Listening to Prestige 543 - Coleman Hawkins

LISTEN TO ONE: The Sweetest Sounds

Coleman Hawkins died in 1969, and made his last recording (fittingly called The Greatest Jazz Concert in the World) in 1967, so this was pretty much the stretch run for the Hawk, but he was prodigiously productive. In 1962 alone he recorded eight albums as leader: three for Prestige, two for Verve, and three for Impulse! He also appeared on albums by Kenny Burrell and Shelly Manne. I doubt that there are many jazz musicians who can approach that level of productivity

This is the second of his Prestige outings, like the first one a Moodsville venture, and like the first focused on the Broadway musical. However, while the first (Good Old Broadway, recorded January 2)

featured familiar and beloved tunes from Broadway's storied past, this one focused on a recently opened show, No Strings, with a score by Richard Rodgers which produced no memorable songs at all.

That's a little unfair. Rodgers had not declined as a composer, but the era of Broadway show tunes becoming hit songs was over. While Broadway-to-Top-Forty had still been a common occurrence in the 1950s -- "Hernando's Hideaway," "Hey There," etc. There were crooners like Eddie Fisher and Patti Page and the Ames Brothers still regularly making the charts in those days, and even a rare Rogers and Hammerstein flop, Pipe Dream, could yield a Billboard chart hit with Fisher's version of "Everybody's Got a Home but Me." 

By comparison, 1962 saw two successful musicals, No Strings and Stop the World--I Want to Get Off, and one smash hit, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and the three of them together produced one song, Sammy Davis Jr.'s "What Kind of Fool Am I?" that even dented the charts.

No Strings not only produced no hits, but except for "The Sweetest Sounds," which got a boost from being recycled into the television musical Cinderella, there have been precious few recordings of any of the songs beyond original cast albums, and except for "Sweetest Sounds" and "Loads of Love," which were included on an Original Jazz Classics double CD called Coleman Hawkins -- On Broadway, none of these songs has had an afterlife in the reissue world.

Which doesn't make them bad songs. and doesn't make this any less of a musically satisfying outing from Hawkins and his musicians. It just means you're not likely to find it anywhere, except for YouTube, which seems to manage to find everything,

When you record ten albums in a year, and over two dozen in what is supposed to be your twilight years, a decade that you are supposed to be at best a footnote to, some of the music is going to get lost in the shuffle, even though it has every right to be heard and appreciated. So it's good to dust this one off, and the rewards are there for the listening.

The album was recorded in two sessions, on March 30 and again on April 3, and I suspect that might have been unintended. The March 30 session ends with a version of  "Maine" that is marked in the session log as "Rejected by Prestige," and the April 3 session begins with "Maine," so something must have happened to make them cut the first session short.

No Strings was the first show for which Rodgers wrote both music and lyrics. Tommy Flanagan, Major Holley and Eddie Locke had appeared on Hawkins's previous Broadway album for Prestige Moodsville, and they were his regular working band during those days. The album, The Jazz Version of No Strings, was a Moodsville release. Esmond Edwards produced.

Listening to Prestige 542 - Honi Gordon

LISTEN TO ONE: My Kokomo

 This turned out to be the only solo album Honi Gordon ever made. She is categorized, if she is mentioned at all, as one of a number of "one-album wonders," female jazz singers who got that one shot, and then were forgotten, as the Beatles, and the new rock explosion in general, found jazz, and especially jazz vocalists, fading in popularity. Playboy would rename its Jazz Poll the Jazz and Pop Poll (and the Village Voice would mockingly call its music column "Pazz and Jop"). But there's more to her than that.

Her career started as part of a family singing group, The Gordons (her father, two brothers, and her), and if the Gordons never made it quite into public visibility, they were good enough to get the respect of their peers, as evidenced by the company they kept in the recording studio, starting in 1953, when Honi was 15. 

Their 1953 debut was on Debut, the Charles Mingus-Max Roach label. They appear on two tracks, and are described in the liner notes as "Max Roach discoveries," although they, and particularly Honi, would become much more closely associated with Mingus. On the Debut album, they perform with Mingus, Roach, and Hank Jones, and they recorded more than those two tracks ("Bebopper" and "Can You Blame Me"), because three more would eventually appear on record. The Original Jazz Classics CD, Debut Rarities Volume 4, released in 1993, has "You Go to My Head," "You and Me," and "Cupid." All but "You Go to My Head" are credited to George Gordon, and throughout her career, Honi would make a point of featuring her father's songs.

In 1954, the Gordons recorded one tune for Columbia with a group that included Al Cohn, but it appears never to have been released.

In 1956, they appeared on a Lionel Hampton session for Jazztone, a record-of-the-month club that was started by two chemical engineer brothers who were offered 20 tons of vinyl resin at a bargain price, and then had to figure out something to do with it. The session featured Hampton, Oscar Dennard, Oscar Pettiford and Gus Johnson, and their version of "Take the A Train" is highly prized by cognoscenti. They are featured on one cut of a 1957 Dizzy Gillespie-Stuff Smith album for Verve.

Honi then went on her own, working twice with Eddie Jefferson. In 1959 they collaborated on three

tunes, two of which were released on 45 by the Triumph label ("Sherry" and "Body and Soul"), and all three (including "Now's the Time") on a couple of Jefferson reissues. They reunited in 1961, again for Triumph, for four songs with a vocal quartet which also included Babs Gonzales. These appear never to have been released at the time (Triumph had probably already gone under), but have appeared on later Jefferson reissues.

1959 also saw her reunited with Charles Mingus for the Mingus Dynasty album for Columbia, which included a version of "Strollin'," the Mingus/George Gordon collaboration. Mingus was one of the two artists who most enthusiastically championed her career.

1962 was her Prestige year, and after that, instead of aggressively pursuing a solo career, she reunited with her family, perhaps because Mary Lou Williams, the other artist who most appreciated her talent, needed a vocal ensemble for her devotional work, Black Christ of the Andes, recorded in 1963.  She would record with Williams twice more, both times with devotional music: in 1967, for a live performance at Carnegie Hall, and 1972, on Williams's own Mary label. Mingus and Williams are two artists known for their uncompromising commitment to musical excellence, which should tell you something about Honi Gordon.

Further work with Mingus included a live Columbia recording in 1972 (Charles Mingus and Friends in Concert), and Mingus Moves in 1973, on Atlantic.

Then nothing, although she seems to have kept singing. in 2007, she performed with Andy Bey and Geri Allen at a Fordham University tribute to Mary Lou Williams, which suggests that she must have been based around New York.

Of the Prestige album. a present-day reviewer (for Allmusic.com) wrote that Gordon "had an appealing style that was influenced by Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday, as well as Annie Ross. There were also hints of Chris Connor..." while a contemporary of hers (Sidney Falco, who wrote the liner notes for the album) says the opposite: Gordon is "if you will, original: one cannot point to her work, as it is so easy to do in many cases, and say where such and such a phrase or stylistic trick came from." And perhaps they're both right. The one thing you can say for certain about Gordon's singing is that it sounds like jazz.

