“Music: A Subversive History” by Ted Gioia

© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

—This essay is adapted from Mr. Gioia’s new book, Music: A Subversive History, published by Basic Books.and was printed in The Wall Street Journal.

By Ted Gioia

Oct. 19, 2019 

“Popular songs are big business nowadays, the driving force behind a $10 billion industry. But it all started in the humblest way possible. The first documented song in the English language came from the mouth of an illiterate cow herder. More than 1,300 years ago the Venerable Bede, a medieval scholar known as the “father of English history,” wrote down the words sung by Caedmon, who tended animals at a Benedictine monastery in North Yorkshire. Bede marveled over the miracle that allowed an untutored servant to create such a remarkable hymn.

Caedmon’s song might have seemed like a miracle, but in the long history of music this kind of surprise is actually the rule, not the exception. Innovative songs almost always come from outsiders—the poor, the unruly and the marginalized.

The scholars Milman Parry and Albert Lord confirmed this fact in the 1930s, when they set out to trace the origins of ancient epics like the Iliad and the Odyssey. Their research took them to Bosnia, where they met Avdo Mededović, an illiterate peasant farmer they dubbed the “Yugoslav Homer.” Accompanying himself on a one-string instrument, Mededović performed a single story-song that took seven days to complete and went on for 12,311 lines—roughly the same length as the Odyssey. He performed entirely from memory, aided by patterned improvisations of the kind used by jazz musicians.

Parry and Lord later declared that every one of the great singers of tales they encountered during their field research was illiterate. The ability to sing an epic poem was not only a skill that couldn’t be taught in college, but a formal education would almost certainly destroy it.

Other researchers have found similar performers, almost always among the poor and outcast. Song collector John Lomax was so impressed with James “Iron Head” Baker, discovered during a 1933 visit to record prisoners at Huntsville Penitentiary in Texas, that he later described him as a “black Homer.” Or consider the case of the Russian epic singer Vasily Shchegolenok, who amazed Leo Tolstoy in the 1870s with his storytelling and influenced the famous novelist’s own writing style; or the herder Beatrice Bernardi, who astonished the famous art critic John Ruskin in Tuscany in the 1880s with her ability to sing lengthy tales by memory.

History books sometimes acknowledge the “low” origins of our more popular genres of music. The association of musical innovation with enslaved people, for instance, is well known in the Americas, where the descendants of slaves shaped the provocative sounds of jazz, blues, samba, salsa, reggae, soul music and numerous other genres. But in many other instances, such origins are obscured or ignored. Most music students are taught, for instance, the Lydian and Phrygian modes, invented by the ancient Greeks, without ever realizing that these terms came from the ethnicities of the enslaved performers who created these sounds.

Likewise, the love-song tradition associated with the troubadours of southern France actually originated with female slave singers in the Islamic world. These songs entered Europe via the Iberian peninsula, and their distinctive poetic themes were adopted by the nobility, who often sang about being enslaved to love. The idea that a feudal lord could be a slave seems incongruous, until you realize that actual slaves originated this style of singing.

As these examples suggest, such visionary outsiders are eventually imitated and assimilated by cultural elites. Sometimes, if they live long enough, they become elites themselves. In the 1960s, many parents were shocked by their first encounters with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones—but those bad boys eventually were knighted and turned into Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Mick Jagger. Bob Dylan was a leader of the counterculture in 1966 but honored as the Nobel laureate in literature in 2016. The album “Straight Outta Compton,” by hip-hoppers N.W.A., was banned by many retailers and radio stations in 1988 and was even denounced by the FBI. But in 2017, the album was chosen by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for its cultural merit.

These humble origins can be traced in almost all song genres. In the early days of the U.S. music industry, record labels had to undertake field trips to the most impoverished areas of the South whether they were seeking out blues musicians for black audiences or country stars for white audiences. And the same linkage can be seen in other parts of the world, in the history of Jamaican reggae, Brazilian samba, Argentine tango, Greek rebetiko and a host of other world-changing song styles.

Alas, the very process of legitimization involves distortion—obscuring the origins of music and repurposing it to meet the needs of the powerful. Today, the most popular songs still come from outsiders—just look at hip-hop or rock or R&B or outlaw country music and see how the same pattern plays out in different contexts. Whether we are dealing with the troubadours, the Beatles or Snoop Dogg, an officially cleansed public image is promulgated while the disreputable past is shuffled offstage and out of view.

The institutions that sanction and preserve musical culture will never be able to guide us, however, to music that is new or different. The purified musical heritage that they preserve may be highly respectable, but it leaves out too much.

Outsiders are especially well positioned to disrupt old traditions and create new ones, for the simple reason they have the least allegiance to the prevailing manners and attitudes of the societies in which they live. In music, we crave this disruption and the excitement it brings. Again and again, we turn to bohemians, rebels and others who operate on the margins of society to provide us with songs we can’t find elsewhere.

For the same reason, we ought to celebrate diversity—not because it’s fashionable or politically expedient but because it brings creative outsiders into the musical ecosystem. We often fear strangers arriving in our midst, but they serve as catalysts that spur new forms of artistic expression. Just look at the port cities and multicultural communities, from Lesbos to Liverpool, that have played a key role in the history of song.

