A Night at Birdland: February 21, 1954

In 1954, February 21st fell on a Sunday.  

In that morning’s New York Times you might have been amused by a little article on Atlantic City boardwalk chairs by Gay Talese. (He was then working as a copy boy at the Times.) 

By 1954, you probably owned a black-and-white television. In April, RCA would launch its first color model. If you stayed home that evening, you could have seen Lucille Ball play mystery guest on What’s My Line?, which had premiered on CBS only a few weeks earlier. Or you could have bought a ticket to see her surprise hit comedy, The Long, Long Trailer, which had opened a few days earlier.   

If you were au courant, you knew the war against polio would accelerate that Tuesday in Pittsburgh, where children would be vaccinated en masse, thanks to Dr. Jonas Salk and his colleagues. And, as in our time, Egypt was in the news with Gamal Abdel Nasser’s grabbing the helm of state two days later.

The same week What’s My Line? hit the airwaves, President Eisenhower used them to warn against American intervention in Vietnam—after authorizing $385 million to fight communists there (on top of the $400 million already committed).

To put those millions in perspective: gas was 29 cents a gallon; a loaf of bread, 17 cents; a stamp, 3.  The average working stiff grossed $4,700 a year, putting that thousand-dollar color TV out of reach for most.

BUT . . .

If you loved jazz, then for the cost of a few drinks you could have witnessed heaven on earth at Birdland, Hard Bop’s Bethlehem,  “The Jazz Corner of the World.” For an equivalent amount today, you can download the tracks that Alfred Lion produced and Rudy Van Gelder so expertly recorded there that night, which practically put you at a table down in that Broadway & 52nd Street basement. (Yes, you can find heaven in a basement.)

For February 21, 1954 was the night The Art Blakey Quintet (or, "Art Blakey and His All Stars," as Birdland's M.C. Pee Wee Marquette announced) recorded what became A Night at Birdland, Volumes 1 and 2 (Blue Note 1521 and 1522).

VOLUME 1

1. Split Kick (Silver)
2. Once In A While (Green-Edwards)
3. Quicksilver (Silver)
4. Wee-Dot (Johnson-Parker)
5. Blues (Traditional)
6. A Night In Tunisia (Gillespie-Paparelli)
7. Mayreh (Silver)


VOLUME 2


1. Wee-Dot (Johnson-Parker)
2. If I Had You (Shapiro-Campbell)
3. Quicksilver (Silver)
4. The Way You Look Tonight (Kern-Fields)
5. Lou's Blues (Donaldson)
6. Now's The Time (Parker)
7. Confirmation (Parker)

In his distinctive delivery, the M.C. appeals to the audience's vanity: their applause will be part of the recording session and then announces the line-up:

". . . the great Art Blakey, and his wonderful group, the new trumpet sensation, Clifford Brown, Horace Silver on piano, Lou Donaldson on alto, Curly Russell on bass."  

Marquette does not announce them as "The Jazz Messengers," even though Blakey had used "Messengers" on and off for the title of his various groups since 1947 (e.g., "The Seventeen Messengers," reflecting Blakey's conversion to Islam). The album covers refer simply to "Art Blakey Quintet." They become "The Jazz Messengers" regularly after Hank Mobley joins the group later that year, and "Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers" permanently after co-leader Horace Silver leaves in 1958.

(Stephen Schwartz and Michael Fitzgerald's virtually complete discography of Blakey and his ensembles is enhanced by many excerpts from interviews with him, so I encourage you to explore their site.)

In the interest of accuracy, we should remember the joint leadership of Blakey and Silver who (unlike Blakey) contributed many songs to the band's book. Indeed, in 1955 the group was known as "Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers," and it recorded under that very name.  

Horace Silver is indisputably a father of hard bop. Or, as he dubs himself, "The Hardbop Grandpop."

Some of the stand-out tunes: "Split Kick" (a contrafact of Harry Warren's "There Will Never Be Another You"); two versions of Michael Edwards' "Once in a While"; two of Horace Silver's breakneck "Quicksilver" (which recalls, and rivals in inventiveness, Bird's most distinctive compositions); Dizzy Gillespie's "A Night in Tunisia" that could make me forget Blakey's 1960 studio version featuring Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter, Bobby Timmons, and Jymie Merritt. (I am ashamed to admit that I have not yet encountered the recording of the 1957 line-up that tackled that classic:  Jackie McLean, Johnny Griffin, Bill Hardman, Sam Dockery, and Spanky DeBrest. Both albums are titled, A Night in Tunisia.)

