Monday, January 27, 2020
Hank Mobley Links to JazzProfiles Blog Postings
© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
In his booklet notes to the Mosaic Records The Complete Hank Mobley Blue Note Sessions, 1963-1970 boxed set [MD8-268], Bob Blumenthal references these postings about Hank which have appeared on these pages over the years and I thought they would be more accessible to visitors in this format.
Hank Mobley - So Talented, So Often Overlooked [From The Archives]
"Hank Mobley: The Integrity of the Artist - The Soul of the Man" - The John Litweiler Interview
"Looking East: Hank Mobley in Europe, 1968 - 1970" by Simon Spillett
Workout: The Music of Hank Mobley by Derek Ansell
Hank Mobley's Recordings with Miles Davis by Simon Spillett - UPDATED
Hank Mobley - Michael James in Jazz Monthly, 1961
"Hank Mobley - A Posthumous Appreciation" by Larry Kart
Hank Mobley - Poppin' - by Larry Kart
Hank Mobley - Michael James in Jazz Monthly, 1962
Hank Mobley - Soul Station
The Complete Blue Note Hank Mobley Fifties Sessions by Bob Blumenthal
"My Groove, Your Move" - The Music of Hank Mobley 10.29.1990 - Part 1 - Program
"My Groove, Your Move" - The Music of Hank Mobley 10.29.1990 - Part 1 - Booklet
More Mobley - A Slice Of The Top - The John Litweiler Notes
Hank Mobley in the Down Beat Hall of Fame - 2019
https://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com/2020/01/hank-mobley-in-down-beat-hall-of-fame.html
The Haunted Jazz of Hank Mobley by Richard Brody - 2020
https://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-haunted-jazz-of-hank-mobley-by.html
The Haunted Jazz of Hank Mobley by Richard Brody - 2020
https://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-haunted-jazz-of-hank-mobley-by.html
Sunday, January 26, 2020
Saturday, January 25, 2020
Jim Heath [1926-2020] R.I.P. - A Little Heat from Jimmy Heath - [From the Archives]
© -Steven Cerra , copyright protected; all rights reserved.
Jimmy Heath [b.10/25/1926] died on January 19, 2020 and the editorial staff at JazzProfiles is re-posting this earlier piece as a tribute to him.
Over a five year period from 1959-1963, Jimmy Heath recorded six albums forRiverside Riverside
Over a five year period from 1959-1963, Jimmy Heath recorded six albums for
Orrin’s view of Jimmy’s work is nicely summed up this excerpt from his insert notes to The Thumper [OJCCD-1828, RLP-1160]:
“It should be immediately evident from this LP that Jimmy possesses a large handful of attributes of major jazz value: he has a full, deep, compelling sound and a fertile imagination; his playing really swings; and he is a jazz composer of considerable vigor and freshness. And, although his will undoubtedly be a new name to many, Heath is also a thoroughly experienced musician, who has been associated with Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and many other headliners.”
And here are some additional reflections by Orin from the liner notes to Jimmy’s
The Jimmy Heath Orchestra: Really Big! [OJCCD-1799, RLP-1188]on which the Heath brothers are joined by the Adderley brothers, Cannonball and Nat:
“The modern jazz artist who both 'wails' and writes is often an unavoidably split personality: enjoying his playing in the small-group context that is the normal setting for wailing these days, but often longing for the more satisfying complexity of arranged musical colorings and backgrounds that are possible only with more large-scaled bands. On the other hand, he is apt to be aware that big-band efforts can all too easily have a stiffness and formality too far removed from the easy-flowing looseness and free-blowing spirit of the best of small-group jazz.
Facing this basic dilemma, JIMMY HEATH, a man to be reckoned with both as improviser and as writer, has evolved the unique solution that is at the heart of this album. It is a combination that Jimmy describes as "a big band sound with a small-band feeling"—a richly textured musical pattern that manages to retain all the earthy ferment of a swinging quintet or sextet date.
It should be obvious that the fresh, clear-cut style of Heath's arrangements has much to do with the success of this idea. It should also be apparent that Jimmy's earthy, vigorous and emotionally compelling solo sound is ideally suited to the handling of the material he has written.”
“Small of frame but large of sound and soul, Jimmy Heath is a musician whose contributions to jazz have been consistently impressive since the halcyon days of Bebop, when he was known as "Little Bird" and specialized in the alto sax.
Jimmy made the switch to tenor many years ago, and he has long been his own man, both as an instrumentalist and as an arranger. On this album, his primary role is that of a soloist of uncommon warmth and fluency, but his arranger's sense of balance and proportion also makes itself felt.
Here, there is none of the self-indulgent loquaciousness that mars so many "blowing dates"; each track is made up of meaningful musical statements that hold and sustain the listener's interest.
That interest is heightened, too, by Heath's well-chosen and well-paced material, which adds up to an attractive program, offering a variety of moods and tempos. And no matter what the groove - a pretty ballad or an up-tempo swinger — the music flows and tells a story.”
The following listing and capsulated reviews can be located on page 694 of The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Edition:
© -Richard Cook & Brian Morton/Penguin Books, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
**** The Thumper Original Jazz Classics OJC 1828
Heath; Nat Adderley (cl); Curtis Fuller (tb); Wynton Kelly (p); Paul Chambers (b); Albert 'Tootle' Heath (d). 9/59.
