The Penguin Jazz Guide (69 page)

Jimmy Heath said (1987):
‘People have this wrong. At the beginning, I liked being called “Little Bird”. I was flattered by it. But you have to start to get your own sound and your own ideas together, so I tried to set it aside. Didn’t mean I stopped feeling flattered, or liking it.’

The Heath brothers were one of jazz’s first families. Bassist Percy was a stalwart of the Modern Jazz Quartet and other situations; drummer Albert (‘Tootie’) has made myriad recordings; the middle brother, Jimmy, has probably the solidest claim on fame but also the most uncertain reputation. Most will have heard one or more of his compositions – ‘C.T.A.’, ‘Gingerbread Boy’ – without retaining any clear idea of what Heath himself sounds like. He led big bands and small groups, but concentrated largely on writing and arranging, and became a distinguished teacher.

The records are worth reviving, though. Heath had been out of action for a time in the mid-’50s, dealing with personal problems, but was valued as a composer, and for his debut recording as leader he got together a sympathetic band which in weight and tonality already anticipates the slightly later combo and big-band work in which Heath used French horn (usually Julius Watkins) in an imaginative way. Here it’s Curtis Fuller who takes an approximation of that role. The only one of the originals which has survived into the repertoire is the opening ‘For Minors Only’, arguably Heath’s best single composition, but ‘The Thumper’ itself deserves a revival.

Having set aside alto saxophone – ostensibly to remove the association with Parker, more realistically because the tenor horn better suits his compositional needs – Heath makes an imperiously romantic job of the two standards ‘Don’t You Know I Care’ and ‘I Can Make You Love Me’, and for anyone without a secure sense of what ‘Little Bird’ sounded like it’d be as well to start here. There are moments reminiscent of Sonny Stitt, and a melodic drive that anticipates some later Rollins, but, for the most, it’s all Jimmy.

SHELLY MANNE

Born 11 June 1920, New York City; died 26 June 1984, Los Angeles, California

Drums

At The Black Hawk

Original Jazz Classics OJC 656–660 5CD (separately available)

Manne; Joe Gordon (t); Richie Kamuca (ts); Victor Feldman (p); Monty Budwig (b). September 1959.

Shelly Manne told this story (many times, but to us in 1979):
‘I was on a date with Jimmy Bowen. They were doing “Fever”, and I’d done the original with Peggy Lee [actually not; the original was Little Willie John], so I was amused to see that my part read “Play like Shelly Manne”. We started and then suddenly the producer came storming out of the booth: “Can’t you ****ing read? It says: ‘Play it like Shelly Manne’!” “But I am Shelly Manne,” I said. He turned on his heel and closed the door behind him. He sells cars now.’

Shelly combined the classic qualities of reliability and adaptable time with an ability to play melodically, often using soft dynamics. He has something of Krupa’s subtlety underneath the power, but Manne was never interested in showmanship, preferring to play for the band. It made him a first-call player and he worked with everyone from Coleman Hawkins and Charlie Parker to Ornette Coleman.

Manne made many fine sessions of his own for Contemporary, including a number of themed projects like covers of
My Fair Lady
songs and
Peter Gunn
. He also put out material recorded at his own club, the Manne-Hole, but the very best representation of him on record is the sequence of discs recorded at the Black Hawk, the dive where one of Miles Davis’s most revealing live sequences was recorded during a later residency in 1961.

Manne and His Men’s Black Hawk discs are among the best mainstream live dates ever released. There is almost no fat on any of them, other than the rote repetition of the band theme, ‘A Gem From Tiffany’. The vinyl LPs had some murky spots, but with Feldman’s piano sound lightened, Gordon and Kamuca trimmed of rough edges, and Budwig rescued from the gloom, it’s near perfect. From the opening ‘Our Delight’ to the previously unissued material on
Volume 5
, and taking in a definitive ‘Whisper Not’ (plus alternate) along the way, this is club jazz at its very best. Two grand versions of Golson’s ‘Step Lightly’ and a long read of Charlie Mariano’s ‘Vamp’s Blues’ dominate
Volume 2
; the epic Golson performances on
Volume 3
are somewhat diluted by a dull ‘Black Hawk Blues’ which is redeemed by a couple of good solos; and it doesn’t flag from there to the end.

