Every year I look at the list of best albums of the year on rateyourmusic.com, a reader-voted website. The Down Beat poll gives us a look at what they were thinking back then; the rateyourmusic poll gives us a sense of what's endured.
It's always an idiosyncratic poll, with some definite surprises. It's also an ongoing poll, so while the albums at the top of the poll have accrued enough votes to be safely ensconced there. there can conceivably be fluctuation down at the bottom, BuT we're not going that far. Just the top 50, omitting the recordings that weren't jazz or blues:
1 Giant Steps
John Coltrane
Atlantic
Deserves its ranking, then as now. A major album, a giant step forward in jazz.
2 Blues & Roots
Charlie Mingus
Atlantic
One of the reviewers on rateyourmusic described it as “Arty enough for the avant-jazz types, energetic enough for the swingers,” and that’s not bad. Mingus, like Monk, has gained in stature over the years, and this ranking confirms that.
3 Sketches of Spain
Miles Davis
Columbia
4 The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery
Riverside
This was Montgomery’s second album for Riverside, and really the beginning of his domination of the instrument, and the jazz charts, in the 1960s.
6 Soul Station
Hank Mobley
Blue Note
8 Portrait in Jazz
Bill Evans Trio
Riverside
This was Scott LaFaro’s first album with Bill Evans. There would be three more, before LaFaro’s death in an auto accident, which left Evans so devastated he could not play for months. Many consider this the definitive Evans trio.
9 At Last!
Etta James
Argo
11 Change of the Century
Ornette Coleman
Atlantic
12 True Blue
Tina Brooks
Blue Note
Very good stuff, with Freddie Hubbard, Duke Jordan, Sam Jones and Art Taylor, and one example of the idiosyncratic voting of rateyourmusic voters. Not saying that this album shouldn’t be highly rated, just surprised that it is. Tina Brooks had a very short career – this was his only album as leader to be released during his lifetime. Recently, some long-buried sessions have been released, prompting a reconsideration of his essentially forgotten career, and some serious praise from jazz cognoscenti. I guess there are a lot of cognoscenti voting on rateyourmusic.
15 Blues-ette
Curtis Fuller's Quintet
Savoy
Amazing to me that this album is rated so high, and the more acclaimed “Meet the Jazztet” comes in at number 86. Again, not a reflection on the blowing here, but a surprise that the voting has gone that way.
16 Thelonious Alone in San Francisco
Thelonious Monk
Riverside
Monk alone, going with his first takes, and his solo version of “Blue Monk” alone Is worth the price of admission. But the same could be said of every other track.
17 O amor, o sorriso e a flor
João Gilberto
Odeon
It took Stan Getz, in 1961, to launch the Brazilian samba/bossa nova craze, so this album was ahead of the curve. A recent CD reissue as part of a box set of Gilberto and Jobim may in part account for its popularity with the rateyourmusic crowd. There’s a very nice description by one of their reviewers:
Somewhat like the British Invasion in rock in the early 1960s, there was a Brazilian invasion in jazz and pop starting in the late 1950s. And just as the British Invasion can be traced back to two guys – John Lennon and Paul McCartney – the Brazilian invasion can be traced back to João Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim. Gilberto single-handedly created bossa nova from samba, transmuting a rather boisterous dance form into a perfect vehicle for crooning intimiacies and meditations; Jobim supplied the songs, the arrangements, and the orchestra.
19 The Big Beat
Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers
Blue Note
20 Open Sesame
Freddie Hubbard
Blue Note
21 Mingus Dynasty
Charles Mingus and His Jazz Groups
Columbia
22 Piano in the Background
Duke Ellington and His Orchestra
Columbia
24 Blues in Orbit
Duke Ellington
Columbia
25 Outward Bound
Eric Dolphy Quintet
Prestige
26 Have Guitar, Will Travel
Bo Diddley
Checker
27 House of the Blues
John Lee Hooker
Chess
28 East Meets West
Ahmed Abdul-Malik
RCA Victor
30 Ella Fitzgerald Sings Songs From "Let No Man Write My Epitaph"
Verve
31 Sin & Soul
Oscar Brown Jr.
Columbia
32 Work Song
Nat Adderley
Riverside
33 Ben Webster Meets Oscar Peterson
Verve
34 Muddy Waters Sings Big Bill Broonzy
Chess
35 Satchmo Plays King Oliver
Louis Armstrong
Audio Fidelity
37 Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger
Checker
38 Blues & Ballads
Lonnie Johnson With Elmer Snowden
Prestige
39 Travelin'
John Lee Hooker
Vee Jay
40 Gerry Mulligan Meets Ben Webster
Verve
41 Quiet Kenny
Kenny Dorham
New Jazz
43 Them Dirty Blues
The Cannonball Adderley Quintet
Riverside
44 Otis Spann Is the Blues
Otis Spann
Candid
45 Art Pepper + Eleven: Modern Jazz Classics
Art Pepper
Contemporary
47
Frank Sinatra
Nice 'n' Easy
Capitol
48 Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas
Ella Fitzgerald
Verve
49 Fuego
Donald Byrd
Blue Note
50 That's My Story
John Lee Hooker
Riverside
Showing posts with label year end review.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label year end review.. Show all posts
Saturday, November 02, 2019
Thursday, October 31, 2019
Listening to Prestige 425: Wrapping up 1960, Part 2
Prestige in 1960 began its second full decade in the jazz business (second of two--there had been one year in the 1940s, and there would be a couple in the 1970s) by looking ahead, looking back, and looking straight at the present.
Looking back is what they did by the formation of the Swingville and Bluesville labels. As to looking back at the immediate past...not so much. As with Bill Clinton and the era of big government, the era of bebop seems to be over for Bob Weinstock and associates. Comparing their releases of 1957, just three years earlier, one finds an overlap of exactly two names: Red Garland (three sessions in 1957, three in 1960) and Tommy Flanagan (one and one). No Gene Ammons, though he was absent by force of incarceration, and would be back. No more Jackie McLean, Kenny Burrell, Phil Woods. Some, like John Coltrane, Art Farmer, Mose Allison, had moved along. Prestige was a great launching pad for young talent, musicians would go on to sign with bigger labels who would give them more money, more promotion, more exposure.
Looking back through Swingville and Bluesville gave the label a deeply enriched catalogue that has only grown more valuable through the years. We look back at the 1950s as a golden era of jazz not just because of the new music that was being created, but because it was a time when every era of jazz still existed. Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman and Dizzy Gillespie became international ambassadors. And so many of the titans of jazz, from virtually every era, were still playing, often in obscurity.
One such titan was Coleman Hawkins, still so revered that as the era of John Coltrane was ushered in by his Prestige recordings and brought to full flower by his Atlantic recordings, the Down Beat critics', polled for their leading jazz artists of 1960, still named Hawkins as the top tenor saxophonist. Prestige brought Hawkins into the studio four times in 1959, three more in 1960. He had played with the Prestige Blues Swingers, in which moderns like Idrees Suleiman, Jerome Richardson and Pepper Adams joined forces with blues guitarist Roy Gaines and future star Ray Bryant. He had recorded with swing veterans Charlie Shavers and Tiny Grimes for an album that was originally released on Prestige, but may well have given Bob Weinstock the idea for Swingville, because soon after that the label was launched, and this became one of its first titles. Under the catchall name of Prestige All Stars, he recorded with Buddy Tate and Arnett Cobb, soon to become Swingville regulars, and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and Shirley Scott, two of the brightest stars in Prestige's new soul jazz firmament. He worked in a quartet session with the Red Garland Trio and another trio led by Tommy Flanagan, and in a sextet setting with swing veterans Vic Dickenson and Joe Thomas. And on a December, 1960 session with Flanagan and Davis, he brought aboard a youngster just starting out in the jazz business--Ron Carter.
Hawkins would go on to have an active decade of recording, with Prestige and other labels, in a wide variety of musical settings, from blues veteran Ida Cox to Sonny Rollins. Who wouldn't want the chance to play with the Hawk? He died in 1969.
In addition to Tate and Cobb. Prestige Swingville also recorded Buck Clayton, Al Casey, Claude Hopkins, Budd Johnson, Bud Freeman. And guys who made their bones in rhythm and blues also joined the Swingville roster: Willis "Gator Tail" Jackson, Al Sears, Jimmy Forrest, King Curtis, Bill Jennings.
A lot of the new Prestige/Swingville/Bluesville roster was the work of Esmond Edwards. Edwards was African American, which was something of a rarity in those days for someone in the production/management end of the music business, and his familiarity with the smaller clubs and music establishments in Harlem and the Bronx led to a lot of these signings, both the rhythm and blues veterans and the new soul jazz players.
In at least one case, those two categories overlapped. Willis Jackson's long-time associate was organist Jack McDuff, and he would go on to become one of the big selling artists of the soul jazz world.
Shirley Scott was the star of Prestige's soul jazz roster, and one of the players, along with Jimmy Smith, to really popularize the organ sound in jazz. Along with Scott and McDuff, Prestige had Johnny "Hammond" Smith, Robert Banks, and Larry Young, who would go on to a trailblazing career after leaving Prestige.
Bluesville was an interesting label, and Prestige's blues roster was always interesting to follow. They recorded legends like Memphis Slim, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Willie Dixon, Lonnie Johnson (who was plucked from obscurity by producer Chris Albertson), Sunnyland Slim, Roosevelt Sykes,Tampa Red. They also recorded some blues singers who never made it beyond obscurity -- Arbee Stidham, Shakey Jake, St. Louis Jimmy, and particularly the marvelous and completely forgotten singers Al Smith and Mildred Anderson.
They were forward-looking, too. Eric Dolphy was their real torchbearer for the new generation, and he was to die young, before the end of the decade. Booker Little joined him on his last album of 1960, and for some memorable live sessions in 1961, but death was to overtake him before the year was out. Oliver Nelson was an important new composing talent; his most famous work, though, was to come the next year, when he recorded Blues and the Abstract Truth. Lem Winchester had a bright future ahead of him, an he was just beginning to glimpse it, when a freak accident took him in 1961.
Looking back is what they did by the formation of the Swingville and Bluesville labels. As to looking back at the immediate past...not so much. As with Bill Clinton and the era of big government, the era of bebop seems to be over for Bob Weinstock and associates. Comparing their releases of 1957, just three years earlier, one finds an overlap of exactly two names: Red Garland (three sessions in 1957, three in 1960) and Tommy Flanagan (one and one). No Gene Ammons, though he was absent by force of incarceration, and would be back. No more Jackie McLean, Kenny Burrell, Phil Woods. Some, like John Coltrane, Art Farmer, Mose Allison, had moved along. Prestige was a great launching pad for young talent, musicians would go on to sign with bigger labels who would give them more money, more promotion, more exposure.
Looking back through Swingville and Bluesville gave the label a deeply enriched catalogue that has only grown more valuable through the years. We look back at the 1950s as a golden era of jazz not just because of the new music that was being created, but because it was a time when every era of jazz still existed. Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman and Dizzy Gillespie became international ambassadors. And so many of the titans of jazz, from virtually every era, were still playing, often in obscurity.
