And it happened on Tuesday, August 9, 2011.  You’ll see some of the results here: great music from good-humored, generous people.

The guests — of a musical sort — were a small group of warmly rewarding musicians.  Besides Marc (cornet and string bass) and Dawn (vocals), there were Dan Barrett (trombone, cornet), John “Butch” Smith (soprano and alto saxophones), Vinnie Armstrong (piano), and Mike Swan (guitar and vocals).  The listeners included the Beloved, Bill and Sandy Gallagher (fine friends and jazz enthusiasts), Cathie Swan (Mike’s wife), Mary Caparone (Marc’s mother), James Arden Caparone (four months but with a great musical future in front of him), and a few others whose names I didn’t get to record (so sorry!).

Jazz musicians take great pleasure in these informal, relaxed happenings: no pressure to play faster, louder, to show off to an already sated crowd.  In such settings, even the most familiar old favorites take on new life, and unusual material blossoms.  We all witnessed easy, graceful, witty, heartfelt improvising on the spot.  And you will, too.

Jazz itself was the guest of honor.  Everyone knew that their efforts were also reaching the larger audience of JAZZ LIVES, so this happy cyber-audience was in attendance as well, although silent.

The first informal group (Dan on cornet, Butch on soprano, Vinnie, Marc on bass, and Mike) led off with Walter Donaldson’s MY BUDDY, performed at what I think of as Lionel Hampton 1939 tempo:

Then, evoking memories of Jim Goodwin and the Sunset Music Company (more about that later), the band created a buoyant homage to Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh, to Duke Ellington, and to Bill Robinson, in DOIN’ THE NEW LOWDOWN:

A request from the Beloved for ON THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE STREET (in 1945 Goodman Sextet tempo) was both honored and honorable:

Dawn — sweetly full of feeling and casual swing — joined the band for S’WONDERFUL:

After Dan told one of his Ruby Braff stories, Dawn followed up with BLUE MOON, one of her favorites, and you can hear The Boy (that’s James Arden) singing along in his own fashion:

Then the band shifted — Marc put down the string bass and picked up his cornet to lead the way alongside Dan, now on trombone, for ROSETTA:

And a really fascinating exploration of a song that isn’t played much at all (although Billie, Lester, Roy, and the Kansas City Five are back of it), LAUGHING AT LIFE, explored in the best way by Marc, Butch, and Vinnie:

Mike Swan joined this trio for a truly soulful IT’S THE TALK OF THE TOWN:

Without prelude, Mike launched into the verse of WRAP YOUR TROUBLES IN DREAMS (Dan couldn’t help himself and joined in): what a singer Mike is (and he’s listened hard to Crosby, always a good thing)!

Mike also began MELANCHOLY with Dan — wait for Marc and Vinnie adding their voices to this improvisation:

And the session ended with GEORGIA ON MY MIND, scored for a trio of Dan, Mike, and Vinnie:

The informal session came to a gentle stop there, but the music didn’t go away.  Butch had brought with him a video (taken from Dutch television in 1978) of the Sunset Music Company — a band featuring banjoist Lueder Ohlwein, cornetist Jim Goodwin, trombonist Barrett, reedman Smith, pianist Armstrong.  Since Vinnie and Dan and I had never seen the video, we all retreated to the den and watched it.

It was both moving and hilarious to see the men of 2011 watching their much younger 1978 selves, as well as a moving tribute to those who were no longer with us.  I wish there had been time and space to make a documentary about those men watching themselves play. . . . perhaps it’s possible.

I feel immensely fortunate to be surrounded by such beauty, and to have my name attached to it in even the most tangential way is a deep honor.  I can’t believe that it happened, and I send the most admiring thanks to all concerned.  Even if you weren’t there, unable to witness this creation at close range, I think the generous creativity of these musicians will gratify you as well.  This post is a gift also to those who will see it and couldn’t be there: Arianna, Mary, Melissa, Aunt Ida, Hal, June, Candace, Dave, Jeff, Barbara, Sonny, Clint, David, Maxine, Ricky, Margaret, Ella, Melody . . . the list goes on.  These gigabytes and words are sent with love.

A postscript.  JAZZ LIVES is so engrossed with music that I rarely write about anything else, but if you are ever in the Paso Robles, California, area, I urge you to consider spending a night (as the Beloved and I did) at the accurately-named INN PARADISO, 975 Mojave Lane (805-239-2800: innparadiso@att.net).  We have never stayed at a more satisfying place.  Everything was beautiful and comfortable — from the room to the view to the quiet to the dee-licious breakfast, to the gentle friendly kindnesses of Dawna and Steve — making it a genuinely memorable experience.  I want to go back!  See for yourself at www.innparadiso.com.

Gene Krupa and Perspiration as Fashion Statement

Recording techniques in 1927 couldn’t handle a full drum set’s lower resonances, yet eighteen-year-old Gene Krupa wasn’t content to play with just cymbals and woodblocks.  Instead he padded his bass drum with overcoats until, in reedman Mezz Mezzrow’s words, it “looked like a dead ringer for Admiral Byrd at the South Pole.”  Krupa’s resolve enshrined his records with McKenzie and Condon’s Chicagoans as the first to include a full drum set.

Beside Jim Lanigan’s percussive slap bass, Krupa pounds out a lively yet chunky groove on “Sugar” and “Nobody’s Sweetheart,” while “China Boy” is a far cry from the lift-off-your-chair, up-tempo swing of later versions by the Benny Goodman trio or Eddie Condon’s various groups.  Krupa’s toms and bass drum never weigh the band down, but the momentum is like a lobster: all the meat is in the tail.

Krupa played like he was boxing with all the drummers who were satisfied merely keeping time.  He asserted himself with a booming, skins before cymbals style, despite crediting New Orleans drummers such as Zutty Singleton and Baby Dodds for elevating the drums from something “you just beat the hell out of.” Coming to fame in Benny Goodman’s band, “Krupa’s banging” (pianist Jess Stacy’s term) resounds through “Sing Sing Sing” as well as “King Porter Stomp” and the boogie-woogie tour-de-force “Roll ‘Em.” As jazz rhythm was coalescing into a smoother, more streamlined form under Jo Jones’ influence, America’s most popular drummer could have easily fit in with a rock group twenty years later.

