Listening to Prestige 580: Dave Pike

 

As promised, a new Dave Pike with this, his third and last album for Prestige. Pike would re-invent himself often, like so many jazz musicians in this swiftly moving art form, from Miles Davis on. This, however, is not so much a reinvention as a shift in emphasis, away from the Latin rhythms, on to a more mainstream sound. How much of this was the result of commercial considerations, I can't say. If commercial considerations were the whole story, nobody would be playing jazz, but sometimes a thematic approach -- less tactfully, a gimmick -- may be a way to draw a little more attention to an artist, and sell a few more records.

Nothing wrong with that if, when you get down to making the music, you're there to play and nothing else. Which certainly seems to have been the case with Dave Pike. If you sign a recording contract at height of the bossa nova craze, and management says "Hey, how about a bossa nova album," you might do it just for the contract. That was the case when Bob Weinstock asked Annie Ross if she could write some songs to jazz solos--"I was desperate, so I said 'Sure.' If he'd asked me to learn how to fly, I would have said 'Sure.'" And the rest is history. Two of the greatests jazz vocalese pieces ever -- "Twisted" and "Farmer's Market." And Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. But it seems clear that Pike didn't do it just for the contract. Had that been the case, he wouldn't have chosen to feature the works of obscure (in the United States) composer Joao Donato.

Jazz interpretations of Broadway shows had shown some commercial appeal. Oliver! had been a hit in London, had been on tour in the United States, and was about to open on Broadway, where it would be a success, but would not really spawn any hit songs. "As Long as He Needs Me" had been a British hit for Shirley Bassey, and would later become a minor hit for Sammy Davis Jr. I'm not convinced that a jazz version of Oliver! was a surefire commercial bet in 1963, and I suspect one might not find all that many people today who could hum "As Long as He Needs Me," let alone the rest of the show. So I hope it was a project that really appealed to Pike.

A confluence of reasons--not a huge Oliver! fan base among the jazz crowd, the association of Pike with more out-there genres of music--have converged to make this a not widely remembered album. Also, when one thinks of the vibes in the context of the history of jazz, there's a bit of a temptation to enumerate Lionel Hampton and Milt Jackson and then stop. But there were a lot of very good players, and a lot of individual stylists, and several of them were on Prestige. Teddy Charles, back in the label's early days, who would give it all up to become a charter boat skipper. Lem Winchester, the jazz-playing cop, dead before his time. Walt Dickerson. And Dave Pike. Here, his work with Jimmy Raney and with Tommy Flanagan, two veterans who know how to challenge and support a young player, is well worth a listen.

Dave Pike Plays the Jazz Version of Oliver! is not represented on YouTube by any individual cuts, so I can't give a Listen to One, but the whole album is there, and worth checking out.

Don Schlitten, new to Prestige, produced. Schlitten had started an independent label, Signal, in 1955, then moved on to freelance producing after he and his partners sold the label to Savoy.

Dave Pike played the jazz version of "As Long as He Needs Me" for a 45 RPM single, with "Where is Love?" as the B side.  The album was released on Moodsville.

Pike's next two albums, for Decca and Atlantic, are notable for introducing Chick Corea on the first, and employing the still-new Herbie Hancock on the second.

Listening to Prestige 579: Willis Jackson

During the pre-rock and roll era of American pop music, there were, very generally, two types of singers: the jazz-influenced singers like Bing Crosby and Nat "King" Cole, who were, more or less, popularizers of Louis Armstrong, and the bel canto-influenced singers like Tony Martin and Jerry Vale, who were, more or less, popularizers of Mario Lanza. And there was a deep divide between them, bridged by no one except possibly Dean Martin (Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett were Italian, but they were definitely in the jazz-influenced camp).

So, could the divide be crossed by a tenor saxophone player with a jazzman's touch and rhythm and blues in his soul? Willis (Coda di Alligatore) Jackson seemed to think so, as he devoted virtually a whole album to jazz renditions of Italian pop songs.

