Upon The 50th Anniversary Of The Death Of "King Of The Beats" Jack Kerouac-For Sax Man Johnny Hodge's 112th Birthday-Blowing The High White Note-The Legends Of Jazz- Duke And Satch, Natch

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Duke Ellington And Louis Armstrong Performing Ellington's "Mood Indigo". Step Back.

CD Review

In Honor Of The 110th Birthday Anniversary Of Duke Ellington

Louis Armstrong &Duke Ellington: The Complete Sessions, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and various side men, Capitol Records, 1990

Those who follow the reviews in this space may have read a response to a commenter that I wrote recently in reviewing John Cohen’s (from the old folk group The New Lost City Ramblers) “There Is No Eye” CD. That CD contained many country blues, urban folk, city blues and rural mountain musical treats (as well as a little tribute to the “beats” of the 1950’s). The gist of my comment was an attempt to draw a connection between my leftist sympathies and the search for American roots music that has driven many of my reviews lately. That said, no one, at least no one with any sense of the American past can deny the importance of the emergence of jazz as a quintessentially American black music form of expression. In short, roots music. And if you want to look at the master, or at least one of the masters (if you need to include King Oliver and Louis Armstrong), of the early years of this genre then look no further- you are home. Duke is in his castle.

Now I am by no means a jazz aficionado. In fact, if anything, I am a Johnnie-come- lately to an appreciation of jazz. More to the point I never really liked it (except some of the more bluesy-oriented pieces that I would occasionally hear like Armstrong’s “Potato Blues” that I was crazy for when I first heard them) as against the other musical genres that I was interested in. Then, with all the hoopla over Duke’s 100th birthday anniversary ten years ago, in 1999, I decided to investigate further. I had to ask someone what would be a good CD of Duke’s to listen to. Naturally this sessions album came up.

Until very recently I never had thought much of the work of Louis Armstrong. Part of this dismissive attitude may have been from being put off by his cringing “Uncle Tom” type roles in movies like “High Society (with Grace Kelly and Bing Crosby). It was only when I accidentally listened to his “Potato Blues Album” that I realized that I had been wrong about his music, if not his persona. As for the Duke, since the centenary of his birth in 1999 I have developed an appreciation for his wonderful jazz tone poems, for lack of better term to express these virtuoso works, especially those from the late 1930’s-early 1940’s when he was riding high in the jazz world. Well put these to legends together, any where, any time and you have a big moment in American musical history. Duke with his beautifully controlled use of the piano and Satch with his horn and be-bop, scat voice and you have one version of musical heaven. Highlights here include the classic “Mood Indigo”, “Solitude” and the instrumental “Black And Tan Fantasy”.

On The Sixtieth Anniversary Of Her Death-Lady Day-Billie Holiday- She Took Our Pain Away Despite Her Own Pains- For Sax Man Johnny Hodge's 112th Birthday-Blowing The High White Note-The Giants of Jazz- Studs Terkel-Style

Click on the title to link to a "Sunday Boston Globe", December 13, 2009, review of a new biography of Louis Armstrong.

BOOK REVIEW

Giants of Jazz, Revised edition, Studs Terkel, Thomas Crowell Company, New York, 1975

Recently I have been on a tear reviewing the works of the now departed Studs Terkel. As is the case, usually, when I get “hot” on an author I grab everything I can get my hands on and read it in no particular order. That is the case here. Terkel, widely known and deservedly so, as the author of oral histories concerning the pressing social issues of class, race and gender of working people (in the main)in America was also in his earlier career a popular Chicago disc jockey concentrating on jazz (and a little blues and folk as they intersected jazz). I had not previously known of that part of Studs’ life and only became aware of it through reading his last work, a memoir of sorts but really a series of connected vignettes, “Touch and Go” (well worth reading by the way as background to his interest in the jazz figures highlighted here). Previously my knowledge of jazz was formed by the likes of Nat Hentoff and John Hammond. Apparently I have to revise this list to include Studs. Why?

