Verve Norman Granz Centennial Celebration

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

Given the legacy of recorded Jazz that Norman Granz has left Jazz fans, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles thought that the least it could do was to call attention to this boxed set commemorating the hundredth year of his birth.

Verve Records To Pay Tribute To Its Legendary Founder Norman Granz And His Centennial With Aptly-Titled All-Star Four-Disc Box Set The Founder.

NEW COLLECTION FEATURES TIMELESS PERFORMANCES - SEVERAL ON CD FOR THE FIRST TIME - BY THE GREATEST JAZZ ARTISTS OF THE 1940S-'60S SPANNING THE JAZZ IMPRESARIO'S INFLUENTIAL LABELS CLEF, NORGRAN AND VERVE

“THE HISTORY OF JAZZ OFFERS A SELECT group of rebels who profoundly bent its fortunes without ever playing a note of music. One of these lone wolves was Norman Granz (1918-2001), who parlayed his own rarefied tastes and an indifference to industry norms into a vertically integrated jazz, empire. By gathering everything under one thumb — his own — he created, managed and marketed his own visions of what the record industry could achieve.

Today, the eldest surviving child of that empire is Verve Records, since 1998 a unit of Universal Music. And the label is celebrating the centennial of Granz's birth with a four-CD set featuring artists with whom he worked, including Louis Armstrong, Count Basic, Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson. Norman Granz: The Founder was programmed by Granz biographer Tad Hershorn, whose lively liner notes also provide the narration. "Even with all our labels today at Universal, Verve is still the one we use as our jazz brand," said Ken Druker, vice president for jazz development at Verve Label Group. "We hope this [box set] sells. It's an important part of our history. But it's not, as we say, a 'revenue play.'"

Danny Bennett, president/CEO of Verve Label Group, added: "Norman Granz's dedication to equality and social justice — for his artists and his audiences — was extraordinary in his time and is still relevant today. Every day we at Verve operate in the pioneering spirit of Norman Granz."

There is some irony in the notion of an enormous music corporation celebrating a man who likely wouldn't rise within its ranks today. Hostile to intrusion and indifferent to the marketplace, Granz relished his sovereignty. For him, nothing mattered but doing it his way. As a producer, though, his touch was light.

Granz began his impresario days in 1942 organizing off-night jam sessions in Los Angeles clubs. In 1944, he had an epiphany: If a jam could draw 200 in a club, why not 2,000 in L.A. Philharmonic Auditorium? "Jazz at the Philharmonic," he thought, had a nice ring to it, and the debut concert in July was recorded. As Granz listened days later, he was struck by how the concert's excitement could be felt through the recording and saw a new dimension in commercial recording: music as documentary. It would be the great innovation of his career. Granz took the Philharmonic recordings to executive Manie Sacks at Columbia, "but Sacks couldn't see the possibilities," Granz later said. So, the chance to issue the first live concert records in 1945 fell to an obscure label owned by Moses Asch.

The "|azz at the Philharmonic" concept caught fire, fueled by the push-pull of concerts and records promoting each other. "For the first 10 years," Granz said in 1997, "the concerts subsidized the record company. Every artist didn't necessarily carry his own weight."

In 1956, Granz consolidated everything under a single brand, and Verve was born. Though spread across four discs, Ihe Founder can't hit all the bases. But it shines light into some less expected early corners, like a track by the Ralph Burns Orchestra with Lee Konitz. "We wanted it to be a good listen," Druker said. "So, we kept the focus on the music flow."               

—John McDonough writing in the April 2019 edition of Downbeat

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- In jazz circles, few names command more respect than Norman Granz.Although he wasn't a musician, Granz (1918-2001) was as responsible as any individual for popularizing jazz and promoting the careers of many of the genre's greatest artists. Granz's incredible half-century career first took off with his creation of the groundbreaking Jazz at the Philharmonic concert series. But Granz was equally influential for the series of record labels that he launched in the 1940s and 1950s: Clef, Norgran and Verve.

Those companies became home to many of jazz's most important and influential artists. And, unlike many of his contemporaries, Granz combined his love for the music with a passion for social justice, championing African-American musicians at a time when those musicians were often exploited and disrespected.

Now, in honor of the hundredth anniversary of Norman Granz's birth, Verve/UMe has assembled The Founder, a four-CD/digital box set celebrating his remarkable life and career. The historic package was released on December 7, 2018 and features a massive chronological assortment of music spanning Granz's remarkable career and featuring music by most of the great musicians he recorded.

The package also includes illuminating liner notes by jazz historian and Granz authority Tad Hershorn, author of the Granz biography Norman Granz: The Man Who Used Jazz for Justice. As Hershorn writes, "The underpinnings of Granz's lifelong devotion to jazz came when, as a near-impoverished but ambitious UCLA student, he began his trek to African-American nightclubs along Central Avenue, not far from where he was born the son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants."

