Tad Richards' odyssey through the catalog of Prestige Records:an unofficial and idiosyncratic history of jazz in the 50s and 60s. With occasional digressions.
This is the third album to be released under the Swingville All Stars banner, and the second in a little over a month. The April lineup is completely replaced, although there's a fairly close consistency as to the structure of the group. Joe Thomas replaces Joe Newman on trumpet; Vic Dickenson for J. C Higginbotham on trombone; Pee Wee Russell for Jimmy Hamilton on clarinet. The first go-round had an alto (Hilton Jefferson) and tenor sax (Coleman Hawkins); this one has two tenors (Buddy Tate and Al Sears). Both sessions had a guitar (Tiny Grimes then, Danny Barker now). Claude Hopkins, Wendell Marshall and Billy English rounded out the first
rhythm section; Cliff Jackson, Joe Benjamin and J. C. Heard were the second. In other words, heads you win, tails you can't lose.
I've commented that none of the Swingville groups are playing the music of the 1920s and 1930s. They're not playing bebop, postbop or hard bop, but they're not stuck in the past either. That's somewhat less true of this group, maybe because more of their repertoire is swing era standards. But they're still making music that sounded good in 1961, and still sounds good in the 21st century.
There are identifiable differences. The Swingville All Stars are making music in the LP era, which means that they can stretch out in ways that the cats making 78 RPM records couldn't, "Years Ago" is ten minutes long, with room for extended solos for everyone. "Phoenix" is over seven minutes. Even super-traditional swing melodies like "I May Be Wrong" go over six. And that does make a difference.
Better recording equipment and techniques make a difference. In the late 1940s, Baby Dodds made a series of videos demonstrating his phenomenal technique on a drum kit. But recording with Johnny Dodds and with King Oliver, he had to use just a block of wood, because real drums would make the needle on the primitive recording machine jump.
And as I've noted before, these are some of the greatest musicians the world has ever seen. They may not have chosen the paths blazed by Charlie Parker, but they didn't stand still, either.
Nevertheless, there's more nostalgia here than we've heard on some of the other sessions, and the only explanation I can give for that is that's how they felt like playing on this particular day. The first session is wonderful music, lifted to another level by Coleman Hawkins. This session is wonderful music, lifted to another level by Pee Wee Russell -- who, if anything, was more progressive than Hawkins. So go figure.
New to Prestige on this session were Cliff Jackson and Danny Barker. Jackson was close to 60 when this recording was made, and had built his reputation as a stride piano player. He had been well known in New York for four decades, doing some recording, but mostly known as a fixture on the
night club circuit. He did not have a lot of experience playing with the younger cats, and he may have been partly responsible for the more traditional sound on this date. But he was very good at what he did, and Prestige would use him on several more Bluesville and Swingville sessions. He died in 1970.
New Orleans-born Danny Barker lived until 1994, long enough to be revered as both a musician and a seminal figure in the revival of jazz in New Orleans. The Fairview Baptist Church Marching Band, which he founded, gave a number of young New Orleans musicians their start, including Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Nicholas Payton, Lucien Barbarin and many others. Wynton Marsalis has credited him with being one of his most important teachers. He would continue to play, both guitar and banjo, until shortly before his death.
The Hawkins All Stars and the Russell All Stars were mixed and matched for marketing. Swingville released the material on two albums. The first, Things Ain't What They Used to Be, contained the title song, "I May Be Wrong," and "Vic's Spot," along with two numbers from the Hawkins session. The others joined the remaining two Hawkins numbers on Years Ago. Both sessions were reunited on a Prestige double album (and later CD) called Jam Session in Swingville.
I haven't been able to find the February 17 Buddy Tate session that yielded the Swingville album, Groovin' with Buddy Tate.
Claude Hopkins had a real career revival with Prestige. Since his heyday as a bandleader in the 1930s he had worked steadily but anonymously until tapped by Chris Albertson to appear on the rediscovery session for jazzman/bluesman Lonnie Johnson in March of 1960. Just a couple of weeks later, he was called back into Rudy Van Gelder's studio to make his debut album for Swingville.
There would be three Swingville sessions in all, and he would go on leading groups and recording for smaller labels well into the 1970s.