As a member of the "Generation of ’68" my tastes were formed by blues, folk and early rock & roll and only incidentally by jazz. However, once one delves into the roots of all of these forms one can only understand their attractions when one sees the influences all those forms had on each other. Without going into a dissertation on the subject (useless in any case) jazz is a core beat that expressed one form of music that had its roots in the South , among blacks and was a reflection of the rural life that was being left behind as America became more industrialized. Jazz is the music of the city, as blues is (before World War II) the music of the southern countryside. But enough. Read Studs and you can see how the music developed (and was retarded as well by the rules of racial separation as it spread to whites looking for real music, other than the likes of the Paul Whitman Orchestra or Tin Pan Alley, after World War I).

Many of the names of the performers highlighted here have are the classic expressions of the jazz idiom. King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, "The Empress" Bessie Smith. "The Duke" (Ellington), "The Count" (Basie), "Lady Day" (Billie Holiday). Yes this is the royalty of jazz. For those who follow this space you already know of my devotion to Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith. Less well know is my devotion to the “King of Swing” Benny Goodman of the Peggy Lee days in the 1940’s, Dizzy Gillespie of be-bop in the early 1950’s and Duke Ellington of the early 1940’s. Well, if you want to know more about them read on. By the way, this little book’s formatting is an early example of Studs Terkel’s easy style that he would work into an art form when he went full bore at his oral history interviews later. The only fault I would find here is that Studs is a little light on female singers. No Peggy Lee of the Benny Goodman days, no Margaret Whiting, no Helen Morgan, No Ivy Anderson. Oh well, I have always been a 'sucker' for a "torch singer". Maybe, Studs, except for Billie, wasn’t.

On The Sixtieth Anniversary Of Her Death-Lady Day-Billie Holiday- She Took Our Pain Away Despite Her Own Pains- *For Sax Man Johnny Hodge's 112th Birthday-Blowing The High White Note-Tenor Sax Man Blow Me That High White Note- Johnny Hodges Is In The House

Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of Johnny Hodges blowing that high white note.

CD Review

Johnny Hodges Story:1929-1946, Johnny Hodges and a list of classic jazz greats, The Jazz Archives Collection Number 114, 1990

I never tire of telling the tale of how “Lady Day”, Billie Holiday was my entry point into the world of jazz, or rather that bluesy form of jazz that got meshed together in her voice, even that old-drug-addled voice that took its toll in more than one way. Well, Lady Day did not sing unaccompanied, at least not much, and so I would hear some sax man or trumpeter or drummer behind here and say who the heck is that blowing those high white notes. And when it came to the sax, more often than not, it would be Johnny Hodges giving body to the lyrics.

And then when I got really interested in Duke Ellington around the time of the centenary of his birth I kept saying who the heck is that blowing those same high white notes and guess what. Ya, Johnny. What more needs to be said, except to give a few of the highs of this compilation done by the excellent Jazz Archives people. Give a listen to Ellington’s “In A Mellotone”, “Hodges’ “Grievin’, and “Don’t Be That Way”. Then you ‘ll kick yourself like I do for not being OLD enough to have been able to be in some New York Jazz café and hear this stuff live. Wow.

On The Sixtieth Anniversary Of Her Death-Lady Day-Billie Holiday- She Took Our Pain Away Despite Her Own Pains- *For Sax Man Johnny Hodge's 112th Birthday-Blowing The High White Note- When The Jazz Age Was In Full Bloom- Duke Ellington At Harlem’s Cotton Club

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for the Cotton Club in New York mentioned below, including information about its racial profile.

CD Review

Jungle Nights In Harlem, Duke Ellington and his Cotton Club Orchestra: 1927-1933, Bluebird, 1991

As I have mentioned in previous reviews of various classical jazz artists I came to an appreciation of that musical art from one source, and one source only- Lady Day, Billie Holiday. Along the way I started to get interested in her various back-up musicians which led me to the likes of Lester Young, Johnny Hodges, Artie Shaw and others. And, of course, when you get to Johnny Hodges you naturally have to think of the Duke- Ellington that is. And there you have it, except, that I doubled, no I tripled, my appreciation of the Duke around the time of the centenary of his birthday in 1999.

