Listening to Prestige 275: John Coltrane

Coltrane and Donald Byrd are a great combination, back together again after a January session, so Bob Weinstock must have really liked what he heard, and what's not to like? But it's Coltrane who really holds the interest right now. The "happy young man," in Ira Gitler's words, was on a creative tear. Just five months into the year, he was already on his sixth studio session for Prestige, and that was only part of it. He had done two dates with a group led by Wilbur Harden for Savoy, and don't forget, he still had his bread and butter gig, with Miles Davis. By May 23rd, he had recorded two studio sessions and two live sessions with Miles. And when he went out to Rudy's for his Friday Prestige date on May 23rd, he had another recording scheduled with Miles for the following Monday, in New York, at Columbia's 30th Street studio.

Turning your life around, getting off drugs, gives you energy to burn, and Coltrane was burning it. But it wasn't just energy. He was burning with musical ideas, too, which is what makes this period so exciting.

The music was exciting. What Gitler called "sheets of sound," a phrase that's become firmly implanted in the jazz lexicon. It meant Coltrane playing every note associated with every variation on a given chord, more or less at the same time. Or something. It was sort of like the rapid-fire runs through variations on chord changes that the beboppers had pioneered, except that it wasn't. But it had that same questing urgency, that sense of listening for something new, just beyond the horizon. Listening to it now in the chronological order of the music being made (this session was not released until 1964), one can really feel a part of that quest.

"Black Pearls" is a Coltrane original, "Lover Come Back" is the Sigmund Romberg melody that's

become such a favorite of jazz modernists. "Sweet Sapphire Blues" is credited to Bob Weinstock as composer, and that might raise eyebrows, since it was such common practice in those days for DJs or record company executives to put their name on songs they had not in fact written. This one was a little different. They had gone through the first two tunes, and they still had studio time, and they did not yet have enough to fill out an album. This could have been OK--Weinstock wasn't planning to release the session right away anyway, and he could always have found other ways to fill it out. Or they could have done what they so often did: what Rudy Van Gelder called the "Five O'clock Blues," an impromptu improvisation on a familiar blues riff, or a half-finished idea by one of the musicians. In this case, when Weinstock asked Trane for one more tune, Trane responded, "Why don't you write one?" As Weinstock recalled, he recoiled from the idea--one thing he was sure of, he didn't know how to write a song. But Trane kept teasing him: "How about this?" and he'd play a few notes. If Weinstock said OK, he'd play a few more: "How about this?" Before long, they had strung something together, and Trane said, "OK, you wrote it."

The result is a little like the routine Steve Allen used to do on TV. He'd call up four people from the audience, have each of them strike a note on the piano, and then do a jazz improvisation based on those four notes. A little like that, except better. The melody is jagged but interesting, and five supremely gifted musicians were able to improvise on it for 18 minutes, or one full album side.

Why "Sweet Sapphire Blues"? That's lost to history, unless they'd been watching Amos 'n Andy before the session. In any case, it wasn't likely to be the title of the album, nor was the Romberg melody. So Black Pearls it was. It was also released as a two-sided 45.

Order Listening to Prestige Vol 2

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

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

                                                                                                                                                --Dave Grusin

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

                                                                                                                --Murali Coryell

Listening to Prestige 263: John Coltrane

This became a chop shop Prestige session, dismantled and used for parts. The five tunes recorded on this date eventually found their way onto three different albums. Both John Coltrane and Donald Byrd would go on to stratospheric careers--Coltrane as avant-garde icon, frequently called the most important jazz artist of his generation, Byrd to record BlackByrds, one of the best selling jazz albums of all time. But even in 1958, they stood out as two of the best young talents around, so it's not clear why this would have happened. Maybe Prestige was simply, during these growth years, more than they could press, distribute and promote,

Maybe Weinstock knew that, like Miles, Trane possessed a reputation that would only grow, and he figured it couldn't hurt to have some product to release at a later time. Anyway, in the 21st century, it mox nix. Music is streamed now, and the whole concept of albums is becoming obsolete.

The session featured two pop standards (Arlen and Mercer, Rodgers and Hart), one jazz standard ("Lush Life," composed by Billy Strayhorn when he was 16!), and two originals, each with an interesting pedigree. The assembled talent represented an intertwining of two of the most prolific feeder streams to New York jazz. Donald Byrd, Paul Chambers and Louis Hayes were all from Detroit. John Coltrane had spent his formative years in Philadelphia, where he had worked with Texas-born Red Garland. When Coltrane came back to New York from his second Philadelphia sojourn, this one to kick his heroin habit, he brought some musicians with him, and, for this session, some composers. "Nakatini Serenade" was written by Philadelphian Cal Massey, whose talent was known within the jazz community, but whose militant political stances would lead him to be shunned, in later years, by some white-owned record labels.

"The Believer" is the work of a 20-year-old, as-yet-unknown Philadelphian named McCoy Tyner. Tyner was two years away from making his recording debut with the Art Farmer-Benny Golson Jazztet, and the beginning of his work with Coltrane which would include "A Love Supreme." But clearly Trane was already listening to him.

Tyner's title presages, in different ways, the directions that each of the principals were to take. "The Believer" could fit in with the mystical/spiritual direction of the Coltrane school, which produced such titles as Trane's "A Love Supreme" and Pharaoh Sanders' "The Creator Has a Master Plan." Or it could belong with the funk-gospel jazz that Byrd and others were to make for Blue Note, like Horace Silver's "The Preacher" or Jimmy Smith's "The Sermon." It's neither, but it's a great, riff-based melody, and it gives both soloists, and the other members of the group, space to create.

"Lush Life" was the first track to see vinyl, in the 1961 album of the same name. It was also

released on 45, which must have taken considerable editing, since the original is 14 minutes long--especially when you consider it only took up one side. "I Love You" was the other. "The Believer, in its turn, became the tittle of an album, released in 1963 and also containing "Nakatini Serenade." These two releases coincided with the beginning of Coltrane's fruitful years with Impulse! Records. "The Believer" was also released on 45, b/w "Dakar.".

