Tad Richards' odyssey through the catalog of Prestige Records:an unofficial and idiosyncratic history of jazz in the 50s and 60s. With occasional digressions.
Showing posts with label Jerome Richardon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jerome Richardon. Show all posts
Prestige follows up its Swingville debut with another Swingville set, this one led by Tiny Grimes, another traditional player, for an album that's steeped in the blues--and as Grimes comments in the liner notes, "If a man can't play the blues he won't last very long."
Everyone here could play the blues. Jerome Richardson, who played with Lionel Hampton and Earl Hines, certainly could. He was fast becoming Prestige's go-to guy in 1958-59. He appeared with Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Gene Ammons, the Prestige Blues Swingers led by Art Farmer, the Prestige All Stars with Donald Byrd, Hank Mobley and Kenny Burrell, and his own group with Kenny Burrell and Jimmy Cleveland.
The songs are a mixture of familiar folk songs, not always a first stop market for jazz musicians, "Ain't Misbehavin'," so familiar and beloved a melody that it could almost be a folk song and originals by Grimes and Doretta Crawley, about whom I can find no biographical information and no other writing credits, so I'm guessing a romantic liaison of some sort. Whether Crawley helped a lot, I don't know, but she certainly didn't hurt. These are tunes that roll up the blues and lay them flat out. “Down With It” and “Home Sick” are slow blues, redolent of the juke joint, vehicles for Grimes’s bent notes and unreconstructed feeling. Grimes is really the center here, but Richardson weighs in with a flute solo on “Down With It” that makes as good a case for the flute as a blues instrument as you’re likely to here, then comes back with the tenor sax for the final statement of the theme. “Home Sick” gives Ray Bryant some great solo space and duet space with Grimes. “Durn Tootin’” kicks up the tempo and puts Richardson in the driver’s seat, which changes a lot of things. It gives Tiny a different direction, so that without giving away any blues cred, he stretches out his jazz chops a lot. They're one-shot tunes, just for this album, so limited royalties for Ms. Crawley, but they sound good.
Tiny in Swingville was the second Swingville release. "Annle Laurie" and "Durn Tootin'" were put out as a 45, and got a nice heads up from Billboard:
Annie Laurie: Tiny Grimes is featured on guitar on this swinging version of the familiar folk tune. Good side for jazz boxes. Durn Tootin: Jerome Richardson and Ray Bryant join Grimes on this happy riff effort that should appeal to modern jazz buffs.
And that hits it pretty well. Swingville's marketing, and the presence of Tiny Grimes, was a signal to the swing fans and the classic rhythm and blues fans that there was something here for them, and yet Prestige was not losing sight of its modern jazz soul.
Listening to Prestige makes a great Christmas gift for the jazz fan on your list!
Talk about thematic! The kitchen has been tasty and nourishing for Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis and Shirley Scott, and since they can not only stand the heat, they can generate it, no reason for them to stay out of it.
The table du jour starts with "The Broilers," an item most famously on the menu of that knocked-out shack on the edge of Detroit, the House of Blue Lights. Of course, after the fryers, broilers and Detroit barbecue ribs, they served you the treat of the treats, those fine eight beats -- but growing up, with my mind already on food, I heard it as "they serve you all those fine baked beans."
From there Davis, Scott and Jerome Richardson give you a goose hanging high, like the one Scrooge ordered from the Victorian butcher shop in "A Christmas Carol," seasonal as they recorded it, seasonal as I write this nearly 59 years later to the day. They've got their skillets out, they're simmerin', they're ready to heat and serve. When they smoke this, it's a pork butt, not a reefer. And their jaws are ready for some chompin'.
Even when they go to the standards, they bring a new gustatorial angle. "My Old Flame" is now a flame-broiled burger, and Randy Weston's "High-Fly"—still a new tune, but destined to become a jazz standard, has become “High Fry." Hey, the best cooks improvise on the original recipe, don’t they?
Only star-crossed lovers can eat stardust.
But, we do know who's coming for Sunday dinner, don't we? The Rev.
This kitchen is definitely cooking up some soul food, and the presence of the Rev puts the official imprimatur on it: Soul Jazz is here.
The door was opened for Shirley Scott by Jimmy Smith—and by Bill Doggett, although the jazz DJs and writers of the era might not have been inclined to have granted him membership in the club. Fans were tuning in to soul jazz, and to that churchy sound of the organ, but Scott was never content to take any easy paths with her playing. It’s also worth remembering that as huge a force as the organ would become in the sixties, in 1958 it was still a new phenomenon, and as innovative as some of Scott’s excursions may seem now, they were really innovative back then. And when she gets into a larger-than-trio setting, she finds different ways of making the organ work. In “Smoke This,” which begins with an extended organ solo, she concentrates on laying down a powerful groove that first Richardson and then Davis are able to build on. When Scott comes back to join Davis on a shared lead, with a powerful kick from Arthur Edgehill, the intensity is full-out. George Duvivier keeps it going with a bass solo before the ensemble finish.