***(*) Really Big!
Original Jazz Classics OJC 1799 Heath; Clark Terry, Nat Adderley (t); Tom Mclntosh, Dick Berg (tb); Cannonball Adderley, Pat Patrick (sax); Tommy Flanagan, Cedar Walton (p); Percy Heath (b); Albert 'Tootie' Heath (d). 1960.
The middle of the three Heath brothers is perhaps and quite undeservedly now the least known. Jimmy Heath's reputation as a player has been partly overshadowed by his gifts as a composer ('C.T.A.', 'Gemini', 'Gingerbread Boy') and arranger. The Thumper was his debut recording. Unlike most of his peers, Heath had not hurried into the studio. He was already in his thirties and writing with great maturity; the session kicks off with 'For Minors Only', the first of his tunes to achieve near-classic standing. He also includes 'Nice People'. The Riverside compilation which bears that name was until recently the ideal introduction to the man who was once known as 'Little Bird' but who later largely abandoned alto saxophone and its associated Parkerisms in favor of a bold, confident tenor style that is immediately distinctive. Now that The Thumper is around again, the compilation album is a little less appealing.
Also well worth looking out for is the big-band set from 1960. Built around the three Heath and the two Adderley brothers, it's a unit with a great deal of personality and presence. Sun Ra's favorite baritonist, Pat Patrick, is in the line-up and contributes fulsomely to the ensembles. Bobby Timmons's 'Dat Dere', 'On Green Dolphin Street' and 'Picture Of Heath' are the outstanding tracks, and Orrin Keepnews's original sound is faithfully preserved in Phil De Lancie's conservative remastering.
Heath's arrangements often favor deep brass pedestals for the higher horns, which explains his emphasis on trombone and French horn parts. The earliest of these sessions, though, is a relatively stripped-down blowing session ('Nice People' and 'Who Needs It') for Nat Adderley, Curtis Fuller and a rhythm section anchored on youngest brother, Albert, who reappears with Percy Heath, the eldest of the three, on the ambitious 1960 'Picture Of Heath'. Like Connie Kay, who was to join Percy in the Modern Jazz Quartet, Albert is an unassuming player, combining Kay's subtlety with the drive of Kenny Clarke (original drummer for the MJQ). More than once in these sessions it's Albert who fuels his brother's better solos.
***(*) The Quota
Original Jazz Classics OJCCD 1871 Heath; Freddie Hubbard (t); Julius Watkins (frhn); Cedar Walton (p); Percy Heath (b); Albert 'Tootie' Heath (d). 4/61. *** On The Trail
Original Jazz Classics OJCCD 1854 Heath; Wynton Kelly (p); Kenny Burrell (g); Paul Chambers (b); Albert 'Tootie' Heath (d). 64.
The Quota perfectly underlines Jimmy's ability to make three contrasting horns sound like a big band, or very nearly. This is a cleverly arranged session, and an agreeably fraternal one, with Percy and Tootie on hand as well. Hubbard was a killer at 23, soloing with fire and conviction, but it is Jimmy's own work, on his own title-track and on 'When Sonny Gets Blue', that stands out, arguably some of his best tenor-playing on record.
***On The Trail is less arresting; more of a straight blowing session, it doesn't play to Jimmy's real strengths and the production seems oddly underpowered, as if everything has been taken down a notch to accommodate Burrell's soft and understated guitar lines. 'All The Things You Are' has some moments of spectacular beauty, as when Jimmy floats across Wynton Kelly's line with a soft restatement of the melody and a tiny fragment of the 'Bird Of Paradise' contra fact patented by Charlie Parker. Good, straightforward jazz, but not a great Jimmy Heath album.
***(*) Triple Threat
Original Jazz Classics OJCCD 1909-2 Heath; Freddie Hubbard (t); Julius Watkins (frhn); Cedar Walton (p); Percy Heath (b); Albert 'Tootie' Heath (d). 1/62.
A dry run for the Heath Brothers project and another object lesson in how to give a relatively small unit an expansive sound. Jimmy takes a couple of numbers with just rhythm and even there manages to suggest a massive structure behind his elegantly linear melody lines. Watkins has an enhanced role and demonstrates once again what an exciting player he can be on an instrument usually consigned to a supportive role.
Jimmy's blues waltz, 'Gemini', is probably better known in the version recorded by Cannonball Adderley, but the little man's own solo statement confirms ownership rights. Hubbard is in quiet form, but already gives notice of what he was capable of.
***(*) Swamp Seed
Original Jazz Classics OJCCD 1904-2 Heath; Donald Byrd (t); Jimmy Buffington, Julius Watkins (frhn); Don Butterfield (tba); Herbie Hancock, Harold Mabern (p); Percy Heath (b); Albert 'Tootie' Heath, Connie Kay (d). 63.
