Listening to Prestige 605: Shirley Scott-Stanley Turrentine

LISTEN TO ONE: Soul Shoutin'

Stanley Turrentine's fourth recording session with wife Shirley Scott found the tenor saxophonist at his soul shaking peak, perhaps best realized on his own composition, "Soul Shoutin'," which made enough of an impact that it was included on a Prestige 60th anniversary double album.

Scott and Turrentine went out for this session with a stripped-down quartet, just bass and drums. Not every jazz organ album includes a bassist--frequently the Hammond B-3 takes over the responsibility of the bass line, and in those days part of the organ's growing popularity stemmed from the fact that if a bandleader hired an organist instead of a pianist, he wouldn't have to also pay a bass player. But including a bass here meant that Scott didn't have to shoulder that responsibility, so she and Turrentine could handle all the front line stuff. 

And they do. Scott is amazing, as she always is, but this is Turrentine's session primarily. Of the five tunes, two are Turrentine's, and those are the two that became the 45 RPM single of the album. "Soul Shoutin'" is the title cut, and on it Turrentine lets go, and shows just how rich and subtle soul jazz can be in the hands of a musician who is a jazzman first and a soul man second. The soul is not neglected--this is still jazz with a beat, and you can dance to it, but Turrentine gives so much more.

"Soul Shoutin'" is the uptempo side of the single. Turrentine's "Deep Down Soul," on the reverse, is a beautiful blues ballad. If Turrentine's solo on "Soul Shoutin'" puts Scott to some degree in the shade (nothing could completely do that), she comes back strong on "Deep Down Soul," with all her usual hallmarks -- experimental sound shadings, inventive improvisation, melody, and, yes, soul.

The other selections for the session are a varied grouping, and all of them interesting, if not with the immediate impact of the Turrentine compositions. "Gravy Waltz" was written by Ray Brown and Steve Allen, and became an instant jazz standard, in part due to Allen playing it on his TV show, although he contributed the lyrics, which are rarely sung. Seventeen different versions of it were recorded in 1963 alone. 

"Serenata" is by Leroy Anderson, a composer of light orchestral pieces such as "Sleigh Ride" and "The Syncopated Clock," many of them written expressly for Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra. "Serenata" was one such, and it was premiered on record by the orchestra in 1949. His work would seem to lend itself more to the Boston Pops than to a jazz combo. But jazz musicians have an ear for the good tunes, and "Serenata" had been recorded by George Shearing, Cannonball Adderley, Art Farmer and Benny Golson, and Jonah Jones, before Scott and Turrentine picked it up. Its orchestral lilt makes it an odd choice for a soul jazz recording, but Turrentine gives it that soul drive. Scott, in her extended solo, explores some textures that the Boston Pops never thought of.

Cole Porter is more of a mainstream choice for jazz musicians, amd Scott and Turrentine take "In the Still of the Night" for a good romp.

Earl May, for many year's Billy Taylor's bass player, had worked with Shirley Scott before, and Grasella Oliphant had first joined them for their January date.

Ozzie Cadena produced.

Listening to Prestige 576: Shirley Scott

 

Shirley Scott would continue to be a cornerstone of the Prestige franchise throughout the 1960s, and Prestige would continue to showcase her in various settings, so as to get as much product as possible out under her name, during this fertile period of her career. So there would be trio recordings, organ-saxophone recordings, and recordings with other combinations. 

The organ-saxophone recordings, which had been so popular when she was teamed with Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, would now continue with new husband Stanley Turrentine, and these too would be double-dipped. Turrentine was a Blue Note artist, so the two would record for Prestige as the Shirley Scott Quintet and for Blue Note as the Stanley Turrentine Quintet.

For her trio recordings, Scott did not stay with the same trio. Her compatriots on this session, Earl May and Roy Brooks, were working with her for the first time, and in the case of May, the only time. Brooks did join her for one more session.

Also worth mentioning is the makeup of her trios. Many organists did not work with a bass player, preferring to let the organ handle the bass line. Jimmy Smith, who is primarily responsible for making the jazz organ a prominent part of the era's jazz presence, always worked with a guitar and drums, and many others followed his example. Scott nearly always worked with a bass.

