The Penguin Jazz Guide (34 page)

Miles Davis, Wardell Gray, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt, Sonny Criss, Hobart Dotson, Gene Ammons, Cecil Payne, Leo Parker, Art Blakey and Sarah Vaughan all passed through the ranks, but by the immediate postwar years the ‘legendary Billy Eckstine’ was in danger of starving – as he melodramatically put it – from lack of work, and he had to move in a new MOR direction with smaller groups. They had their moments, but the big bands of the 1940s were where the action was. His impact was comparable to Lunceford’s a decade earlier, but with incomparably more finesse.

CHARLIE PARKER
^&

Born 29 August 1920, Kansas City, Missouri; died 12 March 1955, New York City

Alto and tenor saxophones

Charlie Parker With Strings: The Master Takes

Verve 523984-2

Parker; Tony Aless, Al Haig, Bernie Leighton (p); Art Ryerson (g); Ray Brown, Bob Haggart, Tommy Potter, Curley Russell (b); Roy Haynes, Don Lamond, Shelly Manne, Buddy Rich (d); strings. December 1947–January 1952.

Ray Brown said (1991):
‘Bird wanted nothing more than to play with strings. That, as far as he was concerned, was the pinnacle in recording terms, and Norman Granz granted it to him. Everyone argues about the results, but it’s still Bird.’

What to do with Parker’s body of recording for Norman Granz’s labels? Does it represent a creative falling-away after the mighty Savoy and Dial sessions, which seem to reinvent modern jazz with every successive take? The short and negative answer is yes; there is nothing here of quite that quality or force. The most positive answer is that in these sessions Parker achieved a maturity and grace of performance that was matched by high-quality recording and that the Verve years represent a kind of plateau across which he sailed, erratically and with inevitable diversions, but with ineffable grace throughout.

There are many, many fine small-group performances among the Verve sides, and the parent company has lost no time in putting out multiple repackagings of Parker’s music, most of them derived from the grand ten-CD box that still turns up now and again for sale. We have opted this time to bite the bullet and present without further comment or justification the with-strings recordings – endlessly and pointlessly argued over – as a representation of this period. That Bird himself aspired to these like no other recordings in his career should be some reassurance that they are no sidebars or digressions, but absolutely of the essence. The music speaks handsomely for itself.

& See also
The Complete Savoy And Dial Studio Recordings
(1945–1948; p. 96),
The Quintet
(1953; p. 141)

DAVE BRUBECK
^&

Born 6 December 1920, Concord, California

Piano

The Dave Brubeck Octet

Original Jazz Classics OJC 101

Brubeck; Dick Collins (t); Bob Collins (tb); Paul Desmond (as); Dave Van Kriedt (ts); Bill Smith (cl, bs); Ron Crotty (b); Cal Tjader (d). 1946–July 1950.

Dave Brubeck said (1991):
‘We were in Darius Milhaud’s class at Mills [College, Oakland]. He asked how many of us played jazz, and eight of us put our hands up. That’s how it started!’

Though often derided as a buttoned-down formalist with an unhealthy addiction to classical music and complex time-signatures, Brubeck is one of the most significant composer-leaders in modern jazz. Tunes like ‘Blue Rondo A La Turk’, ‘Kathy’s Waltz’ and Paul Desmond’s ‘Take Five’ (which Brubeck made an enormous hit) insinuated their way into the unconscious of a whole generation of American college students. Though ‘In Your Own Sweet Way’ is probably the only Brubeck original that is regularly covered by others, he
has created a remarkable body of jazz and formal music, including orchestral pieces, oratorios and ballet scores. The Brubecks constitute something of a musical dynasty. His elder brother, Howard, is a ‘straight’ composer in a rather old-fashioned Francophile vein, while his sons, bassist and trombonist Chris, drummer Danny and keyboard-player Darius, have all played with Dave.

It used to be conventional wisdom that the only Brubeck records which mattered were those that featured the liquid alto of Paul Desmond. Such was the proprietary closeness of the relationship that it was stated in Desmond’s contract that his own recordings had to be pianoless. What no one seemed to notice was that Desmond’s best playing was almost always with the Brubeck group. Brubeck himself is not a particularly accomplished soloist, with a rather heavy touch and an unfailing attachment to block chords; it’s fair to say that his instrument was the quartet as a whole.