The Last Trane left the Prestige station in 1965, and included "Come Rain or Come Shine" and "Lover" from this session.




Listening to Prestige Vol. 2, 1954-1956 is very close to release. Order your advance copy from tad@tadrichards.com

Listening to Prestige 259: Red Garland

Not much more to say about this amazing collection of musicians, except to wonder if this is Donald Byrd's first pairing with John Coltrane.

Well, not quite. And once again the story goes back to Detroit, and Cass Technical High School. As Byrd remembered it in a 1998 lecture at Cornell University, one of the many institutions at which he taught,

I met him in the 11th grade in Detroit. I skipped school one day to see Dizzy Gillespie, and that’s where I met Coltrane. Coltrane and Jimmy Heath just joined the band, and I brought my trumpet, and he was sitting at the piano downstairs waiting to join Dizzy’s band. He had his saxophone across his lap, and he looked at me and he said, ‘You want to play?’

So he played piano, and I soloed. I never thought that six years later we would be recording together, and that we would be doing all of this stuff.

 And in fact, not even close. Byrd and Coltrane recorded together more than I would have guessed. Here's the best I can do for a complete list, relying on information from the amazing New York Public Library Research Desk, Wikipedia, jazzdisco.org, and Amazon:

Elmo Hope All Star Sextet, Informal Jazz (Prestige, May 1956) With Hank Mobley, Paul Chambers, Philly Joe Jones

Paul Chambers Sextet, Whims of Chambers (Blue Note, September 1956). With Kenny Burrell, Horace Silver and Philly Joe Jones.

Art Blakey Big Band  (Bethlehem, December 1957). They were featured on two tracks as the Art Blakey Quintet, playihg a composition by Byrd and one by Trane.

Sonny Clark Sextet, Sonny's Crib (Blue Note, October 1957). With Curtis Fuller, Paul Chambers and Art Taylor

John Coltrane Quintet, Lush Life, Black Pearls (Prestige). These were both from the Coltrane compilations issued after Trane had left Prestige. Lush Life included one cut from a January 1958 session with Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Louis Hayes. Black Pearls was a May session with Garland, Chambers and Art Taylor.

Oscar Pettiford All-Stars, Winners Circle - Down Beat Poll Winners from 1956 (Bethlehem, October 1957). With Gene Quill, Al Cohn, Freddie Green, Eddie Costa, Philly Joe Jones and Ed Thigpen in various mix-and-match combinations.

And, since we were just talking, in the context of Mose Allison, about musicians getting duped out of publishing rights, here's another Donald Byrd story, this time with Byrd as the voice of experience, and Herbie Hancock as the callow youth. When Byrd gave Hancock his recording debut on a Blue Note session, Blue Note wanted to sign the young pianist to a recording contract, and Byrd warned him that under no account should he surrender the publishing rights to his music. So of course, that was the first condition Blue Note made.

A recording contract isn't  just a temptation to a young musician, it's the temptation. That's why so many young musicians give away so many rights. And it seemed inconceivable to Hancock that he could walk away from it, but he did. Blue Note caved. Hancock kept the publishing rights, and when Mongo Santamaria had a hit with "Watermelon Man"...well, the rest of the story comes not from a music publication, but from Road and Track (by way of Wikipedia). Hancock took the royalties from "Watermelon Man" and bought a Shelby Cobra, which is now renowned as the oldest production Cobra still in the hands of its original owner.

Of course, the real story here is the music. There's one new name, George Joyner, who would not have that name for long. He had come to New York after a stint playing the blues with B. B. King, and recorded first with Phineas Newborn. After converting to Islam, he became first Jamil Sulieman and then Jamil Nasser, and had a long association with Ahmad Jamal, and a career that went well into the 90s;

This was a long day in the studio, which would have come as no novelty to Garland and Coltrane, who were both on board for the Miles Davis Contractual Marathon. Ten songs, and one of them, "All Mornin' Long," went on pretty much all evening long, clocked in at 20 minutes, and made up a whole side of one of the LPs to come out of the session. And even after that, they weren't quite willing to call it a day, as they came back the next month to do five more.

"All Mornin' Long" was a Garland composition, and although it was the last piece recorded that day,
it was the first side of the eponymous first album released from the session. It holds attention all the way through, particularly the long piano solo by Garland that features some beautiful dialogue with Joyner/Nasser, leading into a bass solo that makes you understand why this guy was welcomed into the fold. Two other pretty fair composers took up the second half, George Gershwin ("They Can't Take That Away From Me") and Tadd Dameron ("Our Delight").

All Mornin' Long was a pretty quick release, in the spring of 1958. The others were a little longer in coming. Soul Junction saw the light of day in 1960, again with the Garland composition giving the album its title. Garland shared composing space with jazz giants: two by Dizzy Gillespie ("Woody'n You" and "Birks Works") and one by Duke Ellington (I've Got it

Bad"). The final composer honors for the album went in a different direction, to 1920s Broadway composer Vincent Youmans, but Youmans might not have recognized their bopped-out, uptempo, nonstop version of his "Hallelujah." It's a rousing enough tune, as performed by Glenn Miller and others, but not always this rousing.

The rest of the November session--"Undecided" (Charlie Shavers) and "What Is There to Say?" (Vernon Duke)--had to wait until High Pressure in 1962, along with three songs from the December session: "Soft Winds" (Benny Goodman / Fletcher Henderson), "Solitude" (Duke Ellington) and "Two Bass Hit" (Dizzy Gillespie/John Lewis).  When you're getting together to play that much music, without much rehearsal, it's probably a good idea to mostly choose tunes that everyone knows. Bird's "Billie's Bounce" and Garland's "Lazy Mae" were on a later 1962 LP called Dig It!, which put together numbers from three different sessions.

