Listening to Prestige 278: Red Garland

Red Garland's music is intelligent, melodic, clever, passionate, daring, eclectic, and rooted in the blues. His long time partners Paul Chambers and Art Taylor, work in perfect sync with him and add their exquisite musicianship. And if that's not enough to make any session they set themselves to a worthwhile listening experience, how about adding Ray Barretto to the mix?

The mambo had passed its peak as a form of interest to modern jazzers, although it was still a seller on the pop charts, with Perez Prado's "Patricia" going to Number One in 1958. Garland always drew from a multiplicity of sources, and with this ensemble, what better choice than to blend the mambo with the blues? And Barretto, equally adept at rhythms from north and south of the border, was a natural for  tune called "Blues in Mambo."

Except that it very nearly went unheard. This was something of a forgotten session. Nothing was released from it until 1963, and then only four tunes. The rest were to languish until 1977, when they were rediscovered and issued on a CD called Rediscovered Masters. And one, "I've Got You Under My Skin," is apparently still languishing unissued.

And the first four to see daylight were all recorded with just the trio, no Barretto. Some sort of contractual issue? It can't have been. Barretto was a regular with Prestige in this era. But be that as it may, such was the case.

The four songs on the 1963 release demonstrate Garland's usual eclectic taste. "I Can't See For Lookin'" was co-written by Nat "King" Cole's first wife, and was one of Cole's early vocal recordings, much bluesier than his later style. "Soon" is the Gershwins. "Blackout" was written originally for Erskine Hawkins by two of his bandsmen, Avery Parrish and Sammy Lowe. Lowe went on to have a distinguished career as an arranger, with credits ranging from Benny Goodman to Nina Simone to Sam Cooke to the Platters, and perhaps most famously, to James Brown with the arrangement for "It's a Man's Man's World." Parrish had his career cut short by an injury suffered in a bar fight, and he drifted away from music.

Maybe jazz and rhythm and blues had gotten a divorce by 1958, but just as with some ex-marrieds who can't always resist the old chemistry, they could still get together for a little hanky panky. Alan Freed loved jazz, and hired jazz stars for his stage show band, including Ellington stalwart Al Sears, who continued to play his own brand of fiery tenor sax, whatever the ensemble was called. His composition, "Castle Rock," was first recorded with a group he co-led with Ellingtonian Johnny Hodges, and released under Hodges' name, although he would later re-record and release it under his own. Initially, Sears got Ellingtonian Leroy Lovett and crooner Ted Travers to write a lyric, which was performed but never recorded, and was apparently unsatisfactory, because a month later he turned to Erv Drake and Jimmy Shirl, best known for the lyrics to "I Believe," a song not exactly associated with either jazz or rhythm and blues. Frank Sinatra and Harry James recorded that version. Garland's is witty and inventive, and you could dance to it. Garland's piano carries most of the freight

in a ten-minute improvisation, but there's a Paul Chambers solo that's much admired by bass students.

Listening to a lot of Red Garland -- this 12-tune session, and the others that the prolific pianist recorded for Prestige during this period -- one really gets a chance to slow down and listen to the full extent of his talent. This would undoubtedly be true of listening to any jazz great, and I'm not just talking about the giants like Miles or Bird. But it's Garland I'm listening to right now, and marveling how a having a distinctive style doesn't mean repeating oneself or falling into a rut. In every one of these cuts, it's always Garland, but it's always a fresh and new experience, always surprises, always little unexpected thrills, always a cumulative satisfaction.

The quartet cuts with Barretto--you can't say they're better, because the trio cuts are as good as it gets--but they're superb in a different way, with a different ambience. There are standards and originals, even novelty numbers like "Five O'clock Whistle." And, as always with Garland, the unexpected, "Estrellita" is a lovely ballad written in 1912 by Manuel Ponce, a Mexican composer credited with rediscovering Mexican folk music as an inspiration for classically composed music.

Rediscovered Masters didn't come out till 1977, first as a double LP and then, with more cuts from later sessions, as a 2-CD set. It was a cause for rejoicing then,


Order Listening to Prestige Vol 2

Listening to Prestige Vol. 2, 1954-1956 is here! You can order your signed copy or copies through the link above.

Tad Richards will strike a nerve with all of us who were privileged to have lived thru the beginnings of bebop, and with those who have since fallen under the spell of this American phenomenon…a one-of-a-kind reference book, that will surely take its place in the history of this music.