Two versions of a J. J. Johnson' and Leo Parker's fast blues, "Wee Dot," surround "Mayreh," another Silver bebopper. The featuring of two of Charlie Parker's signature tunes, "Confirmation" and "Now's the Time," nearly a decade after they heralded the birth of bop, shows Bird's continuing influence over the next generation.

The longest track (10:15) belongs to Jerome Kern's "The Way You Look Tonight," Oscar winner for Best Original Song (Fred Astaire crooned it to Ginger Rogers in Swing Time in 1936). It is exemplary of how the jazz improviser can mine and refine hitherto undiscovered harmonic and melodic possibilities of popular music. In his solo Lou Donaldson (born 1926), throws in the proverbial kitchen sink, including a taste of Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee" (just as his idol Bird, on that very stage three years earlier, interpolated the opening of Igor Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, to its composer's delight, into his solo on "Ko-Ko"). 

After finishing "Now's the Time" (vol. 2, track 3), Blakey with his crisp, resonant voice, acknowledges to his audience 

"that I'm working now, and I hope forever, with the greatest musicians in the country today. That includes Horace Silver, Curly Russell, Lou Donaldson, and Clifford Brown. Let's give them a big round of applause! Yes sir, I'm gonna stay with the youngsters, and when these get too old I'm gonna get some younger ones. Keeps the mind active."

Of this stellar outfit, only Donaldson and Silver (born 1928) are still with us. (When I was being introduced to jazz in the early '70s, these two gentlemen had taken their music in a direction that didn't interest me, and so their improvisational and compositional gifts on so many historic recordings stayed below my radar for too many years. May no one reading this make that mistake.) A car accident took Brownie's life in June of 1956, and Blakey himself passed away in 1990. Bebop bass pioneer Dillon "Curly" Russell (1917-1986) had left music altogether by 1960. (Miles Davis' bop classic "Donna Lee" was named after his daughter.)

Hard bop expert Eric B. Olsen (who compiled the discography for Silver's autobiography Let's Get to the Nitty Gritty) does not list A Night at Birdland in his list of 100 Hard Bop albums which he lists chronologically. If he had, that session -- one of the first "live" recordings of jazz -- would have been listed third. Perhaps that's because while the players are all budding hard boppers, the music they made that night is bebop. There's no hint of gospel or rhythm & blues, elements that set that stage of jazz's evolution off from its predecessor. Listen to two other double-album sets by Blakey and the Messengers recorded six years later in the same club: At the Jazz Corner of the World and Meet You at the Jazz Corner of the World. It's Bebop-Plus.

No, A Night at Birdland isn't hard bop. But anyone, 57 years ago tonight, who wanted to see and hear its progenitors would have had to skip What's My Line? and make their way to Broadway & 52nd.  A lucky few did, and as Pee Wee Marquette promised, their applause was immortalized on wax along with the searing sonorities they cheered.

Art Blakey: 1919-1990, Jazz Dispatcher

For more than 35 years, from the mid-50s to his death in 1990, Art Blakey gathered around him the finest musicians in the post-Bebop era and crystallized a new sound, that of The Jazz Messengers. 

Art Blakey w/Messengers Benny Golson, Bobby Timmons, Lee Morgan and Jymie Merritt.

Zurich, 1958.  From Newstalgia.



There were previous incarnations of this idea, one of a rehearsal band called The Seventeen Messengers, the key term evocative of Blakey's conversion to Islam in the late '40s. The moving parade of stellar personnel over the years revealed Blakey to have been The Jazz Dispatcher.

Since to reproduce here the list of the messengers he dispatched to the four corners, and his discography, might shift focus away from him, I direct you to this page where Steve Schwartz and Michael Fitzgerald have laid it all out.  Wikipedia's shorter version is here.  JazzDisco.org's Blakey page is also essential.  (My desert-island album picks? A Night in Tunisia, Mosaic, Free for All, and all three volumes of A Night at Birdland, which features the pantheon of Horace Silver, Lou Donaldson, and Clifford Brown along with Curly Russell on bass.)