Listening to Prestige 213: Jimmy Raney/Kenny Burrell

This was booked as a Prestige All Star session, but clearly the center of attention is the two guitars, one of them the label's newest star, the other a veteran of the early days of Prestige, who had been away from the label for a couple of years, and would be back for just this session. Kenny Burrell and Jimmy Raney mesh beautifully here, but what's even more interesting is how well all the instruments-- two guitars and two horns--all come together, so seamlessly that you almost don't register the difference between horns and strings as they play the heads together, and one solo follows another. And since several of the pieces are by Mal Waldron ("Blue Duke," "Dead Heat" and "Pivot") you can add that to the mix too. Waldron is always a great soloist, but never better than on his own compositions.

The outliers here are the one cut each where one guitarist takes center stage, and the other sits out. For Burrell, this is "Close Your Eyes," a song that had recently been popular in a version by Tony Bennett, and I had always thought of it as a passable but not very interesting example of 50s pop, but it has a much longer history. It was written by Bernice Petkere, who broke into the boy's club of songwriting in the 1930s and made enough of an impression that Irving Berlin dubbed her "the queen of Tin Pan Alley." "Close Your Eyes" was first recorded in 1933 by Ruth Etting, and it's stuck around, with other jazz versions by Humphrey Lyttleton and Oscar Peterson, and jazz vocal versions by Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Betty Carter, Nancy Wilson, and another queen -- Ms. Latifah. Here the spotlight is given to Burrell, and he takes off with it, bypassing the melody almost altogether (perhaps why both Spotify and YouTube have it listed as "I'll Close my Eyes") for some breathtaking improvisational flights.

He then sits out and gives Jimmy Raney a turn on "Out of Nowhere," another 1930s chestnut that became a jazz standard. most famously in a 1937 version by Coleman Hawkins, with a solo described as "so intimidating that no tenor saxophone player tried the tune until eight years later." It had a pretty intimidating guitar solo, by Django Reinhardt, but Raney's version is entirely satisfying.

And one should also mention "Little Melonae," another outlier of sorts. It features the full ensemble, but with special attention to Jackie McLean, who wrote the tune.

This is another of those Prestige All Stars albums where some All Stars are more All Star than others. All the musicians get billed in the same font, but only Kenny Burrell and Jimmy Raney get their first names, and the album is called 2 Guitars.

 Order Listening to Prestige, Vol. 1 here.

Listening to Prestige 212: George Wallington

 

Strange coincidence -- or are the gods trying to tell me something? The last three recording sessions I've listened to have featured musicians who left the jazz life behind for something more respectable and secure. By the early 1960s, Teddy Charles would hie himself to the Caribbean to become a charter boat skipper, where he took many vacationers on a three hour cruise, and never stranded any of them on a deserted island. Wendell Marshall would hold out a little longer, but by the end of the decade, he would be back in his home town of St. Louis, opening his own insurance agency.

George Wallington may already have had one foot out the door when he walked into the Van Gelders' living room to record these tracks. He was nearing the end of his time in smoky clubs (and exclusive prep schools--one of his final albums was Live at Hotchkiss). He would make two more albums altogether in 1957, the Hotchkiss album for Savoy and one for the tiny East-West label. Then he would adjourn to Florida, and take his place in his family's air conditioning business, where he would remain until making a comeback in the 1980s.

Wallington had paid his dues. He had been around since the early days of bebop, as had bassist Teddy Kotick. Wallington made his first records in 1949 (with a sextet that included Gerry Mulligan and Brew Moore), but he'd already been around for a while. He was with the first bebop group that Dizzy Gillespie brought to 52nd Street,. Max Roach was in that band, and he said of Wallington:

We needed a piano player to stay outta the way. The one that stayed outta the way best was the best for us. That's why George Wallington fitted in so well with us, because he stayed outta the way, and when he played a solo, he'd fill it up; sounded just like Bud.

 And he'd made a powerful impact as a composer. His "Godchild" was one of the tunes on the historic Miles Davis Birth of the Cool sessions (perhaps brought by Mulligan?).

Teddy Kotick, who played with Stan Getz and was one of Charlie Parker's favorite bassists, also knew how to stay outta the way--keep time, understand the subtleties and complexities of bebop, don't solo.

Whoever took the notes or transcribed the notes for this session had a bit of a communication problem. The first track is listed as "In Sarah," but that didn't seem right -- a little too risqué -- and besides, it seemed very familiar. It's probably been 30 years since I played the album I first heard it it on, but back when I first heard it -- good Lord, 50 years ago--I wore it out. The correct title is "In Salah," and the composer is a young piano player who was sort of a protege of Wallington's. Wallington used this tune on this album, and a few more on his next album. The young composer would shortly sign with Prestige, and release his own first album: Back Country Suite, by Mose Allison. Wallington, Byrd and Woods take it at a more boppish tempo than the bluesy, laid back Mose. But we'll be getting to him soon.

The confusion expands with the next tune, a Phil Woods original, or maybe Phil wrote it down and he had really bad handwriting. On the set list, it's "Up Children Reel." The correct title is "Up Tohickon Creek," and unless you were from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, having a hard time with that would be understandable.

"In Salah" is a piano piece for Allison, but Wallington gives Byrd and Woods plenty to do on it. He doesn't stay outta the way, though. He doesn't intrude on their solos, but he goes all out on his own. Different from Allison's, but I'll get to that when I get to Mose. "Up Tohickon Creek" is another uptempo piece, with a killer drum solo by Nick Stabulas.

"Graduation Day" was a current hit for the Four Freshmen, who were always billed as a jazz vocal group, and they sorta were (their Four Freshmen and Five Trombones is considered a classic), but not exactly in step with the bebop era, or the rock 'n roll era. On this version, Byrd and Woods stay outta the way, and Wallington does it as a trio piece. It's taken slowly and dreamily, and with a lot more depth of feeling than the pop version, but what do Freshmen know about graduation day?