Earl May is probably most remembered for his work with Billy Taylor throughout the 1950s, including six albums for Prestige. He also did Prestige sessions with John Coltrane and Sonny Stitt, and worked widely with a broad spectrum of jazz groups, Broadway show bands, and other venues into the 21st Century.

Roy Brooks, a Detroiter who began his career with Yusef Lateef and also worked with Motor City stalwarts Barry Harris and the Four Tops, saw a career of prodigious accomplishment interrupted more than once by battles with mental illness, but out of his instability came some inventive musicianship, such as "an apparatus." described by Jason Ankeny at allmusic.com, "with tubes that vacuumed air in and out of a drum to vary its pitch."

No drum innovations here, but some solid drumming. Scott is always inventive, always looking for different organ sounds, which may be why she works with a bass player, to give her that freedom to experiment, and to keep a light, swinging touch along with her experiments. This is a good outing for Scott, with some familiar tunes, including the Fats Waller classic "Jitterbug Waltz," which is my Listen to One, but you'll have to find it yourself, as it's not up on YouTube. Also three from Richard Rodgers, one the optimistic "Happy Talk," from South Pacific and the Oscar Hammerstein collaboration, the other two from his earlier days with the wry and bittersweet Lorenz Hart.

Happy Talk was the name of the Prestige release. A rerelease a couple of years later was called Sweet Soul. There were two 45 RPM singles -- the lighthearted "Happy Talk" / "Jitterbug Waltz" and the bittersweet "My Romance" / "Where or When." Ozzie Cadena produced.

Listening to Prestige 250: John Coltrane

Bob Weinstock got several years worth of albums out of Miles Davis when he booked the Contractual Marathon sessions--the last one appearing in 1961, two years after he had changed the shape of jazz completely with Kind of Blue, for Columbia.

He scheduled those sessions because he knew Miles was leaving. He may not have known Coltrane was leaving, but perhaps he knew that this was an eagle in flight, and he wouldn't be in his eyrie long. He recorded a lot for Prestige--14 more sessions either as leader or sideman, through the end of 1958 (with some sessions for Blue Note and Savoy thrown in). Then, like the MJQ before him, he decamped for Atlantic, and his second Atlantic session, in April of 1959, was Giant Steps. Like Miles Kind of Blue, Coltrane changed the shape of jazz. (Ornette Coleman would record Tomorrow Is the Question!, The Shape of Jazz to Come, and Change of the Century in the same year.) And as with Miles, Weinstock made sure that the bebop/hard bop tradition in jazz didn't vanish right away even as its leading practitioners moved away from it: Prestige was still releasing its stockpile of Coltrane material for more than two decades. The tunes from this session bracketed that discography, first released on 1961's Lush Life album (all but "Slowtrane"), then again on the 1972 double album, More Lasting than Bronze. "Slowtrane," aka the alternate take of "Trane's Slo Blues." "Slowtrane" is also on The Last Trane (1965); "I Love You" and "Like Someone in Love" on John Coltrane Plays for Lovers (1966). "I Love You" was on the B side of a 45 in 1960, the A side in 1966.

I won't say a lot more about Coltrane's music because there are so many more sessions coming up, including Prestige's very next session, the following week, which is one that changed my life. But this great stuff: Coltrane in a trio setting, with Billy Taylor's Earl May on bass, Art Taylor on drums. They do everything asked of them, and Taylor's lead-in on Cole Porter's "I Love You," followed by his punctuation of Trane's first solo, is especially noteworthy. But Trane is the main event. The cuts are between five and six minutes long, showing that while Trane became famous for the long and very long forms, he could say a lot in a compact, and in some ways more listener-friendly setting.

"I Love You" and "Like Someone in Love" are probably included on a compilation called John Coltrane Plays for Lovers because of their titles. but they are as romantic as they come. Modern jazz is supposed to be cerebral and intellectually rigorous, and it is, but on Jimmy Van Heusen's "Like Someone in Love," especially, you can be listening to and appreciating the musical complexity of Coltrane's soloing, and then he'll cut through and hit you in the heart as immediately as anything by the Five Satins or Billy Eckstine. In Jerry Maguire, Tom Cruise's friend gives him a Miles Davis and John Coltrane tape to play as an accompaniment to lovemaking. Cruise puts it on, but after a minute, he says, "What is this shit?" and rips it out of the tape player. Jerry Maguire had no taste and no soul.





