Explore every episode of the podcast The Gone Sounds of Jazz with Sid Gribetz

During the 2019 Billie Holiday WKCR Birthday Broadcast, I put together a segment of an erstaz sampling of live performances, some famous, some obscure, including, among others, Count Basie, Stan Getz, A Yiddishe Momma, and The Sound Of Jazz TV broadcast.  A nice listen....

 

88 minutes

 Born in Texas October 6, 1908, Sammy Price began his career as an entertainer on the black vaudeville TOBA circuit as a dancer and singer as well as pianist.  He then became a fixture as a pianist in the Southwestern swing and blues jazz scene in Kansas City and its territories in the burgeoning years of jazz in the 1930s. Price moved to New York City in 1938, working for over a decade as the house pianist and musical arranger for Decca Records, appearing on countless classic blues and gospel recordings, ranging from Trixie Smith to Blue Lu Barker to Sister Rosetta Tharpe.  Sam also had a chance to present his own jazz groups, including greats such as Sidney Bechet and Lester Young.  Additionally, Price brought his brand of boogie woogie and swing piano to the Café Society and similar venues.  In the 1950's, Price worked with mainstream jazz groups and in rhythm and blues, and later had a regular partnership with trumpeter Henry “Red” Allen. In the heady 1960's, Price stepped back from his musical activities for a time, becoming a youth counselor and what we today would call a “community organizer”, a leading figure in the Harlem community with organizations such as HARYOU-ACT.  With the 1970's revival for classic jazz, Price reinvigorated his music, christened as the “King Of Boogie Woogie”, and he performed regularly at New York clubs such as the Cookery, Crawdaddy, and the West End.  He also frequently toured Europe, both as a rollicking solo pianist, or in small combos with old friends.  Sammy Price died in 1992 at the age of 83.

 

originally broadcast October 2009

Benny Golson is one of the great eminences of jazz, best known as a composer of lyrical compositions that have become enduring staples of the modern jazz repertory.  A key performer in some of the most important jazz groups of the late 1950's and early 1960's, Golson added an element of elegance and refinement to the hard bop sound.  He imposed a steady sophistication and class to the ensemble presentation.   Stablemates, Killer Joe, Whisper Not, I Remember Clifford, Along Came Betty, Blues March, Five Spot After Dark, and Are You Real are among the great songs that you’ll recognize during this broadcast and that typify his style.   Born January 25, 1929, Golson was raised in Philadelphia and came of age with high school compatriots such as John Coltrane and Jimmy Heath.  Initially inspired by Arnett Cobb, Golson began his professional career in the early 1950's in rhythm and blues bands, sharing these chores with many jazz friends such as Tadd Dameron, who influenced Benny’s arranging style.  He also traveled with Dizzy Gillespie’s big band.   Golson’s major breakthrough came upon joining Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in 1958. As arranger and musical director he helped take Blakey’s combo design to the “next level”.  Later, together with Art Farmer and Curtis Fuller he founded “The Jazztet”, which was an innovative and popular group that expanded the possibilities of the hard bop ensemble.  During this period he also participated in many significant recordings as an instrumentalist and as an arranger in multi-faceted settings.   By the late 1960's, Golson left the jazz scene and settled in California where he became a distinctive arranger and orchestrator of major television and movie scores.           Returning to jazz during the neo-classic revival period of the 1980's, Golson continued to perform vigorously until his final years.   Golson died on September 21, 2024 at the age of 95.   Originally broadcast on June 5, 2016

 

WKCR presents an annual marathon broadcast celebrating the Coleman Hawkins birthday on November 21.

 

From the 2023 affair, here's a 185 minute long segment.  It begins with a brief sample of early 1960's recordings with Duke Ellington, and other mainstream sides.   Then the final 149 minutes contains an intensive survey of his career in the period from 1939 through 1944, after his return from Europe.  From Body And Soul through the Apollo early bebop date.

In his brief life, Fats Navarro was a fleeting spectacle of brilliance as a leading trumpeter in the history and development of jazz during the bebop years.

 

Nicknamed “Fats” or “Fat Girl” (befitting all in one his avoirdupois, his high pitched voice, and most important his fat musical tone on the trumpet), Theodore Navarro was born on September 23, 1923 in Key West.  He played music seriously since childhood, and left Florida after high school to embark on a career as a professional jazz musician in big bands, first gaining notice as a teenager in Andy Kirk’s Clouds Of Joy.  Upon the enthusiastic recommendation of Dizzy Gillespie, Navarro was hired to replace Diz in the notorious Billy Eckstine bebop big band in 1945.

 

In the late 1940's Navarro became a leading exponent of the bebop revolution, adding idioms and dialect to the musical language created by Bird and Diz, and, as Dan Morgenstern has written, possessing a beautiful tone, brilliance of execution, solid musicianship, and great powers of invention.

 

 Navarro’s brief life ended on July 7, 1950, at the age of 26, succumbing both to a lingering illness with tuberculosis and the ravages of his heroin addiction.

 

Our program will explore his entire musical career, including his seminal recordings with Tadd Dameron, Bud Powell, Kenny Clarke, Coleman Hawkins and other greats.

 

broadcast July 2022

Dinah Washington called herself "The Queen Of The Blues", and she was that, and then some, a larger than life character and a dynamic singer of great jazz, pop, rhythm and blues, and the American Popular Songbook. Born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and reared in Chicago (as Ruth Jones), influenced by gospel music she began singing professionally as a youth.  Lionel Hampton "discovered" her, and she featured in his band for a number of years under the stage name Dinah Washington, before striking out on her own.  Dinah brought forth popular "crossover" hit records for Mercury, jazz classics with all the greats, and best selling numbers like "What A Difference A Day Made", whether with jazz combos, big bands, R&B groups, or string orchestras. Married seven times, to among others saxophonist Eddie Chamblee and gridiron great Night Train Lane, she lived a nervy, extravagant life style.   On the one hand always informed by her gospel roots, Dinah was transcendent, and she translated her varied popular repertoire into the secular and sexual passion of the blues. Her delivery combined intense feeling with crystal-clear diction so that, as the music poured out, she still seemed in total control, one of the all time best at conveying the heartfelt meaning of song lyrics. A heavy drinker, and overusing prescription diet pills, Dinah died from an accidental overdose on December 14, 1963 at the age of 39.  Leaving us even at that young age, she left behind a prolific legacy.  We’ll present a representative retrospective look at her career on our program, timed to coincide with celebration of her centennial, as she was born August 29, 1924.

 

originally broadcast September 1, 2024

WKCR presents annual marathon broadcasts to celebrate the October 10 birthday anniversary of Thelonious Monk. 

From the 2023 edition,  here's 205 minutes of a segment I presented.  Begins with a potpourri of Monk's music, first some live performances, next piano music, featuring selections from, among other recordings, the French Vogue session, the Duke Ellington album, and the "The Unique Thelonious Monk".  The final 123 minutes includes a survey of a less-famous aspect of Monk's career, his recordings for the Prestige label.

Tadd Dameron was born in Cleveland in 1917 and came of age towards the end of the Swing Era.  As the bebop revolution unfolded, Dameron was a key figure as a pianist in various bands,  arranger for Dizzy Gillespie and others, and composer of classics such as “Hot House", "If You Could See Me Now", "Our Delight", "Good Bait" and "Lady Bird".

He’s been called the romanticist of the bebop era.  Certainly his sophisticated musicianship and lyrical touch elevated the harmonic advances of bebop, and his emotive style informed the music of Fats Navarro, Wardell Gray, Clifford Brown and so many others.

Additionally, Dameron had the opportunity to present his music in his own medium-sized orchestras.  His recording legacy also includes leading sessions with greats like John Coltrane, inter alia.

Unfortunately his career was interrupted by narcotics issues and related prison terms, and later cut short by various health problems.  Dameron died of cancer in 1965.

 

originally broadcast in 2010

The "Bird-Prez Birthday Broadcast", a 72 hour (and some years longer) marathon celebrating Lester Young and Charlie Parker around their birthday anniversaries, August 27 and August 29, is a long standing tradition at WKCR, and it is among our listeners' favorites.

For the 2024 edition, I programmed a set reviewing Lester Young's studio recordings for Norman Granz, on "Verve".