Part of the uniqueness of her style (and part of the reason why AllMusic's Alex Henderson compared her to Annie Ross) comes from her choice of material--her father's material, especially. George Gordon was a unique composer--and I use "unique" in its original sense. I don't believe anyone else did what he did. "Vocalese" was in its heyday back then, and it meant the same thing for everyone who practiced, from the innovative work of Eddie Jefferson and King Pleasure through the complex arrangements of Dave Lambert to the lyric inspiration of Annie Ross -- who wrote the brilliant "Farmer's Market" and the now-classic "Twisted" in one night, after Bob Weinstock had played her "Moody's Mood" and asked if she could do something like that. It meant writing a vocal line to a jazz soloist's improvisation.

But George Gordon did something a little different. You can listen to "My Kokomo" and start digging through your old wax or your new Spotify to find the "Kokomo" and the improvised solo it came from, but to no avail. Gordon wrote the whole thing, words and music. The only exception is "Strollin'," where Gordon put a lyric to Charles Mingus's "Nostalgia in Times Square." George Gordon was a remarkable composer, and Honi Gordon a fitting interpreter (and, except for "Strollin'," her father's only interpreter).

Honi does four of her father's songs on this album: "Strollin'," "My Kokomo," "Love Affair," and "Cupid." She also stretches her range in other directions. There are standards: "Ill Wind" (Harold Arlen Ted Koehler) and "Why Try to Change Me Now" (Cy Coleman, Joseph McCarthy). There's a song by Esmond Edwards, who didn't write all that many -- "Lament of the Lonely." Both of her champions are included: Mingus with "Strollin'," Mary Lou Williams with "Walkin' Out the Door." "Why" was written by Consuela Lee Moorhead, who had something in common with George Gordon. He wrote for his daughter; she contributed music, and a song, to a movie by her nephew, Spike Lee.

Honi Gordon's adventurous spirit is shown in her choice of musicians for the session, the equally adventurous Jaki Byard and Ken McIntyre (later Makanda Ken McIntyre).

Honi Gordon Sings was a Prestige release.

Listening to Prestige 541 - Frank Wess

LISTEN TO ONE: Southern Comfort

 I suspect Frank Wess is best known for his work with Count Basie, but his catalogue encompasses a lot more than that, work with a variety of other musicians and as a leader of his own ensembles. This was his 11th session for Prestige. He had previously recorded with Gene Ammons and with Lem Winchester; he had done three Prestige All Stars sessions, including one with John Coltrane; a Basie alumni session with Joe Newman; and a session with vocalist Etta Jones. He had co-led two remarkable sessions with harpist Dorothy Ashby, and had done a Moodsville session as leader in 1960.

Recording Frank Wess in 1962 is one indication of the eclectic range Prestige was pursuing in these years. The label had embraced the new soul jazz with its organ combos; the new free jazz, or "freedom music" as it was called in those days, with Eric Dolphy; modern takes on the swing era with its Swingville series; the blues with Bluesville; a softer (but still swinging) sound with Moodsville. It had embraced the rhythm and blues side of jazz with King Curtis, Willis "Gator Tail" Jackson and Sam "the Man" Taylor, and Latin jazz with Juan Amalbert's Latin Jazz Quintet -- two genres too overlooked. And it was not overlooking the bebop/hard bop music that had come to fruition in the previous decade, and as it continued through more shifts and permutations of jazz expression would come to be known as "straight ahead jazz."

Frank Wess, with his Basie roots and his modern roots, was as straight ahead as they come, and he has a versatile straight-ahead rhythm section behind him, with Prestige veterans Tommy Flanagan, George Duvivier, Osie Johnson and Ray Barreto, and similar versatility from George Barrow, whose baritone (and occasionally tenor) sax would be featured on a number of Prestige albums, and on Oliver Nelson's  The Blues and the Abstract Truth.

New to Prestige is trumpeter Al Aarons, not Detroit-born, but Detroit-bred--a Wayne State graduate, he played with Yusef Lateef and Barry Harris, and had a regular gig at the Flame Show Bar backing up visiting talent from Billie Holiday to Jackie Wilson, before touring with Wild Bill Davis and then joining the Countasie band in 1961, and stayed with the Count for the rest of the decade, and he joined Gene Ammons for one more Prestige session near the end of the label's independent life. Later on he would play jazz fusion with Stanley Clarke and accompany both Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, and record an album with B. B. King and Bobby "Blue" Bland. He also started his own record label in Los Angeles.

And finally, the session had an arranger. Oliver Nelson. A septet isn't quite a big enough ensemble to require an arranger, but it can't hurt to have one, especially when it's Oliver Nelson.

Just as the Prestige Swingville records, featuring swing stars of the 1930s and 1940s, were not  duplications or rehashes of those earlier decades, so the music of this session, with Nelson's arrangements, does not sound like something that might have been made seven or eight years earlier. It's straight ahead music, but music of its time. Listen to the extended duet by Johnson and Barretto on "Southern Comfort."

Wess plays both flute and tenor sax for this session. Esmond Edwards produced. There are two compositions by Wess ("Gin's Beguine" and "Summer Frost"), two by Nelson ("Southern Comfort" and "Shufflin'"). "Blues for Butterball" is by a lesser known composer, Bob Bryant (he was Vic Damone's musical director), and it's credited as having lyrics by Maine humorist Marshall Dodge, but I haven't been able to find a vocal version. "Butterball" was Oliver Nelson's nickname. "Blue Skies" (Irving Berlin) and "Dancing in the Dark (Howard Dietz, Arthur Schwartz) are standards.

Listening to Prestige 540: Dizzy Reece

LISTEN TO ONE: Spiritus Parkus

 Dizzy Reece took a long way around to New York and Rudy Van Gelder's studio and the jazz kitchens of Blue Note and Prestige, and the music once known as New York music, later to be given to an unsuspecting and at first unwelcoming world as bebop. By the time that Reece recorded this session for Prestige, other strains of jazz were mixed into his broth, but bebop was always at the center of it.

And it was not exactly his birthrigh at, as it was for his New York and Detroit-born contemporaries. Reece was born and raised in Jamaica. His father was a musician who played piano accompaniment for silent movies. His biographies point out that he took up the trumpet at age 14, switching over from

the baritone saxophone, which is remarkable in itself--a 12 or 13-year old boy would not have been much bigger than than that unwieldy instrument. But the trumpet was where he found himself, and by age 16 he was playing professionally in  a swing band. At 17, in 1948, he was ready to expand his musical horizons. and he set sail -- not for New York, but for London.

His first bookings did not take that far from home musically. On his passage across the Atlantic, he made the acquaintance of a calypso band, also England bound, and since they had gigs lined up in Liverpool, he joined up with them. He did not make it to London until the following year, where he first discovered bebop, and was completely won over by the new music on a trip to Paris and the first International Jazz Festival, where he heard Charlie Parker and Miles Davis.

