In the 1960's and 1970's, Newark, New Jersey was a hotbed of
organ trio goodness. I was around then but paid too much attention to the jazz
critics and not enough to my ears, so I lost a big opportunity. Charles Earland’s Living Black, live at Newark’s Key Club on September 17, 1970 is
the closest I’ll ever get to that scene. Earland’s first Prestige album, Black Talk, included his original
version of More Today Than Yesterdayby the Spiral Staircase, which proved so popular that the album even
charted on Billboard’s Top 100 pop album chart. Bob Porter, who produced Black Talk, decided to do a live album
with Earland but ran into a last-minute snag when the band’s tenor player left
unexpectedly the night before the recording date. No problem―the
Mighty Burner knew a guy in Philadelphia who could make the gig: Grover Washington,
Jr., who thus made his recording debut.
Washington, trumpeter Gary Chandler, guitarist Maynard
Parker drummer Jesse Kilpatrick, and conga player Buddy Caldwell all came out charging
hard that night: the opening Key Club
Cookout, a nice workout on Westbound
#9, a strong reprise of More Today
Than Yesterday and a heartfelt and still relevant Message from a Black Man (the last two bonus tracks on the CD). I
was especially impressed by Washington and Earland on Killer Joe and the whole band’s display of its jazz chops on Milestones.
Here are KillerJoe and Milestones―feel free to shout along with the audience!
Back in April, I used my Facebook page to observe
International Jazz Month by posting a jazz video every day. My little conceit
was to include a musician I had heard live at some time in my life―a bit of
braggadocio, if you will. While flipping through my mental Rolodex, Bill Saxton’s
name Popped up. I had heard Saxton with Roy Haynes at the three Sisters in West
Paterson, NJ in the late 1970's and remembered enjoying his work on tenor and
soprano. After that, he slipped from my ken, although I thought he had made a
record or two as leader after I saw him.
I’ve been listening to this music long enough that I
did my Internet search with at least a little trepidation. Years ago, jazz musicians
often ran into career or personal problems that took them off the scene―sometimes
permanently. Happily, I was pleased to find that Bill Saxton is still playing
and has his own website and,
since 2006, jazz club. He’s even
been written
about in the New York Times.
I was also able to track down ATYMONY (short for And the
Young Musicians of New York), a 1994 recording on the Jazzline label, apparently
recorded during one of Saxton’s numerous European tours. It’s a solid date,
featuring several of his original compositions, like Almost Is Nothing and Thabiti,
along with beautiful renditions of In a Sentimental
Mood and Over and Over Again,
and Clifford Jordan’s Bearcat. I was
impressed with his strong, individual style on tenor and lyrical soprano―both intelligent
and full of feeling. Carlos McKinney contributes some fine Tyneresque
piano, and Omer Avital on bass and Noel Parris on drums provide excellent
rhythmic support throughout. (Through the miracle of theIinternet, I learned
that McKinney has gone on to become an important music producer―who knew?).
Bill Saxton is a fine, underrated jazz warrior. If you’re
in New York, check him out! Meanwhile, here are Almost is Nothing, Thabiti,
and In a Sentimental Mood.
Some time back, I posted a review of a compilation
of soul, soul jazz, and funk from Bob Shad’s Mainstream Records. I’ve been
curious about Shad because his lengthy career as a record label owner extended from
the 1940s through the 1970s, from jazz and blues on his Sittin’ In Records to rock
and roll and jazz on Time, Shad, and Brent Records to the aforesaid productions
on Mainstream. Add to that a stint as producer of such artists as Clifford Brown,
Max Roach, and Sarah Vaughn on Emarcy Records, and you’ve got quite a career. Also,
as far as I can ascertain, he was a relatively decent guy in a cut-throat
business (and Judd Apatow’s grandfather!).
You can get a pretty good picture of Mainstream’s
early 70s jazz output on A Loud Minority,
an Ace Records compilation. Although the subtitle says: “Deep Spiritual Jazz
from Mainstream records, 1970–1973,” my own version would read “Late 60s Blue
Note/Prestige/Contemporary Hard Bop with Electric Piano” instead. The artists
(Blue Mitchell. Harold Land, Roy Haynes, Johnny Coles, Charles McPherson, etc.)
and the tunes (almost all originals by band members) are right out of that
period, which was an early manifestation of the ongoing “Jazz is dead” prophesy.
The striking thing about this collection is how underrated Mainstream was and is
as a harbor for fugitives from those dying or transforming labels. Like Muse
and Xanadu in the 1970s and 80s, Shad gave these musicians an outlet when the
majors were dumping jazz and buying out the older independents.