LISTEN TO ONE: Al di La

It worked better than you might think. The rhythm and blues honkers tended to have a sweet sentimental side, perhaps modeled on Earl Bostic, and the Italian ballads fit into that. Most of this album is unavailable online, so I wasn't able to hear how Jackson handled "Volare," for example, but I did listen to his "Arrivederci Roma." That's a melody that's hard to listen to without hearing Eddie Fisher crooning it or Mario Lanza giving it the full melodramatic treatment, even though it does start out with a Latin rhythm from Montego Joe, but once Jackson begins improvising on it -- no, make that once he really gets into improvising

on it -- its jazz possibilities open up. "Arrivederci Roma" on the album is 5:43 in length; the 45 RPM single version is edited down to 2:28, and that's the version which is currently available on YouTube. 

Technology had certainly advanced to the point where you could have fit 5:43 onto a 45 RPM record, so why shorten it it into what in those days would have been called the Readers' Digest condensed version? My guess...that's what the market wanted. The market in those days was radio play, which meant the pop music stations or the Black-oriented stations on your AM dial. FM radio, and songs like "Like a Rolling Stone" or "MacArthur Park" or "Alice's Restaurant" were still in the future, and your radio stations wanted manageable chunks of music between the disc jockey patter and the commercials. Jukeboxes wanted something you could dance to for three minutes or less before putting another nickel in. And presumably it was assumed that the customer putting that nickel in the slot to hear Willis Jackson wanted to hear Willis Jackson, because the 45 RPM condensed versions of jazz album cuts tended to excise everything except the featured soloist. So no Bucky Pizzarelli, authentic Italian-American though he was, no Gildo Mahomes.

The other cut I was able to listen to is "Al di là," which had been that year's Italian entry in the

Eurovision Song Contest (it finished 5th). Eurovision was still relatively new in 1962, and its entries are, even to this day, not guaranteed much stateside audience (unless they're by Abba), but "Al di là" hd gotten some attention when Connie Francis recorded it as the B side of a minor hit, and it worked for the theme of the album, and was the occasion for some very nice guitar-saxophone interplay. Jackson, with Jack McDuff and Bill Jennings, was one of the originators of the saxophone-guitar-organ soul jazz sound, but this is an altogether different way of blending these two instruments.

Bucky Pizzarelli and Gildo Mahones had both recently made their Prestige debuts, Pizzarelli accompanying Etta Jones and Mahones with Ted Curson. Pizzarelli would have a couple more sessions over the next few years accompanying singers, but most of his acclaimed career would be elsewhere. Mahones would stay longer in the Prestige orbit, including three albums as leader.

Neapolitan Nights was released on Prestige--not Moodsville. "Arrivederci Roma" was the A side of a single which had "Y'All," from a very different session, on the B side. More thematically paired was another single, "Mama" (which had been a 1959 hit for Connie Francis) and "Neapolitan Nights."

Ozzie Cadena produced.

The one Jackson original title on the album was "Verdi's Vonce," Jackson's blues tribute (according to the liner notes) to Verdi. I would love to hear it. It was also included on a compilation album called Soul Stompin': The Best of Willis Jackson.

Listening to Prestige 578: Dave Pike

 Dave Pike continues his south of the border explorations, this time moving to the Caribbean. The calypso craze of Harry Belafonte and the Tarriers and even Robert Mitchum, who recorded a calypso album in 1957, had passed its zenith, but Latin dances were still enough of a thing that everyone was looking for a new one to follow the mambo and the conga line and the cha cha and the bossa nova, and even though Trinidadian calypso wasn't exactly Latin, it was close enough for pop culture (there had even been a "cha-lypso" -"When the records start a spinnin', do cha-lypso while you chicken at the hop"), so 1962 saw Chubby Checker, who had ridden the crest of the most popular dance craze of all, hitting the charts with "Limbo Rock."

