Tad Richards' odyssey through the catalog of Prestige Records:an unofficial and idiosyncratic history of jazz in the 50s and 60s. With occasional digressions.
It seems inevitable that two of Prestige's most dependable soul jazz stars would get together, and for this session, the inevitable happened. Willis Jackson had been one of the pioneers of the organ/saxophone combo with Jack McDuff, who had moved on to a solo career. Johnny "Hammond" Smith was one of the hottest new organ talents around. So the pairing of the veteran and the hot newcome was a natural.
For a veteran and a newcomer, they weren't exactly far apart in age--Jackson was 30, Smith 29. But Jackson had made his first hit record in 1948, as the 16-year-old saxophone soloist of the Cootie Williams hit, "Gator Tail." Williams was the
bandleader, but Jackson was the star, and that hit record gave him the nickname he would carry with him for the rest of his life.
This would be their only joint venture. Smith had already been working with Seldon Powell, another veteran whose career in rhythm and blues went back to the 1940s, and would soon hook up with Houston Person, launching that soul jazz titan's career. Both Jackson and Smith were well into careers that would place each of them among Prestige's most-recorded stars. They are accompanied here by two of Smith's regulars, Eddie McFadden and Leo Stevens, and most of the cuts are Smith compositions. "Y'All" is by Jackson. "Besame Mucho" is the Latin standard, and "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" the traditional spiritual. What better vehicle for soul jazz than a spiritual? And they get down with it, making it my favorite cut on the album, and one that I'm surprised they didn't pull out for a two-sided 45 RPM single.
In fact, there were no singles from the album, which is a bit of a surprise. Esmond Edwards produced, and the album's title was Johnny "Hammond" Cooks with Gator Tail. the title reflecting the name by which the young organist would eventually be known, as he would drop the "Smith."
Johnny "Hammond" Smith was one of the most hard-driving, no holds barred jazz funk organists out there, and it's no surprise that when teamed with rhythm and blues veteran Seldon Powell, he churns up some high-powered excitement on this session. Perhaps a little more surprising is that they included a vibes player in the mix, and that he adds another dimension of heat to an already combustible mix.
The vibes player was Clement Wells, and although Powell would work again with Smith on a number of occasions, this is Wells's only recording date with the organist, and apparently his last recording session altogether. He seems to have been one of those who preferred a settled life to the vagaries of the road.
Wells's settled life was in Washington, DC, which must have had a pretty decent, if unheralded jazz scene in those days. Guitarist Charlie Byrd was the best known Washingtonian. He became nationally known while playing a regular gig at the Showboat Lounge in Washington, much the same as Ahmad Jamal at the Pershing Lounge in Chicago. But others who had gotten out of the rat race chose Washington as their home, including another Prestige veteran, trumpeter Webster Young. Percussionist Buck Clarke, who did actively pursue a career (including several Prestige sessions with Willis Jackson) was another Washingtonian, and he used Wells on his Argo album Drum Sum, the vibist's only other record date.
Wells did live on, however, in the form of a tune given to Oscar Peterson by Seymour Lefco, best known as "the jazz dentist," among whose many musical patients were Peterson and Ray Brown. "You Look Good to Me" became a staple of Peterson's repertoire, It's credited to Lefco and Wells, but it's pretty certainly Wells's tune.
Guitarist Wally Richardson was a versatile player whose credits included jazz, rhythm and blues, funk, and even Motown. As an on-call session player for Prestige, he recorded with Oliver Nelson , Sam “The Man” Taylor, Buddy Tate, Al Sears, Groove Holmes, Etta Jones and Betty Roche. Leo Stevens was Smith's regular drummer.
The album was titled Look Out! and it came out on New Jazz. Esmond Edwards produced.
If Don Ellis gave us an album in which virtually everything was unexpected, Prestige brings us back to familiar ground with Johnny "Hammond" Smith. In those days, it seemed that people couldn't get enough of that soul jazz organ sound, and Smith was one of the most reliable of the bunch, solid for listening or dancing. He used the same Philadelphia cohorts he'd been using, came up once again with a nicely chosen mixture of originals and standards--and, in point of fact, distributed the results of this session over the same two albums as the last session, Stimulation, which was released right away, and Opus de Funk, which waited until 1966.
So I don't have a lot to add to my commentary on the February 14th session. This is an extension of that one, and it's still good music.
Esmond Edwards produced both dates. "Sticks and Stones" became the flip side of "The End of a Love Affair." from the February session, as the first 45 RPM single off the album. "Sad Eyes" was the A side of a 45 with "Opus de Funk," released in tandem with the 1966 release of the second album.