He made his first recordings in London in 1955, and, while still in England in 1958, recorded an album for Blue Note (Donald Byrd played on the session). The following year, with the encouragement of Miles Davis, whom he had met in Paris, he came to New York. He made three more albums for Blue Note before being dropped from the label. He did this one session for Prestige, then pretty much disappeared from the recording scene. He joined Dizzy Gillespie's big band in 1968, and made a few records for small labels in Europe and New York in the 1970s. He remained active, if mostly unacclaimed, into the 21st century, and not only as a musician. He's had exhibitions of his paintings, he's made documentary films. and he told an interviewer in 2019 that he was just putting the finishing touches on a 750-page autobiography.

Asia Minor is solidly grounded in bebop, but it incorporates some of the newer ideas of the jazz

experimentalists of the era, and--as the title suggests--some of the sounds of the Near East and North Africa which were being explored most prominently by Yusef Lateef. All of these influences can be heard on "Spiritus Parkus (Parker's Spirit)," a Cecil Payne composition.

Baritone saxophonist Payne was no stranger to Prestige, having played on a John Coltrane-led Prestige All Stars session, and with Kenny Burrell, Tadd Dameron, Gene Ammons, and mambo jazzer Joe Holiday, in sessions going back to 1953.

Joe Farrell, just 24 when these recordings were made, had recorded with Maynard Ferguson, but was really just embarking on a career that would blossom in subsequent decades, most notably with Chick Corea's Return to Forever. He died young, of myelodysplastic syndrome, in 1986. One his compositions, "Upon This Rock," has been the subject of a series of lawsuits by his daughter against a number of hip-hop artists for unauthorized sampling.

Perhaps Reece's Jamaican background made him particularly conscious of rhythms, a subject that he frequently came back to in interviews -- "Charlie Parker played drums on the saxophone." he told one interviewer, and he prided himself on always working with great rhythm sections, which he certainly has here, with Hank Jones, Ron Carter, and especially Charlie Persip, whose rhythmic inventions go way beyond bebop here. Persip, who worked with swing, bop, and free jazz groups over his long career, was really coming into his own as a distinctive and innovative drummer in these years, as he became one of the most sought-after jazz drummers.

New York proved to be not all that hospitable to Reece. He never quite broke through to major recognition, and his marriage suffered from a resistance to an interracial couple that he had not experienced in England. His wife ultimately left him and took their daughters back home to England. Reece, too, would return to England and Europe for many years, though New York ultimately beckoned him home, mostly to anonymity. When an interviewer found him in 2019, he was greated with, "I'm surprised you didn't think I was dead!"

Asia Minor was a New Jazz release. Jules Colomby produced.

Listening to Prestige 539; Larry Young

LISTEN TO ONE: Groove Street

This was Larry Young's third and last album for Prestige, and his last album in the Jimmy Smith soul jazz genre. There would be a couple of years' hiatus, and then when he resumed recording in late 1964 for Blue Note, he had moved in a different direction for himself, and for jazz organ--a much more Coltrane-influenced sound. 

As such, it's a somewhat overlooked album, and undeservedly. Young may be better known today for his later work. Only 22 when he recorded it, Young had the chops, and he had the soul, and he had the love of making music that comes through loud and clear. He worked on this session with two familiar musicians, guitarist Thornel Schwartz and drummer Jimmie Smith, his cousin, who usually spelled his name with an "ie" to differentiate himself

from the organist. Schwartz, 13 years Young's senior, had begun his recording career with the organist Jimmy Smith on the latter's debut album in 1956, and had made a name for himself as the go-to guitarist for the organ-guitar sound.

New to the Young orbit, and to Prestige, is tenor saxophonist Bill Leslie, who brings an old school rhythm and blues sound to 1960s soul. Yoked with Young and Schwartz, he adds a third distinctive solo sound, making it the kind of record that elicits an "Oh yeah!" with the start of each new solo. 

This session is a stop on the road for Young, similar in style to his earlier Prestige albums. He was about to leave all of that behind--Prestige and soul jazz--so I'll take a little time here to look at Leslie, who doesn't get much attention elsewhere.

Leslie did very little recording. There's this album, and two for Argo (produced by Esmond Edwards). On one he shares co-leader billing with Schwartz, who was his contemporary (Leslie was born in 1925) from Philadelphia--it's likely that Schwartz recommended him for the session with Young. That one is generally billed as a Thornel Schwartz album, and was in fact Schwartz's only album as leader.

The other is Bill Leslie's only album as leader, and his last credited appearance on wax. He was abetted by Schwartz, Tommy Flanagan, Ben Tucker and Art Taylor. The album was called Diggin' the Chicks, and it featured tunes about women, including the Lead Belly classic "Goodnight Irene," and -- surprising and ambitions for a swing-rhythm and blues-soul jazz guy, Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman."

He did a creditable job tackling a challenging tune, but it was not to be a harbinger of things to come.

Unlike Larry Young, Leslie does not seem to have followed the trail blazed by Coleman / Colttane / Dolphy. Reports have him staying home and continuing to play soul jazz in the Newark / Philadelphia axis. He died in 2003.

"Groove Street" was the title tune from Young's album, and also a two-sided 45 RPM single. Another original, "Talkin' About J. C.," showed his growing interest in Coltrane. He would record it again for Blue Note with Grant Green, and Green would also put it on an album. Esmond Edwards produced the session.

Listening to Prestige 538: Big Joe Williams

LISTEN TO ONE: Mink Coat Blues

 This is the second Big Joe Williams  session to be released on Prestige Bluesville. This is a live album, which is newsworthy for a couple of reasons. First, Prestige very rarely released live albums. Second, it was recorded at Gerde's Folk City in New York's Greenwich Village. 

Greenwich Village had a long history as the center of New York's Bohemia, and that was still very much the case in 1962. That meant entertainment for the niche audience that was Bohemia, and for the brave souls from the suburbs and the outer boroughs who wanted to see what life had to offer beyond Connie Francis and Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians. Jazz was represented in clubs like the Village

Vanguard. And folk music -- the music of the people, the music of protest, the music discovered in tiny Appalachian communities by folklorists and brought to the folkies of Bohemia in publications like Sing Out!

And, increasingly, it was the music discovered by folklorists like Samuel Charters and Mack McCormick. The blues explosion of the 1960s had arrived, as New York's Bohemia played host to such blues musicians as John Lee Hooker, who was backed up by a young white guy named Bob Dylan, making his first appearance on the Folk City stage. And such blues musicians as Big Joe Williams. 

It was a new experience for New York's Bohemians. A previous generation had learned of the blues through Leadbelly, who was a towering talent, and who was savvy enough to tailor his blues message to his audience, singing about not being mistreated by no bourgeoisie. Or through Big Bill Broonzy, a jazz guitarist who realized he could have a second career if he reinvented himself as a folk bluesman, and reinvented the definition of folk bluesman to include songs about getting together and breaking up the old Jim Crow. The blues was a music of realism in the face of an harsh, unchanging world. The white leftists who made up this new audience believed that the world could be changed, and responded most enthusiastically to songs which reflected that belief.