Eddie Jefferson was the progenitor of the style known as “vocalese”, the writing of lyrics to the improvised solos on jazz instrumental recordings. Jefferson was born on August 3, 1918 in Pittsburgh.  His father was in show business, and Pittsburgh back in the day was a jazz town of vitality.  Eddie began professionally as a child in song and dance acts with local friends such as Erroll Garner. As a young man, Eddie plied his trade as a dancer on the traveling black entertainment circuit, working on the same bills opposite jazz greats such as Coleman Hawkins during the “Body And Soul” years.  Along with his dance partner Irv Taylor, Jefferson would while away the time on the road listening to songs on a portable record player, and they would conceive lyrics to go along with the soloists on the records, whether of Prez and Herschel Evans and Buddy Tate with Count Basie, or Chu Berry with Cab Calloway, or popular bands.  Jefferson was also influenced by the scat singing and surrealism of Leo Watson.  The arrival of Charlie Parker and bebop gave another inspiration to Eddie. From this background emerged a new style of jazz singing.  Just as the jazz soloist created a new melody in improvising, Jefferson canonized the recorded solos and invested them with fixed life as songs of their own.  It is often said that the purpose of the solo is to tell a story.  Jefferson’s lyrics interpreted these stories, and also told his own.  His experience from the jazz life would be the chronicles he made of “Body and Soul”, “Now’s The Time” or “So What”.  Or he would tell his own love stories (“Disappointed”), or spin yarns of fanciful tales turning Lester Young’s version of “It’s Only A Paper Moon” in to a take off of a trip to space on “Come Along With Me”, or reworking “A Night In Tunisia” as an exotic desert fantasy. The first public breakthrough remains the most famous - in 1949, on a visit to Sweden, James Moody recorded a version of the standard “I’m In The Mood For Love” with a stunning improvisation.  The record took off in the states, and Eddie Jefferson wrote lyrics that would become “Moody’s Mood For Love” (There I Go, There I Go...).  King Pleasure made the first recording of the song, and that immediately put the genre on the map.  Annie Ross and others would soon follow.  And Eddie Jefferson teamed up with Moody, becoming both the singer with his touring band, and road manager, throughout the 1950's.  Meanwhile, groups such as Lambert Hendricks and Ross took up the cudgels, and vocalese became a sensation. But the popularity of jazz faded in the 1960's and Jefferson was forced to support himself outside of music.  With the beginnings of a jazz revival in the 1970's Eddie was back.  He teamed with the young saxophone player Richie Cole and toured the country, and Eddie was also a big part of the jazz loft scene in Soho and the Bowery in New York City at places like Bond Street and The Tin Palace.   Unfortunately, this comeback ended when Eddie was senselessly murdered in 1979, while leaving his performance outside Baker’s Keyboard Lounge in Detroit.

 

originally broadcast in 2017

The "Bird-Prez Birthday Broadcast", a 72 hour (and some years longer) marathon celebrating Lester Young and Charlie Parker around their birthday anniversaries, August 27 and August 29, is a long standing tradition at WKCR, and it is among our listeners' favorites.

From the 2023 edition, I programmed a set which included primarily a look at Bird's studio recordings of 1947, a magical period for bebop.

Sonny Stitt was one of the greats.  Sonny possessed technical skill and fleet mastery as a musician, and he projected a tone full of warmth and human expression.  He excelled whether playing bebop, ballads or the blues, “rhythm” pieces or improvisatory excursions in the American popular songbook standards. Edward Boatner, Jr. was born February 2, 1924 in Boston.  He came from a musical family, as his father was a composer and college music professor, and his mother a piano teacher.  Several siblings had careers in classical music.  The family moved to Saginaw, Michigan when he was a toddler, and it was there that he was raised.  At some point his parents separated and his mother married a man named Robert Stitt.  Edward adopted his stepfather’s surname, and the moniker “Sonny”. Stitt played various instruments from an early age and excelled in school music programs.  As a youngster he was attracted to the alto sax and the sound of Johnny Hodges and Benny Carter.  As he became a teenager Stitt played in the nascent Michigan jazz scene.  After high school, he joined the popular Tiny Bradshaw band.  In his travels, Stitt met Charlie Parker in Kansas City in 1943 and became enthralled with Bird’s sound and conception. As the bebop evolution took hold, Stitt was one of the “Unholy Four” in Billy Eckstine’s legendary bop big band sax section.  In 1946, when Dizzy Gillespie left Bird behind in California, he hired Stitt to fill Parker’s chair in both small groups and his orchestra.  Between his work with Dizzy and other legendary bebop aggregations, Stitt appears on many of the seminal recordings of the late 1940's.  In the early 1950's Stitt teamed with Gene Ammons as a proponent of earthy jazz blowing, and he began playing tenor, and sometimes baritone, sax, while also retaining his original alto. Termed by many as a “Lone Wolf”, Stitt had a lengthy career performing in many settings but never his own regular band.  Also, for decades he recorded prolifically for many labels, producing a quantitatively amazing discography of artistic fertility, but never a signature “oeuvre”.  Among some highlights of later years were organ combos with Don Patterson, experiments with the electric sax during the rock years, a 1960 stay in Miles Davis’s regular group, the Giants of Jazz Tour of the early 1970's, and some mature, critically acclaimed records on the Muse label in the last decade of his life.  Stitt died of cancer in 1982 at the age of 58. Too many ignorant critics often criticized Stitt, unfairly and inaccurately, as merely “a Charlie Parker imitator”.  And with reference to Stitt's prolific performance output, similar haters also unfairly chastised him as someone who “just mailed it in”.  Additionally, he was dogged by substance abuse issues, heroin addiction during the bebop years (which he beat) and then alcohol problems, which detracted from an ability to maintain popular fame.  Notwithstanding these hindrances to larger acclaim, the true jazz aficionados acknowledge his mastery, and you should listen closely to his recordings, to recognize that Stitt leaves a worthwhile legacy of touchingly beautiful music. Given the breadth of Stitt’s output, we will only barely sample his career in our five hour show.  But those samples I trust will be a meaningful listen and illustrative of his skill.  As a final note, this February 2024 show will be an acknowledgment of his centennial.

In jazz history, Houston Person is one the great purveyors of the deep throated tenor saxophone sound --dynamically powerful and swinging, but also sultry, bluesy, sensitive and romantic.  Houston Person was born on November 10, 1934 in Florence, South Carolina.  He was musically inclined as a child, and then studied at South Carolina State University.  After college, Person entered the service and was stationed in West Germany for several years in an Air Force unit that included Cedar Walton, Lex Humphries, and Eddie Harris, among other jazz musicians who became lifelong friends and influences. Upon discharge from the service, Person returned stateside for further studies in graduate school at the prestigious Hartt Institute in Connecticut.  Person finally began making his way in the professional jazz world in the Boston/New England area.  By the early 1960's he had established his mark and began recording for Prestige Records.  Person’s style also fit into the soulful jazz of the period and graces many live bands and recordings in that groove. By the 1970's, Houston met up with the awe-inspiring vocalist Etta Jones, and after some occasional collaborations they started a steady working partnership that lasted until Etta’s death from cancer in 2001.  Their musical and personal teamwork and connection was so intense that they were often mistaken as a married couple, and feted as a continued legacy of the Lester Young and Billie Holiday collaboration. Person has a masterful and encyclopedic command of the American popular songbook.  He conveys the meanings of these songs, and also the blues, and jazz standards, in a straightforward manner that engages the audience with a direct emotional connection.  This style marked his work with Etta, and even more so his continued regular performances with his own combos, or as a guest artist in demand with countless groups.

originally broadcast October 27, 2024

For this program I selected a narrow focus -- Ben Webster's activities in the 1950s.

Webster is best known as the tenor saxophone giant from Duke Ellington's famous bands followed up with fame and renown as an ongoing swing legend of the 1940s.  In his much later years as a European expatriate, Webster achieved international stardom and respect as an “elder statesman”.  But often overlooked were his contributions to jazz during the 1950s.  Then in his forties, Webster's maturing artistry reached a level of poetry and grace, which, when matched with his brute force and power, produced some stunning music, if not popular acclaim. Our program will examine this aspect of his career.  First up was a return to Kansas City, with Jay McShann and other R&B offerings; next, teaming up in Norman Granz productions for jazz combos with his old swing friends, Oscar Peterson, and sensitive strings; as another highlight, rejoining Billie Holiday to provide necessary support for what were the best of Lady Day’s later recordings; and finally, moving to California, for a triumphant reception at the 1959 Monterrey Jazz Festival, leading to partnerships with blues shouter Jimmy Witherspoon and others.