Jimmy's genius as an arranger is evident here, where he manages to make three brass sound like a whole orchestra. With no supplemental reeds to support his own muscular lines, Jimmy is the most prominent voice. On 'Six Steps', 'Nutty' and 'D Waltz', he creates solo statements of genuine originality, relying on the subtle voicings given to Butterfield, Buffington and Watkins to support his more adventurous harmonic shifts. As 'D Waltz' demonstrates, Jimmy learned a lot from listening to Charlie Parker, but also to the older bandleaders like Lunceford and
Eckstine, who understood how to give relatively simple ideas maximum mileage.”
Lastly, here’s a retrospective of the highlights of Jimmy’s career including the formation of The Heath Brothers band in the 1970’s. It would intermittently continue to function as a working and recording band until the death of bassist Percy Heath in 2005.
It can be found in Kenny Mathieson’s Cookin’:Hard Bop and Soul Jazz 1954-65 [Edinburgh
© -Kenny Mathieson/Canongate, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
“Jimmy Heath started out playing alto saxophone in the style of Charlie Parker, a model he adopted so conscientiously that he was nicknamed 'Little Bird' by his fellow musicians. Partly in an attempt to get away from that rather too close identification, and partly because it offered better job prospects, he turned to tenor saxophone, and found that he genuinely preferred the bigger horn. His name crops up at various points throughout this book, as do those of his two brothers, bassist Percy Heath and drummer Albert Tootie' Heath. Music is very often a family affair, but not too many families can boast three top class jazz professionals in their ranks (others which do come to mind are the Jones brothers of Detroit New Orleans
Jimmy Heath was born on 25 October, 1926, in Philadelphia, and is the middle brother of the three (Percy, the eldest, was born on 30 April 1932, in Wilmington, North Carolina, while Albert first saw the light of day on 31 May, 1935, also in Philadelphia). The saxophonist led his own big band in Philly in late 1946, modeled on the bebop big bands of Billy Eckstine and Dizzy Gillespie. The personnel included several players who went on to bigger things, including Benny Golson, trombonist Willie Dennis, trumpeter Johnny Coles, and, most famously, John Coltrane. Heath and Coltrane formed a close relationship at this time, often practicing together (Lewis Porter describes some of their routines in John Coltrane: His Life and Music) as well as socializing.
Jimmy and Percy both played with trumpeter Howard McGhee in 1947-48, their first important musical association outside of Philadelphia Philadelphia
His parole restrictions cost him the chance to tour with Miles Davis, but he set about resurrecting his own career. Heath had cut discs as a sideman, including sides with Gillespie, Miles, J. J. Johnson and Kenny Dorham, but had not recorded an album under his own name until The Thumper, his debut for Riverside 27 November, 1959 . He assembled a sextet for the date, with Nat Adderley on cornet, Curtis Fuller on trombone, Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Albert Heath on drums. The date provided a showcase not only for his strong, inventive tenor playing, which seemed entirely undiminished by his time away, but also for the high quality of his writing and arranging. The session featured five of his own compositions, including the title track and the justly celebrated 'For Minors Only', and also included a pair of emotive but unsentimental ballad readings.
It began a sequence of fine albums for Riverside
It was the biggest group he used in his Riverside tenure, but in the session for Swamp Seed on 11 March, 1963, he had an eight-piece band at his disposal, this time with his solitary tenor set against a brass section of Donald Byrd on trumpet, both Jim Buffington and Julius Watkins on French horns, and Don Butterfield on tuba, and another varying rhythm section, with either Harold Mabern or Herbie Hancock on piano, Percy Heath on bass, and either Albert Heath or Percy's MJQ band mate Connie Kay on drums. Like Horace Silver, Heath had the knack of making a small group sound like a fuller band, and his immaculately contrived brass voicings here give the feel of a much bigger ensemble than he actually had, and provide a springboard for his richly conceived, exploratory solos on cuts like 'D Waltz' and Thelonious Monk's 'Nutty'.
The dates which produced The Quota, recorded on 14 April, 1961, and Triple Threat, from 4 January, 1962, both featured a sextet, with Heath's tenor accompanied by hotshot young trumpet star Freddie Hubbard and the inevitable French horn, expertly played as ever by Julius Watkins, surely the best-known exponent of the horn in jazz (and one of the few to record as a leader on the instrument, for Blue Note in 1954), and a rhythm section of Cedar Walton and the other two Heath brothers. As with The Thumper, Heath achieves a beautifully balanced blend of subtle ensemble arrangements and a hard swinging, spontaneous blowing feel. Triple Threat contains his own version of 'Gemini', a jazz waltz made famous by Cannonball Adderley, which stands alongside 'For Minors Only', 'C. T. A.' and 'Gingerbread Boy' as his best known tunes.
The smallest group session in his Riverside roster was On The Trail, a quintet date from Spring, 1964, which featured Heath as the only horn in a band with Kenny Burrell on guitar, Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Albert Heath on drums. The date has a more open blowing feel than his other Riverside sessions, but their combined weight confirmed his stature as a major - if slightly belated - contributor to hard bop in this comeback period. The session included 'Gingerbread Boy' and a fine reading of 'All The Things You Are*, while the title track was a jazz arrangement of a section from Ferde Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite, which adopted a 'semi-modal' approach.
