Listening to Prestige 339: Coleman Hawkins

This is a Moodsville session, and it can legitimately be described as mood music: Coleman Hawkins and a rhythm section, a selection of well-chosen ballads, all of them familiar, none of them over-familiar. Two of them ("While We're Young" and "Trouble is a Man") were composed by Alec Wilder, who, if he didn't coin the phrase "Great American Songbook," can certainly be accorded credit for popularizing the concept with his 1972 book American Popular Song: The Great Innovators 1900-1950.

The cover art for the Moodsville series makes it clear what they're selling: the mood. But the musicians don't go into the studio to make mood music, and with Coleman Hawkins, you know you're getting a lot more.

And that's not to put down mood music. Music as background is sometimes unfairly derided. It's part of our lives when we don't necessarily want it to be, in elevators or supermarkets or when we're on hold. But it's the background to our lives when we choose it, to read, to work out or make love, to paint or sculpt or clean out the garage. But that background has to be foregroundable. It has to be music that you can stop sculpting for a few minutes, wipe your brow, take a breath, and shift your attention to what you're listening to. It needs to be something good, something that's every bit as challenging and absorbing as it is relaxing and soothing.

Hawkins fits all of those requirements. So does Tommy Flanagan, who is a very good match for Hawkins.

The album is called At Ease With Coleman Hawkins. Esmond Edwards produced.

Listening to Prestige 338: Jack McDuff

Two weeks after Bill Jennings, Jack McDuff, Wendell Marshall and Alvin Johnson had gone to Englewood Cliffs to record as the Bill Jennings Quartet, they were back again, this time under McDuff's name. He was the third of the trio that had been signed on to Prestige as Willis "Gator Tail" Jackson's group to record as leader, though he probably ended up as the most commercially successful of the three.

McDuff and Jennings make a great combination. It turns out that if the organ-tenor sax quartet is a great new idea, and the organ-tenor sax-guitar quintet is another great idea, the organ-guitar quartet is an equally great idea, if you have two players like these.

So, about the music. The set begins with "Organ Grinder's Swing," written by Will Hudson (best known for "Moonglow"), a swing era tune from the 1930s that originally celebrated that figure of Depression-era mythology, the organ grinder and his trained monkey. In the soul jazz era, it got picked up by virtually everyone who played that more sophisticated type of organ, the Hammond B3. Shirley Scott was the first to take it on, on an album with Joe Newman, and Jimmy Smith would record it a few years later with Kenny Burrell. But McDuff and Jennings were the first to give it the guitar-organ treatment, and if there's ever a number that demonstrates how perfectly these two long-time partners work together, it's this. There are also lyrics written by Irving Mills and Mitchell Parish, probably best forgotten these days, because they include the verse "Eeny meeny miney mo, Catch a monkey by the toe."

"Drowsy" is the first Brother Jack composition on the album, and it is something different, starting with with notes sustained as only an electric organ can, to the point of eeriness,  and if you're looking for eerie, how about the next sound you here, which is Bill Jennings bending one blue note at a time, with some fairly impressive sustaining himself, and that's basically what happens throughout. If a slow tempo is enough to make something a ballad, then this is a ballad. Except it's not. Is it jazz? Well, sure it is. It's on a jazz album, and it's being played by two jazz masters, so what else do you want?

"Noon Train" is another original, uptempo, riff-based, blues-drenched, with some serious work by Wendell Marshall and especially Alvin Johnson, some flights of creativity from McDuff and a guitar solo that -- not for the first or last time -- makes you stop and ask yourself why Jennings isn't on everyone's list of greatest jazz guitarists. And he's not. Not even on Ranker's list, which has 131 guitarists on it (well, he is now). Which shows you that people can be wrong. Or perhaps that I'm wrong--but that's not possible. This is one hell of a guitarist. Am I right, Larry (the Fluff) Audette?