 

originally broadcast in 2011

The "Bird-Prez Birthday Broadcast", a 72 hour (and some years longer) marathon celebrating Lester Young and Charlie Parker around their birthday anniversaries, August 27 and August 29, is a long standing tradition at WKCR, and it is among our listeners' favorites.

Here's a session that I put together for the 2023 broadcast. Two parts on Lester Young.

First a brief random sample of his collaborations with Billie Holiday.  Sumptuous.

The second part is a more in-depth look at Lester Young's activities in 1943 and 1944, a period often overlooked, as overshadowed by other more popular portions of his career.

The "Bird-Prez Birthday Broadcast", a 72 hour (and some years longer) marathon celebrating Lester Young and Charlie Parker around their birthday anniversaries, August 27 and August 29, is a long standing tradition at WKCR, and it is among our listeners' favorites.

 

Here's a three hour set of mine from the 2021 edition, which includes an 80 minute long segment featuring recordings of Charlie Parker in unconventional large group settings (other than Bird With Strings"), and then samples of some other more standard Bird sessions, including a live set from his perch at the Royal Roost.

The "Bird-Prez Birthday Broadcast", a 72 hour (and some years longer) marathon celebrating Lester Young and Charlie Parker around their birthday anniversaries, August 27 and August 29, is a long standing tradition at WKCR, and it is among our listeners' favorites.

 

In the 2020 edition of the show, I produced a segment that discussed Lester Young's court martial and confinement in US Army detention barracks towards the end of World War II, and then followed with a lengthy presentation of the recordings, starting with "DB Blues", that he made for the Aladdin label in the post war years. 

 

This broadcast also contains an opening  sample of Lester's Verve recordings for casual pleasure listening, and after the intensive Aladdin material, concludes with Keynote sides and some Helen Humes and Una Mae Carlisle.

To honor the centennial year of the jazz diva Sarah Vaughan, WKCR produced a multi-day marathon radio broadcast in March 2024.

 

For this broadcast I presented a historical segment focusing on Sarah's beginnings from the 1940s through the early 1950's.

 

This approximately 2 and 1/2 hour podcast concludes with a sample of recordings from later in the 1950's.

Illinois Jacquet is one of the tenor saxophone legends of jazz.  Nicknamed “The Beast”, his ferocious, meaty and swinging style set an exemplar for the “tough tenors” to come, while he also had a sensitive side and meaningfully deep and hearty approach on ballads and standards.

 

Most reference works list Illinois Jacquet’s birthday as October 31, 1922, and therefore many have called 2022 his centennial year.  However, some researchers have uncovered local records indicating his actual birth date as October 30, 1919.  From Broussard in southwestern Louisiana, his family was of Creole origin.  All of his siblings were musically inclined.  They moved to Houston, Texas when he was a child, but Jacquet also spent summers and vacations with extended family back in Louisiana.  Accordingly, he was raised steeped in multiple cultural traditions.

 

Leaving high school early, Jacquet played with the locally prominent Milt Larkin band in Houston.  Still a teenager, he and his brother, trumpeter Russell Jacquet, moved to California to escape racism in Texas.  Illinois joined Lionel Hampton’s band and gained lasting fame and influence with his dynamic solo on “Flying Home”.  Jacquet moved on from Hamp to join Cab Calloway’s orchestra which was prominent in the motion picture “Stormy Weather”.  After Calloway, Jacquet was a sensation in the earliest “Jazz At The Philharmonic” concerts and records and appeared along with Lester Young in the film short “Jammin’ The Blues”.  His final outside credit in the mid 1940's was as a star (think “The King” and “Mutton Leg”) in what was Prez’s chair in the Count Basie orchestra.

 

By then he was a major attraction famous enough to lead his own bands, produce hit records such as “Robbins’ Nest”, “Jivin’ With Jack The Bellboy”, “Ghost Of A Chance” and “Black Velvet”, tour internationally, and sign with major label Victor.  The 1950's included continued success with Jazz At The Philharmonic and Norman Granz recordings.  The 1960's and 1970's, while a leaner time for jazz popularity, saw Jacquet frequently tour Europe and Japan and make numerous fine recordings.

 

The 1980's took a different turn as Jacquet was hired to be an “Artist in Residence” and lecturer at Harvard University.  Following up on that experience, Illinois re-formed a big band with younger musicians.  This group swung to achieve great renown, whether at Lincoln Center, the Village Vanguard, or playing for the swing dance revival.

 

Jacquet lived a full life and died in 2004.

 

originally broadcast November 6, 2022

 

A celebration of the birth of Jazz and Samba.   This program was originally produced by Sid Gribetz in July 2012.  The emphasis of the show was the 50th Anniversary of the Bossa Nova craze and the proliferation of jazz records throughout 1962 with the samba influence.    On February 13, 1962, Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd met in Washington D.C.’s  All Souls Church for a casual record session.  The resulting album, “Jazz Samba”, with its single “Desafinado”, became THE big hit record of the summer of 1962 and ignited a bossa nova craze in jazz and popular music.  Within months, jazz artists from Coleman Hawkins to Gene Ammons to Cannonball Adderley all recorded samba records, and the wave would crest with several more efforts from Byrd and Getz, culminating with the all time hit “The Girl From Ipanema”.   To be sure, for several years before, Gilberto and Jobim and their compatriots had already brought jazz and other outside sensitivities to native Brazilian rhythms to forge the new bossa nova style.  The movie Black Orpheus, with its thrilling yet haunting soundtrack was a landmark.  Additional early impact was the efforts by musicians such as Bud Shank and Dizzy Gillespie, who had already spread the samba gospel to a wider audience.  Charlie Byrd, with his group of bassist Keter Betts and drummer Buddy Deppenschmidt, returned from a winter 1961 State Department tour of South America fully imbued with the bossa nova sound.  They imparted their new wisdom on the “Jazz Samba” album, and the fuse was lit.   Our radio broadcast celebrated that fabled summer of 1962, when bossa nova was in the air, and we played many of the "jazz and samba" records of that year, for your sultry summer enjoyment.

 

Sid Gribetz presented this program in 2020 exploring the collaborations of Donald Byrd and Pepper Adams.   Donald Byrd was one of the all-time greats of modern jazz trumpet, possessed of a fresh, crackling sound and a virtuosity that contributed to a long and successful career in various jazz styles.  Pepper Adams, while not as famous as Byrd, was a leading practitioner of the baritone saxophone, playing the otherwise cumbersome instrument with facility, speed, and grace that supported a prolific and varied career in many bands. Since they each had long, individual, histories in our jazz lore, the groups organized in their partnership are often overlooked.  The unorthodox trumpet/baritone combination coalesced into an atypical but charming musical blend.  Also, both artists were sophisticated composers and arrangers who provided their ensembles with a lush musical palette beyond just the standard repertoire. The partnership lasted between 1958 and 1962, and they would get together to tour and perform around the country in a quintet when not otherwise engaged.  Byrd was under contract to Blue Note Records during this period, and under Byrd’s name he and Adams recorded several classic albums, some fleshed out with additional horns.  Then, on Adams’s dates with other labels, he, Byrd and their quintet would lay down some great sides.  Herbie Hancock got his start as their pianist, and Duke Pearson, Wynton Kelly and Walter Davis, Jr. also worked with them. Byrd and Adams both were products of the vibrant Detroit jazz community.  Byrd, born in 1932, attended the legendary Cass Tech High School, and also Wayne State University.  He burst on the national scene immediately after his schooling, playing with Yusef Lateef, George Wallington, Horace Silver, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, and Gigi Gryce, just to name a few in his initial years of fame.  By 1958, he began a legendary career with Blue Note and star individual appearances, but had time for the group with Adams.  Byrd died in 2013 at the age of 80. Park Adams III was born in Detroit in 1930, but his family moved to Rochester, New York when he was a toddler.  In grade school, Adams was already a precocious music talent and played professionally.  He obtained the nickname Pepper from an affinity for the baseball star Pepper Martin who managed the minor league Rochester team.  Adams’s family returned to Detroit in 1946, and as a teenager, he, too, was a participant in the vital Detroit post war jazz scene.   By his early 20's, Adams established himself as a leading jazz professional baritone sax player.  He had a long career beyond the work with Byrd, such as later combos with Thad Jones, and the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, among other credits.  Adams suffered a debilitating leg injury in a car accident in 1983, but persevered until he died of cancer in 1986. The music they made had a certain spark and magic.  Byrd, while a brash and bravura trumpeter, also had a side that was gentle and melodic.  While the modern jazz baritone sax in the 1950's was thought of as a cool, slippery instrument, Adams instead had a slashing, knife-like attack that brought excitement.  But he too also had lyrical and sensitive aspects to his musicality.  The Byrd/Adams partnership combined all these simpatico elements, and also a successful blend of the African American Byrd and Caucasian Adams co-leading a group on the bandstand.

