plus excellent flute while Eddie Lockjaw Davis came and went a number of times. When he was in the band Eddie could always be relied upon to churn up the excitement without ever going too far into the realms of bad taste for Eddie was, and is, a master of brinkmanship.

Not surprisingly many critics express their dissatisfaction and concern about the band's music. Whitney Balliett called it Civil Service swing while John Hammond, who probably felt the change in direction more keenly than most, was obviously hurt by the turn of events.

But worse was to come. In 1966 Basie started recording on a nonexclusive or album-by-album basis and the results were often lacklustre, sometimes downright awful. MCA added a rock guitarist to the band, put pop singer Jackie Wilson in front and came up with an instantly forgettable album titled 'Two Much'. Around the same time the same company put out 'Basie's In The Bag’ which mixed current pop tunes (Hang on Sloopy, Green onions etc.) with titles such as Mercy, Mercy, Mercy and Let the good times roll. By comparison the 'concept' albums with self-explanatory names such as 'Broadway - Basie's Way' and 'Hollywood -Basie's Way' seemed to have deep musical significance. Singers of all types still seemed capable of getting Basie to agree to the making of an album, with the result that Kay Starr, the Mills Brothers, Teresa Brewer and the Alan Copeland Singers all appeared on LP with Count.

Some interesting soloists cropped up on record with the band at this time, and occasionally worked elsewhere with the band. Roy Eldridge, for example, was with the band from July to September, 1966 (long enough to play on some record dates) while Illinois Jacquet was added for the LP

of tunes from Half A Sixpence.

All was not gloom, although the mediocre outweighed the good. Dot, the company which had foisted the Mills Brothers onto Basie for two albums, had the good grace to produce two of Basie's best LPs from the second half of the Sixties and, in so doing, gave prominence to a previously unknown talent who was to play an important part on Basie's arranging staff for some years. This was Sammy Nestico, first cousin of Sal Nistico, the tenor saxist who played with Woody Herman and, later, Count Basie. Sammy Nestico was a trombonist and arranger who served a total of 20 years with the US Air Force and, later, the Marines. He had worked with the Charlie Barnet and Gene Krupa bands before his friend Grover Mitchell, then working in Basie's trombone section, introduced him to the Count. Nestico started writing for Basie in 1968 and the Dot album Basie Straight Ahead was devoted entirely to new works all composed and arranged by Nestico. Sammy obviously grasped the band's strengths immediately and came up with scores which the men seemed to enjoy playing. Moreover, he had the ability to make the band sound the way that audiences identified with Basie. His writing was uncluttered and made equal use of the softer elements (including that million dollar reed section of Marshall Royal, Bobby Plater, Eric Dixon, Lockjaw Davis and Charlie Fowlkes) and the vital, hard-hitting brass.

On his first album Nestico came up with a number of very attractive originals, notably That warm feeling, cast in the same general mould as Hefti's Li'l darlin' and Quincy Jones's For Lena and Lennie. The fact that Basie used Nestico's works such as The magic flea, Straight ahead etc. in public was an obvious sign of the Count's approval. It was Dot which also sent producer Teddy Reig to Las Vegas in March, 1969 to record the band during their stay at the Tropicana Hotel. Again Reig, aided by engineer Wally Heider, captured the sound of the band to perfection, a band which had its solo strength bolstered by the presence of trumpeter Harry Edison heard here in fine form. The resultant LP, Standing Ovation, is one of the great Basie albums of the period and goes a long way towards making up for many previous ephemeral sets. Although there were, deliberately, no new works on the album, the band sounds as fresh as paint, charging through Broadway, Every tub, The Kid from Red Bank and Jumpin' at the Woodside as if to prove that the library never needed injections from stage musicals or films to make it sound new. As Leonard Feather wrote in his sleeve note: 'the lesson to be learned from a study of these sides is that Basie's hits of the '30s, '40s and '50s are as viable as ever as we near the end of the '60s. Playing for a hip and receptive audience (Buddy Rich and many of Splanky's old friends were on hand at the Tropicana), the band gave of itself as it always does when there is an occasion to rise to. Given the vast improvement in recording, the presence of such irresistible soloists as Sweets and Jaws, and the enthusiastic ambiance brought about by the situation in which these sides were taped, it is no wonder that Basie and his new legions have managed to prove here that Thomas Wolfe was wrong. Under the right conditions you can indeed go home again, and still have the time of your life'.

