Listening to Prestige 461: The Swingville All Stars

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.

Listening to Prestige 347: Pee Wee Russell

Listening to Prestige continues to be an enriching experience beyond what I even expected, as the Swingville catalog expands and showcases exemplars of a style of music I haven't always paid enough attention to. Pee Wee Russell played jazz over five decades, making a name for himself as one of the leading Dixieland and Chicago-style musicians, playing for most of his career with solid traditionalists like Eddie Condon and Henry "Red" Allen, yet always known as an odd duck in a field that did not always take kindly to odd ducks. Dixieland players, especially as, like Eddie Condon, they dug in their heels against modernism, prided themselves on hitting notes squarely, but Russell never exactly did that. His style was always punctuated by growls, swoops, yelps, and off-notes that would have felt right at home in a bebop setting. Indeed, he is certainly the only traditional jazz musician ever to play the Newport Festival as part of Thelonious Monk's group. With Condon, partly because of his unorthodox style and partly because of his hangdog looks, he was the comic relief for Condon's stage schtick, but there was nothing ridiculous about it when he stepped out front and started soloing.

Russell was on a comeback that had almost seemed impossible. In 1951, alcohol had caused a physical breakdown that sent him to the hospital, where many thought he would not recover.

Esmond Edwards, for his Prestige debut, put him together with a versatile group of musicians. Buck Clayton is perhaps best known for his work with Count Basie, and for a swing-era style, but in his time with Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic he played with everyone, including Charlie Parker. The rhythm section is equally versatile, and together, they create a session that is satisfyingly mainstream and still full of surprises.

In fact, everyone in this session is capable of delivering up surprises, and they do--even Wendell Marshall, who's tasked with keeping everyone in line and is up to the job, his walking bass weaving in and out among the soloists. Osie Johnson delivers a couple of stinging solos.

And Tommy Flanagan, raised in the bebop hotbed of Detroit but capable of playing with anyone, raises some serious eyebrows here. He doesn't come close to staying within the conventions of traditional jazz, and yet everything he does works, making this a session that is absolutely located within Swingville, but rewarding for anyone of any jazz taste who takes the time to give it a listen.

The best YouTube presentation is the whole album, so that's what I've put up, but if I were able to single out a Listen to One, it would be "Lulu's Back in Town"--a Dixieland chestnut, but not the way they play it.

The Swingville album was titled Swingin' with Pee Wee.