The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz (40 page)

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Authors: Tom Piazza

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BOOK: The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz
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interesting in this only slightly slower performance. These are two tracks you don't want to miss. You can see right off the bat why Eldridge became the idol of a whole new generation of trumpet players, foremost among them Dizzy Gillespie, who initially based his entire style on Eldridge's.
Probably the best introduction to Eldridge is the Columbia set
Roy Eldridge - Little Jazz
(CK 45275), which presents an excellent sampling of the trumpeter's early years of recording, from 1935 to 1940. ("Little Jazz" was the nickname given Eldridge, by virtue of his small physical stature, by Ellington saxophonist Otto Hardwick.) Included here are the fantastic "Warmin' Up," by a recording band led by pianist Teddy Wilson and including Eldridge's companion from the Fletcher Henderson big band, tenor saxophonist Chu Berry, on which Eldridge plays a solo that was simply beyond any trumpeter playing at the time in terms of rhythmic sophistication, unpredictability of accenting, and velocity. It wasn't just a matter of running around the horn, either; listen to how logical the phrases are. Each comes out of the previous one to make a perfect, complete story in thirty-two bars (listen to the way drummer Big Sid Catlett shifts into overdrive underneath him in the last eight). Also listen to the way that Eldridge mixes up his accenting between the down beats and the up beats.
There are four fine sides by the 1936 Fletcher Henderson band with Eldridge and Chu Berry, but the seven 1937 tracks by Eldridge's own band, recorded in Chicago, are the heart of the set. "Wabash Stomp," a brooding, minor-key, medium-tempo jumper that resolves into major, is presented in two takes, both of which show Eldridge building up a fearsome head of steam. He's slower getting to it on the second take, but when he does, it raises the hair on your neck. His two choruses on the way-up-tempo "Heckler's Hop" are handled perfectly; the first, in the middle and lower range of the horn, is full of flighty ideas brimming with nervous energy, which cuts loose like a storm breaking in the second chorus, where he reaches for the sky, with the band riffing hard behind him. His ideas and equilibrium here are fabulous. The same goes for "After You've Gone," on which he deals the other trumpeters of his time some very bad cards.
Other outstanding Eldridge from this period can be heard on
Hocus Pocus: Fletcher Henderson and His Orchestra 1927-1936
(RCA/Bluebird 9904-2-RB), which contains a number of good tracks by the 1936 band, including the novelty "Knock, Knock, Who's There?" with a vocal by Eldridge.
The Quint-essential Billie Holiday, Volume 1
(Columbia CK 40646) features Eldridge extensively, backing the greatest female jazz singer of all time with groups put together by Teddy Wilson and including the likes of Chu Berry, Ben Webster, and Benny Goodman. The 1935 material is sometimes insipid ("Eeny Meeny
 
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Miney Mo" and "Yankee Doodle Never Went to Town," for example), but it doesn't matter; the sides have a freshness and exuberance that are hard to match. Eldridge shakes the rafters on "What a Night, What a Moon, What a Girl," "It's Too Hot for Words," and "Twenty-Four Hours a Day" (listen closely to him behind the vocal, too). Also fine are four sides recorded with Chu Berry for the small Commodore label in 1938, available on
Chu Berryl Lucky Thompson - Giants of the Tenor Sax
(Commodore CCD 7004), including a famous double-time Eldridge solo on ''Body and Soul."
Eldridge led his own band throughout the late 1930s, then in 1941 he joined drummer Gene Krupa's big band (the earlier sides with Krupa, on
Swing Is Here
, were recorded when Krupa was the drummer with Benny Goodman's orchestra and Eldridge was a member of Fletcher Henderson's band), where he was prominently featured both as trumpeter and novelty vocalist. Krupa's band perfectly straddled the line between commerciality and serious music-making, and Eldridge recorded more than one masterpiece with the band, all of which are collected on
Roy Eldridge with the Gene Krupa Orchestra - Uptown
(Columbia CK 45448). One of the best-remembered sides from Eldridge's tenure with Krupa was his vocal duet with Anita O'Day on "Let Me Off Uptown," a real period piece but full of high spirits - the band had something special. At the end, O'Day exhorts Eldridge to "blow, Roy, blow ..." and he does just that, with a thrilling break and solo. "After You've Gone" is an extension of Eldridge's earlier small-band arrangement (as performed on
Little Jazz
), and "Stop, the Red Light's On" is a novelty tune with a searing solo from the trumpeter.
Eldridge's version here of "Rockin' Chair" is one of the greatest ballad performances in the history of jazz; everything about his solo, which lasts for the length of the track (he plays over organlike chords from the saxophone section), is assured to the highest degree, the work of someone who has truly become himself. His tone is strong and clear at times, rasping and nasty at others; he alternates simple phrases with more complicated ones that turn on themselves, end at surprising places, and begin unexpectedly. The solo builds beautifully, too, starting with a uniquely relaxed feeling and gathering tension and complexity as it goes. Not something you want to miss. While nothing else in the collection can match "Rockin' Chair," there is a lot more good music here, including the novelty tune "Swiss Lullaby," on which Eldridge plays the part of an irate neighbor awakened by an insipid vocal duo. When he gets up and starts to blow, stand out of the way.
Some very good mid-1940s Eldridge, recorded with his own band, is collected on
Roy Eldridge - After You've Gone
(Decca/GRP GRD-605). Standouts
 