Ashley Khan reports in Kind of Blue that the arrangement was originally prepared by Donald Byrd, but a disagreement with Blue Note saw it dropped - Heath picked up on it, and Khan quotes the saxophonist: 'We wanted to experiment with modal pieces, not to the same degree as Miles, completely, like "So What." Not everyone else wanted to take those chances with something new. We weren't Miles Davis, so we said "OK, we'll do a little of that." A lot of the modal pieces we wrote were modal for a while and then they ended on a sequence of chords to get back to a certain point to be more communicative to an audience.'
Perhaps surprisingly in the light of his prominence with the MJQ, Percy Heath showed no inclination to follow his example and make records as a leader, although Albert did get around to leading a session of his own, Kawaida, for Trip Records in 1969, with a band which included Don Cherry, and followed it with Kwanza for Muse in 1973. Jimmy continued to make records throughout the ensuing decades, including sessions for Muse, Verve, Steeple Chase, and a reunion with Orrin Keepnews for his Landmark label, and also became a greatly respected educator.
The three brothers finally officially got together as The Heath Brothers in 1975, recording a number of albums for Strata East, Columbia and Antilles in the late 1970s and early 1980s (sometimes with Jimmy's son, Mtume, on percussion, although Albert was replaced by drummer Akira Tana on some of these records). They flirted a little with a more commercial approach at times, but for the
most part, remained firmly in classic hard bop territory, as refracted through the prism of Jimmy's individual arrangements. …
Having gone their own way again in the mid-1980s, The Heath Brothers reconvened without any great fanfare in 1997, both as an occasional touring unit and in the studio, where they recorded a couple of fine albums for Concord Jazz, As We Were Saying (1997) and Jazz Family (1998), with Jimmy's stamp firmly on the music. As with his own sessions of the late 1980s and 1990s, the music has plenty to say, and does so with consummate skill, real authority and inventiveness, and a refreshing lack of bluster.”
Jimmy Heath is still a vibrant part of today’s Jazz scene, and in addition to the triple threat of performing as a saxophonist, composing and arranging he has added a fourth quality - Jazz educator.
Jimmy has a website which you can by going here.
The audio track on the following video is Jimmy’s tune The Quota and is taken from the Original Jazz Classic-Riverside CD by the same name [OJCCD-1871-2;RLP 9392].
The cut features Jimmy unique tenor saxophone sound as well as his very distinctive approach to Jazz composition and arranging.
Julius Watkins provides the French Horn solo [not something you hear everyday on a Jazz record]. He is followed by finger-poppin’ solos from trumpeter Freddie Hubbard [2:19 minutes] and pianist Cedar Walton [3:00],who is joined in the rhythm section by Jimmy’s older brother Percy Heath on bass and his younger brother Albert [nicked-named “Tootie”] on drums.
The late guitarist and saloon-keeper Eddie Condon is quoted as having said that the sound coming from the legendary Bix Beiderbecke’s trumpet “Was like a woman saying, “Yes.’” I wonder what the same woman would have said if she ever heard Freddie Hubbard play trumpet?
Friday, January 24, 2020
Sam Woodyard: A Real Swinger
© -Steven
Cerra , copyright protected; all rights reserved.
“Woodyard is a temperamental
musician, but at his best is one of the greatest Jazz drummers. His work with
Ellington was frequently of the highest quality, combining an understanding of
the leader’s requirements with an individual, earthy kind of swing.”
- Eddie Lambert, The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz
“From Woodyard, … [Kenny Burrell] learned the importance of clear melodic statements and the advantages
of taking the music outside in incremental steps, chorus by chorus.”
- Gary Giddins, Visions of Jazz
“Sam wasn’t a flashy player,
but few swung harder; he drove the Ellington band like no other drummer in the
band’s storied history.”
- Chris Kelsey, Drummer World
“Sam Woodyard? He’s a
swinger?”
-Duke Ellington
Along with the
band leaders themselves and its arrangers, drummers give big bands most of
their "personality."
Typically, there
are three or four trumpets, usually four trombones with one of them a bass trombone,
and five saxes in a big band.
But there’s only
one drummer.
Sure he’s
generally part of a three-piece rhythm section, but most of the time, you can
barely hear the bass player and other than taking a solo chorus or two to
give the brass players’ chops a rest, who can remember a meaningful big band
piano part?
Gene Krupa with
Benny Goodman’s big band; Buddy Rich with the big bands of Tommy Dorsey, Artie
Shaw and Harry James let alone his own power house orchestras; the Dave y Tough, Don Lamond and Jake Hanna led
versions of Woody Herman’s “herds;” Shelly Manne later followed by Mel Lewis
propelling the Stan Kenton Orchestra, and then the Terry Gibbs Dream Band, the
Gerald Wilson Orchestra, the Gerry Mulligan’s Concert Big Band and later the
big band he co-led with Thad Jones; Chick Webb’s Savoy Ballroom big band; Jimmy
Crawford lifting the Jimmy Lunceford Band; Papa Jo Jones and Sonny Payne
booting the Basie bands along; Louis Bellson’s “explosion” – the list is
endless.
But the common
ingredient is that each drummer gives the big band its particular “feel.”
Jeff Hamilton
played drums with Woody Herman’s 1970’s big band and made it swing differently
than did Tough, Lamond and Hanna.
