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

Joe Gordon and Confreres

On the 4.11.17 edition of the DuPlex Mystery Jazz Hour, WZBC, guest Dick Vacca and I took a look at the work and life of trumpeter Joe Gordon. We seeded the program with the work of some of his influences, as you will see by the discography.

LISTEN HERE

DISCOGRAPHY

Charlie Parker "Scrapple from the Apple" from "Boston 1952" on Uptown

Joe Gordon "Lady Bob" from "Joe Gordon: Early Sessions" 1954 on Fresh Sounds

Fats Navarro "Barry's Bop" from "Vol. 2 Nostalgia" 1947 on BYG

Joe Gordon & Scott LaFaro "Evening Lights" from "Joe Gordon Early Sessions" 1954 on Fresh Sounds

Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie "Trumpet Blues" from "Roy and Diz" 1954 on Verve

Horace Silver "Shoutin Out" from "Silver's Blue" 1956 on Cbs

Dizzy Gillespie Big Band "A Night in Tunisia" from "Birks Works" 1956 on Verve

Clifford Brown "Stockholm Sweetnin" from "Metronome and Vogue Masters" 1953 on Definitive

Herb Pomeroy Big Band "Feather Merchant" from "Life is a Many Splendored Gig" 1957 on Fresh Sounds

Herb Pomeroy Big Band "Less Talk" from "Life is a Many Splendored Gig" 1957 on Fresh Sounds

Lambert Hendricks and Ross "Centerpiece" from "Hottest New Group in Jazz" 1960 on Columbia

Shelly Manne and His Men "Nightingale" from "Live At the Black Hawk" 1959) on ‪Contemporary‬

Thelonius Monk "Four In One" from "T. Monk at the Black Hawk"1960 on Ojc

Kenny Dorham "The Prophet" from "Live at the Cafe Bohemia Vol2" 1956 on Blue Note

Harold Land "Don't Explain" from "West Coast Blues" 1956 on OJCCD

Joe Gordon "Non-Vienese Waltz Blues" from "Lookin' Good!" 1961 on ‪Contemporary‬

Blue Mitchell "I'll Close My Eyes"  from Blues Moods, 1960 on Riverside

Joe Gordon "Mariana" from "Lookin' Good!" 1961 on ‪Contemporary‬

Jimmy Woods "Anticipation" from "The Awakening" 1961 on ‪Contemporary‬

1950's Trumpets #3: Joe Gordon

Joe's one of our (Boston) boys. His career exemplified some of the larger themes of 50's trumpet playing: an early start, bop influence, big band experience, adaptability in various musical situations and on the down side: heroin addiction and early death.

Born 5/15/28, Gordon got early exposure to classical music through his mother, an amateur singer. He heard the Basie band, then a Coleman Hawkins/Don Byas group when he was a teen and signed on for a class in "modern music" at the New England Conservatory.

In his late teens, he worked on the railroads as a sandwich boy and jammed at various stops during layovers. His first formal gig was in 1947 with vibes player Pete Diggs in Akron(Pete Diggs?). 

Boston's main man Sabby Lewis heard Joe in Boston and invited him into his big band. Joe's name got out there and in 1951 he played his first recording session with Boston alto player Charlie Mariano. Though it's tempting, I won't play "Tzoris" ("Pack Up Your Troubles in an old Kit Bag").  I'll play the title track, "Boston Uncommon." Personnel is: Charlie Mariano (as), Jim Clark (ts), George Myers (bar), Joe Gordon (t), Sonny Truitt (tb), Roy Frazee (p), Jack Lawlor (b), Gene Glennon (d)

It's a nice arrangement, right out of Birth of the Cool and the sound developing simultaneously on the West Coast. Gordon's solo is well-articulated and constructed, with nice little vibrato flourishes at the end of some phrases.

"Coleman Hawkins: Sonic Gravitas and Bop" by Steve Provizer

A nice comment on my last post cited Coleman Hawkins as prime example of a musician who throughout his life sought new musical input. But, unlike the dramatic musical changes made by Coltrane, Byrd and Miles, Hawkins' playing changed less than the musical context did. He challenged himself by putting himself in situations more "modern" than the one in which he first reached musical maturity, but what he played changed only subtly.

And, while Miles, Trane and Byrd drastically changed their sound, either through mutes, electronics or overblowing, the particular quality of Hawkins' sound-its weight, timbre and vibratto-continued to project classic swing-era Hawkins, making it that much harder for us to hear the way he assimilated new influences into his playing. Our ears are so much drawn to that sound. The effect Hawkins' tone had of drawing the listener into the past became more and more pronounced as Lester Young's lighter tone began to dominate, then Rollins' and Coltrane's-closer to Hawkins, but with much less vibratto.

We'll listen to a few representative Hawkins recordings and try to gain some insight into how the process unfolded.

As a basis for comparison, we won't start with the earliest stuff from the 1920's, but from this recording, made in Paris in 1935, which shows us the basic, mature Hawkins. He's still a few years away from his 1939 Body and Soul triumph, which I won't post here, as it's so well known, but which you can easily find.

"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.