With his growing popularity and matinee idol looks, Krupa quickly became a popular bandleader in his own right after leaving Goodman.  Features such as “Drum Boogie” indulged his natural showmanship, and when he added fleet-fingered squeaker Roy Eldridge on trumpet and Anita O’Day’s wholesomely steamy vocals, “Rockin’ Chair” and “Let Me Off Uptown” solidified the Krupa band’s place in the Swing Era hit parade.

Not that Krupa didn’t pay his artistic dues.  He obviously knew his rudiments, and his speed and energy were something to be heard regardless of tempo or volume.  He was also one of the earliest bandleaders to incorporate bop’s angular lines and advanced harmonies into his band’s book.  His hiring of Gerry Mulligan as staff arranger in 1946 was both musically progressive and typically Krupian:  despite bop’s underwhelming commercial appeal, Krupa boldly incorporated modern jazz into the shout and rumble of his swing band.

Krupa revisited the Mulligan charts on the 1958 album Plays Gerry Mulligan for the Verve label.  Surprisingly, his playing in a post bop landscape, where the role of the drummer had increased well beyond mere timekeeping, is also his most uncluttered. He doesn’t push the beat or compete with the brass.  The rhythm cooks without being force fed, with “Bird House” as just one example of Krupa’s tastefully swinging percussion on this set.  At forty-nine, and after fighting so hard to get his bass drum heard, it meant enough to Gene Krupa for him to use it in just the right places.

And being someplace where beauty is being created is even more reason to feel joy.  Last Sunday, June 19, 2011, was a happy time at The Famous Ear (The Ear Inn, 326 Spring Street, Soho, New York City) for many reasons.  The EarRegulars knew it was Father’s Day and played one song — you’ll hear it here — to celebrate our Papas (whimsically, mind you).

The EarRegulars that night were co-founders Matt Munisteri (guitar); Jon-Erik Kellso (trumpet); Pete Martinez (clarinet); Jon Burr (bass) — with a visit from Andy Stein, often playing his violin with Vince Giordano’s Nighthawks, but here toting his tenor saxophone for the first set (a surprise!) and his baritone for the second.   

The EarRegulars are not a group of antiquarians, “playing old records live.”  Nay, nay.  But they do honor their creative parents all the time: their jazz Dads and Moms — with great love, in the best way . . . by making something new and fresh and striking out of their own experiences.  Every Sunday at The Famous Ear is a kind of spiritual Father’s Day, because Louis and Bix, Roy and Ruby, Eddie and Django, and a hundred others are remembered and cherished in the solos, the ensembles, the tempos, the swing.

And there was another reason to celebrate: the EarRegulars marked a run of steady gigs — four years of glorious Sunday evening sessions — that June 19.  Was it their fourth birthday or their fourth anniversary?  I can’t tell (someone will surely write in to explain which it was) but it was a sweet occasion, especially in a world where a “steady gig” is usually measured in shorter timespans.

Here are some soul-uplifting performances from that night:

A lilting, sweet SLEEPY TIME GAL that had the pleasure of staying at home with the Beloved in every note:

For Jimmie Noone and all the jam sessions that followed him, a profoundly swinging statement of mutual knowledge, I KNOW THAT YOU KNOW:

From that certainty, a troubling question: HOW COME YOU DO ME LIKE YOU DO?

And a cheerful THREE LITTLE WORDS:

Then (a request from JAZZ LIVES), that romantic entreaty — LET ME CALL YOU SWEETHEART:

A groovy I COVER THE WATERFRONT, suggesting that the waterfront in question was Danish, circa 1933:

For Fathers everywhere (or forefathers?): I’M A DING DONG DADDY FROM DUMAS, with an utterly unexpected vocal chorus by Herr Stein:

Jon Burr, brave explorer, led everyone into a deep IT HAD TO BE YOU:

And there was HAPPY BIRTHDAY (TO US)* — but since that song is only eight bars long, which is rather like a soliloquy of ten words, Matt led the EarRegulars into adding an I GOT RHTYHM bridge, for variety — I thought of Lester Young’s BLUE LESTER, but there was nothing seriously historical in the air, just jubilation, well-deserved:

May the EarRegulars and The Famous Ear prosper and continue to spread joy!

*I called this version on YouTube LET’S GET HAPPY, in honor of the 1938 Commodore recording featuring Bobby Hackett and Leo Watson, a stunning combination.

(This clip incorrectly lists Roy Eldridge in the personnel)

Soloists are a huge part of this Hendersonian swagger.  On “The Stampede” we get to hear both Rex Stewart’s slashing cornet and Joe Smith’s sweet, snapping trumpet.  Coleman Hawkins‘ tenor sax reveals Louis Armstrong’s influence on phrasing and narrative, and the solo has been transcribed and imitated countless times (from future Henderson trumpeter Roy Eldridge right down to this writer’s very amateur clarinet).  The Henderson Orchestra has long been acknowledged as a jazz conservatory of the twenties and thirties, with critics praising its soloists while relegating the ensemble to “dated” filler.  Yet “The Stampede” as a whole is an exciting early jazz chart, incorporating twenties effects such as whole tone scales and instrumental pyramids, while anticipating standard big band devices including divided brass and reeds and background riffs behind soloists.

“The Stampede” also features another jazz age favorite, the clarinet trio.  While many critics view clarinet trios as period clichés, the contrast between shouting brass, shimmering saxes and howling clarinets shows a concern for textural variety that would dominate Duke Ellington and Gil Evans’ later experiments.  Yet “anticipation” should never suggest that the earlier idea is merely a stepping-stone to what we know and understand.

“Henderson Stomp” from 1926 also features a busy clarinet trio in high-flying harmony:

yet Henderson’s 1940 reimaging for Benny Goodman’s band pares the melody down to the leader’s sleek solo clarinet:

On the original, June Cole’s tuba punches out syncopated bass lines, while the “modern” arrangement features Artie Bernstein’s flowing 4/4 walking string bass, with smooth saxes filling in the harmonies underneath Goodman.

It’s tempting to hear the Henderson band in terms of jazz teleology, leading to what a ‘true’ jazz band ‘should’ sound like: section becoming soloist, tuba becoming string bass, stomp becoming swing.  It’s useful historical approach, but when listening it denies the music its distinct dues.  The 1926 “Henderson Stomp” is simply its own musical entity.