The new young blues audience of the 1960s was looking for a more authentic experience: the gritty realism of the rural south, and later, especially as it got filtered back to them through British blues enthusiasts, of the urban north. And the blues singers got some new paydays, through clubs like Folk City, college campuses, blues festivals (those came later in the decade) and even European tours. 

For the listener of today, it's an opportunity to hear one of the best of the old bluesmen in an intimate live setting. Williams gets a unique sound from his 9-string guitar, and voice is strong and persuasive, and his observations on life trenchant.

The Bluesville album was entitled Big Joe Williams at Folk City.

Listening to Prestige 537: Sam Taylor

LISTEN TO ONE: Love Song from Suzie Wong

Anastasia

 Prestige adds another rhythm and blues giant to its jazz roster, proving once again that rhythm and blues is a legitimate form of jazz, and that these players fit seamlessly into a more bop-oriented context. Up this time is Samuel Leroy Taylor Jr., known as Sam "the Man" Taylor when he led Alan Freed's stage band, but simply Sam Taylor when he recorded in more respectable settings (similarly, Ellingtonian Al Sears was "Big Al" when he performed and recorded with the Alan Freed band).

Taylor had been something of a pioneer in the sax-organ combo business, having recorded an album with Dick Hyman for MGM back in 1957, with a very different approach from the soul jazz sound that had become popular in 1962. But he

eschews the sax-organ sound here, going instead with a quintet. Pianist Lloyd Mayers's carer spanned decades, and twenty years after this session, he would be named musical director of the Broadway revue of Duke Ellington's music, Sophisticated Ladies. Wally Richardson was a very active session guitarist in those days, with a number of sessions for Prestige. Art Davis, whose reputation as one of the finest bassists of his generation, classical or jazz, was matched only by his social conscience, had appeared on two previous Prestige sessions. And that a classical cat can get down with a rhythm and blues cat is as good as any tribute to the breadth of the language of jazz. And add Ed Shaughnessy to the mix and you have a pro's pro, whose best known gig, with Doc Severinsen's Tonight show orchestra, didn't begin to scratch the surface of his range.

The album's format is a little gimmicky--movie themes that celebrate women's names (or attributes, like "The Bad and the Beautiful," and it was released on Moodsville, which was sometimes accused of being a little gimmicky as a label. But I am here to say I see absolutely nothing wrong with this. It was probably a lot of fun coming up with the gimmick, and then finding the movie themes that would work. This included classics like "Laura," and tunes that had immediate popularity and proved to have legs, like "The Bad and the Beautiful," written by David Raksin and recorded by jazz musicians from Barney Kessel (1957) to Bill Frisell (2016). And a couple of sleepers. "Love Song from Suzie Wong" has never been recorded by anyone else that I know of. It was written by George Duning, a frighteningly prolific

composer with 180 film scores to his credit. In 1960 alone, the year of The World of Suzie Wong, he scored six other movies. But someone had a good ear, and "Suzie Wong" came out well enough to be the 45 RPM single release from the session, with "Anastasia" on the flip side. 

"Suzie Wong" / "Anastasia" was released as a Prestige single, "The Bad and the Beautiful" as a Moodsville single. The album, with the same name, also came out on Moodsville. "Ruby" (written by Heinz Roemheld for the movie Ruby Gentry) was later released on a compilation album for Prestige's budget label, Status, entitled Lusty Moods, and credited to Sam "the Man" Taylor.

Listening to Prestige 536: Gene Ammons, Sonny Stitt, Jack McDuff

LISTEN TO ONE: Sleeping Susan

 It was a busy few days for Mr. Stitt, and a lot of trips out to Englewood Cliffs. On Friday, recording with Jack McDuff. On Sunday, a Verve recording session, as Norman Granz joined Sonny with Gene Ammons for a mainstream blowing session in Rudy Van Gelder's cathedral of recorded jazz. Then the two saxophonists might as well have booked a couple of rooms on the Jersey side of the river, as they were back in harness on Monday, joining "youngster" McDuff (actually all three were just about the same age, but McDuff was a new star in the jazz firmament, and the two tenormen were solidly established veterans).

These are three guys who really represent three different genres of jazz: Stitt the bebopper, Ammons the old school boppin' the blues, McDuff the soul jazz of the 1960s. So, although "Soul Summit" is a bit  of cliche, it's also an accurate description of this gathering. They are three kindred spirits who've meshed well in dyads, and mesh equally well here in a triad, with the propulsive assistance of Charlie Persip on drums. Persip and McDuff are the entire rhythm section, so Brother Jack is largely in a supporting role here, but he makes the most of it. He and Persip provide more than a cushion for the two soloists--their work is complex and provocative. 

The set is two standards, two originals by Ammons ("Tubby" and "Shuffle Twist"), one by Stitt ("Dumplin's"), and one more obscure tune from an underrated composer, Jimmy Mundy. Mundy is underrated partly because one of his most famous compositions, "Walkin'," the Miles Davis standard, is not credited to him. On the Library of Congress copyright certificate for the tune, the original title (and

the tune has been recorded under a number of different titles) is wiped out, and the name of Richard E. Carpenter is written in as composer. Carpenter was not a composer, and is best known for cheating and exploiting various jazz musicians. Mundy is credited as co-composer (with Johnny Mercer and Trummy Young) of a gold star standard, "Travlin' Light." And he is the composer, here, of "Sleeping Susan," which proves to be an excellent choice.

You might think that "Shuffle Twist" would have been earmarked as the single, just for the title alone. But instead an edited-down version of "Tubby" was the choice, on the flip side of "Love, I've Found You," from Ammons's 1961 session with Oliver Nelson. The 45 RPM single was issued under Ammons's name.

Esmond Edwards produced Soul Summit.

Listening to Prestige 535: Lightnin' Hopkins

LISTEN TO ONE: Happy Blues for
John Glenn

 A month after his January session, Lightnin' Hopkins was back in the studio for two more dates with Mack McCormick,now with an amplified guitar and different members of the band that he customarily used for club dates around Houston for each session. They were:

Buster Pickens on piano (second session). He was one of the west Texas piano players who had roots going back to the 1920s and were known as the "Santa Fe group," but not because they had any connection with that New Mexico tourist mecca. They used to travel to gigs around Houston, Galveston, Richmond and other southwest Texas destinations by hopping freights on the Santa Fe railroad line. He recorded with many blues singers, including Texas Alexander, Hopkins' mentor and perhaps his cousin. Pickens recorded an album of his own in 1960

Billy Bizor on harmonica (first session). After playing on several Hopkins recordings in the early 1960s, he got to do two recording sessions on his his own in 1968 and 1969, but they weren't released for a couple of decades, or long after Bizor's death.

Donald Cooks on bass (second session). He was the go-to bass player for a number of Texas bluesmen, recording with Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Smoky Hogg, Goree Carter and others. 