One such titan was Coleman Hawkins, still so revered that as the era of John Coltrane was ushered in by his Prestige recordings and brought to full flower by his Atlantic recordings, the Down Beat critics', polled for their leading jazz artists of 1960, still named Hawkins as the top tenor saxophonist. Prestige brought Hawkins into the studio four times in 1959, three more in 1960. He had played with the Prestige Blues Swingers, in which moderns like Idrees Suleiman, Jerome Richardson and Pepper Adams joined forces with blues guitarist Roy Gaines and future star Ray Bryant. He had recorded with swing veterans Charlie Shavers and Tiny Grimes for an album that was originally released on Prestige, but may well have given Bob Weinstock the idea for Swingville, because soon after that the label was launched, and this became one of its first titles. Under the catchall name of Prestige All Stars, he recorded with Buddy Tate and Arnett Cobb, soon to become Swingville regulars, and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and Shirley Scott, two of the brightest stars in Prestige's new soul jazz firmament. He worked in a quartet session with the Red Garland Trio and another trio led by Tommy Flanagan, and in a sextet setting with swing veterans Vic Dickenson and Joe Thomas. And on a December, 1960 session with Flanagan and Davis, he brought aboard a youngster just starting out in the jazz business--Ron Carter.
Hawkins would go on to have an active decade of recording, with Prestige and other labels, in a wide variety of musical settings, from blues veteran Ida Cox to Sonny Rollins. Who wouldn't want the chance to play with the Hawk? He died in 1969.
In addition to Tate and Cobb. Prestige Swingville also recorded Buck Clayton, Al Casey, Claude Hopkins, Budd Johnson, Bud Freeman. And guys who made their bones in rhythm and blues also joined the Swingville roster: Willis "Gator Tail" Jackson, Al Sears, Jimmy Forrest, King Curtis, Bill Jennings.
A lot of the new Prestige/Swingville/Bluesville roster was the work of Esmond Edwards. Edwards was African American, which was something of a rarity in those days for someone in the production/management end of the music business, and his familiarity with the smaller clubs and music establishments in Harlem and the Bronx led to a lot of these signings, both the rhythm and blues veterans and the new soul jazz players.
In at least one case, those two categories overlapped. Willis Jackson's long-time associate was organist Jack McDuff, and he would go on to become one of the big selling artists of the soul jazz world.
Shirley Scott was the star of Prestige's soul jazz roster, and one of the players, along with Jimmy Smith, to really popularize the organ sound in jazz. Along with Scott and McDuff, Prestige had Johnny "Hammond" Smith, Robert Banks, and Larry Young, who would go on to a trailblazing career after leaving Prestige.
Bluesville was an interesting label, and Prestige's blues roster was always interesting to follow. They recorded legends like Memphis Slim, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Willie Dixon, Lonnie Johnson (who was plucked from obscurity by producer Chris Albertson), Sunnyland Slim, Roosevelt Sykes,Tampa Red. They also recorded some blues singers who never made it beyond obscurity -- Arbee Stidham, Shakey Jake, St. Louis Jimmy, and particularly the marvelous and completely forgotten singers Al Smith and Mildred Anderson.
They were forward-looking, too. Eric Dolphy was their real torchbearer for the new generation, and he was to die young, before the end of the decade. Booker Little joined him on his last album of 1960, and for some memorable live sessions in 1961, but death was to overtake him before the year was out. Oliver Nelson was an important new composing talent; his most famous work, though, was to come the next year, when he recorded Blues and the Abstract Truth. Lem Winchester had a bright future ahead of him, an he was just beginning to glimpse it, when a freak accident took him in 1961.
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
Listening to Prestige 424: Wrapping up 1960
Reading through the issue of Down Beat that contains the 1960 Readers' Poll, I'm struck by the judgmental quality of the reviews. "[Benny Golson's solo] makes [Curtis] Fuller's weak solo anticlimactic...although he is extremely fast, Fuller is not always clean." Of an album by the Slide Hampton Octet: "[George] Coleman is a capable tenor man, but he is overshadowed in this company...it is disappointing to find a sameness of sound dominating the LP." Of Spiritsville by Julian Priester: "Despite the title, there is not much spirit here. Moreover, the writing...becomes downright boring...[McCoy] Tyner...is given to fast, boppish right hand runs that substitute flash for originality of thought." Of Wayne Shorter's debut album: "Shorter's debut as a leader is unimpressive...[Lee] Morgan and [Wynton] Kelly add little but monotony to a monotonous set." And an even on an album that the reviewer really likes, by Julius Watkins and Charlie Rouse: "It is unfortunate that it contains moments of pretentiousness, for it could have been a more memorable milestone in the careers of Watkins and Rouse."
I suppose the Down Beat reviewers were following the mandates of their job: to be, in their phrase, a "Jazz Record Buyer's Guide," highlighting the albums that are most worthy of your $4.98. And I'm not denigrating Down Beat. I guess this is as good a place as any for my annual appeal: why haven't all back issues of this national treasure been digitized and made available to jazz scholars and aficionados? Where is the grant from the NEH for this? Why doesn't Smithsonian buy the Down Beat archives and digitize them?
But today, we are grateful for all these records--and for the ones that Down Beat never reviewed. They're what we have of this golden decade in the American Century in music, and listening from the perspective of time we can appreciate their beauty, their creativity, their value. And we can want to go back and pop one on the nose of the guy who shortchanged Curtis Fuller or Lee Morgan or Wynton Kelly (as Curtis and Lee and Wynton surely wanted to do also), but they were of their time, and we can be grateful for their contributions too.
1960 was very much a year for the bifurcation of jazz into soul and free. The organ groups, particularly Jimmy Smith but including Prestige artists Shirley Scorr, Jack McDuff, Johnny "Hammond" Smith and Larry Young, were becoming hugely popular. Cannonball Adderley on Riverside and Horace Silver on Blue Note were helping to define the new sound. Addereley's seminal Live at the Lighthouse was recorded in 1960. Bobby Timmons went into the studio three times during the year for Riverside. His first release, This Here is Bobby Timmons, contained three of his compositions that were to become soul jazz anthems: "Moanin'," "This Here" and "Dat Dere."
In 1960, Ornette Coleman recorded an album that featured two quartets, each playing on a separate stereo channel. He called the album Free Jazz, and he wasn't necessarily trying to give a name to a new movement, but that's what happened. The free jazz revolution put an indelible stamp on the music in 1960. John Coltrane released Giant Steps and recorded My Favorite Things. Eric Dolphy launched a meteoric and all-too-brief career with Prestige. Cecil Taylor released The World of Cecil Taylor, with a group that included Archie Shepp.
Dolphy joined Charles Mingus for the album Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus. Mingus had initially disparaged Coleman's playing, but in April of 1960, Mingus was given a blindfold test by Leonard Feather in Down Beat, and he had this to say:
Some jazz musicians were into another kind of "freedom music" as the new decade began, a decade in which the civil rights struggles erupted passionately. We think of folk singers and protest songs, but jazz musicians were involved too, and one of the most politically active was Max Roach. 1960 saw the release of his album We Insist, a collaboration with lyricist Oscar Brown Jr. Randy Weston's Uhuru Africa, featuring the poetry of Langston Hughes on some cuts, would be banned in apartheid South Africa.
And there was still plenty of fresh and creative bebop-influenced jazz, notably Art Farmer, Benny Golson and Curtis Fuller's collaborative Meet the Jazztet.
Oscar Pettiford died in 1960.
Here's how various polls saw the year in jazz:
Dizzy Gillespie was 1960's inductee into the Down Beat hall of fame. Billie Holiday and Miles Davis were runners-up; others trailed far behind.
In Down Beat, here weren't as many categories as in previous years. Rhythm and blues, finally recognized in 1959 because they could no longer ignore Ray Charles, is gone again. Personality of the Year is gone; it was an odd one, anyway.
All stars by instrument:
Trumpet:
1. Miles Davis
2. Dizzy Gillespie
3. Maynard Ferguson
4. Art Farmer
5. Lee Morgan
6. Louis Armstrong
7. Donald Byrd
8. Nat Adderley
9. Chet Baker
Those were the ones who got more than 100 votes, and no real surprises. The top four were unchanged from the previous year. Donald Byrd and Nat Adderley jumped up considerably in the rankings--and so, unaccountably, did Louis Armstrong, since there wasn't exactly an Armstrong renaissance in 1960. No free jazz here -- but in the Japanese Down Beat readers' poll, a new feature for 1960, Don Cherry made the list.
Armstrong was certainly not forgotten by what may have been a more sophisticated group, the Down Bear critics poll, where he finished fourth to Davis, Gillespie and Farmer. Nor was he forgotten by an arguably less sophisticated group--Playboy readers voted him second to Davis. And he was still hot internationally, finishing second in Britain's Melody Maker and France's Jazz Hot,
Trombone:
1. J. J. Johnson
2. Bob Brookmeyer
3. Curtis Fuller
4. Frank Rosolino
5. Jack Teagarden
6. Urbie Green
7. Kai Winding
8. Jimmy Cleveland
9. Jimmy Knepper
10. Slide Hampton
J. J. Johnson continued to dominate this field, with 4097 votes to Brookmeyer's 932. The only more dominant instrumentalist was Gerry Mulligan. Curtis Fuller rose in popularity, largely due to his work with the Jazztet, and he rose even higher in the Critics' Poll, finishing second to Johnson. My instinct tells me that the trombone was not a really hot instrument in the jazz world of 1960. Checking up on that instinct with the rateyourmusic poll, about which more later: The second most popular album on that list is Mingus's Blues and Roots, which featured two trombones, Jimmy Knepper and the less familiar Willie Dennis. Curtis Fuller has an album at #15, and that's about it in the top 50 except for a couple of big band albums, where you'd expect to find trombones. Third on the list is Miles Davis's Sketches of Spain, with Frank Rehak and Dick Nixon (I guess he had to do something after losing to Kennedy). But that was a big band, so of course they had trombones.
Alto Sax:
1. Cannonball Adderley
2. Paul Desmond
3. Sonny Stitt
4. Art Pepper
5. Johnny Hodges
6. Ornette Coleman
7. Jackie McLean
8. Lee Konitz
9. Phil Woods
10. Bud Shank
Cannonball Adderley replaced Paul Desmond at the top spot, an indication of the growing popularity of soul jazz--among voters, at least. That the editors of Down Beat were still reluctant to admit that jazz had changed a lot over the course of a couple of decades can be seen by their unchanging categories. There was still no organ category in 1960. Bizarrely, there was still an accordion category.
Looking at last year's poll, I guessed that no one would ever outpoll Paul Desmond. If I only could have looked into the future...and of course, I could have. But I prefer to let the unrolling of history surprise me.
Adderley and Desmond both got well over 2000 votes, and everyone else was an also-ran. But Ornette Coleman made his first appearance as a vote-getter. One could no longer ignore him, although a lot of voters still chose to reject him.
Desmond was never as much beloved by the Down Beat critics, perhaps because of East Coast bias. He did not even finish in the top three (Hodges and Stitt trailed Adderley). But if the critics were the real cognoscenti, why didn't they have Ornette in their top three?