Scott and Davis, with and without Richardson, had already solidly established themselves as important players in the new jazz sound that was developing. The cookbook motif may have been a little gimmicky, but it certainly helped establish Davis and Scott as a brand, and they were able to extend it as a menu du jour over a longer stretch than some trendy restaurants achieve. The Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis Cookbook, Volume 2 was the first release, mixing tasty dishes with some of the catchy standards the chefs might have been humming in the kitchen: “Skillet” and “The Broilers” were joined by “Stardust,” “I Surrender, Dear” and “Willow Weep for Me” (from the September session), with “The Rev” overseeing the mix. The standards, however, provided most of the jukebox fare, as “The Rev” / “I Surrender, Dear” and “Willow Weep for Me” / “Stardust” were the two 45 RPM releases from the session.
The third and final volume of the cookbook series came out the following year, with the cheery “I’m Just a Lucky So and So” and the boisterous “Strike Up The Band” from the September session, with “Heat and Serve,” “The Goose Hangs High,” “My Old Flame” and “Simmerin’” providing the flavor.
Smokin’, in 1964, had “High Fry,” “Smoke This” and “Jaws,” along with several cuts from the earlier date. Esmond Edwards produced, as he had in September.
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.
It's those lazy hazy crazy days of summer in 1958, and we're coming close to wrapping up our first decade of recording music for a new label that's come along at the right time, and made its mark in jazz. Look at the musicians who've passed through our door. We brought Miles back to New York and restarted his career. We were the first to record the Modern Jazz Quartet (well, after one tentative start on Savoy). Sonny Rollins and Stan Getz and Lenny Tristano and Thelonious Monk have all made significant recordings with us. John Coltrane is soon to move on--he'll be gone as we start our tenth anniversary--but he's still doing some great stuff for us. We've been an important part of the jazz of the fifties, and that's an era that's giving way to change. What will the new jazz of the sixties be? How are we going to prepare for it, to position ourselves in it?
Meanwhile, who cares? Let's have some fun!
Let's get a bunch of the finest modernists around, and let them loose on some classic trad jazz tunes, and just blow, blow, blow. In fact, that's a good idea for a tune.
Of course, when the dust has settled, and you have six horns, plus a guitar and a rhythm section, you've got a pretty good sized aggregation, and you can't just blow, blow, blow. You're going to need an arranger.
Bob Weinstock brought in a new addition to the Prestige catalog, Jerry Valentine, who had been a trombonist in the Billy Eckstine band, and had arranged for Earl Hines. Valentine's credentials were a bit scattered, but he turned out to be the right man for the job, writing several of the tunes for the session, and finding a sound that was trad and modern at the same time.
The classic tunes were by Andy Razaf (Fats Waller's longtime collaborator) and Will Weston ("I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town"). Billy Eckstine and Earl Hines ("Jelly, Jelly") and Count Basie with Eddie Durham and Jimmy Rushing ("Sent for You Yesterday"). The ensemble has a Basie feel, except that it doesn't. The musicians are virtuoso modern jazz players, and Valentine has given them a solid ensemble footing and room to wail.
Later, in the 1960s, he would join the Duke Ellington orchestra, where he would be a featured soloist.
Jimmy Forrest was another one of those guys who played the style of jazz known as bebop and the
style of jazz known as rhythm and blues. He brought the two together when he turned a Duke Ellington riff into "Night Train." He was also the leader of a group which was recorded live in a small club in 1952, with Miles Davis sitting in: to my mind, a significant recording, He gets some solo space on "I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town," and shows that he knows what to do with it.
Outskirts of Town was the name of the album, and the tune also became the A side of a 45 RPM release, b/w a Valentine original, "Blue Flute."
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.
Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis connected with Shirley Scott in 1953, when he went looking for a jazz organist to form a group with. Which is interesting, because this wasn't exactly a common lineup at that time. Count Basie had recorded on organ with his big band, but the more usual formation, the one favored by Jimmy Smith, was a trio. Bill Doggett's recordings in the early 50s were trio recordings. Perhaps he got the idea of the organ-saxophone combo that shook the world with "Honky Tonk" from Davis and Scott.
It certainly turns out that Davis was onto something. This was a powerful sound for the nascent movement that would come to be known as soul jazz, and given an added richness with the presence of Jerome Richardson.
Differences between this and the previous week's trio session: for a start, while Scott went for the under-three-minute format best suited to 45 RPM discs for the pop market, the quintet stretched out in the way that jazz groups became accustomed to as soon as it was clear that the LP revolution was here to stay.