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on this album are Eldridge's readings of "Stardust," I Surrender, Dear," "Body and Soul," and several other fine ballads, which the trumpeter makes his own. This set also includes a number of jumping trumpet showpieces with a well-rehearsed big band. Eldridge's tone and attack here are as sharp as a well-honed razor.
Eldridge also worked for a while in the mid-1940s with bandleading clarinetist Artie Shaw; seven small-group sides from that period are collected on
The Complete Gramercy Five Sessions
(RCA/Bluebird 7637-2-RB). Eldridge is featured in a carefully and imaginatively arranged group context, muted all the way, but there isn't really the room or the spirit for him to cut loose on any level.
Hawk and Roy
The opposite is true on a session Eldridge made with Coleman Hawkins a year earlier, in 1944, and available on
The Complete Coleman Hawkins on Keynote
(Mercury 830 960-2). Hawkins and Eldridge were a great team, both extremely fiery players; they could complement each other on ballads and goad each other to the heights on cookers. The nine tracks they share on the Mercury set, taken from sessions done for the small mid-1940s label Keynote, are all good - three takes of "I Only Have Eyes for You," two of "'Swonderful," one gemlike reading of "I'm in the Mood for Love," and three of a retooled version of "How High the Moon," entitled "Bean at the Met.'' Eldridge is at his most exciting on the latter number, muted and crackling with energy, especially on the third take.
Hawk and Roy also team up on a 1951 broadcast from the New York City club Birdland with one of the best rhythm sections of the early 1950s: Horace Silver on piano, Curly Russell on bass, and Art Blakey on drums. Silver and Blakey generate huge excitement behind the two horns, and they all tear their way through two Hawkins riff tunes - "Disorder at the Border" and "Stuffy" - and Rodgers and Hart's "The Blue Room." Available as
Coleman Hawkins - Disorder at the Border
(Spotlite 121, LP only), the set gives a good sense of what the pair was like on an "on" night. Also excellent, if slightly less heated, are
Coleman Hawkins and Roy Eldridge at the Bayou Club, Volume 1
(Honeysuckle Rose H.R. 5002, LP only) and
Volume 2
(Honeysuckle Rose H.R. 5006, LP only), recorded at a 1959 club appearance in Washington, D.C. Both men are at the top of their form; Eldridge's tone is clear and soaring, and he is plainly energized by Hawkins's proximity.
Eldridge and Hawkins also team up for a 1959 date under tenor saxophonist Ben Webster's leadership, available as
Ben Webster and Associates
(Verve 835 254-2). Eldridge takes wild solos on two fast blues, "De-Dar" and "Young
 