When the brass and reeds part for Fats Waller’s gliding stride piano solo, there’s no loss of rhythmic momentum.  That consistent drive speaks as much to Waller’s firm beat as the rhythmic character of this piece.  “Henderson Stomp” is like an orchestrated stride piano piece. If we expect it to swing with the light, crisp quality of the Goodman or Count Basie bands, we’re bound to be disappointed.  Yet if we accept the beat of the Henderson group as a choice (not a deficiency), we might find our feet tapping the same way they do to any energetic jazz performance.

Revisiting Henderson’s “polka-like” (in the words of historian Gunther Schuller) clarinet trios and sections “shout[ing] stubbornly at one another or [mixing] in colorless voicings” (Balliett again) has kept my musical mind as open as Mile Davis’ fusion experiments.  In fact, Henderson numbers such as “Variety Stomp” and “Shuffling Sadie” stand out as early examples of “fusion” between hot jazz and the show music.  “Tozo” has Henderson’s boys parodying pop ephemera, with arranger Don Redman audibly smirking his way through the vocal.  “The Chant” has all the majesty and grit of a camp meeting at a storefront church (with some earthy banjo picking over soulful organ chords), while the gutty trombone slurs and wailing clarinets of “Jackass Blues” provide a forum for preaching the blues.  “Rocky Mountain Blues” relentlessly changes up the orchestral textures, moving from tightly arranged passages, through extended solos to breaks for unison tuba with piano.

Is it jazz yet?  Can I come off the boat?

Artist Alex Craver, Mike Burgevin, and Sadiq Abdu Shahid

“DRUMATIC CYMBALISM” CONCERT SERIES

May – October 2011, Stamford, New York

Two of Central New York’s top kit drummers will perform six concerts of  spell-binding rhythms and creative drumming. The focus will be The American Drum Kit from the 1930’s until the present day.

Professional drumming is a way of life for these seasoned performers “Mike” Burgevin and Sadiq Abdu Shahid (formerly Archie Taylor, Jr.).

“Sadiq,”who resides with his family on their farm in Masonville, New York, was born and raised in the Midwest and studied with Cleveland Symphony Orchestra percussionist Charles Wilcoxon.  He performed and recorded with many famous avant-garde jazzmen: Pharaoh Sanders, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, and Cecil Taylor (among others) and was a resident drummer for Motown Records in Detroit, there recording many albums backing R&B groups.

His father, Archie Taylor, Sr., was also a famous drummer accompanying Lou Rawls, Nancy Wilson, and the one and only Billie Holiday.

Michael “Mike” Burgevin, now a resident of Bainbridge, New York, began drumming professionally at age 15.  From the mid 1960’s through the 1980’s he worked regularly at famous NYC jazz clubs, Jimmy Ryan’s, Sweet Basil, Eddie Condon’s, and Brew’s side by side with many of the great jazz “Swing” players (now legends) Max Kaminsky, “Doc” Cheatham, Jimmy and Marian McPartland, Roy Eldridge, Wild Bill Davison, Warren Vaché and many, many others.

He has had the honor and privilege of playing with Joe Thomas, Herman Autrey, Vic Dickenson, Bobby Hackett, Benny Morton, Bobby Gordon, Rudy Powell, Dill Jones, Dick Wellstood, Al Casey, and many others.  It was my privilege to see him swing the band every time he started a gentle beat with his brushes or tapped his closed hi-hat.

Mike studied with Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra percussionist Richard Horowitz.  He also performed in several of the “Journey in Jazz” concerts with saxophonist Al Hamme in Binghamton University’s Anderson Center as well as producing many jazz concerts in the historic Town Hall Theatre in Bainbridge between 2001 and 2007.

No two DRUMNASTIC CYMBALISM concerts are ever the same!

Drumming becomes a musical art form in the hands of these outstanding percussionists.  A show may begin with “Curious Curlicues & Nimble Noodles” then move to whisper-quiet ruffs and other rudiments… then pass through sonorous tonalities before roaring into layered polyrhythmic styles of Jazz, and Free Form drumming.  Sadiq and Mike totally explore the drum set with all its possibilities.  Their concerts open with a brief discourse on the history and development of the drum and the evolution of various styles of drumming.

A Master Creative Drum Workshop will take place on July 16th from 3:00 to 5:00 at The Gallery East, 71 Main Street, Stamford, NY.  Workshop fee is $25. Students should bring sticks, a practice pad or snare drum and stand.

Questions?  Call The Gallery in Stamford at 607 652 4030.

Before the concerts: Come early and enjoy dining in one of Stamford’s fine restaurants.  Then visit artist Timothy Touhey’s two galleries, both located on Main Street (Route 23).

You will be uplifted by the art and music!

So mark your calendar: May 21st / June 18th / July16th / August 21st / Sept.17th / Oct.15th — Performances begin at 7:00. Tickets at the door are $10.00 / $8.00 in advance.

For information in advance call:   THE GALLERY EAST 71 MAIN ST. STAMFORD, NY @ 607 652 4030.   On the day of the concert please call 607 353 2492.   Tour The Gallery at www.touhey.com.

It’s my way of writing how glad I am that the Sunday night sessions (from 8 to 11 PM, more or less) at The Ear Inn (326 Spring Street, Soho, New York City) are happily afloat.  This summer The EarRegulars will celebrate their fourth anniversary!

I had missed a number of Ear sessions, so I was delighted to return on April 10, 2011 to find that nothing had been changed in my absence.  Jon-Erik Kellso and Matt Munisteri, on trumpet and guitar, respectively, still offered benign swinging guidance (catch Jon-Erik’s plunger work on HAPPY FEET and Matt’s ringing, chiming solos and fierce rhythm!).  The other members were the eloquent bassist Neal Miner and the always surprising Alex Hoffman on tenor sax.  Here are three delightful performances from that night.

The first of these is a novelty song with goofy lyrics (about women who wicky-wacky-woo) which used to be a jazz / jam session favorite . . . less so in this century, but NAGASAKI is still a delight:

Then, an EarRegular favorite — bringing together the late Paul Whiteman band and the early-Thirties Henderson orchestra — HAPPY FEET:

These Sunday night music-parties are one of the best things about New York City: long may they continue!

It seems particularly alive on the previously unissued 1998 New York sessions that have just been released on Arbors ARCD 19426 as OUR LOVE IS HERE TO STAY.

