The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz (14 page)

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Authors: Tom Piazza

Tags: #Discography, #Jazz, #Reviews, #Sound Recordings, #Music, #Discography & Buyer's Guides, #Genres & Styles, #Reference, #Bibliographies & Indexes, #test

BOOK: The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz
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Page 13
in their own way. One example is Dizzy Gillespie's famous "Salt Peanuts," built on a swing-era riff, and his tune "Dizzy Atmosphere," available on
Bebop's Heartbeat
(Savoy ZDS 1177). Bebop tunes such as "A Night in Tunisia" and Thelonious Monk's "Epistrophy,'' "52nd Street Theme," "Straight, No Chaser," and "Thelonious" are all built on riffs. Gillespie's big band of the late 1940s also used riffs to great effect on tunes such as "Ow!" and "Jumpin' with Symphony Sid," available on
The Bebop Revolution
(RCA/Bluebird 2177-2-RB).
Certain players of the 1950s brought riffs back as an integral part of their performances. Miles Davis's famous recording of "Blue 'N' Boogie" (available on
Walkin'
[Prestige/OJC-213]), as well as having a repeated riff for a melody (originally recorded by Dizzy Gillespie), has a number of exciting riffs set behind Lucky Thompson's tenor saxophone solo. These riffs were originally used in Coleman Hawkins's 1944 recording of "Disorder at the Border," behind Hawkins's tenor solo (available on
Dizzy Gillespie: The Development of an American Artist
[Smithsonian Collection R004]).
Horace Silver, the pianist on the
Walkin'
session, was a bandleader and composer in his own right, and he practically built his whole style on riffs, producing such tunes as "Sister Sadie" and "Filthy McNasty." His piano accompaniments to solos often consisted of little more than a series of riffs, as you can hear on "Filthy McNasty" from
Doin' the Thing. The Horace Silver Quintet at the Village Gate
(Blue Note 84076). Charles Mingus, too, frequently used riffs to create a turbulent and compelling swing in his compositions. Maybe the best example is "E's Flat, Ah's Flat, Too" on
Blues and Roots
(Atlantic 1305-2), in which each instrument enters separately playing a different riff, overlaying them until a dense, exciting pattern is set up. "Folk Forms No. 1" (available on
Mingus Presents Mingus
[Candid CD 9005] as well as on
The Complete Candid Recordings of Charles Mingus
[Mosaic MD3-111]) is an improvised performance built entirely off of one repeated rhythmic figure; "MDM," in the Mosaic set, is an extended study in riffs as well.
More Morton
On "The Chant," Morton gives the performance unity by having the ensemble play the same riff at the end of each chorus (the "Hold That Tiger" phrase they play is one of Morton's favorite devices; he uses it in many different arrangements as a way of gearing up for a new solo or chorus) and by having the banjo and the trombone play much the same solo. But there is so much to listen for on these sides: the booting clarinet-piano-drum trio version of "Shreveport Stomp," the modern-sounding piano solo "Freakish," the exuberant "Tank Town Bump," and two good band sides from 1939, close to the
 