He was back in the studio 11 months after his first Swingville session with essentially the same group, Joe Thomas replacing Chu Berry. Thomas had done a Swingville session once before, with Coleman Hawkins. With Esmond Edwards producing, the selections here play to the strengths of Hopkins and his group, ballads and foot-stomping blues, with an emphasis on rhythm and a strong bass line. The material is familiar to Hopkins--just how familiar can be deduced from one of his originals. "I Would Do Anything For You," his mot successful composition, was co-written with pianist Alex Hill, who died in 1937. "Safari Stomp" is, for me, the catchiest, with a solid groove and hot solos by Tate and Thomas.
The Swingville album was called, fittingly, Let's Jam. A Prestige reissue on CD was retitled Swing Time.
Listening to Prestige Vol. 2, 1955-56, and Vol. 3, 1957-58 now include, in the Kindle editions, links to all the "Listen to One" selections. All three volumes available from Amazon. And Volume 4 in preparation! The most interesting book of its kind that I have ever seen. If any of you real jazz lovers want to know about some of the classic records made by some of the legends of jazz, get this book. LOVED IT. – Terry Gibbs
A busy couple of days for Gene Ammons, recording eight ballads on Thursday for Moodsville, and eight with soul jazz overtones for Prestige on Friday. He had a stellar crew of musicians with him--Richard Wyands, Doug Watkins and J. C. Heard, with organist Clarence "SLeepy" Anderson replacing Wyands for a couple of tunes on the second day.
If you wanted a musician who could cover both bases for you, give you two genres of music that have commercial appeal without letting down hard core jazz fans, Gene Ammons would be your guy. Starting with the first song on the Moodsville album, he shows why.
That's "Till There Was You." by Meredith Willson, from his hit 1957 musical, The Music Man, a celebration of middle America and its square, square, county fair musical tastes. Well, Miles Davis brought some spice to white bread with his versions of "Someday My Prince Will Come" and "Surrey with the Fringe on Top." "Till There Was You" had had an interesting history by the time Ammons got hold of it. Its first jazz rendition was by Jimmy McPartland for an album called"The Music Man" Goes Dixieland. Jimmy McPartland was a fine musician, but by the late 1950s, Dixieland had long since lost its creative drive, and become a music of Rotarian luncheons and county fairs. It was next picked up Jonah Jones for his album Swinging on Broadway, more jazz for the tired businessman. But at the same time, Jimmy Giuffre and and Sonny Rollins were recording it, so serious jazzmen were liking its possibilities. But mostly, it was fodder for the likes of anti-gay activist Anita Bryant, Liberace, Mantovani, Ferrante and Teicher. And still later, it became the only show tune the Beatles ever recorded. So how did Ammons and Co. handle it?
Well, Gene Ammons bowed to none in his ability to capture the lyricism of a ballad, and he does that here. But that's just where he starts. If you're a jazz fan, you want more than sensitive lyricism. You want some creativity,, and Ammons delivers, as does the underrated but always hip Richard Wyands.
The difference between the two albums can be seen in the marketing. The Moodsville session you can sit down and listen to, appreciate the artistry of all four musicians, especially Ammons and Wyands. Or you can put it on your turntable as you serve a romantic dinner to your girl friend. You want to set a mood; this will do it. Moodsville, an LP.
The Friday session was released on LP under the Prestige banner and under the earthy title Jug (the Moodsville session had been Nice 'N Cool). But six of the eight tunes were also released on 45 RPM singles, and that should tell you something. They were aimed toward the jukeboxes, they were aimed toward the record hops.
This is the little secret of modern jazz, the one that everyone forgets: You could dance to it. Yes, the image it left behind in the public perception was an audience of beatniks in berets sitting at tables in smoky boites, snapping their fingers instead of clapping to show appreciation. And in New York, on 52nd Street, there wasn't much dancing (except for the strippers) because New York City had begun levying an "cabaret tax" of 30 percent of revenues on establishments where food and drink was served and dancing was permitted. But elsewhere in the country, going out to a night club meant
going out dancing, and if the night club featured cats playing the modern stuff, well, you were young, you were hep, you danced to that. Charlie Parker once played a gig in Detroit at a club that featured a chorus line of dancing girls, and they danced to Parker. The trick was to listen to the bass for the beat.
Jug had tremendous cooking interplay between all four players. On two cuts. "Namely You" and "Let It Be You." Ammons joined the current trend, and an organist, Clarence "Sleepy" Anderson, replace Wyands. The organ was a nice touch. But Wyands was providing all the necessary propulsion, plus some great solos.