ORNETTE COLEMAN
^&

Born Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman, 9 March 1930, Fort Worth, Texas

Alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, trumpet, violin

The Shape Of Jazz To Come

Atlantic 8122 72398-2

Coleman; Don Cherry (pkt-t); Charlie Haden (b); Billy Higgins (d). October 1959, July 1960.

Pianist Paul Bley said (1992): ‘Ornette changed everything completely by overturning the idea that there had to be one metre running through a piece, and replacing it with a multi-timed concept. The work he brought to us then [1958] was unbelievably rich and deep.’

No jazz musician has so comprehensively and irremediably divided opinion. To some (early supporters included Gunther Schuller) he is a visionary genius who has changed the shape of modern music; to others – though one must say a diminishing and somewhat chastened number – he is a fraud, innocent or otherwise, whose grasp of musical theory is either shaky or so solipsistic as to be meaningless. Long before anyone had heard of ‘harmolodics’ it was thought that Coleman represented the third spur of the modernist revolution, a shift in approach to melody and rhythm to match Coltrane’s skyscraping harmonics and Cecil Taylor’s atonality.

It’s almost impossible to reconstruct the impact – positive and negative – Ornette’s Atlantic albums had when they first appeared. They are classic performances and scarcely bettered since. They are also something of a piece, with some of the material released out of chronological sequence, which makes discussion of ‘development’ or ‘progress’ redundant. CD transfer has brought forward the other members of the group, underlining Cherry’s role and bringing Haden out of the shadows. Brash as the titles are, the music is surprisingly introspective and thoughtful. Most of the essential Coleman pieces are to be found here, though interestingly only one of them – ‘Lonely Woman’ – has ever come close to repertory status.

Something Else!
was made shortly before Coleman’s appearances with Paul Bley at the Hillcrest Club in Los Angeles and
Tomorrow Is The Question
. These are essential records, too, but
The Shape Of Jazz To Come
was released first and stands out for the sheer confidence of musical conception and group execution. From the very first phrases of ‘Lonely Woman’, it is clear that this is an epoch in modern jazz and that something new and essential has arrived. The set also includes ‘Congeniality’, ‘Peace’ and ‘Focus On Sanity’, three of his most important early compositions. The blues are not far away, but Coleman seems to have dispensed with conventional harmonic organization in favour of a highly melodic approach that allows the group to improvise intuitively round the elements of the line rather than according to the changes.

The combination of his eldritch saxophone sound – he was shown on the cover cradling an acrylic instrument, which is partly responsible for his bleached, small but dynamically supple delivery – Cherry’s tinny, raw trumpet-playing and Haden’s awesomely capacious bass shapes is electrifying, and Higgins’s drumming suggests not so much polyrhythms in the Elvin Jones sense as a new conception of time as asynchronous and malleable.

To suggest that Coleman never surpassed these performances is unfair without some recognition of the lack of sympathetic understanding from the recording industry in future. The Atlantic years, brought together in a rich box called
Beauty Is A Rare Thing
, still seem like his peak.

& See also
At The Golden Circle, Stockholm
(1965; p. 324),
The Complete Science Fiction Sessions
(1971, 1972; p. 387),
Colors
(1996; p. 605)

JON HENDRICKS
^&

Born 16 September 1921, Newark, Ohio

Voice

A Good Git-Together

EMI 69812

Hendricks; Nat Adderley (c); Cannonball Adderley (as); Pony Poindexter (as, v); Gildo Mahones (p); Buddy Montgomery (vb); Wes Montgomery (g); Ike Isaacs, Monk Montgomery (b); Walter Bolden (d); Bill Perkins (perc). 1959.

Jon Hendricks said (1982):
‘I sat in with Bird one night in Toledo. I had listened to every one of his records and I’d listened to everyone in the band. As I was going off stage, I felt him grab my coat-tail and he pulled me to a chair. Afterwards, he asked what I wanted to do. I said: a lawyer. “You ain’t a lawyer. You’re a jazz singer. Come to New York.” I said I didn’t know anyone there. “You know me.” ’

Hendricks is still best known for his work with the stylish vocalese trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, but in all fairness he is a more accomplished artist than either of his collaborators and has retained a calm professionalism throughout his long career. He was spotted first
by Charlie Parker, who advised him to stick to music. After the trio’s demise he spent some time in England and working as a music critic, but continued to record.

