Listening to Prestige 443: Joe Newman

Joe Newman is back for his second of three Swingville sessions, and it's very much like the first: Musicians drawn from the Basie extended family, solid swinging arrangements, Tommy Flanagan taking the Count's chair at the piano, Basie bassist Eddie Jones on board. This time instead of Frank Wess it's Frank Foster on tenor sax.  Non-Basie drummer Bill English replaces non-Basie-ite Oliver Jackson on the drums, but like Jackson, English can swing it. We've heard him before, in 1956, with Bennie Green.

A big difference here is the choice of material, which leaned heavily on Basie the last time out. This time, although he includes one Basie staple (Neil Hefti's "Li'l Darlin') and one Ellington number ("Just Squeeze Me"), the rest are all Newman compositions.

A small group is always going to be different from a big band. The most famous attempt to recreate a big band sound with a small combo was that of ex-Chick Webb alto saxophonist Louis Jordan--and he succeeded, instead, in creating a sound that virtually defined the rhythm and blues of the 1940s.

Newman doesn't achieve quite so revolutionary a transformation. But it's interesting to compare Basie done by Basie and Basie done by a small group of Basie-ites. "Li'l Darlin'" was first recorded in 1957, by a Basie orchestra that included Newman, Foster and Jones.

Neil Hefti went from high school to playing the triumpet with various dance bands, and starting to write arrangements. Shelley Manne was the drummer for one of them, and he recalled in an interview with Ira Gitler (quoted in Wikipedia):

We roomed together. And at night we didn't have nothing to do, and we were up at this place — Budd Lake. He said, "What are we going to do tonight?" I said, "Why don't you write a chart for tomorrow?" Neal was so great that he'd just take out the music paper, no score, [hums] — trumpet part, [hums] — trumpet part, [hums] — trombone part, [hums], and you'd play it the next day. It was the end. Cooking charts. I never forget, I couldn't believe it. I kept watching him. It was fantastic.

In 1944 he joined Woody'Herman's band, a period he describes as "the first time I sort of got into

jazz." It also brought him to New York, where he went to 52nd Street and started listening to what Dizzy Gillespie was doing on the trumpet. He loved it and was intrigued by it, but at heart he was probably always a dance band guy. In an interview with Forrest Patton, he recalls going as a boy to hear Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Count Basie, Artie Shaw and others when they played in Omaha, but the bandleader who really won his heart was Britisher Ray Noble, later to gain fame as the orchestra conductor for the Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy radio show. His reaction to Noble:

After attending the show, I said to myself that if I ever became an orchestra leader, that's the kind of orchestra, I would want.

When Count Basie hired Hefti in 1950, he had built a strong reputation in the jazz world, first with Herman, then as a freelance arranger for Buddy Rich, Georgie Shaw, and others. He also led and arranged for studio bands for the various New York record labels, and this was in large part what drew Basie to him. In a changing economic world, Basie was intrigued by the idea of becoming the kind of band that would be booked regularly on shows like Ed Sullivan, perhaps even becoming a house band. His arrangements for this era, with Hefti as one of his chief arrangers, came to define the Basie sound, as described in the Patten interview:

Patten: Over the years, I've heard "the Neal Hefti format" to a number of pieces, especially those that were written during the Basie years. It usually starts with a musical phrase, then goes into a percussive break and returns to the melody again. I've heard this style imitated by a number of composers.

Hefti: Basie told me himself that when he had people writing for his band, he'd tell them to "write like Neal."

Basie's "Li'l Darlin'" is just such an ensemble piece. Not so much the percussive break. Because it's Basie, it rewards the listener, but it rewards the dancer even more--a slow, dreamy, late night melody for melting in each other's arms, and since I'm writing this on New Year's Eve, I hope and trust many couples will be doing just that.

Newman's version is more about the emotional constructs of the soloists. First Newman, then Foster, creates his li'l darlin' in sound, gives you something to think about, gives you something to feel, and yes, gives you something to tap a toe to.

The 45 RPM single from this session is one of Newman's own compositions. "Mo-lasses" has a delightfully retro title, harking back to rhythm and blues instrumental jukebox hits like "Corn Bread." It has some of that same rhythm and blues urgency, some modern virtuoso soloing, and, in fact, more of a Basie feel than "Li'l Darlin'." It has been recorded by others, most notably Woody Herman and Ray Bryant.