                                                                                                                                                --Dave Grusin

An important reference book of all the Prestige recordings during the time period. Furthermore, Each song chosen is a brilliant representation of the artist which leaves the listener free to explore further. The stories behind the making of each track are incredibly informative and give a glimpse deeper into the artists at work.

                                                                                                                --Murali Coryell

Listening to Prestige 277: Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis

Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis connected with Shirley Scott in 1953, when he went looking for a jazz organist to form a group with. Which is interesting, because this wasn't exactly a common lineup at that time. Count Basie had recorded on organ with his big band, but the more usual formation, the one favored by Jimmy Smith, was a trio. Bill Doggett's recordings in the early 50s were trio recordings. Perhaps he got the idea of the organ-saxophone combo that shook the world with "Honky Tonk" from Davis and Scott.

It certainly turns out that Davis was onto something. This was a powerful sound for the nascent movement that would come to be known as soul jazz, and given an added richness with the presence of Jerome Richardson.

Differences between this and the previous week's trio session: for a start, while Scott  went for the under-three-minute format best suited to 45 RPM discs for the pop market, the quintet stretched out in the way that jazz groups became accustomed to as soon as it was clear that the LP revolution was here to stay.

There was a new producer in the Van Gelder control room and on the Prestige roster. Esmond

Edwards had been hired as a photographer in 1954, and he had done significant work in that role, contributing to a number of album covers. But his musical acumen combined with Bob Weinstock's readiness to ease up a bit on the production reins, brought him into the actual recording process. He would remain a prolific producer for Weinstock over the next decade, before moving on to Verve, Chess, and other labels. He would also continue his career as an important jazz photographer. And it's worth noting that he was one of the first African-American producers in the New York jazz recording world.

"In the Kitchen" became one of Davis and Scott's best known recordings, and it sparked the culinary theme that was announced with the release of this album as The Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis Cookbook. It would be the first of three. Davis would get top billing on their Prestige releases;

later, when she teamed with Stanley Turrentine both at the altar and in the recording studio, she would be listed as leader on their Prestige recordings, he on their Blue Note discs.

"In the Kitchen" came out as a two-sided 45, as did "But Beautiful" (like Gene Ammons, Davis had two sides, funkmeister and sensitive interpreter of ballads.) "In the Kitchen" also was the B side of a 45 RPM release of "Misty," from a later session. "The Chef" and "Three Deuces" made for another single release.

Order Listening to Prestige Vol 2

Listening to Prestige Vol. 2, 1954-1956 is here! You can order your signed copy or copies through the link above.

Tad Richards will strike a nerve with all of us who were privileged to have lived thru the beginnings of bebop, and with those who have since fallen under the spell of this American phenomenon…a one-of-a-kind reference book, that will surely take its place in the history of this music.

                                                                                                                                                --Dave Grusin

An important reference book of all the Prestige recordings during the time period. Furthermore, Each song chosen is a brilliant representation of the artist which leaves the listener free to explore further. The stories behind the making of each track are incredibly informative and give a glimpse deeper into the artists at work.

                                                                                                                --Murali Coryell

Listening to Prestige 276: Shirley Scott

This was the beginning of a long and fruitful association between Prestige Records and Shirley Scott, who would record for them both as leader of her own trio and in partnership with Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis. Her other important partnership was marital as well as musical--to Stanley Turrentine, with whom she recorded a series of successful albums for Blue Note before they divorced in the 1970s;

The jazz of the 1930s that had been created by Count Basie and Jimmie Lunceford, Erskine Hawkins and Chick Webb, morphed into a style of music called swing, and swing was essentially the province of white bandleaders like Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey and Harry James and Glenn Miller. When they talk about the golden era when jazz was America's popular music, that's what they're talking about.

So did bebop really kill jazz's popularity? I'm not so sure. Black American music was restless in the 1940s. Black artists knew they couldn't compete in the marketplace with the white swing bands, and they were chafing at the limitations of a music they heard as growing increasingly formulaic. So they either made it gutsier and bluesier and blacker (Louis Jordan) or more inventive and more musically challenging (Bird and Diz). And maybe jazz, the music of African Americans, was still as popular as it had ever been, if you count both tines of that bifurcated style. Louis Jordan wasn't jazz? Joe Liggins and Willis "Gator Tail" Jackson and Big Jay McNeely weren't jazz, and Tommy Dorsey and Harry James were? The Ravens and the Clovers weren't jazz, and the Pied Pipers and the Hi-Los were? Gimme a break.

So then we came up to the mid-fifties, and it was happening again. The music that black artists created had morphed again, gotten whiter again, and rhythm and blues had become America's popular music under the new name of rock 'n roll. And once again black music, the creative epicenter of American culture, was moving on, and once again bifurcating.