These would be Doug Watkins' last sessions for Prestige. He made his debut with the label in 1956 with Jackie McLean (he had recorded the previous year with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers for Blue Note), and later that year joined Sonny Rollins for the Saxophone Colossus album. These two Ammons sessions were his 30th and 31st for the label. He would do a session in the spring with Donald Byrd for Blue Note. and in the fall with Bill Hardman for Savoy. He would be Charles Mingus's choice for bass player on the Oh Yeah and Tonight at Noon sessions for Atlantic, where Mingus played piano, in November. And then there would be no more. He was killed in an auto accident early in 1962. A recording career of six short years, with a lot of music poured into that time.
Esmond Edwards produced both albums.
Listening to Prestige Vol. 2, 1955-56, and Vol. 3, 1957-58 now include, in the Kindle editions, links to all the "Listen to One" selections. All three volumes available from Amazon. And Volume 4 in preparation! The most interesting book of its kind that I have ever seen. If any of you real jazz lovers want to know about some of the classic records made by some of the legends of jazz, get this book. LOVED IT. – Terry Gibbs
This is another from the Swingville catalog. and every one of them has been an invaluable contribution to the story of American music. This is partly because they gave a voice to important American musicians who were being passed over in the rush to modernism that was mainstream jazz. This was a rush that could not be stopped or slowed down, and should not have been. Jazz in the mid-twentieth century was an unparalleled cultural phenomenon. But it's progenitors were not gone, and should not have been forgotten.
All right, so partly because Swingville gave a voice to these almost-forgotten musicians. What was the other part? The other part was the voice itself. As I've noted before, these were not re-creations of 1930s swing. The older musicians were making their music, not Charlie Parker's or Dave Brubeck's or John Coltrane's, but they were making it for a new age, and with full awareness that it was a new age.
I suspect producer Esmond Edwards had a good deal to do with that. But give full credit to the musicians themselves. They had ears, and they knew what was going on around them.
Ten years separate Shorty Baker and Doc Cheatham. Baker was born in 1914, and at the time of this recording, had been a semi-regular in Duke Ellington's orchestra for twenty years. He had also spent some time with Johnny Hodges during the early 1950s, when Hodges had his own band. He had participated in an earlier Swingville session with Bud Freeman. Prior to that, he had worked with Don Redman, Andy Kirk and Teddy Wilson.
Cheatham was born in 1905 in Nashville, and was not really exposed to a lot of jazz until he moved to Chicago in 1924 and met King Oliver. Before that, he had played in a pit band in a Nashville theater, where he had plenty of experience with the blues, accompanying both Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith among others. Meeting Oliver was a life-changing experience for him, but the real life-changer came a couple of years later, when Louis Armstrong joined Oliver. Armstrong became his mentor, and even asked Cheatham to fill in for him at a few performances. "It was hard to do," Cheatham said in an interview with National Public Radio, "because he was such a great player. I knew I wasn't capable, but I was young and I listened to what he was doing, and I learned what he was playing."
Cheatham went on to play with Chick Webb and McKinney's Cotton Pickers, among others, before landing a long-term gig with Cab Calloway. After that, he played with a number of Latin orchestras, including Perez Prado's and Machito's.
Some critics, while praising this album, have commented that Cheatham sounds a little old-fashioned compared to Baker. If that was so in 1961, it was not to remain that way. Baker died in 1966, and so did not live to witness the late-life renascence of his bandmate. In his sixties, Cheatham decided to completely rethink his music and reshape his career. He had always been a section man (Shorty and Doc was the exception), and he decided to work at developing not only the chops, but the whole mental approach to music necessary to become an effective soloist.
How well he succeeded is best described by a younger trumpeter, Jon Faddis:
One of the prime motivations in improvised music for jazz musicians is to be able to tell a story when we play a solo. Doc is a master at that, because you can hear all of his background and influences.
And the ability of Cheatham to stay relevant through seven decades of music was shown in his final album, a two-trumpet reprise of Shorty and Doc that paired the 91-year-old with 22-year-old Nicholas Payton. Cheatham died in 1997, on tour.
I'm guessing that Esmond Edwards may have had a good deal of input into choosing the songs for this session. One of them, "Chtlin's," is credited to him as composer, which is a rarity. But it's dead center for these two guys, starting with some blues wailing by Doc and moving into some lyrical playing by Shorty. It was the first tune on the album, and at nearly eleven minutes, the longest, giving the listener plenty of time to warm up to these old pros.