"Granz hit the clubs almost nightly when musicians began welcoming him behind the scenes to observe rehearsals, after-hours clubs, and house parties. He saw them as 'marvelous crucibles,' hearing the friendly, intense competition as musicians challenged their peers and developed their styles. His early experiences led to his preference for musical blow-by-blow competition and emphasizing the emotional over intellectual qualities in jazz. Granz took it a step further when he aligned the jam session with the democratic ideal, whereby you could either stand and deliver, or you couldn't. Skin color made no difference. 'As in genuine democracy, only performance counts,' Granz told the NAACP's magazine, The Crisis, in 1947. 'Jazz is truly the music of democratic America.'"

Granz's parallel passions for jazz and social justice was reflected in the ambitious artist lineups he assembled for his Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts, many of which are featured on The Founder. These shows were almost single-handedly responsible for moving jazz from smoky clubs to prestigious theaters and, in the process, introduced jazz improvisation to new and receptive audiences. The series also helped to break down many of the era's social barriers, showcasing a racially-mixed assortment of musicians and singers from a variety of musical backgrounds.

The four CDs that comprise The Founder encompass some of the most significant jazz music recorded in the 20th century, beginning with Granz's founding of the Clef label in 1942 and culminating in his retirement and departure from Verve Records (which he'd launched four years earlier) in 1960.

Disc 1 opens in 1942, during the early wild-west days of independent label recording, with historic performances by such rising players as Dexter Gordon, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker and Lester Young, who were among the first musicians that Granz recorded. Disc 1 also captures a young Nat "King" Cole, accompanied by Illinois Jacquet and Les Paul, on the crowd-thrilling "Blues," which contrasts with the bouncy pop which would later make Cole a mainstream superstar.

Disc 2, which spans 1949-1954, finds Granz settled in at the top of the jazz world and recording a varied assortment of some of jazz's leading lights, including the great pianist Oscar Peterson, charismatic vocalists Anita O'Day and Fred Astaire, and innovative bandleaders Count Basie and Benny Carter.

Disc 3, recorded between 1954 and 1957, encompasses the early years of the Norgran and Verve labels, which Granz founded during that period, and features historic performances by such icons as Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, Lester Young and Lionel Hampton.

Disc 4, which covers 1957-1960, shows Granz ending on a high note, culminating his career at Verve with history-making performances by Dizzy Gillespie, Blossom Dearie, Sonny Stitt, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, Ben Webster,Paul Desmond, Stuff Smith, Lee Konitz, Jimmy Giuffre and Mel Tormé.

It's hard to imagine a more appropriate tribute to Norman Granz's visionary genius than this incredible musical testament.

THE FOUNDER TRACK LISTING

Disc 1: Mercury/Clef, 1942-1948

1. I Blowed and Gone - Dexter Gordon
2. Blues - Nat "King" Cole, Illinois Jacquet & Les Paul
3. I Got Rhythm - Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker & Lester Young
4. Picasso - Coleman Hawkins
5. Sono - Harry Carney
6. The Bloos - George Handy & His Orchestra

Disc 2: Mercury/Clef, 1949-1954

1. Tenderly - Oscar Peterson Duo with Ray Brown
2. Vignette at Verney's - Ralph Burns Orchestra with Lee Konitz
3. Lullaby of the Leaves - Anita O'Day
4. The New Basie Blues - Count Basie and His Orchestra
5. Con Poco Coco - Andre's All Stars
6. Castle Rock - Johnny Hodges
7. Jeep's Blues - Johnny Hodges
8. (Ad Lib) Slow Dance - Fred Astaire
9. No Strings (I'm Fancy Free) - Fred Astaire
10. Flamingo - Benny Carter and His Orchestra
11. With the Wind and the Rain in Your Hair - Tal Farlow
12. Easy Living - Buddy DeFranco & Oscar Peterson Quartet
13. Blues for the Count - Count Basie and His Orchestra
14. They Can't Take That Away from Me - Buddy DeFranco & Oscar Peterson

Disc 3: Norgran/Verve, 1954-1957

1. I Thought About You - Billie Holiday
2. I Thought About You - Ella Fitzgerald
3. Like Someone in Love - Bud Powell
4. Pig Ears and Rice - Lionel Hampton and His Orchestra
5. Can't We Be Friends - Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
6. Blue Room - Bing Crosby & Buddy Bregman
7. Taking a Chance on Love - Lester Young & Teddy Wilson
8. What A Little Moonlight Can Do - Billie Holiday
9. Falling in Love with Love - Oscar Peterson Trio
10. Yellow Rose of Brooklyn - Harry "Sweets" Edison & Buddy Rich
11. Time After Time - Lawrence Brown