The album came out on Swingville as Good n' Groovy. Newman had a prolific career. In addition to his work with Basie, this was his 16th album as leader, and his second of three for Swingville. 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. 

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

Listening to Prestige 370: Lem Winchester

Bob Weinstock's philosophy of the best jazz being from a spontaneous jam session hasn't found many adherents in recent years, with perfection being the goal. perfection achieved by multi-tracks and multi-takes, and laying in patches. But it made for some great jazz.

Part of that spontaneity came from Weinstock's commitment to fooling around with combinations of musicians. You'll recall that he deliberately did not set Miles Davis up with a regular group. That happened when Miles moved to Columbia.

It was a marketing move that brought him wealth and glory, and resulted in some great music, but he made some great music with Prestige too, and we have a legacy of Miles in different settings which is priceless.

Weinstock wouldn't mess around with an artist like Yusef Lateef, who had his familiar group that he brought in with him from Detroit. But Lem Winchester had already outgrown his Wilimington bandmates, and Weinstock set him up with a series of different partners: Benny Golson on his debut album, then Oliver Nelson and Johnny "Hammond" Smith, then Nelson again with Curtis Peagler. And for this, his third album as leader, Frank Wess came aboard, and this was another solid choice. Golson and Nelson were sax players; Wess is a tenorman, too, but here he concentrates on the flute, and to good advantage.

This album cover is a striking piece of art, and it's offered for 

sale as a print at a number of sites (including Walmart!), but

nowhere is the artist credited. There's a signature running

along the lower left, and it's Esmond Edwards'. He did a lot

of photography for Prestige album covers even before he 

began producing, so it's quite likely the art work is his. 

Talented guy.

Winchester has a new rhythm section, too. Hank Jones had lent his piano mastery to a variety of different Prestige settings: with Jerome Richardson, Curtis Fuller and vocalist Earl Coleman. And this, of course, barely scratched the surface of the catalog of this jazz master. Eddie Jones was not one of his brothers, but a heckuva bassist anyway. He worked with Count Basie for years, and was frequently on call for sessions with Countsmen like Frank Wess. He would go on, like so many jazzmen before him, to become vice president of an insurance agency. Gus Johnson also played briefly with Basie; his previous Prestige work had been a swing session and a blues session (with Willie Dixon).

The menu on this album features three tunes by Winchester, one by Oliver Nelson, and one standard. My two favorites on the set are Winchester tunes. "Another Opus" opens with a bass vamp by Eddie Jones turns into a moody Jones-Wess duet, a mood that's picked up and carried by Winchester, who never loses it even
as his playing gets more intricate. It's easy to kid around with the title of my other favorite--Lem and Frank let you have it with both barrels--but given that Winchester was to die far too soon from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, maybe not. This one is much more experimental, and much faster. Eddie Jones, whose bass is very much on display throughout this set, whips into steeplechase speed for this one, and Wess and Winchester both step outside the comfort zone. Listening from the perspective of 1960, you'd come away wanting to hear a lot more from Lem Winchester. Listening from the perspective of the new millenium, one can only grieve that there was to be precious little more.

Another Opus came out on New Jazz, Esmond Edwards producing. 

Listening to Prestige 361: Frank Wess

Frank Wess is back four days later, this time without Joe Newman, but with two thirds of the rhythm section from the previous gig, and this time the session is directed toward Moodsville, rather than Swingville.

Was Moodsville a dilution of the jazz mission of Prestige Records? Some still say yes. Chris Albertson, who produced a number of albums for Bob Weinstock during this period, has said  "When I produced a session, it was a Prestige session--whether it came out on Prestige, Prestige Bluesville or Prestige Swingville, made no difference."

This album provides some evidence for the "Jackie Gleason clone" theory, if you're really looking for it, but not much. It's a good bet that the material was chosen with the awareness that this would go out on Moodsville. The songs are all dreamy ballads, even the original Wess tune.

But it provides overwhelming evidence for the "this is real jazz" theory, by being real jazz.  Wess and Flanagan find the beauty in these ballads, and they never lose it, but they also find their jazz soul, their openings for improvisation.They don't need to sentimentalize the ballads, because the ballads themselves take care of that, but they are never insensitive to their beauty.

His own original, "Rainy Afternoon," needs to take a back seat to no other tune for dreamy beauty. Wess plays it on the saxophone, with all the smoky lyricism that instrument can provide.

