The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz (20 page)

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Authors: Tom Piazza

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BOOK: The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz
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philosophy and solos. Of all these, the swingingest was led by one of the greatest pianists (and singers) in jazz history, Thomas "Fats" Waller.
The name his bands usually recorded under, Fats Waller and His Rhythm, is revealing and apt; Waller was one of the preeminent stride piano players, a school that dictated that a pianist should be able to create a driving, riff-based performance with no accompaniment at all. Anchoring his band around his own piano playing, along with rhythm guitar, bass, and drums, Waller added saxophone, trumpet, and often clarinet to make a flexible yet full-sounding setting that could swing out as a band and provide accompaniment for his vocals.
One of the most common observations made about Waller is that he was given the worst pop songs of Tin Pan Alley to sing because he was the only one who could do anything with them. He took inane lyrics and stretched them like Silly Putty, singing them in a mock-operatic voice, singing them in mock-falsetto, inserting one-liners and commentary, becoming inappropriately belligerent in the middle of a love song, or treating a novelty tune with a bizarre gravity. Yet it is very clearly a mask of ridicule he is wearing; we know it's a mask because Waller never loses his equilibrium, the audience is always let in on the joke, and everything, even the most bizarre interjections, swings like a through freight train.
A perfect introduction to Waller is
The Joint Is Jumpin'
(RCA/Bluebird 6288-2-RB). The album contains a number of piano solos in which Waller establishes his credentials as an unalloyed jazz pianist and shows why he was the idol of Count Basie and Art Tatum (his piano style is discussed at greater length in the Soloists section). Especially formidable are the stride pieces "Handful of Keys" and James P. Johnson's "Carolina Shout." The collection also reminds us that Waller was one of jazz's best composers; the piano solos ''Alligator Crawl" and "Viper's Drag" show this, as do the versions of Waller compositions, such as "Honeysuckle Rose" and "Ain't Misbehavin'."
But it is on the classic band sides with vocals, like "The Joint Is Jumpin'," "Your Feets Too Big," "I'm Crazy 'Bout My Baby," and "Lulu's Back in Town," that we get a sense of his infectious way of driving a band with his piano, his gusto for life, and his wild humor. Listen to his accompaniment to the solos on "Lulu" - simple, like muted brass riffs, behind the clarinet, switching to a tremelo to build suspense behind the first part of the trumpet solo, and finally more complex riffs as the trumpet moves into its final eight bars. When the clarinet and trumpet join, after the trumpet solo, to jam sixteen bars before Waller comes back in with his vocal, the pianist stays out of the way with his right hand, knowing that the melodic counterpoint is already dense enough. This kind of understanding is what made him a great band pianist. Listen also to how, toward the end of "I'm Crazy 'Bout My Baby," when the horns come
 
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in again after his second piano solo, he plays a repeated bass figure that the drummer picks up on, sort of a riff behind the horns. This version, by the way, is really taken from a 1939 radio transcription, not the 1936 performance listed on the disc.
You can hear him doing the same thing on all the band numbers, including the riotous title cut, which is a stylized simulation of a wild Harlem party of the time (1937), with Waller ruling over everything like the master of the revels, exhorting the band members, talking to the women, commenting on the action for our benefit, telling one of the partiers to "get rid of that pistol - get rid of that pistol!" while people scream in the background and the band works up a hot jam session. At the end he says, "I got bail if we go to jail; I said this joint is jumpin'!" If this sounds as if it might be corny or dated, it's not. Waller always seemed to be laughing at himself laughing at everything; his temper is modern in that sense. He was hip to the highest degree, and his best recordings are a full-strength antidote to the blues.
If you like Waller at all, a necessary investment is
Fats Waller and His Rhythm/The Middle Years, Part 1 (1936-38)
(RCA/Bluebird 66083-2). This three-disc set shows the Waller group at the height of its popularity, turning an endless procession of chintzy pop tunes (and some very good ones as well) into pure gold. It includes some things that will be familiar to confirmed Waller fans, like "Havin' a Ball," "Nero," his surprisingly straight vocal on "Our Love Was Meant To Be,'' and his wild "She's Tall, She's Tan, She's Terrific." But the set also includes many items that have lain out of print for years and which only the most fanatical Waller collector will already own. Good as the material here is, one can hardly wait for further volumes in the series; Waller's mid-1930s recordings are the heart of his legacy, even more than these somewhat later gems. Keep your eyes peeled for the 1934-1937 material.
Waller recorded very little worthless music; almost all of it is collected on
Fats Waller and His Rhythm/The Last Years (1940-1943)
(RCA/Bluebird 9883-2-RB), another three-CD set. Great as his talent for burlesque was, even he could do nothing with junk like "Abercrombie Had a Zombie," "The Bells of San Raquel," "Liver Lip Jones," and "Your Socks Don't Match," songs so bad that they were already burlesques of themselves. Or maybe he was just getting tired after years of turning garbage into treasure. Still, there's good stuff here, including extremely wacked-out performances of "You Run Your Mouth, I'll Run My Business" and "Eep, Ipe, Wanna Piece of Pie" and real gems like "Winter Weather," "Cash for Your Trash," "Up Jumped You with Love," and "Fats Waller's Original E Flat Blues."
A good single-disc collection is
The Definitive Fats Waller, Volume 1 - His Rhythm, His Piano
(Stash ST-CD-528). A mix of solo piano, duets with clar-
 
