The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz (18 page)

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Authors: Tom Piazza

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BOOK: The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz
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(RCA/Bluebird 5630-2-RB). This is the 1936-1938 Goodman band in all its glory, performing big-band arrangements by Fletcher Henderson, Mary Lou Williams, Jimmy Mundy, and others with a precision and verve that were rarely equaled, featuring soloists like trumpeters Bunny Berigan and Harry James, saxophonist Vido Musso, and pianist Jess Stacy. Most of Goodman's best-known recordings of the time are included - "King Porter Stomp," "Sometimes I'm Happy," ''Don't Be That Way," "Down South Camp Meeting," "Bugle Call Rag," his theme song "Goodbye," and the title track, with its throbbing tom-tom work by drummer Gene Krupa, an eight-minute-plus performance originally issued on both sides of a 12-inch 78. A cornerstone set.
Roll 'Em, Volume 1
(Columbia CK 40588) is valuable for six broadcast performances by the 1937-1938 band, five of which are top-level big-band jazz featuring the likes of trumpeters Harry James and Ziggy Elman, drummer Krupa, and Goodman himself turning in fiery solos and ensemble work in arrangements by Henderson, Mundy, and, on the title cut, Williams. "Down South Camp Meeting," a riff-based Henderson arrangement, shows the crispness and bite of the band's section work, as well as its great buoyancy and drive, heavier than Basie's largely because of Krupa's drumming. "Ridin' High" is one of the Goodman band's great recorded performances, with take-no-prisoners execution by the band and electrifying exchanges between Goodman and Harry James. Notice how much more keyed-up the band sounds than Basie's, which played at tempos like these with insouciant cool. "St. Louis Blues" features some shout-chorus riffing by the band and a dramatic, swaggering solo by James. Finally, "Roll 'Em," a sort of translation of piano boogie-woogie for big band, builds up a tremendous head of steam.
Performances like these show why people couldn't help dancing in the aisles at concerts and why they clustered around the bandstand to listen at dances. The rest of the album consists of comparatively tepid studio recordings of popular tunes, with the exception of an important version of "Honeysuckle Rose" featuring the electric guitar genius Charlie Christian. The album notes mistakenly attribute the solo to the band's section guitarist, Arnold Covey, who is inexplicably called "the father of modern jazz guitar playing." This is one case where we know the father for sure, and it was Christian.
One of Goodman's most famous recordings, and still one of the best for its moments of spontaneity and high drama, is
Benny Goodman Live at Carnegie Hall
(Columbia G2K 40244), a two-CD set. One of the first concerts to feature jazz music in Carnegie Hall, the 1938 evening presented Goodman's full band and his trio and quartet with Teddy Wilson, Lionel Hampton, and Gene Krupa, as well as guest stars from the Basie and Ellington bands. There are a number of high points, including a long jam session on "Honeysuckle Rose"
 
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featuring Lester Young, Ellington altoist Johnny Hodges, and Count Basie himself at the keyboard, but none more storied than the long patrol on "Sing, Sing, Sing," during the twelve minutes of which the band finds its way into various grooves both high-voltage and mysterioso, propelled by Krupa's famous tom-tom work. Pianist Jess Stacy's wholly impromptu solo on this is one of the magic moments in the history of jazz.
Benny Goodman and Sid Catlett "Roll 'Em!"
(Vintage Jazz Classics VJC 1032-2) contains 1941 broadcast performances by the full Goodman band featuring Big Sid Catlett, one of the greatest drummers in the history of the music. The album contains no fewer than three versions of the title track, the first of which is the version to end all versions. Catlett's swing and way of driving a band were unmatched by almost anyone, and the band had a different kind of lift for the few months when he was with it. Very revealing is the version of "Sing, Sing, Sing," which makes an interesting contrast with Krupa's approach, Catlett playing a Spanish-flavored beat on the tom-toms (check out his duet with Goodman).
Some good studio performances from roughly the same period are contained in
Benny Goodman, Volume 2: Clarinet à la King
(Columbia CK 40834), with readings of solid jazz themes such as "The Earl," "Pound Ridge," and "Superman," on which ex-Ellington trumpeter Cootie Williams steps into the spotlight. Also important here is an alternate take of "Solo Flight,'' a full-band feature for Charlie Christian. (The originally issued take is on
Charlie Christian: The Genius of the Electric Guitar
[Columbia CK 40846].)
Air Play
(Signature AGK 40350) contains high-quality broadcast performances from 1937 and 1938, with the band in the prime of life, kicking out on Fletcher Henderson arrangements of "Japanese Sandman" and "I Want To Be Happy." The 1938 sides feature the wonderful Dave Tough, a graceful and distinctive big-band drummer. This is a recommended set.
Fletcher, Earl, Chick, and Cab
Fletcher Henderson had been forced to disband his orchestra briefly late in 1934. To pay the bills, he had found a ready customer for arrangements in Benny Goodman. But Henderson wanted his own orchestra, and he assembled one in 1935; this band's recordings, through 1936 and 1937, are classic swing, and in trumpeter Roy Eldridge and tenor saxophonists Chu Berry and, later, Ben Webster, he had soloists equal to any he had ever had, with the exception of Armstrong and Hawkins.
Ten tunes by this band show up on
Hocus Pocus: Fletcher Henderson and His Orchestra 1927-1936
(RCA/Bluebird 9904-2-RB), ranging from crisply
 