Oscar Pettiford was one of the leading innovative jazz bass players who came of age during the bebop era.  He unleashed a sense of dynamic swing that set the standard influencing bass styles to this very day, and his lyrical, free flowing solos on bass, and later in his career on pizzicato cello, have lasting beauty that transcends the conventions of these instruments.

 

            Also, Pettiford was significant as a composer of songs still prevalent in the modern jazz repertory - Bohemia After Dark, Swingin’ Till The Girls Come Home, The Pendulum At Falcon’s Lair, The Gentle Art of Love, Blues In The Closet, and Tricotism, to name a few.  Pettiford was also a band leader and arranger conversant with the most advanced sophisticated styles, and also some third stream touches, in the 1950's.

 

            Oscar Pettiford has a fascinating biography.  He was born September 30, 1922 on a reservation in Oklahoma.  His mother was Native American, and his father Harry “Doc” Pettiford was African-American also with some Cherokee roots in his family.  The family moved to Minneapolis when Oscar was very young.  His father was a veterinarian but also musically inclined.  Doc Pettiford formed a family band with Oscar and several siblings, all skilled on multiple instruments, and successfully barnstormed and toured the midwest and south for many years.

 

By the time Oscar was a teenager, he settled on the bass as his instrument of choice. Still underage, he left the family and formed his own band which performed in Minneapolis nightclubs and after hours joints.  Pettiford developed a reputation that was fortified with notice from major musicians who passed through town, such as Milt Hinton, Charlie Christian and Howard McGhee.

 

Eventually, by 1940 or 41, music business was slow in Minnesota and Pettiford was disheartened.  He retired from music and began working in an armaments factory.  However, McGhee looked him up and introduced him to the popular swing band leader Charlie Barnet, who was in need of another bassist and hired him.  After several months with Barnet, Pettiford made it to New York and immediately established himself at the highest level.  Pettiford joined Thelonious Monk in the house band at the legendary Minton’s Playhouse.  Next Roy Eldridge hired him to work on 52nd Street, where he also drew the attention of Coleman Hawkins, who used him on several famous recording sessions that included extended bass solos of astonishing power.

 

          Our story is still only in 1944.  At the incredibly young age of 21 and 22, Pettiford was leading his own group at the Onyx Club where he and Dizzy Gillespie then teamed up to jointly lead a band which most jazz historians consider to be the first regularly working bebop band.

           

Oscar and Diz split due to a personality conflict, but not before Pettiford appeared on some of the very first legendary bebop recordings.  Among his continuing experience, another milepost was a long stint in the late 1940's with Duke Ellington’s orchestra.

 

            Pettiford’s next break came in 1949, when he fractured his arm in an injury in a softball game.  During his lengthy rehabilitation, Oscar found it difficult to manipulate the heavy double bass, so he picked up the cello and utilized it as a jazz instrument.  While he later returned to the bass, Pettiford regularly used the cello for swinging pizzicato solos during performances.  Pettiford’s musicality shone prominently in the cello’s higher timbre.  His use of the cello was unique at the time and still influential years later.

 

            In the 1950's Pettiford was a major figure in jazz.  He worked prolifically and appeared on what are now major recordings in our canon with the likes of Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, and many others.  In the late 1950's he became house bassist at the famous Café Bohemia.  Additionally, he led small groups and his own big band with colleagues such as Lucky Thompson, Gigi Gryce and Dick Katz, playing original compositions and innovative, sophisticated arrangements.

 

            In 1958, Pettiford moved to Europe and eventually settled in Copenhagen where he became a leading figure performing with other expatriate Americans and also leading European musicians.

 

One night in 1960, he fell ill during a show and was taken to a Danish hospital.  He developed paralysis type symptoms in his spine and fell into a coma and died a few days later, on September 8, 1960, at the age of 37.  Doctors at the time labeled the cause of death a “polio-like virus“, but more probably it was the lingering effects from injuries suffered in a major automobile accident several months earlier.

 

Originally broadcast December 4, 2022.

Here's my segment from the July 4, 2024 WKCR Louis Armstrong broadcast.

 

Includes a portion that features Louis in the 1960's, plus other components with many classic recordings for casual listening pleasure.

Ike Quebec was a deep-toned, dynamic saxophonist, instrumental in both the swing styles and the modern jazz era.   Born in Newark, NJ in 1918, Quebec began his artistic career in show business as a dancer, and then a pianist, but during the World War II years he came of age as a saxophonist.  Quebec’s early roots were in the swing styles, both as a key member of Cab Calloway’s big band in the 1940's, and as a soloist in small group swing and blues combos.  Notably, Ike participated in some seminal Blue Note recording sessions in the early years of the label.  Additionally, his artistry was informed by his presence on the Harlem scene during the formative years of modern jazz.   In the late 1950's Quebec emerged as an important figure in the jazz business, serving as a talent scout, A & R man, and confidant for Alfred Lion and the Blue Note company during its modern jazz heyday.  Starting in 1959, Quebec also recorded for the label himself, presenting classic sessions in organ grooves, hard bop, and bossa nova settings, all characterized by a rich harmonic sophistication and a driving, full-throated, yet graceful saxophone style.   Unfortunately, Quebec succumbed to the disease of lung cancer and died at the early age of 44 in 1963.   originally broadcast in 2015  

Don Patterson was one of the unsung heroes of the early generation of jazz organists, following the trail blazing Jimmy Smith.   Born in Columbus Ohio in 1936, Patterson originally played the piano, influenced by Erroll Garner.  When the Hammond B-3 organ gained prominence in the mid 1950's, Patterson switched to that instrument.   He worked in an organ-guitar-drums trio with Paul Weeden and Billy James, and he also performed frequently with Sonny Stitt.  As the 1960's moved on, Patterson signed with Prestige Records and had a significant impact.  His records included associations with many great saxophonists, as well as unencumbered organ dates.   Dogged by various health problems, in later years he laid low for a while, but by the 1980's settled in Philadelphia with a renewed career.  Unfortunately, he passed away in 1988 at the age of 51.   He incorporated the abilities to play the Hammond conventions with full throttled soul, but he also maintained a spare pianistic solo style and would play bebop, hard bop and beyond.   This retrospective tribute will feature the oeuvre of his great Hammond B-3 career, and we’ll play many great albums on the Prestige label and include his later works as well..

 

originally broadcast 2010

With his block-chord style, and bright and breezy attitude, Red Garland’s piano was swinging and sensitive at the same time. Whether serving as an accompanist in classic jazz combos, or out front as the leader of a romantic piano trio, Garland left a lasting impact in modern jazz.

 

WKCR presented a marathon radio tribute to Garland on May 13, 2013 to honor the centennial of his birth.

