Prestige in 1960 began its second full decade in the jazz business (second of two--there had been one year in the 1940s, and there would be a couple in the 1970s) by looking ahead, looking back, and looking straight at the present.
Looking back is what they did by the formation of the Swingville and Bluesville labels. As to looking back at the immediate past...not so much. As with Bill Clinton and the era of big government, the era of bebop seems to be over for Bob Weinstock and associates. Comparing their releases of 1957, just three years earlier, one finds an overlap of exactly two names: Red Garland (three sessions in 1957, three in 1960) and Tommy Flanagan (one and one). No Gene Ammons, though he was absent by force of incarceration, and would be back. No more Jackie McLean, Kenny Burrell, Phil Woods. Some, like John Coltrane, Art Farmer, Mose Allison, had moved along. Prestige was a great launching pad for young talent, musicians would go on to sign with bigger labels who would give them more money, more promotion, more exposure.
Looking back through Swingville and Bluesville gave the label a deeply enriched catalogue that has only grown more valuable through the years. We look back at the 1950s as a golden era of jazz not just because of the new music that was being created, but because it was a time when every era of jazz still existed. Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman and Dizzy Gillespie became international ambassadors. And so many of the titans of jazz, from virtually every era, were still playing, often in obscurity.
One such titan was Coleman Hawkins, still so revered that as the era of John Coltrane was ushered in by his Prestige recordings and brought to full flower by his Atlantic recordings, the Down Beat critics', polled for their leading jazz artists of 1960, still named Hawkins as the top tenor saxophonist. Prestige brought Hawkins into the studio four times in 1959, three more in 1960. He had played with the Prestige Blues Swingers, in which moderns like Idrees Suleiman, Jerome Richardson and Pepper Adams joined forces with blues guitarist Roy Gaines and future star Ray Bryant. He had recorded with swing veterans Charlie Shavers and Tiny Grimes for an album that was originally released on Prestige, but may well have given Bob Weinstock the idea for Swingville, because soon after that the label was launched, and this became one of its first titles. Under the catchall name of Prestige All Stars, he recorded with Buddy Tate and Arnett Cobb, soon to become Swingville regulars, and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and Shirley Scott, two of the brightest stars in Prestige's new soul jazz firmament. He worked in a quartet session with the Red Garland Trio and another trio led by Tommy Flanagan, and in a sextet setting with swing veterans Vic Dickenson and Joe Thomas. And on a December, 1960 session with Flanagan and Davis, he brought aboard a youngster just starting out in the jazz business--Ron Carter.
Hawkins would go on to have an active decade of recording, with Prestige and other labels, in a wide variety of musical settings, from blues veteran Ida Cox to Sonny Rollins. Who wouldn't want the chance to play with the Hawk? He died in 1969.
In addition to Tate and Cobb. Prestige Swingville also recorded Buck Clayton, Al Casey, Claude Hopkins, Budd Johnson, Bud Freeman. And guys who made their bones in rhythm and blues also joined the Swingville roster: Willis "Gator Tail" Jackson, Al Sears, Jimmy Forrest, King Curtis, Bill Jennings.
A lot of the new Prestige/Swingville/Bluesville roster was the work of Esmond Edwards. Edwards was African American, which was something of a rarity in those days for someone in the production/management end of the music business, and his familiarity with the smaller clubs and music establishments in Harlem and the Bronx led to a lot of these signings, both the rhythm and blues veterans and the new soul jazz players.
In at least one case, those two categories overlapped. Willis Jackson's long-time associate was organist Jack McDuff, and he would go on to become one of the big selling artists of the soul jazz world.
Shirley Scott was the star of Prestige's soul jazz roster, and one of the players, along with Jimmy Smith, to really popularize the organ sound in jazz. Along with Scott and McDuff, Prestige had Johnny "Hammond" Smith, Robert Banks, and Larry Young, who would go on to a trailblazing career after leaving Prestige.
Bluesville was an interesting label, and Prestige's blues roster was always interesting to follow. They recorded legends like Memphis Slim, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Willie Dixon, Lonnie Johnson (who was plucked from obscurity by producer Chris Albertson), Sunnyland Slim, Roosevelt Sykes,Tampa Red. They also recorded some blues singers who never made it beyond obscurity -- Arbee Stidham, Shakey Jake, St. Louis Jimmy, and particularly the marvelous and completely forgotten singers Al Smith and Mildred Anderson.
They were forward-looking, too. Eric Dolphy was their real torchbearer for the new generation, and he was to die young, before the end of the decade. Booker Little joined him on his last album of 1960, and for some memorable live sessions in 1961, but death was to overtake him before the year was out. Oliver Nelson was an important new composing talent; his most famous work, though, was to come the next year, when he recorded Blues and the Abstract Truth. Lem Winchester had a bright future ahead of him, an he was just beginning to glimpse it, when a freak accident took him in 1961.
Thursday, October 31, 2019
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
Listening to Prestige 424: Wrapping up 1960
Reading through the issue of Down Beat that contains the 1960 Readers' Poll, I'm struck by the judgmental quality of the reviews. "[Benny Golson's solo] makes [Curtis] Fuller's weak solo anticlimactic...although he is extremely fast, Fuller is not always clean." Of an album by the Slide Hampton Octet: "[George] Coleman is a capable tenor man, but he is overshadowed in this company...it is disappointing to find a sameness of sound dominating the LP." Of Spiritsville by Julian Priester: "Despite the title, there is not much spirit here. Moreover, the writing...becomes downright boring...[McCoy] Tyner...is given to fast, boppish right hand runs that substitute flash for originality of thought." Of Wayne Shorter's debut album: "Shorter's debut as a leader is unimpressive...[Lee] Morgan and [Wynton] Kelly add little but monotony to a monotonous set." And an even on an album that the reviewer really likes, by Julius Watkins and Charlie Rouse: "It is unfortunate that it contains moments of pretentiousness, for it could have been a more memorable milestone in the careers of Watkins and Rouse."
I suppose the Down Beat reviewers were following the mandates of their job: to be, in their phrase, a "Jazz Record Buyer's Guide," highlighting the albums that are most worthy of your $4.98. And I'm not denigrating Down Beat. I guess this is as good a place as any for my annual appeal: why haven't all back issues of this national treasure been digitized and made available to jazz scholars and aficionados? Where is the grant from the NEH for this? Why doesn't Smithsonian buy the Down Beat archives and digitize them?
But today, we are grateful for all these records--and for the ones that Down Beat never reviewed. They're what we have of this golden decade in the American Century in music, and listening from the perspective of time we can appreciate their beauty, their creativity, their value. And we can want to go back and pop one on the nose of the guy who shortchanged Curtis Fuller or Lee Morgan or Wynton Kelly (as Curtis and Lee and Wynton surely wanted to do also), but they were of their time, and we can be grateful for their contributions too.
1960 was very much a year for the bifurcation of jazz into soul and free. The organ groups, particularly Jimmy Smith but including Prestige artists Shirley Scorr, Jack McDuff, Johnny "Hammond" Smith and Larry Young, were becoming hugely popular. Cannonball Adderley on Riverside and Horace Silver on Blue Note were helping to define the new sound. Addereley's seminal Live at the Lighthouse was recorded in 1960. Bobby Timmons went into the studio three times during the year for Riverside. His first release, This Here is Bobby Timmons, contained three of his compositions that were to become soul jazz anthems: "Moanin'," "This Here" and "Dat Dere."