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arranged pop tunes like "Moonrise on the Lowlands" and "I'll Always Be in Love with You," both of which are lessons in how to make conventional melodies swing, to white-knuckle flag-wavers like "Jangled Nerves" and "Riffin'." Not to be overlooked is the novelty tune ''Knock, Knock, Who's There?," with a fantastic solo by Chu Berry on baritone sax instead of his customary tenor. Most of the arrangements here were done by Fletcher Henderson's brother, Horace.
An example of how ten years can change a band's approach to the same material is Fletcher Henderson's 1937 arrangement of "The Stampede," which his orchestra had originally recorded in 1926 in a Don Redman arrangement. Available in a collection called
The Jazz Arranger, Volume 1
(Columbia CK 45143), a fine overview of various big-band styles, it provides a neat summary of some of the rhythmic changes in the music when played back-to-back with the earlier version.
Four excellent cuts by the 1936 band, "Christopher Columbus," "Blue Lou," "Stealin' Apples," and "Big Chief De Sota," are available on the highly recommended
Roy Eldridge - Little Jazz
(Columbia CK 45275). This is classic big-band swing, with searing solos by one of the most influential musicians in jazz. The first three of these tunes are also available on the Columbia/Legacy Henderson set (discussed earlier). After 1937, for the rest of his life Henderson would have difficulty keeping a band together; for a while he even joined Goodman's band as pianist and arranger. Yet few make as large a contribution to any art as Henderson did to jazz.
Pianist Earl Hines also fronted an important big band throughout the 1930s and early 1940s. It combined crack section work with the forward-thinking, brilliant arranging talents of saxophonist Budd Johnson, one of jazz's under-sung heroes. A good cross section of the band's work from 1939 to 1942 is
Piano Man: Earl Hines, His Piano and His Orchestra
(RCA/Bluebird 6750-2-RB). The leader's piano is a thrilling force throughout, especially on "G. T. Stomp," which also features some nice trumpet playing from Walter Fuller, "Piano Man," from which the band's opening fanfare and the first few notes of Hines's opening piano statement have been inexplicably shaved off, and "Boogie Woogie on 'St. Louis Blues,'" on which trumpeter George Dixon exhorts the leader to "play it 'til 1951."
This was a band in which the soloists truly existed as part of the ensemble; listen to the give-and-take between John Ewing on trombone and Budd Johnson on tenor and the exciting and ingenious ensemble writing (by Johnson) on "Grand Terrace Shuffle," to name just one example. And no one should go through life without hearing Billy Eckstine's unbelievably suave blues vocal on "Jelly, Jelly." For all-around enjoyment, assuming you like big-
 