His first album as a leader only resurfaced in 2006, reintroducing Hendricks to a generation who assumed the name belonged to Jimi. In every piece, it reflects his background as the son of an African Methodist Episcopal pastor. Right from the opening ‘I’m Gonna Shout (Everything Started In The House Of The Lord)’, which also closes the record, it’s a set full of affirmative energy and joy. A few of the songs were co-written – with Mahones, Gigi Gryce, Randy Weston – and a couple were apparently written for Louis Jordan, whom Hendricks occasionally and remotely resembles. The backings are all good and some will be attracted to the record first for glimpses of the Adderleys and Montgomerys, but it’s Jon’s date and ‘Minor Catastrophe’, ‘Social Call’ and the exuberant title-track are all vintage vocal jazz.

& See also
LAMBERT, HENDRICKS & ROSS, Sing A Song Of Basie
(1955; p. 166)

CHARLES MINGUS
^&

Born 22 April 1922, Nogales, Arizona; died 5 January 1979, Cuernavaca, Mexico

Double bass, piano

Mingus Dynasty

Columbia CK 65513

Mingus; Don Ellis, Richard Williams (t); Jimmy Knepper (tb); Jerome Richardson (f, bs); John Handy (as); Booker Ervin, Benny Golson (ts); Teddy Charles (vib); Sir Roland Hanna, Nico Bunink (p); Maurice Brown, Seymour Barab (clo); Dannie Richmond (d); Honey Gordon (v). November 1959.

Sue Mingus, the composer’s widow, says:
‘
Ah Um
is a sister record to
Mingus Dynasty
, both recorded during that banner year of jazz, 1959. There are probably more “hits” – tunes that have become familiar to a jazz audience – on
Ah Um
and there is no reason why
Dynasty
should play second fiddle, as the record company seems to have decreed. Another Mingus album,
Blues & Roots
, was released that same year on Atlantic Records and, interestingly, the tune “Jelly Roll” appears on both
Ah Um
and
Blues & Roots
, which was recorded first, except that it is “upside down” on the Columbia album, beginning from the bottom up, instead of the other way around.’

A classic period. This was the point where, rising 40 and aware of the encroachment of younger and perhaps more accommodating musicians, Mingus began to show his absolute understanding of the African-American musical tradition.
Ah Um
is an extended tribute to ancestors, cemented by the gospellish ‘Better Git It In Your Soul’, a mood that is also present on the slightly earlier
Blues & Roots
with the well-loved ‘Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting’ in its doubled-up 6/4 time. All the Mingusian components are to the fore in this period: the shouts and yells, the magnificently harmonized ostinati which fuel ‘Tensions’ and the almost jolly swing of ‘My Jelly Roll Soul’ (
Blues & Roots
), the often obvious edits and obsessive recycling of his own previous output all contribute to records which are entire unto themselves and hard to fault on any count.

Dynasty
is sometimes described as if it were one of the first posthumous releases. One sees why, though the title is a pretty obvious pun. It wraps up a period of activity that seems to catch Mingus in mid-mood swing between fired up and confident and way down low. ‘Strollin’’ is a version of ‘Nostalgia In Times Square’ and the music written for the (mostly improvised) John Cassavetes film
Shadows
, in which jazz almost takes the place of orderly narrative dialogue. There is also a version of ‘Gunslinging Bird’, a take each of ‘Song With Orange’, ‘Far Wells, Mill Valley’, ‘Slop’ and, memorably, ‘Mood Indigo’. As with so many other Mingus albums, this is somehow better and more coherent than it ought to be.
Though not intended to be put together in this form, it works as an entity, and one wouldn’t want the original sessions to be reconstructed in any other way. As Sue Mingus has said,
Ah Um
is the canonical record out of sheer happenstance. This one takes the story on a step further and with even greater confidence and creative courage.