Spider Kilpatrick on drums (both sessions). He was raised in the same New Orleans orphanage that Louis Armstrong sprang from him, worked with Hopkins for many years, and was praised in the liner notes to an Arhoolie recording:

Finally here was a musician who could follow Hopkins wherever he went, plus one providing a snappier beat that the guitarist could hang phrases of a bit more aggressive nature than usual on.

One of the reasons Hopkins had such a long and prolific recording career is that he had a vast repertoire. Of course he did repeat himself from time to time, but he also knew a whole lot of songs. had written a whole lot of songs, and was able to extemporize a whole lot of songs. One such, on this album, is "Happy Blues for John Glenn, about which Mack McCormick says in his notes:

Most of them...are lost as the impulse and the circumstances which occasioned them fade away. That "Happy Blues for John Glenn" was caught in a recording session is an accident resulting entirely from the flight having fallen on the date for which studio time had been booked...Ordinarily, he would have forgotten it in a night or two, and as a matter of fact at this writing Lightnin' says he can't remember the song.

Walkin' This Road by Myself was a Bluesville release, producer credit to Kenneth S. Goldstein and Mack McCormick, although McCormick was the only one with actual hands on down in Houston. Three 45 RPM singles were released from the session. "My Baby Don't Stand No Cheating" / "Katie Mae" came out on Bluesville. 

Listening to Prestige 534: Sonny Stitt-Jack McDuff

LISTEN TO ONE: 'Nother Fu'ther

 Sonny Stitt joins the organ-saxophone combo brigade. He had actually made one such record before: a live album at Chicago's Mckie's DJ Lounge,   one of the last clubs standing as Chicago, by the 1960s, was losing its luster as one of the nation's jazz hot spots.  That recording, for Chicago-based Argo Records, utilized a group of local musicians, including organist Eddie Buster.  

This session brings Stitt together with one of the leading lights of the new organ combo soul jazz movement, and it's interesting to compare the two albums. Stitt was used to touring alone, and picking up groups of musicians in

the cities he visited, as with the Chicagoans on At the D. J. Lounge. Those musicians, whether just playing for the club audience or knowing they were to be recorded, knew that the people in the club had gotten dressed up and come out and paid money to hear Sonny Stitt. This was still a bullish era for jazz in Chicago--Mr. Kelly's was still thriving, and the Regal Theater--and there were first rate jazz musicians available. Eddie Buster's organ playing is excellent, and adds an unusual and satisfying texture to Stitt's bebop.

Playing with McDuff is a little different, but in a way not so different. In this case the city is New York, the mecca of jazz. Sonny Stitt is a stalwart veteran of Prestige's catalog (14 appearances before this one), but Jack McDuff is one of its hottest young stars. But still, it's Stitt coming to town and playing with a group of locals.

And in a way, the effect is comparable. More than is the case with a lot of the organ-saxophone combos, this is a Sonny Stitt session. 

Jazz is a music of innovation, and it's easy to think of it as in an almost constant, churning state of out with the old, in with the new, but that's not exactly the way it is. Certainly change is a constant, and "in with the new" will always be the watchword, though not without resistance -- think of Charlie Parker in his day, Ornette Coleman in his. Or the commercial rejection of Miles Davis's nonet sessions that became Birth of the Cool. But that didn't necessarily mean out with the old, which is why jazz careers, health permitting, could last a long time, and Garvin Bushell could play with Bunk Johnson and Fletcher Henderson, and later with John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy.

And it 's why there are not always clear dividing lines. It's why, in the 1950s, we heard swing-to-bop from players like Zoot Sims and Coleman Hawkins. And now, in 1962, are we hearing something similar, with Sonny Stitt going bop-to-funk? You can certainly hear it "Pam Ain't Blue," where Stitt's bebop rides easily along with McDuff's funk, and even more in "'Nother Fu'ther," which seems to capture the essence of bop-to-funk. All of the original compositions on this session are by Stitt, but they're geared to this blend of styles, and one of them, "Ringin' In," is really McDuff's number, and he makes the most of it. The three ballads are very much in Stitt's wheelhouse, with Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne's "Time after Time" getting a particularly beautiful reading.

That producer Esmond Edwards did not intend this to be strictly a jazz funk session is reflected in his choice of sidemen. McDuff regular Eddie Diehl is on guitar, but veterans Art Taylor and Ray Barretto provide the percussion, and they are the right men for the job.

I wondered if all of this added up to an album that would be more to the taste of the real jazz fan than the young crowd hopping on the funk jazz bandwagon. And I meant that to sound as snobbish as it does, when I prepared to write it, but as I got it down, I was changing my mind. Not everyone has to be totally committed to the pure soul of music. There's nothing wrong with being young, and wanting to dance, and caught up in the "what's happening now" spirit of the times. And if that zeitgeist is created at the fingertips of Jimmy Smith, Shirley Scott, Jack McDuff, all the better. Besides, the popular jazz of an era--funk, swing, Peter Gunn--can be a gateway drug, and of the young cats and kitties who pick this up for the organ groove, at least some of them will stay for the complexities of a Sonny Stitt improvisation. For the rest...you're only young once. God bless 'em.

The album was called Stitt Meets Brother Jack, and it was also released--presumably at the same time, with the same album number--as 'Nother Fu'ther, which was also the first single off the album, divided onto two sides of 45 RPM release. Also on 45 were "Pam Ain't Blue" / "Ringin' In," and "Thirty Three Ninety Six," parts 1 and 2.

Listening to Prestige 533: King Curtis

 

There's a lot to be said for the thought behind this King Curtis session, but not much to say about it. Take a collection of really familiar chestnuts and give them the King Curtis treatment: the stuttering tenor sax, the red hot rhythm and blues combo, here augmented by Ellington veteran Britt Woodman, which can't be anything but good news. Also joining the group is Carl Lynch, one of the best session guitarists in New York, with mega-credits extending from Pearl Bailey to the Fugs.

This was a gambit frequently used by 1950s rock-and-rollers. Take a song that everybody knows, because everyone sang it in their grade school music classes, and give it a Duane Eddy twangy guitar treatment, and you have "Red River Rock," by Johnny and the Hurricanes. Or take something equally familiar--a Stephen Foster song--and if you're a genius, like Ray Charles, you can turn it into "Swanee River Rock." Or if you're a gifted satirist, like Stan Freberg, you can turn it into "Rock Around Steven Foster." Fast forward to the 1970s, and they're still doing it, with equally familiar, if more classical, sources: Walter Murphy's "A Fifth of Beethoven."

King Curtis and his band are not geniuses like Ray Charles; they are, however, better musicians than Johnny and the Hurricanes, and if they aren't exactly the satirists that Stan Freberg is, they do approach these old chestnuts with a sense of humor. They did the old chestnuts about as well as you could ask for. This isn't an album that's lasted, and that's kinda too bad. It's fun to listen to.

The Tru-Sound album is called Doin' the Dixie Twist. Twist, I guess, because if you stuck "twist" on any any collection of rhythm and bluesy instrumentals, you had a chance of selling a few more copies in those days, so they were definitely not shy about getting the word out there. Dixie, I guess, because a lot of the songs are associated with the South, or because they're associated with Dixieland jazz. That crown jewel of all Dixieland chestnuts, "When the Saints Go Marchin' In," became a Tru-Sound 45, along with "Free for All," from the King's January session.