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band jazz at all, this collection is tops. (It also includes five solo performances by Hines and a trio performance with clarinet master Sidney Bechet.) Excellent single performances by Hines's 1934 and 1937 bands may be found on Columbia's
The Jazz Arranger, Volume 1
(CK 45143) and
The 1930s: Big Bands
(CK 40651), respectively.
Entertainer and singer Cab Calloway led one of the best bands of the 1930s, which featured his wild vocals set off by hot arrangements and solos by the likes of Chu Berry, Jonah Jones, Dizzy Gillespie, and others. A decent introduction to his brand of jive is
Cab Calloway - Best of the Big Bands
(Columbia CK 45336), a mix of early-1930s sides and later things, none of which are identified beyond their titles. (Would it have been that much extra work to provide dates and personnel for the performances?) You'll hear good solos from Chu Berry on "Bye Bye Blues" and young Dizzy Gillespie on "Pickin' the Cabbage" (mistitled on the disc), and two Calloway vocal classics in "Reefer Man'' and "The Jumpin' Jive," although the 1942 version presented here of his biggest hit, "Minnie the Moocher," is inferior to his 1931 original, despite what the notes say. A shoddy production but probably the easiest Calloway set to find.
Much better, although in an earlier stylistic vein, is
Cab Calloway - Mr. Hi De Ho 1930-1931
(MCA 1344, cassette only). Calloway really lets it hang out on such masterpieces of jazz surrealism as "Trickeration," "Doin' the Rhumba," "St. Louis Blues," and the original version of "Minnie the Moocher." Don't miss this if you can find it. Many of the same tracks can be found on
Kicking the Gong Around
(Living Era AJA 5013). A really wild Calloway cut is "The Man from Harlem," from 1932, on
The 1930s: Big Bands
(Columbia CK 40651); despite the bizarre period-lyrics, Calloway and the band generate a phenomenal swing. In a different vein is the haunting nonvocal "Ebony Silhouette," very unusual for the time (1941) in being a full-band showcase for a bassist - one of the masters of the instrument, Milt Hinton. Available on
The Jazz Arranger, Volume 1
(Columbia CK 45143), the performance, in which Hinton switches back and forth between plucking the bass and bowing it, had bassists shaking their heads in awe for years; it stands as a landmark of the jazz bass and also of the big-band concerto form, in which an entire arrangement would be built around one soloist.
Chick Webb and Jimmie Lunceford led two of the most popular jazz-based big bands of the late 1930s; Webb's has a special place in jazz history because it introduced singer Ella Fitzgerald to the public. Lunceford's band is still spoken of with wonder by those who saw it. The primary function of both bands was to get people to dance, and both were at the very top of that game. My feeling is that they are not quite as interesting to sit and listen to today as the bands I've been discussing. This is to take nothing away from the extremely
 
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high level of musicianship in both bands. And certainly anyone who has a special affinity for big-band music will want to check out their recordings.
The best single Chick Webb collection is
Spinnin' the Webb
(Decca/GRP GRD-635), a mixed bag of instrumentals recorded between 1929 and 1939, featuring trumpeters Bobby Stark and Taft Jordan. Included is Webb's famous feature on Benny Carter's arrangement of "Liza." Edgar Sampson's big-band arranging talents are also well displayed here. Two discs' worth of early Ella Fitzgerald with the Webb band, vintage 1935-1938, may be found on
Ella Fitzgerald: The Early Years - Part One
(Decca/GRP GRD-2-618). Jimmie Lunceford's fine band is heard to good advantage on
Stomp It Off
(Decca/GRP GRD-609), a collection of solid jazz tracks from the mid-1930s. Lunceford's exquisite "Uptown Blues," with a timeless solo by altoist Willie Smith, is included on Columbia's
The 1930s: Big Bands
(CK 40651). Maybe someday Columbia will reissue the great collection
The Lunceford Special
, with classics like "Cheatin' on Me'' and "Tain't Whatcha Do."
Lunceford's arranger Sy Oliver was one of the finest all-around musicians of the time, and his services were in demand by more orchestras than just Lunceford's, among them the very popular Tommy Dorsey orchestra; a number of Dorsey performances of Oliver arrangements are collected on
Tommy Dorsey/Yes, Indeed!
(RCA/Bluebird 9987-2-RB). Tunes such as "Swanee River" and "Deep River" are valuable for their perfect ensemble phrasing. The busy version of "Easy Does It" here makes an interesting comparison with Basie's minimalist take on the same tune (on
The Essential Count Basie, Volume 2
[Columbia CK 40835]), but the most valuable cut in the set is "The Minor Goes Muggin'," on which Duke Ellington sits in on piano with the band. Loren Schoenberg's notes to this set are a bonus, an example of what liner notes should be.
Drummer Gene Krupa achieved such stardom with Benny Goodman's band that he left in 1938 to form his own big band, a pattern followed by many prominent sidemen - with varied results, both artistically and commercially. Krupa's was one of the success stories; he led an excellent band which, for a while, boasted the services of Roy Eldridge as both singer and trumpet player, in the days when it was still rare to have racially mixed groups performing in public. The records Eldridge made with Krupa and singer Anita O'Day hold up very well and have been collected in
Roy Eldridge with the Gene Krupa Orchestra - Uptown
(Columbia CK 45448). Along with hits like "Let Me Off Uptown," with its playful vocal banter between O'Day and Eldridge and the trumpeter's thrilling climactic solo (worth the price of the set by itself), "Rockin' Chair," and "After You've Gone," both of which have solos by Eldridge, there is the little-known 1949 gem "Swiss Lullaby," on which

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