 



 Order Listening to Prestige, Vol. 1 here.

Listening to Prestige 242: Webster Young

There's no one who didn't, and doesn't love Billie Holiday, but few with the devotion of Webster Young. In fact, Billie Holiday may have saved his life. Don Alberts, in his book Diary of the underdogs: Jazz in the 1960s in San Francisco, described this episode:

Young trumpeter Webster Young loved Billie Holiday. He knew all her tunes and he could sing the lyrics. Once in Los Gatos at Lorraine Miller's house, Webster was invited into the peyote experience. He was curious and he accepted. The hallucinogenic qualities of peyote cactus are legendary and the comfort mode can go either way. With Webster it may have been disquieting and he became immediately silent, he said nothing to anyone. He listened to Billie's records over and over all that night without moving from a cocoon position in front of the stereo. Billie's voice seemed to gve him peace, help him hold onto reality.

This is an unusual glimpse into the life and psyche of Webster Young. It's surprising that he was out in San Francisco in the 60s, even more surprising that he took this walk on the wild side. One thinks of Young leaving the dangers of Manhattan jazz life behind him, going back to Washington. DC, and beginning his second career as an educator, which would occupy the rest of his life.

But maybe there was a detour. There's Alberts' story, which takes him out to San Francisco, and there's a 1961 three-volume live recording of a tribute to Miles Davis, about which not much is known, but it was made with St. Louis-based based musicians, so that may have been another stop for him.

Davis was his chief influence on the trumpet, but not his only one. As a boy, he corralled Louis Armstrong backstage at the Howard Theater in Washington and convinced the trumpet legend to give him an impromptu lesson. Hearing Dizzy Gillespie for the first time drew him toward bebop. But Miles was the one who took him under his wing in New York, and on For Lady he plays a cornet loaned to him by Miles.

For Lady is one composition by Young, dedicated to Lady Day, and five songs closely associated with her. Of course, the musician most closely associated with Holiday is Lester Young, and for this session, Webster Young does the next best thing and taps Paul Quinichette, the Vice Pres, as his partner. As Marc Myers notes in his JazzWax blog,

What's particularly interesting about this album is you get to hear what Miles Davis and Lester Young would have sounded like had they recorded together in the studio in the '50s. Webster Young's blowing here is often with a mute, and his pacing is distinctly in the manner of Davis. Joining

him on tenor sax was Paul Quinichette, whose playing was a traced sketch of Lester Young's laid back and languid blues-saturated style. 

You don't necessarily associate the guitar with Lady, but Joe Puma fills out the sextet, and does some excellent work, particularly on "Good Morning Heartache." Mal Waldron, who had just started working with Holiday and would be her accompanist for the rest of her career, surrenders his composing duties to the songsmiths associated with her, including herself (with Arthur Herzog) for "God Bless the Child" and "Don't Explain." Ed Thigpen was a frequent occupant of the drum seat on Prestige recordings of this era. He was also working with Billy Taylor, and brought Taylor's bassist Earl May along for this session.

For Lady was Young's only studio session as a leader.

Listening to Prestige Part 116: Billy Taylor

Billy Taylor meshed well with his longtime trio (there seems to be some disagreement as to whether Charlie Smith or Percy Brice was the drummer, but either knew how to play with Taylor), and knew the material he was working with, so it's not surprising that he was able to get about twice as much recording into a single session as the average leader. He did eight tunes here, three standards, a sem-standard (Gordon Jenkins' "Goodbye'), and four originals, all of which were dedicated to disc jockeys and became the theme music for their shows -- Taylor estimated that by the end of the 1950s, he had written themes for at least 15 DJs. Joseph "Tex" Gathings was on WOOK in Washington, DC--primarily a rhythm and blues station, but Tex was strictly a jazz man, although later, in the early 60s, he hosted an all-black teenage dance party on a Washington TV station. Biddy Wood was DJing a jazz show in Philadelphia when Taylor dedicated this song to him, but he was mostly known as a music promoter in Baltimore, and the husband of jazz singer Damita Jo. Eddie Newman was another Philadelphia DJ who also opened his own jazz club. Jim Mendes was perhaps the first black DJ in the Providence-Hartford area, and also hosted a public affairs show for emigres from his native Cape Verde.