Two more albums from the period deserve mention. Bob Thiele produced an unusual LP, not wholly successful, but certainly worthy of any Basie collection. Titled Afrique it brought together the Count and arranger Oliver Nelson for a programme of new music, new to Basie that is. Apart from Hobo flats and Step right up, both of which Nelson had written originally for an LP by organist Jimmy Smith, there were tunes by avant garde saxophonists Albert Ayler and Pharaoh Sanders. Nelson, an outstanding alto and tenor soloist who made a number of records with Eric Dolphy before he turned to arranging in Hollywood, is the featured alto on Ayler's Love flower, a ballad of rare and compelling beauty. Hobo flats has Buddy Lucas added on harmonica making it a blues which is even earthier than Basie at his most Basie; other tracks have additional percussionists added and although the album, at first sight, may not appear too hopeful it is, nevertheless, an important album as an indication of what the band could achieve in a new direction.

Basie himself was pleased with the result although, with his natural modesty, he tried to place the credit elsewhere. He told John McDonough in Down Beat magazine: 'The idea was really Bob Thiele's. He thought we ought to do some of this stuff ‘cause we hadn't before. He worked the project out with Oliver Nelson. It was really Oliver's record, you know. But I liked it. He did some wonderful things which we still play. Wanted to do another LP along that line, but something happened. Sure it's different, but I'm perfectly comfortable with it. I like it. A lot of people like it. That's what's most important. Why do people hire me? For what I'm tagged for. But a little flavour of something else won't hurt. It's not ever going to dominate our programme, but it'll always be there to some extent'.

The other album to mention represents the opposite end of the spectrum and is generally disregarded by the critics. Have A Nice Day, made for the Daybreak label in the summer of 1971 comprises eleven compositions and arrangements by Sammy Nestico. 'Sammy' says Basie on the sleeve 'has a sensitivity, a feel, for our concept that few others have. The thing about him is his feel for the contemporary, the modern. Yet he gets that good, simple, understandable feel of our band as it was when we were first getting started and featuring things like Every tub, Doggin' around and Sent for you yesterday. An amazing guy!'

No barriers are broken here but it is a richly satisfying set which consolidates a lot of the previous work, especially the influences of Neal Hefti and Quincy Jones on the arranging staff. A further plus is the quite superlative recording quality which gives the instruments their correct separation; every strummed chord from Freddie Green comes across with clarity as do the vocalised plunger-muted solos from trombonist Al Grey, one of the most individual and important soloists over the years. And if you want to hear what set Basie's band apart from every other, listen to the superb timekeeping on Jamie., a performance which moves sedately along at a shade under eighteen bars per minute.

Away from the recording studios Basie literally embarked on a new venture at the beginning of 1970 when he started a number of annual cruises on the QE2 and also took part in a Caribbean cruise aboard the Rotterdam at the end of 1974. This took place shortly after his 70th birthday which was celebrated in style with a banquet at New York's Waldorf-Astoria.

At the end of 1973 he commenced recording again for Norman Granz, who was now running the Pablo label, and this arrangement was to continue until Count's death more than a decade later. Granz had little time for adding unsuitable vocalists or placing the band in a role which made them subservient to a 'concept' programme. He did, however, have an aversion to Freddie Green's rhythm guitar away from the big band setting and the very first dates for Pablo were jam sessions (at which Irving Ashby took Freddie's place) and a trio set with just Basie, Ray Brown and Louie Bellson. Called 'For The First Time' it was just that, for Basie had never previously recorded in a guitarless trio setting. "That was Norm's idea,’ Basie told John McDonough in 1975. 'You know it wasn't mine. But it was real fun. In fact we've just finished another trio session with my bass player, Norm Keenan, and Louie Bellson, but this time we added Zoot Sims. It's mostly blues and some other things. Norman Granz is a blues man you know. I guess he didn't want a guitar.  For myself, Freddie Green definitely fills out a rhythm section. But there are times we want to play around a little and get loose. Fred keeps you in there, you know- pretty strict'. (Incidentally either Basie's memory was at fault or Granz's information is incorrect; the sleeve of the Pablo Count Basie/Zoot Sims LP lists John Heard as the bass player.)

Norman Granz certainly gave us more of Basie's own playing on record than any previous producer; somehow he found the key which unlocked the Count's aversion to featuring himself. On a number of occasions he teamed Basie with Oscar Peterson and, on the face of it, it would be difficult to imagine two more disparate keyboard players for Basie's style utilised only the notes that actually mattered while Peterson has the greatest command of the piano, in technical terms, since Art Tatum. Yet the duets are brilliant with neither getting in the other's way. Two-piano records are often disappointing but the Peterson-Basie duets are gems of a different kind.

