The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz (37 page)

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Authors: Tom Piazza

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BOOK: The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz
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Page 136
Two easily available Beiderbecke collections showcase the cornetist in different playing situations.
Bix Lives!
(RCA/Bluebird 6845-2-RB) consists mainly of performances by the Paul Whiteman orchestra, a very large commercial dance band of the time which used several well-known hot soloists. Much of the time Beiderbecke takes his eight, or sixteen, or even thirty-two bars of solo among too-sweet violins or other jazz-inhibiting elements, but what he plays almost always sounds fresh and elegant. On "Changes," he takes his muted solo over the crooning background of the Rhythm Boys, a vocal group that included the young Bing Crosby. "Lonely Melody," a heavily arranged band piece with a full complement of strings, has Beiderbecke constructing a solo of generous length (for these records) based on a clever paraphrase of the melody. ''There Ain't No Sweet Man," "From Monday On" (which features excellent writing for brass, with Bix in the lead), "Sugar," and "San" all contain especially good solos by Beiderbecke. "You Took Advantage of Me" features Beiderbecke and his soulmate, C-melody saxophonist Frank Trumbauer, in a full chase chorus, in which they toss two-bar phrases back and forth. One of the best things on the album is "Clementine" by the Jean Goldkette orchestra, a much more jazz-inflected performance than most of the Whiteman tracks, on which Beiderbecke takes a haunting solo.
Bix Beiderbecke, Volume 1: Singin' the Blues
(Columbia CK 45450) and
Volume 2: At the Jazz Band Ball
(Columbia CK 46175) are more likely to fully satisfy those in search of flat-out jazz, although the performances here, too, have their share of overarranged sections and tricky passages that haven't aged well. The best performance on the first set, and a true jazz classic, is "Singin' the Blues," on which Beiderbecke plays a moving, storylike, perfectly constructed solo in a very small group, backed only by rhythm at a relaxed, walking tempo. This is one of the first fully realized jazz ballad performances on record; for anything from that period even close in mood, you have to turn to Armstrong's "Savoy Blues" solo, recorded later in the year. Beiderbecke also has chillingly beautiful solos on "Riverboat Shuffle," "I'm Coming Virginia," "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans," and "Ostrich Walk."
At the Jazz Band Ball
presents some real collector's items, along with some of the finest small-group things Beiderbecke recorded, including the roaring Bix and His Gang sessions that produced "Jazz Me Blues," "Since My Best Gal Turned Me Down," and "Sorry," as well as the great title track. When Beiderbecke is at his best, as he is here, his poise and eloquence can be awe-inspiring. The set includes some more fine sides with Trumbauer, as well as a few lightweight commercial sides. Beiderbecke had a large lyric gift and an ability, equaled by very few at the time, to shape a solo. There were few rough edges in Beiderbecke's playing.
 
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One couldn't say that about Armstrong's other contemporary, Jabbo Smith; there were plenty of rough edges to be found in his playing but also plenty of excitement of a sort that was foreign to Beiderbecke's temperament. On his best-known recordings, collected as
The Ace of Rhythm
(MCA-1347, cassette only), he shows a penchant for almost reckless velocity and upper-register playing, especially on the vicious "Jazz Battle." Tunes like "Let's Get Together," "Ace of Rhythm," and "Decatur Street Tutti'' display the full range of his very real talent. After these recordings (and a couple with Duke Ellington's band) were made, Smith's star faded for some reason, and he made very few records. In 1961 he made some excellent informal recordings in Chicago that showed the more mellow and lyrical side of his musical personality, revealing him to be an extremely inventive improviser. Available as
Jabbo Smith - Hidden Treasure, Volume 1
(Jazz Art TR520699) and
Volume 2
(Jazz Art TR520700), they are hard to find but are worth searching out.
Section Men
Most of the great stylists of the 1920s and 1930s made their livings as members of big bands, where they were featured for fairly short solos; often they recorded outside the context of the big band to give themselves more room for exposure. The Fletcher Henderson band always had outstanding trumpeters, beginning with Armstrong. Bobby Stark, Joe Smith, Tommy Ladnier, Henry "Red" Allen, Rex Stewart, and, later, Roy Eldridge, sparked Henderson's records. The best place to hear all of them is
A Study in Frustration: The Fletcher Henderson Story
(Columbia/Legacy C3K 57596). Each of the players mentioned is featured in solos which, together, show the Armstrong influence the way a father's facial features play through the features of his children. For more glimpses of the Henderson gang in the 1920s, especially the little-known Bobby Stark, try
Fletcher Henderson and the Dixie Stompers 1925-1928
(DRG/Swing SW8445/6).
Rex Stewart went on to have an extremely rich career and to form a distinctive style identifiable by what are referred to as half-valve, or cocked-valve, effects, on which a note is vocalized and bent by a manipulation of the trumpet's valves. His first well-known solo, on "The Stampede" (available on the Columbia/Legacy Henderson set), shows his Armstrong-based power and his edge of nervous energy, set, for interesting contrast, against Joe Smith's more legato, more melancholy sound. But Stewart's most famous recordings were made as a member of Duke Ellington's orchestra, in which his was one of the most distinctive sounds in an orchestra full of individualists. "Boy Meets Horn" on
Duke Ellington: Braggin' in Brass - The Immortal 1938 Year
(Portrait R2K 44395), is a classic example of his cocked-valve technique, and "Morning
 