"It's So Peaceful in the Country" was written by Alec Wilder, whose book, American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–1950, did as much as anything else you can name to create the canon we now know as the Great American Songbook, and who contributed significantly to that canon as a composer/lyricist. This particular song, introduced by Mildred Bailey in 1941, has never attracted a huge volume of jazz improvisers (Second Hand Songs has it at 51st on the list of most recorded songs  from that year), but it's had its share, starting with Mundell Lowe in 1956. Tommy Flanagan opens it with a sort of bluesy vamp, which suggests a certain urban touch, but Wess's flute moves it gently but firmly, and without irony, into the realm of bucolic peace.

"But Beautiful" is a Jimmy Van Heusen melody that lives up to its title. Tommy Flanagan is given an extended solo to start this one off, and perhaps because it's a much more widely recorded tune (6th most recorded of tunes from 1947), both he and Wess allow themselves a lot more latitude to improvise, but they keep it pretty, and they keep it interesting. Wess on flute again.

"Stella by Starlight" is by movie composer Victor Young, so you'd think it would be a movie theme, and it sort of is and sort of isn't. The melody was adapted by Young from music he wrote for a film called The Uninvited. Apparently at some point when he was writing the lyrics, someone must have pointed out to lyricist Ned Washington that at one point in the movie, Ray Milland tells Gail Russell (Stella) that he's serenading her by starlight, so Washington quick had to write that into the lyric--which did not come right away. It was introduced by Young as an instrumental piece in 1944, the year of the movie's release (and it's the third most recorded of all 1944 songs*), and the lyric didn't come along till 1947, when Frank Sinatra recorded it. It's one of those unusual pieces that's had a lot more instrumental than vocal recordings, not all of them jazz by a long shot. After Young introduced it, it became an orchestral staple until both Sinatra and Harry James recorded it in 1947, and it entered the jazz book when Charlie Parker recorded it with strings. Wess switches to the tenor saxophone for this one, with all the Ben Webster-type beauty that the instrument is capable of.

“Gone With the Wind" is decidedly not a movie theme, having been composed by Allie Wrubel a good three years before the movie. Wess stays with the tenor, and gives this one a more jaunty reading.

I won't go through every tune, but they all create a mood, and if you're not in the mood for a mood, but just want to hear some fine jazz, they give you plenty of that.

Since at this juncture the stars of the "Ville" recordings on Prestige are the labels themselves, this album is just called The Frank Wess Quartet.  Esmond Edwards produced. "Rainy Afternoon" was released as one side of a 45.

* The most covered song of 1944 is "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," but schmaltzy "Stella By Starlight" gets beaten out for the number two slot by one of the hippest tunes ever written, Thelonious Monk's "Round Midnight."

Listening to Prestige Vol. 3 makes a great Christmas gift for the jazz fan who has Volumes 1 and 2! 



And for those who haven't, the complete set make a fabulous gift!

Listening to Prestige 360: Joe Newman

Swingville has done pretty well with recruiting Basie musicians and alumni, and why not? If there's a more swinging ensemble anywhere. I'd like to see it. Joe Newman had been with Basie on and off since 1943. Frank Wess and Eddie Jones were part of that 1950s ensemble which achieved popularity but not much critical acclaim (a shadow of its former Lester Young-dominated self, playing outdated music) but has since been recognized for the sterling aggregation that it was. Oliver Jackson never played in a Basie band, but surely this was an oversight. With credentials including  the Metropole, Teddy Wilson, Charlie

Shavers, Buck Clayton, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Earl Hines, Budd Johnson, Sy Oliver, he would have been right at home with Basie.

If you're  going to put together a group of Basie sidemen doing an outside gig, you're not going to have the Count at the piano, and if you're not going to get Count 1.1 Nat Pierce, as other Count's Men groups have done, then Tommy Flanagan is not a bad choice at all. Though a thoroughgoing Detroit bebopper, he's from that generation of piano players whose earliest influences were Art Tatum, Nat "King" Cole and Teddy Wilson, and he would go on to spend several years as Ella Fitzgerald.