And I was not wrong to do so, although the CD under review falls more into a piece of jazz history, black musical history, Jazz Age history, Harlem history and, most importantly, Cotton Club history than a source of understanding his huge place in the jazz pantheon. For those unfamiliar with that New York City venue, the Cotton Club, that is the place when all the jazz greats of the 1920s and 1930s aspired to perform- and whites, at least certain whites like those rich ones that the author F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about, went to “kick up their heels”, “get their kicks”, and, maybe, get “kicked” away from the downtown squares. And Duke and his orchestra (including the afore-mentioned Johnny Hodges, Barney Bigard, Harry Carney, and Cootie Williams among others) was the most serious feature in those days. Wouldn’t you pay big money, and gladly, to hear that sound in those surroundings? I think so.

Now, just a note for history's sake, or for the sake of a nod to political correctness. The term “jungle music” has always, as far as I know, had negative connotations about black music or black-related music like rock and roll, and still does. But, my friends, these were the terms of usage for what was going on then so accept it as a piece of history. But, also know this: do not miss out on a piece of our common history, jazz, racial, and social by missing Duke and the guys performing “Mood Indigo”, “Black and Tan Fantasy”, or “The Duke Steps Out” and the others here.

On The Sixtieth Anniversary Of Her Death-Lady Day-Billie Holiday- She Took Our Pain Away Despite Her Own Pains- *Jazz 101- A Booklet/CD Review

Click on title to link to a "The Boston Sunday Globe" book review of the new jazz primer, "Jazz" by Gary Giddins and Scott DeVeaux.

Markin comment:

My interest in jazz is sporadic and tends to the old classics that seem to predominate in this CD/book combination. Nevertheless one cannot talk about the blues, as readers of this space know that I surely do, without a tip of the hat to jazz in the middle third of the 20th century. I will give my own review at some future date , if I ever get my hands on this thing.

*For Johnny Hodges; 112th Birthday- The Swing Era- When Clarinetist Barney Bigard Held Forth

Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of Barney Bigard and his trio performing "Steps Step Down".

CD Review

An Introduction to Barney Bigard; His Best Recordings, Barney Bigard, Best of Jazz: The Swing Era Series, 1995

As I have mentioned in previous reviews of various classical jazz artists I came to an appreciation of that musical art from one source, and one source only- Lady Day, Billie Holiday. Along the way I started to get interested in her various back-up musicians which led me to the likes of Lester Young, Johnny Hodges, Artie Shaw and others. And, of course, when you get to Johnny Hodges you naturally have to think the Duke- Ellington that is. And when you get to Duke then you have to delve into his various formations from trios up to orchestra and along the way, clarinetist Barney Bigard

Now, for those not familiar with the swing era in jazz, or know swing and the place of the clarinet in it mainly through the great work of Benny Goodman, then Barney Bigard may not be known to you. However, those who know jazz better than I do say, pound for pound, Barney was a better clarinetist. I will leave that for the aficionados but in this CD you will get many of his great performances with various Duke Ellington group configurations and a few of his own compositions so YOU can judge. That is the beauty of this Best of Jazz Series-each artist gets to strut his or her stuff and then we can fight it out over virtuosity. Check it out.

For Johnny Hodges' 112th Birthday- Once Again -Down At Duke’s Place-With Duke Ellington In Mind

For Johnny Hodges' 112th Birthday- Once Again -Down At Duke’s Place-With Duke Ellington In Mind

Once Again -Down At Duke’s Place-With Duke Ellington In Mind

From The Pen Of Bart Webber  

One night Sam Eaton was talking on his cellphone to his old friend from high school (Carver High, Class of 1967), Jack Callahan about how his grandson, Brandon, the oldest grandson of his daughter Janice from his first marriage (first of three all ending in divorce but that is merely a figure for the Census Bureau and not germane to what follows so enough) had beguiled him recently with his arcane knowledge of classical jazz (the jazz from the age of King Oliver say until the death of the big bad swings bands which died in the late 1940s for the most part giving way to cool ass be-bop and what followed).

