1959 is considered by many to be jazz's apex. A BBC documentary called it The Year that Changed Jazz. Nathan Holoway,
writing for the AllAboutJazz website, posits that 1959 was the most
creative year in the history of jazz, and he makes a pretty good case for it,
starting with Kind of Blue, which is particularly interesting in that it
really is a creative breakthrough, while at the same time being listener
friendly enough to make it the best selling album of all time. Modal jazz had
been played before, going back to Miles himself in 1949, but Kind of Blue really
brought it front and center as the new standard in jazz playing.
Holoway puts
Coltrane’s Giant Steps second on his list, although it’s generally
considered a 1960 album. Still, it was actually recorded in December of 1959, so
one can argue that that makes it part of 1959’s creative frenzy. Although no
Prestige albums are included in Holoway’s list of creativity champions (Blue
Note and Riverside make it), surely Bob Weinstock deserves credit for nurturing
Coltrane right up to the borderline of the promised land.
Giant Steps has
always sold respectably, but Holoway’s next choice, Dave Brubeck’s Time Out,
goes very nearly right alongside Kind of Blue for popularity, and it’s impossible
to question its creativity, with Brubeck exploring hitherto unheard-of time
signatures. On the other hand, the innovative genius of Ornette Coleman in The
Shape of Jazz to Come was wildly unpopular in 1959, and has acquired at
best a niche audience since. Still, it is one of the most influential jazz
albums ever made.
Those four are the
cream, and really all you’d need to make Holoway’s case. But the rest of his
list is not chopped liver. Bill Evans changed the way we listen to piano trios
with his Portraits in Jazz (released in 1960, but recorded as the sands
were running out on 1959). Horace Silver was ushering in the soul jazz movement
that would be so important in the next decade. Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington
(a new era in movie jazz with Anatomy of a Murder), and Ella Fitzgerald
would enhance the creativity of any year.
I’d put the work
Yusef Lateef was doing for Prestige down as further proof of the year’s innovative
creativity, even if it didn’t make the same kind of public splash as did the
aforenamed.
Some of the biggest
jazz news of 1959 was sad news. Lester Young and Billie Holiday died within
weeks of each other. Miles Davis made news outside of his musical
contributions, and indeed outside of a music venue, when he stepped into the
alley behind Birdland between sets, and was beaten and arrested by cops. With
all the news stories over the past year of police and African Americans, we can
despair of things getting better.
Here’s the Down
Beat poll for the year.
Hall of Fame:
The Hall of Fame inductee is Lester Young.
Hard to argue that one. Following him, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, Dave
Brubeck, Miles Davis. Plenty of time for Brubeck and Davis to be honored, too
bad Pres (and Lady) didn’t get it in their lifetimes.
Personality of
the year: Jazz
1.
Miles Davis
2.
Duke Ellington
3.
Lambert, Hendricks and Ross
4.
Dave Brubeck
5.
Count Basie
6.
Maynard Ferguson
7.
Thelonious Monk
8.
Ella Fitzgerald
9.
Gerry Mulligan
10. Julian
“Cannonball” Adderley
11. Stan
Kenton
12. Ahmad
Jamal
13. Dizzy
Gillespie
14. Gil
Evans
15. Modern
Jazz Quartet
16. Oscar
Peterson
17. Andre
Previn
18. Jonah
Jones
19. Errol
Garner
20. Louis
Armstrong
21. Shelley
Manne
22. Frank
Sinatra
23. Nina
Simone
24. John
Coltrane
25. Harry
James
26. Stan
Getz
27. Hank
Mancini
28. Joe
Williams
29. Coleman
Hawkins
30. Annie
Ross
What’s a jazz personality? I couldn’t come up with a
definition, and I doubt that none of those who made the poll, or who took the
poll, could manage one either. So who’s to criticize? Benny Goodman and Louis
Armstrong were the biggest international personalities, our Ambassadors of
Jazz. But who’s to criticize?
Given that, what are the surprises in the poll? For me, the
big one is that Coltrane is so low. Tied with Harry James for 24th, with 36
votes.