There was, of course, Blakey's drumming, which seemed to announce the opening of Heaven's Gate:
 



Jazz has been blessed with many great drummers.  Art Blakey, however, was unique: one cannot imagine the history of Jazz over the last sixty years without his eagle eye for talent; his ability to motivate them to reach their potential; leadership skills that turned a half a dozen of them at a time into musically cohesive working units (and entrepreneurial foresight to keep them working!); and "tough love" that made room for new blood when it was "time," often regardless of whether the musician on the receiving end of the news agreed with the timing.  The Jazz Messengers never were, thank God, a "nostalgia band."  They were more like an Academy of Hard Bop, of which Blakey was the Dean.

Having worked with many of the giants of Swing and Bebop, including Fletcher Henderson, Mary Lou Williams, Billy Eckstine, Thelonious Monk, and Charlie Parker, Blakey was the conduit of that legacy to every young person who came under his wing, including Benny Golson, Curtis Fuller, Wayne Shorter, Cedar Walton, and Valery Ponomarev, all of whom create music to this day.  (Ponomarev cleverly pays tribute to his former boss by calling his big band "Our Father Who Art Blakey.")  Blakey personally represented to them living tradition while spearheading the movement that made Hard Bop, not an acquired taste as it is today, but one form of Black popular music. (David Rosenthal's Hard Bop: Jazz and Black Music, 1955-1965 tells the story.) 

One night in the mid-'70s I found myself standing in front of Art Blakey inside The Village Gate.  Having just finished a set, he was listening to two other musicians conversing off-stage where I happened to be.  He didn't speak while I was standing there, and as I had no particular reason to continue to do so, I moved on.  Once again, this was case of my not knowing then what I know now, and wishing I could have asked him something, anything.  In any case, I recall being struck by how short and stocky, relatively speaking, this man was.  (I'm taken aback when I realize that he was then as old as I am now.)  More pertinently, I had just been impressed by how thunderous was his playing, thinking for a moment that perhaps I could have saved a few bucks merely by standing outside the club and listening.  But that there was more to the experience than percussive power, this neophyte even then knew. 

In this rare color video from 1986, following (at around 3:00) former Messenger Bobby Watson's appreciation of the man, Blakey personifies not only the passion that must fuel commitment to Jazz as a way of life, but also the knowledge that music is a three-way encounter among the Creator, the musician, and the audience.  Finding this sermon -- there is no other word for it -- made my day.  I hope it will makes yours.



My favorite saying attributed to him is that "music washes away the dust of everyday life," for which dust the Shakespearean metaphor is "mortal coil."  [Note: I've just learned that this revises an aphorism of poet Berthold Auerbach (1812-1882): "Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."--T.F. 2/8/11]  Art Blakey, born 91 years ago today, shuffled off his twenty years ago this Saturday.  I can only imagine that he is in heaven preparing to accompany The Second Coming.



John Coltrane Fifty Years Ago: "Giant Steps," First Quartet, and Beyond

That tone . . . that cry, from the depths of his soul . . . that aural taste of the divine, gladdening our hearts . . . that signature lead-in to every solo ("Green Dolphin Street," "Blue Train," "Black Pearls," and others too many to list), breaking down our defenses and carrying us aloft, allowing us to soar with him above the mundane, and in doing so wash away, as Art Blakey observed, the dust of everyday life. 

The mortal vessel of John William Coltrane, this pneumatic and therapeutic force, emerged into the light 84 years ago today in a hamlet called Hamlet, North Carolina, and was raised in that state's larger municipality of High Point.

At 19, roughly 65 years ago, Trane (and thousands of his contemporaries) experienced the musical equivalent of an epiphany in the form of Charlie Parker, with whom he would soon practice and perform.

". . . the first time I heard Bird play [June 5, 1945], it hit me right between the eyes."

[Bird, Diz, Trane, Tommy Potter on bass, at Birdland; this pic is from 1951]

This year also marks the 50th anniversary of both the landmark album Giant Steps and of his first quartet, which included pianist McCoy Tyner and drummer Elvin Jones.