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Glory" on
Duke Ellington: The Blanton-Webster Band
(RCA/Bluebird 5659-2-RB), is a lovely, moody ballad feature for him.
The real feast for Rex Stewart fans is
The Great Ellington Units
(RCA/Bluebird 6751-2-RB), on which Stewart leads a small band of Ellingtonians from the 1940-1941 band (including Ellington himself on piano and tenor saxophonist Ben Webster) in eight of the best small-band jazz sides ever recorded. The full range of his sound is laid out here, from the blues playing on "Mobile Bay" and the plunger etude tribute to early Ellington trumpeter Bubber Miley entitled "Poor Bubber," to the exquisite lyricism of "My Sunday Gal" and ''Without a Song," to the growling low notes on "Menelik (The Lion of Judah)." Stewart is also well represented by his numerous mid-1930s tracks in
The Duke's Men - Duke Ellington Small Groups, Volume 1
(Columbia C2K 46995).
Other sets with good representations of Stewart are
Djangologie/USA, Volume 2
(DRG/Swing CDSW 8424/6, yellow cover), on which Stewart and Ellington clarinetist Barney Bigard are matched up with guitarist Django Reinhardt for five mainly mellow 1939 sides,
Rex Stewart and the Ellingtonians
(Riverside/OJC-1710), on which Stewart leads a 1950s collection of Ellingtonians and non-Ellingtonians through a varied program, and
Jack Teagarden's Big Eight/Pee Wee Russell's Rhythmakers
(Riverside/OJC-1708), on which Stewart teams up with Bigard and Ben Webster under the direction of trombonist Jack Teagarden for four extended 1940 sides.
Duke Ellington's band always featured a number of contrasting stylists who set each other off. His first trumpet star, Bubber Miley, set the agenda for a whole lineage of trumpeters in the band. Miley played in a vocalized style called growl trumpet, in which the manipulation of a plunger over the bell of the horn, along with the production of a growl effect in the throat, results in a growling sound. You can hear the short-lived Miley to great effect on
Duke Ellington and His Orchestra - The Brunswick Era, Volume 1 (1926-1929)
(Decca/MCA MCAD-42325), especially on Ellington's "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo' and "Black and Tan Fantasy."
Miley's first and greatest successor in the Ellington band was Cootie Williams, who was assigned the growl parts when he replaced Miley, although he had never before used the technique. Williams is featured on Ellington's work throughout the 1930s; you can hear him growling on "Prologue to Black and Tan Fantasy" and "Jazz Potpourri" on
Duke Ellington: Braggin' in Brass - The Immortal 1938 Year
(Portrait R2K 44395), which also spots Williams batting cleanup in true Armstrong style on "Braggin' in Brass." He is also featured extensively on the essential
Duke Ellington: The Blanton-Webster Band
(RCA/Bluebird 5659-2-RB), on which his most famous moment is "Concerto for Cootie," later known as "Do Nothing Till You Hear from Me."
 