Disc 4: Verve, 1957-1960

1. Day By Day - Coleman Hawkins Newport All-Stars feat. Pete Brown
2. On the Sunny Side of the Street - Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt & Sonny Rollins
3. It Never Entered My Mind - Stan Getz
4. I Know That You Know - Stuff Smith
5. D and E Blues - The Modern Jazz Quartet
6. Budd Johnson - Ben Webster
7. If I Were a Bell - Blossom Dearie
8. Chelsea Bridge - Gerry Mulligan & Ben Webster
9. Line for Lyons - Gerry Mulligan & Paul Desmond
10. Somp'n Outa' Nothin' - Lee Konitz & Jimmy Giuffre
11. Thank You Charlie Christian - Herb Ellis
12. Lonely Town - Mel Tormé & Marty Paich Orchestra
13. Evil Eyes - Terry Gibbs Big Band

SOURCE Verve/UMe

André Previn - Maestro and Music

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

“An enigmatic fellow, Andre Previn. Intensely private, yet given to scandal and something of a showman...., one of the most thoughtful and sensitive classical conductors of his day yet widely assumed to be a sell-out populist, the finest interpreter of Gershwin's piano music with orchestra, and yet almost completely forgotten for his first love ... jazz.

A concentrated period of activity for Contemporary Records in the 1950s, and whal a gift he must have been for the label, turning up immaculately rehearsed, straight, clean, unimpeachably professional, and then laying down first-take performances one after the other. One suspects there never will be a box of Andre Previn out-takes and alternatives, and yet there's nothing unswinging or unspontaneous about any of these performances.

The label quickly cottoned on to the show-based and songbook approaches as quick and effective ways of selecting and theming material. Gigi is predictably skittish and playful, though not without its moments of tenderness. Pal Joey offers more of real musical substance, including the deathless 'I Could Write A Book' and the less well -known 'What Is A Man?'. The Plays Songs by Vernon Duke portfolio is the only one on which the pianist's classical training becomes evident, turning 'Cabin In The Sky' and 'Autumn In New York' into tiny symphonic statements and 'April In Paris' into an elegant, impressionistic tone-poem. Double Play! cast him in a more straight-ahead formula and repertoire, and in retrospect it almost seems the best of the bunch, because the most uncomplicatedly jazz-driven.

Previn's renaissance as a jazz pianist [in the 1990s] was hailed as a return to an old love, but it was also, of course, the resort of a man who had been bruised by orchestral politics more subtly cut-throat than anything the Medicis would have dared. These don't quite have the bounce and the freshness of old and very quickly sound formulaic….

We Got Rhythm: A Gershwin Songbook [Deutsche Grammophon] date is interesting in that it followed an all-Mozart programme Previn was conducting at Tanglewood. The next day he and that fine bassist David Finck simply wandered down to the Florence Gould Auditorium in Seiji Ozawa Hall, Lenox, Massachusetts, got up a pot of coffee and started running through some tunes. Here and there Previn doesn't sound note-perfect, but he has the musical nous to profit from occasional slips, and the best of these tracks are quite exceptional. Edward Jablonski's liner-notes on the individual songs are an added plus (little details like the three-limes failure of The Man I Love, the best track here, but a flop initially and canned from Lady Be Good! and Strike Up The Band), but the real delight is the simple lyricism and creative sophistication Previn brings to a composer whose work he seems to understand with his very nerve-ends. His obvious delight in the closing take of  I Got Rhythm is so infectious most listeners will recue the track and hear it through again. Splendid stuff from a born-again jazzman.”

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

“When critics had a go at André Previn in his heyday, the word “showman” was an easy gibe. The maestro seemed bigger than the music, and that was no surprise. After all, his background was in Hollywood scores, turning out reams of stuff for Lassie to bark at or Debbie Reynolds to talk over. Some of that glitz and schmaltz seemed to hang around in his gentle American voice, as well as in his soft spot for Rachmaninov and the too-lush sound of his string sections. In his spare time, for many years, he played jazz with his own trio in smoky dives. He liked television and was often on it in Britain in the 1970s, presenting orchestral music as light entertainment and even as comedy. The conductor at various times of several of the world’s great orchestras, the London Symphony, the London Philharmonic, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Vienna Philharmonic, took a lifetime to shed that label of lightweight Los Angeles Romanticism.

It clung to him well before he arrived in London in 1968, with his dark mop of hair, mandarin jackets, Swinging Sixties ways and the air of a casual, if reserved, film star. He had been fired as music director of the Houston Symphony partly for parading round town in blue jeans with Mia Farrow, an elfin actress who became his third wife, while he was still married to his second, Dory, who poured out desperate songs about him. There were more wives, many flings. For years the press swarmed after him like flies.