"Indian Summer" is the Victor Herbert chestnut turned jazz standard that we've heard before from Stan Getz and Lee Konitz. Teddy Kotick has not exactly stayed outta the way throughout this session, but here he steps forth with a full fledged solo. He should have done more.

The set winds up with compositions by Byrd and Woods. All good stuff.

The album is called George Wallington -- The New York Scene, and it was released on New Jazz. It also had a release as part of an album on the almost totally forgotten 16 2/3 RPM format, under the title George Wallington / Phil Woods / Donald Byrd / Red Garland -- Modern Jazz Survey -- New York Jazz.

The New York Scene.  A cool and catchy title that could have been given to nearly every album in the Prestige catalog. And it's interesting for another reason.

Genres of music get labeled, and sometimes the people who play that music hate those labels. Many jazz musicians hate the term "jazz" -- in Art Taylor's book of interviews, Notes and Tones, written in the 1970, he asks many musicians how they feel about the word, and most of them don't like it. But nothing better has come along. "Swing" wasn't always called "swing," and musical styles like the blues, ragtime and stride piano existed way before they had names. Rhythm and blues was once called "race music," and disc jockey Alan Freed called the contemporary rhythm and blues records that he played "moondog music" until he moved from Cleveland to New York and discovered that a blind street singer already used the name "Moondog," so he started calling the music he played rock 'n roll. In Art Taylor's book, the music that today we call "free jazz" had a slightly different name: Taylor asks his interviewees what they think of "freedom music" (opinions are mixed; he also asks them what they think of the Beatles and that's mostly negative). The music that began its life as "rap," and is still called "rap" by some, mostly goes now by "hip-hop," the name preferred by its practitioners.

So what about bebop? Some suggest it came from the nonsense syllables sung by scat singers (much like doowop). As such, it was also sometimes called "rebop." But before "bebop" caught on, was taken up in public print, and became the standard nomenclature, this music -- developed in Harlem and on 52nd Street, then exported to the world, was called "New York music." Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, and, yes, George Wallington - the New York scene.

New York music. Why not? We have New Orleans jazz. Kinda too bad it didn't stick.

 Order Listening to Prestige, Vol. 1 here.

Listening to Prestige 211: Art Taylor's All Stars

This is not in any particular way noticeably different from a Prestige All Stars session. And it features Donald Byrd and Jackie McLean, both of whom have been leaders on previous Prestige recordings. So why is it Art Taylor's All Stars? Taylor ha been on a bunch of Prestige sessions -- a couple of dozen in all, led by such as Jackie McLean, Gene Ammons, Red Garland, Hank Mobley not to mention the various Prestige All Stars sessions.

So what makes this an Art Taylor session? More drum solos? There are some terrific ones.

Does it have a unique sound, something Taylor heard in his head and wanted to bring to fruition in a session that he directed? To these amateur ears, maybe yes. There's a quality...what's the opposite of strident? Mellow? It's anything but that. It has the urgency of the best jazz, especially given that it's propelled by Taylor's drumming. But there's a fullness and rightness to the sound. The fullness of course is helped by having three horns, but it's there in the solos, too.

Charlie Rouse is not entirely new to Prestige--he had done a couple of Bennie Green sessions and one with Gene Ammons. He was still a couple of years away from his most famous collaboration, the one with Thelonious Monk. He is one of relatively  few jazz musicians to have an asteroid named after him (asteroid 10426 was officially named Charlierouse by American astronomer Joe Montani of Spacewatch, who discovered it in 1999)  He is, however, not the only one --- Montani also named an asteroid after Monk. And Montani's cultural/astronomical reach is even more eclectic. He has named asteroids after Allen Ginsberg and Erik Satie.

Wendell Marshall had only one previous session on Prestige, backing up Earl Coleman, but he did not lack for work. After leaving Duke Ellington in 1955, he was featured on over 150 sessions up until about 1963, when he opted for steady employment as a Broadway pit musician--and eventually an even steadier life, as he returned to his native St. Louis and ran his own insurance business. If he had any business acumen, he probably didn't insure a lot of jazz musicians.

Ray Bryant was a good choice for a session led by a drummer. His rhythmic style was grounded in the blues and gospel and traditional jazz, opened up by bebop, and nourished by his continued exploration of all styles. During this period, he would often sit in with the trad guys at the Metropole in the afternoon, then go down to the Five Spot at night to play with Benny Golson and Curtis Fuller. A musical stretch? Bryant didn't think so: "A C chord is a C chord no matter where you find it. I never made a conscious effort to play differently with anyone."

And that rhythmic sureness and brilliance, combined with that sound for all seasons, translated into some hit records, including his own version of "Cubano Chant," "Little Susie,"  and his biggest hit, "Madison Time."

Taylor called upon the work of a couple of the finest composers in jazz for this session. There are two compositions by Gigi Gryce (as Lee Sears) and two by Monk. But if I were planning on issuing a single from this album, looking for a jukebox hit, I would definitely have gone with Bryant's "Cubano Chant." It's a great tune, catchy and meaty. And it's been recorded by artists as disparate as Harry James and Art Blakey, not to mention such Latin greats as Gato Barbieri, Mongo Santamaria and Cal Tjader (the only Swedish Latin bandleader). And a more contemporary version by Steely Dan. Here it has the great hooks that characterize the melody, some powerful solo work, and Taylor all the way through it, pushing and shaping it.

There were no singles from the album, which was released as Taylor's Wailers, including everything from this session and one cut from a later session with John Coltrane.

 Order Listening to Prestige, Vol. 1 here.

Listening to Prestige 205: Prestige All Stars

Two groups of Prestige All Stars in two days, with only Art Farmer in common--and, curiously, Ed Thigpen. Thigpen's only previous Prestige connection was three sessions with Gil Mellé--although, like another Mellé-to-Ammons handoff, George Duvivier, he would be making funk for earth people with the Prestige funkmaster Gene Ammons in the early Sixties. Were it not for the fact that Thigpen hadn't been on Mellé's session of the previous Friday at Rudy's, one might have guessed that maybe this session had been plotted there, because both Farmer and Hal McKusick were holdovers.