In a sense, the internet has turned all of our neighborhoods into virtual port cities, giving us immediate access to a world of sound outside the purview of powerful interests. We shouldn’t take that for granted: It’s almost certainly where the next musical revolution will begin.”

Here's a link to Basic Books should you wish to purchase a copy of Ted's new book.

Scott LaFaro and the LA Bassists [From the Archives with Additions]

© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

The late Scott LaFaro’s claim to fame as a bassist centers on his two year association with pianist Bill Evans and the handful of recordings he made for Riverside Records before his tragic death July 6, 1961 at the age of 25.

While in New York, Scotty also worked with Stan Getz, Ornette Coleman and pianist Don Friedman, but what isn’t generally known or acknowledged is his earlier involvement with musicians in California, particularly his associations with other bassists, principally in Los Angeles.

This was a defining time in LaFaro’s career and is as important as his New York years because it was the germination period in his stylistic development.

This backstory is eloquently told in Scotty’s sister, Helene LaFaro - Fernandez’s biography: Jade Visions: The Life and Music of Scott LaFaro [University of North Texas Press].

The comments of the other bassists who knew Scotty during his stay in Los Angeles from 1955-1959 contain insights in helping us understand how Scotty’s approach to playing Jazz evolved, what it entailed and the nature of the impact it had on Jazz bass playing.

“Scotty was living in the spare bedroom of a house owned by Herb and Lorraine Geller. Scotty had met alto saxophonist Herb Geller through Lorraine, who was the house pianist at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, where Scotty occasionally sat in. Herb and Lorraine had recently bought a house nestled in the Hollywood Hills. They invited Scotty to move into their spare bedroom, solving his housing problem until I arrived in early October. 

He loved the solitude of the place and being surrounded by the scrub, natural state of the vegetation. He sent home photos with comments and started setting out the advantages of the family's impending move. In the pictures he looked happy.

Herb had a great record collection of jazz recordings. Scotty said he heard a lot of people for the first time listening to Herb's records. And he practiced, practiced, practiced. Scotty, in an interview with Nat Hentoff for liner notes for the 1958 The Arrival of Victor Feldman album, said about this period," I couldn't find enough work and besides, I definitely needed the practice." In Los Angeles it took six months to get a union card. Until you had it, you couldn't take studio work or a steady job. Pretty much all you could do was casuals and sit in whenever possible.

Not only was the house in a peaceful and beautiful location, but there were jam sessions at the Gellers' as well. Jack Sheldon, Don Friedman, Terry Trotter, Clare Fischer, and Joe Maini were some of those who would drop in. Scotty would make the rounds with Herb, Don, and other friends to the many clubs that were featuring jazz. He did some fill-in work with the band for singer Marigold Hill at the Stardust Room in Long Beach. Another casual gig Scotty had was a garden wedding with Joanne Grauer, jazz pianist and teacher, who was then just seventeen. She told me she was thrilled to play with such an outstanding player. She had also been working with Gary Peacock and, looking back, she remarks she felt really blessed. She said she believed then that all bass players played that well, but soon thereafter had a rude awakening.

Drummer Freddie Gruber also met Scotty and played with him on casuals — first in a couple of clubs in the El Monte area then later at the Hillcrest with Paul Bley and Dave Pike. Although Scotty worked in Paul Bley's group for just a limited period of time, Paul remembers that when he hired Scotty, he put him in the front. When asked why he was putting the bass player blocking the view of the vibraphone player Paul replied, "because he was the best player in the band. He was a star; he ‘paid the rent' because he was a virtuoso player. The only other person who played across all areas like that was Charlie Mingus. Scotty took bass playing to another level. He went to the top of the heap career wise. Nobody could move their fingers around the bass as fast as he could."

Charles Lloyd, composer and saxophonist, has had an incredible personal journey as well as an accomplished career spanning many years in jazz with excursions into many other genres of music. There is a depth to his voice over the phone that is a reflection of the richness of his soul. I was fortunate to be able to talk to Charles about his close friendship with Scotty.

Originally from Memphis, Tennessee, Charles had come to Los Angeles in 1956 to attend the University of Southern California. Scotty met Charles at some jam sessions with Don Cherry late that year and they made an immediate, deep connection. Now that Scotty had returned to Los Angeles, they began to play together, gigging around town with Don, Harold Land, Billy Higgins, Elmo Hope, and Terry Trotter. Charles said he was "still high from those days ... we just got together and played. We just loved to play. It was like the holy grail with us. We had our mission. We were just growing, learning. There was such a rich group of people."