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Williams can be heard growling on several of eight tracks recorded under the leadership of alto saxophone master Johnny Hodges on
The Great Ellington Units
(RCA/Bluebird 6751-2-RB), where he also takes a brilliant open-horn blues solo on "Things Ain't What They Used To Be." Williams and Hodges are also heard side by side on four incendiary tracks recorded under the leadership of vibist Lionel Hampton in 1937 and 1938. Available on
Hot Mallets, Volume 1
(RCA/Bluebird 6458-2-RB), "Buzzin' Around with the Bee," "Ring Dem Bells,'' and "Don't Be That Way" all feature Williams growling (the first two at a fast tempo), and "Stompology" has an excellent open-horn solo. Williams is at the helm for a number of tunes on
The Duke's Men - Duke Ellington Small Groups, Volume 1
(Columbia C2K 46995), which includes the haunting "Blue Reverie" and "Echoes of Harlem," as well as the fine "Alabamy Home" and "My Honey's Loving Arms" by a recording group consisting of Williams and members of the Ellington and Chick Webb big bands, called the Gotham Stompers. A number of these tracks are also to be found on the sloppily assembled
The Duke Ellington Small Bands - Back Room Romp
(Portrait RK 44094), marred by a muddy echo-chamber effect.
Williams was hired away from Ellington's band by Benny Goodman in late 1940, and he made a number of good recordings both with the big band and with the newly formed Goodman sextet, which included guitar innovator Charlie Christian. The sextet sides are especially strong and can be heard on
Charlie Christian: The Genius of the Electric Guitar
(Columbia CK 40846) and
The Benny Goodman Sextet Featuring Charlie Christian - 1939-1941
(Columbia CK 45144). Williams's horn adds an immediately identifiable coloration to the ensembles on such riff-based items as "Wholly Cats," "Benny's Bugle," and "Breakfast Feud," and he takes fine solos throughout. Several of the Goodman big-band performances on
Benny Goodman, Volume 2: Clarinet à la King
(Columbia CK 40834), especially "Superman," "Henderson Stomp," and the exciting "Pound Ridge" (which has the added benefit of Big Sid Catlett's drumming), show Williams off to advantage.
The trumpeter led his own bands in the early 1940s, one of which included the young Charlie Parker (and another of which included the young piano genius Bud Powell). The Parker band may be heard in a half-hour 1945 broadcast from the Savoy Ballroom on
Charlie Parker. Every Bit of It
(Spotlite SPJ150D, LP only). Columbia's collection
The Bebop Era
(CK 40972) contains an early (1942) performance by a Williams band of Thelonious Monk's "Epistrophy," although the open-horn trumpet solo toward the end is by Joe Guy, not Williams.
In 1962 Williams rejoined Duke Ellington's band and recorded some specialties throughout the 1960s that showed him to have become almost the
 
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equal of Bubber Miley in plunger sophistication. Some of his finest moments may be heard on
The Great Paris Concert
(Atlantic 304-2), a 1963 live performance in which Williams has long features on the slow "Concerto for Cootie" and the shuffle-rhythm "Tutti for Cootie." If RCA gets around to reissuing the mid-1960s
The Popular Duke Ellington
, which it seems they might, there's a wonderful late version of "Black and Tan Fantasy'' waiting.
When Williams left Ellington's band in 1940 to join Goodman, his replacement was trumpeter-singer-violinist Ray Nance. Nance was a great talent; he stepped into the plunger role perfectly but also had an extremely personal open-horn sound and a unique way of phrasing. In his autobiography,
Music Is My Mistress
, Ellington said, "Ray Nance never played a bad note in his life." On his first solo with the band, the original 1941 version of "Take the 'A' Train" (on
Duke Ellington: The Blanton-Webster Band
[RCA/Bluebird 5659-2-RB]), Nance created a solo which became the standard solo to play, for all trumpet players, on any version of the tune. (Cootie Williams himself plays it on
The Popular Duke Ellington
.) His trumpet work can also be heard on this set on such tracks as "Main Stem," "Raincheck," "Sherman Shuffle," and, especially, the beautiful "Someone." He takes fun, jivey vocals on "Bli-Blip" and "A Slip of the Lip (Can Sink a Ship)" and a classic violin solo on the Middle Eastern-tinged "Bakiff."
Nance is featured extensively on Ellington's recordings of the 1950s and very early 1960s. On
Ellington Indigos
(Columbia CK 44444) he has a gorgeous open-horn solo on "Dancing in the Dark" and an achingly evocative violin solo on "Autumn Leaves." The 1958-1959
Blues in Orbit
(Columbia CK 44051) shows him at length, plungering on "Villes Ville Is the Place, Man," "Pie Eye's Blues," and "In a Mellotone" to thrilling effect. He also gets in some good violin on "C Jam Blues." To hear Nance reach the heights of lyricism and poignancy on violin, listen to "Low Key Lightly," from Ellington's score to
Anatomy of a Murder
(Rykodisc RCD 10039).
Duke Ellington - The Private Collection, Volume 4: Studio Sessions, New York 1963
(SAJA 7 91044) is a full-scale Nance showcase, featuring him at length on practically every tune of an extremely varied program of previously unreleased gems. Pick this one up if you dig Nance. Ellington masterpieces such as
Such Sweet Thunder, At the Bal Masque
, and
Piano in the Background
, sporadically available in subtly different incarnations from Columbia, should be reissued in proper form; all contain great Nance. And
All Star Road Band
(Signature AGT/AGK 40012) has some uninhibited live performances by the big band featuring Nance.
Nance is also featured on a very highly recommended set by singer Jimmy Rushing, recorded in 1971, called
The You and Me That Used To Be
(RCA/

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