Dave Pike had captured some attention with his Bossa Nova Carnival album, so why not go after the same lightning again--and again with fledgling producer Eliot Mazer? There was certainly some commercial consideration here. Chubby

LISTEN TO ONE: My Little Suede Shoes

Checker's "Limbo Rock" is covered, as are "Matilda" and "Jamaica Farewell," two of the most popular songs from Harry Belafonte's Calypso album, then regarded as the most popular LP record of all time, and still up among the contenders. Mexican-American Richie Valens's hit "La Bamba" is included, as is Nat "King" Cole's semi-hit "Calypso Blues." Sonny Rollins is represented by "St. Thomas," one of the calypso melodies he would make his own, and "Mambo Bounce," which had been a 78 RPM single for Rollins off an early Prestige session. And four songs from Pike's session became 45 RPM singles.

But "commercial consideration" just means choosing and playing songs that people like, and there's nothing wrong with that, if the musicians come to play, and put their full virtuosic dexterity and creative energy into the project, which is what happens here. 

"Limbo Rock" isn't the most subtle of melodies, but with Willie Bobo and Ray Barretto handling the percussion, it's lively and fun to listen to. Throughout the session, Pike alternates between vibes and marimbas -- he chose the marimbas, he explained to Juliet Lorca, who wrote the liner notes for the album, because they have a sound that's close to Trinidad's steel drums.

On the other extreme, there's Charlie Parker's "My Little Suede Shoes." Some have theorized that Parker adapted the melody from a Caribbean folk tune--Juliet Lorca suggests as much in the liner notes--but it's more likely a mashup of two French pop songs which Bird heard on a 1950 trip to Paris. One of the songs, ""Le Petit Cireur Noir," has a lyric about shoeshine man who hates suede shoes because everyone is wearing them and he's being put out of business. But then he finds a wallet stuffed with cash, buys his own shoe store, and gets rich selling suede shoes. There's no mention as to whether any of them are blue. Parker's melody--recorded with Luis Miranda on bongos and Jose Mangual on congas--is wonderfully catchy, and full of island spirit. It's a perfect choice for Dave Pike and his group, and it's a can't miss recording.

If "Limbo Rock" and "My Little Suede Shoes" are miles apart musically, they're also some distance apart in terms of orchestration. The percussionists remain, but the rest of the band -- Leo Wright on reeds and Jimmy Raney on guitar--are gone. Tommy Flanagan moves in on piano, and Ahmed Abdul-Malik replaces George Duvivier on bass.

Dave Pike was, of course, not Latin himself, and he would not remain on a Latin kick. His next album (and the last for Prestige) would go in a markedly different direction, and the rest of his career, lasting throughout the rest of the century, would take some remarkable twists and turns, through free jazz, acid jazz, funk and psychedelia. So is this cultural appropriation? That was, of course, a concept that would not be named or defined for many decades to come. Dave Pike isn't Machito or Tito Puente, but nobody is. He did turn the spotlight on a wonderful and little-known (in the States) Brazilian composer on the first album, and he has a lot of fun with some pop songs and a great Charlie Parker composition, and to quote Paul McCartney, "What's wrong with that, I'd like to know?"

"Jamaica Farewell" / "Limbo Rock" was the first single, and "La Bamba" / "My Little Suede Shoes" was the second. The album, on New Jazz (a little surprisingly--I'd thought of New Jazz as primarily a home for the less commercial fare) was called Limbo Carnival.

He would spend much of his career in Europe, not so unusual for a jazz musician, a little more unusual for a white jazz musician.

Listening to Prestige 577: Ted Curson

LISTEN TO ONE: Fire Down Below

 Ted Curson is one of that generation that made Philadelphia such a cauldron of jazz in the 1950s. The Heath family lived around the corner from and Albert "Tootie" Heath was a classmate. "On Sundays," Curson recalled (in an AllAboutJazz.com interview with Clifford Allen, "Mrs. Heath would make dinner for any musicians who were coming to Philadelphia. You could see anyone from Miles to Duke Ellington to Sonny Rollins."