Tenor Sax:
1. John Coltrane
2. Stan Getz
3. Coleman Hawkins
4. Zoot Sims
5. Ben Webster
6. Sonny Rollins
7. Benny Golson
8. Sonny Stitt
9. Bill Perkins
10. Johnny Griffin
It's worth noting that in 1960 two black instrumentalists replaced two longstanding white poll winners. Cannonball Adderley outpaced Paul Desmond by 400 votes. And John Coltrane drew about 1500 votes more than Stan Getz (2945-1495). I don't know that this says anything about changing racial attitudes in America.
Getz in the previous year had stood like a colossus, getting more than double the votes of second place finisher Sonny Rollins, and like Desmond, he looked unbeatable. Coltrane would go on to achieve mythic status, but in 1960 that was just starting to happen.
Rollins faded in the polls, because he seemed to have retired from jazz, no one knew why, and no one knew if he was ever coming back. We know now, of course. He was right in the middle of a three-year, self imposed trip to the woodshed, his particular woodshed being under the Williamsburg Bridge. There is currently a campaign to rename that structure the Sonny Rollins Bridge, and isn't that a no-brainer? It should have been done already. It should be done now.
Benny Golson still languished low on the list, which surprises me a little. Te Jazztet were a big deal back in 1960, and Golson was starting to make an impact on the public consciousness as a composer, with "Killer Joe" and "I Remember Clifford," just to name two.
The critics went with tradition on the tenor sax. John Coltrane, before and especially after his death, attained Olympian status, and were there a Mount Rushmore of tenor players, he would certainly be carved into it, but at that time, that Mt. Rushmore only had three names: Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young and Ben Webster. Young had died the year before, so Coltrane edged his way in. Hawkins was their top choice, and Webster and Coltrane tied for second.
Some very good tenor saxophonists whose roots were in rhythm and blues, such as Willis "Gator Tail" Jackson, made some very good records in 1960, but they had never gotten any respect from the jazz clique, and they never would.
Baritone Sax:
1. Gerry Mulligan
2. Pepper Adams
3. Harry Carney
4. Frank Hittner
5. Cecil Payne
6. Sahib Shihab
7. Ronnie Ross
8. Jimmy Giuffre
A category owned by Gerry Mulligan. In 1960, he was some 6500 votes ahead of his closest competitor.
Down Beat had a problem that year with rigged voting, involving "faked ballots." I take that to mean that you had to use the tearout ballot that came with the magazine, which must have meant that you had to buy a magazine to vote, and more than one copy of the magazine if you wanted to vote more than once. A couple of musicians were disqualified because of ballot-stuffing, just like what had happened to Major League Baseball in 1957, when overenthusiastic Cincinnati voters placed Redlegs at every position except first base (Stan Musial made the cut; Hank Aaron and Willie Mays were outpolled). But you have to wonder if the Down Beat staff, overwhelmed by double the number of votes they had ever gotten before, may have let a few slip by them. Frank Hittner was a solid journeyman who played in Woody Herman's and Maynard Ferguson's big bands for many years, but fourth place among baritone saxophonists?
Clarinet:
1. Buddy DeFranco
2. Jimmy Giuffre
3. Tony Scott
4. Benny Goodman
5. Pete Fountain
6. Jimmy Hamilton
7. Art Pepper
8. Sam Most
9. Edmond Hall
10. Woody Herman
I'm guessing that Down Beat's editors did not give a lot of thought to the issue of downgrading some instruments to Miscellaneous and upgrading others to their own category. And if they had, I suppose they would have had a hard time retiring the clarinet category. It had once been the dominant woodwind instrument in jazz. And DeFranco, Giuffre and Scott were still doing forward-looking work on the instrument, although in a few years DeFranco would choose making a living over trying to make a space for an increasingly irrelevant instrument, and took over leadership of the Glenn Miller Orchestra.
If I had been advising Down Beat back in 1960, and knew then what I know now, I would have expanded the clarinet category to include all clarinets, so that Eric Dolphy's bass clarinet could have been included here, rather than in Miscellaneous Instruments.
Piano:
1. Oscar Peterson
2. Thelonious Monk
3. Horace Silver
4. Dave Brubeck
5. Bill Evans
6. Andre Previn
7. Errol Garner
8. Red Garland
9. John Lewis
10. Wynton Kelly
There were so many great piano players.You look at Red Garland and John Lewis and say "How can they be so far down?" But who on the list deserves to be lower?
According to Down Beat, the race between Peterson and Monk was not settled until the end of counting.
The big jump in the balloting was Horace Silver, 7th place to 3rd, again reflecting the growing popularity of soul jazz. Soul jazz also brought two newcomers to the list, lower down--Bobby Timmons and Les McCann.
Do the critics have better taste than the readers? Since there's no answer to that unless you rephrase the question, "Do the critics agree with me more than the readers do?" I will rephrase it that way. And the answer is, at least where the piano is concerned, more or less yeah. They put Monk--more idiosyncratic, a little more difficult--ahead of Peterson, and I'd go along with that. And critics, snobs that they are, tend to shrink from the popular and go for the more esoteric, so they were not quite ready to jump on the Horace Silver bandwagon. Their third choice was Bill Evans, and I have to say I'd go along with that, too.
Guitar:
1. Barney Kessel
2. Wes Montgomery
3. Kenny Burrell
4, Charlie Byrd
5. Jim Hall
6. Herb Ellis
7.Johnny Smith
8. Freddie Green
9. Sal Salvador
10. Tal Farlow
Here's a category with a real rising star. Wes Montgomery placed 10th in the Readers' Poll in 1959, the first year that he registered in the voting at all. Barney Kessel was a hard man to beat, although Kenny Burrell topped him in the critics' poll. Montgomery would dominate the category throughout the next decade.
Bass:
1. Ray Brown
2. Paul Chambers
3. Charles Mingus
4. Red Mitchell
5. Percy Heath
6. Leroy Vinnegar
7. Sam Jones
8. Gene Wright
9. Oscar Pettiford
10. Milt Hinton
No change to speak of from 1959 as far as bass players are concerned. There was an important new talent on the scene, but no one as yet knew how important he was going to become. Ron Carter made his recording debut in 1960, and before the year was out, he had recorded with Eric Dolphy, Don Ellis, Coleman Hawkins, Yusef Lateef, Howard McGhee, Randy Weston, and Kai Winding. But it takes a while for a bass player to get noticed. And because it takes awhile for a bass player to get noticed, the bassists who were anchoring the new jazz lagged behind lead instrumentalists like Coltrane, Coleman and Dolphy. Scott LoFaro would die before he was fully recognized. Charlie Haden and Jimmy Garrison were at the beginning of their careers, noticed by their peers, and making some of the most important music of the day, but not yet in the eyes and ears of the general public,
Drums
1. Shelley Manne
2. Joe Morello
3. Max Roach
4. Philly Joe Jones
5. Art Blakey
6. Buddy Rich
7. Jo Jones
8. Chico Hamilton
9. Gene Krupa
10. Louis Hayes
It was still an old boy's club on the drums, too, and nothing wrong with that. Every one of these guys had made their bones. Some of them, like Jimmy Cobb (15th on the list) and Roy Haynes (inexplicably overlooked) are even older boys now, and still playing into their 90s. You would have thought the jazz public would have started to recognize Elvin Jones. He'd been recording with the best in the business for a good five years, and in 1960 he had made three albums with John Coltrane, including My Favorite Things.
Flute
1. Herbie Mann
2. Frank Wess
3. Bud Shank
4. James Moody
5. Yusef Lateef
6. Eric Dolphy
7. Buddy Colette
8. Sam Most
9. Jerome Richardson
10. Paul Horn
The big new story here, of course, is Eric Dolphy, but there was a significant rise in recognition for Yusef Lateer, too, from 11th the previous year.
Vibraharp
1. Milt Jackson
2. Lionel Hampton
3. Terry Gibbs
4. Red Norvo
5. Cal Tjader
6. Vic Feldman
7. Mike Mainieri
I've talked a little, and will talk more, about the ossification of categories in the Down Beat polls of this era, but there was one significant change, and it was accidental. Vibraharp was dropped by virtue of being accidentally left off of the new voting forms. This list was put together from votes in the miscellaneous category, and it ended up exactly the same as last year, except maybe even a little more lopsided in favor of Milt Jackson, and with Mike Mainieri the one newcomer.
Accordion
1. Art Van Damme
2. Mat Mathews
3. Pete Jolly
4. Leon Sash
5. Dick Contino
6. Lawrence Welk
7. George Shearing
8. Tommy Gumina
Oh, come on. Why is the accordion still given its own category? Actually, there were some very important musicians playing the accordion in these years, but they were down in the swamps of Louisiana and the Down Beat readers either didn't know about them or didn't think they were worthy of inclusion, although they included Lawrence Welk. Tommy Gumina would make some interesting but not well-remembered albums with Buddy DeFranco, combining two fringe instruments, in the 1960s.
Miscellaneous Instrument
1. Don Elliot, mellophone (1)
2. Jimmy Smith, organ (2)
3. Miles Davis, flugelhorn (3)
4. Julius Watkins, French horn (5)
5. Shirley Scott, organ (10)
6. Jean Thielemans, harmonica (4)
7. Yusef Lateef, oboe (-)
8. Maynard Ferguson, baritone horn (-)
9 Steve Lacy, soprano saxophone (14)
10. Shorty Rogers, flugelhorn (6)
The Miscellaneous Instrument category seems to have been invented for Don Elliot, and still in 1960 he was winning it, in spite of the rocketing rise to stardom of a bunch of organists led by Jimmy Smith, but surely including Shirley Scott. Nobody much cared about the category, anyway. Over 9000 ballots were cast altogether in 1960, and Elliot's winning total was 705. Of course, there were also all those votes cast for Milt Jackson because they'd forgotten the vibraharp category.
If they had just made one category for Trumpet Family, the flugelhorn and cornet votes could have gone there, and more room would have been made for actual musical instruments, like Roland Kirk's manzello. And if they'd included the bass clarinet with clarinets, Eric Dolphy would likely have gotten a lot more recognition.
And no votes anywhere for percussionists, who probably also deserved their own category. How important was Ray Barretto in these years? Sabu Martinez? Mongo Santamaria? Yet no category, no recognition.
The critics' top two choices were Julius Watkins and violinist Stuff Smith.
Composer and Arranger
1. Gil Evans
2. Quincy Jones
3. Duke Ellington
4. John Lewis
5. Benny Golson
6. Andre Previn
7. Marty Paitch
8. Thelonious Monk
9. Henry Mancini
10. Horace Silver
I've said this before, and it doesn't particularly bear repeating. Nobody really knew who counted as a composer-arranger. People like Frank Loesser were still writing, and their songs were still being recorded by jazz musicians. Ornette Coleman had written classics like "Lonely Woman," and John Coltrane classics like "Naima." George Russell was still doing hugely important work, and Oliver Nelson was estabishing himself as an important composer, although The Blues and the Abstract Truth was still a year away. And so on.
The Down Beat critics went for Ellington, Evans, Golson, and the readers of Japanese Down Beat, in something of an upset, chose Benny Golson.