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inetist Rudy Powell, and band tracks, this set presents Waller at his most relaxed and includes several partial takes and false starts.
Fats Waller in London
(DRG/Swing CDXP 8442) is interesting for a look at Waller playing organ on a series of spirituals, as well as for some funny sides with a group of English musicians who try valiantly to generate the feeling of Waller's own band, mostly unsuccessfully. As if in compensation, Waller turns in some truly baroque vocals, especially on "A Tisket, a Tasket."
Other Ideas
Three other small bands, which took different tacks, have to be mentioned: John Kirby and His Orchestra, Muggsy Spanier and His Ragtime Band, and the Quintet of the Hot Club of France, featuring the great gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt. Kirby's small band, with its tight arrangements, its occasional references to the classics, its limited solo work, and its conscious use of the form suggested by the three-minute 78-rpm record of the time, was a real attempt to integrate the soloist and the ensemble more fully; this places it in the tradition of the Beiderbecke/Trumbauer recordings of the late 1920s, Miles Davis's
Birth of the Cool
sessions, and the Modern Jazz Quartet. Kirby was one of the best bassists of the time and a veteran of the Fletcher Henderson orchestra; his band was advanced harmonically and extremely sophisticated in its use of arrangements that were as involved and carefully routined as those of any big band of the time.
John Kirby: The Biggest Little Band 1937-1941
(Smithsonian Collection R013) is a scholarly, thorough, and very enjoyable survey of the band's development.
Muggsy Spanier was a great cornetist who came up in the 1920s and played in many big bands but whose heart was in New Orleans music of the type played by King Oliver. In 1939 he made a series of recordings that blended the Oliver ensemble style with a swing rhythm section feeling and greater space for soloists, including saxophones. The combination of styles comes off extremely well in Spanier's hands, and the results are on
At the Jazz Band Ball -Chicago/New York Dixieland
(RCA/Bluebird 6752-2-RB). Don't let the word "Dixieland" scare you; there is nothing corny about these recordings. They burst with energy and underline the flexibility of the jazz tradition. The leader, on cornet, plays solo after beautiful solo in the classic manner, and the ensembles are a joy. Highly recommended.
Just as appealing is the work of the Quintet of the Hot Club of France, which featured the guitar work of Django Reinhardt. The quintet consisted of Reinhardt and one of jazz's greatest violinists, Stephane Grappelli, as the lead voices, along with two rhythm guitars and a bass - no piano and no drums.
 
