LISTEN TO ONE: Lela
Another milestone -- the 700th Listening to Prestige column. And a musician who was widely enough recorded on some significant labels during the 1960s (Jazzland, Riverside, Pacific Jazz), almost always as a leader, who was described by Lionel Hampton, according to his Wikipedia bio, as "the greatest vibes player in the world, and whom I'm sad to say I had never heard of before listening to this album and writing this blog entry.
Lytle's Wikipedia entry uses much of the same material as his AllMusic entry, whtch was written by Craig Lytle, presumably his son, and both are a little overenthusiastic in describing his career. The compositions which are called "jazz standards" in the Wiki entry don't seem to have been recorded by much of anyone else, accordeing to Second Hand
Songs. and "Selim." which Miles Davis did record, is credited by SHS to another composer. And this album, originally titled Bobby Timmons and Johnny Lytle -- Workin' Out! became, in a 1994 (the year before Lytle died) Bobby Timmons -- Workin' Out!
A quite lovely tribute to Lytle was written by local reporter Andrew McGinn in Lytle's home town newspaper, the Sprngield (OH) News-Sun. It came out in 2009, 14 years after Lytle's death. and offers some sobering insights into how the career of a fine musician can get lost.
The article begins with a story about Lytle arriving home in Springfield from playing a gig at Redd Foxx's Los Angeles nightclub with his paymenr for the gig -- five of Foxx's suits.
That was a pretty good example of Lytle's business acumen,
His wife, Barbara, according to McGinn,
was OK with that.
She worked as a secretary at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base for 36 years so “Dilly” could do what he loved — recording in New York, touring Europe and playing just about anywhere with a stage or enough open floor space for his vibes and a good organ.
“He would play because he just loved playing,” Barbara Lytle said. “We weren’t rich, but we weren’t poor, either. I was happy with it.”
But almost 14 years after Lytle died suddenly — and, dare it be said, poetically, just weeks after a hard-fought solo appearance with his hometown symphony orchestra — his family has been left with really nothing more than a city street named in his honor.
And the house that they lived in on Johnny Lytle Avenue was sold in 2006 because Barbara could no longer get up and down the stairs;
“My husband never had anything in writing,” Barbara Lytle said. “He wasn’t a man who took care of his business. If you’d tell him he had to cut a record, he’d be there. But he wasn’t a man of business, and that’s what hurt him.
“He would play because he just loved playing. We weren’t rich, but we weren’t poor, either. I was happy with it.”
Lytle's best-selling album was The Village Caller (like so many jazzmen of that era, he never ssw a royalty check), and the title song from that album his most popular single. Second Hand Songs lists no other recordings of it, but they could be wrong.. It could be that no one just kept track of it..
Someone at BMI, which licenses music for broadcast, once told the family they’d need to hire a music attorney to sniff out album royalties, [daughter] Michelle Hagans said.
“Mom should be entitled to that,” she said.
But the actual hiring of an attorney is the problem.
“It costs $2,000 just to talk to him,” Barbara Lytle said.
A call to the Concord Music Group — parent company of Lytle’s Milestone, Riverside and Jazzland labels — seeking comment about royalties wasn’t returned.
Reading stories like this always makes me cry. Musicians like Johnny Lytle ought to be remembered,
and they ought to get paid in something more than suits -- although, according to Barbara, she was surpried to find that Redd's suits fit her husband so well.
So let's talk about the music Johnny Lytle made with Bobby Timmons, who did get at least some royalties from "Moanin'" and "Dat Dere." It's rapid-fire. it's soulful, it features two guys who could get on the same wavelength. Timmons wasn't always the most adventurous of piano players, but with Lytle pushing him, he's in top form.
Keter Betts had worked one other Prestige session with Timmons. He was shortly after this to embark on the most prestigious segment of his career, a long association with Ella Fitzgerald. William Hinnant made a number of recordings with Lytle, but seems to have no otjer recording credits.
The session begins with a snappy and soulful Lytle original, "Lela," followed by a Timmons original, "Trick Hips," and three standards (Lytle doesn't play on "People." Ozzie Cadena produced.
Johnny Lytle went out with a concert he had always wanted to play--as a guest artist with the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. He was in the advanced stages of liver cancer, but he played for two hours, his daughter remembers, and signed autographs for two more. He would be dead less than a month later.
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