But it wasn't these greats who first lured young Ted into music. It was a neighborhood guy who wandered the streets selling newspapers, and carrying a silver trumpet. When he told his father he

wanted a trumpet, the old man, a Louis Jordan fan, tried to talk him into an alto saxophone, but Ted held firm. He got his first trumpet at age ten, started playing professionally at age 16 and not long after that, met Miles Davis. In those days, Curson told Allen, he worshipped Davis:

[I was] wearing my hair like Miles, I had a tie around my waist, I even made the mistakes that he made. I liked his approach to everything and I still do. He heard me play when I was around 15 or 16 and he gave me his card and he said 'if you ever come to New York, give me a call.' There was no conversation - he said that and left - and I kept that thing in my pocket for years. After I graduated, it was about three years before I finally moved there [at age 21] and I called up Miles. Miles said 'Ted Curson, that little guy from Philadelphia? We've been waiting for you for three years! Where the hell have you been?'

This was, of course, in the Prestige days, when Miles was still allowing himself to make mistakes.

Curson drew the interest of the Levy brothers, owners of the Birdland jazz club and Roulette records. He was to make his debut at Birdland, and his audition for Roulette, on the night that Mo Levy's brother Irving was shot and killed right outside the club.

Instead, Curson served an apprenticeship in New York's avant garde. He played with Cecil Taylor, and appeared on one Taylor record for United Artists. He drew the attention of Charles Mingus, or more accurately was brought to Mingus's attention:

I got a phone call from a friend of mine and he said "I got a call from Mingus and I don't want to play with that crazy motherfucker. You want to take my place?" It was in Teddy Charles' loft, and there were a 1,000 or something musicians in there jamming, and I met Mingus and we played and everybody dropped out and that was it. He said "maybe one day I'll call you" and about two or three months later I get a call at about midnight and it's Mingus. "Ted Curson? Charlie Mingus here. You start right now. I'm at the Showplace in the Village and as soon as you get here, you go to work." I got there and he said "Okay ladies and gentleman, here's your new band - Ted Curson and Eric Dolphy - and you other cats are fired!"

He made his debut as a leader in 1961, fronting an all-star group comprised of Eric Dolphy (on two tracks), tenor saxophonist Bill Barron (who would have a long association with Curson), Kenny Drew and Jimmy Garrison. Drumming, on different tracks, were Pete La Roca, Dannie Richmond and Roy Haynes. The album came out on Old Town, a New York rhythm and blues and doowop label that had no jazz presence at all (Arthur Prysock was one of their featured artists, but he as being pitched to the rhythm and blues market in those days) and almost no LP presence, so it was heard by very few (although you can hear it now on YouTube). So for all practical purposes, this Prestige album was his real breakthrough.

The Prestige album is called Ted Curson Plays Fire Down Below, which seems to suggest that there was an audience out there just waiting to hear the latest version of "Fire Down Below," which is even less likely than the possibility than a legion of jazz fans waiting to hear the latest Old Town release. "Fire Down Below" was composed by Lester Lee, a Hollywood journeyman with a raft of movie soundtrack songs to his credit (including a bunch of polkas), but very little of interest to jazz performers.

Curson makes something eminently listenable out of the Caribbean-tinged melody, originally written for a Robert Mitchum / Jack Lemmon thriller with a Caribbean setting, and maybe part of his youthful hubris in introducing himself to the jazz public involved showing what he could do with tunes no one else had looked twice at. 

If so, he did a hell of a job. Two of the tunes are recognizable standards, Lerner and Loewe's "Show Me" from My Fair Lady, and Rodgers and Hart's "Falling in Love With Love." Well, standards. I'm not sure Henry Higgins would have recognized what Curson and Co. do with "Show Me," although Eliza Doolittle, sick to death of the genteel reserve of the society she has been elevated into, might have appreciated the propulsive drumming and all-out solos of Roy Haynes and Montego Joe.