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The swing they could generate was compelling, their own version of mid-1930s straight four-four, and their group sound was unique. Django's was a plaintive, extremely expressive sound that swung very hard in a way that was all his own - staccato, heavily accented, yet light-footed.
The band had several incarnations, but its greatest, as well as the greatest work of Django, was that of the years from 1936 through 1940, the years covered by the essential
Djangologie/USA, Volume 1
(DRG/Swing CDSW 8421/3 [blue cover]) and
Volume 2
(DRG/Swing CDSW 8424/6 [yellow cover]), each volume consisting of two CDs. Of the two,
Volume 1
is better overall, containing one full disc of quintet sides like "Swing Guitars," "You're Driving Me Crazy," and ''Chicago," and a second disc containing two stunning solo tracks by Django ("Parfum" and "Improvisation"), along with some duets with the American violinist Eddie South, more quintet sides including "Mystery Pacific," a classic if somewhat melodramatic evocation of the railroad, and four timeless sides by an all-star band led by Coleman Hawkins, with arrangements by Benny Carter, recorded in Paris (see the discussion of Coleman Hawkins in the Soloists section).
Volume 2
is more of a mixed bag, with more South material, later quintet stuff, including the beautiful "Nuages," and some small-group sides with visiting Americans Benny Carter and Ellington trumpeter Rex Stewart.
These two sets are not to be confused with
Djangology 49
(RCA/Bluebird 9988-2-RB), a collection of material from a decade later, in which Reinhardt is reunited with violinist Grappelli, along with a conventional piano-bass-drums rhythm section. The performances here lack the charm and grace of the earlier ones; there isn't the same group unity, although Django can still be devilishly inventive. Something just doesn't gel, but there are good moments, especially on the ballads "I'll Never Be the Same" and I Surrender, Dear."
Solo Flight
Reinhardt was the only jazz guitarist to record a large body of single-string melodic solo work until a young man from Oklahoma named Charlie Christian joined Benny Goodman's band at the behest of impresario and fan John Hammond. Great as Reinhardt was, Christian was the real founder of modern guitar playing; his playing was much more steeped in the blues than Reinhardt's, and it swung harder, in a hornlike, behind-the-beat way that made it more a part of the jazz mainstream, a contribution that affected all instrumentalists, not just guitarists.
Beginning in 1939, Goodman led a sextet (in addition to his full band) which featured Christian. The sextet had a shifting personnel; the earliest
 
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group featured Fletcher Henderson at the piano and Lionel Hampton on vibes. Later, the vibes were supplanted by Cootie Williams's trumpet and Georgie Auld's tenor sax, making it a septet rather than a sextet, although it continued to be called by the original name. But the group's main attraction is unquestionably Christian's work, set in a relaxed, riff-based format reminiscent of the Count-less Kansas City Six recordings of 1938, discussed earlier. In fact, many of the sextet's best sides feature Basie himself guesting at the piano.
Two Columbia collections document the sextet's studio work:
The Benny Goodman Sextet Featuring Charlie Christian - 1939-1941
(CK 45144) and
Charlie Christian: The Genius of the Electric Guitar
(CK 40846). Both contain a good cross section of the group's work; the former centers more on standards, ballads, and the vibes configuration, and the latter contains more of the rhythm numbers, especially those with Basie, and the trumpet/tenor configuration. The second volume has a bit of an edge over the first; the trumpet/tenor version of the group had more drive and a more varied sound. The second set also has the original version of the big-band "Solo Flight," as well as two warm-up tunes from a sextet session, recorded while the men were waiting for their leader (hence the title "Waiting for Benny").
But both volumes are worthwhile and point to some of the changes that were going on in group playing at the time. For one thing, in jazz, whenever a period of major change has taken place, instruments from the rhythm section have come to prominence as solo instruments, as if to signal that the group democracy was being reevaluated. Christian was an important figure from this standpoint, as his work signaled a new relation between melodic playing and rhythm (since the guitar, once thought of primarily as a rhythm instrument, was now playing melodies, and melodies unlike almost anything in common currency at the time). It is no coincidence, seen in this light, that bassist Jimmy Blanton, who joined the Ellington band at almost the same time Christian joined Goodman, made the same kinds of revolutionary strides on his hitherto mainly rhythm instrument as Christian was making on his. (Sadly, both men died only a couple of years later, both at tragically young ages.)
For a fascinating and immediate glimpse of the kind of effect Christian was having on other instrumentalists, listen to pianist Kenny Kersey's solo on "Breakfast Feud" (on
The Benny Goodman Sextet Featuring Charlie Christian - 1939-1941
[Columbia CK 45144]), recorded in December 1940 after Christian had been with the band for over a year. Kersey, a highly regarded pianist, plays a solo in which his attack, phrasing, rhythmic feel, harmonic sense, and even note choice are all Christian's; in fact, his piano solo amounts to a translation of Christian for the piano's right hand.

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