Granz also assembled a number of small bands around Basie both in the studio and on the concert platform at various jazz festivals. Typical of the latter is the recording of the spontaneous Trio blues (with Ray Brown and drummer Jimmie Smith) at the 1977 Montreux Jazz Festival. This innocuous performance starts quietly then builds in intensity until the crowd is applauding in time with the music. As if to ensure that the musicians maintain the upper hand Count breaks into some excellent stride piano, full of syncopation, and the ragged attempts by the audience to join in drop away, much to everyone's amusement.

But after the end of 1976 every performance by Basie was a bonus for the jazz world. He suffered a heart attack in September and while Nat Pierce took over the keyboard and Clark Terry was brought in to front the band in Basie's absence, there were many who wondered if the Count would be seen again as part of the world's most swinging orchestra.”

EDDIE JEFFERSON by Gordon Jack

                                                           

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

                                                         

“Eddie Jefferson is a jazz singer — in the fullest sense of the words.

It is hoped that such an opening remark will not involve us in that age-old war waged over the question of exactly what is a jazz singer. It's an issue that gets writers endlessly tangled in definitions and explanations, with pitched battles involving the credentials of pop vocalists who on occasion are able to swing, the legitimacy of scat-singing, how many points are to be awarded for hitting a flatted fifth without sounding just plain flat, etc., etc. In this instance, however, then is no need for such carryings-on.

Eddie Jefferson is a jazz singer for the simple and conclusive reason that what he sings is jazz, firmly imbedded in modern music and fully equivalent to what a horn might seek to do with the same material.

Furthermore, although others (most notably Lambert, Hendricks and Ross) have in recent years done much with such things as the setting of lyrics to specific recorded jazz solos, all evidence indicates that Jefferson was the pioneer of the vocal technique he and others now employ.”

- Peter Drew, insert notes to Letter from Home: The Voice of Eddie Jefferson [Riverside RLP 9411, OJCCD 307-2]

Gordon Jack is a frequent contributor to the Jazz Journal and a very generous friend to these pages in his allowance of JazzProfiles re-publishings of his excellent writings. Gordon is the author of Fifties Jazz Talk An Oral Retrospective and he developed the Gerry Mulligan discography in Raymond Horricks’ book Gerry Mulligan’s Ark.

The following article was first published in Jazz Journal September 2018.

For more information and subscriptions please visit www.jazzjournal.co.uk

“Vocalese, not to be confused with scat singing is the art of adding words to the harmonic and rhythmic shifts of an improvised jazz solo and Eddie Jefferson was a pioneer of this particular musical form.  We’re not talking Sondheim, Cole Porter or Oscar Hammerstein here but his hip, street-wise lyrics were perfect for the context in which he worked. He was born on the 3 August 1918 in Pittsburgh the hometown of Art Blakey, Earl Hines, Erroll Garner, Ahmad Jamal and Billy Eckstine among others.  He played the tuba, guitar and drums but he made his show-business debut as a tap dancer at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. During the 30s in Pittsburgh he performed as a dancer and scat singer doing occasional Cab Calloway impressions with Art Blakey on piano. It was his friend Leo ‘Scat’ Watson - a big influence - who suggested the idea of adding words to instrumental solos. Eddie considered Watson to be “The greatest scat singer who ever lived” and Leonard Feather was similarly impressed calling him “The James Joyce of jazz”.

Count Basie’s Taxi War Dance was Eddie’s first attempt at vocalese but years later he told Feather, “I was a dancer in those days. I sang it for friends but nothing ever came of it and I don’t know what happened to the lyrics.”  In 1939 he worked opposite Coleman Hawkins’ big band in Chicago after the great man’s return from Europe and Nat King Cole was the intermission pianist. During WW2 he played drums in the army band but little is known of his musical activities during the 40s although he did tour with Bob Crosby and the Bobcats and he appeared on the Sarah Vaughan radio show in 1950. It was not until 1952 that he really concentrated on singing.

It was his lyric for King Pleasure’s big hit Moody’s Mood For Love in 1952 which really put him on the map. James Moody had recorded the solo (based on the Dorothy Fields-Jimmy McHugh standard) in 1949 in Sweden using a borrowed alto from Lars Gullin.  He turned in a gem of a performance in one take although it was his first recording on the instrument. Eddie loved the solo because in a little under three minutes “It told a story”. King Pleasure who was working as a waiter at the time heard him performing Moody’s Mood at the Cotton Club in Cincinnati where Eddie was appearing with Jack McDuff. On his return to New York Pleasure sang it at the Apollo Theatre Amateur Hour in 1951. He won the prize which led to his first recording and Moody’s Mood was named Record of the Year in 1953 by Down Beat magazine.  He usually performed in clubs from a throne with a microphone attached but despite his initial success King Pleasure’s career was a brief one.