Jack braced himself for the deluge, got very quiet and did not say word one, since lately the minute Sam mentioned, maybe even thought about mentioning the slightest thing connected with jazz he knew he was in for it, in for a harangue of unknown duration on the subject. Sam, recently more conscious that Jack, who hated jazz, hated it worse when as a child of rock and roll as Sam was, his father would endlessly play Count this, King that, Duke the other thing and not allow the family record player centered in the family living room to be sullied (his father’s word) by heathen stuff like Roll Over Beethoven or One Night With You, would go silent at the word “jazz” said not to worry he would only say a few words from his conversation with Brandon:        

No, Jack, my man, this will not be a screed about how back in the day, back in the 1950s the time of our complete absorption into rock and roll, when be-bop jazz was the cat’s meow, when cool was listening to the Monk trip up a note, consciously trip up a note to see if anybody caught it and then took that note to heaven and back, and worked it out from there or Dizzy burping then hitting the high white note all those guys were struggling against the limits of the instruments to get, high as hell on tea, you know what we called ganja, herb, stuff like that.

Frankly I was too young, you too but I knew how you felt since I couldn’t listen to rock in my house either as the 1940s Andrews Sisters/Perry Como/Frank Sinatra/Peggy Lee cabal were front and center in our living room and I was reduced to listening on my transistor radio, way too young to appreciate such work then and I only got the tail end, you know when Hollywood or the popular prints messed the whole be-bop jazz “beat” thing up and we got spoon-fed Maynard G. Krebs faux black and white television beatnik selling hair cream oil or something like that, and ten thousand guys hanging around the Village on Saturday night in full beret and whatever they could put together for a beard from the outreaches of Tenafly, New Jersey (sorry but Fort Lee was out) and another ten thousand gals, all in black from head to toe, maybe black underwear too so something to imagine at least from Norwalk, Connecticut milling around as well. Square, square cubed.


No, this will not be some screed going back further in the hard times of the Great Depression and the slogging through World War II when “it did not mean a thing, if you ain’t got that swing” when our parents, the parents of the kids who caught the end of be-bop “swang,” did dips and twirls to counts, dukes, earls, princes, marquises even leading big band splashes to wash that generation clean. Come on now that was our parents and I wasn’t even born so no way I can “screed” about that. And, no, no, big time no, this will not be about some solitary figure in some dank, dusty, smoke-filled café, the booze flowing, the dope in the back alleys inflaming the night while some guy, probably a sexy sax player, blows some eternal high white note out against some bay, maybe Frisco Bay, and I was hooked, hooked for life on the be-bop jazz scene.

No, it never even came close to starting out like that, never even dreamed such scenes. Unlike rock and roll, the classic kind that was produced in our 1950s growing up time and which we have had a life-long devotion to or folk music which I came of age, political and social age to, later in the early 1960s, jazz was a late, a very late acquisition to my understanding of the American songbook. Oh sure I would hear a phrase, a few bing, bang, bong notes blowing out the window, out the door, sitting in some bar over drinks with some hot date, maybe hear it as backdrop in some Harvard Square bookstore when I went looking for books (and, once somebody hipped me to the scene, looking for bright young women who also were in the bookstore looking for books, and bright young men were looking for them but that scene is best left for another time), or at some party when the host tired of playing old-time folk music had decided to kick out the jams and let the jazz boys wreak their havoc. But jazz was, and to a great extent still is, a side bar of my musical tastes.          

About a decade ago, a little more, I got seriously into jazz for a while. The reason: the centennial of the birth of Duke Ellington being celebrated when I was listening to some radio show which was commemorating that fact and I heard a few faint bars which required me to both turn up the volume and to listen to the rest of the one hour tribute. The show played a lot of Duke’s stuff from the early 1940s when he had Ben Webster, Harry Carney, and Johnny Hodges on board. The stuff blew me away and as is my wont when I get my enthusiasms up, when something blows me away, I grabbed everything by the Duke and his various groupings and marveled at how very good his work was, how his tonal poems reached deep, deep down and caught something in me that responded in kind. Especially when those sexy saxs, when Johnny or Cootie blew me away if they let it all hang out.

