The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz (78 page)

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Authors: Tom Piazza

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BOOK: The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz
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son; some contain more than others, since Holiday sometimes recorded under her own name with other pianists.
The Quintessential Billie Holiday, Volume 3
(Columbia CK 44048) features Wilson on all sixteen cuts, including four of Holiday's best recordings, "He Ain't Got Rhythm," "This Year's Kisses," "Why Was I Born?," and I Must Have That Man," from a famous 1937 date with Lester Young and Benny Goodman.
Volume 4
(Columbia CK 44252) features Wilson on all but one track and contains the masterpieces "Mean to Me," ''Foolin' Myself," "Easy Living," and "I'll Never Be the Same" (on which Wilson plays a full chorus, one of his finest).
Volume 1
(Columbia CK 40646) has Wilson on all but two tracks; he really romps on these 1935 cuts, over, under, around, and through Holiday's optimistic vocals (check out "What a Little Moonlight Can Do") and the solos of an all-star cast, including Ben Webster, Roy Eldridge, Chu Berry, and many others. His solos are outstanding here; for just one example of his storytelling powers and his swing, listen to what he does with his chorus on "Twenty-Four Hours a Day." The other volumes in the series are also excellent, but these are probably the standouts.
Wilson is the bandleader for four 1936 titles on a collection under trumpeter Roy Eldridge's name, entitled
Roy Eldridge - Little Jazz
(Columbia CK 45275). The classics here are "Warmin' Up" and "Blues in C Sharp Minor," but the throwaway pop tune "Mary Had a Little Lamb" has a great Wilson solo as well. And any student of the piano, or any Wilson fan, will want to pick up the monumental four-CD set
The Complete Coleman Hawkins on Keynote
(Mercury 830 960-2). Wilson is present here for five sterling 1944 sessions with the tenor patriarch; his rippling lines of pearl-like notes are a constant pleasure, and he is, as always, the perfect accompanist, adding pretty fills between Hawk's lines and shouting right-hand riffs in the out choruses of the swingers. Another compilation set on which Wilson contributes is
The Complete Edmond Hall/James P. Johnson/Sidney De Paris/Vic Dickenson Blue Note Sessions
(Mosaic MR6-109). Wilson is the pianist for six 1944 small-group tracks (two of the four titles are presented with alternate takes) under the leadership of clarinetist Edmond Hall, including the electrifying "Seein' Red," named for vibist Red Norvo, who plays on the session. This hopping, up-tempo blues has Wilson walking tenths in his left hand for all he's worth during his solo; at the end, he and Norvo goad Hall through a succession of riff-based shout choruses that will leave you hollering for more.
Two recordings from the 1950s that find Wilson in the company of his peers, both under Lester Young's name, are
Lester Young - The Jazz Giants
(Verve 825 672-2) and
Pres and Teddy
(Verve 831270-2), recorded on consecutive
 
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days in 1956.
Pres and Teddy
has a little more Wilson on it, proportionately, than
The Jazz Giants
, on which he has to share solo space not only with Young but with trumpeter Roy Eldridge and trombone master Vic Dickenson. The bassist and drummer on both are Gene Ramey and Jo Jones, respectively. In both cases, the repertoire consists of fine standards; Wilson is consummately graceful, supportive, and lucid throughout.
Count and Duke
The two greatest bandleaders of the swing era, Count Basie and Duke Ellington, were also two of its greatest pianists. Neither has been given his proper due; neither made a point of showing off his technique, leading some to assume that they didn't have technique. Both, however, were not just distinctive but great jazz pianists, and both had profound influence on musicians and styles that followed them.
Count Basie's recordings with his own big band are discussed in the Ensembles section;
Count Basie: The Complete Decca Recordings
(Decca/GRP GRD-3-611) and the three volumes of Columbia's
The Essential Count Basie
(CK 40608, CK 40835, CK 44150) contain masterpiece after masterpiece. Basie was both one of the best accompanists and one of the best big-band pianists. He had a way of inserting jabbed, trenchant punctuations between horn phrases at just the right moments; his choices were based on a call-and-response conception rooted in African American church music and the blues.
You can hear his approach in fine relief in various small-group recordings as well as in the previously mentioned big-band sides.
The Complete Decca Recordings
contains the great series of blues that Basie recorded with his rhythm section of bassist Walter Page, guitarist Freddie Green, and drummer Jo Jones, including "How Long Blues," "The Fives," and "Oh! Red."
Charlie Christian: The Genius of the Electric Guitar
(Columbia CK 40846) contains a number of first-rate tracks by Benny Goodman's sextet, featuring Basie as guest pianist along with Christian, the innovator of the modern guitar. Basie is also on board for a famous 1938 jam session version of "Honeysuckle Rose," available on
Benny Goodman Live at Carnegie Hall
(Columbia G2K 40244), on which his powerfully swinging accompaniment is a major reason for the high swing level behind soloists like Lester Young, Buck Clayton, and Johnny Hodges. His own solo, built mostly on right-hand riffs borrowed from Fats Waller, interspersed with Basie's own patented pointillistic motifs, draws applause midway on the basis of the sheer overwhelming swing he is able to generate, sometimes only using perfectly placed single notes.
 
