Listening to Prestige 527: Walt Dickerson

LISTEN TO ONE: It Ain't Necessarily So

 It's been said that jazz is the only musical genre in which the vibraphone is used as a lead instrument, and that's probably not exactly true, especially if you extend the discussion to all mallet-played melodic-percussive instruments. French composer Camille Saint-Saëns was perhaps the first classical composer to write for the instrument (in his case a xylophone) for his 1874 Danse Macabre. Handel and Mozart (most famously The Magic Flute) wrote parts for the glockenspiel, which is similar to the vibraphone but tuned to a higher pitch. Modernist composer Darius Milhaud wrote a Concerto for Marimba and Vibraphone in 1947. The marimba, probably African in origin, further developed as an instrument in Latin America, has become a staple of Japanese music, particularly in the work of composer Keiko Abe.

But the instrument certainly has a special prominence in jazz, starting with Lionel Hampton. Hampton, the story goes, was playing a gig on drums in the NBC radio studios. NBC always had a vibraphone on hand to make the three-note NBC call signal; Hampton noticed it, started fooling around on it, and was hooked.

After Hampton, Milt Jackson created a new vibraphone model for the bebop era, and the instrument has stayed relevant in jazz, as Gary Burton brought it into the jazz fusion era, and Stefon Harris (also a renowned classical musician) into the 21st century. 

Burton, Dickerson and Bobby Hutcherson were probably the three most prominent vibraphonists of the 1960s. Dickerson, signed to Prestige as they lost their vibe star Lem Winchester in a handgun incident, was the first of the three to gain prominence, as he was named New Star of the Year by DownBeat. But Burton's and Hutcherson's careers extended longer, and Dickerson has faded into an undeserved obscurity, as he left the jazz scene in the mid-1960s, and never recovered that lost momentum. On his return, he focused a lot on solo playing and music as part of an ongoing spiritual quest, the latter following the example of John Coltrane, with whom he had played as a young man in Jimmy Heath's big band. Coltrane's and Philly Joe Jones's recommendations had gotten him his recording deal with Prestige.

Dickerson used a special kind of mallet that gave him what he described as a "plush" sound, softer than that of most vibraphone players. He described the sound in more detail in an interview with Mike Johnston:

My approach has always been to be physically close to the instrument, very close. This is different than the approach that is taught on the instrument. I was unable to play intricate things on the instrument with the commonly taught approach. The music that the creator sends me is not of a cosmetic nature; it seems to come as streams of intricate passages of flowing imagery. This means that I can’t use the common approach to the instrument in order to perform these passages. So I’ve modified a complete personal style or technique so I can play the music I receive. So, in adapting my personal approach to playing my instrument my sound has adapted as well. Both are a part of the projection.

That unique sound is heard to excellent advantage on this album, consisting of three standards (one by Gershwin, two by Vernon Duke) and four originals. Dickerson is the principal voice throughout, but the musicians playing with him are awfully good, and very attuned to him. Austin Crowe is sensitive throughout. His work with Dickerson is so good that one can only wonder why he didn't do more--Dickerson in a later interview suggested that the jazz life on the road may not have agreed with him. Ahmed Abdul-Malik has a wonderful solo on "It Ain't Necessarily So," and Andrew Cyrille is consistently arresting, but I'll single out his work on "Relativity," the title track.

Relativity was released on New Jazz. Esmond Edwards produced.

Listening to Prestige 456: Walt Dickerson

That Walt Dickerson is largely unremembered is remarkable not only because he was so good, but also because his talent and artistry did not go unrecognized in his own time. This, his second album, got a 4 1/2 star review from Down Beat, just as his first album had.

This one finds Dickerson in a more introspective mood, but with the complexity and originality, and some of the pyrotechnics, that he displayed on his first album. Here he is playing ballads, mostly of his own composition. "Sense of Direction," the tune that leads off the album, is multi-directional, by turns stately and jaunty.