Big Band - Jazz
1. Count Basie (1)
2. Maynard Ferguson (3)
3. Duke Ellington (4)
4. Stan Kenton (2)
5. Gerry Mulligan (-)
6. Quincy Jones (16)
7. Gil Evans (7)
8. Woody Herman (9)
9. Herb Pomeroy (6)
10. Dizzy Gillespie (14)
Big Band-Dance
1. Les Brown (1)
2. Count Basie (3)
3. Maynard Ferguson (4)
4. Les Elgart (2)
5. Stan Kenton (6)
6. Si Zentner (6)
7. Harry James (5)
8. Duke Ellington (8)
9. Ray McKinley (10)
10. Woody Herman (11)
Count Basie was at or near the top of both lists, appropriately. He was as good to dance to as to listen to. Les Brown was the perennial dance band poll winner, and I'm not quite sure why. Did people vote for him because hey, he was at the top of last year's poll and the year before, so he must be good? Or because he really was better to dance to than anyone else? It seems to me that the best reason for voting for a dance band would be: you went to a dance where they were playing, and you had a good time.
Completely missing from both the jazz band (incomprehensible) and the dance band (inexcusable) lists are the great Latin bands: Tito Puente and Machito, Perez Prado and Xavier Cugat, Jack Costanza, many others.
Also missing are the society bands: Lester Lanin, Meyer Davis. They may not have been very exciting musically, but people certainly danced to them. A more striking omission: Guy Lombardo. He was considered the apotheosis of squaredom, but his reputation has been at least modestly reconsidered in recent years with the revelation that he was Louis Armstrong's favorite bandleader. And if the Down Beat readers were so appalled by squares, how come the 73 votes for Lawrence Welk on accordion?
Receiving votes in Japan but not the USA was Glen Gray, and who knew he was still around? The Casa Loma Orchestra disbanded in 1947. But they made a comeback in the late 1950s, recording and making the occasional TV appearance, but not touring and playing dances, from 1957 until Gray's death in 1963.
Combo
1. Modern Jazz Quartet
2. Dave Brubeck
3. Miles Davis
4. Farmer-Golson Jazztet
5. Horace Silver
6. Oscar Peterson
7. Art Blakey's Jazz Messenger
8. Charlie Mingus
9. Ahmad Jamal
10. Ornette Coleman
The Jazztet and Horace Silver, and of course Ornette Coleman, represent the new combos for a new decade. Silver had been leading groups for a while, but as the decade ended he was producing works of melodic immediacy that caught people's attention. Both Silver's groups and the Jazztet combined instrumental virtuosity with powerful compositions.
Vocal Group
1. Lambert-Hendricks-Ross
2. Four Freshmen
3. Hi-Los
4. Kingston Trio
5. Jackie Cain-Roy Kral
6. Mills Brothers
7. Axidentals
Nothing new to report here. Not even any new complaints. Why are the Kingston Trio considered a better jazz group than a real jazz group like Jackie and Roy (the critics put Jackie and Roy in their top 3)? Why are the Kingston Trio considered a jazz group, at all, and the doowop harmony groups not? But it's 1960, and the era of that underrated genre, including several of the finest singers and harmonists of their day, was coming to an end. Well, the era of the Mills Brothers, wonderful as they were. had ended some time ago, and that didn't seem to bother the voters.
Male Singer
1. Frank Sinatra
2. Joe Williams
3. Mel Torme
4. Ray Charles
5. Jon Hendricks
6. Johnny Mathis
7. Jimmy Rushing
8. Bill Henderson
9. Nat Cole
10. Mose Allison
Nothing to argue with here. Well, not much. Ray Charles broke through the jazz crowd's fear of rock 'n roll, but Sam Cooke did not. Mose Allison cracked the top ten for the first time, and about time. Bill Henderson is a new name on the list, though he'd really come to prominence a couple of years earlier, recording "Senor Blues" with Horace Silver, his biggest hit.
Female Singer
1. Ella Fitzgerald
2. Sarah Vaughan
3. Anita O'Day
4. Nina Simone
5. Annie Ross
6. Peggy Lee
7. June Christy
8. Chris Connor
9. Dinah Washington
10. Dakota Staton
Absolutely nothing to argue with here. Oh, you could quibble. Why isn't your favorite singer on the list? How about Carmen McRae? (She's number 11.) How about Betty Carter? Etta Jones? (Carter was still pretty new, and her great duet album with Ray Charles wasn't till the following year; Jones never did get her due.) The great rhythm and blues singers -- Etta James, Big Maybelle? (Jazz snobs.) Blossom Dearie? (She's in France.) But the truth is, there were so many great female singers in this era, no list is going to be big enough for them.
More 1960 wrapup next time.
I suppose the Down Beat reviewers were following the mandates of their job: to be, in their phrase, a "Jazz Record Buyer's Guide," highlighting the albums that are most worthy of your $4.98. And I'm not denigrating Down Beat. I guess this is as good a place as any for my annual appeal: why haven't all back issues of this national treasure been digitized and made available to jazz scholars and aficionados? Where is the grant from the NEH for this? Why doesn't Smithsonian buy the Down Beat archives and digitize them?
But today, we are grateful for all these records--and for the ones that Down Beat never reviewed. They're what we have of this golden decade in the American Century in music, and listening from the perspective of time we can appreciate their beauty, their creativity, their value. And we can want to go back and pop one on the nose of the guy who shortchanged Curtis Fuller or Lee Morgan or Wynton Kelly (as Curtis and Lee and Wynton surely wanted to do also), but they were of their time, and we can be grateful for their contributions too.
1960 was very much a year for the bifurcation of jazz into soul and free. The organ groups, particularly Jimmy Smith but including Prestige artists Shirley Scorr, Jack McDuff, Johnny "Hammond" Smith and Larry Young, were becoming hugely popular. Cannonball Adderley on Riverside and Horace Silver on Blue Note were helping to define the new sound. Addereley's seminal Live at the Lighthouse was recorded in 1960. Bobby Timmons went into the studio three times during the year for Riverside. His first release, This Here is Bobby Timmons, contained three of his compositions that were to become soul jazz anthems: "Moanin'," "This Here" and "Dat Dere."
In 1960, Ornette Coleman recorded an album that featured two quartets, each playing on a separate stereo channel. He called the album Free Jazz, and he wasn't necessarily trying to give a name to a new movement, but that's what happened. The free jazz revolution put an indelible stamp on the music in 1960. John Coltrane released Giant Steps and recorded My Favorite Things. Eric Dolphy launched a meteoric and all-too-brief career with Prestige. Cecil Taylor released The World of Cecil Taylor, with a group that included Archie Shepp.
Dolphy joined Charles Mingus for the album Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus. Mingus had initially disparaged Coleman's playing, but in April of 1960, Mingus was given a blindfold test by Leonard Feather in Down Beat, and he had this to say:
It actually took a little while for "free jazz" to become the standard name for that style of jazz that broke free from the bonds of chord progressions. In Art Taylor's book, Notes and Tones, composed of interviews with other jazz musicians between 1968 and 1972, they talk a lot about "freedom music."Now aside from the fact that I doubt he can even play a C scale in whole notes—tied whole notes, a couple of bars apiece—in tune, the fact remains that his notes and lines are so fresh. So when Symphony Sid played his record, it made everything else he was playing, even my own record that he played, sound terrible.I’m not saying everybody’s going to have to play like Coleman. But they’re going to have to stop copying Bird.
Some jazz musicians were into another kind of "freedom music" as the new decade began, a decade in which the civil rights struggles erupted passionately. We think of folk singers and protest songs, but jazz musicians were involved too, and one of the most politically active was Max Roach. 1960 saw the release of his album We Insist, a collaboration with lyricist Oscar Brown Jr. Randy Weston's Uhuru Africa, featuring the poetry of Langston Hughes on some cuts, would be banned in apartheid South Africa.
And there was still plenty of fresh and creative bebop-influenced jazz, notably Art Farmer, Benny Golson and Curtis Fuller's collaborative Meet the Jazztet.
Oscar Pettiford died in 1960.
Here's how various polls saw the year in jazz:
Dizzy Gillespie was 1960's inductee into the Down Beat hall of fame. Billie Holiday and Miles Davis were runners-up; others trailed far behind.
In Down Beat, here weren't as many categories as in previous years. Rhythm and blues, finally recognized in 1959 because they could no longer ignore Ray Charles, is gone again. Personality of the Year is gone; it was an odd one, anyway.
All stars by instrument:
Trumpet:
1. Miles Davis
2. Dizzy Gillespie
3. Maynard Ferguson
4. Art Farmer
5. Lee Morgan
6. Louis Armstrong
7. Donald Byrd
8. Nat Adderley
9. Chet Baker
Those were the ones who got more than 100 votes, and no real surprises. The top four were unchanged from the previous year. Donald Byrd and Nat Adderley jumped up considerably in the rankings--and so, unaccountably, did Louis Armstrong, since there wasn't exactly an Armstrong renaissance in 1960. No free jazz here -- but in the Japanese Down Beat readers' poll, a new feature for 1960, Don Cherry made the list.
Armstrong was certainly not forgotten by what may have been a more sophisticated group, the Down Bear critics poll, where he finished fourth to Davis, Gillespie and Farmer. Nor was he forgotten by an arguably less sophisticated group--Playboy readers voted him second to Davis. And he was still hot internationally, finishing second in Britain's Melody Maker and France's Jazz Hot,
Trombone:
1. J. J. Johnson
2. Bob Brookmeyer
3. Curtis Fuller
4. Frank Rosolino
5. Jack Teagarden
6. Urbie Green
7. Kai Winding
8. Jimmy Cleveland
9. Jimmy Knepper
10. Slide Hampton
J. J. Johnson continued to dominate this field, with 4097 votes to Brookmeyer's 932. The only more dominant instrumentalist was Gerry Mulligan. Curtis Fuller rose in popularity, largely due to his work with the Jazztet, and he rose even higher in the Critics' Poll, finishing second to Johnson. My instinct tells me that the trombone was not a really hot instrument in the jazz world of 1960. Checking up on that instinct with the rateyourmusic poll, about which more later: The second most popular album on that list is Mingus's Blues and Roots, which featured two trombones, Jimmy Knepper and the less familiar Willie Dennis. Curtis Fuller has an album at #15, and that's about it in the top 50 except for a couple of big band albums, where you'd expect to find trombones. Third on the list is Miles Davis's Sketches of Spain, with Frank Rehak and Dick Nixon (I guess he had to do something after losing to Kennedy). But that was a big band, so of course they had trombones.
Alto Sax:
1. Cannonball Adderley
2. Paul Desmond
3. Sonny Stitt
4. Art Pepper
5. Johnny Hodges
6. Ornette Coleman
7. Jackie McLean
8. Lee Konitz
9. Phil Woods
10. Bud Shank
Cannonball Adderley replaced Paul Desmond at the top spot, an indication of the growing popularity of soul jazz--among voters, at least. That the editors of Down Beat were still reluctant to admit that jazz had changed a lot over the course of a couple of decades can be seen by their unchanging categories. There was still no organ category in 1960. Bizarrely, there was still an accordion category.