There comes a time in every long book, novel or nonfiction, when you're trapped in the middle. You can barely remember starting it, you can't imagine ever finishing it, you can no longer imagine why anyone would want to read it. I guess I'm pretty much at that stage now. It's been five years of my life, twelve years in the history of Prestige. And yet my enthusiasm hasn't flagged. I can thank the music for that, and the incredible musicians who made it. I still look forward to every session, and I still find myself spurred to write about it by the freshness of the music, the stories of the unique individuals who made the music, my own memories of who I was when I first heard it or the excitement of hearing it and discovering it for the first time.
The 1960s, which we are just nosing into here, were a time of great social change, and a time when a number of musicians chafed at calling the music they were playing "jazz." It was a name that grew out of a music that was disrespected, a name associated with back-alley sexual encounters, a name that does not reflect on the importance of what many have called "America's classical music." But to me, whatever its origins, the name has been hallowed by Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet, consecrated by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, immortalized by Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins and Stan Getz...and Don Ellis and Johnny "Hammond" Smith and Shirley Scott and Willis "Gator Tail" Jackson and Walt Dickerson and people like Al Francis or Eddie McFadden who made brief contributions and disappeared, and the name of "jazz" is ennobled by their presence.
Organ, vibes, guitar. This time the organist is Johnny "Hammond" Smith, and except for bassist Wendell Marshall, all the other musicians are new to Prestige.
And pretty new all around. Freddie McCoy, 28 years old at the time of this session, was making his recording debut. Were the vibes a good fit for the soul jazz sound? Prestige had begun to explore the possibility with Lem Winchester, but his untimely death brought an end to that. Was organ-vibes the way
to go, and was McCoy the answer? Bob Weinstock had always had a thing for vibes, according to Bob Porter, Prestige soul jazz producer and author of Soul Jazz: Jazz in the Black Community, 1945-1975. And McCoy? Perhaps the answer, but not right away. He was used on this and one other Smith session, then did no further recording until 1965, when he became one of the label's hot acts for remainder of the decade, after which he left the music scene.
Eddie McFadden, like Thornel Schwartz (with whom Smith also recorded), was a Philadelphia soul jazz guitarist who mainly worked with organ combos. He was actually one of the pioneers of the sound, having worked with Jimmy Smith and recorded 12 albums with him between 1957-58. As with McCoy, his career rose and set with the soul jazz organ combo. After his work with Johnny Smith ended in 1966, he would work some more with Jimmy Smith but not record again with him. He returned to Philadelphia, where he lived with his mother, a former jazz singer, played local clubs, and was a fixture on the Philadepphia scene. He made two small label albums in 1977 and 1978 with two other organists.
Leo Stevens came up with Johnny Smith and worked as his drummer on nearly all of his albums, and those albums are the full extent of his discography.
This was the first of two sessions that Smith and this same group recorded for Prestige in early 1961 (the second would come on on May 12), and the two sessions were combined and released on two different albums, Stimulation, which came out in 1961, and Opus de Funk, which was held back unti 1966.
During this turn-of-the-decade period, Prestige seems to not have been entirely sure what they had with Smith, in terms of packaging and marketing. Bob Porter recalls that he was considered the best ballad player among jazz organists. If the organ wasn't taken seriously as a jazz instrument until Jimmy Smith shined a spotlight on it, it had certainly developed a niche in the pop world of the 1950s, with balladeers like Lenny Dee, but that wasn't the way Weinstock and Esmond Edwards saw Johnny Smith, either. If they had, his records would have been released on Moodsville.
Instead, they were released on New Jazz, which had a very different cachet in these years: described as specializing in emerging artists, they tended toward the more experimental. less commercial. And putting him with the likes of Oliver Nelson certainly suggested that direction.
Gettin' the Message, the album pairing Smith and Lem Winchester, was the first of Smith's recording sessions to get the Prestige label, but Stimulation was actually the first to be released on Prestige, so it can be said to be the beginning of Smith's soul jazz career.
Of the four songs on this session that made it to Stimulation, three of them are ballads not normally associated with soul jazz. "Cry Me a River" is the torchiest of torch songs. "Spring is Here," by Rodgers and Hart, and "Invitation," by Bronislaw Kaper (best known in jazz circles for "On Green Dolphin Street") both became jazz standards when recorded by John Coltrane in a 1958 session for Prestige. The one Smith original is "Ribs an' Chips," and it's interesting how often food, especially soul food, gets into the titles of funky music, from early rhythm and blues instrumentals like "Cornbread" to Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis's forays into the kitchen, and "Ribs an' Chips" has all the ingredients that went into those earlier recipes, the catchy riff, the rhythmic propulsion, the funky blues notes. It's mostly Mr. Hammond on the Hammond, as is the whole session, but Freddie McCoy really starts to get into the possibilities of soul jazz vibes.