Years later Jefferson said, “He copped those lyrics but in a way it opened it up for me.” Talking about it in the New York Times Jon Hendricks said “It opened a whole new world for me. I was mesmerized…it was so hip”. Moody’s Mood For Love found favour with many non-jazz artists like Sheena Easton, Amy Winehouse, Aretha Franklin, Queen Latifah and Patti LaBelle who have all covered it over the years. The only time Pleasure, Jefferson and Hendricks recorded together was in 1954 when they performed Don’t Get Scared (aka Don’t Getz Scared) and I’m Gone.

Living in Cambria Heights in Queens he took a day job as a manager in a men’s clothing firm supplemented with occasional club dates.  One night in 1953 when he was doing a dance act with Irv Taylor at Harlem’s Apollo Theatre he met James Moody. Babs Gonzales had been travelling with Moody as vocalist and band manager but he was leaving so the tenor-man offered the job to Jefferson. “I really dug what Eddie was doing” he said at the time. They stayed together until 1962 when Moody disbanded to join Dizzy Gillespie. In 1957 when they appeared at the Zebra Lounge in Los Angeles they worked there for a time with King Pleasure. The following year when Moody was briefly hospitalised in Overbrook, New Jersey, Jefferson sat in with Miles Davis at the Café Bohemia in New York. Miles was so impressed he apparently said to the club owner “Eddie’s gonna be part of the band. Put him on the payroll”.

In 1959 he recorded his celebrated Body And Soul with a lyric set to Coleman Hawkins’ 1939 masterpiece and the words make it clear just what Hawkins meant to him. During the 60s he and Moody often performed with Dinah Washington because they were all represented by the Billy Shaw Agency in New York. In a 1980 Coda interview Eddie said, “A couple of times our bass player was late and she would get on the bass and hold down the whole set.  She also played piano and cello”. During his time with Moody the singer was featured on several albums performing Workshop, Disappointed, Birdland Story, Parker’s Mood, Summertime, Sister Sadie, Hey Herb! Where’s Alpert?, I Got The blues, I cover the Waterfront and Last Train From Overbrook. Each title is a fine example of his unique sound with its soulful and very earthy delivery.

Soon after James Moody went back to working with Dizzy In 1962 Eddie recorded with Johnny Griffin for Riverside but the 60s and the 70s were a difficult time for him and for jazz too. Moody’s decision to reform his group was celebrated with their well received 1968 Body And Soul album. Eddie featured some new material like Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, Psychedelic Sally (words by Horace Silver) and Filthy McNasty (words by Ira Gitler – which might be a first for him). He revisited Moody’s Mood For Love titled as There I Go, There I Go Again which is the first line of the lyric. Blossom Dearie performed the bridge on the King Pleasure hit but Eddie sings it in falsetto. So What features his lyric to Miles Davis’ famous Kind Of Blue solo which concerns itself with the trumpeter’s habit of leaving the stage when not performing. He also doffs his cap to Charlie Parker’s 1945 recording of Now’s The Time with lyrics to Parker’s three choruses and Miles’ two. It’s worth pointing out that the nineteen year old Miles Davis created an elegantly well-constructed statement that belied his tender years. In 1958 when Davis recorded Straight No Chaser with his sextet, Red Garland quoted this solo in its entirety during his turn at the solo mike. Lambert, Hendricks and Ross also recorded Now’s The Time with Hendricks’ lyrics and Annie Ross carried off Miles’ solo with remarkable aplomb.

He revisited Body And Soul on the album and when Manhattan Transfer recorded it in 1979 with Jefferson’s lyrics they added their own in the second chorus which became a tribute to Eddie who they said was “Twenty years ahead of his time” (Atlantic CD 7567-81565-2.) Just as an aside Manhattan Transfer’s 1985 Vocalese album which was a collaboration with Jon Hendricks is well worth tracking down. They bring their own special magic to numbers like Killer Joe, Airegin, Meet Benny Bailey, Night In Tunisia, Blee Blop Blues, Joy Spring and Move. The recording received an unprecedented twelve Grammy nominations with Dizzy Gillespie, Richie Cole and James Moody making guest appearances (Atlantic 7-81266-2).