Their youthful exuberance — to share the joy they found in their music — brought to mind one particular gig:" We played this wedding in Glendale (a Los Angeles suburb) . It was like a community center or something. The bandstand was behind a white picket fence. There was Billy Higgins, Don Cherry and Scott La-Faro. The pianist was Terry Trotter. Imagine Higgins alone ... and Scotty playing together, and Terry ... punching out those Bud Powell, Tommy Flanigan chords and stuff. We were so excited to play. We were just making this music ... it was very un-picket fence. We were sound Brahmans, we had gone beyond the Concord and the space barriers. We knew we were going to send this couple into infinity with the richness of this indigenous art form ... off in bliss in hope—the whole thing. That was our impetus. We didn't get that far. The father ran up, waving his hands.' Please, please stop. Stop ... Please, no more ... please just leave. I'll pay you now, just leave.' That union would have been cemented by that music. I'm convinced of it to this day."

Scotty and Charles became very close friends, best friends— sharing stories, dreams and aspirations as well as food and fun. As for music, Charles said, "Scotty had it ... he had the magic. He had wonderful integrity, an excellent musician. He had this awesome, adventurous technique. An innovator. He and Ornette were like astronauts. Scotty liked freshness, he was always pushing himself. He was and is enormously important to music." ...

Scotty made other lasting friends during this time. Pianist Don Friedman recalls: "I first heard Scott when he was playing with Buddy Morrow at the Palladium late in '56. Then I was on the road with Buddy DeFranco from November, '56 till July of '57. Buddy asked me to drive a new car he had bought in St. Louis back to LA while he flew, which I did, taking Vic Feldman along. Not long after that I met Scott up at Herb s place and we became good friends. A little later Scotty and I worked a gig with Chet Baker at Peacock Lane on the corner of Hollywood and Western. The gig was for a week. Larance Marable was the drummer and Richie Kamuca the saxophonist. As I recall, Chet didn't finish the week. The cops were looking for him and he literally escaped from the club and never came back. I don't remember if we finished the week without him."

Scotty also met pianist, composer, and arranger Clare Fischer. Clare relates, "Scotty and I became good friends. We had an immediate musical rapport that was sensational. We did a lot of listening and talking. Besides technique, he had governing, control. I think he was the first bass player who was fleet footed in the musical sense." Clare remembers he was in San Jose traveling with Cal Tjader when he heard about Scotty s accident. "What a trauma, it struck me right down—that someone I was developing such a relationship with would suddenly not be there."

Besides jamming at the Gellers', pianist Terry Trotter recalls he and Scotty played pool, went to the movies, and smoked a bit of weed together. "Scotty and I connected in music and as people. He was humorous, funny. With his  work he could be difficult and temperamental. He had a wonderful musical gift."

This was the time when a lot of talented musicians were in Los Angeles and would become part of what was known as the West Coast Jazz scene. It was in Los Angeles that Scotty first heard Ray Brown. The swing and perfection in his style really impressed Scotty. Cecelia Brown, Ray’s widow, recently recalled that when Ray was teaching clinics he said that Scotty was one of the top five bassists and innovators, putting him in the company of Jimmy Blanton, Oscar Pettiford, Milt Hinton, and Paul Chambers. Scott would love knowing that!

Scotty became friends with other bass players who were in Los Angeles during this time as well. Don Payne, who grew up in nearby Santa Ana, and had just returned from a stint in the U.S. Army. Don was renting a furnished guest house on Glen Green just off Beachwood Drive in the Hollywood Hills. Johnny Mandel lived next door in an identical pad. Scotty would take his bass up and the two of them would practice for hours. Don said that he had been getting help from Percy Heath and wanted to share that with Scott. He added that "Scott was working on the high register—16th note scale partials that became part of his soloing later with Bill Evans. I really like the way he played on recordings with Hampton Hawes and Victor Feldman made there in LA." Neighbors on the same street were Red Mitchell and Leroy Vinnegar. The older two bass players took Don, twenty-five, and Scotty, twenty-two, under their wing, as it were. Scotty came to consider Red Mitchell one of his mentors.

Hal Gaylor, a Canadian who has since worked with performers as disparate as Tony Bennett and Ornette Coleman, was another bass player who was in Los Angeles at the time. He recalls that he and Scotty talked of the coincidence that they both played the clarinet before starting on the bass and that both of their fathers were violinists. They would rehearse together, spend a couple of hours playing, exchanging stuff. Hal said, "No matter what you had, someone else had something else. We'd play for each other. The music was just so exciting, there was just so much going on then. Scotty was a bit isolated, but if you knew him, he had a warm side. He had drive, not a lot of patience. Often he'd be a little cool, but when he got inspired, he got very excited and it showed. Scotty was one of the greatest exponents of jazz of that era. He is important like Jimmy Blanton, Oscar Pettiford and Charlie Mingus." Later in 1958, Don Payne and Hal would drive across the country to New York and when Scotty later returned to New York, he would renew these friendships. Scotty and Don remained friends throughout the rest of Scott's life.

Gary Peacock, who later also played bass with Bill Evans, first met Scotty and heard him play at the Lighthouse. He said:

“I think it was with Stan Levey, Vic Feldman and Richie Kamuca. It was scary. I mean he - whew. I was listening to him and I thought JC, he was something. A wonderful thing that he gave me at that time, without giving me anything, was that he showed me what was possible; there was the potential; there was potential technically and potential musically that hadn't even been tapped yet. In that sense he was so far ahead of everybody else at that time. It was just scary. But also encouraging and enlightening. Inspirational, like - Wow! And he had only been playing for a year and a half or two years! That was the other part that was scary. In two years he did this? What did he do? Play twenty-four hours a day? But apparently before that he had some training with the clarinet or something. Scotty kicked everybody's ass.