 

Here's my three hour segment, which focused on Garland with horns, such as John Coltrane, Arnett Cobb, Coleman Hawkins, Eddie Lockjaw Davis and many more. (But omitting his work with the classic Miles Davis groups)

Trumpeter Richard Williams was active on the New York scene mainly in the 1960's and 70's.  A first rate musician, he had the nickname “Notes”.  In addition to jazz combos Williams worked steadily in Broadway show pits, classical music ensembles, many big bands, and modernist large ensembles.  As such, he participated in many significant musical endeavors over time, but not in the forefront or the limelight.Richard Williams was born on May 4, 1931 in Galveston, Texas.  After college, Williams entered the service and spent many years in an Air Force unit that intensified his musical studies.  Stationed for a time in San Francisco, he stayed in California and performed in Bay Area clubs.  Williams moved to New York City in the late 1950's and resided here the rest of his life.  He did graduate studies at the Manhattan School of Music, obtaining a Master’s Degree.Williams made his first jazz records with Charles Mingus in 1959 (“Mingus Dynasty”). For several years he participated in the Mingus workshop groups and with Mingus-mate John Handy, and he appears on some of their classic recordings.  Another significant association was as a key member in the working group of Gigi Gryce in the early 1960's.  He was also a vital participant in Slide Hampton’s medium-size ensembles, including their notable 1962 European tour and Atlantic records.  Other important early credits include colleagues as diverse as Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Leo Wright, Yusef Lateef and Booker Ervin.Surprisingly, Williams made only one record as a leader under his own name – “New Horn In Town” – for Candid Records in 1960.  It’s a beauty.Richard Williams was an important musician around town for many dates.  A relevant example is his association with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis (Vanguard) Orchestra in the beginning years of that significant band.  In that vein he would also be on call for work as diverse as Tolliver’s Music Inc. to the studio big bands that backed some of Aretha Franklin’s music.Still working in the 1980's, Williams appeared with the Mingus alumni ensembles and the Illinois Jacquet big band.

Richard Williams died of kidney disease in 1985 at the age of 54.While you may not know his name, you can see that we’ll have plenty of interesting records to play during this three hour long retrospective tribute.

 

originally broadcast December 15, 2019

This is one of a series of Profiles we’ve done over the years focusing on the jazz impact of a legendary composer from the Great American Songbook. Our enduring “standards” are part of the sinew of jazz performance, as their musical forms, melodies, and harmonic structure provide a sturdy and meaningful basis for jazz improvisation and expression.  These songs have become lasting touchstones in our jazz repertory. Arthur Schwartz was born in 1900 in Brooklyn.  His father was an attorney who encouraged him to enter the law. After studies at Boys High, and in Literature and Law at Columbia and New York Universities, he worked as an English teacher and then was admitted to the bar and practiced law in New York City.  However, Schwartz was always interested in music and songwriting, which he did as a hobby.  He was a friend of Lorenz Hart, who encouraged him.  By 1929, Schwartz eschewed the law business and gave up his practice, turning to music full time. Schwartz teamed up with lyricist Howard Dietz and this initial endeavor proved successful, as they composed pieces for Broadway revues and eventually full “book musicals” throughout the 1930's.  Leaving his partnership with Dietz, Schwartz worked with other notable lyricists and composed songs for movie scores as well as Broadway shows.   Among his famous compositions are “I Guess I’ll Have To Change My Plan”, “That’s Entertainment, “Alone Together”, “Dancing In The Dark”, “You and The Night And The Music”, “By Myself”, “Rhode Island Is Famous For You”, and many more nuggets.   His songs often featured a wistful and melancholic sensitivity, but they also were informed by a melodious sophistication and joyous lyricism. As an interesting footnote, Arthur Schwartz is the father of radio personality and music historian Jonathan Schwartz. Our program will discuss Schwartz’s career, and then take a “deep dive” into the jazz versions of these songs.  We’ll play recordings by Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Lester Young, John Coltrane, and less famous jazz masters, too, that will give you great insight into Schwartz’s music.

 

originally broadcast August 21, 2022

 Bob Dorough encompasses a wide arc of American music.  He is rooted in the Americana of a Hoagy Carmichael or Johnny Mercer, energized under the counter-cultural fervor and swell of the bebop jazz revolution, a witty and literate songwriter of sophisticated pieces, a cultural icon of children’s songs, and a vivid interpreter of the American popular songbook with a unique personal vision.  We will explore all aspects of his career during the program.  Bob Dorough was born in Arkansas on December 12, 1923 and raised in rural areas across Arkansas and Texas.  He received formal musical education in Plainview Texas High School; drafted into the Army during World War II, he served with a special services musical unit, and after the war studied in the renowned music program at North Texas State University.  Upon graduating in 1949, Bob moved to New York City and a cold water East Side flat to immerse himself in the modern jazz scene.  At one point he was hired by boxer Sugar Ray Robinson to play music for his rhythm in training, and Robinson then enlisted Bob for his dance review, which brought him to Paris.  While in Paris, Bob teamed with Blossom Dearie and the Blue Stars of France vocalists.  Back in the States, Bob recorded his first album for Bethlehem in 1956, “Devil May Care”, which has become a vocalese classic.  The itinerant hipster, Bob was in California in the late ‘50's, with beatniks and Lenny Bruce and great California cool musicians; next with Fran Landesman and Tommy Wolf in St. Louis; back in New York solicited by Miles Davis to write and record vocals, including the sardonic “Blue Xmas”; teaming along the way with the Dave Frishberg’s, the Dearie’s, Landesman’s et al to develop a style of hip songwriting  exemplified at its best by the song “I’m Hip”.  By the late 60's Bob played with hippie bands such as “Spanky and Our Gang” and developed a “pop art” style in the manner of “Love: Webster’s Definition”.  Another chapter in Bob’s career unfolded when he was hired in the early 1970's to write the songs for a new ABC children’s TV special “Schoolhouse Rock”.  That then-youthful generation now knows what’s the function of “Conjunction Junction” and lionizes Dorough.   Having settled in the musicians' haven of the Delaware Water Gap/Pocono region of Northeastern Pennsylvania, from that base for many decades Dorough toured the world spreading his musical vision with elan and joy, a sparkling pianist and vocalist purveying the richness of jazz and popular music with a sense of verve and swing, and singing his own compositions and the gems of the American Popular Songbook invested with both a homespun twang and an urbane understanding. Bob died peacefully in his PA home on April 23, 2018 at the age of 94, active until the end.  Shortly before his death, Dorough was selected to be a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, an award which was formally bestowed posthumously in 2019.

 

originally broadcast December 17, 2023

Richard Wyands was one of the great heroes of modern jazz piano.  An unassuming man who did not seek much publicity, he was a vital force in our jazz community.  Wyands was a sparkling pianist of elegance and grace, with great swing and command.  He contributed his talents to many jazz groups throughout the years. Richard Wyands was born in Oakland, California on July 2, 1928.  He exhibited prodigy-like talent as a child and took [mainly] classical music lessons.  When as an 11-year old he saw Count Basie perform at the World’s Fair on Treasure Island, he was hooked on jazz, and as a teenager he and his friends were influenced also by Duke Ellington’s appearances in San Francisco.  At age 16 he formed a group that Jo Jones arranged to perform in Officer’s Clubs for servicemen in the Pacific theater. After graduating college at San Francisco State, he became a notable jazz figure in the Bay Area in the 1950's and for many years was the house pianist at the leading San Francisco nightclub, the Blackhawk. After lengthy tours of North America, first as Ella Fitzgerald’s accompanist, and then backing Carmen McRae, eventually Wyands moved to New York City in 1959.  He established significant credentials associating with Charles Mingus, and in Gigi Gryce’s working groups.  By the early 1960's, he served in effect as the standing recording pianist for Prestige Records, appearing on seminal albums with the likes of Roy Haynes (“Just Us”), Eric Dolphy, Oliver Nelson (“Straight Ahead”), and Etta Jones (“Don’t Go To Strangers”). In the late 1960's and 1970's Wyands had a long and fruitful association with guitarist Kenny Burrell. Wyands also worked frequently at the West End Café in the jazz revival of the late 1970's, and, with George Kelly, played in the movie “Moscow On The Hudson”. For many decades thereafter, Wyands was a leading figure on the New York scene in nightclubs and concerts.  He appeared on many stellar records with Harold Ashby, Houston Person, Jimmy Cobb, and Etta Jones’s later oeuvre, to name a few.  More significantly, he eventually was able to record a good number of piano trio records as a leader. Richard Wyands died of natural causes on September 25, 2019 at the age of 91.

 

originally broadcast March 20, 2022

Willis Jackson was among the notable cadre of exciting, young, Florida musicians who came of age in the post World War II bebop years.  He got his first major professional break in the Cootie Williams orchestra, with whom he scored his first big record "Gator Tail" in 1949.  Jackson then plied his trade in the rhythm and blues field and married the great singer Ruth Brown, and his sax strongly backs Brown on her early recordings such as "5-10-15 Hours".

After breaking up with Brown, Jackson made his name for many years in the organ-tenor sax groups with the likes of Jack McDuff,  Thereafter, in the classic jazz revival of the 1970's he played strong mainstream jazz in many venues.  He suffered from poor health and died in 1987 at an early age.

