Listening to Prestige 308: Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis - Shirley Scott

This must have been a good year for Prestige’s bottom line. Look at who they’ve recorded so far. Davis and Scott. Scott with a trio. Arnett Cobb. Coleman Hawkins. Hal Singer. Due in a couple of weeks, Willis “Gator Tail” Jackson.

Davis and Scott are new stars, and very hot, and young and raring to go, and they’ll come back into the studio and make exciting music over and over again. Coleman Hawkins is a legend riding the cusp of a new popularity, Cobb and Singer and Jackson are rhythm and blues hitmakers.

So can we say that 1959 was, in general, a year of place-holding, of playing it safe while the music percolates, and new directions take time to sort themselves out?

No. Not hardly. The AllAboutJazz web site calls this “the most creative year in all of jazz history, and they make a persuasive case. Miles Davis recorded Kind of Blue. John Coltrane recorded Giant Steps. Ornette Coleman recorded The Shape of Jazz to Come. Dave Brubeck recorded Time Out.

You really don’t need any more evidence, but AllAboutJazz rounds out its list of ten albums with:

• Bill Evans’ Portrait in Jazz (Riverside): “A defining piano trio set: Evans on piano, Scott LaFaro on bass, and Paul Motian on drums. The empathy within this album is outrageous, like all three musicians are connected by the same brain...A major influence onpiano trios to come such as the Keith Jarrett Trio and the Brad Mehldau Trio, and the epitome of a great jazz piano trio. 
• Mingus Ah Um (Columbia). “Essential to Mingus fans and jazz aficianados everywhere.”
• Duke Ellington, Anatomy of a Murder (Columbia). “This Ellington / Strayhorn collaboration is one of the hippest soundtracks of all time. Ellington and Strayhorn were writing original compositions for use in a major motion picture, a wonderful development for jazz."
• Horace Silver, Blowin' the Blues Away (Blue Note). "Another side of things: The hard bop side with bluesy, soulful overtones...it's not modal jazz, its not free jazz, it's even in 4/4 time, but it's essential." 

I'd raise my hand and put in a quiet vote here for Eddie Davis and Shirley Scott, but the AllAboutJazz guy;s assessment is fair. Horace Silver is recognized as the godfather of soul jazz. And Jimmy Smith (who made Home Cookin' in 1959) is the titan of the Hammond B-3.
Somebody is always going to be the poll winner, and the name associated with a new movement. But in the world of music, as opposed to music journalism, those hierarchies don’t matter.

• Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Song Book (Verve).
• Miles Davis, Sketches of Spain (Columbia). "The combination of two genius minds at work: Miles Davis and Gil Evans in probably the most celebrated meeting of the two ...Integral to the history of jazz for combining classical music styles with jazz improvisation, thus pushing the 'third stream' movement...another gargantuan contribution to the evolution and diversity in jazz."

So Prestige wasn't exactly out in front in terms of creative innovation. They had been, from their first Tristano release through their introduction of the Modern Jazz Quartet to the world, through the Coltrane albums that immediately led up to Giant Steps. And they would continue to introduce new and exciting jazz innovators. So what are we to make of this chill-out period of soul jazz and post-swing and rhythm and blues?

As I said,  a good cash flow situation. The sales figures for these albums aren’t going to match Kind of Blue or Time Out, but on the other hand, it didn't cost anywhere near as much to make a Hal Singer album as it did to make Kind of Blue. And the folks who'll plunk down $4.98 for an LP record just because they like to listen to it, and play it at parties, and dance to it, can sometimes outnumber the ones who want to be the first to own the album that Down Beat and The Jazz Review are raving about.

Esmond Edwards produced this string of albums. He was that rarity in the 1950s, an African American producer of the music that was African America’s gift to world culture, and he knew what they were dancing to at a Harlem house party on Saturday night.

And a half century later, what does this mean?

It means the discovery of some wonderful music. Our generation (and the two or three following us) own Giant Steps and Kind of Blue and Time Out and Sketches of Spain. We bought them on vinyl when they came out, and we paid the ripoff prices to buy them again as we began our CD collections. Now the vinyls are still lovingly in a rack in our music rooms, the CDs are somewhere or other, or we gave them to the church for their annual flea market, and we listen to music over a streaming service, or Sirius-XM in our cars, which plays the music you want to hear: Davis and Brubeck, Coltrane and Coleman.

Or you go a little off the beaten track, and you listen to music that was old when they made it, but is new again now. Music that offers nothing except you'll love it, and isn't that kind of what music is for? And if it made a few bucks for Bob Weinstock back in 1959, good for him.

And as for any of these Davis-Scott albums, they’re not even close to getting overexposed. The perspective of fifty years in the future isn’t all that different from the perspective of listening to each of these sessions as they were released. Either way, you’re hearing two artists learn more and more about working together, finding new and exciting ways to blend that tenor saxophone and Hammond organ sound, especially when they add a Latin beat to soul jazz, as in Ary Barosso’s “Bahia” (previously heard by John Coltrane in one of his last Prestige sessions).

Although Davis and Scott are always the main event, they like working in the quintet format, and on this album, they are augmented by trombonist Steve Pulliam, a veteran of the Buddy Johnson orchestra, who adds substance and a few very tasty solos. An article in Jet, about Pulliam being hit with a paternity suit, describes him as a prominent Harlem bandleader.

The album was Jaws in Orbit. No singles came off this session.

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