The first tune they actually recorded that day, the one where they got to warm up to each other, was "Baker's Dozen." the only original by either of the two leads. So we can pretty safely assume that Baker knew the tune pretty well, and probably Cheatham did too. The first sound we here is the intro by Walter Bishop Jr., and his contribution to this session is incalculable. A first-generation bebopper, Bishop's comps, lead-ins and solos sound nothing like the piano stylings of Teddy Wilson, Jess Stacy or any of the other great swing era piano players. They give the music a very different edge, and then they fit right in. The two trumpeters contribute in much the same way they would in "Chitlin's," one wailing, the other lyrical, and they set a tone for the session.
Most likely Edwards brought in the next tune, the Jimmy Forrest take on a Duke Ellington riff that became a rhythm and blues classic: "Night Train." Bishop and J. C. Heard sets a syncopated but solid beat, and Bishop does some of his most boppish playing, while still making it worth with the Ellingtonian/rhythm and bluesian demands of this irresistible riff-driven melody. Both trumpeters hit all the right notes in their solos, and "Night Train" does its job.
Next they take on two standards. "Lullaby in Rhythm" is credited to Benny Goodman, Edgar Sampson ("Stompin' at the Savoy"), Clarence Profit and Walter Hirsch (lyrics). They pick up the tempo on this one. Again, Irresistible.
For the beautiful Rodgers and Hart tune, "I Didn't Know What Time It Was," the trumpets start it right off, and they set up two contrasting tones of sweetness, both of them loving the melody Bishop comes in later with an extended solo. Beautiful, all of it.
After "Chitlin's," they finish up with a tune from Baker's Johnny Hodges days. "Good Queen Bess," which brings everyone into the mix, but spotlights the two trumpets.
There is absolutely nothing not to like about this Swingville session.
Listening to Prestige Vol. 2, 1955-56, and Vol. 3, 1957-58 now include, in the Kindle editions, links to all the "Listen to One" selections. All three volumes available from Amazon. The most interesting book of its kind that I have ever seen. If any of you real jazz lovers want to know about some of the classic records made by some of the legends of jazz, get this book. LOVED IT. – Terry Gibbs
Prestige, for most of the last part of 1960, is in a holding pattern, not looking to break new ground. A lot of Swingville, Moodsville and Bluesville albums with veteran players and vocalists. But if this is a holding pattern, thank God they held onto it for as long and hard as they did. There isn't a one of these albums that you would wish unmade. And if it's a holding pattern in the history of jazz, or in terms of the music industry, it's not a holding pattern for these artists. Jazz musicians are always exploring, and probably no jazz musician ever has gone into the studio so often that he or she runs out of ideas, or the urgency to create.
Al Sears, who had been in Rudy Van Gelder's studio the day before Arnett Cobb, made three albums for Prestige in 1960 and 1961. Too much Al Sears? Too much of a holding pattern? Well, let's put it another way. Al Sears played jazz, and some rhythm and blues and rock 'n roll, on a professional level for over 50 years, which means that over five decades, bandleaders (like Duke Ellington) wanted him in their bands, club owners wanted to book him, people wanted to hear what he was playing. Yet in those five decades, those three Prestige albums were his only albums as leader. Try to tell me that's too much. We're lucky to have them.
Arnett Cobb made eight albums for Prestige in 1959 and 1960, and there's not a one of them that's too much Arnett. There's not a one of them that's not Arnett giving his all, and delivering music of lasting value and lasting joy. Before his "holding pattern" with Prestige, he had recorded a handful of 78s and 45s from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s, and afterwards, he did not record again until 1970.
Opportunity, or lack of it. is part of the reason for a long hiatus between recording sessions. Another...these guys go into the studio because they have something new to say, and they frequently will stay away if they don't feel that they do. The most famous example of this is Sonny Rollins's two-year sabbatical at a height of popularity, retreating to a solitary woodshed under the Williamsburg Bridge (there's a movement to rename the bridge the Sonny Rollins Bridge, which I support--you can find out more, sign a petition, make a contribution at this website).
Cobb's retreat, before and after this recording, had to do with health. In 1956 he had been in a devastating auto accident, one that left him bedridden and flat on his back for a year, and left him in pain for the rest of his life. His 1959-60 recording burst was heroic.