 

originally broadcast in 2012

From the 2024 edition of WKCR's annual Billie Holiday special, my shift contains a variety of material, including a segment comparing Billie Holiday's classic small group recordings of the 1930's revisited in Norman Granz productions of the 1950's with Ben Webster, Sweets Edison and others.

Born in 1923 and coming of age in the bebop and hard bop years, as a youth Elmo Hope was friendly with Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk.  Hope was a creative pianist and inventive composer.  He possessed the fleet linear attributes and innovations of bebop.  However, more significant was his compositional outlook, angular and dissonant in the mode of Herbie Nichols or his close friend Monk, yet with a romanticism that tempered the sometimes harshness of that style and stamped his true individualism.  He lived on Lyman Place in the Bronx and nourished the African-American musical community of the borough.  Hope was denied widespread opportunities during his playing days, died young in 1967, and is often overlooked in the jazz history canon. The program will explore his many compositions, as performed in piano-led dates, and we will also highlight notable appearances on classic recordings with the likes of Clifford Brown, Lou Donaldson, Sonny Rollins, Harold Land, Frank Foster, and John Coltrane.

 

originally broadcast July 23, 2023

The popular standards of the Great American Songbook provide the foundational material for the musical improvisations of the jazz repertory.  This program is one of an occasional series we’ve produced focusing on the legendary composers and their jazz interpretations.  Born in New York to Italian immigrant parents in 1893 as Salvatore Guaragna, Harry Warren was a self-taught musician who dropped out of high school to begin performing in the entertainment field.  After stateside service in the Navy during World War I, Warren worked for Vitagraph Films in Brooklyn, and then as a song plugger for publishers and a composer for the stage in Manhattan in the 1920's.  With the advent of sound pictures, Warren was among the first  songwriters to take up residence in Hollywood and compose for the film studios and their classic musicals.  Beginning with “42nd Street”, Warren provided the music for the Warner Brothers Busby Berkeley productions of the 1930's, and then movie projects of 20th Century Fox, MGM  and other studios in the 40's and 50's.  Among his famous, enduring, compositions are There Will Never Be Another You, The More I See You, You’re Getting To Be A Habit With Me, Serenade In Blue, I Only Have Eyes For You, At Last, Jeepers Creepers, Lullaby Of Broadway, September In The Rain, Chattanooga Choo Choo and many more.  The program will put these songs in perspective and play jazz versions with swinging improvisations by instrumentalists ranging from Lester Young and Sonny Rollins to Miles Davis and Eddie Lockjaw Davis, among others, as well as vocalists such as Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Johnny Hartman, Etta Jones and Etta James.  And maybe we’ll throw in The Flamingos, too.

 

originally broadcast in 2017

WKCR presents an annual marathon 24 hour tribute to trumpet virtuoso Clifford Brown on October 30, his birthday anniversary.

Here is my segment from the 2024 edition. It begins with a half hour potpourri of Brown recordings.  That's followed by a detailed survey of Clifford's first commercial jazz records in 1953, when he flowered on the scene in sessions with Lou Donaldson and Elmo Hope; J.J. Johnson; Tadd Dameron; and his first date as a leader for Blue Note in August. Finally, the survey includes material from the famous February 21, 1954 live recording at Birdland with Art Blakey.

Land was best known as the tenor saxophonist in the original Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet.  But his prolific and accomplished career lasted more than four decades thereafter, although never gaining the more widespread fame that he deserved.  Land possessed a firm sound and ingenious creativity on his saxophone and also was an inventive composer. Harold Land was born in Houston, Texas in 1928, and his family moved eventually to San Diego, where he was raised.  As a young man, Land settled in Los Angeles, and he remained a Californian for the rest of his life. When Max Roach was forming what would be his famous group with Clifford Brown, they auditioned several for the saxophone chair, before becoming enamored hearing Harold Land in a jam session at Eric Dolphy’s home.  Land was a key member of the group during its first two years, 1954 and 1955.  With the demanding national touring, missing his home and his family, and needing to care for an ailing relative, Land left the group and returned to LA. (He was replaced by Sonny Rollins, which unfairly overshadowed the critical acclaim and recognition that Land’s historic contributions to the group should have commanded). Once he got settled again, Land became an important figure in the Los Angeles music scene.  In the late 1950'’s he recorded his own albums for Contemporary and other labels, guested with Wes Montgomery and Monk, had a working group with Curtis Counce and also Hampton Hawes and Elmo Hope as associates. Ongoing in his career he worked frequently in Gerald Wilson’s bands and recordings and other West Coast activities, such as with Carmell Jones.  In the late 1960's Land had a provocative working collaboration with vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson.  Later he co-led a group with Blue Mitchell, and also played with the “Timeless All Stars” including Hutcherson and other confreres like Curtis Fuller, Cedar Walton, Buster Williams and Billy Higgins.  Land taught in the fine jazz program at UCLA.  He died of a stroke in 2001 at the age of 72.

 

originally broadcast on June 23, 2024

WKCR presents annual marathon tributes to Louis Armstrong on the 4th of July.  Here’s my segment from the 2023 broadcast, which, in addition to a potpourri of some Satchmo goodies also includes a lengthy set of a mix of his 1957 Verve recordings with Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, and the Russ Garcia orchestra

Buddy DeFranco was one of the greats among the clarinet players in modern jazz.  He possessed a cerebral sophistication and intelligence, which, together with his masterful facility and command of the instrument and great sense of swing, made him one of our jazz giants.  His tone on the clarinet was always warm, woody, and welcoming. Boniface “Buddy” DeFranco was born on February 17, 1923 to a poor Italian-American immigrant family in Camden, New Jersey.  His father, an amateur guitarist, was blind, and earned his living as a piano tuner.  DeFranco was raised in South Philadelphia and attended the legendary vocational Mastbaum music school for formal musical studies.  It also being the Swing Era, teenage Buddy came under the sway of Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw. He began playing professionally in 1939. DeFranco excelled right off the bat playing in the big bands of Charlie Barnet, Tommy Dorsey (think of the force of his clarinet on “Opus No. 1") and Gene Krupa. As bebop took sway, Buddy’s playing was influenced by the artistry of Charlie Parker. DeFranco played in the Bebop style and made progressive recordings with his own bands and those of Boyd Raeburn, among others. DeFranco’s career took another turn, when Count Basie pared down his Big Band and formed his famous Octet in 1950 and 51, DeFranco’s clarinet was a key component.  DeFranco always credits Basie for informing him with a relaxed sense of swing From 1952-1955, DeFranco formed his own working modern jazz quartet, with first Kenny Drew and then Sonny Clark on piano, and Art Blakey and later Bobby White on drums.  This organization toured the country regularly and made many recordings.  Blakey was a major influence, too, infusing power and drive into DeFranco’s conception. DeFranco’s career was multifaceted, taking many turns and continuing for decades more.  He made many “mainstream” records for Norman Granz and Verve; he lived in California for a while playing in Nelson Riddle’s orchestra which backed Frank Sinatra and scored many TV programs like Route 66; in the early ‘60's he had a regular working quartet with accordionist Tommy Gumina (it’s not what you think!).  In later years DeFranco settled in Panama City, Florida.  From that base he toured the world both as a concert performer and as a clinician teaching a new generation .  He had an ongoing association with vibraphonist Terry Gibbs, often making many swinging night club performances and albums during his later years. Buddy was active well into his eighties, and made his final recordings with Mat Domber’s Arbors label.  DeFranco died at the age of 91 in 2014.

originally broadcast February 19, 2023

Carmen McRae should be high on the list in the discussion of the all time great jazz vocalists.  She sang with special concern for the lyrics and performed with pronounced clarity and vision, enhancing the meanings of the songs.  Additionally, McRae had a husky, soulful timbre, another factor that intensified her emotional connections with the listener.  She was an excellent pianist as well, and her musicality informed her artistic grace and command.

 

Carmen McRae was born in a middle class Jamaican immigrant African American family in Harlem on April 8, 1920, and she was raised in Brooklyn.  Her family had high expectations and provided classical piano lessons (although Carmen remembers hiding sheet music of popular songs amongst the scores in her piano bench).