"Autumn Leaves" and "Almost Like Being in Love," which were held back for the second album, are also ballads, so it definitely would appear that Johnny "Hammond" Smith as funkster was an idea that was slow developing.
The other funky track from this session, which became the title track of the later-released album and also a 45 RPM single, is Horace Silver's "Opus de Funk," first recorded by Silver in 1953, then by Milt Jackson for Prestige in 1954. It was widely recorded throughout the 1950s, though mostly not by groups that you'd immediately associate with funk: several Swedish combos, and a group of Nashville session musicians.
Esmond Edwards produced this and the May session. The album was released on Prestige. Later, both sessions would be conjoined in a CD reissue.
Johnny "Hammond" Smith and his Philadelphia cohorts go after some familiar standards here, and I do mean familiar. That gives him a more difficult task than you might imagine. These are super-familiar standards because people love them, so he's got to not alienate the multitudes who love them, while at the same time appealing to the esoterica-loving jazz hipsters who would rather run naked through Sam Goody's than listen to another rendition of "My Funny Valentine."
Or, especially, of "Autumn Leaves." This is 1959, and although there have already been several jazz interpretations (Jimmy Smith, Ahmad Jamal, Errol Garner), the one that's been inescapable since
1955 has been the recording by Roger Williams, with its arpeggios run amok through jukeboxes, radio stations both top forty and traditional, and your aunt's living room, where her 9-year-old won't stop sliding his fist from top to bottom of the keyboard, yelling out "Hey, I'm playin' 'Autumn Leaves!'"
So, does Mr. Smith, otherwise known as Mister Hammond, succeed in keeping it recognizable, while at the same time making it hip, at least a little sardonic, different, and ultimately musical? To these ears, yes.
I'm not saying that every listener to Lacy, or to Martin Block's Make Believe Ballroom, would have pricked up his ears, tapped his feet, and said "It's not Roger Williams...but I like it." But they should have. And I'm not saying that every jaded jazzer would offer a knowing smile and say "Hey, that's hip." But I did.
I like standards. I always cringe a little when a young jazz musician, especially a vocalist, announces that this set will be all originals, because not everyone is that good a composer. They call them standards because they set a standard, and it's a good standard to measure yourself against. Even the Beatles on their early albums, even Thelonious Monk -- and we're talking about composers on a level that you and I and the young jazz trumpet player in the next apartment can only dream about -- recorded their versions of standards (they're called "covers" in pop and rock; in jazz we call it playing music). The challenge Smith sets for himself--and he lays it right out there with "Autumn Leaves"--is not the
usual jazz player's challenge to seek out and reclaim neglected standards, but to go toe to toe with the Great American Songbook's Greatest Hits: "My Funny Valentine," "Bye Bye Blackbird," "I'll Remember April."
Well, now. "I'll Remember April." I was tempted to choose that as my "Listen to One," except it's not exactly reminiscent of anything except itself. This is an April that seems to have been remembered in a barnyard, with pigs and ducks and other farm animals doing the remembering, I love it. It's worth a trip to YouTube to check it out.
Charlie Parker's "Billie's Bounce" is a little different, Your task in playing a composition by Bird is not to find a new and hip way of interpreting it, but just to do it justice, and Smith comes through here, too.
Finally, balancing out the set, we have two Smith originals. The whole set has been about delivering that good feeling, and his own composition, "That Good Feelin'," is all about that--jaunty, bluesy and tuneful, and a good stretch on the Hammond. The other original, "Puddin'," also has a dropped "g," and also delivers in much the same way.
That Good Feelin' was the title of the New Jazz album. The 45 RPM single was "I'll Remember April," an interesting choice. Maybe not the one I would have picked if I were looking for maximum air and jukebox play, but refreshing. The flip side is "That Good Feelin'," which you can't argue with.
And...OK, I can't resist. Here's "I'll Remember April."
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.
I've ignored an important milestone in jazz of the 1950s. In midsummer of 1959, Rudy Van Gelder moved out of his parents' living room and into his new studio at 445 Sylvan Avenie, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. This studio, designed by architect David Henken in consultation with Van Gelder and inspired, as so much architecture of the era was, by Frank Lloyd Wright, had 39-foot cathedral ceilings, and reminded many of a cathedral: Ira Gitler said that it could give you "a feeling of religion." It is a shrine to modern jazz, but even more than that, it was a great working studio, and Van Gelder kept developing it and improving it and recording music in it until shortly before his death in 2016.