In August 1970 he appeared at Chicago’s North Park Hotel at a Charlie Parker Memorial concert where he performed Now’s The Time and Parker’s Mood. Lee Konitz then joined him on Disappointed and Lady Be Good. A little later James Moody moved out to Las Vegas to work with the Hilton Hotel Orchestra and Eddie carried on working locally supplementing his income by driving a New York cab. In 1973 he and his wife Yvonne separated because of long-standing money problems although they remained on good terms. Around this time he joined forces with Billy Mitchell. The tenor-man had re-joined Count Basie in the late 60s and for a time had been musical director for Stevie Wonder. He told writer Leslie Gourse in her book (American Jazz Singers) that occasionally he repaired pool tables when work was scarce – “Eddie wasn’t depressed about driving a cab and I wasn’t depressed about pool tables but we weren’t jumping up and down about it. He was a very nice, quiet, upstanding man… he knew how hard it was to get a dollar and he was thrifty. We were going to start a band together the old fashioned way with uniforms.” One summer they taught a jazz course at Bennington College in Vermont and in 1974 they made their only album together with the optimistic title Things Are Getting Better. It included Thank You – an anthem to Eddie’s friends and influences like Hawkins, Moody, Herschel Evans, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt, Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin and Gene Ammons. It also featured Joe Newman and the singer introduced some fresh material to his repertoire like Bitches Brew, Trane’s Blues and Freedom Jazz Dance.

A little late in the day he won the 1975 Downbeat Critics’ Poll as Talent Deserving Of Wider Recognition. That was also the year he sat in at a Greenwich Village club with the sensational, young bebop alto player Richie Cole. They were to have a long and productive relationship until Jefferson’s murder in 1979. They toured together and recorded no less than seven albums. One of the finest was their 1977 date – The Main Man – which also featured Charles Sullivan, Junior Cook, Hamiet Bluiett and Slide Hampton. The trombonist who wrote the arrangements told Leslie Gourse, “Instrumentalists generally liked to work with Eddie…he had the same kind of drive and rhythmic intensity”. Both those qualities are very much apparent on Jeannine and Night Train but the album highlight has to be Benny’s From Heaven which as the name implies is a hilarious send-up of Bing Crosby’s 1937 hit. A year earlier he had appeared on Chicago’s WTTW Public Television station on a celebration of Vocalese with Jon Hendricks, Annie Ross and Leon Thomas. The show was hosted by Ben Sidran and Eddie performed Freedom Jazz Dance and Moody’s Mood before joining Hendricks and Ross for Cloudburst.

In March 1979 he appeared with Sarah Vaughan and Betty Carter at New York’s Carnegie Hall and with bookings lined up at the Monterey and Newport Jazz Festivals as well as some European summer concerts his career seemed to be on an upward trajectory at last. He was filmed along with Cole performing at Chicago’s Jazz Showcase on 6 May. The DVD – F for Films 2869003 - shows him commanding the stage in an exuberant set of staples like Night In Tunisia, I Got The Blues, How High The Moon and Summertime but it is yet to be released on CD. Three days later the group was booked into Baker’s Keyboard Lounge in Detroit and Eddie was shot and killed as he left the club around 1 a.m. The suspect who was known to him was arrested but later released. “The tragic part is that he was cut down when things were starting to happen for him” Bill Mitchell said at the time. Ironically Jefferson had been presented with the key to the city the previous year by Coleman Young, Detroit’s first African-American mayor.

In 1980 Jon Henrdicks hosted a tribute to Eddie Jefferson at a packed Carnegie Hall titled There I Go, There I Go, There I Go which featured Bobby McFerrin, Manhattan Transfer, James Moody, Richie Cole, Dizzy Gillespie and the comedian Professor Irwin Corey.”

SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY

As leader

Eddie Jefferson: The Jazz Singer (Inner City 1016)

Eddie Jefferson: Body And Soul (Prestige OJCCD-396-2)

Eddie Jefferson: The Main Man (Inner City (IC 1033)

Eddie Jefferson: Letter from Home: The Voice of Eddie Jefferson [Riverside RLP 9411, OJCCD 307-2]

As Sideman

King Pleasure/Annie Ross Sings (Prestige OJCCD-217-2)

The Bebop Singers (Prestige (PRCD-224216-2)

James Moody: Hey! It’s James Moody (Lonehill Jazz LHJ 10195CD)

Richie Cole (Muse MCD 5207)