"Ode to Boy" suggests a nod to Beethoven, but there isn't much joy in it, although a lot of beauty. It really is an ode to a boy--Dickerson's brother, who drowned at sea while in the Navy. And while it doesn't summon up Beethoven, it suggests another equally classic work--it's reminiscent of John Lewis's "Django." Austin Crowe, Dickerson's longtime partner on piano, supplies a sensitive second voice.

"Togetherness" was a word invented in the mid-1950s as a slogan for the women's magazine McCall's, and it generated a lot of derision at the time. It's hard to say exactly what Walt Dickerson was thinking when he titled this piece, but it took an awful lot quick thinking and quick playing to achieve any kind of togetherness on this piece, taken at a breakneck tempo that would have left them breathless on 52nd Street. They all manage in fact -- in fact, they knock it out of the park, and drummer Edgar Bateman, new to Dickerson's team, comes through with a solo that matches the tempo and the mood of the piece...a mood that McCall's may not have exactly intended.

Bateman was a Philadelphia comrade of Dickerson's, though he was originally from St. Louis (where Oliver Nelson was a high school classmate), and made this, his recording debut, at the age of 31. He would continue to record with Dickerson off and on over the years, and with Eric Dolphy, John Handy and others. He remained a Philadelphian, and was always involved with that city's jazz scene.

"What's New?" was originally written in 1938 as an instrumental by Bob Haggart for the Bob Crosby Orchestra, and entitled "I'm Free." When Johnny Burke added lyrics to it a year later for Bob's brother Bing, he created the persona of someone who is decidedly not free. Meeting an old girl friend, who has become quite free of him, he reveals in what he tries to make a casual conversation that his heart is still bound to her. The Burke lyrics are understated and devastating, and it's impossible to hear the melody any other way. Dickerson, in his introspective mode, plays it accordingly.

"Good Earth" starts with Crowe, Dickerson and Eustis Guillemet Jr., and then becomes all Dickerson, with the vibist doing what he's best at, and strong assistance from Guillemet. "Why" starts with Guillemet, and again he's a powerful presence throughout.

Eustis Guillemet Jr. was from New Orleans, born and raised in the Tremé district, and he spent most of his life in the Crescent City, playing with Professor Longhair's group when he was young. He didn't record a lot, but he played with a lot of the great names, including Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway.

The albumends with two standards, both of them widely recorded ("You Go To My Head" especially popular) and both benefiting from being given the Dickerson treatment,

Esmond Edwards produced, and the album was released on New Jazz.

Listening to Prestige 440: Walt Dickerson

On February 24, Walt Dickerson brought a quartet into Rudy Van Gelder's studio, and recorded six songs. He had been recommended to Bob Weinstock by fellow Philadelphians John Coltrane and Philly Joe Jones.

The log for the entire session is simple. It's one word: rejected.

Why? That's lost to history. But it can't be because they didn't recognize his talent, because these were very savvy jazzmen, and no one with ears could have failed to appreciate the rare, striking gifts that this young man brought into the studio. And besides, as Bob Porter tells us, Weinstock was always a big fan of the vibes.

And it can't have been that they didn't like his musicians, or even that they didn't like the tunes he brought in with him, because a week and half later, he was back in Englewood Cliffs, with the same musicians, and the same six songs.

So it must have been some sort of rare glitch in Rudy's recording equipment.  Frustrating for a group of young musicians wondering if they'd lost their chance at the big time (Andrew Cyrille was asked to stick around, and recorded four days later with Coleman Hawkins), but redemption came quickly. I can imagine that Weinstock may have been more worried than they were, that Dickerson might slip through his fingers.

Whatever the first session may have been like, this one is a killer. Dom DeMichael, in a four-and-a-half-star review in Down Beat, described it as "experience-giving and provocative," and Dickerson's solos as "at times spiralling asymmetrically in tangled, biting swirls of notes flying like sparks from a pinwheel." Down Beat was, the following year, to anoint Dickerson as best new jazz artist, and to call him "the most important vibraphonist since Milt Jackson."