Funny though I thought at the time that I hadn’t picked up on this sound before, this reaching for the soul, for the essence of the matter, since there are very definitely elements of the blues in Brother Duke’s work. And I have been nothing but a stone blown blues freak since the early 1960s when I first heard Howlin’ Wolf hold forth practically eating that harmonica of his on Little Red Rooster and Smokestack Lightnin’. Moreover I had always been a Billie Holiday fan although I never drew the connection to the jazz in the background since it usually was muted to let her rip with that throaty sultry voice, the voice that chased the blues, my blues, away.

So, yes, count me among the guys who are searching for the guys who are searching for the great big cloud puff high white note, guys who have been searching for a long time as the notes waft out into the deep blue sea night. Check this out. Blowing that high white note out into the surly choppy Japan deep blue seas foaming and slashing out into the bay the one time I was sitting in fog-bound Frisco town, sitting around a North Beach bar, the High Hat maybe, back when Jimmy La Croix ran the place and a guy with a story, or a guy he knew could run a tab, for a while, and then settle up or let the hammer fall and you would wind up cadging swigs from flea-bitten raggedy- assed winos and sterno bums.

On Monday nights, a slow night in every venue you can name except maybe whorehouses and even then the business would  fall off only a little since guys had to see their wives or girlfriends or both sometime, Jimmy would hold what is now called an “open mic” but then, I forget, maybe talent search something like that but the same thing. The “Hat” as everybody called it was known far and wide by ex hep-cats, aging beats, and faded flower child ex-hippies who had not yet got back to the “real” world once those trends petered out but were still looking, as I was, looking for something and got a little solace from the bottle and a dark place to nurse the damn thing where you could be social or just hang out was the place around North Beach where young talent took to the boards. Played, played for the “basket” just like the folkies used to do back in the 1960s when that genre had its heyday, and probably get a few dollars from the mostly regular heavy drinker crowd that populate any gin mill on Monday, whether they have seen their loved ones or not.

Jimmy would have Max Jenny on drums and Milt Bogan on that big old bass that took up half the stage, if you remember those guys when West Coast jazz was big, to back-up the talent so this was serious stuff, at least Jimmy played it that way.

Most of the stuff early on that night was so-so some riffs stolen from more famous guys like Miles Davis, Dizzie, Coltrane, the cool ass jazz from the fifties that young bud talent imitates starting out, maybe gets stuck on those covers and wind up, addled by some sister habit, down by the trolley trains on Market Street hustling dollars from weary tourists waiting to get up the damn hill. So nothing that would keep a steady drinker, me, from steady drinking in those days when I lifted low-shelf whiskeys with abandon. Maybe half a dozen other guys spread out around bar to prove they were there strictly for the drinking and chain-smoking unfiltered cigarettes to fill up Jimmy’s ashtrays and give Red the bartender something to do between pouring shots (otherwise the guys hungry for women company would be bunched near the dance floor but they must have had it bad since Monday night the serious honeys were not at the “Hat” but home getting rested up for the long week ahead of fending guys off).

Then I turned around toward the stage, turned around for no particular reason, certainly not to pay attention to the talent, when this young guy, young black guy, barely out of his teens, maybe sixteen for all I know and snuck out of the house to play, Jimmy wasn’t taking ID cards in those days and if the kid wasn’t drinking then what did it matter, to get play to reach the stars if that is what he wanted, slim a reed, dressed kind of haphazardly with a shiny suit that he probably wore to church with grandmother, string tie, clean shirt, couldn’t see his feet so can’t comment on that, maybe a little from hunger, or had the hunger eating him up. Kind of an unusual sight for ‘90s Frisco outside of the missions. But figure this, figure his eyes, eyes that I know about from my own bouts with sister, with the just forming sad sack yellow eyes of high king hell dope-dom and it all fit.