Cobb was no stranger to injury. When he was a ten-year-old boy in Houston, he sneaked out of his home and took the trolley downtown to go to the movies. Crossing the street, he was hit by a car. He got up and walked away, but told no one, because he didn't want to be punished for sneaking out. But the untreated injury to his hip would lead to lifelong pain until finally twenty years later, in 1948, the hip had to be operated on, leading to his first enforced absence from music. He needed crutches for the rest of his life, and learned to play his powerful driving tenor saxophone while balancing on a crutch.
The auto accident in 1956 crushed both of his legs. They were not reset properly, so he was left with one leg shorter than the other.
On this album he is matched, as on his November session with Red Garland and his trio, George Tucker replacing George Duvivier on bass and J. C. Heard on drums, playing some blues and some standards. Tucker got quite a bit of work from Prestige in those days, and across a range of styles. In 1959-1960 he appeared with Johhny "Hammond" Smith, Shirley Scott, Eric Dolphy, and Oliver Nelson. He was at the beginning of a career that would be shockingly short: He died in 1965 of a brain henhorrage while playing with KennyBurrell.
The session starts out with "The Way You Look Tonight," one of my favorite songs. Lyricist Dorothy Fields said of it that when Jerome Kern first sent her the melody, she cried when she head it. And it is that beautiful. Originally written for Fred Astaire in Swing Time, it has become one of the most beloved of standards, with over 500 recordings, by pop, jazz, doo wop, country, British Invasion and opera singer, and a wide spectrum of jazz instrumentalists.J.C. Heard starts it off setting an intriguing rhythm. Cobb honors the melody, with a warm and sensitive statement of the head and an improvisation that finds new resonance in the melody's beauty.
The other standards are "Sweet Georgia Brown,: everyone's idea of a fun song, so much so that it's also been recorded over 500 times, not to mention the Harlem Globetrotters performing their pre-game workout to it. Cobb has fun with it too, but it's a more sophisticated kind of fun, a little bebop, a little rhythm and blues. Garland and Tucker contribute a bebop-tempoed break, and Heard has some hot licks as well. And "Georgia on My Mind," the Hoagy Carmichael classic that bests both of the others in the popularity, with nearly 600 cover versions--and one that dominates all the others. Ray Charles had released his just a couple of months previous, and it had shot up to Number One on the charts. Everyone knew how good it was, but it had not yet reached the iconic status where it would be named the state song of Georgia, and covering it seemed like a good idea. And it was a good idea. Cobb and the guys do it proud.
Cobb and Illinois Jacquet have always been linked by the two great versions of "Flying Home" with the Lionel Hampton band, and Cobb chooses a Jacquet composition (with prolific composer Jimmy Mundy) for this set, "Black Velvet," which has also become a jazz standard, though on a more modest scale, both under its original title and, with lyrics added, as "Don'cha Go Way Mad." Cobb lets some of his wailin' side loose here, though the melody has a sweetness to it.
His own compositions are "Blue Sermon" (bluesy, funky, a delight, with some great work by Garland) and "Sizzlin' (walking vamp by Tucker sets the pace and the mood; Cobb sizzles).
Sizzlin' was a Prestige release, Esmond Edwards producing.
Listening to Prestige Vol. 2, 1955-56, and Vol. 3, 1957-58 now include, in the Kindle editions, links to all the "Listen to One" selections. All three volumes available from Amazon. And Vol. 4 is very close to completion. Watch for it!
Far too few people remember John Wright, unless they live in Chicago, where he was a local legend of the jazz scene, up until his death in 2017. But he made a series of very fine albums for Prestige, starting with South Side Soul. Bob Weinstock brought him back to do the second of what would be five albums for the label, and since he was on hand, had him contribute to the previous day's blues debut by Arbee Stidham. He played an important role in the artistic, if not commercial success of that album.
For the rest of his life, Wright would be known as "South Side Soul." He plays plenty of soul jazz on this album, and adds some of that South Side soul to everything he plays, but here he opens up his repertoire to show what else he can do. He plays four soulful originals from the South Side, one by Cannonball Adderley with a little New York soul, and three standards.
Bop-loving Joe Goldberg (author of the essential Jazz Masters of the Fifties), fighting a rearguard action against soul jazz, wrote the liner notes for this release, while he dismisses most new soul jazz pianists as hacks playing soul-by-the-numbers (he particularly hates Les McCann and has nothing good to say about Victor Feldman), he has nothing but respect for Wright, who, he says.
has played church music, and has accompanied blues singers [emphasis his]. Living on Chicago's South Side, he has been acquainted with the origins of this style all his life. He does not play soul music because it is currently fashionable, but because he was brought up hearing piano played that way. Never having had much formal training, he naturally turned to the kind of music he was familiar with when he began to play himself.