Four extended tracks (LINGER AWHILE, ALL MY LIFE, DAY IN, DAY OUT, and I’M COMIN’ VIRGINIA) feature Ruby with Chuck Wilson (alto and clarinet), Howard Alden, Jon Wheatley (guitars), Marshall Wood (bass), Jim Gwin (drums).  I KNOW THAT YOU KNOW adds Scott Robinson (tenor) to this; ‘DEED I DO, CLEAR WATER (Ruby’s composition on LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME CHANGES), a medley of WHAT IS THERE TO SAY and OUR LOVE IS HERE TO STAY, and a medium-slow DARKTOWN STRUTTERS’ BALL add Jon-Erik Kellso (trumpet) as well.

Ruby’s playing is superb, free from some of the irritable-sounding harmonic “adventurousness” he embarked on when he felt restless.  Here he is among dear friends from Boston and New York, and his  comfort is tangible.

Although Ruby never played a phrase that didn’t have Louis standing in back of it, the atmosphere here is so thoroughly Basie-inflected that I was always waiting for a piano chorus.  Long, loping lines at swinging tempos, gently intense melodic embellishment . . . a celebration of swing, with riffs blossoming behind soloists, Ruby shaping performances as only he could.

Only those who saw Ruby in person or on video will understand that he was perhaps the finest on-the-spot arranger — a three-dimensional instantaneous musical architest — that most of us will ever know.

The rhythm section is a model of generous, seamless subtlety — and the soloists float over it.  Ruby is both passionate and amused (you hear his playfulness in the neat quotes and riffs; you hear his soul in his melodic lines).  Scott Robinson’s tenor is based in Lester but with Scott’s inimitable sideways manner of perceiving the world; Chuck Wilson’s lemony sound suggests Pete Brown and Lester on clarinet, and then there’s Kellso.

Ruby is one of his heroes but Jon-Erik is always his own man, his sound shifting from deep and pretty to growly in an Eldridge mode.  Ruby didn’t like sharing the stage with other trumpeters and often did it under duress, but when he did (with Roy on a wonderful RCA session, EASY NOW) he sounded exquisite.  Both Ruby and Jon-Erik sound as if they are thriving on the propinquity, the emotional teamwork.

These sessions have the freedom and inventiveness of Ruby’s best work, and the CD is a rare gift (made even better by attentive, loving notes from Ruby’s bio-discographer Tom Hustad, whose BORN TO PLAY is scheduled to be published this year.

My title comes from something Ruby said at the second session: it could have been his life’s motto.

You’ll want this CD.

Remembering trumpet player Roy Eldridge on the day after his death in 1989.

Nicknamed “Little Jazz,” Eldridge stood only 5-foot-6, but there was a time in the 1940s when he couldn’t have been much bigger. In 1941, after apprenticing with Fletcher Henderson, Eldridge joined drummer Gene Krupa’s band, with singer Anita O’Day (link above). As the only black member of the band, Eldridge suffered from discrimination at the hotels and restaurants and the like which would serve the other members but not him; once, reportedly, Krupa once got into a fight on behalf of Eldridge and was fined.

When Krupa was arrested for marijuana in 1943, Eldridge eventually joined Artie Shaw’s band. In the 1950s he moved to Paris and enjoyed the attention there, played with Benny Goodman, moved back to New York. He suffered a stroke in 1980, and for the rest of his life he performed on other instruments.

He died in 1989 at age 78.

Eldridge is the subject of John Chilton’s book: Roy Eldridge: Little Jazz Giant.

Said trombonist Steve Turre to Pittsburghlive.com:  ”. . . there only is one Roy, and that’s Roy Eldridge . . . He is the connection between Pops and Dizzy.”

Next:  Around the World in Music Monday: Canada

That new invention, the jukebox, meant that record labels in the Thirties saw a market for pop music recorded inexpensively for listeners eager for danceable novelties. 

So Fats Waller and Henry “Red” Allen gave encouragement to Bob Howard, Tempo King, Putney Dandridge, Teddy Wilson, Mildred Bailey, Billie Holiday, and the overlooked Lil Armstrong, whose last name and ebullience were enough to make Decca Records interested in her.  (Also, a woman-pianist-singer-composer-personality was their idea of good value for one salary.) 

Then, the Fletcher Henderson band was playing a long residency at the Grand Terrace in Chicago: Fletcher’s star sidemen Buster Bailey (clarinet), Chu Berry (tenor sax), Huey Long (guitar), and Joe Thomas (trumpet) were available and eager to make some easy money on their own.  Teddy Cole took over the piano; John Frazier played bass.  Roy Eldridge might have wanted to lead his own date; Sidney Catlett was off having fun. 

And the idea of a “hi-de-ho” man leads back to the immense popularity of both Cab Calloway and his jive talk . . . all things combined to make this wonderful piece of music: meant to be ephemeral but still entertaining us more than seventy-five years later. 

Now, settle in and enjoy the strong pulse of that drumless rhythm section (with Huey Long’s solo passage late in the record), Teddy Cole’s glistening piano — shades of Hines and Wilson — on top.  Then, Joe Thomas — no one’s played like him yet!  Careful yet soulful, taking his time, outlining the melody but offering his own embellishments.  He loved upward arpeggios (shades of 1927 Louis) and repeated notes (all his own, as was that lovely tone).  Thomas’s playing always combines delicacy and earnestness: he has something he wants to tell us, but it’s not going to be bold or overemphatic. 

Then a key change to bring on the Star — jivey, enthusiastic, full of ginger and pep, singing lyrics that don’t make a lot of sense but we don’t care.  (“I’m going to bump that ball . . . ?”) while the band gets more lively in back of her.  Buster Bailey, who could sometimes sound mechanical, now bends a note or two in the hot fashion of Ed Hall –  and Lil comes back for more, with Joe generating a good deal of heat behind her singing.  (All this romping has been created in eighty seconds: the jazz masters of the Thirties certainly didn’t need a great deal of room to warm up the world.) 