“That’s what I
want,” Woody would say. “I want the drummer to make the band his own.”
You recognize the
impact of a great big band drummer immediately because the band is under
control. While a big band can generate an incredible amount of pulsating,
forward momentum, if the drummer is not “in charge” of it, the outcome is the
proverbial “train wreck.”
Both the players
and the listeners want to experience the “joy ride” of a swinging big band, but
neither of them want the sound of it to rush madly into oblivion. Everyone wants
to be on the edge of the flashing sound created by an excited and energetic big
band, but no one wants to experience a jumbled mass of sonority.
Sam Woodyard
joined the Ellington band in July 1955 and remained with it until 1966. He was
certainly one of the longest serving drummers with Duke Orchestra. Sam took
charge of it, gave it “his feeling” and he modernized the sound of the drums
within the context of it.
He did this
essentially by applying what drummers like Art Blakey, Philly Joe Jones, Art
Taylor, Roy Haynes and many other drummers were doing on the New York small
group Jazz scene to Duke’s always-progressing big band arrangements.
The knocking sound
of the stick played over the snare on the 2nd and 4th
beat of each bar, the huge 22” riveted ride cymbals with their all-encompassing
overtones the accentuated high-hat instead of a thumping bass drum, all served
to loosen/lessen the “feel” of the beat while accenting it in a modern way.
Duke never stopped
modernizing the sound of his arrangements and Sam’s adaptation of what was
happening in modern Jazz small group drumming made Duke’s charts sound more “of
the moment” instead of throwbacks to the 1920’s Cotton Club days, or the Swing
Era of the 1930’s or the big band sound of the 1940’s.
Sam rarely got any
credit for his contributions to the overall, transformational “feel” of Duke’s
band basically because he worked very hard at being a part of things. In other
words, he didn’t want to stand out, he just wanted to swing the band.
And Sam swung the
heck out of it.
Unfortunately, all
too often, Sam is less remembered for the overall “personality” he injected into
the Ellington drum chair and more for his drum solos on Skin Deep, a piece used to launch an extended drum solo which
brought-down-the-curtain on many of Ellington’s Jazz Festival performances.
You know the one:
after playing a brief melody, the band walks off the bandstand to grab a smoke
leaving the drummer alone to pound the dickens out of the drums. All too often, the band wasn’t the only one
doing the exiting as very few drummers know how to play extended drum solos and
still fewer audiences know how to listen to them.
As was the case
with many drummers of his generation, Sam was self taught and had relatively
poor reading skills. But his inability to read music well didn’t matter because
there weren’t any drum parts!
And when Duke
wanted something more exotic out of Sam as Bill Berry explains in the following
excerpt from his insert notes to Duke’s Such Sweet Thunder, the
Columbia/Sony Entertainment LP/CD whose music was dedicated to
the Shakespearian Festival in Stratford , Ontario
"Imagine this great
golden barge floating down the Nile River
How’s that for a
drum chart?
Besides, when you
have cats in Duke’s band like Clark Terry [trumpet], Paul Gonsalves [tenor sax]
and Jimmy Woode [bass] watching over you, everything is going to turn out fine.
We wanted to
remember Sam Woodyard on these pages and what better way to do so than to turn
to Stanley Dance, the ultimate chronicler of all-things-Ellington, for some
excerpts from the essay on Sam in his definitive The World of Duke Ellington[New
York: Da Capo, 1970].
“Clark Terry
encouraged me right from the start said. He said: ‘Everybody’s scuffling and tomorrow you’ll be
three hundred miles from here.’ He taught me the whole book in about a week,
and he had a very good way of teaching without hollering and making you feel
conspicuous, so that people out front wouldn't be thinking, ‘Well, they've got
a new drummer.’ He'd indicate things with his hand, or say, 'You've got four
bars at the end of the chorus,’ and so on. He sat at the end of the trumpet
section, next to me.
Clark, Paul, Jimmy
Woode, and Willie Cook were in my corner from the first, but even those who
weren't speaking soon came around, and we'd have a little taste, and they'd say
they'd like me to play like this or like that behind them, and so we all got
together. They found I wanted to play for the band, and that it didn't make any
difference to me if it was with sticks, brushes, or hands. There's no sense in
your building a house and my building a garage for it if we're not on the same
property….
I've never been
able to read fast, but there's never more than just so much you can get out of
a book. You've got to get out and do it sometime. I have a fast ear and if I
hear a thing down once I'll play it the second time, I don't care what it is. A
teacher may say, 'Now you're qualified to play,' but you get in a band, and the
tempo drops, and the leader says, 'What's the matter with you? Just play!
You're a drummer. Listen, and keep swinging.' And you can't do it. What the
teacher taught you was correct procedure, but what does 'correct' mean in a
situation like that?
There aren't many
opportunities today for young drummers to get experience in carrying the weight
of a band like Duke Ellington's. You sit there behind the drums, look around
the bandstand, and there are those fourteen musicians, and it's an awful lot of
musical weight. Everybody's patting his foot, and thinking right, but you've actually got fourteen different tempos,
because everybody's got his own way of patting his foot. One's a little bit
behind the beat and another's on top of it. It would be easy to be swayed, but
you can't let yourself be. You've got to think, too, in terms of sections and
the overall scheme. To keep the whole thing going, plus pleasing the bandleader,
often means sacrificing yourself.