It's surprising that Lambert, Hendricks and Ross are that
high. Sing a Song of Basie was 1957, and I would have thought of that as
their big splash. “Twisted” was their biggest hit, but I think that may have
been 1960. Maynard Ferguson wouldn’t be in the top ten today, even if you were
trying to guess who made it back then, but he’s not really a surprise—he was
very popular then.
A big surprise—that Ornette Coleman did not make the list at
all. I know no one liked him back then (I did!) but everyone was talking about
him. He was the big controversy of 1959.
And as hot as soul jazz is becoming, it apparently hasn’t
spawned any personalities yet, not even Horace Silver or Jimmy Smith. Unless
you count Cannonball Adderley.
Maybe the biggest surprise about Mr. Mancini is that anyone
ever called him Hank. Not so surprising that the composer of “Moon River” and
“The Pink Panther” made a list of jazz personalities—1959 was the year of Peter
Gunn. Given that no one knows exactly what a jazz personality is, shouldn't
Craig Stevens and Lola Albright be jazz personalities of the year?
Personality of the Year: Pop
1.
Frank Sinatra
2.
Johnny Mathis
3.
Kingston Trio
4.
Bobby Darin
5.
Nat Cole
6.
Peggy Lee
7.
Ella Fitzgerald
8.
Keely Smith
9.
Louis Prima-Keely Smith
10. Perry
Como
This is certainly the Pop Personality list as defined by
Listeners to Lacy. Otherwise, Elvis would have to be at the top. I wonder how Down
Beat worded the instructions for voting on this one?
And if it’s strictly the sort of pop singers who were around
in the 1940s or at least would have felt home back then (Mathis, Darin), what
are the Kingston Trio doing there, and so high? And if they were going to carve
out an exception for a folk act, why the Trio and not Harry Belafonte (#20 on
the list with 28 votes)? Belafonte had played the Village Vanguard, and was a
regular in the high class supper clubs that featured this sort of act.
If good ol’ Hank Mancini is a jazz personality, what’s the
story with Steve Allen, who really did bring jazz to TV, but here gets votes as
a pop personality (#17, behind Patti Page and Nina Simone), although he was
never a figure in pop music, but no mention in jazz, although he was a legitimate
jazz presence.
Personality: Rhythm and Blues
1.
Ray Charles
2.
Fats Domino
3.
Joe Williams
4.
Dinah Washington
5.
Bobby Darin
6.
Jimmy Witherspoon
7.
Lloyd Price
8.
Joe Turner
9.
Elvis Presley
The editors and readers of Down
Beat can’t bring themselves to say “Rock and Roll.” Still, Elvis does
squeak into the top ten. Chuck Berry (#14) and Little Richard (no votes at
all????) do not.
Combo
1.
Dave Brubeck Quartet
2.
Modern Jazz Quartet
3.
Miles Davis Sextet
4.
Oscar Peterson Trio
5.
Gerry Mulligan Quartet
6.
Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers
7.
Ahmad Jamal Trio
8.
Horace Silver Quintet
9.
Jonah Jones Quartet
10. Chico
Hamilton Quintet
Hard to argue with any of the
choices here. Jonah Jones is pretty much forgotten today, but he was huge back
then, although not with jazz purists. And I’m sometimes hard on jazz purists
(freely admitting that I was one), but they were probably right about Jonah. He
was sort of the Chuck Mangione of his day. Still, he had some huge albums
around this time, with 1958’s Swingin’ on Broadway probably the biggest.
His 1959 album, I Dig Chicks! (do you suppose you could name an album
that today?) won a Grammy award for Best Instrumental Jazz Album, which is a
bit of a shocker, considering the competition.
Best Male Vocalist
1.
Frank Sinatra
2.
Joe Williams
3.
Johnny Mathis
4.
Jon Hendricks
5.
Jimmy Rushing
6.
Mel Torme
7.
Nat Cole
8.
Ray Charles
9.
Bobby Darin
10. Billy
Eckstine
Sinatra, of course. Joe Williams, a great choice for second.
Who ever thought of Johnny Mathis as a jazz singer? The movie Diner, set
in this period, features a serious debate over who’s the best singer to make
out to, Sinatra or Mathis? And he certainly fits in that category. Jazz singer,
not so clear.