Looking at last year's poll, I guessed that no one would ever outpoll Paul Desmond. If I only could have looked into the future...and of course, I could have. But I prefer to let the unrolling of history surprise me.
Adderley and Desmond both got well over 2000 votes, and everyone else was an also-ran. But Ornette Coleman made his first appearance as a vote-getter. One could no longer ignore him, although a lot of voters still chose to reject him.
Desmond was never as much beloved by the Down Beat critics, perhaps because of East Coast bias. He did not even finish in the top three (Hodges and Stitt trailed Adderley). But if the critics were the real cognoscenti, why didn't they have Ornette in their top three?
Tenor Sax:
1. John Coltrane
2. Stan Getz
3. Coleman Hawkins
4. Zoot Sims
5. Ben Webster
6. Sonny Rollins
7. Benny Golson
8. Sonny Stitt
9. Bill Perkins
10. Johnny Griffin
It's worth noting that in 1960 two black instrumentalists replaced two longstanding white poll winners. Cannonball Adderley outpaced Paul Desmond by 400 votes. And John Coltrane drew about 1500 votes more than Stan Getz (2945-1495). I don't know that this says anything about changing racial attitudes in America.
Getz in the previous year had stood like a colossus, getting more than double the votes of second place finisher Sonny Rollins, and like Desmond, he looked unbeatable. Coltrane would go on to achieve mythic status, but in 1960 that was just starting to happen.
Rollins faded in the polls, because he seemed to have retired from jazz, no one knew why, and no one knew if he was ever coming back. We know now, of course. He was right in the middle of a three-year, self imposed trip to the woodshed, his particular woodshed being under the Williamsburg Bridge. There is currently a campaign to rename that structure the Sonny Rollins Bridge, and isn't that a no-brainer? It should have been done already. It should be done now.
Benny Golson still languished low on the list, which surprises me a little. Te Jazztet were a big deal back in 1960, and Golson was starting to make an impact on the public consciousness as a composer, with "Killer Joe" and "I Remember Clifford," just to name two.
The critics went with tradition on the tenor sax. John Coltrane, before and especially after his death, attained Olympian status, and were there a Mount Rushmore of tenor players, he would certainly be carved into it, but at that time, that Mt. Rushmore only had three names: Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young and Ben Webster. Young had died the year before, so Coltrane edged his way in. Hawkins was their top choice, and Webster and Coltrane tied for second.
Some very good tenor saxophonists whose roots were in rhythm and blues, such as Willis "Gator Tail" Jackson, made some very good records in 1960, but they had never gotten any respect from the jazz clique, and they never would.
Baritone Sax:
1. Gerry Mulligan
2. Pepper Adams
3. Harry Carney
4. Frank Hittner
5. Cecil Payne
6. Sahib Shihab
7. Ronnie Ross
8. Jimmy Giuffre
A category owned by Gerry Mulligan. In 1960, he was some 6500 votes ahead of his closest competitor.
Down Beat had a problem that year with rigged voting, involving "faked ballots." I take that to mean that you had to use the tearout ballot that came with the magazine, which must have meant that you had to buy a magazine to vote, and more than one copy of the magazine if you wanted to vote more than once. A couple of musicians were disqualified because of ballot-stuffing, just like what had happened to Major League Baseball in 1957, when overenthusiastic Cincinnati voters placed Redlegs at every position except first base (Stan Musial made the cut; Hank Aaron and Willie Mays were outpolled). But you have to wonder if the Down Beat staff, overwhelmed by double the number of votes they had ever gotten before, may have let a few slip by them. Frank Hittner was a solid journeyman who played in Woody Herman's and Maynard Ferguson's big bands for many years, but fourth place among baritone saxophonists?
Clarinet:
1. Buddy DeFranco
2. Jimmy Giuffre
3. Tony Scott
4. Benny Goodman
5. Pete Fountain
6. Jimmy Hamilton
7. Art Pepper
8. Sam Most
9. Edmond Hall
10. Woody Herman
I'm guessing that Down Beat's editors did not give a lot of thought to the issue of downgrading some instruments to Miscellaneous and upgrading others to their own category. And if they had, I suppose they would have had a hard time retiring the clarinet category. It had once been the dominant woodwind instrument in jazz. And DeFranco, Giuffre and Scott were still doing forward-looking work on the instrument, although in a few years DeFranco would choose making a living over trying to make a space for an increasingly irrelevant instrument, and took over leadership of the Glenn Miller Orchestra.
If I had been advising Down Beat back in 1960, and knew then what I know now, I would have expanded the clarinet category to include all clarinets, so that Eric Dolphy's bass clarinet could have been included here, rather than in Miscellaneous Instruments.
Piano:
1. Oscar Peterson
2. Thelonious Monk
3. Horace Silver
4. Dave Brubeck
5. Bill Evans
6. Andre Previn
7. Errol Garner
8. Red Garland
9. John Lewis
10. Wynton Kelly
There were so many great piano players.You look at Red Garland and John Lewis and say "How can they be so far down?" But who on the list deserves to be lower?
According to Down Beat, the race between Peterson and Monk was not settled until the end of counting.
The big jump in the balloting was Horace Silver, 7th place to 3rd, again reflecting the growing popularity of soul jazz. Soul jazz also brought two newcomers to the list, lower down--Bobby Timmons and Les McCann.
Do the critics have better taste than the readers? Since there's no answer to that unless you rephrase the question, "Do the critics agree with me more than the readers do?" I will rephrase it that way. And the answer is, at least where the piano is concerned, more or less yeah. They put Monk--more idiosyncratic, a little more difficult--ahead of Peterson, and I'd go along with that. And critics, snobs that they are, tend to shrink from the popular and go for the more esoteric, so they were not quite ready to jump on the Horace Silver bandwagon. Their third choice was Bill Evans, and I have to say I'd go along with that, too.
Guitar:
1. Barney Kessel
2. Wes Montgomery
3. Kenny Burrell
4, Charlie Byrd
5. Jim Hall
6. Herb Ellis
7.Johnny Smith
8. Freddie Green
9. Sal Salvador
10. Tal Farlow
Here's a category with a real rising star. Wes Montgomery placed 10th in the Readers' Poll in 1959, the first year that he registered in the voting at all. Barney Kessel was a hard man to beat, although Kenny Burrell topped him in the critics' poll. Montgomery would dominate the category throughout the next decade.
Bass:
1. Ray Brown
2. Paul Chambers
3. Charles Mingus
4. Red Mitchell
5. Percy Heath
6. Leroy Vinnegar
7. Sam Jones
8. Gene Wright
9. Oscar Pettiford
10. Milt Hinton
No change to speak of from 1959 as far as bass players are concerned. There was an important new talent on the scene, but no one as yet knew how important he was going to become. Ron Carter made his recording debut in 1960, and before the year was out, he had recorded with Eric Dolphy, Don Ellis, Coleman Hawkins, Yusef Lateef, Howard McGhee, Randy Weston, and Kai Winding. But it takes a while for a bass player to get noticed. And because it takes awhile for a bass player to get noticed, the bassists who were anchoring the new jazz lagged behind lead instrumentalists like Coltrane, Coleman and Dolphy. Scott LoFaro would die before he was fully recognized. Charlie Haden and Jimmy Garrison were at the beginning of their careers, noticed by their peers, and making some of the most important music of the day, but not yet in the eyes and ears of the general public,
Drums
1. Shelley Manne
2. Joe Morello
3. Max Roach
4. Philly Joe Jones
5. Art Blakey
6. Buddy Rich
7. Jo Jones
8. Chico Hamilton
9. Gene Krupa
10. Louis Hayes
It was still an old boy's club on the drums, too, and nothing wrong with that. Every one of these guys had made their bones. Some of them, like Jimmy Cobb (15th on the list) and Roy Haynes (inexplicably overlooked) are even older boys now, and still playing into their 90s. You would have thought the jazz public would have started to recognize Elvin Jones. He'd been recording with the best in the business for a good five years, and in 1960 he had made three albums with John Coltrane, including My Favorite Things.
Flute
1. Herbie Mann
2. Frank Wess
3. Bud Shank
4. James Moody
5. Yusef Lateef
6. Eric Dolphy
7. Buddy Colette
8. Sam Most
9. Jerome Richardson
10. Paul Horn
The big new story here, of course, is Eric Dolphy, but there was a significant rise in recognition for Yusef Lateer, too, from 11th the previous year.
Vibraharp
1. Milt Jackson
2. Lionel Hampton
3. Terry Gibbs
4. Red Norvo
5. Cal Tjader
6. Vic Feldman
7. Mike Mainieri
I've talked a little, and will talk more, about the ossification of categories in the Down Beat polls of this era, but there was one significant change, and it was accidental. Vibraharp was dropped by virtue of being accidentally left off of the new voting forms. This list was put together from votes in the miscellaneous category, and it ended up exactly the same as last year, except maybe even a little more lopsided in favor of Milt Jackson, and with Mike Mainieri the one newcomer.
Accordion
1. Art Van Damme
2. Mat Mathews
3. Pete Jolly
4. Leon Sash
5. Dick Contino
6. Lawrence Welk
7. George Shearing
8. Tommy Gumina
Oh, come on. Why is the accordion still given its own category? Actually, there were some very important musicians playing the accordion in these years, but they were down in the swamps of Louisiana and the Down Beat readers either didn't know about them or didn't think they were worthy of inclusion, although they included Lawrence Welk. Tommy Gumina would make some interesting but not well-remembered albums with Buddy DeFranco, combining two fringe instruments, in the 1960s.
Miscellaneous Instrument
1. Don Elliot, mellophone (1)
2. Jimmy Smith, organ (2)
3. Miles Davis, flugelhorn (3)
4. Julius Watkins, French horn (5)
5. Shirley Scott, organ (10)
6. Jean Thielemans, harmonica (4)
7. Yusef Lateef, oboe (-)
8. Maynard Ferguson, baritone horn (-)
9 Steve Lacy, soprano saxophone (14)
10. Shorty Rogers, flugelhorn (6)
The Miscellaneous Instrument category seems to have been invented for Don Elliot, and still in 1960 he was winning it, in spite of the rocketing rise to stardom of a bunch of organists led by Jimmy Smith, but surely including Shirley Scott. Nobody much cared about the category, anyway. Over 9000 ballots were cast altogether in 1960, and Elliot's winning total was 705. Of course, there were also all those votes cast for Milt Jackson because they'd forgotten the vibraharp category.
If they had just made one category for Trumpet Family, the flugelhorn and cornet votes could have gone there, and more room would have been made for actual musical instruments, like Roland Kirk's manzello. And if they'd included the bass clarinet with clarinets, Eric Dolphy would likely have gotten a lot more recognition.
And no votes anywhere for percussionists, who probably also deserved their own category. How important was Ray Barretto in these years? Sabu Martinez? Mongo Santamaria? Yet no category, no recognition.
The critics' top two choices were Julius Watkins and violinist Stuff Smith.