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One of the best small-group dates Basie was ever involved in was a 1944 Lester Young session for the small Keynote label, on which Basie appeared under the pseudonym Prince Charming for contractual reasons. Available on
The Complete Lester Young
(Mercury 830 920-2), the eight tracks by the Kansas City Seven (Young, Basie, trumpeter Buck Clayton, trombonist Dicky Wells, guitarist Freddie Green, bassist Rodney Richardson, and drummer Jo Jones) are fantastic small-band swing with inspired solos from all the horn players, and Basie as well. Collectors will be thrilled with the newly issued alternate takes of "After Theater Jump" and "Six Cats and a Prince." Basie plays tremendous solos throughout, as well as providing full and exciting accompaniment. His solo on "Lester Leaps Again," a compendium of riffs, is especially characteristic. In his second chorus, he trickily begins the riff that occupies his second four bars a beat early, fooling the ear into thinking he is in a different place than he actually is; Basie was a master of time. He and Young engage in some fine exchanges at the end of this track, too.
Another Kansas City Seven session, with completely different personnel except for guitarist Freddie Green, was recorded in 1962 with some latter-day Basie-ites like trumpeter Thad Jones and reed men Frank Wess and Frank Foster.
Count Basie and the Kansas City Seven
(MCA/Impulse MCAD-5656 JVC-457) is a thoroughly pleasant date, quietly swinging, revisiting a few classic Basie small-band tunes ("Oh, Lady Be Good," "Shoe Shine Boy") as well as new material. Basie illustrates the wisdom of the notion that an artist is only as good as what he or she can leave out. He leaves almost everything out of his solos here and achieves a high degree of abstraction, indeed. The band plays very well, without fireworks but swinging very solidly. Not essential, by any means, but nice.
You can't really compare Basie and Duke Ellington any more than you can compare Matisse and Picasso. What Basie did, he did better than anyone; he distilled swing down to its barest, most concentrated essence, and he showed as well as anyone ever has that blues techniques could be applied to just about any material. There could never be a better Count Basie on piano, because he himself defined a certain style of playing and took it to its limit.
That being said, it would be wrong not to acknowledge that Duke Ellington's achievement was broader in scope, ran across a broader spectrum of mood and sensibility than Basie's - or anyone's, for that matter. There is no question in my mind that, of the two, Basie swung harder at the keyboard, and Ellington tacitly admits as much in his autobiography,
Music Is My Mistress
; nor can there be a lot of argument over who was more soaked in the blues
 
