Listening to Prestige 417: Arnett Cobb

Prestige, for most of the last part of 1960, is in a holding pattern, not looking to break new ground. A lot of Swingville, Moodsville and Bluesville albums with veteran players and vocalists. But if this is a holding pattern, thank God they held onto it for as long and hard as they did. There isn't a one of these albums that you would wish unmade. And if it's a holding pattern in the history of jazz, or in terms of the music industry, it's not a holding pattern for these artists. Jazz musicians are always exploring, and probably no jazz musician ever has gone into the studio so often that he or she runs out of ideas, or the urgency to create.

Al Sears, who had been in Rudy Van Gelder's studio the day before Arnett Cobb, made three albums for Prestige in 1960 and 1961. Too much Al Sears? Too much of a holding pattern? Well, let's put it another way. Al Sears played jazz, and some rhythm and blues and rock 'n roll, on a professional level for over 50 years, which means that over five decades, bandleaders (like Duke Ellington) wanted him in their bands, club owners wanted to book him, people wanted to hear what he was playing. Yet in those five decades, those three Prestige albums were his only albums as leader. Try to tell me that's too much. We're lucky to have them.

Arnett Cobb made eight albums for Prestige in 1959 and 1960, and there's not a one of them that's too much Arnett. There's not a one of them that's not Arnett giving his all, and delivering music of lasting value and lasting joy. Before his "holding pattern" with Prestige, he had recorded a handful of 78s and 45s from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s, and afterwards, he did not record again until 1970.

Opportunity, or lack of it. is part of the reason for a long hiatus between recording sessions. Another...these guys go into the studio because they have something new to say, and they frequently will stay away if they don't feel that they do. The most famous example of this is Sonny Rollins's two-year sabbatical at a height of popularity, retreating to a solitary woodshed under the Williamsburg Bridge (there's a movement to rename the bridge the Sonny Rollins Bridge, which I support--you can find out more, sign a petition, make a contribution at this website).

Cobb's retreat, before and after this recording, had to do with health. In 1956 he had been in a devastating auto accident, one that left him bedridden and flat on his back for a year, and left him in pain for the rest of his life. His 1959-60 recording burst was heroic.

Cobb was no stranger to injury. When he was a ten-year-old boy in Houston, he sneaked out of his home and took the trolley downtown to go to the movies. Crossing the street, he was hit by a car. He got up and walked away, but told no one, because he didn't want to be punished for sneaking out. But the untreated injury to his hip would lead to lifelong pain until finally twenty years later, in 1948, the hip had to be operated on, leading to his first enforced absence from music. He needed crutches for the rest of his life, and learned to play his powerful driving tenor saxophone while balancing on a crutch.

The auto accident in 1956 crushed both of his legs. They were not reset properly, so he was left with one leg shorter than the other.

On this album he is matched, as on his November session with Red Garland and his trio, George Tucker replacing George Duvivier on bass and J. C. Heard on drums, playing some blues and some standards. Tucker got quite a bit of work from Prestige in those days, and across a range of styles. In 1959-1960 he appeared with Johhny "Hammond" Smith, Shirley Scott, Eric Dolphy, and Oliver Nelson. He was at the beginning of a career that would be shockingly short: He died in 1965 of a brain henhorrage while playing with KennyBurrell.

The session starts out with "The Way You Look Tonight," one of my favorite songs. Lyricist Dorothy Fields said of it that when Jerome Kern first sent her the melody, she cried when she head it. And it is that beautiful. Originally written for Fred Astaire in Swing Time, it has become one of the most beloved of standards, with over 500 recordings, by pop, jazz, doo wop, country, British Invasion and opera singer, and a wide spectrum of jazz instrumentalists.J.C. Heard starts it off setting an intriguing rhythm. Cobb honors the melody, with a warm and sensitive statement of the head and an improvisation that finds new resonance in the melody's beauty.

The other standards are "Sweet Georgia Brown,: everyone's idea of a fun song, so much so that it's also been recorded over 500 times, not to mention the Harlem Globetrotters performing their pre-game workout to it. Cobb has fun with it too, but it's a more sophisticated kind of fun, a little bebop, a little rhythm and blues. Garland and Tucker contribute a bebop-tempoed break, and Heard has some hot licks as well. And "Georgia on My Mind," the Hoagy Carmichael classic that bests both of the others in the popularity, with nearly 600 cover versions--and one that dominates all the others. Ray Charles had released his just a couple of months previous, and it had shot up to Number One on the charts. Everyone knew how good it was, but it had not yet reached the iconic status where it would be named the state song of Georgia, and covering it seemed like a good idea. And it was a good idea. Cobb and the guys do it proud.

Cobb and Illinois Jacquet have always been linked by the two great versions of "Flying Home" with the Lionel Hampton band, and Cobb chooses a Jacquet composition (with prolific composer Jimmy Mundy) for this set,  "Black Velvet," which has also become a jazz standard, though on a more modest scale, both under its original title and, with lyrics added, as "Don'cha Go Way Mad." Cobb lets some of his wailin' side loose here, though the melody has a sweetness to it.

His own compositions are "Blue Sermon" (bluesy, funky, a delight, with some great work by Garland) and "Sizzlin' (walking vamp by Tucker sets the pace and the mood; Cobb sizzles).

Sizzlin' was a Prestige release, Esmond Edwards producing.

Listening to Prestige Vol. 2, 1955-56, and Vol. 3, 1957-58 now include, in the Kindle editions, links to all the "Listen to One" selections. All three volumes available from Amazon.

And Vol. 4 is very close to completion. Watch for it!