Composer and Arranger
1. Gil Evans
2. Quincy Jones
3. Duke Ellington
4. John Lewis
5. Benny Golson
6. Andre Previn
7. Marty Paitch
8. Thelonious Monk
9. Henry Mancini
10. Horace Silver
I've said this before, and it doesn't particularly bear repeating. Nobody really knew who counted as a composer-arranger. People like Frank Loesser were still writing, and their songs were still being recorded by jazz musicians. Ornette Coleman had written classics like "Lonely Woman," and John Coltrane classics like "Naima." George Russell was still doing hugely important work, and Oliver Nelson was estabishing himself as an important composer, although The Blues and the Abstract Truth was still a year away. And so on.
The Down Beat critics went for Ellington, Evans, Golson, and the readers of Japanese Down Beat, in something of an upset, chose Benny Golson.
Big Band - Jazz
1. Count Basie (1)
2. Maynard Ferguson (3)
3. Duke Ellington (4)
4. Stan Kenton (2)
5. Gerry Mulligan (-)
6. Quincy Jones (16)
7. Gil Evans (7)
8. Woody Herman (9)
9. Herb Pomeroy (6)
10. Dizzy Gillespie (14)
Big Band-Dance
1. Les Brown (1)
2. Count Basie (3)
3. Maynard Ferguson (4)
4. Les Elgart (2)
5. Stan Kenton (6)
6. Si Zentner (6)
7. Harry James (5)
8. Duke Ellington (8)
9. Ray McKinley (10)
10. Woody Herman (11)
Count Basie was at or near the top of both lists, appropriately. He was as good to dance to as to listen to. Les Brown was the perennial dance band poll winner, and I'm not quite sure why. Did people vote for him because hey, he was at the top of last year's poll and the year before, so he must be good? Or because he really was better to dance to than anyone else? It seems to me that the best reason for voting for a dance band would be: you went to a dance where they were playing, and you had a good time.
Completely missing from both the jazz band (incomprehensible) and the dance band (inexcusable) lists are the great Latin bands: Tito Puente and Machito, Perez Prado and Xavier Cugat, Jack Costanza, many others.
Also missing are the society bands: Lester Lanin, Meyer Davis. They may not have been very exciting musically, but people certainly danced to them. A more striking omission: Guy Lombardo. He was considered the apotheosis of squaredom, but his reputation has been at least modestly reconsidered in recent years with the revelation that he was Louis Armstrong's favorite bandleader. And if the Down Beat readers were so appalled by squares, how come the 73 votes for Lawrence Welk on accordion?
Receiving votes in Japan but not the USA was Glen Gray, and who knew he was still around? The Casa Loma Orchestra disbanded in 1947. But they made a comeback in the late 1950s, recording and making the occasional TV appearance, but not touring and playing dances, from 1957 until Gray's death in 1963.
Combo
1. Modern Jazz Quartet
2. Dave Brubeck
3. Miles Davis
4. Farmer-Golson Jazztet
5. Horace Silver
6. Oscar Peterson
7. Art Blakey's Jazz Messenger
8. Charlie Mingus
9. Ahmad Jamal
10. Ornette Coleman
The Jazztet and Horace Silver, and of course Ornette Coleman, represent the new combos for a new decade. Silver had been leading groups for a while, but as the decade ended he was producing works of melodic immediacy that caught people's attention. Both Silver's groups and the Jazztet combined instrumental virtuosity with powerful compositions.
Vocal Group
1. Lambert-Hendricks-Ross
2. Four Freshmen
3. Hi-Los
4. Kingston Trio
5. Jackie Cain-Roy Kral
6. Mills Brothers
7. Axidentals
Nothing new to report here. Not even any new complaints. Why are the Kingston Trio considered a better jazz group than a real jazz group like Jackie and Roy (the critics put Jackie and Roy in their top 3)? Why are the Kingston Trio considered a jazz group, at all, and the doowop harmony groups not? But it's 1960, and the era of that underrated genre, including several of the finest singers and harmonists of their day, was coming to an end. Well, the era of the Mills Brothers, wonderful as they were. had ended some time ago, and that didn't seem to bother the voters.
Male Singer
1. Frank Sinatra
2. Joe Williams
3. Mel Torme
4. Ray Charles
5. Jon Hendricks
6. Johnny Mathis
7. Jimmy Rushing
8. Bill Henderson
9. Nat Cole
10. Mose Allison
Nothing to argue with here. Well, not much. Ray Charles broke through the jazz crowd's fear of rock 'n roll, but Sam Cooke did not. Mose Allison cracked the top ten for the first time, and about time. Bill Henderson is a new name on the list, though he'd really come to prominence a couple of years earlier, recording "Senor Blues" with Horace Silver, his biggest hit.
Female Singer
1. Ella Fitzgerald
2. Sarah Vaughan
3. Anita O'Day
4. Nina Simone
5. Annie Ross
6. Peggy Lee
7. June Christy
8. Chris Connor
9. Dinah Washington
10. Dakota Staton
Absolutely nothing to argue with here. Oh, you could quibble. Why isn't your favorite singer on the list? How about Carmen McRae? (She's number 11.) How about Betty Carter? Etta Jones? (Carter was still pretty new, and her great duet album with Ray Charles wasn't till the following year; Jones never did get her due.) The great rhythm and blues singers -- Etta James, Big Maybelle? (Jazz snobs.) Blossom Dearie? (She's in France.) But the truth is, there were so many great female singers in this era, no list is going to be big enough for them.
More 1960 wrapup next time.
Monday, May 21, 2018
Listening to Prestige 334: Wrapping up 1959, Part 2
And it’s time for our annual look at
the quirky and always interesting voters at the RateYourMusic website.
Jazz, as usual, dominates the list, but it’s not exclusive, so we’ll just look
at the jazz. As always, this is a snapshot of a moment in time. The site’s
followers keep voting, so although the records at the top have amassed enough
votes to remain pretty stable, lower down there’s volatility. I like the list
because it gives a complete picture of the year in music (they list something
like 500 albums) and because it gives an interesting perspective on what albums
continue to hold the jazz connoisseur’s interest.
The top of the list pretty much
duplicates Nathan Holoway’s choices, except that Giant Steps and Portrait
in Jazz are considered 1960 albums and therefore not included: Kind of
Blue, Mingus Ah Um, The Shape of Jazz to Come, Time Out.
Here’s what follows.
5.
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers (Blue
Note). “Moanin’” is what makes this album rate so high. The administrators of
the RateYourMusic site even put the song’s name in parentheses after the
album title.
6.
Nina Simone, Little Girl Blue (Bethlehem).
If I were making a case for 1959 as jazz’s most creative year, and I wanted to
include a singer, I think I’d make it Nina Simone rather than Ella Fitzgerald.
Simone was really the cutting edge, as contemporary listeners have come to appreciate
more than did the Down Beat readers of the time.
7.
The Miles Davis Quintet, Workin’. From
the Contractual Marathon.
10. Dizzy
Gillespie, Sonny Stitt and Sonny Rollins, Sonny Side Up (Verve)
11. The
Cannonball Adderley Quintet featuring Nat Adderley in San Francisco (Riverside)
12. The
Thelonious Monk Orchestra at Town Hall (Riverside). This should have been
included as an example of the creative power unleashed in 1959, with a
ten-piece orchestra and arrangements by Hall Overton.
15. Joao
Gilberto, Chega de saudade (Odeon). This is the album that made Gilberto
a star in South America, though it would take a few more years, and Stan Getz,
for Norteamericano audiences to appreciate him. Chega de saudade was
voted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001, and contemporary listeners seem to
have caught up with it. It is pure bossa nova.
18. Sun
Ra, Jazz in Silhouette (Saturn). Another figure overlooked by Down
Beat readers at the time, particularly as composer (24 got votes, Ra was
not one of them). This isn’t a knock on the 1959 audience. Tastes change, and
there’s no reason to suppose that one generation’s tastes are better than
another’s. Still, the 1959 reader’s poll does not represent the most adventurous
jazz spirit.
19. Miles
Davis, Porgy and Bess (Columbia)
20. Champion
Jack Dupree, Blues from the Gutter (Atlantic)
21. Coleman
Hawkins Encounters Ben Webster (Verve). My kind of encounter. With Oscar
Peterson, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown, Alvin Stoller
22. Ella
Fizgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook (Verve). Norman Granz
had a knack for picking performers who had already stood the test of time, so
it’s small wonder so many of his recordings have continued to stand the test of
time.
23. Jimmy
Smith, The Sermon (Blue Note)
24. Finger
Poppin’ with the Horace Silver Quintet (Blue Note)
25. Sonny
Rollins, Newk’s Time (Blue Note)
26. Bill
Evans Trio, Everybody Digs Bill Evans (Riverside). Evans’ debut album.
27. The
Lester Young – Teddy Wilson Quintet, Pres and Teddy (Verve). A 1956
recording, released in 1959. What I said about Verve.
28. Ella
Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, Porgy and Bess (Verve)
29. Horace
Silver Quintet, Blowin’ the Blues Away (Blue Note). I love the cover art
here, by Paula Donohue. Blue Note rarely used graphic artists. Most of their
covers were photographs by the label’s co-founder, Francis Wolff, a fine
photographer. I can’t find anything else by Donohue. Too bad.
32. Cannonball
Adderley Quintet in Chicago (Mercury)
33. T-Bone
Walker, T-Bone Blues (Atlantic)
34. Charles
Mingus, Jazz Portraits (Mingus in Wonderland) (United Artists)
35. Back
to Back: Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges Play the Blues (Verve)
36. Nina
Simone at Town Hall (Colpix)
37. Duke
Ellington and Johnny Hodges, Side by Side (Verve)
39. Henry
Mancini, Music from Peter Gunn (RCA Victor)
40. Chet
Baker. Chet (Riverside)
44. Frank
Sinatra, No One Cares (Capitol)
47. Thelonious
Monk Quintet, 5 by Monk by 5 (Riverside)
48. Roy
Haynes, Phineas Newborn, Paul Chambers, We Three (Prestige)
49. Wynton
Kelly, Kelly Blue (Riverside)
50. Billie
Holiday, All or Nothing at All (Verve)
Others on the list: Lou Donaldson, Abbey Lincoln, Bud Powell,
Chico Hamilton, Blue Mitchell, Dizzy Reece, Gerry Mulligan, Antonio Carlos
Jobim, Jimmy Giuffre, Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Burrell, Idrees Suleiman, Steve
Lacy, Hank Mobley, Lee Morgan, Jackie McLean, Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. Michel
Legrand, Dorothy Ashby, Frank Wess, Memphis Slim, Cecil Taylor, Dinah
Washington, Peggy Lee, George Shearing, Larry Williams, Wes Montgomery, George
Russell, Huey “Piano” Smith, Ahmed Abdul Malik, Donald Byrd, Little Richard,
Julie London, Lee Konitz, Gil Evans, the Flamingos, Blossom Dearie, Jack
Kerouac and Steve Allen, Keely Smith, Johnny Griffin, Red Garland, Buddy Rich,
Max Roach, Mickey Baker, Paul Quinichette, Lou Donaldson, Sonny Stitt, Anita
O’Day, Charlie Shavers, Tiny Grimes, Paul Desmond, Modern Jazz Quartet, Hank
Ballard and the Midnighters, Benny Golson, Milt Jackson, Ahmad Jamal, Booker
Little, Sarah Vaughan, David “Fathead” Newman, Yusef Lateef, Jimmy Heath, Count
Basie, Tony Bennett, the Three Sounds, Shirley Bassey, Chico Hamilton, Carmen
McRae, Ernestine Anderson, Wilbur Harden,Fats Domino, Jerome Richardson, Ray
Bryant, Oliver Nelson, Benny Carter, Ruth Brown, Herbie Mann, Jimmy Rushing,
Oscar Pettiford, Ramsey Lewis, Barney Kessel, Lem Winchester, Mose Allison,
June Christy, and that’s just a few.