The early
Octet
catches Brubeck at the height of his interest in an advanced harmonic language (which he would have learned from Darius Milhaud, his teacher at Mills College); there are also rhythmic transpositions of a sort that popped up in classic jazz and were subsequently taken as read by the ’60s avant-garde, but which in the ’50s had been explored thoroughly only by Max Roach. Brubeck has not been widely regarded as a writer-arranger for larger groups, but the better material on this recorded set underlines how confidently he approached the synthesis of jazz with other forms. Even the standards – ‘What Is This Thing Called Love?’, ‘I Hear A Rhapsody’, ‘Laura’ – are approached with inventiveness and it’s clear that Brubeck, though the leading personality, was, much like Miles Davis on
The Birth Of The Cool
, surrounded by talented and like-minded musicians, who brought their own ideas to the table. Dave van Kriedt’s ‘Fugue On Bop Themes’ and ‘Serenade Suite’ are just two of the more prominent examples. Tracks like ‘Schizophrenic Scherzo’ are a great deal more swinging than most products of the Third Stream, a movement one doesn’t automatically associate with Brubeck’s name.

& See also
Time Out
(1959; p. 240),
London Sharp, London Flat
(2004; p. 690)

ILLINOIS JACQUET

Born Jean Baptiste Illinois Jacquet, 31 October 1922, Broussard, Louisiana; died 22 July 2004, Queens, New York

Tenor saxophone, bassoon, voice

Illinois Jacquet 1945–1946

Classics 948

Jacquet; Emmett Berry, Russell Jacquet (t); Henry Coker (tb); John Brown (as); Tom Archia (ts); Arthur Dennis (bs); Bill Doggett, Sir Charles Thompson (p); Freddie Green, Ulysses Livingston (g); Billy Hadnott, Charles Mingus, John Simmons (b); Johnny Otis, Shadow Wilson (d). July 1945–January 1946.

Illinois Jacquet said (1983):
‘My name comes from “Illiniwek”, which is an Indian word for “superior man”. I don’t know how I came to deserve that!’

Born in Broussard, Louisiana, and raised in Houston, Texas – you somehow know how Illinois Jacquet is going to sound. It’s a big, blues tone, tinged with loneliness that somehow underlines Jacquet’s status as a permanent guest star. He learned his showmanship in the Hampton band of the early ’40s, trading on his remarkable facility in the ‘false’ upper register and on sheer energy.

Jacquet seems permanently saddled with the ‘Texas tenor’ tag. In fact, his playing can show remarkable sensitivity and he was one of the fastest thinkers in the business. His ability to take care of his own business was obvious from the shrewd self-management that kept him in the forefront of Norman Granz’s Jazz At The Philharmonic. Just a few
days after his triumphant debut with JATP, Jacquet cut the first of the sides included on this Classics compilation. Inevitably, he includes another version of ‘Flying Home’, accompanied this time by brother Russell (who takes the vocal on ‘Throw It Out Of Your Mind, Baby’), trombonist Henry Coker and Sir Charles Thompson. The four July sides for Philo are pretty forgettable, and there isn’t a chance to hear what Jacquet is really made of until he starts recording for Apollo in August. ‘Jacquet Mood’ and ‘Bottoms Up’ are both impressive uptempo numbers, and there is an early sighting of Jacquet the balladeer, an exquisite performance of ‘Ghost Of A Chance’. He’s back in the same mood early the following year, recording for Savoy in a band with Emmett Berry, who was credited as leader on half the releases. This time, it’s ‘Don’t Blame Me’ that reveals the romantic in him. The only other items are a couple of obscurities recorded in August 1945 for ARA. The sharp-eyed will have noted a credit for the 23-year-old Charles Mingus, playing bass on the Apollo sessions.

DODO MARMAROSA

Born Michael Marmarosa, 12 December 1925, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; died 17 September 2002, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (but see below!)

Piano

On Dial: The Complete Sessions

Spotlite SPJ-128

Marmarosa; Howard McGhee, Miles Davis (t); Charlie Parker (as); Teddy Edwards, Lucky Thompson (ts); Arvin Garrison (g); Harry Babasin (clo); Bob Kesterson (b); Roy Porter, Jackie Mills (d). 1946–December 1947.