Perhaps "Prestige All Stars" wasn't the best marketing strategy, since this first album is virtually nowhere to be found. Nowhere online. You can buy it from Amazon for $189, which is really weird considering that this isn't even for the vinyl--it's for the CD! And weirder yet, when you consider that you can buy the Complete Kenny Burrell 1957-62, on four CDs, including all the tunes from this session, for $11.99. It's a great lineup, and I wish I could say more about it.

Farmer is back again the next day with a different lineup, this time All Star regular Donald Byrd and All Star newcomer Idrees Sulieman, who'd done Prestige sessions with Mal Waldron and Joe Holiday: Three trumpets! Well, why not? They'd done well with two trumpets on the first All Stars session.

And they do damn well with three, here.

There's an excellent documentary by Stevenson Patti about his attempt to organize a concert featuring three New Orleans piano legends, Tuts Washington, Professor Longhair and Allen Toussaint, titled after a quote from one of them, Piano Players Rarely Ever Play Together. And this is mostly true, due to the unlikelihood of there being more than one piano at any given venue. There are exceptions, of course. We presented Dave and Don Grusin together at Opus 40, with two grand pianos out on the sculpture. The pianos were provided by Yamaha, who told us afterwards that it was the hardest moving and setup job they had ever done. And Daffy and Donald Duck have a memorable piano duel in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? 

But it's much easier to get two or three players of a portable instrument together. J. J. Johnson and Kai Winding achieved their greatest success when they put two trombones together, and although two of the same instrument is not a rarity, it's a little rarer when both the instruments are trombones. Rarer is a group with four of the same instrument, but the World Saxophone Quartet put four saxes together. Even rarer is a group with six of the same instrument, and perhaps even rarer than that is a group composed of multiple tubas, so a rarity of rarities would be Howard Johnson's group Gravity -- six tubas and a rhythm section.

And of course, there was a time when this none of this was at all unusual--the big band era, with its horn sections. And one of those horn sections became particularly famous--Woody Herman's Four Brothers, who would go on to record in a small group setting for Prestige as Five Brothers: Stan Getz, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, Alan Eager and Brew Moore.

More commonly, in a small group, you'll have representatives from different instrumental families, just as the balanced dinner (in those days) contained representatives of the Four Major Food Groups. Perhaps this was because the archetypal, legendary (even though it was real) bebop ensemble featured Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Perhaps it was because for the casual listener, with two or three different instruments as the front line, it was easier to tell who was playing at any given time. Scott Yanow, in his review of the Five Brothers session, admits that with five young Lester Young acolytes, it's hard to tell who's playing what.

Ira Gitler, in his liner notes to many Prestige albums, would list the order of soloists on every cut, and while this may have been a source of mild ridicule for jazz adepts, it was very useful for the casual fan striving to become more than a casual fan.

But I would think a session such as this one must have been very rewarding for the players: three guys using the same tool but finding individual approaches to improvised music, and all starting from the same melody--in this case, original compositions from each of them. And while I am one of those who really can't tell who's playing what part, I can certainly appreciate how one trumpet follows another, with a new approach, a new tonality, These three musicians are pushing and inspiring each other in a way that is perhaps unique to the situation of three or more soloing on the same instrument.

They share the composing chores too, with Sulieman contributing two tunes ("Palm Court Alley," with its opening Charlie Parker lick, and "Forty Quarters"), Farmer ("Who's Who") and Byrd ("You Gotta Dig It to Dig It") one each.

The Prestige cover, and the British Esquire label cover. From the
London Jazz Collector: "Uniquely among US overseas releases, Esquire
Records were pressed in the UK with original US supplied stampers and
not re-mastered locally, so are sonically the same as Prestige,  in most
cases showing van Gelder stamp and originating US matrix and
plant codes. What differs are the alternative covers, a mixture of quirky
native whimsy, kitsch graphics, alternative duotone colourings, and line-
drawings based on the originals: sometimes you can see the original
as inspiration, while others clearly start with different cultural reference
points, the denizens of London’s smoke-filled Soho clubs and  52nd Street
New York, two jazz-loving  communities separated by only  approximately
 the same language. Potayto, pottato. That is one of the things that
make Esquire covers so intriguiging.

The fifth number, "Diffusion of Beauty," was written by Hod O'Brien, who was a newcomer to the Prestige orbit, and did not remain in it for long--I think this is his only Prestige recording. O'Brien is one of those guys who successfully balanced dual careers. After playing with Oscar Pettiford, J. R. Monterose and others in the 50s and early 60s, he got a degree in psychology and mathematics from Columbia, and worked in statistical research in psychology at NYU. "Diffusion of Beauty" is the only composition from this session that has been recorded by others.

The album was released as Prestige All-Stars:Three Trumpets, with the names of the three--and only the three--prominently featured on both the American and British covers.

 Order Listening to Prestige, Vol. 1 here.

Listening to Prestige 202: Prestige All-Stars

Starting in 1954, virtually every Prestige recording session bore the words "Rudy Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ." Later it would be Englewood Cliffs. But always Rudy Van Gelder, He's the one whom Miles Davis calls out to, when tension is rising between him and Thelonious Monk, and Monk is mockingly asking him when Miles wants it to play, "Hey Rudy, put this on the record, man – all of it!". 

Rudy put all of it on the record...all that belonged. Because of his innovative engineering genius, jazz musicians sounded, on record, the way they really did sound. Jazz music, all music, owes him an incalculable debt. Goodbye, Rudy, who died this week at age 91, and the angels are finally getting their mikes adjusted right.

I don't really remember ever seeing a record by the Prestige All-Stars, perhaps because all of them were re-released later under the name of one or more of the musicians on the session. And maybe that was the idea all along--to get two releases out of each album. Bob Weinstock was known to have a good head for marketing.

