The Penguin Jazz Guide (41 page)

SIDNEY BECHET
^&

Born 14 May 1897, New Orleans, Louisiana; died 14 May 1959, Paris, France

Soprano saxophone, clarinet

The Fabulous Sidney Bechet

Blue Note 30607

Bechet; Jonah Jones, Sidney De Paris (t); Jimmy Archey, Wilbur De Paris (tb); Don Kirkpatrick, Buddy Weed (p); George ‘Pops’ Foster, Walter Page (b); Johnny Blowers, Manzie Johnson (d). November 1951–August 1953.

Richard Cook said (2003):
‘In 1951, Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff were just moving into what now seems the golden age of hard bop and the beginnings of a jazz avant-garde. In that context, recording Sidney Bechet should have been perverse, except these men were more conservative than we tend to think and more business-minded. Think where they started.’

This music must have seemed almost antediluvian at the height of bebop, and Bechet was off the American scene. Even so, there was a special chemistry to these sessions for Alfred Lion, originally released on 10-inch LPs and later amalgamated when the larger format became established. The soprano sound is still the same, with a broad vibrato and a cutting force. The two dates have a somewhat different sound and more than one commentator has understandably attributed that to the contrast between Pops Foster’s slapped bass and Walter Page’s pioneering walking style. However, there is a contrast in Sidney’s own playing as well. He may sound more relaxed and precise on the earlier date, but there is an urgency about the 1953 sessions which is immediately arresting. There are some alternate takes on the reissue (‘Ballin’ The Jack’, ‘Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives To Me’ and ‘There’ll Be Some Changes Made’, and ‘Rose Of The Rio Grande’ and ‘Black And Blue’ from the later session) which make this a very happy monument to an artist whose ‘decline’ was largely a matter of fashion rather than fact.

& See also
Sidney Bechet 1940–1941
(1940–1941; p. 79),
King Jazz: Volume 1
(1945; p. 99)

JIMMY FORREST

Born 24 January 1920, St Louis, Missouri; died 26 August 1980, Grand Rapids, Michigan

Tenor saxophone

Night Train

Delmark 435

Forrest; Chauncey Locke (t); Bart Dabney (tb); Charles Fox, Bunky Parker (p); Herschel Harris, John Mixon (b); Oscar Oldham (d); Percy James, Bob Reagan (perc). November 1951–September 1953.

Middleweight boxer Jimmy Frizzell says:
‘I read somewhere that “Night Train” was my hero Sonny Liston’s favourite song, so I listen to it over and over when I’m doing roadwork and on the train home after training. It’s got a sound that makes you feel lonely and part of something at the same time, as if you’ve been away for a long time and are just getting back home.’

Forrest had an almost iconic apprenticeship, working first with Fate Marable and then, alongside Charlie Parker, in the Jay McShann band. He also had stints with Andy Kirk and Duke Ellington before establishing himself as a leader. Early R&B experience invested his work with a strong, funky sound, which evolved into something richer and more complex, but always straight down the line rhythmically. Forrest had few bar-walking mannerisms and was a surprisingly restrained soloist for this idiom. After leaving the Ellington orchestra, he scored a big hit with the mournful swinger ‘Night Train’, an R&B classic based on Duke’s ‘Happy Go Lucky Local’ and later made popular again by Oscar Peterson. It’s the leading item on this eponymous Delmark, an album packed with short, funky jukebox themes which confirm that even in his pop days Jimmy was never merely a honker and wailer. It’s a relatively anonymous band but this is hinterland music, about big open spaces and overlooked towns and people. A New York state of mind doesn’t work.

BILLIE HOLIDAY
^&

Born Eleanora Fagan Gough, 7 April 1915, Baltimore, Maryland; died 17 July 1959, New York City

Voice

Lady In Autumn

Verve 849434-2 2CD

Holiday; Buck Clayton, Roy Eldridge, Harry ‘Sweets’ Edison, Joe Guy, Joe Newman, Charlie Shavers (t); Tommy Turk (tb); Tony Scott (cl, p); Gene Quill, Benny Carter, Willie Smith (as); Romeo Penque (as, bcl); Al Cohn, Lester Young, Budd Johnson, Flip Phillips, Paul Quinichette, Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins (ts); Bobby Tucker, Wynton Kelly, Billy Taylor, Carl Drinkard, Hank Jones, Jimmy Rowles, Milt Raskin, Mal Waldron (p); Oscar Peterson (p, org); Barry Galbraith, Barney Kessel, Herb Ellis, Billy Bauer, Kenny Burrell, Freddie Green (g); Janet Putnam (hp); Ray Brown, Red Callender, Aaron Bell, Leonard Gaskin, Red Mitchell, Carson Smith, Milt Hinton, Joe Mondragon, John Simmons (b); Larry Bunker, Chico Hamilton, J. C. Heard, Gus Johnson, Osie Johnson, Ed Shaughnessy, Alvin Stoller, Cozy Cole, Lennie McBrowne, Don Lamond (d); strings. July 1952–March 1959.