Ike Quebec was the first artist to record in the new space, on July 20, and Coleman Hawkins and Red Garland were the first Prestige artists, on August 12. My apologies for carelessness, and when this gets assembled in book form, it will be back to its correct chronology.
Johnny "Hammond" Smith's nickname was not to distinguish him from other organists, because they all played the Hammond, but to distinguish him from other Johnny Smiths, particularly the acclaimed jazz guitarist. Like many organists, he began on the piano, and like many before him, the sound of a pioneering organ virtuoso inspired him. Since he didn't come from Philadelphia, it wasn't Jimmy Smith. Born in Louisville, KY, Smith moved to Cleveland, where he first heard Wild Bill Davis. He was working at the time (1958) as Nancy Wilson's piano accompanist, but the organ won him over, to the point that when he made his 1959 debut as a leader, he had already folded "Hammond" into his name.
Smith had a real feeling for the funky qualities of the organ, and he would become known as the instrument's funkmeister as his career developed, and he was plenty funky as he began with Prestige, but he also showed his dexterity with standards, as was expected of an organ group in those days: "The Masquerade is Over," "Pennies from Heaven" and "Secret Love,," not quite a standard yet, although it certainly became one. Smith's was one of the first jazz renditions.
All of the musicians with Smith are also new to Prestige. Guitarist Thornel Schwartz understands and contributes to the guitar-organ dynamic which is developing as an important new thing in jazz, and he's a new phenomenon: a guitar-organ specialist. Schwartz was from Philadelphia, and he began his career with Jimmy Smith. He would go on to play with Larry Young, Charles Earland, Jimmy McGriff and Richard "Groove" Holmes.
George Tucker flew under the radar of publicity during his short life (he died of a brain hemorrhage in 1965, at age 38) but he left a powerful impression as a musician. On an Internet forum devoted to the discussion of jazz bass, a young fan writes about hearing him on a session with Earl Hines and Coleman Hawkins, and laments that he can't find anything about him: "Is George Tucker a highly regarded player? If so, why is there so little about him on the net?"
No one on the forum knows anything about him, but everyone, it seems, has a favorite recording:
Mr. Tucker plays on one of my all-time favorite "sleeper" discs, Jaki Byard's Live!! at Lennie's On the Turnpike.
Not to mention an Illinois Jacquet date with Alan Dawson and Barry Harris also live from Lennie's called Bottoms Up.
Check out a Zoot side w.Dave McKenna and Dannie Richman on drums playing more trad type tunes...the album is called Down Home.
I came across George Tucker's playing on the Stanley Turrentine record, Look Out! I particularly appreciate the amount of space and bluesy-ness Tucker applies to his solo on 'Yesterdays'.
And there are more. Young bassists love his work with Walt Dickerson, Andrew Cyrille, Freddie Redd, Horace Parlan, Booker Ervin.
Tucker had already built an impressive resume by the time he made his Prestige debut with Smith: Curtis Fuller, Bennie Green, John Handy, Slide Hampton, Melba Liston. He would become a mainstay of Prestige recording during the early 1960s before his death.
Leo Stevens had been with Smith from the beginning, and remained with him for many years. He doesn't appear to have moonighted beyond his work with Smith, but he was an important part of Smith's jazz-funk sound.
Maybe the best word for Smith's debut recording is "ingratiating." His general attitude seems to be "there's no way you're not gonna like this, and unless you're an unreconstructed organ combo-hater, that's going to be pretty much true. "Sweet Cookies" is a pretty good place to start hearing how that works. It's a Smith original, and it opens with a groove nearly as irresistible as "Honky Tonk," to draw you in, and then without ever losing that, it develops textures, does those things with tonality than only an organ can do, and includes terrific guitar solo from Schwartz.
The album was released from New Jazz as All Soul, and the title cut, b/w "The Masquerade is Over," was released on 45 RPM two different ways: under the Prestige label, with "Masquerade" as the A side, and on New Jazz, with "All Soul" on top. The significance of an A side was basically that when the record was advertised in the trade publications or promotional cards were sent to record stores, the A side got the major ink. On jukeboxes, the A side was the top listed. When the record was sent to disc jockeys, it was sent with instructions (perhaps along with payola) to play the A side, and generally those instructions were followed, although there are famous stories of B sides that eclipsed their leaders, including one funky organ classic. "Behave Yourself" by Booker T. and the MG's was going nowhere until a few enterprising DJs flipped it over and started playing the B side, "Green Onions."
"Sweet Cookies" was also a New Jazz 45, with "Secret Love" on the flip side.
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.
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