Goldberg was right about Wright not having had much formal training, but not because it wasn't available. According to a story on him in the Chicago Reader on the occasion of his 80th birthday (most of the rest of the biographical material is also from the Reader):
His siblings studied piano formally, but as Wright remembers it, their instructor refused to give him lessons, telling the family they'd be wasting their money. "Whatever we play, he plays equally as well," the teacher said. "He's not reading music, he's not using the right fingers, but he has God's gift . . . he can play everything he hears."
Wright grew up in the Pentecostal church, but at age 12 he moved over to begin playing for the Baptist church, which had livelier hymns. At 15, he heard jazz for the first time, and was won over to it. The more he learned about jazz, the more he liked it--and not just the music:
I made a vow: I was going to play jazz, drink plenty of whiskey, and chase pretty women. I kept that vow, and it almost killed me.
In 1952, he and a group of friends decided to join the Army to fight in Korea. Korea made a mark on the blues world. It was the first war after Truman integrated the armed forces, and a number of blues songs from the early 1950s contain lines like "My brother's in Korea."
When it was discovered that Wright was a musician, he was put into Special Services and sent to Europe. All his friends went to Korea, and all of them were killed.
Wright played with some top-flight jazz musicians in Europe, became a star in Chicago's jazz firmament, where he played well enough to get invited back by Prestige for five albums, and drank whiskey well enough to knock himself out of contention and back to Chicago, where he eventually pulled himself together.
Of the three standards on the album one ("Witchcraft") was more of a current hit at the time (1957 for Frank Sinatra), but has endured to achieve standard status. It's an endearing number on this album, perky and musical (Goldberg points out that "the introduction to 'Witchcraft' is one that Red Garland has used," and there's certainly a Garland influence on Wright, but overall, this version of the song is his own). "Things Are Getting Better" is the Adderley tune, and its a good funky number that never quite became a jazz standard in spite of a vocal interpretation by Eddie Jefferson.
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But it's soulful originals that are still the best of Wright. They fit him like an old shoe, and they satisfy like the whiskey and women that ultimately (for a while) got the best of him.
The album was called Nice 'n Tasty, a soul-suggestive title. "You Do It" and "Yes I Know" were the 45. Esmond Edwards produced.
Listening to Prestige Vol. 2, 1955-56, and Vol. 3, 1957-58 now include, in the Kindle editions, links to all the "Listen to One" selections. All three volumes available from Amazon.
The most interesting book of its kind that I have ever seen. If any of you real jazz lovers want to know about some of the classic records made by some of the legends of jazz, get this book. LOVED IT.
A lot of the guys who have the hottest, honkin'est, rhythm-and-bluesiest tone on the tenor sax, also have the most sensitive, soulful approach to ballads, and Arnett Cobb is no exception. With Red Garland's accompaniment, this promises to be a listening treat, and the promise is delivered. This is a Moodsville set, and it could certainly set a mood for me, mixing familiar ballads with seldom-heard tunes.
The less familiar begins the set. "Hurry Home" has been recorded by Ella Fitzgerald, but even with Ella, it's not really a memorable melody. The
composers were Robert D. Emmerich and Joseph Meyer. Emmerich's obit credits him with having written songs for Fats Waller, so doesn't say what they were, so it looks as though he may never have had that breakthrough hit.
He did, however, write a song called "The Big Apple," and while it may not have been a hit, Walter Winchell liked the title so much he started using it for...well, you know the rest. Joseph Meyer is better known for his bubbly, catchy, anthem-y songs like "California, Here I Come" and "If You Knew Susie."
Well, people record songs for a reason. For Ella Fitzgerald, it may have been because she'd recorded everything else that there was to record, and "Hurry Home" is not likely to make anyone's list of her greatest hits. In the case of Arnett Cobb, however, he heard something in this melody that he responded to, and his warm-toned saxophone turns it into something beautiful, that melody that you can't quite place, but you know you've heard it somewhere, even if you haven't. Like that laugh that floats on a summer night, that you can never quite recall. Cobb's warm tone burnishes the melody, and his improvisation takes it ever so subtly into the realm of honking Texas tenor--an oxymoron, but he makes it work. It ends up being one of the highlights of the album.