The groups who recorded under that name fluctuated from album to album, and are generally described today as musicians who were under contract to Prestige, but surely Frank Foster couldn't have been? Foster is best known for his many years with the Basie band, and for assuming its leadership after the Count passed away, and by 1957, although he did make other records, he was a well-established Basie-ite, since 1953.

He had recorded for Prestige, with Monk in 1954 and as co-leader with Elmo Hope in 1955, and he would lead another session ten years later, but that doesn't exactly seem to make him a contract player. I'm not sure Tommy Flanagan really fits the picture, either, athough he had made a fairly solid debut in the New York recording scene for Prestige, accompanying Miles Davis, Phil Woods and Sonny Rollins (on the classic Saxophone Colossus album)

Still, who's complaining? Foster brings his Basie swing and his grasp of modernity, and Flanagan joins Kenny Burrell in another Detroit reunion. Actually, the whole session is a Detroit reunion, with Art Taylor the only New York outsider (although he's the only one to have a tune dedicated to him, Foster's "A.T."). Foster wasn't a native Detroiter, but he cut his musical teeth there.

Like the previous All-Stars a week earlier, this one was anchored by a Kenny Burrell composition that encompassed one whole album side. Foster took Jerome Richardson's place, doubling on flute and tenor sax, but unlike Richardson, he concentrated on tenor. He contributed one tune to the second half of the session, which also featured two originals by Donald Byrd.

All Day Long is the title of both the original Prestige All-Stars issue and the Kenny Burrell reissue. The original vinyl can also be found offered for sale as by the Frank Foster Sextet, perhaps because Foster's name is first on the lineup of musicians strung across the cover under the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge.

And a subsequent CD release included the final Foster composition, "C.P.W.," left off the All-Stars and Burrell vinyl, but included in a Status low-budget compilation album.

 Order Listening to Prestige, Vol. 1 here.

Listening to Prestige 199: The Prestige All-Stars

This is the familiar -- and magnificent -- core of the Prestige All-Stars, with two new additions, and what a difference they make! The veterans are Donald Byrd, Hank Mobley, and the rhythm section of Mal Waldron, Doug Watkins and Art Taylor. The new additions are Jerome Richardson and Kenny Burrell, and with them, Prestige takes a step forward into what will become the jazz sound of the Sixties.

A lot of this has to do with the instrumentation. Richardson was proficient on pretty much anything that could be played with a reed, and a few instruments that couldn't. On this album he doubles on flute and tenor sax, but it's the flute that really stands out.

These aren't the first instance of flute and guitar playing a major role on a Prestige recording session. Herbie Mann, Sam Most and Bobby Jaspar all recorded for Prestige. The label's most prominent guitarist was probably Jimmy Raney, who recorded with his own group, and played with Bob Brookmeyer and Teddy Charles (and who would later do an album with Kenny Burrell for Prestige). Billy Bauer also contributed some memorable sessions with Lee Konitz.

But this is different, and different all around. The instrumentation makes it different, but that's not all. It's a sound that's really looking toward the future. That future would be irrevocably ushered in the following year, with a recording made in 1949, but buried by Capitol Records until it finally got its LP release in 1957: the Miles Davis nonet's Birth of the Cool.

This session still has all the passionate heat of bop, but the flute is an instrument that lends itself to the cool sound, and jazz is forever evolving. It's interesting that this session was recorded under the Prestige All-Stars banner, but fitting. The Prestige veterans were not standing still, either. Donald Byd in particular, was still at the cusp of a career that would see him in more than one vanguard.

The opening salvo of "All Night Long" is by Art Taylor, and creates a different rhythmic pattern from any we've heard before, which leads right into a Kenny Burrell solo, followed by Richardson on flute. By this time, we're well into the LP era, and long cuts are common, but "All Night Long" is long even by 1956 standards, checking at 17:11, and giving all the All-Stars plenty of room to develop. Which they do. Every solo on it is wonderful. Burrell and Richardson stand out, but it's hard to take the record off without marveling at Mal Waldron's solo.

"All Night Long" is a Burrell original, and Burrell was hitting the scene hard. He was born and raised

in the jazz hotbed of Detroit, and went to college there, at Wayne State, where he studied music composition and theory, and founded an organization called the New World Music Society, which included fellow Detroiters Pepper Adams, Yusef Lateef, Donald Byrd and Elvin Jones.

He graduated in 1955 and joined the Oscar Peterson Trio, a gig for which his early admiration for guitarist Oscar Moore of the Nat "King" Cole Trio and Johnny Moore's Three Blazers had well prepared him.

He then headed for New York where his reputation preceded him. As well it might have. As a 19-year-old, he had already recorded with a group including Dizzy Gillespie and John Coltrane in Detroit, but had resisted the invitation to tour with Dizzy. opting for college and music theory. He hit New York right after graduation, and not only did he find work right away, he found a leader's role right away, recording three albums under his own name for Blue Note (one of his later Blue Note albums, Midnight Blue, was such a favorite of Alfred Lion's that it was one of the albums he was buried with). He also joined the house band at Minton's Playhouse (Minton's is best known as the birthplace of bebop in the 1940s, but it continued to be a jazz proving ground through the 50sand 60s), which was led at the time by Jerome Richardson.

The first Blue Note album featured all original Burrell compositions, showing that those years at Wayne State paid off.