 

Carmen’s first influence was Billie Holiday.  After performing as a teenager in an amateur show at the Apollo Theater, Carmen met composer Irene Kitchings, who was married to Teddy Wilson.  Kitchings introduced Carmen to Billie and encouraged Carmen to write songs.  Carmen wrote “Dream Of Life”, which was recorded by Holiday.

 

Respecting her parents wishes at first, Carmen became an office worker doing clerical jobs, but she began performing in night clubs in the evening.  Eventually her musical career led her to the band of Duke Ellington’s son Mercer in the late 1940's.  After leaving Ellington, McRae settled in Chicago, where a 17 week engagement became 3 and ½ years as an active pianist and singer in the Chicago jazz world, experience which honed her craft.

 

McRae returned to New York in the 1950's and continued her growth working regularly at Minton’s.  Her career flowered with a contract with major label Decca and a series of enduring recordings of great American songs with leading jazz artists.  With Columbia Records in 1961 she made a mark with her tribute album to Billie Holiday.

 

Later in the 1960's McRae moved to Southern California.  At this time she also began gracing her performances with interpretations of contemporary pop songs.  As her career moved on Carmen became a popular and prolific attraction singing around the world.  In the 1980's she made well received albums for the Concord label. Carmen capped her career with her tour de force presentation of lyrical interpretations of Thelonious Monk tunes (who else could have done this?).

 

McRae suffered from respiratory disease in 1991 after which she curtailed her performing.  In 1994 she was awarded the prestigious National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Award.  Sadly, she passed away on November 10, 1994 at the age of 74.

 

Originally broadcast June 25, 2023

Melvin Rhyne is one the greats from the 1950s heyday of the jazz organ, but he is not so widely remembered today.  He should be.

 

Born October 12, 1936 in Indianapolis, he attended the segregated Crispus Attucks High School, which had a legendary music program and nurtured many jazz greats who came of age when Indianapolis had a thriving jazz scene.  Rhyne originally played piano, notably backing Rahsaan Roland Kirk.

 

When Jimmy Smith and other pioneering giants made the Hammond organ a popular jazz instrument, Rhyne picked it up, but he maintained his pianist roots in his approach to the heftier organ sound.

 

Rhyne’s major acclaim was as the organist in the legendary guitarist Wes Montgomery’s original trio.  Beginning in the local Missile Room nightclub in Indianapolis, Wes’s trio became an international sensation and produced a series of records on the Riverside label that are jazz classics – Jingles, Missile Blues, Fried Pies, Movin’ Along, Portrait of Wes, Boss Guitar, and more.

 

Moving on from Wes in the late 1960's, Rhyne began his own career quietly in the Midwest. He eventually settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where he was a leader of the local jazz community as a performer, teacher and mentor.

 

Starting in the 1990's, Rhyne made more touring concert appearances and a series of well-received recordings, mainly on the Criss Cross label.  These efforts regained national, and even worldwide, attention.  In this vein, Rhyne would lead his own bands, some in the organ-guitar-drums trio format, and some with younger generation horn players added to the combo.

 

Rhyne’s organ style didn’t dive deeply into the frantic, hard charging grooves of the B-3.  And he didn’t “pull out all the stops”.  Instead, he played crisp clear lines, could swing in the pocket, and achieved his orchestral backing from his sophisticated manipulation of the keyboard.  While he could, and did, play the soul and funk of the organ sound, his preferred attack included the more complex textures of modern jazz piano, translated to the organ timbres.

 

Mel Rhyne died in 2013 at the age of 76.  Our program will explore the classic records with Wes Montgomery and many delights from his later recordings.

 

Originally broadcast May 14, 2023

Not well known even in his brief lifetime, Ernie Henry was an astonishing musician of grace, style and profound emotion.  Henry came up in the bebop days and was a key member of Dizzy Gillespie's 1948-9 big band, and he also participated in the more lyrical side of bebop with Tadd Dameron, Fats Navarro, Howard McGhee, and Walter "Gil" Fuller. He spent the early fifties with his native Brooklyn beboppers, and as he turned 30 in 1956 he emerged full force on the scene, appearing on Thelonious Monk's “Brilliant Corners”, in Dizzy's famous 1956-7 edition of his big band, and in several virtuoso recordings as a leader on Riverside that seemed primed to send him to future stardom.  Unfortunately, he died in his sleep from various ailments on December 29, 1957 at the age of 31.

Originally broadcast October 22, 2023

A prolific and influential figure on the national jazz scene during the World War Two years, Byas moved to Europe in 1946 and remained an expatriate for the rest of his life.  While he achieved some celebrity on the continent, sadly his absence from the US has left him a somewhat forgotten figure in our music here. Carlos Wesley Byas was born on October 21, 1913 in Muskogee, Oklahoma.  His paternal grandfather was a blacksmith, and his father a jeweler.  His maternal grandfather was a reverend and real estate investor and scion of an educated family.  Young Byas lived a middle class life and attended HBCU Langston University.  There was always music in the house, and Carlos played several instruments before settling on the saxophone. As a teenager, he was already playing professionally, and he teamed often with his fellow Muskogee friend Jay McShann.  They played in various “territory bands” around the Southwest.  While in college, Byas led a band calling himself “Don Carlos and his Collegiate Ramblers”, and the moniker Don stuck.  Byas went to Los Angeles in his early twenties, played with major bands there, and struck up a friendship with Art Tatum.  Eventually he moved to New York City in 1939, and became a fixture in the vital scene here. Major highlights of his career include a stint with Andy Kirk and a relationship with Mary Lou Williams; being hired by Count Basie from 1941-43 to replace Lester Young when Prez left; participating in the revolutionary jam session scene at Minton’s; performing with all the greats such as Coleman Hawkins and Dizzy Gillespie and influencing a young Charlie Parker (Byas participated in many of the seminal bebop recordings); and an amazingly fertile output leading dozens of record dates and appearances on 52nd Street New York clubs from 1944-1946. Then he left it behind to take up residence overseas. Byas had a productive career in Europe settling first in Paris and then in Amsterdam and raised a family there.  He died of cancer in 1972 at the age of 59. Byas had an inventive harmonic sense stemming from the lessons absorbed from Tatum and a powerful, roaring attack to go with it.  At the same time he possessed an absolutely luscious tone and was a ballad master.  The bluesy southwestern swing background also informed his playing with a tasty, down to earth flavor.  While he came up together with the beboppers he can’t be said to be one, yet integrated their ideas as well. Other saxophonists from Bird to Johnny Griffin to Sonny Stitt have said that he was the best.  Hear for yourself and see if they’re right.

Initially broadcast January 14, 2024

Vocalist Beverly Kenney is one of the hidden gems in the treasured vaults of the jazz vocal legacy.  She lived a short life and is not well-remembered, but for those who knew her, musician and audience alike, the impact was lasting. Like a “cool school” saxophonist, Kenney sang with a laid-back detachment that on its surface presented a seemingly distanced and indifferent affect, yet her form possessed an inner reality intensely connected to the lyrics of the song and the deep emotions of artistic expression.  In a gentle way she swung in the pocket and took sly liberties with her phrasing that exemplify the best in jazz.  Her repertoire was vast, and Kenney sang both the great standards and many lesser known items from the great American songwriters. Beverly Kenney was born in a working class family in New Jersey January 29, 1932 but left home early to follow her muse.  Kenney began her career in earnest singing in fancy Miami nightclubs as a 22 year old in 1954.  In 1955 she toured with the Dorsey Brothers orchestra as its vocal stylist.  Beverly left the Dorseys and returned to New York to participate in the jazz and beatnik culture scene and befriend its writers, actors and musicians.  She sang in gigs with many jazz greats, had several featured appearances at Birdland, and was well enough known to be included in the all star gala “Jazz For Israel” concert at Carnegie Hall October 15, 1955.*   Starting in 1956, Kenney recorded six albums (three for the Roost label, and then three for major Decca) accompanied by Basie-ites Joe Newman and Frank Wess, guitar master Johnny Smith, Charlie Shavers, pianist Ellis Larkins, and studio orchestras and big bands. During these late 1950's years she worked occasionally at major venues around the country, appeared together as part of Lester Young’s group in a Birdland engagement, and performed on national television and radio shows. Kenney’s talents were quickly recognized by the critics, and she was championed by Barry Ulanov, Nat Hentoff, William B. Williams and Steve Allen. However, Beverly Kenney apparently was a melancholy and troubled soul.  It ended tragically when she committed suicide in April 1960 at the age of 28. A promising career was cut short.  Yet, many insiders and vocalists from the era long remember her and often comment on her unique talents. Her small surviving oeuvre (the six LPs, esoteric and out of print except in obscure foreign re-issues, plus some even rarer odds and ends) will barely fit into the three hour program.   Initially broadcast 2020

Buck Clayton was a leading trumpeter and arranger of the swing era.