The kid was ready though to blow a big sexy tenor sax, a sax as big as he was, certainly fatter, blew the hell out of one note after another once he got his bearings, then paused, paused to suck up the universe of the smoke filled air in the place (a whiff of ganja from the back somewhere from some guy Jimmy must have known since usually dope in the place was a no-no), and went over to the river Jordan for a minute, rested, came back with a big blow that would get at least to Hawaii, rested again, maybe just a little uncertain where to go like kids always are, copy some somebody and let it go at that for the Monday crowd or blast away, but even I sensed that he had something going, so blew up a big cloud puff riff alternating with pauses hard to do, went at it again this time to the corner of paradise.

Stopped then, I thought he was done, he looked to hell like he was done, done in eyes almost closed, and then onward, a big beautiful dah, dee, dah, dee, dah, dee, blow, a “max daddy” blow then even an old chattering wino in a booth stopped to wonder at, and that big high white note went ripping down Bay Street, I swear I could see it, on into the fog-bound bay and on its way, not stopping until Edo, hell maybe back to Mother Africa where it all started.  He had it, that it means only “it” and if he never blew again he had that “it” moment. He left out the back door and I never saw him at the “Hat” again so maybe he was down on Mission or maybe he went somewhere, got some steady work. All I know was that I was there when a guy blew that high white note, yeah, that high white note. So yeah count me too among Duke’s boys, down at Duke’s place where he eternally searched for that elusive high white note.

See I didn’t take too long, right.             

In Honor Of Johnny Hodges 112th Birthday-From The Archives (2009)The Duke Is Rockin’ His Castle- In Honor Of The 110th Birthday Anniversary Of Duke Ellington

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Duke Ellington And His Band Performing "C Jam Blues"

CD Review

In Honor Of The 110th Birthday Anniversary Of Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington: The Blanton-Webster Band, 1940-42, Bluebird, 1986

Those who follow the reviews in this space may have read a response to a commenter that I wrote recently in reviewing John Cohen’s (from the old folk group The New Lost City Ramblers) “There Is No Eye: Music For Photographs” CD. That CD contained many country blues, urban folk, city blues and rural mountain musical treats (as well as a little tribute to the “beats” of the 1950’s). The gist of my comment was an attempt to draw a connection between my leftist sympathies and the search for American roots music that has driven many of my reviews lately. That said, no one, at least no one with any sense of the American past can deny the importance of the emergence of jazz as a quintessentially American black music form of expression. In short, roots music. And if you want to look at the master, or at least one of the masters (if you need to include King Oliver and Louis Armstrong, as well), of the early years of this genre then look no further- you are home. Duke is in his castle.

Now I am by no means a jazz aficionado. In fact, if anything, I am a Johnnie-come- lately to an appreciation of jazz. More to the point as a youth I never really liked it (except some of the more bluesy-oriented pieces that I would occasionally hear like Armstrong’s “Potato Blues” that I was crazy for when I first heard them) as against the other musical genres that I was interested in. Then, with all the hoopla over Duke’s 100th birthday anniversary ten years ago, in 1999, I decided to investigate further. I had to ask someone what would be a good CD of Duke’s to listen to. This Blanton-Webster Band of 1940-42 was what was suggested. And that person was not wrong. This thing is hot, extremely hot.

Remember these Ellington tone poems, that is all I can think to call them, were done back in the day when dukes, counts, kings, queens and empresses ruled the jazz empire. Others may have their favorites from this period but can one really beat a jazz combo that has Cootie Williams, Barney Bigard, Harry Carney, Jimmy Blanton, Ben Webster and my favorite Ellington player, tenor sax man Johnny Hodges, on it. You had better go “big” if you’re going to beat that group of talented musicians. Okay, what about the pieces. On Disc One how about a jumping “Jack The Bear, “Ko-Ko’, “Dusk” and “In A Mellotone”. On Disc Two “Five O’clock Whistle”, the classic “Take The “A” Train”, “I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good) and “Blue Serge”. On Disc Three, a sultry carib-flavored “Moon Over Cuba”, the sardonic “Rocks In My Bed”, “Perdido”, the haunting “Moon Mist” and the famous “Sentimental Lady”. Nice. I may not be a jazz aficionado but that isn’t a bad list, is it?