There was a new producer in the Van Gelder control room and on the Prestige roster. Esmond
Edwards had been hired as a photographer in 1954, and he had done significant work in that role, contributing to a number of album covers. But his musical acumen combined with Bob Weinstock's readiness to ease up a bit on the production reins, brought him into the actual recording process. He would remain a prolific producer for Weinstock over the next decade, before moving on to Verve, Chess, and other labels. He would also continue his career as an important jazz photographer. And it's worth noting that he was one of the first African-American producers in the New York jazz recording world.
"In the Kitchen" became one of Davis and Scott's best known recordings, and it sparked the culinary theme that was announced with the release of this album as The Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis Cookbook. It would be the first of three. Davis would get top billing on their Prestige releases;
later, when she teamed with Stanley Turrentine both at the altar and in the recording studio, she would be listed as leader on their Prestige recordings, he on their Blue Note discs.
"In the Kitchen" came out as a two-sided 45, as did "But Beautiful" (like Gene Ammons, Davis had two sides, funkmeister and sensitive interpreter of ballads.) "In the Kitchen" also was the B side of a 45 RPM release of "Misty," from a later session. "The Chef" and "Three Deuces" made for another single release.
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.
The question of jazz's popularity, or lack of it, comes up about as often in music discussions as the "death of poetry" does in literary discussions, which is to say, you can't get away from it, and no one really has anything new to add to it. Including me, but that doesn't stop me from going back to it. I finished up 1957 with a reference to an article in Billboard asking once again why jazz should be so popular abroad, and still fail to reach a mass audience at home. Billboard was always a cheerleader for the business of selling music, and their writers and editors had some very sharp insights. Music editor Paul Ackerman, one of the sharpest, suggested that people really liked jazz when they heard it, but they didn't hear it enough, and he suggested that people in the jazz world should work harder at educating America's
disk jockeys. People in other countries were hearing plenty of jazz because of the popularity of Voice of America disk jockey Willis Conover, but there was no one like Conover on the home front air waves. The Voice of America, of course, was manipulated by the CIA, and the CIA was selling its own brand of culture wars -- America was the home of abstract expressionist art and modern jazz. daring art forms that were anathema to the communists. This might have been a tougher sell at home, where artists were generally suspected of being communists.
But the idea that DJs should be educated about jazz was an interesting one. Looking at another Billboard issue, this one from 1954, radio jocks were asked about their favorite jazz artists, and they couldn't come up with many. Their lists ran to dance bands like Les Brown, pop acts like Les Paul and Mary Ford, novelty acts like Jerry Murad's Harmonicats. They didn't seem to know exactly what jazz was.
It should be pointed out that the Top Forty charts of the 1950s were reasonably hospitable to instrumental music, and all kinds of instrumental music. You had perky-poppy hits like Les Baxter's "Poor People of Paris," Latin hits like Perez Prado's "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White," lush big band swing like Jimmy Dorsey's "So Rare," TV themes like Ray Anthony's "Dragnet," syrupy hits like Percy Faith's "A Summer Place," gutsy rhythm and blues like Bill Doggett's "Honky Tonk," and novelty rock and roll like the Champs' "Tequila." There was even some near-jazz, like Cozy Cole's "Topsy," or Red Prysock bringing his Lester Young influence to "Hand Clappin'" and "Cloudburst," which was also given a jazz cover by Lambert, Hendricks and Ross.
So maybe the jazz labels should have listened to Ackerman a little more closely. If one goes back to those 1954 disc jockey lists of favorite jazz musicians and jazz albums, one can't help but notice that they are virtually all from major labels. The only independent who makes a dent is Norman Granz, so maybe he understood the game a little better than some of the other indie impresarios.
Radio was a lot different in 1954, and here's one of the big differences. From Billboard, again:
Who selects the records played on your show?
Myself492
Program manager1
Music librarian9
Assistant1
Today virtually no DJ does his or her own programming. But back then, they did. Country legend Loretta Lynn got her start by driving around to every little radio station in the South with a crate full of copies of her first 45, meeting the DJs, schmoozing them, giving them the record. Today, no one would let her in the door. When I wrote The New Country Music Encyclopedia, back in the early 90s, I asked a record company executive, "What if it's not a kid? What if it's a veteran like Charley Pride, with a new recording, but no major label support?" "They'd let him in, because he's Charley Pride. But they wouldn't play his record."
Back then, you didn't have to do it yourself with a dusty old station wagon and a crate full of 45s. Song pluggers were an important part of the industry, and they did it for you. And you could even pay a little under the table to get your record on the air.