"Mack 'N' Duff" and "Brother Jack" are two that he named after himself, and all of these together lead one to the inescapable conclusion that if McDuff wasn't one of the great jazz composers, he surely was the greatest composer of original music for Jack McDuff, and it is every bit of that: original, and designed to show his considerable range, and with great parts for his pal Bill Jennings. Jennings is co-composer on the final original, "Light Blues," and it's a nice showcase for him, a lazy swinging blues.

"Mr. Wonderful" certainly had its heyday as a jazz piece in the late 1950s, especially with organists (Shirley Scott and Johnny "Hammond" Smith took it on too), and not much after that, which shows the clout that Sammy Davis, Jr., had in those days, but it's also not a bad tune, and it's hard to fault this version. "You're Driving Me Crazy" is a certifiable standard. Written by the prolific Walter Donaldson, it's never gone very long without provoking a new rendition, either jazz or pop (most recently Van Morrison and Joey DiFrancesco). McDuff and Jennings take it at a relaxed tempo, and do some cool things with it.

"Organ Grinder Swing" was the single, b/w "Brother Jack." Brother Jack was also the name of the album, although it would be a while before the brother would add "Brother" to his name full time. I had a tough time choosing a "Listen to One" for this session. So many different sounds competed for my attention. Listening to all would not be a bad idea at all.

Listening to Prestige 337: Mildred Anderson

Bob Weinstock continues his streak here: finding wonderful blues singers, putting them together with first rate musicians, and not really achieving the kind of success one would hope for.

Mildred Anderson had recorded a couple of sides in the 1940s and a couple more in the 1950s. This session, and a followup for Prestige, are generally considered to be her best work, but they didn't bring her much fame. She faded into obscurity--in fact, into oblivion. There appears not even to be a record of her death. Or her birth, for that matter.

Anderson had worked with first rate musicians before. She'd had a minor hit with Albert Ammons ("Doin' the Boogie Woogie"), and had recorded with Hot Lips Page and Bill Doggett. But "Doin' the Boogie Woogie" really wasn't a very good song, although it had a nice solo by Ammons. And on the Prestige session, she gets the label's stars, plus Esmond Edwards' producing talents, and, of course, Rudy Van Gelder engineering the session.

She has a full day of studio time. And she has an interesting collection of songs.

Here again, we've moved into a new era. Edwards and Anderson, or whoever picked out the songs for this session, are not looking back at the composers who compiled the Great American Songbook, now closed, gift-wrapped, and sent to Ella Fitzgerald. Those songs aren't necessarily appropriate for a contemporary blues singer, anyway. This is a different and a motley bunch, but professionals with some interesting hits to their resumes.

"I'm Gettin' 'Long Alright" and "Connections" were written by Charles Singleton (who also wrote "I'm Free" and Bobby Sharp. Sharp, who grew up in a two-room Harlem flat where his parents entertained the likes of Roy Wilkins, Thurgood Marshall, Langston Hughes and Duke Ellington, wrote "Unchain My Heart." Singleton wrote "Strangers in the Night."

Rhythm and blues great Chuck Willis wrote "Don't Deceive Me (Please Don't Go)." Anderson herself wrote the two blues numbers, "Hello Little Boy" and "Cool Kind of Poppa," and they're both solid songs, well suited to her style. Another blues legend, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, wrote "Kidney Stew Blues," along with Leona Blackman, who wrote a number of R&B tunes for artists like Big Maybelle, but "Kidney Stew," as originally performed by Vinson, was her biggest hit.

"Person to Person," which became the title song of the album, was written by Wally Gold, who had a bunch of hits, including  "It's Now or Never" and "Good Luck Charm" for Elvis Presley, and a song he was called in on to finish up for a part time songwriter, who had been inspired by a tantrum thrown by his teenage daughter, when informed she had to invite her grandparents to her Sweet Sixteen. When he tried to calm her down, she retorted "It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to."