And yet Dickerson is largely forgotten today. He made four albums for Prestige and three for other labels during the first half of the 1960s decade, disappeared for ten years, came back to make a few more albums in 1975, then disappeared again, and stayed disappeared. He was in Europe for a good part, but not all of that time. Jazz writer Hank Shteamer, in 2003, got his phone number from Andrew Cyrille. He was back in his home town of Philadelphia. Shteamer called, got a long, cordial interview, with promises to talk more and to come and do a concert. He never answered the phone to Shteamer again.

Curiously, in an age where everyone on the internet feels compelled to make lists, there's really no list of greatest jazz vibraphonists. Last.fm has a sort of a list, but it's an odd one--odd in that includes Milt Jackson and the MJQ separately, even odder in that it includes Cal Tjader and the Cal Tjader Quintet separately, and full-out odd in that it includes non-vibist Marian McPartland. It does, however, include all the major vibists you can think of, with one striking exception: no Walt Dickerson.*

His quartet seems to have come with him from Philadelphia. Andrew Cyrille, who went on to have s substantial career, and is still active as of this writing, was a protege of Philly Joe Jones. Neither Bob Lewis nor Austin Crowe did any recording outside of their work with Dickerson.  Dickerson, many years later, talked about Crowe with Hank Shteamer, and in the process, gave an insight into another side of the jazz life:

Excellent pianist! Last I heard, Austin was in New York, playing classical music. Again, the scene, as it was then…Austin came from a very religious background also, so the scene did a lot to drive many great musicians away. He had a couple of things with Philly Joe Jones, and he came back and told me, "Never again, never again.” He was stranded in the Midwest, played two weeks of engagement and no way to get home. Some people can’t take those kinds of experiences, so I heard he was playing classical piano. I understood... Yes, Austin, a wonderful pianist, a wonderful person… Some of the youngsters got turned away by the scene. It happened to my son, he saw his pop go through things which he thought were totally uncalled for, and even though my son was a natural on many instruments, he didn’t want anything to do with it.

As for Dickerson himself, his on again, off again relationship with music remains a mystery which he

took with him to his grave, in 2008. In 1995 he told an interviewer, Mike Johnston, that he'd been playing a lot of solo gigs in Europe. Maybe "gigs" is the wrong word. He told Hank Shteamer that:

 I do have restrictions; yes, I have. I’ve been asked. No clubs, no smoke environment. Concert hall? Fine. Simple. I’ve seen too many suffer from it- various maladies due to those environments- smoke-filled. It’s quite a workout performing. You do take in what is around you in great amounts, and it does have an effect. I care not to expose my body or mind to those things that are going to be detrimental to my body and mind- my being.

But the music he's left behind is a treat for those who seek it out. He is unique, starting with his approach to the instrument itself. Jazz critic Francis Davis described in the liner notes to one of his Prestige albums:

Dickerson’s first step upon buying a new pair of mallets is to strip away their fur; he then soaks the exposed rubber tips in a mineral solution to get a sound he describes as “plush,” though paradoxically, it is also hard. His use of smaller mallets, gripped closer to the tip than is the custom for vibraphonists, allows Dickerson extraordinary speed on the bars.

Dickerson creates jagged clusters of sound that are reminiscent more of the piano style of Thelonious Monk than of any other vibes player. He is intense, cerebral and yet emotional; on his ballads, like "Evelyn" and "Elizabeth" (his wife, to whom he gave lifelong devotion) have a touching sweetness.

All the compositions on this album are Dickerson's. They have mostly vanished with him, perhaps because no one else could play them quite like him. I was going to say although that didn't stop Monk's compositions from being played, but for a while it did. Monk's genius as a composer was only recognized gradually. Dickerson may have set some kind of a record for length of time until a composition is discovered: "Infinite You" waited 40 years, until Mal Waldron recorded it and another Dickerson tune in 2000.

The album was titled This is Walt Dickerson! Esmond Edwards produced. It was released on New Jazz.



* Well, two exceptions. I don't see Teddy Charles either,

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

And Volume 4 in preparation!

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