In 1960, Ornette Coleman recorded an album that featured two quartets, each playing on a separate stereo channel. He called the album Free Jazz, and he wasn't necessarily trying to give a name to a new movement, but that's what happened. The free jazz revolution put an indelible stamp on the music in 1960. John Coltrane released Giant Steps and recorded My Favorite Things. Eric Dolphy launched a meteoric and all-too-brief career with Prestige. Cecil Taylor released The World of Cecil Taylor, with a group that included Archie Shepp.
Dolphy joined Charles Mingus for the album Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus. Mingus had initially disparaged Coleman's playing, but in April of 1960, Mingus was given a blindfold test by Leonard Feather in Down Beat, and he had this to say:
Some jazz musicians were into another kind of "freedom music" as the new decade began, a decade in which the civil rights struggles erupted passionately. We think of folk singers and protest songs, but jazz musicians were involved too, and one of the most politically active was Max Roach. 1960 saw the release of his album We Insist, a collaboration with lyricist Oscar Brown Jr. Randy Weston's Uhuru Africa, featuring the poetry of Langston Hughes on some cuts, would be banned in apartheid South Africa.
And there was still plenty of fresh and creative bebop-influenced jazz, notably Art Farmer, Benny Golson and Curtis Fuller's collaborative Meet the Jazztet.
Oscar Pettiford died in 1960.
Here's how various polls saw the year in jazz:
Dizzy Gillespie was 1960's inductee into the Down Beat hall of fame. Billie Holiday and Miles Davis were runners-up; others trailed far behind.
In Down Beat, here weren't as many categories as in previous years. Rhythm and blues, finally recognized in 1959 because they could no longer ignore Ray Charles, is gone again. Personality of the Year is gone; it was an odd one, anyway.
All stars by instrument:
Trumpet:
1. Miles Davis
2. Dizzy Gillespie
3. Maynard Ferguson
4. Art Farmer
5. Lee Morgan
6. Louis Armstrong
7. Donald Byrd
8. Nat Adderley
9. Chet Baker
Those were the ones who got more than 100 votes, and no real surprises. The top four were unchanged from the previous year. Donald Byrd and Nat Adderley jumped up considerably in the rankings--and so, unaccountably, did Louis Armstrong, since there wasn't exactly an Armstrong renaissance in 1960. No free jazz here -- but in the Japanese Down Beat readers' poll, a new feature for 1960, Don Cherry made the list.
Armstrong was certainly not forgotten by what may have been a more sophisticated group, the Down Bear critics poll, where he finished fourth to Davis, Gillespie and Farmer. Nor was he forgotten by an arguably less sophisticated group--Playboy readers voted him second to Davis. And he was still hot internationally, finishing second in Britain's Melody Maker and France's Jazz Hot,
Trombone:
1. J. J. Johnson
2. Bob Brookmeyer
3. Curtis Fuller
4. Frank Rosolino
5. Jack Teagarden
6. Urbie Green
7. Kai Winding
8. Jimmy Cleveland
9. Jimmy Knepper
10. Slide Hampton
J. J. Johnson continued to dominate this field, with 4097 votes to Brookmeyer's 932. The only more dominant instrumentalist was Gerry Mulligan. Curtis Fuller rose in popularity, largely due to his work with the Jazztet, and he rose even higher in the Critics' Poll, finishing second to Johnson. My instinct tells me that the trombone was not a really hot instrument in the jazz world of 1960. Checking up on that instinct with the rateyourmusic poll, about which more later: The second most popular album on that list is Mingus's Blues and Roots, which featured two trombones, Jimmy Knepper and the less familiar Willie Dennis. Curtis Fuller has an album at #15, and that's about it in the top 50 except for a couple of big band albums, where you'd expect to find trombones. Third on the list is Miles Davis's Sketches of Spain, with Frank Rehak and Dick Nixon (I guess he had to do something after losing to Kennedy). But that was a big band, so of course they had trombones.
Alto Sax:
1. Cannonball Adderley
2. Paul Desmond
3. Sonny Stitt
4. Art Pepper
5. Johnny Hodges
6. Ornette Coleman
7. Jackie McLean
8. Lee Konitz
9. Phil Woods
10. Bud Shank
Cannonball Adderley replaced Paul Desmond at the top spot, an indication of the growing popularity of soul jazz--among voters, at least. That the editors of Down Beat were still reluctant to admit that jazz had changed a lot over the course of a couple of decades can be seen by their unchanging categories. There was still no organ category in 1960. Bizarrely, there was still an accordion category.
Looking at last year's poll, I guessed that no one would ever outpoll Paul Desmond. If I only could have looked into the future...and of course, I could have. But I prefer to let the unrolling of history surprise me.
Adderley and Desmond both got well over 2000 votes, and everyone else was an also-ran. But Ornette Coleman made his first appearance as a vote-getter. One could no longer ignore him, although a lot of voters still chose to reject him.
Desmond was never as much beloved by the Down Beat critics, perhaps because of East Coast bias. He did not even finish in the top three (Hodges and Stitt trailed Adderley). But if the critics were the real cognoscenti, why didn't they have Ornette in their top three?
Tenor Sax:
1. John Coltrane
2. Stan Getz
3. Coleman Hawkins
4. Zoot Sims
5. Ben Webster
6. Sonny Rollins
7. Benny Golson
8. Sonny Stitt
9. Bill Perkins
10. Johnny Griffin
It's worth noting that in 1960 two black instrumentalists replaced two longstanding white poll winners. Cannonball Adderley outpaced Paul Desmond by 400 votes. And John Coltrane drew about 1500 votes more than Stan Getz (2945-1495). I don't know that this says anything about changing racial attitudes in America.
Getz in the previous year had stood like a colossus, getting more than double the votes of second place finisher Sonny Rollins, and like Desmond, he looked unbeatable. Coltrane would go on to achieve mythic status, but in 1960 that was just starting to happen.
Rollins faded in the polls, because he seemed to have retired from jazz, no one knew why, and no one knew if he was ever coming back. We know now, of course. He was right in the middle of a three-year, self imposed trip to the woodshed, his particular woodshed being under the Williamsburg Bridge. There is currently a campaign to rename that structure the Sonny Rollins Bridge, and isn't that a no-brainer? It should have been done already. It should be done now.
Benny Golson still languished low on the list, which surprises me a little. Te Jazztet were a big deal back in 1960, and Golson was starting to make an impact on the public consciousness as a composer, with "Killer Joe" and "I Remember Clifford," just to name two.
The critics went with tradition on the tenor sax. John Coltrane, before and especially after his death, attained Olympian status, and were there a Mount Rushmore of tenor players, he would certainly be carved into it, but at that time, that Mt. Rushmore only had three names: Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young and Ben Webster. Young had died the year before, so Coltrane edged his way in. Hawkins was their top choice, and Webster and Coltrane tied for second.
Some very good tenor saxophonists whose roots were in rhythm and blues, such as Willis "Gator Tail" Jackson, made some very good records in 1960, but they had never gotten any respect from the jazz clique, and they never would.
Baritone Sax:
1. Gerry Mulligan
2. Pepper Adams
3. Harry Carney
4. Frank Hittner
5. Cecil Payne
6. Sahib Shihab
7. Ronnie Ross
8. Jimmy Giuffre
A category owned by Gerry Mulligan. In 1960, he was some 6500 votes ahead of his closest competitor.
Down Beat had a problem that year with rigged voting, involving "faked ballots." I take that to mean that you had to use the tearout ballot that came with the magazine, which must have meant that you had to buy a magazine to vote, and more than one copy of the magazine if you wanted to vote more than once. A couple of musicians were disqualified because of ballot-stuffing, just like what had happened to Major League Baseball in 1957, when overenthusiastic Cincinnati voters placed Redlegs at every position except first base (Stan Musial made the cut; Hank Aaron and Willie Mays were outpolled). But you have to wonder if the Down Beat staff, overwhelmed by double the number of votes they had ever gotten before, may have let a few slip by them. Frank Hittner was a solid journeyman who played in Woody Herman's and Maynard Ferguson's big bands for many years, but fourth place among baritone saxophonists?