Coming of age in the Southwestern Jazz Styles, Clayton moved to Los Angeles as a young man and made his name in the California Jazz circles.  In 1934, he assembled a band that moved to Shanghai, China, and brought American Jazz to the Orient. Escaping Shanghai just before the Japanese invasion, Clayton returned to the US and landed in Kansas City, where he joined the nascent Count Basie orchestra.  Clayton served as the lead trumpet soloist (and arranger) in the classic original Count Basie band, and also joined Billie Holiday for her great early recordings.

Drafted during World War II, Clayton did not serve overseas, but was stationed on army bases in New Jersey.  From that perch, he participated in the NY 52nd Street scene and was a major part of the small group swing bands.  In the 1950's and 1960's, he toured the US and France with Jazz At The Philharmonic and others, and made key recordings of "Mainstream Jazz".

Although physical lip troubles curtailed his trumpet playing, Buck continued his career as a composer and arranger, until his death on 1991.

This program was originally aired on May 22, 2011.  It celebrated Buck's centennial that year, as he was born November 12, 1911 in Parsons, Kansas.

WKCR presents annual marathon broadcasts to celebrate the October 10 birthday anniversary of Thelonious Monk. 

Here's my segment form the 2024 edition.  It begins with selections from Monk's appearances as a "sideman" on sessions with Clark Terry, Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, and Sonny Rollins. Next is a lengthy survey of Monk's recordings for the Blue Note label from 1947-1952, his first record contract and an opportunity to proudly display the initial conceptions of his now legendary original compositions.

WKCR presents a marathon broadcast celebrating Max Roach annually, on his birthday anniversary, January 10.

Here's my segment from the 2022 program. The major portion of this episode samples recordings from Debut Records, the independent label owned by Roach and Charles Mingus, and includes material ranging from some esoteric ensembles to the legendary Massey Hall Concert.

George Wallington was one of the legendary pianists of the bebop era but never achieved great fame.  With his early retirement from a musical career, he remains a more obscure figure in jazz history and lore.  However, he was an especially swinging pianist and inventive composer who deserves continued attention.

 Born Giacinto Figlia in Sicily in 1924 (some sources date his birth a little earlier) his family moved to New York when he was an infant, and his father was an opera singer who exposed him to classical music.  But when George heard Lester Young and the Count Basie orchestra as a young teen, he was smitten with the expressive and emotional power of jazz.  He started playing professionally in New York nightclubs as a youth, using the stage name Wallington (taken from a nickname) and befriended fellow teen musicians such as Max Roach.

 Wallington was hired by Dizzy Gillespie to play (along with Roach and Oscar Pettiford) in his innovative early bebop band at the Onyx Club in late 1943 and 1944, a seminal event in jazz history.  Thereafter, Wallington became a figure on the 52nd Street scene along with Bird, Diz, Miles Davis and all the audacious young jazz musicians of the time.  His tunes “Lemon Drop” and “Godchild” became famous bebop anthems popularized in recordings by others.

 After appearing as a sideman on several records by the likes of Gerry Mulligan, Kai Winding, and Al Cohn, by 1949 Wallington began recording as leader.  These albums, especially piano trios playing both his cerebral original compositions and swinging treatments of the American popular song, accompanied by greats such as Roach, Charles Mingus and Curly Russell, remain stunning to listen to and serve as testaments of his musical stature.

 Wallington was in the famous Lionel Hampton band of young turks that toured Europe in 1953.  Later in the 1950's he led jazz combos on the New York scene, including working groups with Jackie McLean, Paul Chambers and Art Taylor, and notably a long running popular band that featured the horns of Donald Byrd and Phil Woods.

 But it was at this point that he left music and started a successful air conditioning business with his brother (Figlia & Sons).  Wallington returned to jazz for occasional brief appearances at concerts in the 1980's, and he passed away in 1993.

originally broadcast January 15, 2017

Vocalist Lorez Alexandria was a great interpreter of jazz and American popular song.  She sang with deeply felt presentation of the lyrics and a style of improvisational freedom and swing.  While originally from the church and informed by that soul, she was not a “shouter” or gospel singer.  Some records, like her hit version of “Baltimore Oriole”, employed exotic touches, and others had scat interludes.  Like the best instrumental soloists, Lorez communicated with the listener and told her song’s story.  Not overly famous during her lifetime, she is certainly not well-remembered today.  But she deserves to be. Lorez Alexandria (a nickname for Delores Alexandria Turner) was born August 14, 1929 in Chicago, and raised in that city.  She sang with family members in church groups and traveling a capella gospel choirs. It is said that her choir once performed for President Truman. As an adult she turned to a professional career in popular song and jazz, and in the 1950's Alexandria was a leading performer in Chicago nightclubs, often in the groups of pianist King Fleming.  She also performed with Ramsey Lewis, John Young, and other leading Windy City jazz musicians.  In the late 1950's and early 1960's she made seven albums for local independent labels King and Argo which stand up today as classics that should be known (and will be played in depth on our program). In 1962 Alexandria moved to Los Angeles and remained in that city the rest of her life.  In 1964 she made two albums for Impulse with Wynton Kelly but mostly remained beneath the major radar. Over the years she recorded with small California labels, not so widely distributed, although one was nominated for a Grammy award.   In the late 1980's she began a relationship with the more nationally known Muse Records which helped invigorate her reputation.. However, in 1993 Alexandria suffered a stroke and gradually retired from the music business.  She died of kidney disease in 2001.

 

originally broadcast January 12, 2020

Sid Gribetz features Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers “From Moanin’ To Kyoto”. 

Art Blakey is the dynamic drummer and band leader who nurtured many young jazz stars and inculcated the “hard bop” sound in the groups he organized over the many decades of his career until his death in 1990.

Even in a five hour program, we will have time to focus only on a limited aspect of Blakey’s prolific career. Thus, we’ve chosen to explore a period of golden flowering of the ensemble, starting with the arrival in 1958 of Benny Golson. Golson organized matters and brought fellow Philadelphians Lee Morgan, Bobby Timmons and Jymie Merritt into the fold; instilled their repertoire with his sophisticated compositions (and Timmons’s, too); and thereby took the Messengers to the “next level”.

In the fall of 1958, the group recorded its seminal Blue Note album “Moanin’” and then embarked on an extended European tour which put it on a broader map.

Golson would soon leave, eventually to be replaced in the tenor saxophone chair by Wayne Shorter. Shorter and Morgan, with their crackling and crisp virtuosity as soloists, and lyrical song writing and ensemble playing, set another high bar for the Jazz Messengers style.

Morgan would depart in 1961 to be replaced by Freddie Hubbard; trombonist Curtis Fuller would be added to make the group a sextet; and Cedar Walton would come on board to take the piano bench. All would contribute their original compositions to the band’s “book”, songs that are now part of the established modern jazz repertory. Additionally, the Jazz Messenger sound turned on their innovative arrangements and creative solos that infused popular standards with fresh, new meaning.

Blakey toured Japan to an ecstatic response in January 1961, and returned frequently thereafter. From these trips, he assimilated a Japanese flavor into songs such as Ugetsu, On The Ginza, and Kyoto adding to the scope of the presentation.

Thus, I’m entitling the show “From Moanin’ to Kyoto”, as the program will feature classic recordings of Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in this fertile period – late 1958 through 1964 (when “Kyoto”, the last of their Riverside albums, was made).

originally broadcast February 18, 2018

WKCR has a long standing tradition of celebrating Roy Eldridge, “Little Jazz”, with a marathon 24-hour broadcast tribute every year on the trumpet giant's birthday anniversary, January 30.

Here’s my shift from the 2024 edition.  Three and a half hours, comprised of individual segments highlighting Roy’s associations with Oscar Peterson, Mildred Bailey, Tiny Grimes, Billie Holiday, Artie Shaw, Gene Krupa, and the Newport Rebels.