I had the chance
to play with Basie's band one night when we were laying off. This scared me,
too, as long as I'd been with Duke's band. You might think it would be the
other way 'round, the kind of arrangements and the way we play in this band,
but I didn't want to be a drag and it had been so long since I played with a
guitarist. When I got on the bandstand, I soon felt the difference between four
rhythm and our three—often two when Duke is conducting. I didn't know the
arrangements, but Freddie Greene was sitting right in front of the bass drum
and Thad Jones was on my left, and between the two of them they cued me in,
just like Clark Terry used to do….
No one is perfect.
To me, anybody who can sit, stand, lean against a wall, or hang by his toes and
say he's perfect is a damn liar. Because man made it, even a metronome isn't
perfect. In a rhythm section, it's all a matter of listening. The tempo varies
for many reasons. Maybe it's fatigue. It may drop through disinterest or go up
through enthusiasm. Sometimes the tempo doesn't change, but the color of the
tune changes. It may take fire in the last choruses and the extra excitement
makes listeners think the tempo went up. You go with the change of feeling, but
the tempo hasn't necessarily changed. The main thing is if you've got it off
the ground and are still swinging. There is, though, a tendency for musicians
to start climbing together, and before you know it color and dynamics go out
the window—and if there isn't a window, then they make one.
A rhythm section
is often criticized from different angles by people with different conceptions
of how it should play. A drummer may have a four-bar break in an arrangement,
but if someone doesn't come in on time afterwards, some people will say it's
the drummer's fault, because they didn't really listen to what he played.
They'll say he should have played something more simple, but those were the
drummer's four bars and as long as he got back for the first beat of the fifth
bar he could have gone out and run around the block. It's not his fault if
someone else can't keep time.
I've come up
through those grooves where there are not so many in the rhythm section, where
the drummer has got to be the strong one all the time. Jimmie Crawford, to me,
was one of the greatest drummers in the world. What that cat got under the
Jimmie Lunceford band was something else. Papa Jo Jones is another one.
I heard Chick Webb
mostly on records, but I stood outside the Savoy New Jersey Dave Tough influenced me, too, with his
simplicity. If there was any way he could get out of taking solos, he would. He
had a good sound to his drums and he always kept his bass drum under the bass
fiddle, so that you could hear the tune the bassist was playing.
In fact, you could
feel his bass drum rather than hear it, and it didn't conflict with the rest of
the band. Even on those old Chick Webb records, you could often feel the bass
drum as much as you could hear it, and that's how it was at the Savoy
I love everybody
who's playing from the heart. I just dig people who like to live. There are
only twenty-four hours in a day and you'll never get them back, so you do the
best you can however you can and wherever you can. 'Wherever' has been a big
word for our band the past few years, we've traveled so much, but everybody
really speaks the same language. It's just a matter of putting the pots on!
It's an old
Southern expression, Woodyard explained. ‘Give the man some ham hocks, greens,
and cornbread!’ Originally, when the man came home for dinner and there wasn't
anything ready, he'd say, 'Well, put the pots and pans on!' What we mean by it
in the band is, ‘Swing and get off the
ground—and stay off until you're ready to come down!' I could add that the
prettiest meal in the world isn't anything unless you have salt and pepper to
go with it, and that's how it is with a band if the rhythm section isn't right.
[1965]”
Thursday, January 23, 2020
Richard Cook's Jazz Encyclopedia
© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
How this for a subtitle?
“THE TUNES, THE TANTRUMS, THE LICKS, THE SPATS, THE CATS, THE TRAGEDIES, THE GREATS, THE NOT-SO-GREATS AND THE JOY OF JAZZ”
Welcome to the world of Richard Cook and his Jazz Encyclopedia about which the newspaper The Independent, in choosing it as one of its “Books of the Year” described it as “erudite, lively and up to date,” and asked [somewhat facetiously] “ Where else could you find Buddy Bolden and Jamie Cullum almost side by side?”
Other comments about the book went like this -
'Slightly different and seriously useful, this is a jazz book to own'
- BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
'I take my hat off to Richard Cook ... extraordinarily comprehensive and also retains plenty of wit, personality and variety right the way through to Zurke, Zwerin and Zwingenberger'
- JAZZWISE
'Reading Cook is like sitting down with someone ready to share
his extensive knowledge and to air his views... Above all, he
conveys a strong sense of the adventure of it all'
- WIRED
'Fascinating snippets [that] wouldn't appear in any other jazz A-Z but his ... for aficionados and newcomers alike'
- JAZZ UK
“Whatever you want to know about jazz, this brilliant A to Z guide has the answers, guiding you through everything from trad to free, boogie woogie to swing, bebop to scat, and telling you the entertaining, sometimes tragic stories of the people behind the music - from Louis Armstrong to John Coltrane, Django Reinhardt to John Zorn, and everyone in between.”
- Penguin Books publicity annotation
Until his death in 2007 at the relative young age of 50, Richard D. Cook had been writing about music since the 1970s.