Clarinet:
1. Buddy DeFranco
2. Jimmy Giuffre
3. Tony Scott
4. Benny Goodman
5. Pete Fountain
6. Jimmy Hamilton
7. Art Pepper
8. Sam Most
9. Edmond Hall
10. Woody Herman
I'm guessing that Down Beat's editors did not give a lot of thought to the issue of downgrading some instruments to Miscellaneous and upgrading others to their own category. And if they had, I suppose they would have had a hard time retiring the clarinet category. It had once been the dominant woodwind instrument in jazz. And DeFranco, Giuffre and Scott were still doing forward-looking work on the instrument, although in a few years DeFranco would choose making a living over trying to make a space for an increasingly irrelevant instrument, and took over leadership of the Glenn Miller Orchestra.
If I had been advising Down Beat back in 1960, and knew then what I know now, I would have expanded the clarinet category to include all clarinets, so that Eric Dolphy's bass clarinet could have been included here, rather than in Miscellaneous Instruments.
Piano:
1. Oscar Peterson
2. Thelonious Monk
3. Horace Silver
4. Dave Brubeck
5. Bill Evans
6. Andre Previn
7. Errol Garner
8. Red Garland
9. John Lewis
10. Wynton Kelly
There were so many great piano players.You look at Red Garland and John Lewis and say "How can they be so far down?" But who on the list deserves to be lower?
According to Down Beat, the race between Peterson and Monk was not settled until the end of counting.
The big jump in the balloting was Horace Silver, 7th place to 3rd, again reflecting the growing popularity of soul jazz. Soul jazz also brought two newcomers to the list, lower down--Bobby Timmons and Les McCann.
Do the critics have better taste than the readers? Since there's no answer to that unless you rephrase the question, "Do the critics agree with me more than the readers do?" I will rephrase it that way. And the answer is, at least where the piano is concerned, more or less yeah. They put Monk--more idiosyncratic, a little more difficult--ahead of Peterson, and I'd go along with that. And critics, snobs that they are, tend to shrink from the popular and go for the more esoteric, so they were not quite ready to jump on the Horace Silver bandwagon. Their third choice was Bill Evans, and I have to say I'd go along with that, too.
Guitar:
1. Barney Kessel
2. Wes Montgomery
3. Kenny Burrell
4, Charlie Byrd
5. Jim Hall
6. Herb Ellis
7.Johnny Smith
8. Freddie Green
9. Sal Salvador
10. Tal Farlow
Here's a category with a real rising star. Wes Montgomery placed 10th in the Readers' Poll in 1959, the first year that he registered in the voting at all. Barney Kessel was a hard man to beat, although Kenny Burrell topped him in the critics' poll. Montgomery would dominate the category throughout the next decade.
Bass:
1. Ray Brown
2. Paul Chambers
3. Charles Mingus
4. Red Mitchell
5. Percy Heath
6. Leroy Vinnegar
7. Sam Jones
8. Gene Wright
9. Oscar Pettiford
10. Milt Hinton
No change to speak of from 1959 as far as bass players are concerned. There was an important new talent on the scene, but no one as yet knew how important he was going to become. Ron Carter made his recording debut in 1960, and before the year was out, he had recorded with Eric Dolphy, Don Ellis, Coleman Hawkins, Yusef Lateef, Howard McGhee, Randy Weston, and Kai Winding. But it takes a while for a bass player to get noticed. And because it takes awhile for a bass player to get noticed, the bassists who were anchoring the new jazz lagged behind lead instrumentalists like Coltrane, Coleman and Dolphy. Scott LoFaro would die before he was fully recognized. Charlie Haden and Jimmy Garrison were at the beginning of their careers, noticed by their peers, and making some of the most important music of the day, but not yet in the eyes and ears of the general public,
Drums
1. Shelley Manne
2. Joe Morello
3. Max Roach
4. Philly Joe Jones
5. Art Blakey
6. Buddy Rich
7. Jo Jones
8. Chico Hamilton
9. Gene Krupa
10. Louis Hayes
It was still an old boy's club on the drums, too, and nothing wrong with that. Every one of these guys had made their bones. Some of them, like Jimmy Cobb (15th on the list) and Roy Haynes (inexplicably overlooked) are even older boys now, and still playing into their 90s. You would have thought the jazz public would have started to recognize Elvin Jones. He'd been recording with the best in the business for a good five years, and in 1960 he had made three albums with John Coltrane, including My Favorite Things.
Flute
1. Herbie Mann
2. Frank Wess
3. Bud Shank
4. James Moody
5. Yusef Lateef
6. Eric Dolphy
7. Buddy Colette
8. Sam Most
9. Jerome Richardson
10. Paul Horn
The big new story here, of course, is Eric Dolphy, but there was a significant rise in recognition for Yusef Lateer, too, from 11th the previous year.
Vibraharp
1. Milt Jackson
2. Lionel Hampton
3. Terry Gibbs
4. Red Norvo
5. Cal Tjader
6. Vic Feldman
7. Mike Mainieri
I've talked a little, and will talk more, about the ossification of categories in the Down Beat polls of this era, but there was one significant change, and it was accidental. Vibraharp was dropped by virtue of being accidentally left off of the new voting forms. This list was put together from votes in the miscellaneous category, and it ended up exactly the same as last year, except maybe even a little more lopsided in favor of Milt Jackson, and with Mike Mainieri the one newcomer.
Accordion
1. Art Van Damme
2. Mat Mathews
3. Pete Jolly
4. Leon Sash
5. Dick Contino
6. Lawrence Welk
7. George Shearing
8. Tommy Gumina
Oh, come on. Why is the accordion still given its own category? Actually, there were some very important musicians playing the accordion in these years, but they were down in the swamps of Louisiana and the Down Beat readers either didn't know about them or didn't think they were worthy of inclusion, although they included Lawrence Welk. Tommy Gumina would make some interesting but not well-remembered albums with Buddy DeFranco, combining two fringe instruments, in the 1960s.
Miscellaneous Instrument
1. Don Elliot, mellophone (1)
2. Jimmy Smith, organ (2)
3. Miles Davis, flugelhorn (3)
4. Julius Watkins, French horn (5)
5. Shirley Scott, organ (10)
6. Jean Thielemans, harmonica (4)
7. Yusef Lateef, oboe (-)
8. Maynard Ferguson, baritone horn (-)
9 Steve Lacy, soprano saxophone (14)
10. Shorty Rogers, flugelhorn (6)
The Miscellaneous Instrument category seems to have been invented for Don Elliot, and still in 1960 he was winning it, in spite of the rocketing rise to stardom of a bunch of organists led by Jimmy Smith, but surely including Shirley Scott. Nobody much cared about the category, anyway. Over 9000 ballots were cast altogether in 1960, and Elliot's winning total was 705. Of course, there were also all those votes cast for Milt Jackson because they'd forgotten the vibraharp category.
If they had just made one category for Trumpet Family, the flugelhorn and cornet votes could have gone there, and more room would have been made for actual musical instruments, like Roland Kirk's manzello. And if they'd included the bass clarinet with clarinets, Eric Dolphy would likely have gotten a lot more recognition.
And no votes anywhere for percussionists, who probably also deserved their own category. How important was Ray Barretto in these years? Sabu Martinez? Mongo Santamaria? Yet no category, no recognition.
The critics' top two choices were Julius Watkins and violinist Stuff Smith.