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Bean"; his entrance on "De-Dar," especially, is startling and effective. In 1957 they were together for the historic "Sound of Jazz" telecast, which featured an unbelievable array of musicians - including an all-star band led by Count Basie (including Hawkins, Ben Webster, and Eldridge), Billie Holiday, The-lonious Monk, and Red Allen - playing in an informal setting that brought out the best in everyone. The actual soundtrack from the show, not to be confused with Columbia's
Sound of Jazz
(CK 45234), a studio recording done several days before the actual telecast, includes two peak moments from Eldridge - his stratospheric solo on ''Dickie's Dream," with the big band, and his two searing blues choruses on "Fine and Mellow," with Billie Holiday.
Roy Eldridge and the Swing Trumpets
(Mercury 830 923-2), a two-CD set, actually contains only six Eldridge tracks, on which he is teamed with the excellent but lesser-known trumpeters Emmett Berry and Joe Thomas. This collection also contains many obscure mid-1940s sides from the Keynote label by such first-rate descendants of both Armstrong and Eldridge as Berry and Thomas (both of whom have additional material here besides the Eldridge sides), Jonah Jones, Charlie Shavers, and Buck Clayton. Thomas, in particular, was a fine and underrecorded stylist; he always found something interesting to do with even the most familiar material, and his melodic invention and swing were unassailable. The four sides under his leadership here are delicious, especially "Pocatello."
Eldridge sounded better than ever in some respects in the 1950s, as you can tell from his playing on an extraordinary 1956 all-star session available as
Lester Young - The Jazz Giants
(Verve 825 672-2), on which he is truly in the company of his peers - including tenor innovator Young, trombonist Vic Dickenson, pianist Teddy Wilson, and drummer Jo Jones. Everyone sounds good on four pop tunes, including the rarely done "This Year's Kisses," which Young recorded with Billie Holiday in 1937. "Gigantic Blues" is a heated, up-tempo blues with Eldridge burning it up, but everything else is taken at a variety of relaxed medium tempos which draw out everyone's most reflective, melodic sides.
A highlight of Eldridge's 1950s performances is a set recorded with the prodigious pianist Art Tatum. Tatum, who was perhaps best known and loved as a solo player, recorded a series of encounters with other instrumentalists in the mid-1950s for producer Norman Granz, which have been reissued in their entirety as
The Complete Pablo Group Masterpieces
(Pablo 6 PACD-4401-2). The sessions have also been issued individually, the Eldridge session as
Art Tatum: The Tatum Group Masterpieces, Volume 2
(Pablo PACD-2045-425-2). Included are ten tracks (including two newly discovered alternate takes of "I Won't
 
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Dance" and Duke Ellington's "In a Sentimental Mood") by the Eldridge-Tatum pairing, backed expertly by bassist John Simmons and drummer Alvin Stoller in a program of first-rate standards by Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, Jerome Kern, and others. Although Tatum could be an overbusy accompanist, the sides with Eldridge (as well as an immortal session with Ben Webster) work wonderfully; Eldridge's lead playing was firm enough for Tatum's runs to bubble and swirl around in fine contrast. Highly recommended.
Also fascinating is the 1960 pairing of Eldridge, drummer Jo Jones, and pianist Tommy Flanagan with Charles Mingus, trombonist Jimmy Knepper, and alto saxophonist Eric Dolphy. Available on
The Complete Candid Recordings of Charles Mingus
(Mosaic MD3-111), this, at the time, was a totally implausible mixture of "traditional" players with seemingly far-out modernists like Mingus and Dolphy. With the perspective of thirty years, we can see just how deeply in the tradition Mingus and Dolphy were and how fresh and modern players like Eldridge will always sound. Certainly the music here is a perfect blend. Eldridge is in super form; his climactic solo on "Mysterious Blues" indicates that he was interested in making clear that any distinction between "new" and "old" in music didn't interest him at all. On two takes of ''Body and Soul" he plays all over the horn, reaching down into the gravel and up into the ether. "R&R," a medium-tempo "I Got Rhythm" derivative, begins with Eldridge setting a riff with the mute in. He begins his solo with only Mingus and Jones behind him; he is joined later by Flanagan as well. His open-horn solo later in the piece contains some ferocious double-timing and leaps into the upper register. "Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams," a good, medium-up reading of the excellent standard presented in two takes, and "Me and You," a real slow blues, are both quartet performances. The two versions of "Dreams" are very different; each ends with a little out-of-tempo dialogue between Eldridge and Mingus. But "Me and You," recorded at the end of the date, is probably the best thing from the session; Eldridge's timeless and extremely authoritative blues playing is hot enough to fry eggs, and everyone digs way down.
Eldridge was active, and dangerous, as a trumpet player up until illness forced him to lay the horn down in 1980. For shocking proof, pick up
Roy Eldridge 4 - Montreux '77
(Pablo Live/OJC-373). Forty years after "Wabash Stomp" and "Heckler's Hop," Eldridge's performance at the Swiss Jazz Festival at Montreux, with pianist Oscar Peterson, bassist Niels Pedersen, and drummer Bobby Durham, scales the heights on tunes like "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea," "I Surrender Dear," "Perdido," "Bye Bye Blackbird," and two up-tempo things cooked up spontaneously. Eldridge's playing on a fast

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