New Ears and the New Jazz of the 1950's

One of the fascinating aspects of the "new" jazz music of the mid-late 1950's. was the background of its creators. Three spent formative years in rhythm and Blues bands: Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry and Billy Higgins. Charlie Haden came from a folk-country background. Cecil Taylor was immersed in contemporary classical music. Steve Lacy and Roswell Rudd were "Dixieland" players. Henry Grimes studied classical and played R&B gigs. Dennis Charles came from traditional Caribbean music.

The Bebop language had so taken hold that subsequent 1950's jazz styles were deeply in its debt[all these names could have quotation marks around them]: Cool, West Coast, the Tristano school, Hard Bop, Chamber jazz, Soul Jazz. 

Questions present themselves: Was it easier for these players to make the dramatic musical leap they did because they were less in thrall to bop? If so, why? One thing strikes me-the language of bop is so rich and deep that it can simply be addictive. Once you're inside it, it's easy to become obsessed with exploring it.

An Hour with Smiling Billy Higgins

On the Duplex Mystery Jazz Hour of 10.12.17, I played music of drummer Billy Higgins. He was a joy to watch, as he really seemed to love every minute of it. He was not a bombastic drummer, simply an inspirational one.

LISTEN HERE

PLAYLIST

Ornette Coleman "Ramblin'" from "Change of the Century" 1960 on Atlantic

Cal Tjader & Stan Getz Sextet "Crow's Nest" from "Cal Tjader & Stan Getz Sextet"1958 on Fantasy

Billy Higgins with the Teddy Edwards Quartet "Me and My Lover" from "Sunset Eyes" 1960 on Pacific Jazz

John Coltrane "Simple Like"[later called Like Sonny] from "Simple Like" 1962 on Roulette

Thelonious Monk "Let's Call This" from "Thelonious Monk at the Blackhawk" 1960 on Riverside

Steve Lacy with Don Cherry "Evidence" from "Evidence" 1962 on New Jazz

Lee Morgan "You Go To My Head" from "The Gigolo" 1965 on Blue Note

Bobby Hutcherson "Blues Mind Matter" from "Stick-Up!" 1966 on Blue Note

Andrew Hill "Black Sabbath" from "Dance With Death" 1968 on Blue Note

Bob Dylan and the Jazz Avant-Garde

Bob Dylan performed at the 80th Sinatra birthday tribute in 1995. In 2004, he joined forces with Wynton Marsalis at a benefit concert for Jazz at Lincoln Center and his 2015 release, Shadows in the Night was, let's say, jazz-informed, but early on in his career, Dylan had truck with edgier jazz folk.

While not on the level of finding the lost Buddy Bolden cylinder, it would be interesting to hear a recording of Bob Dylan and Cecil Taylor when they jammed on The Water is Wide in the early 1960's. Dylan mentions this session in his Chronicles, Vol 1 and adds: "Cecil could play regular piano if he wanted to." Note that Tom Wilson, Dylan's producer at this time, produced Cecil Taylor's first LP, Jazz Advance. 

Cecil Taylor

Bob and Tom Wilson

Here's the tune in a 1975 incarnation, with Dylan and Joan Baez.

Dylan says he also jammed with Ornette Coleman associates drummer Billy Higgins and trumpeter Don Cherry. No specific tunes are mentioned.

                                          
Listen to the group and imagine what you will.

These musical intersections happened, says Dylan: "...at a creepy...little coffeehouse on Bleeker Street near Thompson run by a character called the Dutchman." I'm surmising it was the Cafe Rafio, at 165 Bleecker. 

Dylan also says that he crashed a Thelonius Monk rehearsal where he told Monk that he played folk music. Monk's reply: "We all play folk music."

Thanks to Elijah Wald for passing on much of the info in this post. Be on the lookout for Elijah's book on the 50th anniversary of Dylan going electric at Newport. It's due out in a couple of weeks. Go here for info.

 

Coltrane and the Jazz Fracture-by Steve Provizer

Tom, one of our commentors, speculates about Coltrane's contribution to the fracturing of the jazz audience and the concomitant loss of jazz audience in the early 1960's. This fracturing was certainly underway before the early 60's; chiefly through Ornette and somewhat via Cecil Taylor and Dolphy, but for several reasons-and for better or worse- Coltrane was most responsible for this process. I would lay a few shekels on the notion that this era gave birth to the jazz expression: "You gotta be able to go inside the house before you can go outside." If the adage did exist, I'd say it alluded to being able to play the blues-not to the bop/free dichotomy. But whether or not the phrase was newly coined, it was in the air. And, of all those playing "free jazz" or "the New Thing," if you will, Coltrane was the only one who had obviously negotiated that transition (for the moment, let's suspend the large discussion that could be devoted to Dolphy and chord changes). Another factor is that, while he was pressing on the "outside," Coltrane continued to make "inside" melodic music: the Johnny Hartman and Ellington records, recording "Someday My Prince Will Come" with Miles; even as late as 1964's "Crescent." It's reasonable to think that listeners who loved 'old' Trane would be willing to expend some energy trying to follow and find the musical value in his new directions. This may have led some to a kind of limbo; possibly the place where our friend Tom found himself. The point I tried to make in Coltrane on Coltrane is that he basically just went about his (extraordinary) business. He talked about trying to be in tune with the Creator, but never proselytized; never tried to elevate his status as a "spiritual" person. Others, however, took him up for their cause; ridiculous in the case of people with political agendas (c.f. the Frank Kofsky interview); understandable in the case of people with a spiritual bent. Secular music-jazz-always had a bit of a shaky spiritual relationship with the culture at large. Coltrane changed that. His highly credible musical history, his nearly universal acceptance by other musicians, the widespread perception of him as an exemplary character and his early death, made him the exemplar of this change. In 1965, some thought you couldn't successfully pull the spiritual thread out of the jazz skein any more than you could the rhythm thread or the harmony thread. Others thought the most important thread was being given the primacy it deserves. This difference in perception continues.