Listening to Prestige 366: Modern Jazz Disciples

Interviewing Russian émigré trumpeter Valery Ponomarev, I asked him what had surprised him most about New York, and he said it was the number of incredible jazz musicians whom no one had ever heard of, who were unrecorded or only recorded on tiny obscure labels.

Ponomarev was right, and he could have found the same thing even outside of New York. Certainly Detroit and Philadelphia had more

  than their share. And you could go even farther. For many years, you could have dropped into small clubs in Wilmington, Delaware, and heard Lem Winchester playing. And for the jazz-craving local, or the salesman with his suitcase full of samples and a need to unwind, or the Kerouac-loving wayfarer out on the road, a night at Babe Baker's Jazz Corner in Cincinnati would have proved the same kind of treat. It was for Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, for whom Babe's was a stop on tour, and he was impressed enough with Babe's house band to suggest that they send a demo tape to Bob Weinstock.

Cincinnati may not have sent as many major musicians to New York as did Detroit and Philadephia (though Frank Foster was a Cincinnatian), but it was far from a backwater of jazz. A website created by local musician Pat Kelly gives an "unofficial, completely unsanctioned an iconoclastic" history of jazz in the Queen City, and it is a treasure trove of the real American experience: jazz in the heartland.

Weinstock liked what he heard on the demo, brought the group to Englewood Cliffs in September 1959 to make their first recording, which got them 4 1/2 stars in Down Beat. For their second album, they had a new drummer, Wilbur "Slim" Jackson, but the same musical fire, brilliant solos, and great writing. All the tunes from this session except "Autumn Serenade" and "My Funny Valentine" are originals.

These guys weren't just good; they were exceptional. But they disappeared before they had time to establish a reputation, and are little remembered today.

What happened? It's hard to recreate, from this point in time. Did Weinstock just drop them? It's possible, but why would he? At a time when he was looking to find new talent, they were fully formed and ready to go. Did Peagler get the urge for greener pastures? He did go on to play with Ray Charles and Count Basie, but that seems to have come later. A reminiscence on Pat Kelly's Cincinnati Jazz Hall of History has Peagler and the Disciples playing in Cincinnati in various clubs including Babe's. One musician recalls playing with Hicky Kelley and Lee Tucker in another group. So maybe they just decided to go home. That's always a struggle for a musician, espectially one with a family: the road and a shot at glory, or a stable home life.

If that was the case, the lure of the road won out for Peagler, because in 1962 he decamped for Los Angeles, where he went on to a substantial career, but not as a leader.

Home life in Cincinnati seems not to have worked out for Billy Brown, of whom Pat Kelly says:

 Billy Brown was around here when I was in my early 20s (1970s) but he was only a shell of his former self. He was bitter and angry and intoxicated when I saw him a couple 

of times. Man, was he a great player in his prime!

Ron McCurdy, the only white musician in the group, became a jazz legend in Cincinnati, with a successful local career that lasted many years. Wilbur "Slim" Jackson may have moved to Detroit: he has a songwriting credit on a couple Motown singles. It's hard to find out much about Lee Tucker or Hicky Kelley, which is a little surprising, especially in the case of Kelley, I did glean that Miles Davis wanted to buy his normaphone, but Kelley refused to sell.

So all we have as the recorded legacy of this remarkable group are two albums. It's not much, but it's enough to place them, for those who take the time to seek out slightly obscure recordings.

The New Jazz release was titled Right Down Front.

It's not too late to give Listening to Prestige Vol. 3 as a holiday gift for the jazz fan who has Volumes 1 and 2! 

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