Composer and Arranger
1. Gil Evans
2. Quincy Jones
3. Duke Ellington
4. John Lewis
5. Benny Golson
6. Andre Previn
7. Marty Paitch
8. Thelonious Monk
9. Henry Mancini
10. Horace Silver
I've said this before, and it doesn't particularly bear repeating. Nobody really knew who counted as a composer-arranger. People like Frank Loesser were still writing, and their songs were still being recorded by jazz musicians. Ornette Coleman had written classics like "Lonely Woman," and John Coltrane classics like "Naima." George Russell was still doing hugely important work, and Oliver Nelson was estabishing himself as an important composer, although The Blues and the Abstract Truth was still a year away. And so on.
The Down Beat critics went for Ellington, Evans, Golson, and the readers of Japanese Down Beat, in something of an upset, chose Benny Golson.
Big Band - Jazz
1. Count Basie (1)
2. Maynard Ferguson (3)
3. Duke Ellington (4)
4. Stan Kenton (2)
5. Gerry Mulligan (-)
6. Quincy Jones (16)
7. Gil Evans (7)
8. Woody Herman (9)
9. Herb Pomeroy (6)
10. Dizzy Gillespie (14)
Big Band-Dance
1. Les Brown (1)
2. Count Basie (3)
3. Maynard Ferguson (4)
4. Les Elgart (2)
5. Stan Kenton (6)
6. Si Zentner (6)
7. Harry James (5)
8. Duke Ellington (8)
9. Ray McKinley (10)
10. Woody Herman (11)
Count Basie was at or near the top of both lists, appropriately. He was as good to dance to as to listen to. Les Brown was the perennial dance band poll winner, and I'm not quite sure why. Did people vote for him because hey, he was at the top of last year's poll and the year before, so he must be good? Or because he really was better to dance to than anyone else? It seems to me that the best reason for voting for a dance band would be: you went to a dance where they were playing, and you had a good time.
Completely missing from both the jazz band (incomprehensible) and the dance band (inexcusable) lists are the great Latin bands: Tito Puente and Machito, Perez Prado and Xavier Cugat, Jack Costanza, many others.
Also missing are the society bands: Lester Lanin, Meyer Davis. They may not have been very exciting musically, but people certainly danced to them. A more striking omission: Guy Lombardo. He was considered the apotheosis of squaredom, but his reputation has been at least modestly reconsidered in recent years with the revelation that he was Louis Armstrong's favorite bandleader. And if the Down Beat readers were so appalled by squares, how come the 73 votes for Lawrence Welk on accordion?
Receiving votes in Japan but not the USA was Glen Gray, and who knew he was still around? The Casa Loma Orchestra disbanded in 1947. But they made a comeback in the late 1950s, recording and making the occasional TV appearance, but not touring and playing dances, from 1957 until Gray's death in 1963.
Combo
1. Modern Jazz Quartet
2. Dave Brubeck
3. Miles Davis
4. Farmer-Golson Jazztet
5. Horace Silver
6. Oscar Peterson
7. Art Blakey's Jazz Messenger
8. Charlie Mingus
9. Ahmad Jamal
10. Ornette Coleman
The Jazztet and Horace Silver, and of course Ornette Coleman, represent the new combos for a new decade. Silver had been leading groups for a while, but as the decade ended he was producing works of melodic immediacy that caught people's attention. Both Silver's groups and the Jazztet combined instrumental virtuosity with powerful compositions.
Vocal Group
1. Lambert-Hendricks-Ross
2. Four Freshmen
3. Hi-Los
4. Kingston Trio
5. Jackie Cain-Roy Kral
6. Mills Brothers
7. Axidentals
Nothing new to report here. Not even any new complaints. Why are the Kingston Trio considered a better jazz group than a real jazz group like Jackie and Roy (the critics put Jackie and Roy in their top 3)? Why are the Kingston Trio considered a jazz group, at all, and the doowop harmony groups not? But it's 1960, and the era of that underrated genre, including several of the finest singers and harmonists of their day, was coming to an end. Well, the era of the Mills Brothers, wonderful as they were. had ended some time ago, and that didn't seem to bother the voters.
Male Singer
1. Frank Sinatra
2. Joe Williams
3. Mel Torme
4. Ray Charles
5. Jon Hendricks
6. Johnny Mathis
7. Jimmy Rushing
8. Bill Henderson
9. Nat Cole
10. Mose Allison
Nothing to argue with here. Well, not much. Ray Charles broke through the jazz crowd's fear of rock 'n roll, but Sam Cooke did not. Mose Allison cracked the top ten for the first time, and about time. Bill Henderson is a new name on the list, though he'd really come to prominence a couple of years earlier, recording "Senor Blues" with Horace Silver, his biggest hit.
Female Singer
1. Ella Fitzgerald
2. Sarah Vaughan
3. Anita O'Day
4. Nina Simone
5. Annie Ross
6. Peggy Lee
7. June Christy
8. Chris Connor
9. Dinah Washington
10. Dakota Staton
Absolutely nothing to argue with here. Oh, you could quibble. Why isn't your favorite singer on the list? How about Carmen McRae? (She's number 11.) How about Betty Carter? Etta Jones? (Carter was still pretty new, and her great duet album with Ray Charles wasn't till the following year; Jones never did get her due.) The great rhythm and blues singers -- Etta James, Big Maybelle? (Jazz snobs.) Blossom Dearie? (She's in France.) But the truth is, there were so many great female singers in this era, no list is going to be big enough for them.
More 1960 wrapup next time.
I suppose the Down Beat reviewers were following the mandates of their job: to be, in their phrase, a "Jazz Record Buyer's Guide," highlighting the albums that are most worthy of your $4.98. And I'm not denigrating Down Beat. I guess this is as good a place as any for my annual appeal: why haven't all back issues of this national treasure been digitized and made available to jazz scholars and aficionados? Where is the grant from the NEH for this? Why doesn't Smithsonian buy the Down Beat archives and digitize them?
But today, we are grateful for all these records--and for the ones that Down Beat never reviewed. They're what we have of this golden decade in the American Century in music, and listening from the perspective of time we can appreciate their beauty, their creativity, their value. And we can want to go back and pop one on the nose of the guy who shortchanged Curtis Fuller or Lee Morgan or Wynton Kelly (as Curtis and Lee and Wynton surely wanted to do also), but they were of their time, and we can be grateful for their contributions too.
1960 was very much a year for the bifurcation of jazz into soul and free. The organ groups, particularly Jimmy Smith but including Prestige artists Shirley Scorr, Jack McDuff, Johnny "Hammond" Smith and Larry Young, were becoming hugely popular. Cannonball Adderley on Riverside and Horace Silver on Blue Note were helping to define the new sound. Addereley's seminal Live at the Lighthouse was recorded in 1960. Bobby Timmons went into the studio three times during the year for Riverside. His first release, This Here is Bobby Timmons, contained three of his compositions that were to become soul jazz anthems: "Moanin'," "This Here" and "Dat Dere."
In 1960, Ornette Coleman recorded an album that featured two quartets, each playing on a separate stereo channel. He called the album Free Jazz, and he wasn't necessarily trying to give a name to a new movement, but that's what happened. The free jazz revolution put an indelible stamp on the music in 1960. John Coltrane released Giant Steps and recorded My Favorite Things. Eric Dolphy launched a meteoric and all-too-brief career with Prestige. Cecil Taylor released The World of Cecil Taylor, with a group that included Archie Shepp.