Billie Holiday’s last accompanist, Mal Waldron, often expressed impatience at being asked about her, but never failed to answer warmly:
‘I never knew her do an unkind or cruel thing. She was like a queen, even when things were bad, a very special person.’

Holiday’s last significant period in the studios was with Verve in the ’50s, and this is the best-known and most problematical music she made. Her voice has already lost most of its youthful shine and ebullience: on ‘What A Little Moonlight Can Do’, Oscar Peterson does his best to rouse the singer, but she only has the energy to glide. Whether this makes her music more revealing or affecting or profound is something listeners will have to decide for themselves. Sometimes the voice is funereal; then it takes on a persuasive inner lilt which insists that her greatness has endured. And the best of the interpretations, scattered as they are through all these records, show how compelling Holiday could still be.

Although there is a complete edition available, Verve have now released Holiday’s output in seven separate sets, under various names. Preference among the discs depends mainly on song selection and accompanists: Granz always made sure there were top-flight bands behind her.
Solitude
has some lovely things: a classic ‘These Foolish Things’, a marvellous ‘Moonglow’.
Recital
has some happy work, including ‘What A Little Moonlight Can Do’ and ‘Too Marvelous For Words’, but there are some sloppy pieces too.
Lady Sings The Blues
(replacing a previous disc under that title) has three or four of her best-known heartache songs and includes the rehearsal tape with Tony Scott where they work up ‘God Bless The Child’ – intriguing, but probably for scholars only.
Music For Torching
is small-hours music of a high, troubling calibre.
All Or Nothing At All
rounds up seven long sessions across two discs and includes some magnificent work from Edison and Webster (there is even a warm-up instrumental cut while they were waiting for her to arrive at the studio), as well as what is probably Holiday’s most regal, instinctual late work. It all seems to come to a peak on the very last track on disc two, the definitive version of ‘Gee Baby, Ain’t I Good To You?’.
Body And Soul
is another edition of some of the same material.

Songs For Distingué Lovers
has been made available by Verve in their Master Edition series and, with the original programme expanded to 12 tracks, putting the entire session in one place, this is another front-rank recommendation, the music in its latest remastering sounding particularly handsome. In comparison, the various spin-off compilations might seem superfluous, except for those who prefer just the odd Holiday record in their collection, but the
First Issue
two-disc set is a beautifully chosen retrospective which eschews Holiday’s tortured epics and lines up the choicest examples of Tin Pan Alley instead, restoring something of the playful brilliance of the early years, and it is these cuts, rather than the shadow-songs, that we return to most often.

& See also
The Billie Holiday Collection: Volume 2
(1936–1937; p. 58)

SHARKEY BONANO

Born Joseph Gustaf Bonano, 9 April 1902, New Orleans, Louisiana; died 27 March 1972, New Orleans, Louisiana

Trumpet

At Lenfant’s Lounge

Storyville STCD 6015

Bonano; Jack Delaney (tb); Bujie Centobie (cl); Stanley Mendelson (p); Arnold ‘Deacon’ Loyacano (b); Abbie Brunies, Monk Hazel (d); Lizzie Miles (v). August–September 1952.

There are several versions of this story:
‘It’s said that the maestro Arturo Toscanini once invited Sharkey to play in front of the brass section of the New York Phil, berating his men because they could not hit those pure top notes.’

Although he was a New Orleans native, Bonano’s early career points elsewhere. He tried out as a replacement for Bix with both the Wolverines and Jean Goldkette, for instance. After the war, he was much associated with New Orleans revivalism. This, though, followed a period when he drifted around several musical jobs across America, touring his own Melody Masters, waiting for renewed interest in the classic Louisiana style. When it came round, Bonano jumped the bandwagon with impatience. His showmanship finally found an outlet and it’s this aspect of his performing style, wisecracking, handclapping, whistling, that sometimes puts off modern listeners.