Also when we met, we talked briefly about always striving, moving forward constantly ... we kinda put the kibosh on that. Brings you more in the moment. What we were doing ... had a tendency to be crowded with all this thinking that's going on, kinda has a tendency to stop to think of what the possibilities are of the moment. But in spite of all that, there was very little of that in his playing.”

There was a lot happening in jazz in Los Angeles. Many clubs booked groups a week or a month at a time. Miles Davis and John Coltrane played at Jazz City in Hollywood. Charlie Haden was playing regularly with Paul Bley at the Hillcrest on Washington Boulevard. The IT Club was down the street. The Haig on Wilshire booked Gerry Mulligan. The Slate Brothers on La Cienega. The Renaissance, Crescendo, and Interlude all along Sunset. Cosmo's Alley on Yucca. The guys who weren't working would drop by and sit in during the sets and after hours. The strip clubs, The Pink Pussycat and Largo Strip Club on Sunset Boulevard, booked some cool talent like Herb Geller as well. Duffy's Gaiety at Cahuenga and Franklin, a club run for a time by Sally Marr, Lenny Bruce's mother, booked Joe Maini and Don Payne when Lenny was also on the bill.

Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach was ground zero. There was jazz nightly and, on Sunday, twelve-hour jam sessions. Shorty Rogers, Victor Feldman, Lorraine Geller, Herb Geller, Maynard Ferguson, Bud Shank, Hampton Hawes, Marty Paich, Shelly Manne, Stan Levey, as well as bigger luminaries of the time — Miles Davis and Chet Baker — all played there.

When I spoke with Howard Rumsey in the fall of 2005, be said that "few show progress like Scotty did. I was amazed at the progress I saw in his playing. I saw him for at least four years total. I was so happy every time he came to the Lighthouse because I knew the musicians wanted to play with him and I wanted to hear him. What was evident about Scotty ... he had his life organized ... he always knew what he was going to do next. He was just outstanding. He had a falsetto sound that was unique and a walking sound that was big, different. I think that coming from a string family he knew what a string bass should sound like. What he accomplished in seven years no other bass player has done. 

Scotty was very intelligent. In my mind the history of the development of bass playing went from Blanton to Scotty. He and Blanton were bright stars — shooting stars that fell from the skies. His work with Bill was an even greater achievement than that as a soloist. No bass player with Bill has the same empathy as he and Scott had. With all the musicians I've met few have made the impact that Scotty did on me. He had an unlimited capacity."

Summer brought Scotty an opportunity to work with Pat Moran in Lake Tahoe. She recalls: "When we were working. Gene Gammage (the drummer) and I would get frustrated with Scotty—he didn't want to come out and have some fun. It was so beautiful in Tahoe in those days, but he would stay in the cabin and practice two or three hours every day with a metronome, playing exercises from a clarinet exercise book, then go to work and play all night." ….

Too Blue

Pub Crawling with Jimmy Deuchar and The Lads

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

“[Jimmy Deuchar] …the great Scot, whose sound sometimes seemed like a hybrid of Bunny Berigan and Fats Navarro, and who is usually recognizable within a few bars - taut, hot, but capable of bursts of great lyricism.”

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

"If the Union problem didn't exist, I'd take Jimmy Deuchar back to California with me tomorrow. He's one of the finest trumpeters I've ever heard; and his all-round musicianship is fantastic." That's what American pianist-arranger-composer Marty Paich told me during a Deuchar disc date when Marty was in London in 1956.

- Tony Hall, insert notes, Jimmy Deuchar: Opus de Funk [Jasmine JASCD 621]

“[Starting with his recordings in the early 1950’s with Victor Feldman’s All-Stars, Arnold Ross’ Sextet and Johnny Dankworth’s Septet], … the bright burnished sound of Jimmy Deuchar was already showing its individuality within the parameters of modern Jazz trumpet.”

- Brian Davis, insert notes, Bop in Britain [Jasmine JASCD 637-38]

Although it took me a while to grasp how far-flung its influence was, culturally, one of the USA’s greatest gifts to the world is Jazz in all its manifestations.

In retrospect, I became aware that through Willis Conover’s Voice-of-America and a variety of European-based radio broadcasts, exported US records and vibrant domestic recording labels in a host of European countries and the efforts of visiting or expatriate Jazz musicians, Jazz thrived in far-flung places like Great Britain, France, Sweden, The Netherlands, Italy, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Japan.

And where it wasn’t allow to flourish openly, a serious Jazz underground following developed in central Europe and The Soviet Union.

Thanks to many generous urbane and cosmopolitan friends, then and now, my awareness of Jazz on the international scene has grown over the years much to my satisfaction and enjoyment.

My first exposure to Jazz abroad were a series of Jazz in Britain recordings that Lester Koenig released on Contemporary Records, a Hollywood, California based label whose “corporate offices” and “recording studios” were conveniently located about 10 miles from where I went to high school.