Dolphy joined Charles Mingus for the album Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus. Mingus had initially disparaged Coleman's playing, but in April of 1960, Mingus was given a blindfold test by Leonard Feather in Down Beat, and he had this to say:
It actually took a little while for "free jazz" to become the standard name for that style of jazz that broke free from the bonds of chord progressions. In Art Taylor's book, Notes and Tones, composed of interviews with other jazz musicians between 1968 and 1972, they talk a lot about "freedom music."Now aside from the fact that I doubt he can even play a C scale in whole notes—tied whole notes, a couple of bars apiece—in tune, the fact remains that his notes and lines are so fresh. So when Symphony Sid played his record, it made everything else he was playing, even my own record that he played, sound terrible.I’m not saying everybody’s going to have to play like Coleman. But they’re going to have to stop copying Bird.
Some jazz musicians were into another kind of "freedom music" as the new decade began, a decade in which the civil rights struggles erupted passionately. We think of folk singers and protest songs, but jazz musicians were involved too, and one of the most politically active was Max Roach. 1960 saw the release of his album We Insist, a collaboration with lyricist Oscar Brown Jr. Randy Weston's Uhuru Africa, featuring the poetry of Langston Hughes on some cuts, would be banned in apartheid South Africa.
And there was still plenty of fresh and creative bebop-influenced jazz, notably Art Farmer, Benny Golson and Curtis Fuller's collaborative Meet the Jazztet.
Oscar Pettiford died in 1960.
Here's how various polls saw the year in jazz:
Dizzy Gillespie was 1960's inductee into the Down Beat hall of fame. Billie Holiday and Miles Davis were runners-up; others trailed far behind.
In Down Beat, here weren't as many categories as in previous years. Rhythm and blues, finally recognized in 1959 because they could no longer ignore Ray Charles, is gone again. Personality of the Year is gone; it was an odd one, anyway.
All stars by instrument:
Trumpet:
1. Miles Davis
2. Dizzy Gillespie
3. Maynard Ferguson
4. Art Farmer
5. Lee Morgan
6. Louis Armstrong
7. Donald Byrd
8. Nat Adderley
9. Chet Baker
Those were the ones who got more than 100 votes, and no real surprises. The top four were unchanged from the previous year. Donald Byrd and Nat Adderley jumped up considerably in the rankings--and so, unaccountably, did Louis Armstrong, since there wasn't exactly an Armstrong renaissance in 1960. No free jazz here -- but in the Japanese Down Beat readers' poll, a new feature for 1960, Don Cherry made the list.
Armstrong was certainly not forgotten by what may have been a more sophisticated group, the Down Bear critics poll, where he finished fourth to Davis, Gillespie and Farmer. Nor was he forgotten by an arguably less sophisticated group--Playboy readers voted him second to Davis. And he was still hot internationally, finishing second in Britain's Melody Maker and France's Jazz Hot,
Trombone:
1. J. J. Johnson
2. Bob Brookmeyer
3. Curtis Fuller
4. Frank Rosolino
5. Jack Teagarden
6. Urbie Green
7. Kai Winding
8. Jimmy Cleveland
9. Jimmy Knepper
10. Slide Hampton
J. J. Johnson continued to dominate this field, with 4097 votes to Brookmeyer's 932. The only more dominant instrumentalist was Gerry Mulligan. Curtis Fuller rose in popularity, largely due to his work with the Jazztet, and he rose even higher in the Critics' Poll, finishing second to Johnson. My instinct tells me that the trombone was not a really hot instrument in the jazz world of 1960. Checking up on that instinct with the rateyourmusic poll, about which more later: The second most popular album on that list is Mingus's Blues and Roots, which featured two trombones, Jimmy Knepper and the less familiar Willie Dennis. Curtis Fuller has an album at #15, and that's about it in the top 50 except for a couple of big band albums, where you'd expect to find trombones. Third on the list is Miles Davis's Sketches of Spain, with Frank Rehak and Dick Nixon (I guess he had to do something after losing to Kennedy). But that was a big band, so of course they had trombones.
Alto Sax:
1. Cannonball Adderley
2. Paul Desmond
3. Sonny Stitt
4. Art Pepper
5. Johnny Hodges
6. Ornette Coleman
7. Jackie McLean
8. Lee Konitz
9. Phil Woods
10. Bud Shank
Cannonball Adderley replaced Paul Desmond at the top spot, an indication of the growing popularity of soul jazz--among voters, at least. That the editors of Down Beat were still reluctant to admit that jazz had changed a lot over the course of a couple of decades can be seen by their unchanging categories. There was still no organ category in 1960. Bizarrely, there was still an accordion category.
Looking at last year's poll, I guessed that no one would ever outpoll Paul Desmond. If I only could have looked into the future...and of course, I could have. But I prefer to let the unrolling of history surprise me.
Adderley and Desmond both got well over 2000 votes, and everyone else was an also-ran. But Ornette Coleman made his first appearance as a vote-getter. One could no longer ignore him, although a lot of voters still chose to reject him.
Desmond was never as much beloved by the Down Beat critics, perhaps because of East Coast bias. He did not even finish in the top three (Hodges and Stitt trailed Adderley). But if the critics were the real cognoscenti, why didn't they have Ornette in their top three?
Tenor Sax:
1. John Coltrane
2. Stan Getz
3. Coleman Hawkins
4. Zoot Sims
5. Ben Webster
6. Sonny Rollins
7. Benny Golson
8. Sonny Stitt
9. Bill Perkins
10. Johnny Griffin
It's worth noting that in 1960 two black instrumentalists replaced two longstanding white poll winners. Cannonball Adderley outpaced Paul Desmond by 400 votes. And John Coltrane drew about 1500 votes more than Stan Getz (2945-1495). I don't know that this says anything about changing racial attitudes in America.
Getz in the previous year had stood like a colossus, getting more than double the votes of second place finisher Sonny Rollins, and like Desmond, he looked unbeatable. Coltrane would go on to achieve mythic status, but in 1960 that was just starting to happen.
Rollins faded in the polls, because he seemed to have retired from jazz, no one knew why, and no one knew if he was ever coming back. We know now, of course. He was right in the middle of a three-year, self imposed trip to the woodshed, his particular woodshed being under the Williamsburg Bridge. There is currently a campaign to rename that structure the Sonny Rollins Bridge, and isn't that a no-brainer? It should have been done already. It should be done now.
Benny Golson still languished low on the list, which surprises me a little. Te Jazztet were a big deal back in 1960, and Golson was starting to make an impact on the public consciousness as a composer, with "Killer Joe" and "I Remember Clifford," just to name two.
The critics went with tradition on the tenor sax. John Coltrane, before and especially after his death, attained Olympian status, and were there a Mount Rushmore of tenor players, he would certainly be carved into it, but at that time, that Mt. Rushmore only had three names: Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young and Ben Webster. Young had died the year before, so Coltrane edged his way in. Hawkins was their top choice, and Webster and Coltrane tied for second.
Some very good tenor saxophonists whose roots were in rhythm and blues, such as Willis "Gator Tail" Jackson, made some very good records in 1960, but they had never gotten any respect from the jazz clique, and they never would.
Baritone Sax:
1. Gerry Mulligan
2. Pepper Adams
3. Harry Carney
4. Frank Hittner
5. Cecil Payne
6. Sahib Shihab
7. Ronnie Ross
8. Jimmy Giuffre
A category owned by Gerry Mulligan. In 1960, he was some 6500 votes ahead of his closest competitor.
Down Beat had a problem that year with rigged voting, involving "faked ballots." I take that to mean that you had to use the tearout ballot that came with the magazine, which must have meant that you had to buy a magazine to vote, and more than one copy of the magazine if you wanted to vote more than once. A couple of musicians were disqualified because of ballot-stuffing, just like what had happened to Major League Baseball in 1957, when overenthusiastic Cincinnati voters placed Redlegs at every position except first base (Stan Musial made the cut; Hank Aaron and Willie Mays were outpolled). But you have to wonder if the Down Beat staff, overwhelmed by double the number of votes they had ever gotten before, may have let a few slip by them. Frank Hittner was a solid journeyman who played in Woody Herman's and Maynard Ferguson's big bands for many years, but fourth place among baritone saxophonists?
