Review: The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums

Will Friedwald has written a nice fat, fact-laden book, closely analyzing each song on the 51 albums he's chosen. Comparing his responses to one's own is interesting, but what really makes this book valuable is the extensive context he provides for each album.

Friedwald has been operating in the world of jazz and pop vocals for a long time and gives the reader insider history. He looks at where the album fits in the career path of the artist, how the arrangers-and often the musicians-ended up working on the project, background on the composers of the tunes, the dope on the record label people who decided to back the project and comparisons with other recordings of the song; an extensive historical framework for the albums.

There's a lot of dish-you'll learn how Peggy Lee's alcoholic husband figured into the making of "Black Coffee." But more interestingly, some of the broad conclusions he draws are absolutely new and spot on-Sinatra did show that songs taken in swinging tempos could also be sexy and romantic; tragic divas are given more serious consideration; the use of verses were probably eschewed in the swing era because they tended to be rubato (not in tempo) and therefore not danceable.

If you already know the music, it's interesting to compare his responses to your own, but if you're not, his prose reads well enough that it can be enjoyed on its own. In any case, all this analysis is an excellent goad to check out the music you don't know-for personal discovery purposes and to reality check Friedwald's take. For example:

I was not familiar with Carmen McRae's album Live at the Dug and checking it out was a pleasure. On the other hand...Here's what he says about her version of "I Could Have told You": "When she sings 'making promises he'll never keep,' instead of stretching the last word the way you might expect, she cuts it off shortly, and follows it with a few minor notes for emphasis-as if to literally illustrate the sound of a promise unkept." I then listened to the tune. She repeats that line a couple of times in the song and I don't know what Friedwald means by "cutting it off," but in fact, both times she holds out the note for several beats. It seems as though he thought he had a nice metaphorical point and stretched the musical facts to fit. Although I disagreed with this and some of his other evaluations and choice of artists (Tiny Tim the most obvious example), I found the process pretty fascinating. 

And yes, I do have a laundry list of bones to pick:
p.14 Was Astaire a "high baritone"? Can it be said that the Armstrong and Astaire Verve records "couldn't have been made without him[Oscar Peterson]?" Was Peterson always up to the task? For sure, but... 
p.25 What does a "coarse groove" 78 mean?
p.78 Harry Edison's "beeping trumpet"? A phrase used several times.
p.82 In the 30's and 40's, there was really no generation gap and everyone listened to Bing?
p.85 Was it really "every man for himself" in the 1920's, without any arrangements?
p.122 I think you DO need big chops to put over "Midnight Sun."
p.134 Scatting at its best is a minor annoyance?
p.194 Loesser's "cryptic, almost indecipherable line"? Well, Sheep's Eye is a gin produced by the Lickerish Tooth company. 
p.197 L, H&R were NOT the only ones doing what they did. There was the Blue Stars of Paris and the Double Six of Paris. And, you don't talk about the great "Every Tub" in your Sing a Song of Basie coverage.
p. 201 A trumpet mute "attaches to the bell"?
p.234 Carmen McRae DOES sound like herself.
p.268 Miles never played "Bye Bye Blackbird" at a "slow crawl."
p.314  Venuti was "by far the greatest soloist" on violin? Only if you restrict it to the 20's.
p.385 Ruby Braff was a cornetist, not a trumpettist.

But really, these are minor quibbles. If you're into vocals, check this book out.

"Monk's Moods; a Look at Robin Kelley's Bio" by Stephen Provizer

Robin Kelley's massive bio Monk has been widely reviewed and justifiably praised. Monk's musical history is exhaustively researched and definitively outlined. Kelley's chapter on the early days of bop at Minton's and Monroe's is the clearest explanation of that confusing scene I've ever read.

But, when I read biographies, what most interests me is the interplay-the dissonances and congruences-between the art and the artist. The way this is undertaken determines where a biography is placed on the hagiography-to-'gotcha' spectrum.

In his Acknowledgments, Robin Kelley says he "did not want to write an authorized biography" and that Monk's son Toot, "...only asked me to do two things: 'Dig deep and tell the truth.' This is no small task, as Thelonious Monk may be the most enigmatic jazz hero of all. Kelley presents us with a ton of facts. It's up to the reader to decide whether or not we've been told "the truth."

Kelley's decisions about what to put in and what to leave out, what to emphasize and what to soft-peddle, play out palpably throughout the book. There seems to be no doubt that Monk was both a seer and a pain in the ass. He was a visionary and an egotist; a doting father and an absent one; a hard worker who turned it off when he felt slighted; a boss who said he "never fired anyone," but often replaced band members on short notice.

The story of Monk's drugs and alcohol use is often alluded to, but not deeply explored. This is an important omission, as much of what we think about Monk hangs on his biochemistry. I.e., when did he begin to get in the thrall of bi-polar-ism? To what extent are the episodes described caused by personal chemistry? Drugs? Some combination of the two? How much control might he have exerted over his drug and alcohol intake? Kelley tilts the moral ambiguity in favor of Monk, as one might emphasize a deceased uncle's intelligence over his biting sarcasm.

Kelley's failure to go more deeply into the "personal responsibility" aspect of the story is reflected in another way. Much is said to denigrate the media or other people's take on Monk as naive or child-like. But Kelley often purveys Monk as someone who is unaware that his odd behavior might make people think he's odd. On the other hand, Kelley often takes pains to tell us how aware Monk is of his surroundings and circumstances.

A biography may provide a means of self-reflection that can help us gain insight into ourselves. After all, deciding whether a book such as this tells "the truth" is less about facts than the reader's personal morality. But here, you get a bit of the same feeling you get with "embedded" war reporting. Living, eating, sleeping and facing bullets together affects what you choose to put in and leave out.

In this book, Robin Kelley has given us an amazing story, but we may need a slightly more detached scholar to help us through the dense psychic thicket that was Thelonious Monk.