Of course the best jazz singer of this year, any year, any
decade, any millennium, is Louis Armstrong (#12 in the poll). But Armstrong’s
star was not in the ascendant. He was thought of as a relic of another era, now
a mere entertainer. He was thus thought of by the same people who made Johnny
Mathis #3 in the jazz world. But Billy Eckstine’s time had certainly passed by
1959, and he still made the top ten.
Mose Allison (#15) was starting to get recognition.
And if pop superstar Johnny Mathis gets 380 votes and third
place as a jazz singer, what is pop superstar Sammy Davis, Jr. (#22, 21 votes)?
Chopped liver?
Best Female Vocalist
1.
Ella Fitzgerald
2.
Anita O’Day
3.
Annie Ross
4.
Sarah Vaughan
5.
June Christy
6.
Dakota Staton
7.
Chris Connor
8.
Peggy Lee
9.
Nina Simone
10. Eydie
Gormé
I’d put Sarah higher. She’s my all-time number one. But this
was the year of “Broken Hearted Melody”—not her best year. I’d put Nina higher,
but I wouldn’t put anyone lower. Dakota Staton’s reputation may not have
endured like some of the others, but she was flying high in 1959, and she
deserved it. There are certainly vocalists I’d rank ahead of Eydie Gormé on a
jazz list. Come on…this was Dinah Washington’s “What a Difference a Day Makes”
year. What more could you ask? She was #12. And what about Carmen McRae (#14)
and Lena Horne (#15)?
Best Vocal Group
1.
Lambert,
Hendricks and Ross
2.
Four Freshmen
3.
Hi-Los
4.
Kingston Trio
5.
King Sisters
Lambert-Hendricks-Ross dominated this category decisively.
The Four Freshmen and the Hi-Los kept getting votes because until LHR came
along, there was really no one to vote for, and the rest of the list proves it.
The Kingston Trio again. The King Sisters, who had been tangentially connected
to jazz in the 1940s, and who were still around, and as it turns out, would
always be around. In the 60s, they had their own TV variety show. They morphed
into the King Family, which included the King Cousins, one of whom played the
love interest for one of the Douglas clan on My Three Sons. And now Luise
King’s grandsons, Win and William Butler, head up indie-rock stars Arcade Fire.
So slim pickings on the jazz vocal group scene, but there
needn’t have been. The Platters made the list (#10), but no other rhythm and
blues/doowop groups, and many of them were keeping the Great American Songbook
flame alive, with cool and clever harmonies, and often saxophone breaks by
solid jazz musicians.
Jazz Band
1.
Count Basie
2.
Maynard Ferguson
3.
Duke Ellington
4.
Harry James
5.
Herb Pomeroy
6.
Gil Evans
7.
Terry Gibbs
8.
Woody Herman
9.
Johnny Richards
10. Ted
Heath
Dance Band
1.
Les Brown
2.
Les Elgart
3.
Count Basie
4.
Maynard Ferguson
5.
Harry James
A big year for Maynard Ferguson, my continued surprise that
Harry James is still so popular. And my continued amazement that nowhere, on
either list, will you find a Latin band.
Trumpet
1.
Miles Davis
2.
Dizzy Gillespie
3.
Maynard Ferguson
4.
Art Farmer
5.
Ruby Braff
6.
Jonah Jones
7.
Harry James
8.
Chet Baker
9.
Lee Morgan
10. Clark
Terry
No surprises at the top. Ruby Braff wasn’t exactly cutting
edge, but he was his own man. We can’t escape Jonah Jones and Harry James. The Down
Beat readers continue not to know what to do with Louis Armstrong, so he
comes in at #12. Kenny Dorham is #19, should be higher. Don (not Donald) Byrd
is last on the list at #24, should be a lot higher. Freddie Hubbard doesn’t
make the list at all, and he was making a name for himself in jazz circles by
1959—he’d recorded with Trane for Prestige in 1958—but he hadn’t recorded much
yet. Chuck Mangione is #16, and what’s that about? He was still in Rochester at
the Eastman School in 1959.
Trombone
1.
J. J. Johnson
2.
Bob Brookmeyer
3.
Kai Winding
4.
Frank Rosolino
5.
Jimmy Cleveland
6.
Urbie Green
7.
Jack Teagarden
8.
Curtis Fuller
9.