Newman and his group are certainly not trying to escape their Basie association. The songs are all from the Basie repertoire, two of them ("Jive at Five" and "Taps Miller") composed by the Count himself, or else bluesy originals by Newman that would fit right into Basie's wheelhouse. But a quintet is going to be a lot different from the Basie big band, and although you can hear Basie in their individual voices, especially Joe Newman's, and Wess and Newman playing together can create a big sound, you hear a lot more than that. The soloists, with room to stretch out ("Taps Miller" is over eight minutes, "Wednesday's Blues" more than nine) move very naturally into that swing-to-bop territory, and especially on the Newman originals, all of them give some very interesting interpretations of the blues.

The Swingville album is titled Jive at Five.

Look for Listening to Prestige Volume 3: 1957-58 on Amazon!

Listening to Prestige 284: Basie Reunion

You could say that Weinstock and co. are still marking time, but that would be wrong. Bringing a collection of some of Count Basie's greatest sidemen together, along with pianist Nat Pierce, who did Basie better than anyone except Basie, in a group led by Paul Quinichette, who did Lester better than anyone except Lester, and what you've got is a recipe for nothing less than a soufflé of great music.

And this is one soufflé that doesn't collapse as you're taking it out of the oven.

But...if you're offered a recording of Basie musicians paying Basie's tunes, why not just pass it up and buy a Basie record?

Well, for one thing, you can never have enough good music. And if the musicians are this good, it's always going to be different. Nat Pierce can be Basie the piano player, but he can't be Basie the bandleader, so that role seems to fall to Paul Quinichette, who may not have seniority as a Basie-ite, but who has Prestige seniority as an on-and-off regular. And it's all worth having, and it's all worth listening to, and I am a better, more fulfilled person for having listened to it.

And besides, while this may be a Basie dream band (or dream small group), it isn't the current Basie band, or even precisely any one Basie aggregation.

Jo Jones goes back the farthest. He was already with the band when Basie took it over on the death of Bennie Moten, and remained behind the drums until 1948. Jack Washington, not so well known as the others but with the reputation of a jazzman's jazzman on baritone sax, was with Basie from the beginning, and stayed till 1950. Freddie Green came along just a little later, in 1937, and never left. He anchored the Basie rhythm section for five decades.

Buck Clayton spent some great years with Basie, from 1936 until he was drafted into the army in 1943. Earlier in the 1930s, he had a rather remarkable expatriate career, not in France or Sweden, but in China, where he led a group called the Harlem Gentlemen, and mentored the Chinese composer Li Jinhui, who revolutionized Chinese music before the revolution. After the revolution, Li's music was banned in China as decadent and western, and he became an enemy of the people.

So none of these guys played with Eddie Jones, who joined in 1953 and was the only active Basie-ite when this session was cut, remaining with the band until 1962, after which he went to work for IBM, which means he probably overlapped with me at IBM, though not in the same city. As a Basie-ite, he overlapped with Quinichette (1952-56).

When they get together, latecomers, early-leavers and lifers alike, they all know what to do. As ex-Marines are fond of saying, you're never an ex-Marine, and it seems you're never really an ex-Basie man either. The tunes are Basie classics. With a smaller group, there's more room for soloists, especially compared to the late 1950s version of Basie's group, where the emphasis was more on arrangements and ensemble play. It's hardly necessary to say how good Buck Clayton and Paul Quinichette are. Nat Pierce has some very nice solo moments, where he does more than just play the Count note for note. He has a musical persona of his own. There's just a great drum solo by Papa Jo Jones on "John's Idea."

I'm not exactly sure what qualifies this is a Prestige All Stars session. More like a Prestige Guest Stars session. But they are all stars, and I'm glad to have them.

The album was released on Prestige as Basie Reunion, and was later rereleased on Swingville when Weinstock started branching out into those subsidiary labels that appealed to diverse specialized tastes.


Order Listening to Prestige Vol 2

Listening to Prestige Vol. 2, 1954-1956 is here! You can order your signed copy or copies through the link above.

Tad Richards will strike a nerve with all of us who were privileged to have lived thru the beginnings of bebop, and with those who have since fallen under the spell of this American phenomenon…a one-of-a-kind reference book, that will surely take its place in the history of this music.

                                                                                                                                                --Dave Grusin

An important reference book of all the Prestige recordings during the time period. Furthermore, Each song chosen is a brilliant representation of the artist which leaves the listener free to explore further. The stories behind the making of each track are incredibly informative and give a glimpse deeper into the artists at work.

                                                                                                                --Murali Coryell