And then a sweet chorded interlude from Huey Long  and John Frazier, coming through clearly even now, preparing us for the drama to follow, Chu Berry in flight, his phrases tumbling, his tone shifting and shading as he ascends and descends.  Then tout ensemble, rollicking: Lil riding the rhythm wave of the band, the horns — with space and time enough for a four-bar string bass break — before the end: what Joe plays in the final fifteen selections of this disc is priceless.   Yes, there’s some Eldridge-osmosis there (those phrases were the common tongue for trumpeters in 1936 and I wouldn’t be surprised if they went back to Mr. Strong) but Joe is floating on top of the beat just as he seems to be urging the band on to a joyous finale.

And these recordings aren’t well known and haven’t had much existence on compact disc.  Yes, there’s a Classics compilation but it’s been out of print and costly for some time.  I wouldn’t take anything from Billie or Fats, but their colleagues, swinging happily for other labels in these years, deserve our attention, too.

CELEBRATE THE LIVING: CLICK HERE!  ALL MONEY GOES TO THE MUSICIANS

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Mr B - Billy Eckstine

The show is called “From the Other Side of the Mirror” and is broadcast every Monday between 9-10am. You can find KOOP radio at 91.7 Fm in the Austin area, or stream it online at http://www.koop.org If you miss the show, please email me and I will be happy to send you a recording.

1. Ev’ryday (I Fall in Love)

2. St. Louis Blues

3. Jelly, Jelly

4. Stormy Monday Blues

5. I Love You

6. Prisoner of Love

7. You’re All I Need

8. Sophisticated Lady

9. Passing Strangers

10. My Foolish Heart

11. In The Still Of The Night

12. Send My Baby Back To Me

13. I’ll Wait and Pray

14. I Apologize

Link to all archived shows

Rudresh and Bunky, talking and playing (with Jason Moran, piano; Francois Moutin, bass; Jack DeJohnette and Damion Reid, drums)

Listening to these guys, who’d ever guess that one is nearly twice as old as the other? (Rudresh is 39, Bunky 75.)

*****

Here’s a track from their recent album (Apex, 2010), “Playing with Stones,” featuring Rudresh (Bunky sits out).

*****

My favorite moment in this next clip comes at 2:24, when alto saxophonist Greg Osby, listening to Bunky, tilts his head, as if to say, “Did you hear that?!”

Bunky Green (with alto saxophonists Greg Osby and Steffano di Battista), “Body and Soul,” live, Germany, 2008

**********

lagniappe

reading table

In the is-this-a-great-country-or-what department, how delicious to learn
that two great American artists—trumpeter Roy Eldridge and poet Elizabeth Bishop—were born, one hundred years ago, within days of each other. (Eldridge was born on January 30, 1911, Bishop on February 8th.)

Sandpiper

The roaring alongside he takes for granted,
and that every so often the world is bound to shake.
He runs, he runs to the south, finical, awkward,
in a state of controlled panic, a student of Blake.

The beach hisses like fat. On his left, a sheet
of interrupting water comes and goes
and glazes over his dark and brittle feet.
He runs, he runs straight through it, watching his toes.

—Watching, rather, the spaces of sand between them
where (no detail too small) the Atlantic drains
rapidly backwards and downwards. As he runs,
he stares at the dragging grains.

The world is a mist. And then the world is
minute and vast and clear. The tide
is higher or lower. He couldn’t tell you which.
His beak is focussed; he is preoccupied,

looking for something, something, something.
Poor bird, he is obsessed!
The millions of grains are black, white, tan, and gray
mixed with quartz grains, rose and amethyst.

—Elizabeth Bishop

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The EarRegulars — Jon-Erik Kellso, Dan Block, Chris Flory, and Jon Burr — began their Sunday session last week (at The Ear Inn, 326 Spring Street, Soho, New York City) as a relaxed tribute to the spirit and energies of Roy Eldridge, who would have celebrated his hundredth birthday on January 30, 2011.

Roy was not available to drop in with his horn, but this didn’t deter the participants.  And when the second set rolled around, Jon-Erik Kellso asked two of his colleagues what they would like to play — a nicely egalitarian gesture.  Young Eric Elder from Chicago suggested the lilting hymn to romantic togetherness through domestic chores — easier to do in song than in real life: James P. Johnson and Andy Razaf’s A PORTER’S LOVE SONG TO A CHAMBERMAID, which sweetly rocked.  The jazz scholars in the audience didn’t rise to their feet and insist that the EarRegulars cease and desist because there was no evidence that Roy had ever recorded this song.  Oh, no, we were having too much fun with this group that at times sounded like a modern version of the John Kirby Sextet, but looser (enjoy those riffs!) crossed with a John Hammond Vanguard date — with Chris and Jon, the string section, reaching new heights of easy elegance:

Chris then asked Jon-Erik how he felt about HAPPY FEET — always a good idea, a fine romping song with echoes of the 1933 Henderson band (an outfit that had Dicky Wells, Henry “Red” Allen, and Coleman Hawkins) as well as Bing Crosby and the Rhythm Boys.  And one of our most prized secret weapons, Pete Martinez, took up his position leaning against the phone booth.  Then a surprise for me — Tricky Sam, I mean Jim, Fryer, seated at the bar, playing wonderfully — Jon Burr bowing his heart out before everyone traded epigrams:

Give them a low-down beat and they begin dancing!

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Otto “Toby” Hardwick of the Ellington band dubbed Roy Eldridge LITTLE JAZZ a long time ago.  Not simply because Roy was short (great trumpeters often are, as Whitney Balliett pointed out).  But Roy he was animated by the spirit of the music. 

Roy always wanted to play; he had a gleefully feisty spirit; he swung harder than anyone could imagine.  He has been gone for some time now, but I remember seeing him in concerts — at Williams College and Newport in New York — and at his late-life home base, Jimmy Ryan’s.  He didn’t coast; he didn’t ever want to play it safe.  And his giant spirit is alive in our hearts and our ears. 

Jon-Erik Kellso admires Mr. Eldridge greatly – not only the built-in rasp of his trumpet tone or his hot, speedy articulation, but his inventiveness, his emotional force.  In fact, the first time I heard young Kellso on a CD, years ago, I thought, “Who is this young cat who sounds a little bit like young Roy without copying the Master?” 

Since January 30, 2011 happened to be David Roy Eldridge’s one-hundredth birthday, the EarRegulars turned their regular Sunday gig at the Ear Inn (326 Spring Street, Soho, New York City) into a small heartfelt tribute to the spirit of Little Jazz, again without copying the records. 