Lester’s “corporate offices” consisted of a small storefront near Paramount Movie Studios on Melrose Avenue and his “recording studio” was sometimes set up in the back room where he packed and shipped his LP’s.

Lester’s “British Jazz” LP’s were actually re-issues of recordings that had originally been produced for London-based labels such as Tempo and Jasmine. [Essentially, Lester was reversing the process and “importing” Jazz back into the United States!]

One of these was the late drummer-vibraphonist-pianist Victor Feldman’s Suite Sixteen [Contemporary C-3541;OJCCD-1768-2].  Issued in 1958, this LP was comprised of quartet, septet and big band recordings that Victor had made in England in 1955 before taking up residence in the USA the following year.

This album was my first introduction to Brits or, if you will, the “Lads,” in modern-day parlance, such as trumpeter Dizzy Reece, trombonist and bass trumpeter, Ken Wray alto saxophonist Derek Humble, tenor saxophonists Ronnie Scott and Tubby Hayes, bassist Lennie Bush and drummers Tony Crombie and Phil Seaman.

Although he only solos on three of the albums nine tracks, the player who impressed me the most on Victor’s Suite Sixteen was trumpeter Jimmy Deuchar [pronounced “dew-car”].

Imagine my delight then when Lester Koenig did it again, this time with six tracks by “the young Scotsman,” entitled Pub Crawling with Jimmy Deuchar [Contemporary C-3529].  I gather that the idea for the album’s title comes from the fact that each of its six tracks is named after one of the best known British brands of beer.

The album was also released in the USA in 1958 and if I heard a glimmer of something earlier in Jimmy’s playing, the work of “this exceptional young, Scottish trumpeter-arranger-composer” comes bursting through on these sides.

In addition to his brilliant solo stylings, Pub Crawling with Jimmy Deuchar also introduces Jimmy as an extremely talented composer-arranger who writes in a style that is very reminiscent of the late Tadd Dameron.

Fortunately, I was later able to cobble together more of Jimmy’s recordings when they were issued on CD including Showcase [Jasmine JASCD 616], Opus de Funk [Jasmine JASCD 621] and Pal Jimmy [Jasmine JASCD 624].

On hand on these discs is lots more of the fine playing of Wray, Humble, Hayes, Scott, Bush, Seaman and Crombie along with some players on the British Jazz scene who were unfamiliar to me at the time including pianists Terry Shannon, Stan Tracey, Eddie Harvey and Harry South, bassist Sammy Stokes and drummer Alan Ganley.

Of these recording by Jimmy Deuchar and his mates … err, “Lads,” Richard Cook and Brian Morton have written in The Penguin Guide to jazz on CD, 6^th Ed.:

“These are welcome reminders of the great Scot, whose sound sometimes seemed like a hybrid of Bunny Berigan and Fats Navarro, and who is usually recognizable within a few bars - taut, hot, but capable of bursts of great lyricism.

Some of his best work is with Tubby Hayes, who himself pops up in various of these dates; but these precious survivals of the British scene of the '508 - which exist solely through the dedication and enthusiasm of Tony Hall, who oversaw all the sessions - are fine too. The first two discs are bothered by the boxy and inadequate sound (and the re-mastering, which may not be from the original tapes, is less than first class), but the playing is of a standard which may sur­prise those unfamiliar with this period of British jazz.

There are excellent contributions from Humble, Hayes, the very neglected Shannon and the redoubtable Seamen; but Deuchar, as is proper, takes the ear most readily: punchily conversational, sometimes overly clipped, but then throwing in a long, graceful line when you don't expect it, he was a distinctive stylist.

These sets are made up from EPs and ten-inch LPs, but the third reissues all of the splendid Pal Jimmy! plus a stray track from a compilation. The trumpeter's solo on the title-track blues is a classic statement. Again, less than ideal re-mastering, but with original vinyl copies of these extremely rare records costing a king's ransom, they're very welcome indeed.”

At the time of their initial release, the highly regarded Edgar Jackson had this to say in the October, 1955 British publication, The Melody Maker:

“One of the tracks on this record is probably not only the best example of British jazz in the modem manner ever to find its way on to a record but not so far short of one of the best from any­where.

The track is IPA Special (named, as are all the others, after a brand of beer.)

It shows that Jimmy Deuchar (who composed and arranged all of the tunes) is second to none in this country in the matter of thinking up and scoring out first-rate modern jazz material.

It shows also: (a) that Jimmy has become a better trumpet man than ever now that he is playing with a warmer feeling and tone, (b) that while Derek Humble may not yet be the world’s greatest baritone saxophonist, he is certainly a grand, driving altoist, (c) that Ken Wray is one of our most original and advanced trombonists, and (d) that British rhythm sections are not always as gauche and stodgy as they are often said to be.

The record as a whole, with Jimmy never failing to convince as a skillful and captivating writer, and Victor Feldman playing tasteful and delightful piano, is a relieving and refreshing indication that our best modern jazzmen can compete with the best anywhere else—when given a fair chance.