Bonano returned to New Orleans and spent the rest of his life there, recording frequently in the aftermath of the great revival. Location recordings catch his able band in lively form. The leader’s own playing suggests that he was more convincing as a front-man than as a soloist: if he pushes too hard, his tone thins out and his phrases buckle. But Delaney and Centobie are perfectly assured soloists and Bonano sensibly gives them the lion’s share of the attention. Bonano’s ‘North Rampart Street Parade’ and ‘She’s Crying For Me’ sit quite comfortably alongside the more traditional stuff, like ‘High Society’ and ‘Tin Roof Blues’. Lizzie Miles sings a couple of songs on her first recording, and shouts encouragement, too. The recordings are clear enough, though they don’t have much sparkle.

GEORGE WALLINGTON

Born Giacinto Figlia, 27 October 1924, Palermo, Italy; died 15 February 1993, Cape Coral, Miami, Florida

Piano

George Wallington Trios

Original Jazz Classics OJCCD 1754

Wallington; Chuck Wayne (mandola); Charles Mingus, Oscar Pettiford, Curley Russell (b); Max Roach (d). September 1952–May 1953.

Alto saxophonist Jackie McLean said (1985):
‘He was Italian … no, he was
Sicilian
! And he had that Mediterranean fire about him. I think George Wallington was one of the best of the bebop piano players. Musicians liked working with him.’

Wallington’s departure from the music business was a great shame because he was a musician of considerable stature, who seemed to take his own talent lightly. The composer of ‘Godchild’ and ‘Lemon Drop’, he left his small mark on the music, even if his records aren’t much heard nowadays, and musicians always respond to the name positively. More so even than Joe Albany or Dodo Marmarosa, George Wallington is the underrated master of bebop piano. His speed is breathtaking, his melodies unspooling in long, unbroken lines, and he
writes tunes which are rather more than the customary convoluted riffs on familiar chord-changes. This OJC
Trios
disc is all piano, bass and drums, and there are marvellous, flashing virtuoso pieces like the ultrafast ‘Cuckoo Around The Clock’, although the elegance of ‘I Married An Angel’ is a harbinger of Wallington’s later work. Chuck Wayne’s mandola is a small reminder of home.

HOWARD RUMSEY

Born 7 November 1917, Brawley, California

Double bass

Sunday Jazz A La Lighthouse: Volumes 1–3

Original Jazz Classics OJCCD 151 / 972 / 266

Rumsey; Rolf Ericson, Chet Baker, Shorty Rogers (t); Milt Bernhart, Frank Rosolino (tb); Bud Shank (as, f); Herb Geller (as); Jimmy Giuffre, Bob Cooper (ts); Hampton Hawes, Frank Patchen, Lorraine Geller, Claude Williamson, Russ Freeman (p); Max Roach, Stan Levey, Shelly Manne (d). July 1952–February 1953; July 1952–August 1956; March–September 1953.

Howard Rumsey said (1982):
‘The Lighthouse had been bought after the war by a guy called John Levine who owned about a dozen bars round town and didn’t really know what to do with them, or the guys – longshoremen, mainly – who hung out there and got pasted. I just walked in one day and suggested I put on music on a Sunday afternoon – music for listening rather than dancing, which was pretty new – and because he wasn’t there much, I ended up kind of taking over.’

Not so much a distinctive instrumentalist or composer as a catalyst and fixer in West Coast jazz, but a figure of genuine importance, none the less. Rumsey studied in LA, then formed a small group with Stan Kenton and subsequently joined the Kenton orchestra. After the war, he formed the Lighthouse All-Stars, who performed regularly at the Hermosa Beach Lighthouse Club, which Rumsey effectively took over from an absentee landlord. From there, he became a skilled promoter of Californian concerts.

Their All-Stars Sunday afternoon concerts are still talked about by veterans of the Hermosa Beach scene, effectively 12-hour jam sessions that started in the afternoon and went on into the small hours. As such, they don’t always translate well to records, but the three volumes of selected highlights from the salad days of the early ’50s capture the spirit of the place perfectly: cool jazz delivered with a piquancy that often belies the laid-back ethos everyone assumes applied on the ‘Coast’. There are passages here which are every bit as daring and every bit as confrontational as anything of the time in New York, but with a super-added awareness of modern classical music and an engaging determination to sound nonchalant rather than passionately engaged. It will either endear or frustrate, but it’s all worth exploring, not least for the wealth of writing and arranging talent on show.