In this, Jon-Erik was aided mightily by several swing sages: Dan Block on clarinet and tenor sax; Jon Burr on bass; Chris Flory on guitar.  Oh, how they rocked!

Here are a few highlights: 

Although AFTER YOU’VE GONE is sometimes a song played as a farewell, it was offered early in the evening at a relaxed yet steamy tempo, with the EarRegulars clicking in to gear.  (Pay paricular attention to bassist Jon, who was eloquent beyond his usual eloquence in solo after solo.):

Roy was known for searing playing at fast tempos, but his ballads were something special, and audiences who knew this often came in to Ryan’s about 11:30 for “The Ballad.”  I remember once hearing an extraordinary WILLOW WEEP FOR ME. 

The EarRegulars didn’t make us wait that long to hear I SURRENDER, DEAR (yet another reminder of how much Coleman Hawkins and his generation devoted themselves to the singing and repertoire of Bing Crosby, with good reason):

I don’t recall Roy recording I FOUND A NEW BABY as such, but he improvised on its chord changes more than once, I believe — and this wasn’t a repertory tribute to Mr. Eldridge, but another Sunday night excursion into deep fun.  (At the end of the night, Jon-Erik said, “I started making a list of tunes associated with Roy, but I realized that’s what we play, anyway!”):

The second set brought forth a classic Gift From The EarRegulars scenario: the chance to hear someone new to me and to be impressed. 

I’d already been impressed by clarinetist / reedman Eric Elder from Chicago without hearing a note: his perceptive, witty emails got to the heart of things.  When we met, we spent a good long time talking about music and musicians and life — a wonderful combination.  So when Eric came up to play, I was excited.  And he didn’t disappoint.  Mind you, for a younger reedman (“Jon-Erik called him Eric Elder the Younger) sitting next to Dan Block and Pete Martinez is both Paradise and the hot seat — but Eric played nimbly and with feeling on the selections that closed out the night.

You’re going to hear a lot from him, I assure  you. 

Here’s one delicious highlight of the second set, containing a sweet surprise that (in my experience) happens often at the Ear Inn on Sunday nights.  I was seated at the bar behind my camera, fixated on what was in my viewfinder, when I heard a trombone both smooth and gutty.  I didn’t quite think of WHERE’S WALDO? or “Who is the mystery guest?” but eased myself forward, still shooting this veideo, to find our pal Jim Fryer seated, playing, adding joy to a pretty medium-tempo ROCKIN’ CHAIR (that’s Ruby Braff-tempo, by the way):

The session ended much later than usual.  

I missed what would have been the convenient train.  

I overslept the next morning and missed work. 

I apologize to my students, but this session was sublimely worth it.

And if these video performances make you feel warm and sunny inside, you’ll know what to do!

One is that it is famous as the song Benny Goodman called when that interloper Charlie Christian was sneaked up on the bandstand by the meddlesome but inspired John Hammond.  Legend has it that Goodman thought — not a nice thought — that Charlie wouldn’t know the song or would find the chord changes difficult and either be embarrassed or sneak off the stand in disgrace.  Of course, Charlie had no trouble and he played rings around everyone on the stand.  The rest is too-brief history.

Two is that it is the harmonic basis for Ellington’s IN A MELLOTONE.

Three is that it is one of those songs that reveals itself in different, beautiful ways whenever the tempo is changed.  I’ve heard it played as a romp, a saunter (the 1943 Commodore version with Max Kaminsky, Benny Morton, Pee Wee Russell, Joe Bushkin, Eddie Condon, Bob Casey, and Sidney Catlett), and as a yearning love ballad (J. Walter Hawkes, in this century, in live performance).

And four is that there is a Louis Armstrong and his All-Stars concert recorded in Vancouver in 1951.  For whatever reason, Louis was (atypically) not onstage when the concert was supposed to begin, so Barney Bigard, Jack Teagarden, Earl Hines, Arvell Shaw, and Cozy Cole just jammed ROSE ROOM for a start — an easy hot performance.  Were I Ricky Riccardi of THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF LOUIS ARMSTRONG, http://dippermouth.blogspot.com/, I could share it with you right now, but alas . . . you’ll have to imagine it.

But all that is prose.  How about some music?

Last Sunday, the mighty EarRegulars, the reigning kings of small-band swing who appear at The Ear Inn (326 Spring Street, 8-11 PM on Sundays — except this next week, Feb. 6, because of some large-scale sporting event whose name eludes me) took on ROSE ROOM late in the first set.

The EarRegulars were charter members, co-founders Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet (in a rousing Eldridge mood); Matt Munisteri, guitar; Neal Miner, bass; and the newcomer to The Ear Inn — but not to New York jazz! — tenor saxophonist Tad Shull, who has a laid-back, coasting behind the beat, relaxed Websterian approach that’s very refreshing.  Here’s what they played (with hints of Webster’s DID YOU CALL HER TODAY in the encouraging conversation between Jon-Erik and Tad at the end):

The Ear Inn is dark, but it was sunny Roseland for ten minutes!

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No you, no me.

—Dizzy Gillespie

“I Can’t Get Started,” live (TV broadcast), 1958

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“After You’ve Gone,” 1937

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“Wabash Stomp,” 1937

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“Let Me Off Uptown” (Gene Krupa Orchestra with Anita O’Day), 1942

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radio Roy Eldridge

WKCR-FM’s centennial birthday celebration, mentioned yesterday, continues until midnight.

“Heavenly Home (Got to Take a Journey),” live, Langrun Branch Baptist Church, York, South Carolina

More? Here. And here.

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lagniappe

Happy (100th) Birthday, Roy!

For two full days—all day today and tomorrow—WCKR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University) celebrates the birthday of trumpeter Roy Eldridge. (I’m listening as I type this—delicious!)

Photograph by Roger Wood, circa 1965

The Metropole in New York City was on Broadway and had a large bar near the front and the musicians played on a stand within the bar. The front window had been removed so passers-by could see and hear them. Dick Wellstood played there with a trad group. He told me that when they were hired the owner told them, “I do not want to interfere with your artistic integrity. You can play anything you want, provided you play loud.”