As with most of Taylor's early Prestige sessions,
these are hard to find. Nothing on Spotify. "Goodbye." "Lullabye of Birdland" and "Moonlight in Vermont" are all on YouTube. Each features a lush, measured head embellished with plenty of sustain, then moving into bright and increasingly complex right-hand work on the solos.

"Eddie's Tune" and "Goodbye" were the only single release, on both 78 and 45.  You'd think they would have released the others, at least regionally, for fans of the DJs. There was a 10-inch LP called Billy Taylor Plays for DJs (the standards were all used as themes by jazz DJs, as well), and the tunes were included on a 12-inch called Cross Section.

Listening to Prestige Part 98: Joe Holiday - Billy Taylor

Billy Taylor, during this period, was developing quite a reputation for Latin rhythms, so it made sense to put him together with Joe Holiday, the king of mambo jazz. Taylor brings with him his regular rhythm section of Earl May and Charlie Smith, plus the musicians from Machito's band that he had used on his last session, including Machito himself, this time apparently under his own name.

Taylor was at the beginning of a long and distinguished career, of which Latin jazz was only a small part. Holiday would record very little after this. He would do one more session with Billy Taylor, nearly a year after this one. He made an album for Decca, Holiday for Jazz, in 1957, and played on a couple of tracks for keyboardist Larry Young's debut album on Prestige.

And there were a few singles for Federal, in 1951. Federal was an odd little label. They released some jazz recordings. They had some rhythm and blues classics, including the Midnighters' "Annie" series, and Billy Ward and the Dominoes' "Sixty Minute Man," and James Brown's "Please, Please, Please." They released a number of singles by the Platters, including a mambo and the "Beer Barrel Polka," before finally finding their romantic R&B sound with "Only You," after which the Platters moved on to bigger and better things. Federal was owned by Syd Nathan, out of Cincinnati, as a subsidiary to his King label. So it's no surprise that in 1951, the same year they recorded Joe Holiday, Marian McPartland, Red Callender and Memphis Slim, they were primarily a country and western label.

Anyway, Holiday should have been recorded much more.

Machito's men cook up a storm on this session, especially on "Sleep." I'd say they add a touch of authenticity, but I don't really think it's appropriate here. Everyone on this session is authentic. Italy-born Joe Holiday and North Carolina-born Billy Taylor play mambos that have a good beat -- you can dance to them. And you can listen to them. Holiday had the rhythmic sureness, the tonality, the musical skills and the inventiveness of Stan Getz, another gringo who would make a name for himself in later years for playing a Latin American dance rhythm.

So it all adds up to total pleasure -- and I haven't even talked about Billy Taylor's contribution yet--not his piano work, and not his organ playing on "Besame Mucho," a hoary chestnut of Latin orchestras and singers which these turn into something exciting and moving. The organ is a perfect choice for it.

 "Sleep" was released on both 78 and 45, b/w "My Funny Valentine" from the March octet session. "Besame Mucho" and "Fiesta" were a 78, and "I Don't Want to Walk Without You" also paired up with a song from the earlier session, "Martha's Harp," on 78 and 45. All four tunes, along with the later Holiday/Taylor session, were included on a 10-inch LP.

Listening to Prestige Records Part 71: Billy Taylor

I've been using Spotify as my source for these recordings, and as a place to refer anyone who's actually following me along on this Odyssey. And I've been putting up YouTube links to at least one song from each session, for the same reason. No luck with Spotify on this one, so you're on your own, but I have downloaded it, and can report on it.

We tend to think of Dr. Billy Taylor (he got his doctorate from UMass Amherst in 1975, and has more honorary degrees than most of us have college credits), jazz ambassador and educator, founder of Jazzmobile, contributor to CBS Sunday Morning. But before he was Dr. Billy, he was a young college graduate (Virginia State College) who headed straight for 52nd Street, got his first gig playing with Ben Webster, learned from Art Tatum, and was the house pianist at Birdland.

He started his recording career as leader right away, too, doing his first trio session for Savoy in 1945. By the time Weinstock brought him in, he was already a veteran, but the series of trio recordings he did for Prestige, starting with this one, were a major showcase.