Mildred Anderson is a terrific singer who deserved more recognition than she got. The musicians backing her up, Scott and Davis and their regular rhythm section, George Duvivier and Arthur Edgehill, are amazing. I commented before, regarding their session with Al Smith, that "Shirley Scott's understated but impassioned organ work, on every cut, really pulls the album together. It makes you wish she'd done a lot more work with singers." That's as true, and more, on this session, but if I singled out Scott that time, I might not be able to do it this time. She and Davis are equally impressive. They do wonderful work backing up the singer, accenting her and bringing out the best in her, and they move from that into solos that take on their own importance, yet never stop being part of the song. I can't say more than that, because every time I try to single out one of them, and one cut off the album, so many others jump out and demand equal time.

Maybe Davis and Scott were born out of their time. In the 1930s, the bandleaders were the stars, and the singers were just part of the show. By the 1950s, that only worked for Johnny Otis. But if Davis and Scott could have added a vocalist and put together a package like Tommy Dorsey or Glenn Miller...

"Person to Person," b/w "Connections," is the 45 RPM single. "Connections" was not included on the album. Nor was "Ebb Tide," and neither of them are listed on the CD reissue, either, although you can find "Connections" on YouTube, which is all to the good. It's a nice raunchy song. Unfortunately, the single didn't make much of a dent. Maybe if they could have gotten a different Wally Gold song, like It's My Party." Well, maybe not.

Listening to Prestige 336: Bill Jennings

In spite of being a prolifically recorded guitarist over a range of styles, and the musician B. B. King has called one of his biggest influences, Bill Jennings remains remarkably obscure. He played with Louis Armstrong and Louis Jordan, King Curtis and Ella Fitzgerald. He played guitar on Little Willie John's "Fever."  But he's not much remembered, and all that remains in print are the early sides for the King and Gotham labels, available as an import--none of the Prestige recordings. He had come to Prestige with Willis Jackson and Jack McDuff, and the three of them recorded in various combinations. This and the earlier Enough Said were issued under his leadership, although Wikipedia's discography for Jennings lists him as a sideman to Jack McDuff for this session.

The date includes a number of tunes that Jennings had previously recorded, and one that Prestige must have hoped for some radio and jukebox action from. "Cole Slaw" was a Jesse Stone composition that had originated under a different title. It had been recorded in rhythm and blues and swing versions by "Doc" Wheeler and Jimmy Dorsey in 1942 as "Sorghum Switch." When it was resurrected in 1949 by Frank "Floorshow" Culley as "Cole Slaw/Sorghum Switch," it became a hit, and Louis Jordan covered it as simply "Cole Slaw." But you weren't going to get much nostalgia value out of a 1949 Atlantic recording. Their early rhythm and blues instrumentals had been eclipsed by their mid-1950s hitmakers like Ray Charles and LaVern Baker, and the early stuff wouldn't even be rereleased on LP till years later, with the big Atlantic box sets.

And if this had been planned as a jukebox hit, no one seems to have told the Jennings brothers and Jack McDuff, because their recording runs more than eight minutes, and probably had to be cut down considerably for the 45 RPM release. I'm guessing they cut out the intro and first solo by Al Jennings on vibes, although Al comes back much stronger later, and there's some powerful three-way interplay between Al, Bill, and McDuff. It's a fine recording, and so is the straight-ahead blues that made the flip side of the 45, "Billin' and Bluin'."

Also featured on the set is a song variously called "Miss Jones" and "Hey, Mrs. Jones," which is not to be confused with "Have You Met Miss Jones" or "Me and Mrs. Jones." "Cole Slaw"/"Billin' and Bluin'" was the only single release; the album was Glide On.

Listening to Prestige 335: Coleman Hawkins

Not much new to say about Coleman Hawkins by this time. It seems almost beside the point to write anything. Better to turn the volume to just the right level (not all the way up to eleven), sit back, and enjoy sound that is so smooth you could spread it on Wonder Bread without ripping up big hunks.

Except you would never spread it on Wonder Bread. This is the real thing, the blues, the real America, three-dimensional and full-toned and flavored like Huck Finn's stew. Unlike the Widow Douglas's white-bread cuisine where "everything was cooked by itself," you have "a barrel of odds and ends," where "things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better."