Listening to Prestige 532: Etta Jones

LISTEN TO ONE: Just Friends

 

LISTEN TO ONE: The Masquerade is Over

Etta Jones probably hit her peak of popularity with Don't Go to Strangers and Something Nice. Scott Yanow, in his review on AllMusic, describes this album as "a too-long-forgotten gem," and Jones herself could easily be described that way. She doesn't make UDiscover.com's list of the 25 greatest female jazz singers, compiled by critic Charles Waring representing a younger generation (although Etta James and Norah Jones do). The voters for Ranker.com, who I suspect are mostly younger, have her at number 24 on the day I checked (this is an ongoing vote, and can change), just ahead of Norah Jones, but considerably behind Etta James. Fortunately, she continued to work, and record companies continued to want her musical stylings, right in the mainstream of vocal jazz and always rewarding. She would do four more recording sessions with Prestige, and she would continue to tour, and perform, and record, her last session (a tribute to Billie Holiday) coming just months before her death from cancer in 2007;

Oliver Nelson was back again with her, arranging two different sessions on two days, the first with strings and the second with horns.

The rhythm section was the same for both dates. Pianist Lloyd Mayers had worked one previous Prestige session, in 1956 with Bennie Green; he would become, in 1981, the pianist and musical director for the Duke (by then Mercer) Ellington Orchestra for the Broadway musical Sophisticated Ladies. Wally Richardson had become an active Prestige participant, appearing with vocalist Betty Roché and with several instrumentalists, most recently Johnny "Hammond" Smith just a couple of weeks prior to the Jones date.  Bob Bushnell brought his bass to a King Curtis session in 1961, but as the decade rolled on he would figure in many more Prestige sessions. And drummer Ed Shaughnessy played across a wide spectrum of jazz groups and styles, before settling into the solid payday of Doc Severinsen's Tonight Show Orchestra.

The string section on day one is unidentified; the horn players of the second day are all Oliver Nelson veterans.

The songs are standards, and they justify the album's title. The sardonic "Makin' Whoopee" doesn't

exactly come from the heart, and it's not Jones's most effective outing, although it's still a pleasure to listen to. "You Came a Long Way From St. Louis," by John Benson Brooks and Bob Russell, also has a wry comic touch, but the wryness is mixed with warmth, and that's more in Jones's comfort zone.

Of particular interest is listening to Oliver Nelson arranging for the same singer, on successive days, with strikingly different instrumentation. Of the songs with strings, I was particularly struck by "Just Friends," a standard that's perhaps best defined by Charlie Parker, also with strings, but has been done by many vocalists. Oliver Nelson gives it a particularly arresting arrangement, starting with a sort of "Wagon Wheels" clippety clop opening, that then gets swallowed up by lush strings. 

For the larger group of songs with horns, it was hard to choose, but I think I'll go with "I'm Afraid the Masquerade is Over," a song that's been done by both Ettas, Jones and James, as well as singers from Sarah to Aretha. The definitive male version is probably George Benson's, and the Cleftones gave it a doowop spin. It's a song that allows for a lot of individuality in interpretation, and Jones and Nelson put their stamp on it, for sure.

From the Heart was a Prestige release, Esmond Edwards producing. "You Came a Long Way from St. Louis" was the 45 RPM single, with "Just Friends" on the flip side.

Listening to Prestige 531: Lightnin' Hopkins

LISTEN TO ONE: T Model Blues

 In his liner notes to this album, Mack McCormick notes that 

In a brief three years Lightnin Hopkins has become an international celebrity who receives fan mail from England, Australia, Sweden and Germany. A cascade of recordings, night club, concert and TV appearances have brought him to a glare of limelight of a kind accorded few blues singers.

That fame would date from 1959, when Hopkins was discovered by both McCormick and Samuel Charters. Charters recorded him on January 16, 1959, on a home tape recorder, one mike, in a furnished room in Houston, for Folkways. McCormick followed on February 16 and 26, with the same sort of basic equipment. His recording was released on Tradition, a folk music label started by Patrick Clancy of the Irish folk group the Clancy Brothers, along with Kenneth S. Goldstein, who would later run the Bluesville label for Prestige.

Hopkins, of course, had had a long recording history before being discovered by Charters and McCormick. going back to the 1940s and rhythm and blues labels like Aladdin, Modern, Harlem and Herald. Both Charters and McCormick had the idea of stripping the R&B commercialization from Hopkins, and having him sing the old-style Texas blues he learned from his cousin Texas Alexander and Blind Lemon Jefferson.

It was the right time and right approach for Hopkins, coming at the beginning of the blues revival of the 1960s, although McCormick may have been overstating the case for his celebrity by a bit. He may have gotten fan mail from England, Australia, Sweden and Germany, but Black musicians in America were still not getting the acclaim and adulation that went to Bobby Vinton or Connie Francis--and that's not even mentioning the white tsunami that is just a year away from sweeping in from Britain.

This is Hopkins's fifth album for Prestige, and by no means his last, so I'll digress a little and talk about Mack McCormick's liner notes, probably the strangest I've ever seen, 

McCormick could have been a real prototype for the Beat Generation, except that he spent most of his life on the byways of Texas and didn't cross paths with Kerouac and Ginsberg and that crew. A high school dropout, carnival worker, jazz buff, rambler, he stopped into a music store in New Orleans one day in 1946, got into a conversation with the store owner, who was compiling a jazz discography, and was hired on the spot to be its Texas editor. That brought him to Texas and Texas folklore, and the unearthing of many Texas bluesmen, most notably Hopkins and Mance Lipscomb.

But perhaps Hopkins was not sufficiently grateful? There's an undertone in the paragraph quoted above that Hopkins might not deserve all the acclaim, and that note becomes more strident as McCormick goes on: "In acknowledgement of my own position as mentor and monster-maker, I am continually asked, 'Has he changed much?'"

 McCormick hastens to let us know that he's not the one criticizing Hopkins, but "in the minds of some critics...college and coffee house crowds have corrupted him."

And McCormick goes on to deliver his verdict--Hopkins didn't even need "Hollywood night clubs, Harvard University and the State of New Jersey" to become corrupt. He has always been "consumed by self-pity and everlastingly trying to persuade the world that it is his valet."

I don't want to denigrate McCormick, whose contributions as a folklorist were enormous, but he certainly seems to have been caught in a mood when asked, probably by Kenny Goldstein, to write these liner notes. And he was very much a product of his time, a time marked, even for people with social and artistic consciences, with a heavy overlay of white privilege.

Does Lightnin' even have a right to sing the blues? His songs may "reflect the mistreatment which has been and, in lesser degree [white privilege creeping in] is the condition of Negro life. But...Lightnin' is not in any real sense subject to it in the way his neighbors are."

McCormick ticks off a few of the advantages that disqualify Hopkins from a right to sing the blues, including being "pursued by women of two races."