Well, people record songs for a reason. For Ella Fitzgerald, it may have been because she'd recorded everything else that there was to record, and "Hurry Home" is not likely to make anyone's list of her greatest hits. In the case of Arnett Cobb, however, he heard something in this melody that he responded to, and his warm-toned saxophone turns it into something beautiful, that melody that you can't quite place, but you know you've heard it somewhere, even if you haven't. Like that laugh that floats on a summer night, that you can never quite recall. Cobb's warm tone burnishes the melody, and his improvisation takes it ever so subtly into the realm of honking Texas tenor--an oxymoron, but he makes it work. It ends up being one of the highlights of the album.
Count Basie, in collaboration with movie and TV tunesmiths Mack David and Jerry Livingston, is responsible for "Blue and Sentimental," and that melody has become a favorite of crooners and instrumentalists alike. Mack David, who wrote the songs for Cinderella and other Disney projects, is the older brother of Burt Bacharach's lyricist Hal David. Jerry Livingston and Jay Livingston, in spite of the fact that they dominated TV theme music in the 1960s (Jay wrote "Mr. Ed," Jerry wrote pretty much everything else) are not related. "Blue and Sentimental" appears to have particularly appealed to the ballad side of the hot tenor players of swing/rhythm and blues/soul jazz schools. It has been recorded by Gene Ammons, Georgie Auld, Sam (the Man) Taylor, Bill Doggett with Clifford Scott, Ike Quebec, Illinois Jacquet, Buddy Tate, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Jay McShann...It's a nice melody, sweet with a touch of Basie tartness and little Bibbidy-bobbidy-boo, and Cobb does a nice job on it,
The Gordon Jenkins / Johnny Mercer "P. S. I Love You," written in 1934, had recently been a minor hit for the Hilltoppers, but it's not a memorable song. "Your Wonderful Love" is interesting, because Wikipedia lists it as written by two top-of-the-A-list songwriters, Dorothy Fields and Richard Rodgers, and I didn't know they'd ever written together, and I couldn't find a record of anyone else having recorded this song, except for Cobb himself, on a Columbia 78 in 1950. After way more digging than any sane person would do, I finally found a web reference to the Columbia disc. The song was written by Al Fields and Timmy Rogers (I've corrected Wiki). It's a decent song, and fits Cobb's ballad style nicely. He liked it enough to record it twice. But "Hurry Home" is still the highlight of the album for me.
The album was called Ballads by Cobb, a Moodsville release. Esmond Edwards produced.
I suppose one could look ar this period as sort of an interregnum between John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy. Dolphy had actually made his Prestige debut the previous month, but although it was titled Outward Bound, it wasn't as outward as Dolphy was going to go, and though his era was poised to explode, it hadn't quite done so yet.
One could look at it that way, but one would be wrong. Jazz doesn't begin and end with the superstars, and it doesn't exist only on the cutting edge. Or maybe it's always the cutting edge, because you're out there every night taking risks, which is the definition of improvisation, whether you're John Coltrane playing every note there is at the same time or Ahmad Jamal playing cocktail hour at the Pershing Hotel for salesmen who don't care that you're giving
lessons in the possibilities of jazz improvisation, or Henry "Red" Allen playing for the lunch crowd at the Metropole. And if Prestige in the 1960s is remembered more for Dolphy than for the Swingville and Bluesville and Moodsville recordings, these labels recognized the fact that jazz was living history, and the people who had made that history were still living and playing, which made it a lot more than just history.
Bud Freeman came out of the Chicago high school band that became a legend, the Austin High School Gang with Jimmy McPartland and Frank Teschemaker, and he grew to be known as the master of the swing era tenor saxophone. In
fact, he was one of the original jazz tenormen, since it was not an instrument common to that style of music, and he developed a sound all his own--Lester Young counted Freeman as one of his early influences. He never lacked for work, or for people who wanted to record him, be they major labels (Columbia), top independents (Bethlehem), labels not much given to jazz (Dot), or more obscure small labels. This would be his only recording for Prestige.
It was one of the very few small group recordings Shorty Baker would make for any label, and the only one where he got featured billing. Baker was a respected section man who played off and on with Duke Ellington's orchestra during these years, and he makes the most of his chance in the spotlight. You wouldn't be looking for this album to fill out your Shorty Baker collection, because you won't have a Shorty Baker collection, bur he plays well enough on this session to make you glad you've had a chance to hear him.
