More Holiday Gifts

Here are some suggested holiday gifts for the Jazz saxophone fans among your family and friends.

Each is available in paperback and eBook formats exclusively from Amazon.com.

Just search for my name while on the Amazon site under books.

Remembering Frankie Dunlop (December 6, 1928 – July 7, 2014)

Frankie Dunlop's half-century in the music business resulted in an accumulation of musical wealth, a concept that does not always revolve around bank accounts.

Frankie Dunlop (December 6, 1928 – July 7, 2014) was a jazz drummer, one of the greats, whose performances have been raved about by critics and jazz fans alike, sometimes even described so passionately it would seem like he was participating in some kind of psychedelic music event. (From a web log: "...Dunlop has this falling-down-the-stairs melodic, sloppy-droppy sh*t going on that's like fireworks going off in my head.") Drummers with a sense of history, which ought to be all of them, prefer a simple anecdote when summing up the glory of Dunlop. Gene Krupa, the great swing star and one of the most popular drummers in music history, heard Dunlop for a set and promptly made arrangements for him to get free equipment from the Slingerland company.

A return to extravagant imagery is suitable, especially considering that Dunlop's lengthy drum solos during the normal course of a Thelonious Monk combo set have been described as "extravaganzas." The following image involving the drummer's discography will probably also come in handy if extra storage space is required for the largesse, in terms of free drum sets, resulting from Krupa doing Dunlop "a solid." Dunlop's solid contribution to jazz, in terms of recorded sides amounting to nearly 100 albums by the time he retired in 1984, can be compared to vast underground caves full of treasure. Amid steep, shimmering piles of gold such as the sides with Monk from a nearly four-year stay beginning in 1960, meltdowns with Sonny Rollins, or brilliant later live recordings with Lionel Hampton's touring band, are trinkets of incredible charm, adding another dimension to the understanding of this artist -- such as a track with silly castanets accompaniment or another in which Dunlop steps forward to deliver an amusing bebop vocal.

Dunlop's shuffle was imported from Buffalo, where he grew up in a family ripe not only for music but a drummer. His brother was a pianist, his father a guitarist, the drummer-to-be actually starting on the former instrument himself when his musical life began at the age of nine. At ten, however, Dunlop became a drummer, putting down musical roots that will come as no surprise to those aware of his skill with the complex yet bluesy music of Monk. Already a professional musician at 16, Dunlop began with classical percussion training, then went on to touring with rhythm and blues bandleaders such as Big Jay McNeely. Inevitably, this would result in the solid backbeat that made Monk performances of tunes such as "Rhythm-a-Ning" seem somehow akin to good rock & roll.

Most of this drummer's experiences were as a sideman, but he did lead his own group when he came out of the Army in the early '50s. By 1954 he was working with jazz giants such as Sonny Stitt, Charles Mingus, and Rollins. Prior to Dunlop's aforementioned stint with Monk, the drummer provided the required rhythmic push for piercing trumpeter Maynard Ferguson's big band, then in 1960 joined up briefly with Duke Ellington. Live recordings of the Hampton band from venues such as the Dutch De Muzeval in 1978 provide examples of Dunlop's craft in his later years.

Source: Eugene Chadbourne, All Music Guide

Jess Stacy - Sing sing sing (Piano Solo)

"Stacy did take a famous solo. It came about accidentally, during Goodman's bellwether 1938 Carnegie Hall concert. The band was nearing the closing ensemble of its elephantine showpiece, "Sing, Sing, Sing," when, after a Goodman-Gene Krupa duet, there was a treading-water pause, and Stacy, suddenly given the nod by Goodman, took off. The solo lasted over two minutes, which was remarkable at a time when most solos were measured in seconds. One wonders how many people understood what they were hearing that night, for no one had ever played a piano solo like it. From the opening measures, it had an exalted, almost ecstatic quality, as if it were playing Stacy. It didn't, with its Debussy glints and ghosts, seem of its time and place. It was also revolutionary in that it was more of a cadenza than a series of improvised choruses. There were no divisions or seams, and it had a spiralling structure, an organic structure, in which each phrase evolved from its predecessor. Seesawing middle-register chords gave way to double-time runs, which gave way to dreaming rests, which gave way to singsong chords, which gave way to oblique runs.

A climax would be reached only to recede before a still stronger one. Piling grace upon grace, the solo moved gradually but inexorably up the keyboard, at last ending in a superbly restrained cluster of upper-register single notes. There was an instant of stunned silence before Krupa came thundering back, and those who realized that they had just heard something magnificent believed that what they had heard was already in that Valhalla where all great unrecorded jazz solos go.

"Well, that 1938 solo was a funny thing," he said, in his soft Southern voice. "Benny generally hogged the solo space, and why he let me go on that way I still don't know. But I've thought about it, and there are two things that might explain it. I think he liked what I'd been doing behind him during his solo, and I think he was mad at Teddy Wilson and Gene Krupa and Lionel Hampton, because they had all told him they were leaving to form their own bands.

When I started to play, I figured, Good Lord, what with all the circus-band trumpet playing we've heard tonight and all the Krupa banging, I might as well change the mood and come on real quiet. So I took the A-minor chord 'Sing, Sing, Sing' is built around and turned it this way and that. I'd been listening to Edward MacDowell and Debussy, and I think some of their things got in there, too. I didn't know what else to do, and I guess it worked out pretty well." - Whitney Balliett

The Art Blakey Percussion Ensemble - Oscalypso [Oscar Pettiford Cello and Ray Bryant Piano]

Yusef Lateef - Oscarlypso [Richard Williams trumpet, Mike Nock piano, Ernie Farrow, bass, and James Black drums]

West Coast Cool Jazz Film Trailer For Fundraising

These Readers on West Coast Jazz offer over a 1,000 pages of articles, interviews and commentaries about Jazz West Coast Musicians and their music. They are available as paperbacks and eBooks exclusively through Amazon.com. Just enter my name in the search box under Books on the Amazon site. Each is very reasonably priced and would make a perfect gift for the Jazz fan on your holiday list.

Holiday Gifts

 Gifts for the Jazz fans on your holiday list.

All are available as paperbacks and eBooks exclusively on Amazon.com.

Just search for my name under books.

Turnaround by Ornette Coleman