Bennie Green
10. Bill
Harris
Curtis Fuller is new to the list this year; expect him to
move up. Last year I complained that Bennie Green had been shut out of the top
ten. Perhaps I somehow went back in time, and the voters listened to me.
Alto Sax
1.
Paul Desmond
2.
Julian “Cannonball” Adderley
3.
Johnny Hodges
4.
Lee Konitz
5.
Art Pepper
6.
Sonny Stitt
7.
Bud Shank
8.
Phil Woods
9.
Paul Horn
10. Benny
Carter
Cannonball Adderley continues to rise in the charts. He’s now
number two with a bullet, except that Paul Desmond will likely never be
dislodged from the top spot, and he certainly deserves the accolades. Again,
the most conspicuous absence is Ornette Coleman, and he’s really absent this
year. Last year he had a handful of votes and just made the last spot on the
list. This year he appears to have gotten no votes at all.
In 1958 he may have been an interesting curiosity, someone
new on the scene that people didn’t quite know what to make of. In 1959 he was
the most controversial figure in jazz. So the way I look at is this. Desmond
and Adderley got their votes because people loved what they did. But for most
of the rest of the list, the vote meant a conscious decision to vote against
Ornette Coleman.
Tenor sax:
1.
Stan Getz
2.
Sonny Rollins
3.
John Coltrane
4.
Coleman Hawkins
5.
Zoot Sims
6.
Benny Golson
7.
Bill Perkins
8.
Ben Webster
9.
Al Cohn
10. Paul
Gonzalves
Benny Golson is the significant name on the list. Otherwise
virtually nothing changes.
It’s impossible to find fault with this ranking. Every one of
the top ten votegetters deserves to be there. Stan Getz number one and Sonny Rollins
number two? It’s reasonable, it’s not unfair. Rollins number one and Getz
number two? Every bit as reasonable. But looking at the numbers, and seeing
that Getz outpolled Rollins by two to one, and you can’t help but think: most
of the Down Beat voters are white.
Baritone Sax
1.
Gerry Mulligan
2.
Pepper Adams
3.
Cecil Payne
4.
Harry Carney
5.
Jimmy Giuffre
Gerry Mulligan gets more votes than the rest of the field put
together, outpolls Pepper Adams by about six to one, and after the first
five—after the first three, really—the votes dwindle down to a precious few.
Clarinet
1.
Tony Scott
2.
Jimmy Giuffre
3.
Buddy DeFranco
4.
Jimmy Hamilton
5.
Paul Horn
Both his Wikipedia page and his New York Times obituary
say substantially the same thing: Tony Scott was the best-known clarinet player
of his day, but no one has ever heard of him, because no one listened to
clarinet players in his day.
Flute
1. Herbie Mann
2. Bud Shank
3. Frank Wess
4. Buddy Collette
5. Paul Horn
6. Sam Most
7. Jerome Richardson
8. Moe Koffman
9. James Moody
10. Bobby Jaspar
No new names in the flute voting, and one missing who was on
the list last year, and who will become an important figure in the 1960s, as
the flute comes into new prominence: Yusef Lateef.
Vibes
1. Milt Jackson
2. Lionel
Hampton
3. Terry Gibbs
4. Red Norvo
5. Cal Tjader
Nothing to report here, either.
Accordion
1.
Art Van Damme
2.
Pete Jolly
3.
Mat Matthews
4.
Leon Sash
5.
Dick Contino
6.
Angelo DiPippo
7.
George Shearing
I asked last year why the accordion still got a separate
category, and the organ was still lumped in with miscellaneous instruments. I
thought maybe there were still more accordion players than organists on the
national scene, but that didn’t make sense. People were voting for Lawrence
Welk and Myron Floren just to have someone to vote for. That didn’t happen this
year, but only seven accordionists got any votes at all, and it’s hard to take
Dick Contino or Angelo DiPippo too seriously in a jazz context. Clifton Chenier
was already making records, but Down Beat readers can be forgiven for
not knowing about him.
Meanwhile, two of the hottest new musicians in jazz, Jimmy
Smith and Shirley Scott, were blazing a new trail, or the trail pioneered by
Wild Bill Davis, for the organ as one of the most prominent instruments of the
new soul jazz. Richard “Groove” Holmes, Jack McDuff, Jimmy McGriff, Johnny
“Hammond” Smith, Charles Earland, and many more were already loping down that
trail. Fine jazz organists like Bill Doggett and Doc Bagby were playing the
rhythm and blues side of the street. Piano players like Count Basie had a
serious organ presence. Down Beat was running a little behind the curve
on this one.