Yet he was more than capable of defending himself. On the subject of the women, they were all the best of friends. On taking classical music downmarket, the figures spoke for themselves. When he conducted the Houston Symphony in its dollar concerts at the Sam Houston Coliseum, he would pack 12,000 in. Each time he hosted “André Previn’s Music Night” on the BBC, chatting informally to the audience since he was sitting in their living rooms, he probably drew in more people in a week than the LSO, his chief orchestra, had managed in 65 years of performances. And when he appeared on “Morecambe and Wise” with the LSO as “Andrew Preview”, letting Eric Morecambe lift him by the lapels for questioning the comedian’s “playing” of Grieg’s Piano Concerto, he made the orchestra so famous that it was saved from bankruptcy, and himself so instantly recognisable that taxi drivers hailed him with “Hallo, Mr Preview!”. This made him very happy.

As for Hollywood, he had loved it. His Jewish family had fled to Los Angeles from Berlin, via Paris, in 1938 when he was ten; Hollywood was where he plunged into life. Who wouldn’t like to go to work each day in glorious sunshine, with all those pretty girls, and noodle a little Jerome Kern at parties? When he was 17 Ava Gardner tried to seduce him; two years later, he was confident enough to try the same with her. (Result, zero.) He won four Oscars for his film music, which included “Gigi” and “My Fair Lady”, and was nominated for nine more. If he could have kept laughing at the idiocies of producers who demanded, like Irving Thalberg, that “no music in an MGM film is to contain a minor chord”, he could have spent the rest of his career in that swimming-pool life.

And it could never have satisfied him. For under that peripheral glamour he was deeply committed to music for its own sake, a commitment he entered into at five, by asking his father for piano lessons. At six, he was in the Conservatory. Piano remained the deepest part of his multi-layered career, with recordings of the Mozart and Ravel concertos as well as chamber works by Brahms, Prokofiev, Gershwin and Barber, to name a few. His playing too was nurtured in Los Angeles by the many European émigrés, refugees from great orchestras, who relieved their boredom with film music by playing chamber music in abandoned school halls. It was there he discovered, through the violinist Joseph Szigeti, the trios of Beethoven and Schubert, and formed a classical trio himself. He played for Schoenberg and Stravinsky and, among the émigrés, began to feel the power of a baton in his hand. Meanwhile he went on joyously with jazz, again in his own trio. His intricate “games” with them sold hundreds of thousands of records.

The definite shift to conducting came in 1968, at 39, when the LSO recruited him for a spell that lasted 11 years. He accepted so fast that it shocked him, but his boyhood passion had been to see the hills that inspired Vaughan Williams and the sea that pulsed through Britten’s “Peter Grimes”. These composers, as well as Elgar and Walton, who wanted to dedicate his never-written third symphony to him, now became favourites in his repertoire. (He recorded all nine symphonies of Vaughan Williams, rapturously confessing that he really was a romantic.) Conducting required an even more serious approach, though he remained good at cloaking it with soft-spoken jokiness: massive amounts of research and rehearsal time, especially for pieces the players thought they knew.

But music directing too had its infuriating sides: politicking and socialising, ladies’ committees, truculent boards, shop stewards. None of that had anything to do with the music, which always stayed several steps ahead of him. He could spend his life chasing a great symphony, and never catch up. No performance could ever be as good as the work itself. Straggling behind, he composed many pieces of his own: sonatas, trios and songs, with a violin concerto for his fifth wife, the violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter. In older age, as in his Hollywood film-score years, he would pick up his pencil every day. It was not a question of waiting for the muse to kiss him, though that would have been nice. He wanted to understand the engineering of perfection: how Debussy could write “L’après midi d’un faune” without a single note put in for show; how the beginning of Brahms’s Fourth Symphony could reduce him to tears; how the unsurpassable serenity of the second movement of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto could change the way he saw the world. Before something as beautiful and frightening as music, he could only efface himself.”

This article appeared in the Obituary section of the print edition of The Economist, March 7, 2019 under the headline "Maestro and music"

Shorty Rogers - An Invisible Orchard

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

At one point in my life, the music of Shorty Rogers was anything but “invisible.”

Heck, I came of age as a Jazz drummer during the heyday of Jazz on the West Coast with Shorty as one of the recognized leaders of that supposed “movement.”

Larry Bunker, my drum teacher, was among Shorty’s closest friends and often worked in his small group, Shorty Rogers and The Giants, and on many of Shorty’s studio recordings. As a result, I was often around Shorty as Larry’s invited guest. We “hung out” together on a number of occasions and he hired me to do some commercial studio work for him.

In the Spring of 1961, flute and alto saxophonist Paul Horn and vibraphonist Emil Richards were raving about a new LP they were recording with Shorty at RCA. [Emil was a member of Paul Horn’s quintet from around 1959-1962.]