Every so often, something you’ve been taking for granted hits you in the forehead like a thrown mallet, and you spend the next little while walking around wondering what you could possibly have been thinking—or not thinking—your whole life. The awesomeness of the Blue Note Records catalog of the 1960s is the kind of thing that’s so impossible to dispute that you can start to take it for granted. You can start to not really hear the music anymore, because you can put any random disc on, and even if it’s slightly less mind-warpingly beautiful than other titles by the same artist—if it’s only better than anything else you’ve heard that month, rather than the kind of thing that sends you staggering into traffic like Kevin McCarthy at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, pounding on strangers’ car hoods and demanding “Have you heard Lee Morgan‘s Search for the New Land? Have you fucking heard this album?”—even if it’s not that life-altering, it’s still great. But that much greatness, so readily available, can numb you. You can start to take it for granted. Which is when it’s time to dip into the dustier corners and pull out stuff you may not have paid much attention to before.

Ike Quebec is not really in the pantheon of Blue Note players of the 1960s. That’s partly because he died in the earliest days of 1963, before the label’s sudden infusion of creativity and new blood (think about all the dudes who made their Blue Note debut between ’63 and ’65—Joe Henderson, Sam Rivers, Andrew Hill, Bobby Hutcherson, Grachan Moncur III, and on and on), but it’s also because he was of a prior generation. Quebec got his start in the 1940s, playing with Cab Calloway, Tiny Grimes, and Roy Eldridge, among others. He recorded as a leader for Blue Note between 1944 and 1948, and worked as an A&R man for the label, too, bringing Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell into the fold. It’s been said that he did a lot of uncredited arranging on other musicians’ sessions, too. He didn’t do much of anything in the ’50s, mostly due to drug problems. But when he returned to Blue Note in 1959, he seemed determined to make up for lost time.

Quebec began his comeback somewhat cautiously, recording eight songs for jukebox singles. These were successful, so he recorded another set in 1960 (one of which, “Everything Happens to Me,” was released in short and long versions), and nine more in 1962, when the second phase of his career was well underway. These are organ-driven, bluesy tunes, with standards mixed in. What’s interesting about Quebec’s recordings, though (and this holds true on his albums, as well), is that he uses both an organist and a bassist (frequently Milt Hinton). Most organ combos dispense with upright bass, but Quebec prefers the organist to play a melodic role, an approach that yields superb results and a generally fuller sound. All 26 tracks were reissued as a two-CD set, The Complete Blue Note 45 Sessions; it’s out of print in physical form, but available for download.

Nineteen sixty-one was the year Quebec really cranked into high gear. He made three albums that year—Heavy Soul, It Might As Well Be Spring and Blue and Sentimental, all recorded in a total of four sessions between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The first two feature the same band: Quebec on tenor saxophone, Freddie Roach on organ (making his professional debut), Hinton on bass and Al Harewood on drums. Blue and Sentimental, by contrast, features guitarist Grant Green, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Philly Joe Jones. (There’s also a bonus track on the CD version, “Count Every Star,” with Sonny Clark on piano, Sam Jones on bass and Louis Hayes on drums.)

Heavy Soul has an astonishing physicality to its sound. Every instrument is swathed in reverb, Quebec’s saxophone in particular; the only ready comparison is John Coltrane‘s sound on the first, self-titled album by the Miles Davis Quintet, from 1955. His phrasing is slow and thoughtful, romantic on the slow songs in a manner younger players of the time would have rejected as hilariously sentimental—Archie Shepp would revive this style of emotive balladry in the late ’60s. Hinton’s bass is huge, and when the two men play a duet on “Nature Boy” it’s like a vast heart throbbing. Make no mistake, though, they can crank things up; the album’s opening and closing tracks, “Acquitted” and “Blues for Ike,” are hard-swinging romps with plenty of room for drummer Harewood to rattle and crash around the kit.

It Might As Well Be Spring, recorded just under two weeks later by the same group, is an excellent sequel. Quebec re-records “A Light Reprieve,” a song he issued on 45 in 1959 in a radically different arrangement, and otherwise offers more of his swing/bop-style blowing over soulful grooves. It’s a short album, only six tracks in 35 minutes (Heavy Soul offered nine, and ran past the 45-minute mark), but hardly skippable.

Blue and Sentimental is the album most people go to first when they discover Ike Quebec, and while it’s excellent, it’s not that much better than anything else he recorded during this time-span. Somewhat surprisingly (I was surprised, anyway) given its title, it’s not an all-ballads session. It’s got a little more sting to it than its predecessors, in fact, because of the presence of Grant Green on guitar, and the hard-hitting, Miles-approved rhythm section of Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones, but it’s another slab of blues, standards and swinging groove. Highly worthwhile, but so are its two predecessors.

Quebec recorded two albums in 1962, and each is interesting in its own way. Five tracks from a session early in the year were released in 1981 as Congo Lament; in 1987, these were reunited with three others from the same day’s work and given the title Easy Living. On these extremely bluesy numbers, he worked with other horn players for the only time during these years—trombonist Bennie Green and tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine joined him, with a backing trio of Sonny Clark, Milt Hinton and Art Blakey on drums. The chance to hear Quebec alongside another saxophonist is very welcome; in some ways it makes his style seem that much more anachronistic, but it also makes his virtues—patience, romanticism, a suffusing sense of the blues—that much more apparent.

His final recording session came in October 1962, for the album Soul Samba. On this occasion, the band included guitarist Kenny Burrell, bassist Wendell Marshall, drummer Willie Bobo and Garvin Masseaux on chekere, and as the disc’s title should indicate, the music has a heavily Brazilian lilt. This is a very interesting showcase for Quebec’s buzzy, full tone; when the band’s cruising along without him, it’s a lighthearted session full of finger-snapping good vibes, but when he comes back in, there’s a layer of gravitas that falls onto everything like a thick, woolen blanket.

While Soul Samba is a good record, it’s a clear attempt to jump on a momentary trend, and consequently the most disposable of all Quebec’s releases, which makes it a shame that he never got to do anything else. In 1963, he died of cancer, and no other sessions lie in the vaults. He didn’t even do all that much sideman work during his final few years: he can be heard on Grant Green’s Gooden’s Corner and Born to Be Blue, organist Jimmy Smith‘s Open House and Plain Talk, vocalist Dodo Greene‘s My Hour of Need, and one track on Sonny Clark’s Leapin’ and Lopin’. And that’s it.

Virtually all of Quebec’s slim discography remains in print…it’s well worth checking out.