Guitar
1.
Barney Kessel
2.
Herb Ellis
3.
Charlie Byrd
4.
Kenny Burrell
5.
Jim Hall
6.
Freddie Green
7.
Johnny Smith
8.
Tal Farlow
9.
Mundell Lowe
10. Wes
Montgomery
I commented last year that Wes Montgomery had just missed the
top ten, and this year he’s just made it. But he’s not the prodigy of the year,
by any means. Charlie Byrd was number 20 last year, with 33 votes. Well, in
1958 he was playing at a club in Washington, DC, quite removed from the New
York scene, and recording for Savoy. Whereas in 1959, he was…still playing at a
club in Washington, DC, still quite removed from the New York scene, and
recording for an even smaller label. He wouldn’t make his big splash until a
few years later, the 1962 release of Jazz Samba, with Stan Getz. So why the sudden recognition? Beats me.
Piano
1.
Oscar Peterson
2.
Thelonious Monk
3.
Dave Brubeck
4.
Errol Garner
5.
Andre Previn
6.
Bill Evans
7.
Horace Silver
8.
Red Garland
9.
Ahmad Jamal
10. Bud
Powell
There are so many great piano players that if you lopped off
the top ten and started the list with the second ten (John Lewis, George
Shearing, Teddy Wilson, Wynton Kelly, Count Basie, Hank Jones, Lou Levy, Duke
Ellington, Russ Free.an, Hampton Hawes) there’d be no appreciable dropoff in
quality.
Looking back, I see I said much the same for 1958. Well, it
remains true.
The order of the top four shuffled from 1958 (then it was
Garner-Monk-Peterson-Brubeck). Bill Evans is new to the top 10, with Everybody
Digs Bill Evans (Riverside) and Kind of Blue propelling him into the
spotlight. André Previn would eventually go on to the career as a symphony
orchestra conductor for which he is probably better remembered, but he still
had a lot of jazz in him, throughout much of the 1960s.
Bass
1.
Ray Brown
2.
Paul Chambers
3.
Red Mitchell
4.
Charles Mingus
5.
Percy Heath
6.
Leroy Vinnegar
7.
Oscar Pettiford
8.
Milt Hinton
9.
Arvell Shaw
10. Israel
Crosby
Here’s the weird thing about this list. Louis Armstrong
doesn’t make the top ten in anything—jazz personality, combo, male vocalist,
trumpet—but his bass player does. Otherwise, everything almost exactly the same
as last year. It’s also interesting that Ron Carter, the bassman of the future (believed
to have made more recordings than any other bassist) is on the list at #15,
ahead of veterans like Wilbur Ware (top ten last year), Slam Stewart and Scott
LoFaro. There must have been quite a buzz about him, because he was just out of
school and new in town, and wouldn’t record until the following year.
Drums
1.
Shelley Manne
2.
Max Roach
3.
Joe Morello
4.
Philly Joe Jones
5.
Art Blakey
6.
Jo Jones
7.
Chico Hamilton
8.
Buddy Rich
9.
Gene Krupa
10. Mel
Lewis
Again, no quarrel. The white guy gets the most votes, but
he’s a great drummer, and you can’t say he doesn’t deserve it. Still, I can’t
help but think that if it was just drummers voting, Max Roach would come out on
top. But, if it was just drummers voting, Buddy Rich might well be higher, too.
Miscellaneous Instrument
1. Don Elliot
(Mellophone)
2. Jimmy Smith
(organ)
3. Miles Davis
(flugelhorn)
4. Toots Thielemans
(harmonica)
5. Julius Watkins
(French horn)
6. Shorty Rogers
(flugelhorn)
7. Bob Cooper (oboe)
8. Fred Katz (cello)
9. Clark Terry
(flugelhorn)
10. Shirley Scott
(organ)
Composer
1.
Gil Evans
2.
Duke Ellington
3.
John Lewis
4.
Quincy Jones
5.
Benny Golson
6.
Thelonious Monk