This was more a year of recommitment to the tradition for
Prestige than it was of innovation, but innovation was there. Eddie “Lockjaw”
Davis and Shirley Scott pioneered the organ-tenor sax combo. And Yusef Lateef bringing
his Eastern influenced sounds into modern jazz.
But also noteworthy to Prestige’s year were its Swingville
and Bluesville labels, bringing jazz masters from Coleman Hawkins to Willis “Gator
Tail” Jackson into the fold, with a marketing tool to get them noticed. Bob
Weinstock would keep these subsidiary labels going for several years, and jazz
would be the richer for it.
On to 1960!
Thursday, May 17, 2018
Listening to Prestige 333: Wrapping up 1959, Part 1
1959 is considered by many to be jazz's apex. A BBC documentary called it The Year that Changed Jazz. Nathan Holoway,
writing for the AllAboutJazz website, posits that 1959 was the most
creative year in the history of jazz, and he makes a pretty good case for it,
starting with Kind of Blue, which is particularly interesting in that it
really is a creative breakthrough, while at the same time being listener
friendly enough to make it the best selling album of all time. Modal jazz had
been played before, going back to Miles himself in 1949, but Kind of Blue really
brought it front and center as the new standard in jazz playing.
Holoway puts
Coltrane’s Giant Steps second on his list, although it’s generally
considered a 1960 album. Still, it was actually recorded in December of 1959, so
one can argue that that makes it part of 1959’s creative frenzy. Although no
Prestige albums are included in Holoway’s list of creativity champions (Blue
Note and Riverside make it), surely Bob Weinstock deserves credit for nurturing
Coltrane right up to the borderline of the promised land.
Giant Steps has
always sold respectably, but Holoway’s next choice, Dave Brubeck’s Time Out,
goes very nearly right alongside Kind of Blue for popularity, and it’s impossible
to question its creativity, with Brubeck exploring hitherto unheard-of time
signatures. On the other hand, the innovative genius of Ornette Coleman in The
Shape of Jazz to Come was wildly unpopular in 1959, and has acquired at
best a niche audience since. Still, it is one of the most influential jazz
albums ever made.
Those four are the
cream, and really all you’d need to make Holoway’s case. But the rest of his
list is not chopped liver. Bill Evans changed the way we listen to piano trios
with his Portraits in Jazz (released in 1960, but recorded as the sands
were running out on 1959). Horace Silver was ushering in the soul jazz movement
that would be so important in the next decade. Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington
(a new era in movie jazz with Anatomy of a Murder), and Ella Fitzgerald
would enhance the creativity of any year.
I’d put the work
Yusef Lateef was doing for Prestige down as further proof of the year’s innovative
creativity, even if it didn’t make the same kind of public splash as did the
aforenamed.
Some of the biggest
jazz news of 1959 was sad news. Lester Young and Billie Holiday died within
weeks of each other. Miles Davis made news outside of his musical
contributions, and indeed outside of a music venue, when he stepped into the
alley behind Birdland between sets, and was beaten and arrested by cops. With
all the news stories over the past year of police and African Americans, we can
despair of things getting better.
Here’s the Down
Beat poll for the year.
Hall of Fame:
The Hall of Fame inductee is Lester Young.
Hard to argue that one. Following him, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, Dave
Brubeck, Miles Davis. Plenty of time for Brubeck and Davis to be honored, too
bad Pres (and Lady) didn’t get it in their lifetimes.
Personality of
the year: Jazz
1.
Miles Davis
2.
Duke Ellington
3.
Lambert, Hendricks and Ross
4.
Dave Brubeck
5.
Count Basie
6.
Maynard Ferguson
7.
Thelonious Monk
8.
Ella Fitzgerald
9.
Gerry Mulligan
10. Julian
“Cannonball” Adderley
11. Stan
Kenton
12. Ahmad
Jamal
13. Dizzy
Gillespie
14. Gil
Evans
15. Modern
Jazz Quartet
16. Oscar
Peterson
17. Andre
Previn
18. Jonah
Jones
19. Errol
Garner
20. Louis
Armstrong
21. Shelley
Manne
22. Frank
Sinatra
23. Nina
Simone
24. John
Coltrane
25. Harry
James
26. Stan
Getz
27. Hank
Mancini
28. Joe
Williams
29. Coleman
Hawkins
30. Annie
Ross
What’s a jazz personality? I couldn’t come up with a
definition, and I doubt that none of those who made the poll, or who took the
poll, could manage one either. So who’s to criticize? Benny Goodman and Louis
Armstrong were the biggest international personalities, our Ambassadors of
Jazz. But who’s to criticize?
Given that, what are the surprises in the poll? For me, the
big one is that Coltrane is so low. Tied with Harry James for 24th, with 36
votes.
It's surprising that Lambert, Hendricks and Ross are that
high. Sing a Song of Basie was 1957, and I would have thought of that as
their big splash. “Twisted” was their biggest hit, but I think that may have
been 1960. Maynard Ferguson wouldn’t be in the top ten today, even if you were
trying to guess who made it back then, but he’s not really a surprise—he was
very popular then.
A big surprise—that Ornette Coleman did not make the list at
all. I know no one liked him back then (I did!) but everyone was talking about
him. He was the big controversy of 1959.
And as hot as soul jazz is becoming, it apparently hasn’t
spawned any personalities yet, not even Horace Silver or Jimmy Smith. Unless
you count Cannonball Adderley.
Maybe the biggest surprise about Mr. Mancini is that anyone
ever called him Hank. Not so surprising that the composer of “Moon River” and
“The Pink Panther” made a list of jazz personalities—1959 was the year of Peter
Gunn. Given that no one knows exactly what a jazz personality is, shouldn't
Craig Stevens and Lola Albright be jazz personalities of the year?
Personality of the Year: Pop
1.
Frank Sinatra
2.
Johnny Mathis
3.
Kingston Trio
4.
Bobby Darin
5.
Nat Cole
6.
Peggy Lee
7.
Ella Fitzgerald
8.
Keely Smith
9.
Louis Prima-Keely Smith
10. Perry
Como
This is certainly the Pop Personality list as defined by
Listeners to Lacy. Otherwise, Elvis would have to be at the top. I wonder how Down
Beat worded the instructions for voting on this one?
And if it’s strictly the sort of pop singers who were around
in the 1940s or at least would have felt home back then (Mathis, Darin), what
are the Kingston Trio doing there, and so high? And if they were going to carve
out an exception for a folk act, why the Trio and not Harry Belafonte (#20 on
the list with 28 votes)? Belafonte had played the Village Vanguard, and was a
regular in the high class supper clubs that featured this sort of act.
If good ol’ Hank Mancini is a jazz personality, what’s the
story with Steve Allen, who really did bring jazz to TV, but here gets votes as
a pop personality (#17, behind Patti Page and Nina Simone), although he was
never a figure in pop music, but no mention in jazz, although he was a legitimate
jazz presence.
Personality: Rhythm and Blues
1.
Ray Charles
2.
Fats Domino
3.
Joe Williams
4.
Dinah Washington
5.
Bobby Darin
6.
Jimmy Witherspoon
7.
Lloyd Price
8.
Joe Turner
9.
Elvis Presley
The editors and readers of Down
Beat can’t bring themselves to say “Rock and Roll.” Still, Elvis does
squeak into the top ten. Chuck Berry (#14) and Little Richard (no votes at
all????) do not.
Combo
1.
Dave Brubeck Quartet
2.
Modern Jazz Quartet
3.
Miles Davis Sextet
4.
Oscar Peterson Trio
5.
Gerry Mulligan Quartet
6.
Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers
7.
Ahmad Jamal Trio
8.
Horace Silver Quintet
9.
Jonah Jones Quartet
10. Chico
Hamilton Quintet
Hard to argue with any of the
choices here. Jonah Jones is pretty much forgotten today, but he was huge back
then, although not with jazz purists. And I’m sometimes hard on jazz purists
(freely admitting that I was one), but they were probably right about Jonah. He
was sort of the Chuck Mangione of his day. Still, he had some huge albums
around this time, with 1958’s Swingin’ on Broadway probably the biggest.
His 1959 album, I Dig Chicks! (do you suppose you could name an album
that today?) won a Grammy award for Best Instrumental Jazz Album, which is a
bit of a shocker, considering the competition.
Best Male Vocalist
1.
Frank Sinatra
2.
Joe Williams
3.
Johnny Mathis
4.
Jon Hendricks
5.
Jimmy Rushing
6.
Mel Torme
7.
Nat Cole
8.
Ray Charles
9.
Bobby Darin
10. Billy
Eckstine
Sinatra, of course. Joe Williams, a great choice for second.
Who ever thought of Johnny Mathis as a jazz singer? The movie Diner, set
in this period, features a serious debate over who’s the best singer to make
out to, Sinatra or Mathis? And he certainly fits in that category. Jazz singer,
not so clear.
Of course the best jazz singer of this year, any year, any
decade, any millennium, is Louis Armstrong (#12 in the poll). But Armstrong’s
star was not in the ascendant. He was thought of as a relic of another era, now
a mere entertainer. He was thus thought of by the same people who made Johnny
Mathis #3 in the jazz world. But Billy Eckstine’s time had certainly passed by
1959, and he still made the top ten.
Mose Allison (#15) was starting to get recognition.
And if pop superstar Johnny Mathis gets 380 votes and third
place as a jazz singer, what is pop superstar Sammy Davis, Jr. (#22, 21 votes)?
Chopped liver?
Best Female Vocalist
1.
Ella Fitzgerald
2.
Anita O’Day
3.
Annie Ross
4.
Sarah Vaughan
5.
June Christy
6.
Dakota Staton
7.
Chris Connor
8.
Peggy Lee
9.
Nina Simone
10. Eydie
Gormé
I’d put Sarah higher. She’s my all-time number one. But this
was the year of “Broken Hearted Melody”—not her best year. I’d put Nina higher,
but I wouldn’t put anyone lower. Dakota Staton’s reputation may not have
endured like some of the others, but she was flying high in 1959, and she
deserved it. There are certainly vocalists I’d rank ahead of Eydie Gormé on a
jazz list. Come on…this was Dinah Washington’s “What a Difference a Day Makes”
year. What more could you ask? She was #12. And what about Carmen McRae (#14)
and Lena Horne (#15)?
Best Vocal Group
1.