As usual, Shorty had all the top Jazz and studio players on it: Al Porcino, Ollie Mitchell and Ray Triscari sharing lead trumpet duties; Conte Candoli taking the Jazz trumpet solos with Frank Rosolino taking the Jazz trombone solos; Paul and Bud Shank on alto sax and flute; Bill Perkins and Harold Land doing the tenor sax Jazz solos; Chuck Gentry or Bill Hood anchoring the sax section on baritone; a rhythm section that featured Pete Jolly on piano, Red Mitchell on bass and Mel Lewis on drums.

The untitled album never came out and by the late 1960’s both Shorty and much of Jazz on the West Coast had disappeared.

As Ted Gioia explains in his seminal work on the subject of West Coast Jazz, Modern Jazz in California, 1945-1960:

“ … [Shorty’s] arrangements could swing without ostentation; his solos were executed with untroubled fluency; his compositions seemed to navigate the most difficult waters with a relaxed, comfortable flow that belied the often complex structures involved. Rogers's lifestyle, in its refusal to call attention to itself, followed a similar philosophy. While many of his colleagues on the West Coast found it easier to make headlines through their counterculture ways than through their music, Rogers had little to do with such excesses. He paid his dues and his monthly bills with equal equanimity. This was perhaps too cool. Rogers was easy to take for granted.

Rogers's visibility in jazz has been further hindered by his virtual retirement from performing situations since the early 1960s. …. Rogers recorded prolifically between 1951 and 1963, only to fade from the scene afterwards. …  Rogers [had not ]actually left the music world; … [he]simply applied … [his] skills elsewhere, in studio work or academic pursuits. But to the jazz community this was tantamount to retirement.

In reaction to Rogers's retreat into studio work, some jazz fans have been even less generous. They have viewed this change in careers as nothing short of treason, a betrayal of the serious music Rogers had once strived to create. But no matter how one interprets Rogers the musician, his lengthy absence from the jazz world has meant that his work, once widely known, is now largely unfamiliar to many jazz fans and critics.”

Shorty Rogers passed away in 1994 at the age of seventy.

Thanks to the efforts of Jordi Pujol, who is based in Barcelona, Spain and who owns and operates Fresh Sound Records and a number of associated Jazz record labels, much of Shorty’s music has once again become “visible” in reissued CD formats.

Jordi, bless his soul, even released the Shorty big band sessions that Paul Horn and Emil Richards were raving about “back in the day,” while providing this background about them in the sleeve notes that he wrote to accompany the CD.

Shorty Rogers and His Orchestra featuring the Giants: AN INVISIBLE ORCHARD [RCA 74321495602].

“After having produced several reissues during the last fourteen years of some of the great albums Shorty Rogers made for RCA, it's now time to present one of the most valuable treasures that have remained unreleased in the RCA vaults.

I've been very fortunate to have been good friends with Shorty, and to have had his collaboration in some projects for Fresh Sound Records. Shorty himself gave me a cassette of these sessions, with all the enclosed discographical information, with the hope that the album would finally see the light of day. This album was entirely written by him, and conceived as a suite with the title of "An Invisible Orchard", and was possibly the most personal and ambitious project he ever put together.

It was the last album he recorded for RCA, after having been associated with the label from 1953 to 1961, except for the year 1955 when he went to Atlantic as musical director. Unfortunately the policy of RCA at that time resulted in the recording being put on hold for commercial reasons. They felt it was not the kind of music the public was expecting to hear at that particular time, ten years after

Shorty had established his name and figure as the head of the so-called West Coast Jazz school, and the new trends in jazz caused the company to feel that the album did not fall within their current plans. As a confirmed Shorty Rogers fan, I'm grateful to the RCA archives for having located the master tapes, which has given me the opportunity to produce this CD. However, I feel sad that it arrived too late to make Shorty himself happy, for more than anyone else he deserved to see this CD issued. This should be not only a memorable and momentous jazz event but a major homage to the man and musician who was admired and respected by the entire music world. God Bless You Shorty Rogers!”

You can order the CD directly from Fresh Sound Records by going here.

The following audio file features Shorty's arrangement of Inner Space, The solos are by Harold Land on tenor sax, Shorty on flugelhorn, Emil Richards on vibes, Frank Rosolino on trombone and Pete Jolly on piano. The drummer is Mel Lewis and the lead trumpets are Al Porcino and Ray Triscari. It is the opening track of the Invisible Orchard CD.

Feldman Swing Club - Jazz Journal, April 1966

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

Mark Gilbert, editor of JazzJournal, granted copyright permission to reprint this article about the Feldman Swing Club that first appeared in its pages in April, 1996.

The Feldman Swing Club is where it all began for drummer, vibraphonist/pianist Victor Feldman, and, as the article points out, it was also the beginning point for many of the careers of England’s superb Jazz musicians during the second half of the 20th century.

Victor has donned formal wear in the above photo for the purpose of inviting you to come to the cabaret that was the center of the Jazz world in London from 1942-1954 – The Feldman Swing Club.