Overall, A Loud Minority is a strong collection that repays repeated
listening. In addition to the artists mentioned above, there’s fine work by Hadley
Caliman, Frank Foster, and Buddy Terry, whose Kamili is closest to the post-Coltrane spirituality referred to on
the album cover. Another gem is Johnny Coles playing Miles Davis’s Petits Machins. Note: Contrary to the
track list and liner notes, Charisma,
the Charles McPherson entry, is really Bronislaw Kaper’s Invitation―beautifully done, of course.
I’m impressed enough by the quality of A Loud Minority to want to investigate
Mainstream’s jazz recordings in more depth, and check out other types of music
from Bob Shad’s long and varied career. Meanwhile, here are a couple of
standout tracks: Kamili and Hadley Caliman's Watercress.
Steven C. Tracy’s excellent book, Going to Cincinnati: A History of the Blues in the Queen City,
served as my introduction to Sam Jones, AKA Stovepipe No. 1. Stovepipe played
everything from gospel and square dance tunes to hokum and jug band blues, both in
the streets and in various establishments in Cincinnati, although more often in the
city’s West End. He was on hand from at least the 1920s to as late as the 1960s,
and his voice in 1924 sounded as if he already had been around a bit. He was
called “Stovepipe” because he wore a stovepipe hat as part of his shtick, but
primarily because he literally played a length of stovepipe; if a jug is the
equivalent of a tenor sax, a stovepipe is a baritone sax. He also played guitar and harmonica, often as
a one-man band.
Stovepipe’s first one-man band recordings were made in 1924 for Gennett
Records in Richmond, Indiana; unfortunately, none of them survives. As the story
goes, when he hit Richmond, billing himself as “Daddy Stovepipe,” he found out
that Gennett had just recorded another Daddy Stovepipe (go figure!). Thus, he
started billing himself as Stovepipe No. 1―the original. A few months
later, he also recorded for Columbia Records, again as a one-man band. The first day’s session is still
missing in action, although the tracks he cut seem to have been blues and
perhaps square dance calls. The next day’s recordings are still around, including
a couple of gospel tunes (Lord, Don’t
You Know I have No Friend Like You and I’ve
Got Salvation in My Heart), some old-time songs like Turkey in the
Straw, and an instrumental (Fisher’s
Hornpipe).
In 1927, Stovepipe teamed up with guitarist David Crockett
to record some novelty songs (A Chicken
Can Waltz the Gravy Around) and some jokey blues tunes like Bed Slats. He
wrapped up his recording career in 1930 as singer and stovepiper-in-chief with
King David’s Jug Band (presumably the “king” was the aforesaid Mr. Crockett); they
recorded some prime examples of jug band hokum, including Tear It Down, another version of Bed Slats. After that,
Stovepipe went back to the streets of Cincinnati, following his calling into
what one would assume was relative old age.
My take: Stovepipe No. I’s music is charming. Like Henry Thomas of
Texas, his repertoire included a variety of forms that predated the blues;
Fisher’s Hornpipe goes back to the 18th century. Steven Tracy
surmises that the old-time and square dance material was for white audiences
and the blues and gospel material for African Americans, but it may be that the
latter (and maybe both groups) liked a variety of material presented by a top
hat-wearing and hokum-loving street minstrel. Stovepipe was also the starting
point for an impressive array of blues recordings produced by Cincinnati
artists in the 1920s and 1930s, which I hope to talk about in future posts. I
highly recommend Tracy’s Going to
Cincinnati for more background; it seems to be out of print, but
second-hand copies are out there at a reasonable price. Anyway, give old
Stovepipe a try―after all, he was Number 1.
Here are Fisher’s
Hornpipe, A Chicken Can Waltz the Gravy Around, and Sweet Potato Blues (I love the jug band’s mandolin player―I
wonder who he was? I love this stuff!
Henry “Pucho” Brown isn’t Hispanic, but he grew up in
the vibrant cultural stew of what used to be called Spanish Harlem. His
resultant immersion in said stew resulted in the formation of Pucho and the Latin
Soul Brothers, which recorded repeatedly for Prestige Records in the late
1960s. This band was only a name to me until I listened to this compilation from BGP, one of
the Ace family of reissue labels. There are lots of funky Latino beats, of
course, but what really resonates with me is the subtle background influence of John Coltrane
and other contemporary jazz artists. It’s not just the versions of Herbie
Hancock’s Cantaloupe Island and Maiden Voyage, but also the slightly
melancholy tones of Vietnam Mambo,
the bristling Psychedelic Pucho, and
the pulsating Cloud 9.