When people found out that was happening, it became a major scandal. Disc jockeys were fired. Congress launched a much-publicized investigation of payola. As a young person passionately in love with music, payola never seemed much of a problem to me. The assertion that Alan Freed took money under the table for playing records didn't bother me in the slightest. I loved the records he played, and I was much more bothered by the fact of his being forced off the air.
But anyway, it was 1958, and here you were. There was the persuasive power of song pluggers, and Nelson George profiles a few of them and discusses their importance to black radio in his brilliant study, The Death of Rhythm and Blues. For a little more of an investment, there was the power of greased palms. How much of an investment? I don't know, but Alan Freed played records by some pretty small independent labels, so it had to have been somewhat negotiable.
All of which brings us back to the independent jazz labels, and their
apparent invisibility to disc jockeys, be they the smooth pop purveyors like Jack
Lacy and William B, Williams on WNEW, the rock and rollers like Alan Freeds on
WINS, the black radio jocks like Jocko, your Ace from Outer Space, on WOV. What
if the song pluggers, with a little extra scratch in their wallets, had been
working for Prestige or Blue Note or Riverside, or the jazz division of
Atlantic?
They could have done worse than to start with Gene Ammons, and an album like
this one. It features five horns, for a full-throated big band sound. It has
Ammons’s rootsy connection to the blues, and some solid rhythms. I can imagine
a cut like “Ammon Joy,” with its echoes of both swing and rhythm and blues,
finding a place in a number of radio formats. “Ammon Joy is 13 minutes long, so
it would have to have been edited fairly severely, but that was a not uncommon
practice by jazz labels when the issued a cut on 45. And, in my reimagined
world of 50s music, how about that? Give the Top Forty or R&B or Make Believe
Ballroom audience a taste of the swinging head, the beautiful Jerome Richardson
solo, a bit of John Coltrane on alto, and your reimagined listeners put their
nickel in the jukebox, like what they hear, plunk down 79 cents for a 45,
listen to it a few times, get interested enough to shell out $3.98 for the LP,
and wow! Didja hear this? There’s a whole lot more to this song that we got on
the 45! And Paul Ackerman is right—if people are exposed to jazz, they’ll like
it.
Or maybe Prestige decides to try and sell the radio jocks on a familiar tune
from the Great American Songbook, like the Ammons take on Irving Berlin’s “Cheek
to Cheek” (quintet, with some playful work by Richardson) or Rodgers and
Hammerstein’s “It Might as Well be Spring” (again a quintet, this time with
Coltrane).
Or maybe not. Much as we revere the Great American Songbook today, the 50s
were not its finest decade. I don’t have any sources on this, but I’m fairly
certain the term had not been coined them. The songs from the 30s and 40s were
known as “standards,” and they weren’t the songs that song pluggers and payola
providers were pushing. So during the decade when traditional pop songs and pop
singers duked it out with the rock and rollers, the popsters were not going
with their heavy artillery. They were leading the charge with songs like “Ricochet
Romance” and “Cross Over the Bridge” and “The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane” and “Chances
Are.” Some of them were pretty good songs, some of them weren’t. Frank Sinatra
recorded standards on his great Capitol albums with Nelson Riddle and Billy
May, but his singles, his Top Forty releases, were newly minted songs like “High
Hopes” and “Young at Heart.”
The standards were left to the jazz musicians, and, interestingly, the rock
and rollers. Elvis recorded Rodgers and Hart’s “Blue Moon,” doowoppers recorded
the Kern/Fields “The Way You Look Tonight” (the Jaguars), Louis Prima’s “Sunday
Kind of Love” (the Harptones), the Benny Goodman standard “Glory of Love” (the
Five Keys) and many others.
It was left to jazz musician with a pop following, Ella Fitzgerald, to call
new attention to the songs of the cream of American popular composers, with Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter
Songbook, the first of several such albums, and quite probably the
inspiration for whoever coined the phrase “Great American Songbook.”
So maybe a better choice for an Ammons release for the song pluggers and payola
merchants would have been a pop song of the Fifties, “That’s All,” a 1953 hit
for Nat “King” Cole.
In any event, none of that happened, and jazz floated along with its niche
audience. One song from the session, “Blue Hymn” (quintet with Jerome Richardson)
was released on 45, but much later. It’s hard to precisely pin down, It’s hard
to precisely pin down the release dates of Prestige 45s, but it probably was in
conjunction with the Bluesville compilation album, Soul Jazz, Vol. 2.
“Ammon Joy,” “Jug Handle” and “It Might As Well Be Spring” were all on a
1958 release of which the title tune was “Groove Blues.” “Blue Hymn,” “The Real
McCoy” (Mal Waldron composition), “Cheek to Cheek” and “That’s All” made up a
second album, The Big Sound, also
released in 1958, so even if they didn’t get a Top Forty single, the folks at
Prestige got their money’s worth out of this session.
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.