© -  JazzJournal: copyright protected, all rights reserved, used with permission.

“This is the story of Britain's first ever real jazz club, The Feldman Swing Club, where famous British and American musicians played during, and just after World War II and where many readers perhaps had their first opportunity to hear and participate in live jam sessions.  Researched and recounted by Barbara Feldman, niece of both founders, Robert and Monty Feldman and the famous international jazz drummer/vibist/pianist, Victor Feldman, it charts the central role played by her family within UK jazz history as creators of what the Melody Maker described as the 'Mecca of Swing.' The eldest Feldman brother, Arnold - Barbara's father - played trumpet, but was at that time stationed in Gibraltar with the RAF, and so took no part in the proceedings of the Feldman Club until after demobilisation.

This account is based on a series of interviews with the late Robert Feldman, Monty Feldman's wife Helen, family friends, and fellow musicians who willingly took Barbara into their confidence. It should be born in mind that prior to this the only jazz 'clubs' were 'Societies' or 'Rhythm Clubs' (which of course still exist today) where 78 rpm records were played by a recitalist who discussed a particular aspect of jazz music and illustrated his/her talk musically.

The Feldman story began in Gerrard Street in London's West End in 1942 where two brothers, Robert and Monty Feldman, worked as pattern cutters and designers in a small clothing firm managed by their father Joseph. Robert recalled that 'Business wasn't doing too well and the people in charge just muddled through.' The brothers took respite in listening to the Radio Rhythm Club Sextet led by Harry Parry blaring out of the radio. However, this would only have been a half-hour weekly slot for, according to music promoter Bert Wilcox, 'In those days the BBC saw jazz as second-rate music whose followers consisted of wild women and drug takers.' Robert, a clarinetist and saxophone player inspired by Artie Shaw, and his brother Monty, an accordionist, were becoming increasingly convinced that swing could be made commercial. Their enthusiasm was growing as well as their talent and, at home in Edgware, Middlesex, they were rehearsing with their young brother Victor as The Feldman Trio. The boys made home recordings and played at weddings, bar mitzvahs and youth club dances. They were becoming increasingly popular among local jazz enthusiasts and musicians, principally due to the unlikely talents of their young drummer, eight-year-old Victor.

Having recently moved out to Edgware, to escape the wartime bombing, their neighbor Ronnie Scott was one of many musicians who began to drop by to play with the kid whom he regularly saw in short trousers in the street. riding his tricycle.

Benny Green, who later became Victor's regular room-mate when they toured together with the Ronnie Scott band got to hear the inside story of Victor's beginnings. Victor told him how earlier Monty and Robert had been jamming and becoming increasingly annoyed with their drummer. 'Our kid brother can do better-than. that' they cried. At this point, to everyone's amazement young Victor stole the show - he said he didn't know why he could play, he just could. Benny said - 'He was phenomenal, there has never been anything like it and there never will.'

Little did the brothers know that such an event would create a sensation among musicians, culminating in Victor becoming a child prodigy and finally a top international name in the jazz world. He was groomed for adult stardom by the Harold Davison Agency, whilst American boogie woogie pianist and dancer Maurice Rocco gave him dance lessons. He would go on to play with such stars as Stephane Grappelli, Vic Lewis, Woody Herman and even Glenn Miller's wartime AAAF band, astonishing the musicians with his 10-year-old genius in 1944.

Billy Amstell, former tenor saxist with the famous Ambrose Dance band, recalls that night at the Queensbury Club (a club for wartime servicemen) when the late Ray McKinley, then drummer with the Band of the AAAF. ran up to him crying with shock at having seen and heard young Victor. 'I don't believe it!' he cried as little Victor's drumming lifted the a hole band.

Max Bacon the Feldman's cousin. was the drummer with Ambrose, and he started Victor banging on a child's tin drum when he was as four-years-old. Later he set the ball really rolling by promoting Victor using his contacts and agents. He helped him into major movies: King Arthur Was A Gentleman (with comedian Arthur Askey) and Theatre Royal, where Robert Feldman led the band and wrote the arrangements.. Ted Heath played trombone in that band with George Shearing on piano and Jimmy Skidmore on tenor saxophone among others. Victor was also in the Flanagan and Allen show and starred at The Royal Albert Hall, The London Palladium and The Piccadilly Theatre with Sid Field in Piccadilly Hayride. Meanwhile he was watched over by his increasingly anxious father 'Grandpa' Joseph who begged Benny Green to 'encourage him to get a proper job.'