Claude Hopkins was brought to Prestige by Chris Albertson to play on Lonnie Johnson's first session, and was brought back to make an album under his own name, which featured J. C. Heard on drums. George Duvivier, of course, is an old friend.
Like most of the Swingville sessions, these are musicians who got their start in an earlier era, but didn't stay there--in fact Freeman, though he continued to play in a traditional setting, with Eddie Condon, with Yank Lawson and Bob Haggart's World's Greatest Jazzband, and with his own groups, had studied for a while in the late 1940s with Lennie Tristano. Freeman, in a 1980 conversation with radio interviewer Studs Terkel, said "My old fans would prefer that I play the way I played a hundred years ago, but I prefer to play the way I feel, and I feel that I'm improving."
The Swingville album is called The Bud Freeman All Stars Featuring Shorty Baker.
Listening to Prestige Vol. 3 makes a great Christmas gift for the jazz fan who has Volumes 1 and 2! And for those who haven't, the complete set makes a fabulous gift!
I can't find a producer credit for this, but it has to be part two of Chris Albertson's welcome into the Prestige fold. He had brought Claude Hopkins on board with the Lonnie Johnson session, and Hopkins would stick around to do a couple of sessions as leader for Bob Weinstock's labels--something he did remarkably little of, in a long career. He did record with his orchestra in the early 1930s, but after that nothing. In fact, it would have taken a dedicated aficionado like Albertson to even remember him, though once remembered, he wouldn't have been that hard to find. Unlike Lonnie Johnson, he hadn't vanished from sight. He always found work with trad jazz or Dixieland ensembles.
A few thoughts about Bob Weinstock and his Swingville label. Looking back, it seems like a natural. All those great musicians were still around, and it would have been a shame if their later music had gone undocumented. And from a business standpoint, it had to have been a good gamble. No jazz musician made the really big bucks, but Claude Hopkins had to come a lot cheaper than John Lewis or Erroll Garner.
But remember the era. We were past the 1940s, but the jazz wars between the progressives and the moldy figs were not entirely over, and they had been fierce. Nowadays, on your mixtape if anyone still made them, on your Spotify playlist or Pandora radio station, you might perfectly easily go from Ornette Coleman to Jimmie Lunceford, and be admired for it by that discerning friend who happened to be looking over your shoulder. But back then, you really were expected to choose sides. You had to stand with Eddie Condon, who said, "We don't flat our fifths, we drink 'em!" or Louis Armstrong, who railed against bebop as "Chinese music," or Tommy Dorsey who said it had set music back twenty years. Or you could be like the Down Beat critic dismissing Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby's "Now You Has Jazz" from High Society with "Jazz? I'm still waiting to hear it."
In 1960, we stood on the brink of change. Rock and roll would turn in rock, would start becoming culturally respectable, would make a new trend out of what jazz had always done by inventing "supergroups" and jams. The blues would be rediscovered (Weinstock was again ahead of his time with the Bluesville label), and the jazz culture wars of the 1940s and 1950s would fade into oblivion, But there was some serious apostasy in a bebop/progressive label embracing the moldy fig sound the way that Weinstock did with his Swingville line. He may have played it safe out of the box with Coleman Hawkins, because no one of any age or musical taste was going to put down the Hawk, but with this group led by Claude Hopkins, the mold was seriously on the fig,
And we, in the 21st century, can only be grateful.
Hopkins is joined by Emmett "Chu" Berry on trumpet, Buddy Tate on tenor, Prestige stalwart Wendell Marshall on bass and J. C. Heard on drums. Tate is a Prestige veteran by this time, having debuted with Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and Shirley Scott and then led his own session. Berry had been with Fletcher Henderson (replacing Roy Eldridge) and Count Basie. He had also been featured on some of Billie Holiday's classic recordings. Heard, like Marshall, was equally at home with swing and bop ensembles. He had begun his career with Teddy Wilaon, had worked for the Big Three (Armstrong, Goodman, Ellington), and had also played with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.
They play standards, a Bessie Smith blues, and the Sy Oliver swing composition that became the title tune, and which was having a renaissance, with recent versions by Ray Charles and Shirley Scott. They play uptempo swing and moody blues. They take great solos and work together in ensemble sections like the old pros they are. Wendell Marshall demonstrates his facility as a swing bassist.
Yes Indeed! was released on Swingville. A later CD release saw Hopkins sharing leader credit with Tate. Nothing on 45, and there could have been. Swing was, after all, the original dance music.
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