Jazz writer Steve Voce says:
‘I was sad to hear, in the spring of 1992, that Dodo Marmarosa had died. I set to work on his obituary and it was published in the
Independent
on 27 April. One also appeared in the
Guardian
. A few days later Marmarosa’s sister phoned the
Independent
from Pittsburgh and pointed out that Dodo was standing by her side as she made the call. In the early ’90s a British fan in the Pittsburgh area began calling Marmarosa’s home to ask for an interview. By then reclusive, he wanted none of it. The fan persisted and it was Marmarosa himself who answered when the fan called yet again. “I’m sorry to tell you,” said an exasperated Marmarosa, “that Mr Marmarosa passed away yesterday.” The fan immediately called a record producer in England with news of the “death” and the producer called me. For his last few years Dodo moved into a local medical centre where he occasionally played piano and organ for the other residents. He had done this on the day of his death, before returning to his room complaining of feeling unwell.’

A bebop enigma. Marmarosa played an important minor role in bop’s hothouse days, recording with Parker in LA; but less than two years later he was back in his native Pittsburgh and heading for obscurity and silence. He had a foot in swing as well as the modern camp, and his precise articulation and sweeping lines make one think of Tatum as much as any of his immediate contemporaries: a pair of solos from 1946, ‘Deep Purple’ and ‘Tea For Two’, are strikingly akin to the older man’s conception. But he had a gentle, even rhapsodic side, which colours the trio tracks here, and while he flirts with an even more audacious conception – hinted at on the two ‘Tone Paintings’ solos from 1947 – one feels he never satisfactorily resolved the different strands of his playing. Much of his best playing is to be found on Parker’s Dials (a solitary example, ‘Bird Lore’, is on the Spotlite CD), but the solo, trio and sextet (with McGhee) tracks on
On Dial
include much absorbing piano jazz.

Many important figures drop out of the historical narrative, either through critical and commercial neglect or in some cases simply out of choice. Marmarosa’s premature obituary surely has its ironic side, for the music he made and then turned his back on now seems more relevant than ever.

LENNIE TRISTANO
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Born 19 March 1919, Chicago, Illinois; died 18 November 1978, New York City

Piano

The Complete Lennie Tristano

Mercury 830921-2

Tristano; Billy Bauer (g); Clyde Lombardi, Bob Leininger (b). October 1946–May 1947.

Warne Marsh said (1980):
‘Don’t mythologize Lennie Tristano, or make some kind of monster out of him. He was, quite simply, the best educated and most knowledgeable musician around. Everyone benefited from that. No mystery.’

If Charlie Parker is the Schoenberg of modern jazz, then Tristano is its Webern; he represents its ‘difficult’ phase. Few modern jazz musicians have been more and more misleadingly mythologized. References to a Tristano ‘school’ may well have some literal force, but they tend to imply that the musician designated a member is somehow considered unable to speak for him/herself, a kind of musical Stalinist. The truth is more complex.

Whereas most horn-led post-bop delved into uncomfortable psychic regions and cultivated a scouring intensity, Tristano ruthlessly purged his music of uncontrolled emotion. Perhaps because his basic instruction to his horn-players – most obviously Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh – was that they should use a deliberately uninflected and neutral tone, concentrating instead on the structure of a solo, Tristano has remained a minority taste, and a rather intellectual one. This is a pity, because Tristano’s music is always vital and usually exciting. Though he abandoned the rhythmic eccentricities of bop in favour of an even background count, his playing is far from conventional, deploying long sequences of even semiquavers in subtly shifting time-signatures, adding sophisticated dissonances to quite basic chordal progressions. There is also a problem for the newcomers in the nature of the Tristano discography, much of which involves indifferent live recordings and posthumously released private tapes.

The early material for Mercury – some of it later released on a compilation which referred to the ‘advance guard’ of new jazz – catches Tristano just before bebop – specifically, Powell and Parker – had had a significant impact on his playing, so his style, refracted through Tatum and Hines, is like a mysterious, charged yet inscrutable distillation of swing piano’s most elaborate settings. One is sometimes reminded of Tatum’s (or Nat Cole’s) trio recordings, yet Tristano’s ideas, while harmonically dense, adapt bop’s irresistible spontaneity better than either of those peers. Eleven of the 19 tracks are previously unreleased alternative takes, and the five versions of ‘Interlude’ (alias ‘A Night In Tunisia’) are as varied as Parker’s Dials. In Bauer he had one of his most sympathetic partners: often lost to jazz history, the guitarist’s lines are unfailingly apt yet fresh. Comparison between each take shows how insistent Tristano already was on making his music new from moment to moment. Some of the surviving masters were in imperfect shape, with occasional high-note distortions, but it won’t trouble anyone used to music from this period.