However, on that cold September night in war-torn London, 1942, Robert and Monty were yet to realise the extent of the creative potential that was beginning to brew around them. Robert switched off the radio, left his pattern cutting and began his journey home. Passing number 100 Oxford Street, a sign indicated Mac's Restaurant. As if hypnotised he went downstairs and he later recalled how there were posts (pillars) all over the place and: 'Suddenly I imagined them turning into palm trees, and I thought to myself, this would make a nice little club.' Old Ma Phyllis, later nicknamed 'The Dragon' by club goers, was the manageress of Mac's and she was only too pleased to charge the young enthusiasts 4 pounds a night to start The Feldman Swing Club. According to Bert Wilcox, she was to become a central figure of the club, 'always licking her lips, bossing everyone around to put their coats in the cloakroom and the only person to make money from the event by charging people 6d (21/2p) for a plate of crisps.'

Despite having tentatively hooked Mac's for three weeks' time, Robert had no capital and no musicians, but he was convinced that swing music could be successfully promoted in a club. Their father, a guiding hand behind Windsmoor Clothing was at first unenthused by his son's brainwave and refused to give financial backing. 'That's not a proper business, do something sensible!' was his initial response and a not unfamiliar one at that, according to Ronnie Scott; 'For those creative Jews who didn't want to be butchers or go into the gown business, to be involved in music would have been one of the few possible ways out of "the ghetto'.' Ironically Joseph was later to become, according to Ronnie, like the Godfather, taking the money at the door with his wife Kitty, and was to form, with Bert Wilcox, The National Organisation For the Promotion of Jazz in Great Britain.

Robert and Monty had to be inventive. The penniless brothers marched towards Archer Street - then the haunt of unemployed musicians--by the Windmill Theatre, where musicians gathered in the streets and surrounding pubs and cafes hoping to be booked for gigs (weddings and dances, etc.). Benny Green and Ronnie Scott were regularly among the crowd. 'On Monday morning there could be as many as 500 people in the street, and every night around midnight, the owner of the Harmony Inn would give Ronnie the key for us to hang out.' Nearby was the American Forces Club, the Queensbury, where Glenn Miller's AAAF band sometimes played. It was to Archer Street that Robert and Monty went to book musicians for their opening night. 'We spoke to the bassist, and said "you're getting 2 pounds 10s? We'll pay you 3.00 pounds to play for us." He agreed, so I told him: 'Get George Shearing, Kenny Baker and six other top musicians!'. Robert then contacted the Melody Maker (then a dance and swing music weekly) and put in the following advert: No. 1 Swing Club ... 100 Oxford Street, opening night, for members only ... Listen and dance to the following line-up: Kenny Baker, Tommy Bromley; Bobby Midgley; Tommy Pollard; Jimmy Skidmore; Frank Weir. Guest artists: The Feldman Trio. Subscriptions 5s. 0d. (25p) per annum to be sent to: The Secretary, Oakleigh Gardens, Edgware. 'The idea' said Robert, 'was that only those who sent their five shillings could get in free on the opening night, and in future it would be 3s. 6.d 'for members and 5s. 0d. for visitors.'

The boys were inundated with enough members to book Mae's for three consecutive weeks. Thus on October 24, 1942 at 7.30pm The Feldman Swing Club was born. According to The Melody Maker, it would provide London enthusiasts with what they had always lacked, a regular home for swing music where they could meet, dance, and listen to jazz music from star players. However, the possibilities of the club were seen as wider than this. Its creation would bring to a climax that hoary old argument once and for all: whether swing can be made commercial. Excitement was in the air.

Helen, who met Monty at the club whilst on a date with an American officer. recalls the opening night. 'The atmosphere was electric with the low ceiling vibrating from the sound. From then on there were queues halfway Oxford Street.’

The club became so popular that it opened on a Saturday as well. Helen describes how Robert and Monty's lives began to change. 'I remember that in fact lots of money was made from the club, enough for the boys to give up their work as pattern cutters. They started to wear silk hand-painted ties, suede shoes and sports jackets. They spent their time booking musicians, filling out PRS (Performing Rights Society) forms and making demos at Carlo Krahmer's lovely recording studios in Tottenham Court Road.'

Until the formation of The Feldman Club the main places to hear live jazz were all night unlicensed clubs known as 'bottle parties' - here licensing laws were evaded by ordering a bottle and having it stored at the off licence close by with your name on it until you wanted it. They were, according to Ronnie Scott, 'peopled by ladies of the night and wartime guards officers out for a good time. . ..’ Here many musicians started their careers. The Feldman Club also allowed dancing and it was here that American Servicemen patronising the club introduced the free-style jiving (jitterbugging) which was then a new improvised style of dancing.

Dance promoter Tony Harrison confirms that 'jitterbuggers' (sic) would often collide with nicely dressed people in the 'posher clubs' and there would be signs saying 'no jitterbugging' or 'no jiving' (later) and if they dared, the owners would say ‘stop, or get out.’  At Feldman's they could relax and dance. There were also Rhythm Clubs -as mentioned in the introduction - where there were also occasional jam sessions. However, dancing was not permitted and a concert atmosphere prevailed.