Clarinet:
1. Buddy DeFranco
2. Jimmy Giuffre
3. Tony Scott
4. Benny Goodman
5. Pete Fountain
6. Jimmy Hamilton
7. Art Pepper
8. Sam Most
9. Edmond Hall
10. Woody Herman
I'm guessing that Down Beat's editors did not give a lot of thought to the issue of downgrading some instruments to Miscellaneous and upgrading others to their own category. And if they had, I suppose they would have had a hard time retiring the clarinet category. It had once been the dominant woodwind instrument in jazz. And DeFranco, Giuffre and Scott were still doing forward-looking work on the instrument, although in a few years DeFranco would choose making a living over trying to make a space for an increasingly irrelevant instrument, and took over leadership of the Glenn Miller Orchestra.
If I had been advising Down Beat back in 1960, and knew then what I know now, I would have expanded the clarinet category to include all clarinets, so that Eric Dolphy's bass clarinet could have been included here, rather than in Miscellaneous Instruments.
Piano:
1. Oscar Peterson
2. Thelonious Monk
3. Horace Silver
4. Dave Brubeck
5. Bill Evans
6. Andre Previn
7. Errol Garner
8. Red Garland
9. John Lewis
10. Wynton Kelly
There were so many great piano players.You look at Red Garland and John Lewis and say "How can they be so far down?" But who on the list deserves to be lower?
According to Down Beat, the race between Peterson and Monk was not settled until the end of counting.
The big jump in the balloting was Horace Silver, 7th place to 3rd, again reflecting the growing popularity of soul jazz. Soul jazz also brought two newcomers to the list, lower down--Bobby Timmons and Les McCann.
Do the critics have better taste than the readers? Since there's no answer to that unless you rephrase the question, "Do the critics agree with me more than the readers do?" I will rephrase it that way. And the answer is, at least where the piano is concerned, more or less yeah. They put Monk--more idiosyncratic, a little more difficult--ahead of Peterson, and I'd go along with that. And critics, snobs that they are, tend to shrink from the popular and go for the more esoteric, so they were not quite ready to jump on the Horace Silver bandwagon. Their third choice was Bill Evans, and I have to say I'd go along with that, too.
Guitar:
1. Barney Kessel
2. Wes Montgomery
3. Kenny Burrell
4, Charlie Byrd
5. Jim Hall
6. Herb Ellis
7.Johnny Smith
8. Freddie Green
9. Sal Salvador
10. Tal Farlow
Here's a category with a real rising star. Wes Montgomery placed 10th in the Readers' Poll in 1959, the first year that he registered in the voting at all. Barney Kessel was a hard man to beat, although Kenny Burrell topped him in the critics' poll. Montgomery would dominate the category throughout the next decade.
Bass:
1. Ray Brown
2. Paul Chambers
3. Charles Mingus
4. Red Mitchell
5. Percy Heath
6. Leroy Vinnegar
7. Sam Jones
8. Gene Wright
9. Oscar Pettiford
10. Milt Hinton
No change to speak of from 1959 as far as bass players are concerned. There was an important new talent on the scene, but no one as yet knew how important he was going to become. Ron Carter made his recording debut in 1960, and before the year was out, he had recorded with Eric Dolphy, Don Ellis, Coleman Hawkins, Yusef Lateef, Howard McGhee, Randy Weston, and Kai Winding. But it takes a while for a bass player to get noticed. And because it takes awhile for a bass player to get noticed, the bassists who were anchoring the new jazz lagged behind lead instrumentalists like Coltrane, Coleman and Dolphy. Scott LoFaro would die before he was fully recognized. Charlie Haden and Jimmy Garrison were at the beginning of their careers, noticed by their peers, and making some of the most important music of the day, but not yet in the eyes and ears of the general public,
Drums
1. Shelley Manne
2. Joe Morello
3. Max Roach
4. Philly Joe Jones
5. Art Blakey
6. Buddy Rich
7. Jo Jones
8. Chico Hamilton
9. Gene Krupa
10. Louis Hayes
It was still an old boy's club on the drums, too, and nothing wrong with that. Every one of these guys had made their bones. Some of them, like Jimmy Cobb (15th on the list) and Roy Haynes (inexplicably overlooked) are even older boys now, and still playing into their 90s. You would have thought the jazz public would have started to recognize Elvin Jones. He'd been recording with the best in the business for a good five years, and in 1960 he had made three albums with John Coltrane, including My Favorite Things.
Flute
1. Herbie Mann
2. Frank Wess
3. Bud Shank
4. James Moody
5. Yusef Lateef
6. Eric Dolphy
7. Buddy Colette
8. Sam Most
9. Jerome Richardson
10. Paul Horn
The big new story here, of course, is Eric Dolphy, but there was a significant rise in recognition for Yusef Lateer, too, from 11th the previous year.
Vibraharp
1. Milt Jackson
2. Lionel Hampton
3. Terry Gibbs
4. Red Norvo
5. Cal Tjader
6. Vic Feldman
7. Mike Mainieri
I've talked a little, and will talk more, about the ossification of categories in the Down Beat polls of this era, but there was one significant change, and it was accidental. Vibraharp was dropped by virtue of being accidentally left off of the new voting forms. This list was put together from votes in the miscellaneous category, and it ended up exactly the same as last year, except maybe even a little more lopsided in favor of Milt Jackson, and with Mike Mainieri the one newcomer.
Accordion
1. Art Van Damme
2. Mat Mathews
3. Pete Jolly
4. Leon Sash
5. Dick Contino
6. Lawrence Welk
7. George Shearing
8. Tommy Gumina
Oh, come on. Why is the accordion still given its own category? Actually, there were some very important musicians playing the accordion in these years, but they were down in the swamps of Louisiana and the Down Beat readers either didn't know about them or didn't think they were worthy of inclusion, although they included Lawrence Welk. Tommy Gumina would make some interesting but not well-remembered albums with Buddy DeFranco, combining two fringe instruments, in the 1960s.
Miscellaneous Instrument
1. Don Elliot, mellophone (1)
2. Jimmy Smith, organ (2)
3. Miles Davis, flugelhorn (3)
4. Julius Watkins, French horn (5)
5. Shirley Scott, organ (10)
6. Jean Thielemans, harmonica (4)
7. Yusef Lateef, oboe (-)
8. Maynard Ferguson, baritone horn (-)
9 Steve Lacy, soprano saxophone (14)
10. Shorty Rogers, flugelhorn (6)
The Miscellaneous Instrument category seems to have been invented for Don Elliot, and still in 1960 he was winning it, in spite of the rocketing rise to stardom of a bunch of organists led by Jimmy Smith, but surely including Shirley Scott. Nobody much cared about the category, anyway. Over 9000 ballots were cast altogether in 1960, and Elliot's winning total was 705. Of course, there were also all those votes cast for Milt Jackson because they'd forgotten the vibraharp category.
If they had just made one category for Trumpet Family, the flugelhorn and cornet votes could have gone there, and more room would have been made for actual musical instruments, like Roland Kirk's manzello. And if they'd included the bass clarinet with clarinets, Eric Dolphy would likely have gotten a lot more recognition.
And no votes anywhere for percussionists, who probably also deserved their own category. How important was Ray Barretto in these years? Sabu Martinez? Mongo Santamaria? Yet no category, no recognition.