The recording itself is excellent.   But I would hardly have expected any­thing else, for the session engineer was Decca's brilliant Arthur Lilley.”

Jimmy’s solos shimmer in their vibrancy. Fats Navarro. Clifford Brown, Carmel Jones and a host of the trumpet soloists who display a fat, full, fiery sound in their phrasing come to mind, but Jimmy is his own man.

The construction of his improvised lines is marked by coherence and continuity, but most of all, by originality. You just don’t hear other trumpeters playing Jimmy’s stuff.

I was especially pleased to rediscover Jimmy’s powerhouse trumpet playing on many of the Clarke Boland Big Band [CBBB] recordings from the 1960s.

According to tenor saxophonist Ronnie Scott [who would later join the CBBB]: “Derek Humble was the navigator-in-chief on the band and one of his first recommendations to Kenny Clarke and Francy Boland was to bring Jimmy Deuchar on the band to play the Jazz trumpet chair.”

As Mike Hennessey noted in his chapter on the CBBB from his biography of drummer Kenny Clarke: “Seven of the thirteen musicians in the band were European and their ability to hold their own with their [expatriate] American colleagues did no damage at all to the cause of winning a just measure of appreciation and recognition for some of the excellent European Jazz musicians who were emerging.” [pp. 165-166]

If you have not had the pleasure of having heard Jimmy Deuchar, his playing and that of the Lads – Ken Wray [bass trumpet], Derek Humble [as], Tubby Hayes [ts], Victor Feldman [p], Lennie Bush [b] and Phil Seamen [d] - is on display on the following tribute. The tune is Jimmy’s Treble Gold, which is named after an ale that I understand it is no longer made by the Friary Meux Brewery in Guildford.

Victor Feldman Trio - 1965

Gordon Beck: From Two Perspectives – Solo & Duo

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

“It concerns me that, now, at the time of his passing, he won't be accorded the place he's so clearly earned. The proof is there in the records. The literature exists. It's self evident.

… his music is all about color and light, shards of amazing brilliance, real earthy moving soulfulness and fire  - and he did have that glorious and singing keyboard sound.

Gordon Beck was a musician apart, he was special and he was great.”

- Colm “Red” Sullivan, 01/09/2012

“There cannot be many jazz musicians who have simultaneously possessed a flying phobia and a pilot's license. That has long been a favorite anecdote about Gordon Beck, the lean, stonily impassive and technically awesome pianist, who has died aged 76.

Beck had the license because his first career was in aeronautical engineering, and the phobia because his complex personality mixed deep-seated anxieties with a fearless appetite for freefall adventures, evident in his jazz improvisations.”

- John Fordham – The Guardian, Nov. 14, 2011

“Gordon Beck can do it all!

- Phil Woods, alto saxophonist

By the late 1960s, Jazz was on a collision course with anonymity.

The Halcyon Days were waning, the music was slipping into obscurity and Jazz musicians were sliding into the recording studios to make TV commercials, radio jingles and “full orchestra” albums for rock stars. As the late alto saxophonist and flutist Bud Shank remarked about this transition from performing in clubs to on-call playing in the studios: “It was a matter of survival: you gotta eat and pay the rent.”

Clubs like Shelly’s Manne Hole and The Lighthouse had moved away from resident groups to book “big names” such as Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderley in order to keep the clientele flowing and their doors open.

One such marquis appearance occurred at Shelly’s in the Fall of 1969 when alto saxophonist Phil Woods came to town for a week-long stint at the club.

I should say of Phil’s visit that is was more a triumphal return to the states with his European-based quartet as he had left the country a few years earlier to take up residence in Paris after becoming totally disgusted with what he saw as Jazz’s march into oblivion.

Phil named his quartet “The European Rhythm Machine” and I suspect that he may have chosen this appellation to quiet the critics who were always disparaging the quality of European rhythm sections. The Irishman in Phil never ran away from a good argument or failed to stand its ground to make a point.

“The European Rhythm Machine” was a quite exceptional rhythm section with George Gruntz on piano, Henri Texier on bass and Daniel Humair on drums. I couldn’t wait to hear it in person.

Except when I got to Shelly’s on opening night [along, it seems, with every alto saxophone player in the city], Phil introduced his pianist as “Gordon Beck” and his bassist as “Ron Mathewson.”

Changes in the personnel that make-up Jazz groups are very common, and Daniel Humair, one of my all-time favorite drummers was still a part of the group, so I just sat back with my glass of vino and waited for Phil and the group to let it happen.

And boy, did it happen, but not in the way I expected.

Phil called a blues to open the set, a not uncommon occurrence as playing on its simple structure is a typical method to get the group to relax and into the flow of things.

Making music isn’t like making anything else: you have to adopt a mind-set that follows its conventions but, most of all, you have to concentrate.

Phil took the first solo, but instead of Gordon Beck being up next, the solo order moved on to Ron Mathewson on bass and to trading 12-bar breaks with Daniel before Gordon took over.

And did he ever – take over!

The rhythm section laid-out and Gordon played a series of unaccompanied 12-bar choruses that were at once - riotous, rollicking and riveting – he totally knocked us out.