Maybe it’s the current dismal political environment, but
I hear undertones of spiritual jazz and Vietnam-era political unrest behind the party beats
and soul vocals. OK, maybe it’s just me and my reaction to the climate of lies
and impending rule by corrupt plutocrats, so it's fine just to listen and move your body to some vintage butt-shaking sounds. Special kudos to Claude Bartee on sax, Eddie and Al Pazant
on reeds and trumpet, respectively, Neal Creque on keyboards, and Pucho on
timbales. I’ve got to check out more of the Soul Brothers! Here's Maiden Voyage.
In its pell-mell rush from New Orleans to infinity, jazz has
left a number of styles behind. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing in some cases,
but others ought to be placed on an endangered species list and lovingly
fostered. Right now, I’m thinking of the school of bop-influenced Lester Young tenor
disciples like Zoot Sims, Stan Getz, Allen Eager, and Brew Moore. They all achieved
a beautiful mix of sound and ideas that seems all the more refreshing in contrast
to the Hawkins/Rollins/Coltrane school that dominates our era. Above
all, they had the gift of easy, inevitable swing in every note they played. I love today’s tenor players, but couldn’t
they relax once in a while? Given the news these days, we could use some
relaxation.
Take Milton
(Brew) Moore (1924–1973), for example. He famously stated that “Anyone who
doesn’t play like Lester Young is wrong,” yet he also assimilated the language of
bebop. A true jazz itinerant Jack Kerouac was a fan), Moore wound up in Denmark
before his untimely death from a fall in 1973. In the 1950s, he temporarily relocated to San
Francisco, where he recorded The Brew
Moore Quintet, a good introduction to his work. It’s a fine collection of old
standards like Tea for Two and Them Their Eyes, along with a number of
originals by pianist John Marabuto. Moore tips his hat to Prez with I Want a Little Girl. Although he could
really caress a ballad, as on Fools Rush In, the other tracks are exemplars of the
wonderful laid-back swing that seems to be virtually a lost art these days. Trumpeter
Dicky Mills, Bassist Max Hartstein, and drummer Gus Gustofson are uniformly
good, but this album is Brew’s show.
Here's I Can't Believe that You're in Love with Me. Enjoy!
In one of those infinite universes out there, the Beatles
and the Rolling Stones never made it big. Instead, the sounds of the British mods—1950s
R & B, 1960s soul, ska, and hip jazz tunes—swept the world, led by my man Georgie Fame. I wouldn’t
really want to do without the British invasion, but…
Because we have to operate in the universe we’re given,
Georgie Fame, aka Clive Powell, remains a fine but relatively unheralded (at least in the
U.S.) singer and organist who had a bunch of hits in the 60s and an excellent musical
career in the years since. I’ve been a Fame fan since I first heard Yeh-Yeh, his biggest U.S. hit aside from The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde (not a favorite of mine). Years later, I picked up the U.S. pressing
of his first studio album and subsequently have collected as many of his LPs
and CDs as I could. I recently ordered an elaborate, five-CD box set of all of
his 1960s recordings via Juno
Records in the UK ( a good price and excellent service, I might add) and
will be talking about it here in the near future.
A few months ago I picked up a copy of Stephen L. Isoardi’s The Dark Tree: Jazz and the Community Arts
in Los Angeles at our local library’s semiannual book sale. I hadn’t heard of the book, but it was about Horace Tapscott, a legendary figure in the
West Coast avant-garde, came with a CD, and was only four bucks, so why not?
Having just finished it, I’m here to say it’s an important read for anyone
interested in the culture and politics of the 1960s, 1970s, and beyond; the
evolution of spiritual jazz; and the ongoing racial and political issues it reflects.
Beginning with a brief history of L.A.’s Central Avenue jazz and R & B
scene in the 1940s, it recounts Tapscott’s lifelong commitment to the arts in the
African-American community, his bringing together the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra
and the Union of God’s Musicians and Artists Ascension (UGMAA), and their participation
in a host of arts projects and organizations from before the Watts riots through
the early 2000s. The book, based mainly on
interviews with about 100 Arkestra/UGMAA participants, also provides a glimpse
at the personality of Tapscott himself, a charismatic yet modest person who was
both a devoted family man and night-wandering bohemian (his wife Cecelia must
have been a very patient woman).
This story resonated with me because of my own knowledge of
how all of the arts became weapons in the Movement of the 1960s and 1970s
against war, racism, and imperialism. The abundance of groups and efforts that
were born and died in the struggles of those days come alive in Isoardi’s
narrative, which also demonstrates how little I
knew about this important segment of the jazz world —one that continues in
various forms today. In a period of time during which the perennial issues of
race, class, and the arts continue to haunt American society, it’s both
depressing to see how little progress has been made and uplifting to see the persistence
of efforts to make this country what it professes to be.
The accompanying CD contains a number of previously released
recordings of the Arkestra and its various components. It made me want to hear much more of this fine
music. Here’s a sample.