The rest are a curious lot. Harold Little ("The Very Young") is a trumpeter and composer about whom I could find very little. Robert Allen ("Baby Has Gone Bye Bye") carved out a career as an accompanist for Perry Como, Peter Lind Hayes and Arthur Godfrey, so he can't be counted among the hippest of the hip. "Only Forever," composed by James V. Monaco, was a modest hit in 1940, from a Bing Crosby film, and Monaco does have one sublime song to his credit, "You Made Me Love You," made famous by Judy Garland. So it's not the material, it's what Curson does with it, and what he did with it announced his presence as a new major talent on the jazz scene.

Roy Haynes and Montego Joe added a lot to this session. George Tucker was a reliable bassist. Gildo Mahones would go on to do more work for Prestige in the decade, including a couple of albums as leader, so I'll save a fuller discussion of him for later. At the time of this session, he was working with Lambert, Hendricks and Ross.

"Fire Down Below" was the title song for the Prestige album, and it was also the 45 RPM single, with "The Very Young" on the flip side. Ozzie Cadena produced.

Listening to Prestige 576: Shirley Scott

 

Shirley Scott would continue to be a cornerstone of the Prestige franchise throughout the 1960s, and Prestige would continue to showcase her in various settings, so as to get as much product as possible out under her name, during this fertile period of her career. So there would be trio recordings, organ-saxophone recordings, and recordings with other combinations. 

The organ-saxophone recordings, which had been so popular when she was teamed with Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, would now continue with new husband Stanley Turrentine, and these too would be double-dipped. Turrentine was a Blue Note artist, so the two would record for Prestige as the Shirley Scott Quintet and for Blue Note as the Stanley Turrentine Quintet.

For her trio recordings, Scott did not stay with the same trio. Her compatriots on this session, Earl May and Roy Brooks, were working with her for the first time, and in the case of May, the only time. Brooks did join her for one more session.

Also worth mentioning is the makeup of her trios. Many organists did not work with a bass player, preferring to let the organ handle the bass line. Jimmy Smith, who is primarily responsible for making the jazz organ a prominent part of the era's jazz presence, always worked with a guitar and drums, and many others followed his example. Scott nearly always worked with a bass.

Earl May is probably most remembered for his work with Billy Taylor throughout the 1950s, including six albums for Prestige. He also did Prestige sessions with John Coltrane and Sonny Stitt, and worked widely with a broad spectrum of jazz groups, Broadway show bands, and other venues into the 21st Century.

Roy Brooks, a Detroiter who began his career with Yusef Lateef and also worked with Motor City stalwarts Barry Harris and the Four Tops, saw a career of prodigious accomplishment interrupted more than once by battles with mental illness, but out of his instability came some inventive musicianship, such as "an apparatus." described by Jason Ankeny at allmusic.com, "with tubes that vacuumed air in and out of a drum to vary its pitch."

No drum innovations here, but some solid drumming. Scott is always inventive, always looking for different organ sounds, which may be why she works with a bass player, to give her that freedom to experiment, and to keep a light, swinging touch along with her experiments. This is a good outing for Scott, with some familiar tunes, including the Fats Waller classic "Jitterbug Waltz," which is my Listen to One, but you'll have to find it yourself, as it's not up on YouTube. Also three from Richard Rodgers, one the optimistic "Happy Talk," from South Pacific and the Oscar Hammerstein collaboration, the other two from his earlier days with the wry and bittersweet Lorenz Hart.

Happy Talk was the name of the Prestige release. A rerelease a couple of years later was called Sweet Soul. There were two 45 RPM singles -- the lighthearted "Happy Talk" / "Jitterbug Waltz" and the bittersweet "My Romance" / "Where or When." Ozzie Cadena produced.