Heavy Soul

It Might As Well Be Spring

Blue And Sentimental

Bossa Nova Soul Samba

The Complete 45 Sessions

Optimistic.

Sly.

If you thought that arias were sung only in opera houses and on PBS; if you thought that Puccini and Mozart had cornered the market on passionate vocal expression . . . then I would ask you to consider the three performances below.

Recorded at my favorite Sunday-night hangout of all time, The Ear Inn (326 Spring Street, Soho, New York City), these three vocal – dramatic expressions are emotionally powerful.  They capture two singers: Tamar Korn and Jerron Paxton, alongside Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; Matt Munisteri, guitar; Neal Miner, bass; Mark Lopeman, tenor sax and clarinet, and Pete Martinez, clarinet (far left) — on the final number, clarinetist Bob Curtis can be seen and heard even more to the left. 

The three songs couldn’t be more familiar landmarks of twentieth-century American popular song, but listen to what these singers and players make of them! 

I had heard Tamar perform BODY AND SOUL once before (with the Cangelosi Cards at the Shambhala Meditation Center, on Feb. 27, 2010 — you can see that performance on this blog) but I do not think I have ever heard her or anyone else sing this song with such despairing power and intensity.  And, yes, I know it has been sung beautifully and strongly by Louis, Billie, Frank, and many others.  But listen — listen! — to Tamar and the band here, the musicians giving her their full love and support, as she stretches notes in some phrases, stating some plainly.  And her second chorus, where she suggests by her singing that some things are too deep for mere words: 

I am not alone in having some awkward feelings about this song: its somewhat syntactically-tortured lyrics; its inescapably masochistic air (much more self-immolating than UNTIL THE REAL THING COMES ALONG); it is more a song of voluntary indeiture than of simple fidelity.  And Tamar enters so wholly into the spirit of it that I hear her moving closer and closer to the flame, to the brink, in the manner of Piaf.  But a strange thing happens here.  You realize that as much as Tamar is apparently performing open-heart surgery in front of the crowd, saying, sobbing, “You want my heart?  Here!  Here it is!  Take it!” she is simultaneously the artist in full control, creating a dramatic (but not melodramatic) statement about love and art and passion.  In appearing to throw herself into the song, she is also the artist knowing how to create that spectacle which is so unsettling, so seismic.  And the gentlemen of the ensemble evoke Roy Eldridge, Lester Young, Ed Hall, Charlie Christian, and Oscar Pettiford in the most singular ways!  Perhaps they’ve all been prisoners of love, too?

After that performance, I felt utterly satisfied and drained: in some way, I thought, “That’s it for me!  I don’t have to hear anything else tonight, tomorrow, next week . . . “  But it was early — perhaps twenty minutes before the EarRegulars would call it a night — and they conferred on another song that Tamar might sing with them.  It took some time — choices were suggested and rejected — and since I am a born meddler and enjoy the friendly tolerance of everyone in that band, I leaned forward and said, “Sorry to intrude!  But what about WRAP YOUR TROUBLES IN DREAMS”?  And — my goodness! — Tamar and the Regulars thought it a good idea, and they took it up at a brisk tempo, everyone playing around with the written harmony to spark it up a bit (what I’ve heard called “the Crosby changes”) which you’ll notice.  Here, the mood was properly restorative, hopeful.  Yes, you sold my heart to the junkman, but I can always barter something and get it back in decent shape.  The clouds will soon roll by.  Your troubles can, in fact, be wrapped up in dreams and made to disappear.  Hokey Depression-era thoughts, not supported by evidence?  Perhaps.  But if I woke up in a gloomy mood every morning, which I fortunately do not, I would want to play this video — more than once — until I felt better.  See if it works for you, too:

The heroic Jerron Paxton had come in to The Ear Inn between the first and second sets, and I had hopes that he would sing.  When he shows up at a club, music happens!  And for the final performance of the night, he and the EarRegulars settled on a rocking SOME OF THESE DAYS, that anthem of “You left me and won’t you be sorry!” but sung with a grin rather than finger-waggling or real rancor.  Jerron is a sly poet, singing some phrases, elongating others, speaking some . . . and he gets his message across when he seems to be most casually leaning against the wall, just floating along: a true improvising dramatist:

Thank you, gentlemen and lady, for your passionate candor, your eloquence.

You know that the pianist Herbie Nichols played in Dixieland bands.  One night, I popped into a club called the Riviera — across from Nick’s on Seventh Avenue — and there was a jazz band.  The clarinetist was someone I knew from school and he forced me to sit in.  To my amazement, I got through it.  After the set was over, Herbie said to me, “Man, you’re a real player.”  That really egged me on, encouraged me tremendously, so I stayed with the horn and enjoyed it.  It was much later through a book by A.B. Spellman that I discovered the esteem in which Herbie was held.  I do recall the band at the Riviera — a Dixieland band led by the trumpet player Al Bandini, a friend of Pee Wee Russell’s.  Tom Lord played baritone.  After Herbie died, Bandini got Eddie Wilcox (who had taken over the Jimmie Lunceford band after Lunceford passed) who became the house piano player at the Riviera.  Once in a while Bandini would call and I would go down there and play.  A lot of pros would come and sit in: in those days there were many places to sit in and famous people walked in.  I never forgot one night.  A chap in a sailor suit came in and said, “Can I sit in?” and took out his trombone.  He played a solo on SWEET GEORGIA BROWN and our jaws dropped: it was Bill Watrous.  Another trombonist was Benny Morton — a wonderful man.  Once Dick Dreiwitz got us a gig to play Central Plaza (this would have been around 1961) because we all knew Jack Crystal from the Commodore Music Shop.  At the end of the night, the two bands would get together to play THE SAINTS.  I looked over at the other band, and it was Willie “the Lion” Smith, Charlie Shavers, and Jo Jones, and I couldn’t stop shaking.  Then I felt an arm around my shoulders, and Benny Morton was saying to me, “Come on, man, relax.  Just play!”  And I did.

One other thing.  We used to go to the Metropole and see all the greats — Coleman Hawkins, Buck Clayton, Gene Krupa, and Roy Eldridge.  I was a friend of Jack Bradley and he called me up — around 1964 or so — to tell me that Louis was going to play one night there.  There was a line around the block.  But I’ve never heard a record that captured a live performance, and that night I thought the ceiling was going to fall down with the power and purity of Louis’s sound.