Page 14
end of Morton's career and life, on which he sings evocative, swaggering vocals on "Winin' Boy Blues" and "I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say" (also known as "Buddy Bolden's Blues").
The Pearls
(RCA/Bluebird 6588-2-RB) is truly one of the essential jazz albums.
All of the recordings on
The Pearls
are also included on a five-disc set released by RCA in the fall of 1990 for the hundredth anniversary of Morton's birth.
The Jelly Roll Morton Centennial
(RCA/Bluebird 2361-2-RB) contains all the recordings, along with all known alternate takes, made under Morton's leadership for Victor. The alternate takes follow the originally released takes, so listening to the set straight through involves hearing each tune twice in a row;
The Pearls
is much easier to listen to for pleasure. But
The Jelly Roll Morton Centennial
is an important set for serious students of the music.
Morton continued to record through the early 1930s, but his style, like Oliver's, had been shouldered out of the commercial picture by a big-band style that was refining and expanding concepts that he had delivered into the jazz language. Unable to really adapt himself to these extensions, he became an anachronism. He was also an egotistical man, hard to get along with by all reports, with no tendency to undervalue his own contributions. Many people just didn't like him. He was rediscovered briefly in the late 1930s, but it didn't pan out into anything resembling a new lease on life.
Despite all his hard times, Morton had a last laugh of sorts. In the summer of 1938 he was interviewed by folklorist Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress. During the five weeks over which the interviews were conducted, Morton reminisced about growing up in New Orleans, told stories about the colorful characters he knew there, illustrated with his own piano playing and singing how jazz developed from early marching band music, blues, quadrilles, and Spanish music, underscored his own role in that process, and played his compositions at length.
Rounder Records has issued every bit of music from these sessions on four CDs -
The Library of Congress Recordings, Volume 1 (Kansas City Stomp)
(CD 1091),
Volume 2 (Anamule Dance)
(CD 1092),
Volume 3 (The Pearls)
(CD 1093), and
Volume 4 (Winin'Boy Blues)
(CD 1094). The discs are all worth having, especially
Volume 1
, which includes Morton's demonstration of the way in which "Tiger Rag" developed from a French quadrille, and
Volume 4
, which has extended demonstrations of what Morton called the "Spanish tinge," a Latin rhythmic inflection used as accenting throughout jazz. Unfortunately, since Rounder chose to issue only the musical selections, Morton's fascinating autobiographical and musicological monologues are missing, and they are in some ways the most valuable part of the Library of Congress material, especially the
 
Page 15
half-hour-long "Discourse on Jazz." The small New Orleans label Solo Art has issued at least one volume of integrated talking and playing, but they seem to have given up issuing the rest of it in the face of Rounder's set. If you are really interested, the Library of Congress material is available on LP from both Swaggie (Australian) and Classic Jazz Masters (Swedish), labels available only through specialty shops. They are worth tracking down; as musicology, as history, and as storytelling at its best, they are one of the glories of American cultural history.
Not long after the sessions at the Library of Congress, Morton made a series of commercial recordings for the small label General, which were later released as
New Orleans Memories
(available under that title, but hard to find, on Commodore [6.24062 AG]). Morton talks a little, sings beautiful songs like "Don't You Leave Me Here" and "2:19 Blues," and plays some infectious piano solos. This is a thoroughly enjoyable set, a haunting coda to one of the most important and fascinating careers in jazz.
Depending on how much you like this style, you might want to check out the recordings of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, a white band from New Orleans that included clarinetist Leon Rappolo. Their style is a little more staid than Oliver's but is basically in the same vein; their recordings are available, in ultra-low fidelity, on
New Orleans Rhythm Kings
(Milestone MCD-47020-2).
The Sound of New Orleans
, a three-record boxed set (Columbia Special Products JC3L 30), may be hard to track down but has a lot of unusual material by important early bands such as Sam Morgan's, Oscar "Papa" Celestin's, and A. J. Piron's, along with music from the likes of King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Wingy Manone, and others less celebrated.
Breaking Out
Several important things happened as the New Orleans style started to get disseminated, both in Chicago and in New York. For one, small recording combinations began making records that had a New Orleans ensemble sound, but these groups placed more emphasis on solos than the New Orleans ensembles did. For another, big dance bands of nine to twelve pieces began to adapt the New Orleans ensemble approach to the larger, more urbane framework of the dance orchestra. The pivotal figure in both trends was Louis Armstrong.
In June 1924 Armstrong had left King Oliver to become a featured soloist with the preeminent black dance band of the day, Fletcher Henderson's. In the band at the time Armstrong joined was Coleman Hawkins, who would become the first important soloist on the tenor saxophone. Both as an incubator
 