The Feldman was a club with an open-minded atmosphere that would, according to Tony Harrison, 'open its doors to everybody'. There were no class, racial or religious distinctions, and the average working man earning 2.00 pounds per week could afford the 3s.6d. (l7 ½ p) to get in.

Visiting American musicians would always make a beeline for the club which became the number one place to go, and was advertised as The Mecca of Swing. At one point, Glenn Miller decided to visit the club only to be refused entry until Joseph Feldman himself intervened. However, on other occasions for Joseph this attitude worked to his disadvantage. Guitarist Pete Chilvers, who played with the band every Sunday night, recalls arriving at the door and asking if he could bring in a few pals. 'Any friend of yours is a friend of mine' was Joseph's amicable response. However, Chilvers chuckles, ‘you should have seen his face as I trooped in with an endless line of Yanks.’

Once inside, Chilvers recalls eight-year-old Victor, with braces on his teeth, running up and sitting on his knee, whilst Freddie Crump took the place to pieces playing on his own teeth with drumsticks' into the microphone.  Eighty-year-old bassist Coleridge Good remembers watching little Victor in amazement: 'He was so small his feet were too tiny to reach the drum pedal; he could just touch it with the tips of his toes. He was wonderfully agile.' Such scenes were to last for around ten years.

The club hosted every British jazz musician of note and many Americans including: pianist Mel Powell, drummer Ray McKinley, clarinetist Benny Goodman, saxophonists Art Pepper and Spike Robinson, plus French violinist Stephane Grappelli. British saxophonist Kathy Stobart stresses the importance of the club in jazz history: 'The Feldman Club was the place where we all blossomed and made our contacts; that is where I first met John Dankworth'.

Ballad and blues singer Jimmy James remembers with a nostalgic glaze in his eyes some now famous musicians starting out. 'I can see them there now along the back stage right; there's young Tony Crombie (19), Johnny Dankworth (17), Carlo Krahmer, Phil Seamen (18) and 10-year-old Victor Feldman playing with 17-year-old Ronnie Scott' (this would have been in 1944-Ed). James recalls Glenn Miller's boys (sic) coming down for the big band evening and Joseph, smartly dressed, filming a line of fans with a cine-camera.

Vocalist and percussionist Frank Holder confirms the celebrity status 'Everybody was dying to play there and they knew Robert only went for star names'. He also stresses the importance of the Feldman for black musicians such as himself. 'When I arrived from Guyana in 1944 with the RAF I was hungry for jazz. At Feldman's you could prove yourself and get into the scene. People like Coleridge Goode, Ray Ellington and Lauderic Caton would play there. The guys got to know you and my reputation got around. When there was a sudden influx of blacks with the RAF I was then able to introduce them into jazz. What mattered to Robert and Monty Feldman was that you were musical.'

Guitarist Cliff Dunne recalls 'that there was a real family atmosphere at Feldman's which became an important refuge for Jews and blacks living in wartime London'.

New Orleans style bands such as George Webb's Dixielanders and the Crane River Jazz Band also appeared at the club. George Webb remembers that late in 1943, Ray Sonin the then editor of The Melody Maker, persuaded Robert to book the Dixielanders, who had a large following among traditional fans in greater London. Freddy Mirfield and his Garbage Men (another traditional band from East London) were due to play. Personnel included Freddy Randall (t), Johnny Dankworth (cl) and Dennis Croker on trombone. Croker never got to play however on this special Sunday afternoon as he was injured by a 'Doodlebug' (German flying bomb used to raid London from launch pads in occupied France). Eddie Harvey stood in for him.

The club continued until 1954 but then Robert said he started to lose interest. 'Some weeks it was doing all right, but towards the end, not so much. Other clubs started opening (The London Jazz Club and the Humphrey Lyttelton Club were using the same premises on different nights of the week - Lyttelton was appearing twice per week – Ed.) and there was too much competition. ‘I thought, I'm not taking it on for another year. If there were three new clubs opening I'd end up with a smaller audience and only one top musician, say Johnny Dankworth, and the rest would be just ordinary'.

Robert Feldman decided to try his luck in New York, but this wasn't a great success. He said later: 'It was hopeless.'

Unfortunately the Feldman brothers are no longer with us to give us more details of Robert's New York venture. Joseph died on July 31, 1957, Monty on March 9, 1979 (aged 53); Victor on May 14, 1987 (also 53) and Robert on November 2, 1992 aged 69. However, The Feldman Club is still alive in spirit where jazz still flourishes at The 100 Club and to mature jazz fans it will still be remembered as Feldman's!

(Editor's note: This feature is largely based on information given to Barbara Feldman during interviews, since she is too young to have actually experienced the events described. However, memories dim over the years and it has been necessary to adjust certain reports to conform with known facts and birthdates, etc.)”