In his Obituary for The Independent, fellow and co-author Brian Cook said of Cook:
“Cook wrote with an accuracy and consistency of judgement that made him one of the most perceptive and admired commentators, not just on his beloved jazz, but on a whole range of other "sonics" (as he liked to put it), and not just in Britain but internationally. Though his fabled impatience was part of an Englishness cultivated quite without irony, it was also a measure of Cook's utter rejection – in life and music – of the sub-standard. He had an unerring nose for the ersatz and fudged, and though his opinions were strong, sometimes too strong for those who prefer a more liberal rhetoric, he was anything but a bully. He was very happy to see his few loose deliveries driven into the covers, his more controversial assertions batted straight back at him …
In a decade that elevated style over substance and put old-fashioned musicianship at a discount, Cook always looked for substance and often found it in unexpected places. He wrote as trenchantly about Abba as he did about the improvising ensemble AMM, and his passion for singers, female singers in particular, enabled him to write perceptively about Nina Simone, Joan Armatrading and the soul diva Anita Baker …
The largest of his writing projects was The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, co-authored with Brian Morton, now in its eighth edition (and retitled The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings). Other books followed, including a "biography" of the Blue Note label in 2001, and in 2006 a study, It's About That Time, of Miles Davis. The year before, Richard Cook's Jazz Encyclopedia, its title a reflection of his authority, was published by Penguin…….
He was endlessly curious, almost hyperactively busy and, for all the Eeyorish gloom he affected when talking about the English weather – too wet in winter, too hot in summer – the Jockey Club, Surrey's batting and bowling statistics, phenomena like Nu-Jazz, he maintained an exuberant optimism.”
In his INTRODUCTION to his Jazz Encyclopedia, Richard Cook’s suggests that: “Whether one is in search of timeless, immortal art or the high spirits of a musician simply having fun, jazz has it both ways. I might even suggest that it is unrivalled at delivering both of those extremes within the same piece of music.”
He also goes on to stress the following point:
“ … not … every musician herein receives unstinting praise. I've attempted to be as honest as I can in writing each entry. Jazz writers are often (despite what some musicians think) afraid to be critical, because of a saintly belief that the benighted jazz player has it so tough that words of dissent are somehow dishonourable. This ignores the point that a jazz writer's first responsibility is to the jazz audience - the people who buy CDs and pay for concert tickets - rather than jazz musicians.”
And this is the way Mr. Cook approaches the subject in his delightful and informative Jazz Encyclopedia, never taking the music or himself too seriously.
Here’s the rest of what he has to say in his INTRODUCTION to a book that belongs on every Jazz fan’s library shelf.
“Considering that, for a large part of its existence, jazz was the popular music of choice in Western society, it's surprising what a complicated, obscure and often plain bewildering matter it is. Like most British people under 50,1 grew up with the sounds of pop ringing helplessly in my ears, and while there was some jazz mixed in with it - my cousin had a 45 by The Temperance Seven early on - it was hardly a pressing part of the culture by the middle 6os. I had to make my own way into the music, and it was a long and difficult journey. Because I started collecting records from an early age, going to jumble sales looking for 78s,I inevitably began finding discs by musicians such as Jelly Roll Morton, whose 'Dr Jazz Stomp' was one of my early favourites, and from there I embarked on a precipitous voyage of discovery. In my early teens, I didn't know anyone else who liked jazz, and I didn't know how to find out about it. The few accessible books on the subject seemed to talk in code, fascinating though it was. There was no jazz on television that I could find, and not much on the radio, although I thank Humphrey Lyttelton, Charles Fox, Brian Priestley, Peter Clayton and Steve Race for their efforts. I couldn't really understand how what Morton played had somehow turned into what musicians such as Albert Ayler were playing.
Many years later, that progression seems straightforward enough to me now. But it's not hard to understand how most find jazz a very awkward conundrum. The evangelist in me feels infuriated when I hear someone saying, if only facetiously, 'Why can't they play the tune?' The pragmatist just smiles and shrugs. Most of us just want to be entertained by music. But jazz is entertaining, whether it's Louis Armstrong scatting his way through 'Heebie Jeebies' or Charlie Parker hurtling around the curves of 'Ornithology'. As listeners, we can linger over Billie Holiday's mythopoeic pain or be drenched by Cecil Taylor's marathon improvisations, but they are just a small part of what is a jostling and superbly crowded idiom. Whether one is in search of timeless, immortal art or the high spirits of a musician simply having fun, jazz has it both ways. I might even suggest that it is unrivaled at delivering both of those extremes within the same piece of music.
Making sense of it all is a challenge for any listener, no doubt of that. Like the grand history of Western classical music, jazz has its own genealogies, and its onward march can be studied by any willing student. But one curiosity of the music is the way its various stylistic schools have all remained current, at least since earlier approaches began to be 'revived' in the 40s: jazz is as subject to the whims of fashion as any other kind of music, yet if you live in a major city, it won't be hard to find musicians playing in the style of traditional or swing or bebop or free jazz somewhere on the same evening. Once upon a time, these various styles created warring factions of fans, but today the jazz audience is much more of a United Nations. Since the music has, since the end of the big-band era at least, prospered far away from mass audiences, there is an unspoken bond within the jazz listenership which has always tended to foster an us-and-them feeling. We treasure our elitism, while grumbling about jazz's marginalization within an increasingly unsophisticated culture.