Not actually his first Prestige date, though. He appeared on one of those odd Prestige vocal group sessions that never quite made it, but have become sought-after collector's items in the doowop world -- The Cabineers, with Mercer Ellington.

Earl May, who would be Taylor's bassist for 12 years, joins him for the first time on these sessions (replacing Charles Mingus). There's an immediate rapport between them. Charlie Smith is probably best known for sessions with Bird and Diz, and although he's not one of the big names in the bebop world, he's much admired by other drummers.

These are standards -- "Accent on Youth" only barely qualifies as a standard because Duke Ellington recorded it, but it was a hit record in the 30s, and the theme from a movie. It was written by Tot Seymour and Vee Lawnhurst, noted for being the first successful all-girl songwriting team, and noted for having a string of hits all of which are forgotten today, but were recorded by a dizzying variety of performers -- Louis Prima, Rudy Vallee, Fats Waller, Ozzie Nelson and Billie Holiday among them. But I digress. "Accent on Youth" was chosen by Taylor in part because

This was the very first song I heard heard the flatted fifth used. I never noticed that device in a melody before I heard this tune. I didn't know what it was, but sat down and figured it out, liked it. Many years later, it was used extensively in bebop

 Also from Taylor's website, his comment on "Lover," from the same session:

The version of Lover that we played here was one of the swingingest things we did with the Trio. A number of years later, I was talking to Earl May about this, asking he remembered how we played this song. And he said, 'I never played that fast in my life."

These are great for listening. Taylor is boisterous and introspective in turn. He plays like a man who knows what he's doing.

Listening to Prestige Records Part 44: Gene Ammons

Not many bebop-era tunes have the word "blues" in the title, and even fewer have the word "boogie." The beboppers came from a deep tradition steeped in the blues, but standards, and original compositions often based on standards, were more their steady fare.The standards offered more complex chord structures, more possible improvisatory variations. So one blues and one boogie (the only two tunes from this session available on Spotify or YouTube) is an indication of the direction that Gene Ammons is moving in -- to that fascinating fuzzy area between bebop and rhythm and blues.

"Ammons Boogie" was actually written for Gene Ammons by his trumpet-playing right hand in the Septet recordings, Bill Massey, but the words "Ammons" and "Boogie" go together like Ellington and Strayhorn -- Gene's father, Albert Ammons, was one of the legendary boogie-woogie pianist Albert Ammons. 

This version of the septet has a couple of new names. Once again, a new trombonist, Eli Dabney, who doesn't seem to have done any other recording with major groups, but who fills Ammons's septet sound nicely. 

Rudy Williams takes Sonny Stitt's place on baritone saxophone. Williams played with many of the greats. Here's a partial list: Hot Lips Page, Luis Russell, Tadd Dameron, Illinois Jacquet, Howard McGhee, Don Byas, Babs Gonzales, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Eddie Vinson, Bennie Green, and Johnny Hodges. Almost as interesting -- his lineage. His father was swing-era bandleader Fess Williams, and his cousin was Charles Mingus, who wrote and recorded "Eulogy for Rudy Williams" when the sax player died in a drowning accident in 1954.

Clarence "Sleepy" Anderson is on piano, and I can't find much about him, either, except that jazz fans can be a snotty bunch. On a jazz organ discussion forum, someone asks if anyone knows anything about Anderson, and someone else responds, "You can find out about him on Google" (which you can't). If Guy #2 knows something about Anderson, why not help Guy #1 out?

Nice tribute to bassist Earl May here, including the information that he was a left-handed bassist playing a right-handed bass.

One of the tracks I can't find has a vocalist, Sally Early, about whom I can find absolutely nothing. She doesn't even get a mention on allmusic.com. Which makes me curious, but I'm afraid that way lies frustration. In any event, it seems that Weinstock may have thought adding a vocalist to Ammons might help with the jukeboxes, but he didn't seem to try very hard to find the top names -- at least not in 1951.

All four of these were issued on 78 by Prestige. The vocal cut appears to have been one of the B sides, so perhaps Weinstock's commitment to attracting the rhythm and blues nickels with a vocal was less than 100 percent. They were also issued on a 10-inch, but then not again until the 24000-series reissue package.