The critics' top two choices were Julius Watkins and violinist Stuff Smith.
Composer and Arranger
1. Gil Evans
2. Quincy Jones
3. Duke Ellington
4. John Lewis
5. Benny Golson
6. Andre Previn
7. Marty Paitch
8. Thelonious Monk
9. Henry Mancini
10. Horace Silver
I've said this before, and it doesn't particularly bear repeating. Nobody really knew who counted as a composer-arranger. People like Frank Loesser were still writing, and their songs were still being recorded by jazz musicians. Ornette Coleman had written classics like "Lonely Woman," and John Coltrane classics like "Naima." George Russell was still doing hugely important work, and Oliver Nelson was estabishing himself as an important composer, although The Blues and the Abstract Truth was still a year away. And so on.
The Down Beat critics went for Ellington, Evans, Golson, and the readers of Japanese Down Beat, in something of an upset, chose Benny Golson.
Big Band - Jazz
1. Count Basie (1)
2. Maynard Ferguson (3)
3. Duke Ellington (4)
4. Stan Kenton (2)
5. Gerry Mulligan (-)
6. Quincy Jones (16)
7. Gil Evans (7)
8. Woody Herman (9)
9. Herb Pomeroy (6)
10. Dizzy Gillespie (14)
Big Band-Dance
1. Les Brown (1)
2. Count Basie (3)
3. Maynard Ferguson (4)
4. Les Elgart (2)
5. Stan Kenton (6)
6. Si Zentner (6)
7. Harry James (5)
8. Duke Ellington (8)
9. Ray McKinley (10)
10. Woody Herman (11)
Count Basie was at or near the top of both lists, appropriately. He was as good to dance to as to listen to. Les Brown was the perennial dance band poll winner, and I'm not quite sure why. Did people vote for him because hey, he was at the top of last year's poll and the year before, so he must be good? Or because he really was better to dance to than anyone else? It seems to me that the best reason for voting for a dance band would be: you went to a dance where they were playing, and you had a good time.
Completely missing from both the jazz band (incomprehensible) and the dance band (inexcusable) lists are the great Latin bands: Tito Puente and Machito, Perez Prado and Xavier Cugat, Jack Costanza, many others.
Also missing are the society bands: Lester Lanin, Meyer Davis. They may not have been very exciting musically, but people certainly danced to them. A more striking omission: Guy Lombardo. He was considered the apotheosis of squaredom, but his reputation has been at least modestly reconsidered in recent years with the revelation that he was Louis Armstrong's favorite bandleader. And if the Down Beat readers were so appalled by squares, how come the 73 votes for Lawrence Welk on accordion?
Receiving votes in Japan but not the USA was Glen Gray, and who knew he was still around? The Casa Loma Orchestra disbanded in 1947. But they made a comeback in the late 1950s, recording and making the occasional TV appearance, but not touring and playing dances, from 1957 until Gray's death in 1963.
Combo
1. Modern Jazz Quartet
2. Dave Brubeck
3. Miles Davis
4. Farmer-Golson Jazztet
5. Horace Silver
6. Oscar Peterson
7. Art Blakey's Jazz Messenger
8. Charlie Mingus
9. Ahmad Jamal
10. Ornette Coleman
The Jazztet and Horace Silver, and of course Ornette Coleman, represent the new combos for a new decade. Silver had been leading groups for a while, but as the decade ended he was producing works of melodic immediacy that caught people's attention. Both Silver's groups and the Jazztet combined instrumental virtuosity with powerful compositions.
Vocal Group
1. Lambert-Hendricks-Ross
2. Four Freshmen
3. Hi-Los
4. Kingston Trio
5. Jackie Cain-Roy Kral
6. Mills Brothers
7. Axidentals
Nothing new to report here. Not even any new complaints. Why are the Kingston Trio considered a better jazz group than a real jazz group like Jackie and Roy (the critics put Jackie and Roy in their top 3)? Why are the Kingston Trio considered a jazz group, at all, and the doowop harmony groups not? But it's 1960, and the era of that underrated genre, including several of the finest singers and harmonists of their day, was coming to an end. Well, the era of the Mills Brothers, wonderful as they were. had ended some time ago, and that didn't seem to bother the voters.
Male Singer
1. Frank Sinatra
2. Joe Williams
3. Mel Torme
4. Ray Charles
5. Jon Hendricks
6. Johnny Mathis
7. Jimmy Rushing
8. Bill Henderson
9. Nat Cole
10. Mose Allison
Nothing to argue with here. Well, not much. Ray Charles broke through the jazz crowd's fear of rock 'n roll, but Sam Cooke did not. Mose Allison cracked the top ten for the first time, and about time. Bill Henderson is a new name on the list, though he'd really come to prominence a couple of years earlier, recording "Senor Blues" with Horace Silver, his biggest hit.
Female Singer
1. Ella Fitzgerald
2. Sarah Vaughan
3. Anita O'Day
4. Nina Simone
5. Annie Ross
6. Peggy Lee
7. June Christy
8. Chris Connor
9. Dinah Washington
10. Dakota Staton
Absolutely nothing to argue with here. Oh, you could quibble. Why isn't your favorite singer on the list? How about Carmen McRae? (She's number 11.) How about Betty Carter? Etta Jones? (Carter was still pretty new, and her great duet album with Ray Charles wasn't till the following year; Jones never did get her due.) The great rhythm and blues singers -- Etta James, Big Maybelle? (Jazz snobs.) Blossom Dearie? (She's in France.) But the truth is, there were so many great female singers in this era, no list is going to be big enough for them.
More 1960 wrapup next time.
Monday, October 14, 2019
Listening to Prestige 422: Coleman Hawkins
This was 1960, and stereo was still a novelty. In 1958, people had bought, and listened awestruck to, the sound of a locomotive passing from one channel to another (You can hear it! Going across the
Technology, these days, has moved in a different direction, and someone listening to a streaming service over their iPad speaker is not going to get the full effect available to the 1960 stereo buff, with his speakers placed exactly such and such many feet and inches apart, exactly so many inches off the ground, exactly at such and such an angle, standing exactly so many inches away. stooping if you were over six feet tall, getting up on a stepstool if you were...but that was rarer. Not many women were as likely to make fools of themselves over technology in those days.
And it's kinda too bad. The stereo separation of tenors was sort of a gimmick, but it was a nice one, especially on "In a Mellow Tone," which they start out with a channel-combining unison on the head, then proceed to battle stations on the right and the left for their solos. The master and the disciple, now a full-fledged star in his own right, trading solos with love and respect and lot of competitive fire.
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Tommy Flanagan, at 30, was already a veteran of countless recording sessions--this made his 24th appearance on Prestige alone, playing with everyone, but especially the swing-to-bop veterans. (Certainly not exclusively--he had been the piano player on John Coltrane's groundbreaking Giant Steps.) He could always be counted on to do everything well, Ron Carter was still at the beginning of his jazz Odyssey. Gus Johnson, for Prestige, had played the blues with Memphis Slim and Willie Dixon, swing with the Swingville All Stars, and modern with Lem Winchester. He was a decade younger than Hawkins and at least that much older than everyone else in the group, and a perfect fit.
The album was released on Swingville (and later on Prestige, with "Lover," left off the original package, added in) as Night Hawk, after its only Hawkins original. Esmond Edwards produced.
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.
The most interesting book of its kind that I have ever seen. If any of you real jazz lovers want to know about some of the classic records made by some of the legends of jazz, get this book. LOVED IT.
– Terry Gibbs
EXPECT VOLUME 4, 1959-60, BY THE END OF THIS YEAR.