But if you want to join in the fun, all you really need is a sympathetic pair of ears. Many popular jazz musicians - such as Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, David Sanborn, Billie Holiday, Herbie Hancock, George Benson - aren't even regarded as 'jazz' by many of their admirers. There's no point in pretending that jazz is simple and undemanding: it isn't. Absorbing the music of Parker or Taylor can be the greatest challenge a listener can set him- or herself. But, to return to the top of the page, jazz was, during the swing era at least, a music admired and danced to and listened to by an audience in the tens of millions. The principles which fired that music - for more detail, you might like to turn to the entry on 'Jazz', under the letter J - remain good for everything which came before it, and most of what has come after. Jazz spread around the world very quickly - there are recordings from almost every territory on earth which was able to make records and which, by the 30s and 40s at least, showed some trace of jazz in their popular music - and its stature as an international musical practice continues to evolve. American players far from home often had the complaint that, away from the US, they couldn't find a swinging rhythm section to work with; but that old sore has been largely healed. I won't perpetrate the familiar nonsense about music being a 'universal language', but, as a musical procedure at least, jazz is more universal than most.
The convenience of an A to Z format doesn't hurt in the task of trying to sift through something which has a cast of thousands and far, far more foot soldiers than generals. An enduring fascination of this music is the way it can accommodate so many individuals, even within relatively strict parameters (another cliched idea, that jazz is mainly about 'breaking down barriers', is a further nonsense. If it were, all the barriers would have disappeared long ago). Jazz has a modest genius count: you might like to use the fingers of each hand to count them, but that's probably as many as you'll need. That doesn't prevent every instrument in every style from throwing up musicians who can be identified with just a few bars of their playing. Perhaps the classical aficionado can pass a blindfold test and spot different interpreters of Beethoven's Appassionato. They surely cannot have the jazz fan's legerdemain in hearing and enjoying the dramatic differences between Earl Hines, Hampton Hawes, Andre Previn, Tommy Flanagan, Willie 'The Lion' Smith, Diana Krall and Oscar Peterson, all of whom recorded piano versions of 'Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea', and all of whom (well, Previn might give a few problems, and Diana sings too, so that's a slight cheat) are easily identified.
This book celebrates as many of these players as I felt it was sensible to include. Inevitably, some will ask why X was included when Y is absent. It is entirely my choice, and I am sure there have been unfair and neglectful omissions. American musicians necessarily dominate, and since I have grown up in the environment of British jazz, there are probably more UK musicians included than are justified by their overall eminence. There should probably be more from Italy, France, Australia, Denmark and other jazz-loving countries with healthy communities of players. But I drew the line where I did, and there it is for now. It is, perhaps, the individuality discussed above which has largely been the deciding factor in including a musician or not.
Which is not to say that every musician herein receives unstinting praise. I've attempted to be as honest as I can in writing each entry. Jazz writers are often (despite what some musicians think) afraid to be critical, because of a saintly belief that the benighted jazz player has it so tough that words of dissent are somehow dishonourable. This ignores the point that a jazz writer's first responsibility is to the jazz audience - the people who buy CDs and pay for concert tickets - rather than jazz musicians. To read some reference works on the music, you'd think that jazz is stuffed with godlike figures who never played a bad gig or made a dull record in their lives. I've done my level best to avoid both that starting point, and what I would call the one-of-the-finest school of jazz writing. This is where so-and-so is 'one of the finest bassists/trumpeters/bandleaders/composers in Britain/ the world/Dixieland/jazz' (delete as applicable), and can recur so frequently that the reader starts wondering just who isn't one-of-the-finest. Whoever they are, good for them: jazz is and should be full of vulnerable, inconsistent and unpredictable human beings, and that's another thing that makes it fascinating.
Along with the artist entries are those which cover musical terminology, jazz jargon, venues, festivals, writers, record labels, and whatever other matters seemed appropriate in an A to Z of jazz. I've often discussed a musician's career on record, because jazz has been documented by gramophone recordings for almost its entire history, to an amazingly comprehensive degree, and we can only guess at the abilities of those musicians who, through their own choice or the intercession of fate, chose not to make records. Most of the artist entries conclude with the listing of a single CD (in a few rare instances, a vinyl LP) which seems to me to be especially characteristic of the artist in question - although that doesn't necessarily mean it's either their very finest work or, in some cases, even a good record. If you wish for more information, I would point you in the direction of the rather useful Penguin Guide To Jazz On CD.
I've tried to avoid making the artist entries slavishly biographical, since such an approach is rarely fun to read: if you must know exactly who played with whom and for how long, consult The New Grove Dictionary Of Jazz, a peerless factual resource which I am happy to acknowledge. Instead, I've attempted either a lightning sketch or a more detailed and considered portrait. At the same time, please excuse me if there are any errors of fact.
Finally, I hope that the contents herein will also raise an occasional smile as well as offering some measure of enlightenment. For a music which is so full of laughter and sheer joy, it's surprising how so many jazz reference works aspire to being solemn, worthy and unswinging.”
R. D. Cook
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