Hopkins, McCormick believes, is "free to exercise all but a fraction of the rights of first class cltizenship [but] nevertheless maintains he is victimized from all sides. He sees injustice in the fact that the police continually arrest him for drunk driving" (try explaining that to the families of Michael Brown or Taylor)...He goes to astonishing lengths to maintain himself in a pathetic, blues-producing state."

Lightnin' Hopkins had a right to sing the blues. He had a right to make a little money doing it, and the longevity of his career--he may have made more recordings than any other blues singer--is a tribute to the amount of work and dedication he put into his art form. Many blues singers of the twenties, many rhythm and blues and rock and roll and country and western singers of the 1940s, 1950s and on up, only made a handful of records, were "one-hit wonders," because they really only had one great song in them. This is, in itself, a heroic accomplishment. Most of us don't even have one great work of art in in us. But it puts Lightnin' Hopkins long history of accomplishment into perspective.

Smokes Like Lightning was produced by MeCormick, and he did a creditable job, this time in a professional recording studio (ACA Studios in Houston). McCormick produced a second session in February, which included three songs that filled out this album and enough material for a second album, Walkin' this Road by Myself. The latter session was actually released first, in 1962 (Smokes Like Lightning came out in 1963), so its liner notes found McCormick in a more positive frame of mind. 

The album  was a Bluesville release. "T-Model Blues" and "You Cook All Right" were released as a 45 RPM single on Prestige.

Listening to Prestige 530: Jaki Byard

LISTEN TO ONE: Blues in the Closet

Jaki Byard’s importance was always recognized by the jazz community, not l.ways by the general public. That he was so widely recorded — at least 35 albums as leader, more than 50 as sideman - are a testimonial to the willingness of jazz record labels to want to record the best people, even if not many people are buying those records. That almost all of these records were made for tiny labels suggests that maybe the majors and major independents aren’t all that willing to record artists who don’t sell a lot.

That the sole exception to that generalization was Prestige—12 albums over 8 years, from 1961 to 1969–is a pretty solid testimonial to Bob Weinstock’s

commitment to excellence in jazz. And one should include the Prestige front office team in general—5 more of Byard’s albums were made for Muse and High Note, labels started by Joe Fields, who had been an executive with Prestige through most of the 1960s (although the three High Note albums were only released after Byard’s death).

This was Byard’s second Prestige album as leader (there had also been two with Eric Dolphy and one with Don Ellis). Like the first, it was a trio album, and like the first, it featured Ron Carter on bass. For this session, Pete La Roca replaces Roy Haynes on drums, for his only Prestige session.

La Roca was in demand as a drummer throughout most of the decade. Later, he decided he would no longer work as a sideman, and since opportunities to record as a leader were sparse, he also followed other pursuits, including studying for a law degree. This education came in handy when a record company which had released one of his two dates as leader rereleased it under Chick Corea’s name. He sued them and won.

This session was made up of three originals, four covers, and one sort of odd attribution. I'll concentrate for today on the non-originals, because they tell a story of their own.

The odd attribution is "Excerpts from Yamecraw." Yamecraw was a symphonic piece written in 1928 by James P. Johnson, orchestrated by Willian Grant Still, and premiered with Fats Waller as pianist. Byard, interviewed by Nat Hentoff for the liner notes, describes being approached by music publisher Perry Bradford, who had been making the rounds trying to find a jazz pianist interested in doing the piece, with no takers. 

That was perhaps not surprising. Bradford had been an important figure, as a performer and composer, but primarily as one of the first Black music industry executives. It was Bradford who convinced Okeh records to take a chance on recording his song, "Crazy Blues," with a Black singer, when the conventional wisdom of the day was that no one would buy a record by a Black singer. Mamie Smith's recording of "Crazy Blues" was a surprise hit, and ushered in the recorded blues craze of the 1920s.

But by the 1960s, Bradford was a hanger-on, a forgotten figure, and no one was much listening to him. It's probably more surprising that Byard did. But Byard was one of the great students of piano jazz of every era, and Johnson and Waller were two of his heroes. The curiosity is that "Excerpts from Yamecraw," which is described by Hentoff as "Jaki excerpted a 12-bar phrase from the suite and constructed his own absorbing variations on that base" is listed as a Byard composition.

And there's nothing wrong with that. Brahms did the same thing, and his "Variations on a Theme by Haydn" or "Variations and Fugue on a theme by Handel" are unquestionably the work of Brahms. But isn't this pretty much what all jazz musicians do? Coleman Hawkins famously ushered in the modern jazz era with his recording of "Body and Soul," where he basically never plays the melody. But it's "Body and Soul," and Johnny Green gets composer credit and royalties. Eddie Jefferson's "Moody's Mood For Love" is his lyrics to James Moody's improvisation, not to the original tune, but Jimmy McHugh sued and won a share of the composer credit and royalties. 

Often jazz musicians have successfully gotten around the royalty issue by taking the chord changes to a song they liked and building a completely new melody around them -- much the same as what Hawkins did with "Body and Soul," except that they also changed the name of the piece, like Charlie Parker's "Ornithology." built on the changes to "How High the Moon," or the dozens of pieces written to the chord changes of George Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm." 

So when does the invention of a jazz musician (or a classical composer, like Brahms) become a new composition? It does matter, because songwriters get screwed out of royalties all the time. But it also sorta doesn't.

What's important about "Excerpts from Yamecraw" is Byard's homage to Johnson and Waller. And the other outside compositions in Hi-Fly provide insights into his mind and his musicality, starting with the title track, composed by Randy Weston. 

About "Lullabye of Birdland," Byard told Hentoff, "I know it's fashionable to put down George Shearing, but I feel he's made a contribution, and this tune of his has certainly lasted." Shearing had come over from England as one of the most original modern jazz pianists around, had jammed with Charlie Parker, and had gradually tempered his style to more accessible "cocktail jazz." At the time, with modern jazz so identified with rebellion, playing in a cocktail lounge was considered the very definition of selling out. Ahmad Jamal had the same label hung on him, until Miles Davis revealed that he was a fan of Jamal's rich improvisational skills. So it's no surprise that Byard, who listened to everything, picked up on Shearing.

"Round Midnight" is Monk, and here's what Byard had to say about the great pianist/composer:

For me, the most astounding thing about Monk as a composer is his lyric sense. Monk's pieces could be show tunes. You take a bunch of his originals, and you'd have a good musical. His melodic sense is so strong that you can sing anything he writes, and always, you know it's him.

"Blues in the Closet" was written by Oscar Pettiford, but it's still a tribute to another piano hero of Byard's--Bud Powell, for whom it became a signature piece. Of Powell, Byard told Hentoff:

Bud was the main influence for all of us in terms of showing what could be done with single-line playing,

So many influences--and in Byard's case, "influences" doesn't do his art justice. Generally an influence is one overriding master whom the artist works through to find his or her own style. Byard absorbed and used and created something new and original and constantly changing, out of so many different voices.