Bebop, modern jazz, that scary new sound of the 1940s, was still not selling as many records as Benny Goodman in his prime, perhaps, but it was selling its share, and it mostly wasn't scary any more. With artists like Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, but very much with white artists like Stan Kenton and Stan Getz and Gerry Mulligan and Dave Brubeck, it had entered the mainstream of American music. And a newer generation of black musicians, John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy and Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor, were finding sounds that were adventurous and challenging and once again a little scary. And the spiritual descendants of Jordan and Liggins and Jackson and McNeely were finding their way to a jazz that was funkier and bluesier and blacker.

No one person led that new sound, but it's pretty clear that Ray Charles was one of the most important figures. He pioneered a sound that embraced rhythm and blues and modern jazz, but most excitingly embraced the street and the church, blues and gospel. And that was the genesis of what became hard bop or soul jazz or jazz funk.

And if you're going to church for the new jazz sound you're going to bring into the streets, what could be more logical than wheeling an organ out the door?

That was the sound that Shirley Scott found.

Scott was born and raised in Philadephia, a hotbed of jazz rivaling Detroit in its experimentation and technical virtuosity. Her father ran a jazz club, and she grew up listening to players like Red Garland and Philly Joe Jones. She began to play piano because her brother had taken up the tenor sax and needed someone to accompany him, in much the same way that hockey Hall of Famer Tony Esposito became a goalie because his brother Phil needed someone to practice shooting at.

But Philadelphia was also home base for Jackie Davis, who was finding the jazz possibilities latent in the Hammond B-3 organ, an instrument hitherto relegated to storefront churches and roller rinks. And Davis was to inspire another Philadelphian, Jimmy Smith. And, of course, young Shirley Scott.

Scott started recording with Eddie Davis in 1953, when Davis had heard what Smith and Jackie Davis were doing with the B-3, and was looking for an organist to form a group with. Fortunately, he was able to look beyond the jazz world's male chauvinism.

The two first recorded together in 1956 for King Records, in Cincinnati. King was an interesting label. It had begun as strictly country and western, then added rhythm and blues. It was never a jazz label, though a couple of jazz artists like Hot Lips Page are on their roster. And artists like Earl Bostic and Bill Doggett who played in both jazz and rhythm and blues formats. The Scott/Davis album on King was called Jazz with a Beat, which is not a bad definition of rhythm and blues.

Count Basie was also a presence on the rhythm and blues/race records charts of the era, and Scott/Davis were also featured on a Roulette album called Count Basie Presents Eddie Davis Trio + Joe Newman. Neither of these was released until 1958, so the Prestige album may have been Scott's first exposure.

For her first session, she chose very familiar tunes: "Brazil," "Cherokee," "Ebb Tide," "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue." When you think about it, these are tunes you'd associate with a jazz popularizer/R&B bandleader like Earl Bostic. She also tackles a couple of Miles Davis originals, "Four" and the tune that Miles called "The Theme," but which becomes, in someone else's hands, "Miles' Theme." Each tune is compact, 45 RPM length, appropriate for an R&B audience, and in fact, Prestige released five 45s out of this session.

This is unquestionably jazz, and certainly jazz with a beat. It's also jazz with an organ, which was still relatively uncommon. In Down Beat's 1957 jazz poll, the organ does not rate a category of its own. There are four organists who got votes in the Miscellaneous Instruments category, and Scott was not one of them.

She announces her presence on the scene, and ensures that she won't be left out the next time, by using this session to show off her command of the instrument, pulling out all the stops -- literally, since it's an organ. She is helped by two sidemen who know what they're doing (listen to what they give her on "Cherokee"), and know the difference between jazz and rhythm and blues, or else know that there's no difference.

George Duvivier played on two previous Prestige sessions, both with Gil Mellé, whose work can be described in a number of ways, none of which have anything to do with rhythm and blues.  He could, and did play pretty much everything, from R&B (Lucky Millinder) to swing (Jimmie Lunceford) to bop (Bud Powell) to pop (Lena Horne, Frank Sinatra) to avant garde (Eric Dolphy). He was the bassist on the Basie album that featured Davis and Scott.

Arthur Edgehill  recorded for Prestige on a 1956 session with Mal Waldron. He specialized in funk and hard bop, and with Duvivier, had a long run with Scott and Davis.

Eight of these tunes were released right away on an LP titled Great Scott! More came out in 1961 (Shirley's Sounds) and 1964 (Workin'). It's harder to find release dates for 45s.