It was one of the most gripping performances I had ever heard by any musician, anywhere.

I may not have known who “Gordon Beck” was when I went into Shelly’s that night, but I never forgot who he was afterwards.

Gordon went on to make two recordings with Phil’s Group Phil Woods And His European Rhythm Machine [Inner City 1002] and Phil Woods And His European Rhythm Machine At The Frankfurt Jazz Festival [Embryo SD-530].

And in 1978, I came across Gordon’s The French Connection which Jean-Jacques Pussiau produced for Owl Records [#11], the same producer and label that was to issue some of the recordings involving Gordon’s famous collaboration with singer Helen Merrill.

It is a solo piano album and it contains many examples of the brilliance and originality that Gordon put on display that night at Shelly’s as a member of the Phil Woods European Rhythm Machine.

Almost twenty years later, I “met up” with Phil and Gordon again this time courtesy of their two CD “Complete Concert: Live at the Wigmore Hall in London” [JMS 18686-2] for which Phil wrote the following insert notes.

“I first met and played with Gordon Beck in April, 1968. Gordon led the house trio at Ronnie Scott’s London club that included Tony Oxley on drums and Jeff Clyne on bass. Ronnie’s was my first stop when I began my five-year expatriate existence.

The European Rhythm Machine was formed right after this gig and George Gruntz was the first pianist. When he left after the first year, Daniel Humair our drummer, and bassist Henri Texier, both agreed with me that Gordon was the perfect choice to replace George.

And he was the perfect choice!

Gordon and I have shared many musical and life adventures. We always dined with [tenor saxophonist] Ben Webster when we were in Ben’s neighborhood, we hung with Dizzy [Gillespie] and Dexter [Gordon], we triumphed at the Palermo Pop Festival, no mean feat in the early seventies.

We recorded with [vocalist] Lena Horne playing the arrangements of the master, Robert Farnon, and with Mel Torme playing the exquisite orchestrations of one of England’s best, Chris Gunning.

Gordon also played on three of my albums done in London with a large orchestra. Gordon can do it all!

We were together at the last riot-torn Newport Festival and most memorable to me, we hung with Shelly Manne when the European Rhythm Machine played his great club and I saw GB make his first dive in Shelly’s swimming pool, a perfect one and a half gainer that garnered a perfect 6.

If you don’t believe me call Ron Mathewson, he has the films to prove it. Yes Gordon and I have been around the block a few times.

Our friendship has withstood the test of time and, at last, we are able to realize one of our dreams, and dear listener, you hold the results of our warm encounter in your hands.

This concert is complete and unedited. What you hear is what happened. We did not “fix” anything.

Perhaps, a seam shows, but to these old ears, it sounds like two old friends [who have plied their craft for decades] getting together to share in one of life’s greatest pleasures, improvising music.

There are great moments on this CD. When I used to ask Dizzy how he was doing he would disarmingly reply: ‘Well, I don’t think I’m getting any worse.” I think the same could be said for Gordon and me.

Thank you Gordon. Thank you Jean- Marie [Salhani, the producer of the CD for JMS Records] for documenting our humble efforts and than you for buying this CD.

June 18, 1996

Phil Woods”

Didier Lockwood: Jazz and the Violin

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

Not everyone likes Jazz played on a violin.  For some fans, the music seems out of place when performed on this instrument.

Those who disapprove of it view the violin as falling into a category that broadly includes the Hammond B-3 organ, the accordion and the harmonica; instruments which are better suited to other purposes like the circus or some form of novelty entertainment than to Jazz.

These dissenters think the sound of the violin is more befitting a 19^th century drawing room than a 20^th century Jazz club.

I have been a fan of Jazz violin for many years, ever since the first time I heard the music played in the capable hands of violinists like Joe Venuti, Ray Nance and Stuff Smith.

When it comes to Jazz violin, however, the French have made it into something of an institution.

In France, the name that readily comes to mind when Jazz violin is mentioned is the work of Stephane Grappelli, especially the recordings he made with guitarist Django Reinhardt and The Quintette du Hot Club de France primarily in the 1930’s and 1940’s.

Grappelli’s successor is Jean Luc-Ponty who brought the French Jazz violin tradition into modern Jazz and beyond with his adoption of the electric violin and his interest in Jazz-Rock fusion.

Ponty moved well beyond Jazz to become a recognized star on the World Music stage, but not before passing the French Jazz violin “baton” [bow?] to Didier Lockwood who made his debut recording – New World - in 1979 for MPS’s PAUSA division [#7046].

But whereas Ponty had made the jump to Jazz-Rock fusion from an earlier career deeply rooted in the Jazz tradition, Lockwood came to Jazz from Rock and always viewed the two as one style of music - in other words – fused.

Irrespective of the instrument in question, this was the case with many Jazz musicians whose apprenticeship was essentially formed in the 1960s; Rock was not alien to them, but rather, was accepted as having something legitimate to offer as a way of putting their own stamp on Jazz.

From its earliest days, Jazz had always been a melting pot as the Creole music from which it developed combined elements of African and European musical traditions in its place of origin, New Orleans.

