Listening to Prestige 546: Walter Bishop Jr.

LISTEN TO ONE: The Bishop Moves

 This is a fascinating and nearly unclassifiable piano trio outing with a strange and totally unclassifiable parentage. It was originally part of an album on two British labels, Operators and Stateside. The album was called A Pair of "Naturals," and it was a most unnatural pairing indeed: on the one hand, Walter Bishop Jr., known as a bebop pianist; on the other, the Peter Yorke Orchestra featuring the London Strings and the Top Brass of London. Yorke was, as you may have surmised from his billing, a conductor and composer primarily of light classical music, also noted for his orchestrations for dance bands. So

perhaps they got together when Bishop was over in London playing a gig with a dance band? No, they don't seem to have gotten together at all. Yorke's contributions to the album were recorded in London, Bishop's in New York. 

Perhaps a clue in the labels they recorded for? Not much there, either. Operators was a short-lived label that brought out a handful of 45 RPM singles by singers so obscure that I can find no biographical information on them (except one, "Johnny Lindy," only because he gave up singing and became a successful TV producer under his real name). They recorded no other light classical music, no other jazz, and no other LPs. Stateside was more successful, but equally un-oriented toward either light classical or jazz. They basically did the same thing Operators did -- licensing American pop records for British release, but they had quite a few hits, starting with Freddy Cannon's "Palisades Park" and grabbing the early Motown catalog, before Motown established its own British presence.

Peter Yorke had a fine and successful career in Britain, having nothing to do with either jazz or Prestige, but Walter Bishop's contribution, from this and a later session, was eventually brought out by Prestige as The Walter Bishop Trio/1965, although the recordings were made in 1962 and 1963, and the record was released in 1970.

So, nothing more to do but talk about the music itself, and it deserves mention, although I'm not quite sure what to say about it except that it's wonderful. Bishop's main claims to fame are as a bebopper, but this is a long way away from bebop. It's almost jarring and perverse enough to be free jazz, but it can in no way be remotely compared to what Coleman or Coltrane, Dolphy or Ayler or even Cecil Taylor, were doing. Bishop's left hand lays down a solid groove, but this is not remotely soul jazz. So...bebop but not bebop, free but not free jazz, solid groove but not soul jazz, and not exactly a solid groove, either...throw in some block chords and it's sort of like Thelonious Monk, then? Yes, except for not being at all like Monk. Best to take a listen for yourself, and then talk it over with a real musical expert.

Wilbert Hogan, also known as Wilbur Hogan, Granville Hogan and G. T. Hogan, has appeared on Prestige a couple of times before, with Earl Coleman and Jesse Powell. He was working regularly with Bishop in the early 1960s. Butch Warren was a youngster of 22 who had already collected quite a resume. The son of a part time musician in the Washington DC area, he grew up in a house full of musicians, and began playing the bass when an instrument got left behind in his father's music room by Billy Taylor (the Ellington bassist, not the piano player). At 14, he started playing in his father's band. At 19, he was asked to sub for a bassist who didn't show up for a Kenny Dorham gig, and Dorham invited him to come to New York, where he made his first recording on an album initially released on a tiny label as The Arrival of Kenny Dorham, and later, sadly, as The Kenny Dorham Memorial Album. Drug addiction and mental illness cut Warren's career short, and by the mid-1960s he had retreated from the jazz scene.

You have the history of this recording session. Time to check out the music.