Monday, October 08, 2018

Listening to Prestige 348: Swingville All Stars

I despaired of ever finding this album on a streaming service. Nothing on Spotify by Swingville All Stars. YouTube had some cuts by Swingville All Stars with Pee Wee Russell, but nothing by this ensemble. And it looked so good. I was dying to hear it. No immediate success when I searched separately under Taft Jordan, Hilton Jefferson and Al Sears.


A streaming music hint: Sometimes something is just plain not there, but sometimes it's there if you look hard enough, and try enough different search terms. One good tactic is, if there's a song on the album you want that hasn't been recorded a whole lot, try that as a search. "New Carnegie Blues" is an Al Sears composition, and he's recorded it on his own, but not much outside of that. I found it first on YouTube, then on Spotify. Having found the tune, I selected "Go to album" and was taken to a collection called Mood Indigo by Taft Jordan which is a Prestige reissue of various Ellington-identified songs by the former Ellington trumpeter, and includes all of the tunes on the Swingville All Stars set.

It was worth the hunt. This is a totally pleasurable set by three veterans who know how to play pretty for the people. Taft Jordan, 45 when this recording was made, had made his reputation over a decade with the Chick Webb/Ella Fitzgerald Orchestra, and later played with Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman. He also made a stop on the modern side of the street in the orchestra that Gil Evans and Miles Davis put together for Sketches of Spain.

Hilton Jefferson, 57 when he made this date, also had stints with Webb and Ellington, but his big long-term association was with Cab Calloway. He had begun his professional career in 1929 with Claude Hopkins.

Al Sears was 50, so there was age spread between them, but they all had Chick Webb and Ellington in common, with Sears as the most prominent Ellingtonian— he took Ben Webster’s lead tenor sax chair when Webster left the Duke. The late 1950s saw him onstage with Alan Freed for his big rock ‘n roll Christmas extravaganzas, where he was known as Big Al Sears.

As a New York musician, Don Abney always got a lot of work, in jazz and as a studio musician. He recorded with many of the day's top singers, including Ella Fitzgerald, Carmen McRae, Sarah Vaughan, Eartha Kitt, and Pearl Bailey. But his career really prospered when he loved to LA, and became musical director for Universal Studios. His work there included an on-camera stint as Ella Fitzgerald's piano player in Jack Webb's Pete Kelly's Blues.

The session begins with the Al Sears composition, "New Carnegie Blues," and its mellow sound reminds of a reminiscence by a college professor about meeting Sears. Sears had a gentle demeanor and a bespectacled, professorial look, so the prof asked him about the meaning of the title of his most famous tune, "Castle Rock." Was it a mythological or literary reference? Sears explained, "A rock is a fuck, and a castle rock is a really humongous fuck."

"New Carnegie Blues" sets a mellow tone for a mellow album of ballads and jump numbers. "Rockin' in Rhythm," the Ellington/Harry Carney number, is the most boisterous. Neil Hefti's "Li'l Darlin'" jumps but in a more relaxed way. It features a nice piano intro by Don Abney to set up the solos and ensemble work by the three leads, which is flawless here as always. Mercer Ellington's "Things Ain't What They Used to Be" is the other relaxed jumper, and features some very interesting work on the bass by Wendell Marshall.

"Willow Weep for Me" by Gershwin protege Ann Ronell, is one of the few songs to be inspired by the trees on an Ivy League campus. "Tenderly" was written by Walter Gross for Margaret Whiting as a breakup song after she had broken his heart, but I don't believe she ever recorded it. The three soloists are all particularly moving on the slow ballads.

The session was produced by Esmond Edwards. The Swingville release was entitled Rockin' in Rhythm.

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