The rest of this album is given over to two other world class composers, Mal Waldron and Hank Mobley. I particularly loved "Boo-Lu" and the irresistible riff it's built around. One (or two) more numbers were included on the session, but not on the album. One or two because on the session notes, they're listed as a medley: "Body and Soul" and "Tune Up." Which is a cool and unusual medley -- a standard from the Great American Songbook and a jazz standard by Miles Davis. But when they were included as bonus tracks on a CD release of the album, they became separate tunes. "Body and Soul" was also released as part of a compilation album of various artists doing the Eyton/Green/Heyman/Sour composition, on the Prestige subsidiary label Status, which the invaluable  London Jazz Collector describes as:

Difficult to see what was budget apart from saving on ink, providing minimal information saved nothing, but made it look budget. Working in Marketing in the Seventies, the big fear was always “cannibalisation”. You wanted all the sales you could get at the premium price, and extra sales at the budget price, without losing the one to the other. Extra effort was incurred to make things look less attractive. More marketing genius from Weinstock.

The original release was called All Night Long and credited to the Prestige All-Stars, but then, when subsequent Burrell session became All Day Long, the Night version was rereleased as a Kenny Burrell album.

 Order Listening to Prestige, Vol. 1 here.

Listening to Prestige 192: Phil Woods / Donald Byrd

Donald Byrd was apparently a contract player with Prestige at this tine, as he appears on several of the Prestige All-Stars sessions, but he was hardly exclusive with the label, and he was in demand. 1955 had been his breakthrough year, and by this time in 1956, he had already recorded on Prestige with George Wallington, Jackie McLean (three different sessions), Elmo Hope, Phil Woods, Gene Ammons, Hank Mobley, and the Prestige All-Stars. Art Farmer and Jackie McLean were also featured on that date, but on subsequent re-releases, leader credit was given to the two trumpeters and then to Byrd alone. Here are Byrd's other record dates from that same year.

For Savoy: three sessions with Kenny Clarke, one with Hank Mobley.        

For ABC-Paramount: Billy Taylor. ABC-Paramount, started in 1955, released a lot of jazz in its early years, which surprises me. I had never thought of it as a jazz label at all.

For Columbia: Several sessions with Art Blakey, some instrumental, others backing Dutch singer Rita Reys. I had never heard of Reys, so I listened to a little of this session, and she's very, very good. There's also some great solo work by Byrd.  Reys primarily performed in Europe, where she was known as "Europe's First Lady of Jazz." She continued performing and recording into this millennium. She died in 2013.   Also a couple of sessions with Horace Silver on Columbia subsidiary Epic.      

For Blue Note, with whom he would become most closely associated over the next decades, he appeared on Paul Chambers' first album as leader, which also featured John Coltrane. By the end of the year, he seemed almost constantly in Rudy Van Gelder's studio for either Prestige or Blue Note, recording for the latter label with Horace Silver, Hank Mobley and Sonny Rollins, As a leader, he recorded a session in Boston for Transition Records, a label founded by Tom Wilson, later to gain fame as Bob Dylan's producer, and a second session under Doug Watkins' leadership.;So these were formative years for Byrd, playing with a wide range of musicians, absorbing a lot. He was 24 years old in 1956, and this session, with Phil Woods, represents a wide range of ages and musical experience all by itself.

Woods was 25, like Byrd really coming into his own in the mid-50s, like Byrd destined to go on to significant commercial success--Byrd in the jazz fusion field, Woods most famously with Billy Joel -- while retaining the respect of the jazz world.

Al Haig was only 34, but pretty much at the end of his jazz career, at least during this period. This was close to his last recording (there'd be one with Chet Baker in 1958) until he experienced a renaissance in the mid-70s. According to jazz historian Brian Case,

Jazz pianism, ever more percussive in a crass simplification of [Bud] Powell's methods, had no room for the crystalline touch and swift, logical turnover of ideas. Haig got by with semi-cocktail piano in New York bars.

Teddy Kotick had been around since the birth of bebop, but jazz generations can turn over swiftly, and although he was only 28 years old at the time of this recording, he already seemed to belong to a previous generation. He dropped out of music for a while--I understand he returned to his native Massachusetts and worked as a mailman. I presented him in several concerts at Opus 40 in the 1980s with J. R. Monterose.

Charli Persip, only a year younger than Kotick, was at the beginning of his career (and was still spelling his name "Charlie"). He had spent several years with Dizzy Gillespie's big band, and had appeared on a couple of albums with Dizzy's band, but this was his first recording with a small ensemble.

Persip was known for his proficiency at sight reading music, and he explained in an interview in All About Jazz how he developed that skill:

  Mainly because I objected to the word that was going around that jazz drummers couldn't read well. Then it translated into black drummers couldn't read well. I totally took umbrage to that. I said OK I'm gonna be the best reader in the land—I'll fix you. I spent many hours practicing, I took music books to bed with me to read instead of novels. I was fighting the fight for the good name of black jazz drummers.

The grizzled old-timer of 28 and the young pup of 27 come together to lay down a fine rhythm foundation for this album. As with many bassists of his generation, like Curly Russell or Tommy Potter, Kotick wasn't much for soloing, although he does take a couple of solos on this session, modest but excellent. As with many drummers of his generation, Persip is assertive when it's called for, and knocks out some less modest but also excellent solos.

The early 50s were marked by artists like John Lewis and Miles Davis trying to get away from the head/solos/head formula, but Lord knows Miles came back to it, and Lord knows it didn't go away, nor should it have, although artists like the MJQ and Gil Melle, and Miles as his career progressed and Birth of the Cool finally gained wider release, blazed new and important trails.

This is the dichotomy of many art forms. Some poets find working in 14 lines, with a regular meter and rhyme scheme, artificial and confining. Others find it infinitely subtle and flexible. When, in the 1940s, virtuoso soloists became the center of jazz, this format proved to be the one most suited for those soloists to create in. That remained true through the 40s and 50s, and like the sonnet, it has never gone away altogether.

Phil Woods is the main composer here. "Lover Man" is a standard and "Dewey Square" a Charlie Parker composition, but the rest are all Woods. "House of Chan" is a tribute to Charlie Parker, who used "Charlie Chan," taking his wife's first name, as a pseudonym when he needed one for contractual reasons. But then, everything Woods did is to some extent a tribute to Charlie Parker. But even more than that, it's dedicated to Chan Parker, Bird's widow, whom Woods had grown close to, and whom he would marry in 1957.