Listening to Prestige 421: Lonnie Johnson
Next, he was matched with Elmer Snowden, like Johnson a Chris Albertson discovery after years of obscurity. Snowden was a master guitarist and former bandleader (Count Basie, Jimmie Lunceford. Benny Carter, Roy Eldridge and Chick Webb all played in his band when they were starting out, and his group, the Washingtonians, formed the nucleus of the Duke Ellington Orchestra). Wendell Marshall rounded out their trio, and they played some blues songs, a standard, and a number of instrumental pieces.
This time around, with Esmond Edwards producing, it's just Johnson and his guitar (sometimes piano) and vocals. It's a good choice: Johnson alone is compelling listening, And it's still not exactly a traditional blues album--he includes a couple of standards and a rhythm and blues ballad by Buddy Johnson, and his guitar and piano work--especially his guitar work--is subtle and exciting.
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Losing Game is the title of the album, but any collection by Lonnie Johnson is going to be a winning game. It was released on Bluesville.
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.
The most interesting book of its kind that I have ever seen. If any of you real jazz lovers want to know about some of the classic records made by some of the legends of jazz, get this book. LOVED IT.
– Terry Gibbs
EXPECT VOLUME 4, 1959-60, BY THE END OF THIS YEAR.
Saturday, October 12, 2019
Listening to Prestige 423: Tampa Red
Red remained in Chicago, playing the blues. He and Big Bill Broonzy formed the nucleus of the Chicago blues scene of the 1930s, but the 1930s were not a great time for the blues as a commercial venture. It was the Depression, and too many people had the blues. Still, they persevered, and became the elder statesmen of the 1940s Chicago blues scene. Red was known for helping out blues singers and musicians new in town, with a hot meal and a place to sleep. He had some successes, including a local hit with "Black Angel Blues." written by the queen of seriously dirty blues, Lucille Bogan. But his life really fell apart in 1954, when his wife died, and he spent some time in mental institutions.
This recording doesn't display the bottleneck guitar wizardry of the performances from his prime, but his guitar work is still lovely. It does feature his kazoo, which he had first employed as a street singer in the 1920s. And it features a couple of his classic hokum songs, "Let Me Play With Your Poodle" and "It's Tight Like That." And it's a winning, endearing record.It was recorded in Chicago, but beyond that, there's no record of where, or who supervised the recording. This, and one other Chicago session for Bluesville, marked the end of his career. He lived with a friend who took care of him until 1974, and after death he was in a nursing home until he died in poverty in 1981. Certainly not the only sad story in lives of blues greats, but our country and our culture owed these people so much more.
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.
The most interesting book of its kind that I have ever seen. If any of you real jazz lovers want to know about some of the classic records made by some of the legends of jazz, get this book. LOVED IT.
– Terry Gibbs
EXPECT VOLUME 4, 1959-60, BY THE END OF THIS YEAR.
Thursday, October 10, 2019
Listening to Prestige 420: Eric Dolphy - Booker Little
This session by Dolphy would be titled--an evocative touch, rather than a manifesto--Far Cry, but it still carries the message. This was staking out new ground, and if Little hadn't yet gone quite as far into uncharted waters, Dolphy saw something there, and Little responded. The quintet they formed together played one memorable two-week gig (also recorded by Prestige) at the Five Spot in June of 1961, but by October Little was gone, a victim of complications from uremia.
It had already been a busy day for Dolphy by the time he got to Englewood Cliffs. Earlier in the day, he had participated in a groundbreaking Ornette Coleman session for Atlantic. The Atlantic album would be called Free Jazz, and it featured a double quartet--that is, two separate quartets, each playing over a separate stereo channel: on the left, Coleman and Don Cherry, with Scott LoFaro and Billy Higgins on bass and drums; on the right, Dolphy and Freddie Hubbard, with Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell. This one, like so much of the new jazz, was an opinion divider: Downbeat assigned it to two reviewers, of whom gave it five stars and the other, no stars.
Dolphy was well into the world of jazz by this album; it was a newer experience for Booker Little, but Dolphy hadn't picked him capriciously: he heard something.
The session begins with two Parker tributes: one to Charlie, one to his mother, both composed by Jaki Byard, who had also been with Dolphy on his debut album for Prestige from the previous April. "Ode to Charlie Parker" has a dirgelike quality at the head, but the soloists break free from that, each in his own way. Dolphy, playing flute, is certainly the freest. Little's solo comes next, and it gives the jazz listener who's grown up with bebop more reference points to hold onto, but it's still in keeping with Dolphy. Byard takes the third solo, and I love what he's doing too. One might say he keeps the melody a little more in mind, but then, it's his melody. When they come back to the head, it still starts with the dirge-like statement, but then, still playing it, they rise above it to a kind of exaltation, almost like the brass bands returning from a New Orleans jazz funeral. How's that for a cross-cultural reference? But that is what it feels like.
For whatever reason, Parker's mother gets the more uptempo, boppish tune. Dolphy plays bass clarinet on this one, but we don't get to him right away. The first solo goes to Little, and it'll make your head spin, for both its passion and its virtuosity. Byard keeps it up, and then Dolphy comes in and blows the roof off. This is a sound that can take you back to 1960, to the realization that the jazz torch is being passed to a new generation, and you're here to bear witness to it, and marvel at it, and if you listen closely, to tell yourself yes, this is the way it has to go.
Ron Carter dazzles with a bowed bass solo, and the number finishes with some ensemble playing that makes you rethink everything you ever thought you knew about playing together.
From there, they go into "It's Magic," a syrupy romantic ballad that was a favorite of crooners, not so much of jazz instrumentalists. In fact, this was probably the first jazz treatment of it, and there have precious few since. Little starts out with a surprisingly straight version of the melody, and then--well, you could say it's the standard bebop small group structure: head, solo, solo, solo, head. And why not? Not everyone agreed with John Lewis that jazz had to break free from that template. Musicians like Dolphy, Byard and Little were here to prove you could break free within that template. As they come back to an almost, but not quite, straightforward statement of the melody, still somewhat syrupy but not the way Little plays it, you know you've been taken a far cry from Doris Day and her Latin lover who introduced the song in a forgotten 1948 movie.
"It's Magic" featured Dolphy again on bass clarinet, and so does "Serene," a Dolphy composition that didn't make it onto the LP but was added to the CD reissue. "Serene" is the kind of title that jazz musicians often give to workouts that are anything but. However, in this case, there is a certain serenity to the tone, at least as serene as a group of avant garde musicians who are pushing limits can get. Little seems to keep taking more chances with each cut, and in this one especially, Dolphy keeps prodding him onward. Dolphy as a bandleader was famous for not giving a lot of verbal instruction to his bandmates, but it's pretty clear from this session that he didn't need to.
"Miss Ann" is a Dolphy composition which hasn't quite become a standard but has gotten its share of adherents and has been recorded several times over the years. "Far Cry" is the final Dolphy original. He plays alto sax on both of them, matching the instrumentation of the original Ornette Coleman combo with Don Cherry, but Dolphy and Little are finding their own paths to freedom, abetted by Jaki Byard (Coleman had a pianoless quartet), who is finding his own way, too.
"Left Alone" is Mal Waldron's tribute to Billie Holiday. "Tenderly" is the standard by Walter Gross, with Dolphy alone on alto sax, everyone else dropping out. It's lyrical and disturbing, respectful of the melody and willing to leave it behind at a moment's notice, It's lovely.
Far Cry became the name of the album, which was issued on New Jazz.. Esmond Edwards produced.
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.
The most interesting book of its kind that I have ever seen. If any of you real jazz lovers want to know about some of the classic records made by some of the legends of jazz, get this book. LOVED IT.
– Terry Gibbs
Monday, October 07, 2019
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