Order Listening to Prestige Vol 2

Listening to Prestige Vol. 2, 1954-1956 is here! You can order your signed copy or copies through the link above.

Tad Richards will strike a nerve with all of us who were privileged to have lived thru the beginnings of bebop, and with those who have since fallen under the spell of this American phenomenon…a one-of-a-kind reference book, that will surely take its place in the history of this music.

                                                                                                                                                --Dave Grusin

An important reference book of all the Prestige recordings during the time period. Furthermore, Each song chosen is a brilliant representation of the artist which leaves the listener free to explore further. The stories behind the making of each track are incredibly informative and give a glimpse deeper into the artists at work.

                                                                                                                --Murali Coryell

Listening to Prestige 275: John Coltrane

Coltrane and Donald Byrd are a great combination, back together again after a January session, so Bob Weinstock must have really liked what he heard, and what's not to like? But it's Coltrane who really holds the interest right now. The "happy young man," in Ira Gitler's words, was on a creative tear. Just five months into the year, he was already on his sixth studio session for Prestige, and that was only part of it. He had done two dates with a group led by Wilbur Harden for Savoy, and don't forget, he still had his bread and butter gig, with Miles Davis. By May 23rd, he had recorded two studio sessions and two live sessions with Miles. And when he went out to Rudy's for his Friday Prestige date on May 23rd, he had another recording scheduled with Miles for the following Monday, in New York, at Columbia's 30th Street studio.

Turning your life around, getting off drugs, gives you energy to burn, and Coltrane was burning it. But it wasn't just energy. He was burning with musical ideas, too, which is what makes this period so exciting.

The music was exciting. What Gitler called "sheets of sound," a phrase that's become firmly implanted in the jazz lexicon. It meant Coltrane playing every note associated with every variation on a given chord, more or less at the same time. Or something. It was sort of like the rapid-fire runs through variations on chord changes that the beboppers had pioneered, except that it wasn't. But it had that same questing urgency, that sense of listening for something new, just beyond the horizon. Listening to it now in the chronological order of the music being made (this session was not released until 1964), one can really feel a part of that quest.

"Black Pearls" is a Coltrane original, "Lover Come Back" is the Sigmund Romberg melody that's

become such a favorite of jazz modernists. "Sweet Sapphire Blues" is credited to Bob Weinstock as composer, and that might raise eyebrows, since it was such common practice in those days for DJs or record company executives to put their name on songs they had not in fact written. This one was a little different. They had gone through the first two tunes, and they still had studio time, and they did not yet have enough to fill out an album. This could have been OK--Weinstock wasn't planning to release the session right away anyway, and he could always have found other ways to fill it out. Or they could have done what they so often did: what Rudy Van Gelder called the "Five O'clock Blues," an impromptu improvisation on a familiar blues riff, or a half-finished idea by one of the musicians. In this case, when Weinstock asked Trane for one more tune, Trane responded, "Why don't you write one?" As Weinstock recalled, he recoiled from the idea--one thing he was sure of, he didn't know how to write a song. But Trane kept teasing him: "How about this?" and he'd play a few notes. If Weinstock said OK, he'd play a few more: "How about this?" Before long, they had strung something together, and Trane said, "OK, you wrote it."

The result is a little like the routine Steve Allen used to do on TV. He'd call up four people from the audience, have each of them strike a note on the piano, and then do a jazz improvisation based on those four notes. A little like that, except better. The melody is jagged but interesting, and five supremely gifted musicians were able to improvise on it for 18 minutes, or one full album side.

Why "Sweet Sapphire Blues"? That's lost to history, unless they'd been watching Amos 'n Andy before the session. In any case, it wasn't likely to be the title of the album, nor was the Romberg melody. So Black Pearls it was. It was also released as a two-sided 45.

Order Listening to Prestige Vol 2

Listening to Prestige Vol. 2, 1954-1956 is here! You can order your signed copy or copies through the link above.

Tad Richards will strike a nerve with all of us who were privileged to have lived thru the beginnings of bebop, and with those who have since fallen under the spell of this American phenomenon…a one-of-a-kind reference book, that will surely take its place in the history of this music.

                                                                                                                                                --Dave Grusin

An important reference book of all the Prestige recordings during the time period. Furthermore, Each song chosen is a brilliant representation of the artist which leaves the listener free to explore further. The stories behind the making of each track are incredibly informative and give a glimpse deeper into the artists at work.

                                                                                                                --Murali Coryell