Prestige released this as The Young Bloods, with co-leader credit given to Woods and Byrd. It would later be rereleased as House of Byrd.




 Order Listening To Prestige Vol. 1, 1949-1953 here.  

Listening to Prestige Part 182: The Prestige All Stars (Art Farmer/Donald Byrd)

On the session index, this is listed as the Prestige All Stars, the first but not the last time this designation would be used. Presumably, a bunch of contract players were rounded up for the Fridays at Rudy's session, but none of them were specifically signed on as leader, so they let the producer (can't find out who produced this session) select the tunes and organize the session.

Not sure how this differs from other sessions. Did they tell Hank Mobley, "Hey, we want you to put together a combo for a recording session this week -- oh, but you'll be using Watkins and Taylor"? Or maybe these were all basically Prestige All Stars sessions, but only now did they decide to call it that. Presumably the leader would bring in the tunes, or most of them.  In this nominally leaderless session, they included a tune that was composed by a contemporary jazzer who's not on the session: Kenny Drew's "Contour." Probably Jackie McLean brought it in--he had an affinity for the tune, had played it just recently on one of his 4, 5 and 6 dates (Donald Byrd was on that session, too). In any event, it's a fine tune, and more people should record it, and actually, several have.

Certainly, McLean must have brought "Dig" to the session, given that it's his composition, even though Miles grabbed the composer credit for it, and whatever royalties it accrued, but this is jazz, so there probably weren't many, as McLean was told when he looked into suing Miles -- it wouldn't be worth it.

"The Third" is a Donald Byrd composition, so one figures he brought it in. He probably also brought "'Round Midnight," since he's the only horn on that track. Art Farmer takes "When Your Lover Has Gone" on his own, so it's likely his choice.

"Dig" is the centerpiece of the album, at nearly 15 minutes. I was interested to see how it compared to the version that was laid down the day Jackie first brought it into the studio to record with Miles and Sonny Rollins. The Davis-Rollins-McLean version is more melodic, the Prestige All Stars more intense--and at this length, that intensity has to be sustained, and it is. All the soloists are powerful. I started to try to name a favorite, but I can't.

However far afield an improvisation goes, if there's going to be enough meat to sustain it for 15 minutes, it's got to be a very good tune to start with, and "Dig" is. I'm surprised it hasn't been covered more often.

When the album was actually pressed and given a cover and released, it was called 2 Trumpets and credited to Farmer and Byrd. A rerelease was again Farmer and Byrd, and called Trumpets All Out, and a much much later rerelease just had Byrd's name above the title, which was House of Byrd.

Order Listening to Prestige Vol 1: 1949-1953

Listening to Prestige Part 180: Hank Mobley

Hank Mobley is mostly associated with Blue Note, but he did show up for a handful of Prestige sessions in 1956, starting with Elmo Hope in May, and continuing on into the summer, including two sessions as leader, this being the first.

He shows a healthy respect for the classics here, from pop and particularly from bebop, choosing tunes by Rodgers and Hart, Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker--and two of his own compositions, which shows a healthy ego. Neither "Minor Disturbance" nor "Alternating Current" have become jazz standards, but Mobley did go on to become a composer of some note.

Monk composed "52nd Street Theme" in 1944, when 52nd Street was the nerve center of bebop, and Mobley was 14 years old. Powell composed "Bouncing With Bud" in 1946, the year that Mobley took up the tenor saxophone--late, for a guy who mastered it as fully as he did, and almost by accident. He had played the piano before that, as had his mother and grandmother before him, but when he was 16 he was housebound for several months with an illness, and an uncle gave him a saxophone to occupy his time.

He picked it up very quickly -- by 19 he was working with Paul Gayten's rhythm and blues band, and as yet another demonstration of how good those R&B bands of the late 40s and early 50s were, this one included  Cecil Payne, Clark Terry, Aaron Bell, Sam Woodyard and Walter Davis, Jr. And young Mobley stood out even in that all-star aggregation. Recalling those days, Gayten said, "Hank was beautiful, he played alto, tenor and baritone and did a lot of the writing. He took care of business and I could leave things up to him." The tenor sax solo on Gayten's recording "Each Time" may or may not be Mobley--opinions differ.

By 1951, when Bird wrote and recorded "Au Privave," Mobley was a full-fledged member of the elite jazz community--not bad for a late starter. He and Davis were backing jazz stars like Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon and Lester Young as the house band in a Newark jazz club, and one of those visitors, Max Roach, hired the two of them and brought them to New York, where Mobley's gigs included bebop heaven -- Minton's, as part of a Horace Silver-led house band which also included Doug Watkins.

So with tunes by Monk, Bud, and Bird, Mobley embraces bebop in this session, though he was later to become known as the pre-eminent hard bop tenor player--a distinction which I don't particularly care to recognize, as I've made clear before. But that's OK, I don't particularly care to recognize a firm distinction between bebop and rhythm and blues, either.

It's great to hear these classic tunes brought into the framework of a straight-ahead Prestige jam session, particularly "Au Privave." It's always good to be reminded of what an amazing artist Bird was, as composer as well as soloist.

Mal Waldron may have had other plans, because Barry Harris is in as the piano player for this second

July 20th session. Harris would eventually settle in New York, but in 1956 he was on loan from Detroit's jazz hotbed, and among the places I'd go to if I could time travel, Detroit's Blue Bird Inn in the 40s and 50s would be high on the list. Harris is solid throughout, and contributes some hot solos.

Prestige released this session as Mobley's Message,and it's billed as the Hank Mobley Sextet, though it's only a sextet for "Au Privave," when Jackie McLean joins the group. And Donald Byrd drops out on "Little Girl Blue," making that a quartet number. It was later rereleased as Hank Mobley's Message, perhaps so no one would confuse the tenor player with Miss America Mary Ann Mobley.