Why not meld or infuse Jazz with a Rock “in-the-pocket” beat or use its melodies and more simplified chord structure as the basis for Jazz improvisation?

To Jazz musicians coming-of-age in the 1960s and 1970s, there was no need to search for an answer to this question. They question wasn’t even raised.

Enter Didier Lockwood and his Jazz-Rock, electric violin, both of which I first heard on the aptly named New World LP.

On this recording, Didier is joined by a rhythm section made up of Gordon Beck on piano, Niels-Henning, Orsted-Pedersen on bass and Tony Williams on drums, who all serve to lend authority to its more Jazz-oriented selections.  The quartet is augmented by three additional musicians for the Rock themes on the LP.

As Didier’s career has progressed over the past 30 years, the three dozen or so recordings that Didier has issued under his own name pretty much follow the same pattern, although some such as the 1996 Storyboard [Dreyfus FDM  36582] with Joey DeFrancesco [organ], James Genus [bass] and Steve Gadd on drums and the 1999 Tribute to Stephane Grappelli [Dreyfus FDM 36611-2] with guitarist Bireli Lagrene and bassist Niels-Henning, Orsted-Pedersen have a stronger, “pure” Jazz orientation either due to personnel or themes, or both.

Didier’s magnificent playing on the Grappelli tribute dispels any question about his Jazz roots. What he lays down in his solos on this recording would be startling for their conception, originality and execution on any instrument, let alone a violin.

Lockwood’s recordings are all adventures in sound as he seems to want to experiment with everything that’s been going on in popular instrumental music over the past, three decades.

And, to varying degrees, they all come together successfully in Didier’s music primarily because “Lockwood is an immensely gifted player, combining a virtuosic technique with an attractive musicality.” [Richard Cook and Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6^th Ed.]

For some of the reasons expressed at the outset of this piece, Lockwood’s music is not “everyone’s cup of tea.”

If you are not into Jazz violin, they you won’t be into the extremes to which the sound of that instrument is taken in some of Didier’s music.

Not a fan of electronic instrument, then don’t go near Didier’s stuff.

Heavily laid-on Rock beats, simplified chords and musical structures that occasionally unravel into free form not your thing? Best to take a pass, then, on Lockwood’s music.

But should you like to hear Jazz violin in a new dimension, a sampling of Didier’s music is a “ticket” [billet?] to a thrilling and innovative series of adventures.

Simply put, Didier Lockwood is an exceptional Jazz musician, whatever the context: straight-ahead or fused with other musical motifs.

Most of the cover art from Didier’s recordings are on display in the video tribute to him which you will find at the end of this piece. Fittingly, perhaps, the video uses as its audio, the tracks from his New World LP.

And here are some excerpts from the insert notes by album’s producer, Joachim-Ernst Berendt:

“Of all lands, France is the country of great jazz violinists. The first was Michel Warlop who died in 1947. He - not Django Reinhardt or Stephane Grappelli - was the ‘Chef d'0rchestre’ when these two made their first big-band recordings in the early thirties. In 1937, when Warlop became aware that Grappelli was the better violinist of the two, he gave one of his violins to Grappelli.

In so doing, he established a tradition - the Warlop violin keeps being passed on to the most pro­mising French jazz violinist. Grappelli passed it on to Jean-Luc Ponty.

And in January, 1979, Ponty and Grappelli decided that Didier Lockwood would be the violinist most worthy of owning Michel Warlop's instrument. Grappelli presented it to him during a concert at the Theatre de la Ville de Paris.

Didier, born in 1956 in Calais, comes from a French-Scottish family in which there is an ‘abundance of musicians.’ His father was a professor of violin at the conservatory in Calais. His brother is a pianist. A cousin is a bass player at the Paris Opera. Didier studied at the famous Ecole Normale in Paris. When he was only 16 he received a first prize from the French copyright society SACEM.

He had composed modern concert pieces in serial and twelve-tone form. Through English blues music he first discovered Rock, then Jazz. For three years he belonged to the French Rock group, Magma. He was, understandably, influenced in the beginning by Jean-Luc Ponty.

But then Zbigniew Seifert became important. When this record was made, we were all feeling the impact of the death of that great Polish violinist, who had died only five days previously in Buffalo, New York. Didier dedicated his composition, Zbiggy, to his memory.

He said, ‘No other violinist has moved or influenced me more strongly.’ Stephane Grappelli has used his insight and knowledge to help Didier quite a bit. He has, wherever possible, presented Didier in his concerts. They have often played together in violin duos.

Didier Lockwood has been heard for years at many of the important festivals. He played in Montreux in 1975 and 78, in 1976 at the Castellet Festival (where he met Tony Williams!), in 1978 at the festivals in Antibes and Donaueschingen. Impressed by his success at Donau­eschingen, we decided to make this recording. It is Didier's first.

Didier Lockwood: ‘l have always tried to play with the best musicians. The greatest way to learn is to play with the best, because in this way you're obliged to give your best.’ Hence the personnel on this record. Here Didier truly has the best.  …”