So this is music for pure enjoyment,  but isn't that what it's all for? As Hawkins and his group were in Englewood Cliffs cutting this session, Ornette Coleman was at the Five Spot making music that hurt the ears of many, but to my 19-year-old ears it was pure bliss, thrilling new, complex and simple, challenging and direct. And that's what you look for from art. The doors open where you find them, sometimes where you were looking, sometimes where you least expected, and each door that you go through broadens your range of appreciation, so that your capacity for enjoyment keeps expanding.

Hawkins has brought some old friends to this session, Osie Johnson has some swing credentials, having spent three years with Earl Hines, Tommy Flanagan and Wendell Marshall have young hands and timeless ears. But his horn players have the kind of time-tested chops that the Hawk himself brings.

Vic Dickenson kept a fairly high profile for a traditional player during the modern jazz era. A Down Beat International Critics Poll in 1963 placed him third among trombonists, tied with Lawrence Brown. And there were still plenty of great trombonists around. J. J. Johnson was still leader of the pack, Curtis Fuller and Slide Hampton were at the peak of their careers, Kai Winding was making hit records, Urbie Green and Bennie Green were still active, and Dickenson was pushing 60. But he  kept busy throughout the 1950s and 1960s, recording with Hawkins, Johnny Hodges, Dicky Wells, Buster Bailey, Budd Johnson and, interestingly, Langston Hughes. He was a member of the outfit called The World's Greatest Jazz Band, which played the style of traditional jazz somewhat uncomfortably referred to as Dixieland, and which had a good enough lineup to justify the name.

Much less well-known, but regarded with reverence by those familiar with him, was trumpeter Joe Thomas. One such is Michael Steinman of the Jazz Lives blog, who has said of Thomas:

Joe knew how to structure a solo through space, to make his phrases ring by leaving breathing room between them.  Like Bix or Basie, Joe embodied restraint while everyone around him was being urgent.  His pure dark sound is as important as the notes he plays — or chooses to omit...

A simple phrase, in Thomas’s world, is a beautifully burnished object.  And one phrase flows into another, so at the end of the solo, one has embraced a new melody, resonant in three dimensions, that wasn’t there before, full of shadings, deep and logically constructed.

And more:

 Joe’s tone, dark and shining, makes the simple playing of a written line something to marvel at, and each of his notes seems a careful choice yet all is fresh, never by rote: someone speaking words that have become true because he has just discovered they are the right ones for the moment.

I've commented on this before, but it's worth repeating: What Coleman Hawkins, and other artists who recorded for Bob Weinstock's Swingville label, played was not traditional swing (as opposed, for example to The World's Greatest Jazz Band, which essentially did play traditional Dixieland). Swing was big band jazz, essentially an arranger's art form, and what followed it was a small group music with emphasis on the soloist. Of course, there had always been small groups. Louis Armstrong's Hot Five was one of the most important, and they preceded swing.

Hawkins played his own kind of music. He had virtually invented the modern improvised solo with his 1939 recording of "Body and Soul," and though his music at this stage of his career had a mellow nostalgic feeling to it, it was definitely the music of the guy who had recorded "Body and Soul" and had played on the first bebop recording.

And his traditionalist partners, Thomas and Dickenson, were right there with him. They could play traditional Dixieland when it was called for, but they could play with Hawkins, doing what Hawkins did, as well. As Dickenson once said:

I like to play the melody, and I want it still to be heard, but I like to rephrase it and bring out something fresh in it, as though I were talking or singing to someone. I don't want to play it as written, because there's usually something square in it.

Of course, the center of the Kansas City swing that Hawkins grew up with, and the center of bebop as well, is the blues, and all of these cats know how to play the blues, and it infuses even their Tin Pan Alley pop standards like "I'm Beginning to See the Light." It's part of what knits them together. The rest is a shared musical understanding that allows for solo to build on solo, in a most satisfying way.

The Swingville release was entitled Coleman Hawkins All Stars .