Lambert,
Hendricks and Ross
2.
Four Freshmen
3.
Hi-Los
4.
Kingston Trio
5.
King Sisters
Lambert-Hendricks-Ross dominated this category decisively.
The Four Freshmen and the Hi-Los kept getting votes because until LHR came
along, there was really no one to vote for, and the rest of the list proves it.
The Kingston Trio again. The King Sisters, who had been tangentially connected
to jazz in the 1940s, and who were still around, and as it turns out, would
always be around. In the 60s, they had their own TV variety show. They morphed
into the King Family, which included the King Cousins, one of whom played the
love interest for one of the Douglas clan on My Three Sons. And now Luise
King’s grandsons, Win and William Butler, head up indie-rock stars Arcade Fire.
So slim pickings on the jazz vocal group scene, but there
needn’t have been. The Platters made the list (#10), but no other rhythm and
blues/doowop groups, and many of them were keeping the Great American Songbook
flame alive, with cool and clever harmonies, and often saxophone breaks by
solid jazz musicians.
Jazz Band
1.
Count Basie
2.
Maynard Ferguson
3.
Duke Ellington
4.
Harry James
5.
Herb Pomeroy
6.
Gil Evans
7.
Terry Gibbs
8.
Woody Herman
9.
Johnny Richards
10. Ted
Heath
Dance Band
1.
Les Brown
2.
Les Elgart
3.
Count Basie
4.
Maynard Ferguson
5.
Harry James
A big year for Maynard Ferguson, my continued surprise that
Harry James is still so popular. And my continued amazement that nowhere, on
either list, will you find a Latin band.
Trumpet
1.
Miles Davis
2.
Dizzy Gillespie
3.
Maynard Ferguson
4.
Art Farmer
5.
Ruby Braff
6.
Jonah Jones
7.
Harry James
8.
Chet Baker
9.
Lee Morgan
10. Clark
Terry
No surprises at the top. Ruby Braff wasn’t exactly cutting
edge, but he was his own man. We can’t escape Jonah Jones and Harry James. The Down
Beat readers continue not to know what to do with Louis Armstrong, so he
comes in at #12. Kenny Dorham is #19, should be higher. Don (not Donald) Byrd
is last on the list at #24, should be a lot higher. Freddie Hubbard doesn’t
make the list at all, and he was making a name for himself in jazz circles by
1959—he’d recorded with Trane for Prestige in 1958—but he hadn’t recorded much
yet. Chuck Mangione is #16, and what’s that about? He was still in Rochester at
the Eastman School in 1959.
Trombone
1.
J. J. Johnson
2.
Bob Brookmeyer
3.
Kai Winding
4.
Frank Rosolino
5.
Jimmy Cleveland
6.
Urbie Green
7.
Jack Teagarden
8.
Curtis Fuller
9.
Bennie Green
10. Bill
Harris
Curtis Fuller is new to the list this year; expect him to
move up. Last year I complained that Bennie Green had been shut out of the top
ten. Perhaps I somehow went back in time, and the voters listened to me.
Alto Sax
1.
Paul Desmond
2.
Julian “Cannonball” Adderley
3.
Johnny Hodges
4.
Lee Konitz
5.
Art Pepper
6.
Sonny Stitt
7.
Bud Shank
8.
Phil Woods
9.
Paul Horn
10. Benny
Carter
Cannonball Adderley continues to rise in the charts. He’s now
number two with a bullet, except that Paul Desmond will likely never be
dislodged from the top spot, and he certainly deserves the accolades. Again,
the most conspicuous absence is Ornette Coleman, and he’s really absent this
year. Last year he had a handful of votes and just made the last spot on the
list. This year he appears to have gotten no votes at all.
In 1958 he may have been an interesting curiosity, someone
new on the scene that people didn’t quite know what to make of. In 1959 he was
the most controversial figure in jazz. So the way I look at is this. Desmond
and Adderley got their votes because people loved what they did. But for most
of the rest of the list, the vote meant a conscious decision to vote against
Ornette Coleman.
Tenor sax:
1.
Stan Getz
2.
Sonny Rollins
3.
John Coltrane
4.
Coleman Hawkins
5.
Zoot Sims
6.
Benny Golson
7.
Bill Perkins
8.
Ben Webster
9.
Al Cohn
10. Paul
Gonzalves
Benny Golson is the significant name on the list. Otherwise
virtually nothing changes.
It’s impossible to find fault with this ranking. Every one of
the top ten votegetters deserves to be there. Stan Getz number one and Sonny Rollins
number two? It’s reasonable, it’s not unfair. Rollins number one and Getz
number two? Every bit as reasonable. But looking at the numbers, and seeing
that Getz outpolled Rollins by two to one, and you can’t help but think: most
of the Down Beat voters are white.
Baritone Sax
1.
Gerry Mulligan
2.
Pepper Adams
3.
Cecil Payne
4.
Harry Carney
5.
Jimmy Giuffre
Gerry Mulligan gets more votes than the rest of the field put
together, outpolls Pepper Adams by about six to one, and after the first
five—after the first three, really—the votes dwindle down to a precious few.
Clarinet
1.
Tony Scott
2.
Jimmy Giuffre
3.
Buddy DeFranco
4.
Jimmy Hamilton
5.
Paul Horn
Both his Wikipedia page and his New York Times obituary
say substantially the same thing: Tony Scott was the best-known clarinet player
of his day, but no one has ever heard of him, because no one listened to
clarinet players in his day.
Flute
1. Herbie Mann
2. Bud Shank
3. Frank Wess
4. Buddy Collette
5. Paul Horn
6. Sam Most
7. Jerome Richardson
8. Moe Koffman
9. James Moody
10. Bobby Jaspar
No new names in the flute voting, and one missing who was on
the list last year, and who will become an important figure in the 1960s, as
the flute comes into new prominence: Yusef Lateef.
Vibes
1. Milt Jackson
2. Lionel
Hampton
3. Terry Gibbs
4. Red Norvo
5. Cal Tjader
Nothing to report here, either.
Accordion
1.
Art Van Damme
2.
Pete Jolly
3.
Mat Matthews
4.
Leon Sash
5.
Dick Contino
6.
Angelo DiPippo
7.
George Shearing
I asked last year why the accordion still got a separate
category, and the organ was still lumped in with miscellaneous instruments. I
thought maybe there were still more accordion players than organists on the
national scene, but that didn’t make sense. People were voting for Lawrence
Welk and Myron Floren just to have someone to vote for. That didn’t happen this
year, but only seven accordionists got any votes at all, and it’s hard to take
Dick Contino or Angelo DiPippo too seriously in a jazz context. Clifton Chenier
was already making records, but Down Beat readers can be forgiven for
not knowing about him.
Meanwhile, two of the hottest new musicians in jazz, Jimmy
Smith and Shirley Scott, were blazing a new trail, or the trail pioneered by
Wild Bill Davis, for the organ as one of the most prominent instruments of the
new soul jazz. Richard “Groove” Holmes, Jack McDuff, Jimmy McGriff, Johnny
“Hammond” Smith, Charles Earland, and many more were already loping down that
trail. Fine jazz organists like Bill Doggett and Doc Bagby were playing the
rhythm and blues side of the street. Piano players like Count Basie had a
serious organ presence. Down Beat was running a little behind the curve
on this one.
Guitar
1.
Barney Kessel
2.
Herb Ellis
3.
Charlie Byrd
4.
Kenny Burrell
5.
Jim Hall
6.
Freddie Green
7.
Johnny Smith
8.
Tal Farlow
9.
Mundell Lowe
10. Wes
Montgomery
I commented last year that Wes Montgomery had just missed the
top ten, and this year he’s just made it. But he’s not the prodigy of the year,
by any means. Charlie Byrd was number 20 last year, with 33 votes. Well, in
1958 he was playing at a club in Washington, DC, quite removed from the New
York scene, and recording for Savoy. Whereas in 1959, he was…still playing at a
club in Washington, DC, still quite removed from the New York scene, and
recording for an even smaller label. He wouldn’t make his big splash until a
few years later, the 1962 release of Jazz Samba, with Stan Getz. So why the sudden recognition? Beats me.
Piano
1.
Oscar Peterson
2.
Thelonious Monk
3.
Dave Brubeck
4.
Errol Garner
5.
Andre Previn
6.
Bill Evans
7.
Horace Silver
8.
Red Garland
9.
Ahmad Jamal
10. Bud
Powell
There are so many great piano players that if you lopped off
the top ten and started the list with the second ten (John Lewis, George
Shearing, Teddy Wilson, Wynton Kelly, Count Basie, Hank Jones, Lou Levy, Duke
Ellington, Russ Free.an, Hampton Hawes) there’d be no appreciable dropoff in
quality.
Looking back, I see I said much the same for 1958. Well, it
remains true.
The order of the top four shuffled from 1958 (then it was
Garner-Monk-Peterson-Brubeck). Bill Evans is new to the top 10, with Everybody
Digs Bill Evans (Riverside) and Kind of Blue propelling him into the
spotlight. André Previn would eventually go on to the career as a symphony
orchestra conductor for which he is probably better remembered, but he still
had a lot of jazz in him, throughout much of the 1960s.
Bass
1.
Ray Brown
2.
Paul Chambers
3.
Red Mitchell
4.
Charles Mingus
5.
Percy Heath
6.
Leroy Vinnegar
7.
Oscar Pettiford
8.
Milt Hinton
9.
Arvell Shaw
10. Israel
Crosby
Here’s the weird thing about this list. Louis Armstrong
doesn’t make the top ten in anything—jazz personality, combo, male vocalist,
trumpet—but his bass player does. Otherwise, everything almost exactly the same
as last year. It’s also interesting that Ron Carter, the bassman of the future (believed
to have made more recordings than any other bassist) is on the list at #15,
ahead of veterans like Wilbur Ware (top ten last year), Slam Stewart and Scott
LoFaro. There must have been quite a buzz about him, because he was just out of
school and new in town, and wouldn’t record until the following year.
Drums
1.
Shelley Manne
2.
Max Roach
3.
Joe Morello
4.
Philly Joe Jones
5.
Art Blakey
6.
Jo Jones
7.
Chico Hamilton
8.
Buddy Rich
9.
Gene Krupa
10. Mel
Lewis
Again, no quarrel. The white guy gets the most votes, but
he’s a great drummer, and you can’t say he doesn’t deserve it. Still, I can’t
help but think that if it was just drummers voting, Max Roach would come out on
top. But, if it was just drummers voting, Buddy Rich might well be higher, too.
Miscellaneous Instrument
1. Don Elliot
(Mellophone)
2. Jimmy Smith
(organ)
3. Miles Davis
(flugelhorn)
4. Toots Thielemans
(harmonica)
5. Julius Watkins
(French horn)
6. Shorty Rogers
(flugelhorn)
7. Bob Cooper (oboe)
8. Fred Katz (cello)
9. Clark Terry
(flugelhorn)
10. Shirley Scott
(organ)
Composer
1.
Gil Evans
2.
Duke Ellington
3.
John Lewis
4.
Quincy Jones
5.
Benny Golson
6.
Thelonious Monk
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