I've chosen "Blues in the Closet" for my "Listen to One." Each piece on the album is a distinctive look into Jaki Byard, but "Blues in the Closet' also showcases Carter and La Roca effectively.

Was Byard always destined to be underappreciated? Nat Hentoff seemed to think so as early as 1962, when he wrote this on the liner notes to Hi-Fly:  "Whether or not it is true that the thunderbolt of sudden fame has missed Jaki...."

Hentoff goes on to hedge his bet a little:

I expect that his reputation will continue to grow on so solid a base of accomplishment that in a few years, it will suddenly occur to many jazz listeners that Jaki has been a major jazz figure for quite a long time, no matter what the polls have said.

And still today, "Jaki Byard" and "underappreciated" seem to be almost synonymous. On one recent online list of the 50 greatest jazz pianists, this one compiled by a critic, Byard is listed at #41, and critic Charles Waring had this to say:

Though revered by the critics, Byard’s unique sound was less well-received by the public.

In Ranker.com. reflecting today's jazz listening public, with votes open to everyone who chooses to participate, Byard is nowhere to be found, in a list of 150 piano players. One might question the collective judgment of the Rankers (Bill Evans #72?), but it is what it is. Much of today's jazz audience has forgotten Jaki Byard. Rateyourmusic.com's voters are often quirkier and more perspicacious than Ranker's, but they rate Hi-Fly well below the top 200 albums of 1962 (again, voter  polls on the internet are always subject to change, especially on the lower levels).

Should he have been higher than 41 in the critic's judgement? Higher than whom? It's not for me to say. In the 530 entries I've written to Listen to One, you've never seen me use the word "overrated." I never have, and never will, deprecate the contributions of any of the gifted and dedicated musicians who have contributed to this great American art form. But surely Jaki Byard was one of the very best. 

 Hi-Fly was released on New Jazz. Esmond Edwards produced.

Listening to Prestige 529: Jack McDuff - Gene Ammons

LISTEN TO ONE: Mellow Gravy

 One day after Smith and Powell shook the cathedral rafters of Rudy Van Gelder's New Jersey studio. another organ-sax combo took up residence, with no sign of slackening the intensity. And these were two of Prestige's top moneymakers. Jack McDuff was challenging Jimmy Smith for pre-eminence in the organ department (sexism still held Shirley Scott back, as good as she was and as popular as she was). Gene Ammons was probably the most popular artist in Prestige's history. Drugs were to catch up with Ammons before the year was out, and he was back in prison, this time for seven years. When he was finally

released in 1969, he signed again with Prestige, the most lucrative contract Bob Weinstock had ever given to an artist. And even after Weinstock sold Prestige to Saul Zaentz of Fantasy, and it became strictly a reissue label, they put out a couple of new Ammons albums.

So these guys were not going to let any other organ-sax combo steal a march on them. Smith and Powell had unleashed a killer album? Kill this, motherfuckers!

I'm making that up, of course. But it was one day later. Esmond Edwards was at the controls for both sessions. And McDuff and Ammons were smoking hot.

McDuff used the group that he had made into a super-tight ensemble. Harold Vick and Joe Dukes had been with him for a few albums, and would be sticking around for a while -- especially Dukes, regarded by many as the ideal jazz-funk drummer. Eddie Diehl would be around for a while longer, before getting  off the road and entering a new career as a guitarmaker. He had also worked before with Ammons, so they were no strangers to each other, either. 

The album. Brother Jack Meets the Boss, was a Prestige release. "Mellow Gravy" was a two-sided 45 RPM release, and the album was also released as Mellow Gravy, with a different cover but the same catalog number.

Listening to Prestige 528: Johnny "Hammond" Smith - Seldon Powell

LISTEN TO ONE: Upset

 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. 

Listening to Prestige 527: Walt Dickerson

LISTEN TO ONE: It Ain't Necessarily So

 It's been said that jazz is the only musical genre in which the vibraphone is used as a lead instrument, and that's probably not exactly true, especially if you extend the discussion to all mallet-played melodic-percussive instruments. French composer Camille Saint-Saëns was perhaps the first classical composer to write for the instrument (in his case a xylophone) for his 1874 Danse Macabre. Handel and Mozart (most famously The Magic Flute) wrote parts for the glockenspiel, which is similar to the vibraphone but tuned to a higher pitch. Modernist composer Darius Milhaud wrote a Concerto for Marimba and Vibraphone in 1947. The marimba, probably African in origin, further developed as an instrument in Latin America, has become a staple of Japanese music, particularly in the work of composer Keiko Abe.

But the instrument certainly has a special prominence in jazz, starting with Lionel Hampton. Hampton, the story goes, was playing a gig on drums in the NBC radio studios. NBC always had a vibraphone on hand to make the three-note NBC call signal; Hampton noticed it, started fooling around on it, and was hooked.

After Hampton, Milt Jackson created a new vibraphone model for the bebop era, and the instrument has stayed relevant in jazz, as Gary Burton brought it into the jazz fusion era, and Stefon Harris (also a renowned classical musician) into the 21st century. 

Burton, Dickerson and Bobby Hutcherson were probably the three most prominent vibraphonists of the 1960s. Dickerson, signed to Prestige as they lost their vibe star Lem Winchester in a handgun incident, was the first of the three to gain prominence, as he was named New Star of the Year by DownBeat. But Burton's and Hutcherson's careers extended longer, and Dickerson has faded into an undeserved obscurity, as he left the jazz scene in the mid-1960s, and never recovered that lost momentum. On his return, he focused a lot on solo playing and music as part of an ongoing spiritual quest, the latter following the example of John Coltrane, with whom he had played as a young man in Jimmy Heath's big band. Coltrane's and Philly Joe Jones's recommendations had gotten him his recording deal with Prestige.

Dickerson used a special kind of mallet that gave him what he described as a "plush" sound, softer than that of most vibraphone players. He described the sound in more detail in an interview with Mike Johnston:

My approach has always been to be physically close to the instrument, very close. This is different than the approach that is taught on the instrument. I was unable to play intricate things on the instrument with the commonly taught approach. The music that the creator sends me is not of a cosmetic nature; it seems to come as streams of intricate passages of flowing imagery. This means that I can’t use the common approach to the instrument in order to perform these passages. So I’ve modified a complete personal style or technique so I can play the music I receive. So, in adapting my personal approach to playing my instrument my sound has adapted as well. Both are a part of the projection.

That unique sound is heard to excellent advantage on this album, consisting of three standards (one by Gershwin, two by Vernon Duke) and four originals. Dickerson is the principal voice throughout, but the musicians playing with him are awfully good, and very attuned to him. Austin Crowe is sensitive throughout. His work with Dickerson is so good that one can only wonder why he didn't do more--Dickerson in a later interview suggested that the jazz life on the road may not have agreed with him. Ahmed Abdul-Malik has a wonderful solo on "It Ain't Necessarily So," and Andrew Cyrille is consistently arresting, but I'll single out his work on "Relativity," the title track.

Relativity was released on New Jazz. Esmond Edwards produced.