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(Basie had, after all, spent his formative musical years in Kansas City, blues territory). And yet Ellington could swing much harder than most people realize (listen to his accompaniment to Paul Gonsalves's solo on "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue" on
Ellington at Newport
[Columbia CK 40587] for just one example), and, although Basie could get to the very gravitational center of the blues with two notes, no one has ever done as much with the blues as a musical form as Duke Ellington. While Basie's blues tended to mine the same territory - better than anyone - Ellington wrote blues in every color, every shape, every emotional and timbral pitch, and did so for fifty years. And he was a great blues pianist as well.
In fact, Ellington was one of the most complete pianists in jazz history. He could play strong stride, he was a perfect big-band pianist, he had an immediately identifiable style, and he was a great ballad player (one of the best who ever lived) with an unerring and very sophisticated harmonic mind and an extremely expressive touch. It would be impossible to attempt a comprehensive tour of Ellington's piano work here; what follows is a highly selective look at examples of various aspects of his piano playing.
One of the best single discs you can buy for Ellington's piano is
Duke Ellington: Piano Reflections
(Capitol Jazz CDP 7 92863 2), recorded in 1953 with Wendell Marshall on bass and Butch Ballad on drums for all but three of the fifteen tracks. This is one of those magical sets, not widely known but legendary among those who do know. It contains strong blues playing at various tempos ("B Sharp Blues," on which he seems to be sending Basie a message, "Things Ain't What They Used To Be," and a smoking "Kinda Dukish" not on the original issue of this material), but it is mainly a mood album. Ellington standard ballads like "All Too Soon," ''Prelude to a Kiss," and "In a Sentimental Mood" (an exceptional version of this) are revisited; more important, however, are the unique and haunting originals that appeared for the first time here - "Retrospection," "Reflections in D," "Melancholia," and "Janet."
The first three of these tunes, each exquisite in its own way, are studies in suspension of time, as if Ellington were trying, musically, to stretch one or two fleeting instants over three or four minutes. Although they bear a family resemblance, with their suspended chords and bowed pedal tones from Wendell Marshall, each conveys a subtly, but markedly, different mood. "Melancholia," especially, is a thing of amazing delicacy and strength, a precursor, in its way, to some of the things Wayne Shorter was to write in the 1960s, such as "Fall," which Miles Davis recorded and included on
Nefertiti
(Columbia CK 46113). "Melancholia" can be listened to over and over; its pattern of voice leading is as dense and poignant as the pattern of memories of friends and re-
 
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lationships recalled on a long afternoon. Wynton Marsalis has recorded two versions of this tune on his albums
Think of One
(Columbia CK 38641) and
Hot House Flowers
(Columbia CK 39530). "Janet" is something special and is different from the other three; it begins right on an up-tempo riff for thirty-two bars, then suddenly stops and turns into a pensive, walking-tempo ballad, with a completely contrasting theme for sixteen bars. At the end of this section, the trio goes right back into the up-tempo section, which ends in a fadeout. It works very logically; this selection, recorded three and a half years before Thelonious Monk's two-tempoed "Brilliant Corners" (on
Brilliant Corners
[Riverside/OJC-026]) - and six years after Ellington's own abstract masterpiece "The Clothed Woman" (currently unavailable), which also contains several tempos - underlines how few people have bothered to think in terms of changing tempos within a selection as well as underlining, once again, Monk's debt to Ellington. Charles Mingus, one of the few who have seriously addressed this kind of compositional complexity, was, of course, a confirmed Ellingtonian.
Another essential Ellington piano set is
Duke Ellington: Solos, Duets, and Trios
(RCA/Bluebird 2178-2-RB). It's a grab bag, containing material from as early as 1932 and as late as 1967, but it gives an excellent indication of the scope of Ellington's abilities at the keyboard. It contains the early stride showpiece "Lots O' Fingers" as well as the 1965 tribute to Willie "The Lion" Smith, "The Second Portrait of The Lion." It offers comparison between two 1941 versions of Ellington's classic mood piece "Solitude" and the very beautiful, heartfelt 1967 solo version of Billy Strayhorn's ballad ''Lotus Blossom" (taken from ...
And His Mother Called Him Bill
[RCA/Bluebird 6287-2-RB]). The main attraction here is the presence of all the results of Ellington's October 1940 duet session with bass innovator Jimmy Blanton, which is discussed in the Ensembles section.
An especially interesting track is the 1945 "Frankie and Johnny," a trio selection with bassist Junior Raglin and drummer Sonny Greer. This is a miniature suite based on folk material; it opens with a fast section in two parts - a theme statement over a sort of pastiche of boogie-woogie, then a second chorus over a cool, modern-sounding rhythm section, which segues immediately into the slow middle section. Ellington makes variations on the material here, teasing the ear with sporadic references to the earlier, fast tempo, and there is room for some Raglin-Ellington dialogue (including some jokey references to the "Salt Peanuts" riff that was in the air that spring) before they return to the faster tempo (a couple nods to Basie here). Ellington inserts various stride figures before winding up with some exciting three-way riffing involving Raglin and Greer. Ellington manages to introduce several themes at two tempos,

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