Page 16
of solo talent and as a lab for the development of a big-band style, Henderson's was by far the most important band of the 1920s. His innovations, and those of his principal arrangers (Don Redman, Horace Henderson, and Benny Carter), became the blueprint for the swing era. Fletcher Henderson arrangements formed the foundation of the band books for both the Benny Goodman and Count Basie orchestras at their inceptions. But in the early 1920s Henderson was still finding his direction as a bandleader.
In the band's early days, there weren't many musicians who could sustain a solo over eight bars, much less a full chorus of a popular tune. So the arranger bore most of the brunt of the work, as you can hear in pre-Louis Armstrong Henderson recordings. If you can stand it, listen to cuts like "Charleston Crazy" and "War Horse Mama" (compare the stiff trumpet solo with Armstrong's work from just seven months later) on
Rarest Fletcher
(MCA-1346). An interesting performance from this era is "Dicty Blues" (available on both the MCA release and on the best Henderson compilation,
A Study in Frustration: The Fletcher Henderson Story
[Columbia/Legacy C3K 57596]), in which the Henderson band has the sound and even the instrumentation (substantially) of the Oliver band.
But after Armstrong arrived, there was a quantum leap in the amount of information potential soloists had to work with, and the art of soloing advanced very quickly. Compare solos by the pre-Armstrong trumpeters with any of Armstrong's and it's very clear what he brought to the activity. He wasn't the first to try and make things up as he went along, but he had such a sure sense of how to aim for the next phrase. Each of his phrases followed naturally and logically from the previous one, as sentences flow from a great conversationalist. That sureness of phrasing also influenced the arrangers, and the sections soon had a bite and crispness they had lacked until then. Armstrong, for all he was featured when he was with Henderson, still had limited solo space. But you can hear the authority in his solos on otherwise forgettable records like "Copenhagen" and "Shanghai Shuffle" (both available on the Columbia/Legacy Henderson set).
Armstrong rubbed off on his bandmates, especially Coleman Hawkins. On recordings from 1923 and 1924, like "Dicty Blues," Hawkins sounds stiff and unswinging, but by 1926 he was playing mature solos. The fullest, most impressive statement he made that year was on "The Stampede" (available on the Columbia/Legacy set). This Don Redman arrangement employed all sections of the orchestra in unison as well as in polyphonic ways. Hawkins and trumpeters Rex Stewart and Joe Smith take wonderful solos, and the ending is jammed in truly polyphonic New Orleans style.
 
Page 17
Cornet Chop Suey
Armstrong, emerging star that he was as well as genius virtuoso, needed more room to stretch out than just the occasional eight- or sixteen-bar solo. He left Henderson in November 1925 and got work with the big bands of Erskine Tate and Carroll Dickerson in Chicago, which featured him as a star but still didn't let him stretch out in a flat-out jazz context. So he started making some small-group jazz records that mixed the New Orleans polyphonic group sound with a more stripped-down instrumentation, as well as more solo space. The records he made with this group, which was called the Hot Five, shook up the world.
The recordings of the Hot Five and the slightly later Hot Seven are available in four volumes on Columbia:
The Hot Fives, Volume 1
(CK 44049),
The Hot Fives and Hot Sevens, Volume 2 and Volume 3
(CK 44253 and CK 44422), and
Louis Armstrong, Volume 4: Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines
(CK 45142). They are all essential; their vitality and genius make them just as enjoyable today as they must have been then. The recordings are discussed in detail with the rest of Armstrong's records in the Soloists section, but they were also important in the development of ensemble styles.
In the first recordings the group made (on
Volume 1
), Armstrong's cornet is an equal member of the front line, along with Johnny Dodds's clarinet and Kid Ory's trombone; in fact, the overall group approach is similar to Oliver's Creole Jazz Band recordings except that there is only one cornet. Solo space for Armstrong is at a minimum, but his presence is the animating factor in the front line. He plays the melody as the clarinet and trombone do their traditional jobs from the New Orleans ensemble. In the later choruses of tunes like "My Heart" and "Yes, I'm in the Barrel," Armstrong varies his lead so much that it could stand on its own as a solo, and he takes several concise breaks in which there isn't a tentative note.
But beginning with the session of February 26, 1926, things are a little different. Armstrong is more out front in the recording mix, louder than the trombone and clarinet, and he is featured more. He takes his famous scat singing chorus on "Heebie Jeebies," and on "Oriental Strut" and, especially, "Cornet Chop Suey" takes stop-time solos that were far beyond what any other trumpeter of the time could have conceived. Musicians all over the country studied these records; Armstrong was serving notice that soloists didn't exist just as a spice in a big-band arrangement but could create new, original melodies of their own. He extended this idea as the Hot Five and Hot Seven series went along. By May 1927, when the Hot Seven recorded ''Wild Man Blues" and "Potato Head Blues," Armstrong was the idol of musicians everywhere, and jazz soloists had truly come into their own.

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