Listening to Prestige 300: Hal Singer

Hal Singer had his moment in the sun in 1948 when his 78 RPM single, "Corn Bread," went to Number One on the rhythm and blues charts, or rather the Race Records chart, because Billboard didn't start using the appellation "Rhythm and Blues" until 1949. "Corn Bread" has a solid blues riff, builds on it with energy and humor and some clever interplay between Singer's saxophone and a trombone. The two work closer and closer together on an improvisation that gets wilder and more intense. It would have been great to dance to. It still is. And of course, it was ignored by the jazz critical establishment, hiosters and moldy figs alike. It wasn't abstract like Lee Konitz. It didn't swing like Harry James. And it didn't have real jazz musicians playing.

No identification of individual musicians on the Savoy record label, as was common with R&B, because no one was reviewing them or writing think pieces about them. But we know who they were. The trombone was Milt Larkin. Wynton Kelly was on piano, Franklin Skeete bass, Heywood Jackson, drums. Jazz enough for you?

"Corn Bread" wasn't all that Singer wanted to do. He said in an interview years later that the thing he was most proud of about the recording was giving Wynton Kelly his first chance on record. That, and that it led to his joining the Duke Ellington band a few years later, so the Duke knew jazz where he heard it.

Singer's followup, "Beef Stew," went nowhere, and so did his career, for a while. He still had work (a beloved Number One hit will do that for you), but he couldn't recapture the magic on a few more singles for Savoy and some smaller labels.

By the time of the Prestige session he had joined the Ellington Orchestra and left it to work with his own  small groups again--a tough decision, but maybe the right one.

This was his first ever booking to make a whole LP record. He was teamed with another jazz veteran, Charlie Shavers. The two were about the same age, Shavers 42 and Singer 40. They had similar backgrounds, although Shavers had always managed to stay on the respectable side of the swing/rhythm and blues divide, playing with Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday and Jazz at the Philharmonic.

He was always in demand. His 1950s had been marked by recordings with Louis Bellson, Coleman Hawkins, Count Basie, Woody Herman, and Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich (together).

This session includes one standard ("With a Song in My Heart") and a bunch of originals. You can hear stylistic difference between Singer and Shavers--rhythm and blues and swing are not exactly the same--but the mesh together to create an exciting and organic music.

The difference between record like "Corn Bread" and a record like "Blue Stomping" -- "Corn Bread" is three minutes long. That's a little long for a 78 RPM record, but it's within the limits, which is how you made a record in 1948. And as a result, it's essentially an extended saxophone solo. There's nothing in it that would confuse or slow down a dancer.

"Blue Stomping" is Hal Singer stretching out to LP length, at six and a half minutes, so the full-out excitement of "Corn Bread" is there, but now it's part of a larger picture, with solos traded off between Shavers and Singer, not so much ensemble work, and a piano solo by Ray Bryant, including some give and take with Wendell Marshall and Osie Johnson, which you would not hear in a rhythm and blues recording, or a swing record either, for that matter.

Shavers died in 1971, within days of his friend Louis Armstrong; his last request was that his mouthpiece be buried atop Armstrong's coffin.

Singer's career was revived with this session. He would make one more record with Prestige. Then not long after, on a European tour, he would become yet another jazzman to fall under the spell of Paris skies. He stayed there, becoming an important part of the European jazz scene. He was awarded the title of Chevalier and later Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, along with T. S. Eliot, Audrey Hepburn and Marcel Marceau, and of course, this being France, Jerry Lewis.

This album was released as Blue Stompin' on Prestige, and was a later Swingville rerelease. The title track became 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