The multi-tonic revolution he had introduced to the world in the late '50s with "Blue Train" and most assertively with  "Giant Steps" helped jazz musicians re-interpret the ii-V-I cadence. 

Trane had been one of the apostles of Hard Bop, but after he had said all he had to say (and arguably all that could be said) in that subidiom of Jazz, he went on to help found an idiom or two of his own.  From 1960 to 1962 he explored the soprano sax with such creavity and intensity -- most famously (and perhaps ironically) on Rodgers and Hammerstein's "My Favorite Things" -- that it was almost as if he gave the world a new instrument (no slight to Sidney Bechet, whom Trane's admired, intended). 

From 1962 to 1965, both his continuity and discontinuity with Hard Bop were on display, through the modal explorations.  (The chord changes maybe have been fewer, but the groove and drive were unmistakeably urban and Black.)   

The sound whose development he spearheaded during this period (with Eric Dolphy, it must be noted) found outlets even in Hard Bop hot houses like Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers.   (I adduce as "Exhibit A" Wayne Shorter's "Free for All" on the 1962 album of that name.  That track's Trane-ish spirit points forward and harkens back.)

Then there's the aptly titled Transition, the classic A Love Supreme and its free-jazz aftermath, Ascension, compared to which the first two sound downright conventional.

While Trane lived in Philadelphia ('43-'58: from '52-'58 in the boarded-up house on the right, below, 1511 N. 33rd: story here and here) . . .

. . . he studied musical theory under the guidance of Dennis Sandole, as did a much younger Philly native (and my former teacher) Pat Martino (who learned as much from observing Sandole's interactions with his students as from his teaching). From the earliest sketches of Pat's life we know that when he was 14 (and therefore in 1958), Trane once treated him to a hot chocolate after lessons.   

Thus Trane's last year in Philly was also Pat's: in 1959 the Hard Bop generation-straddling kid would leave home to enter the world that Trane was about to dominate. 

"During the year 1957, I experienced, by the grace of God, a spiritual awakening which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life. At that time, in gratitude, I humbly asked to be given the means and privilege to make others happy through music." -- John Coltrane, A Love Supreme, liner notes.

Clifford Brown, First Recording as Leader, August 28, 1953

Clifford Brown Memorial Album, Blue Note 1526

Tracks 10-18. Audio-Video Studios, NYC, August 28, 1953.

Clifford Brown (trumpet), Gigi Gryce (alto sax, flute), Charlie Rouse (tenor sax), John Lewis (piano), Percy Heath (bass), Art Blakey (drums). 

Track 10. Wail Bait
Track 11. Hymn of the Orient
Track 12. Brownie Eyes
Track 13. Cherokee
Track 14. Easy Living
Track 15. Minor Mood
Track 16. Wail Bait (alt. take)
Track 17. Cherokee (alt. take)
Track 18, Hymn Of The Orient (alt. take)

From Stuart Broomer's Review on Amazon:

Clifford Brown emerged fully formed in 1953, a trumpeter gifted with an ebullient swing and technical skills that added polish and precision to fresh invention. Foregoing both the manic pyrotechnics of Dizzy Gillespie and the laconic introversion of Miles Davis, he also provided a stylistic model for jazz trumpeters that has never gone out of style. This CD combines Brown's first two recording dates as leader, placing him in quintet and sextet settings with some of the core musicians of the New York bop scene. The first nine tracks [recorded June 9, 1953] have Brown in an inspired quintet, prodded by the twisting, off-kilter solos and comping of the brilliant and underrated pianist Elmo Hope and the sparkling complexity of drummer Philly Joe Jones. While altoist Lou Donaldson is deeply in the sway of Charlie Parker, Brown sets his own course, whether it's the boppish "Cookin'" or the standard "You Go to My Head."

The final nine tracks [recorded August 28, 1953] have Art Blakey's drums driving the sextet, while altoist Gigi Gryce's understated concentration acts as an effective foil to Brown's joyous, dancing lines. Taken at a medium up-tempo, "Cherokee" is one of Brown's most effective vehicles. The alternate takes from each session highlight Brown's spontaneous creativity, while Rudy Van Gelder's remastering adds fresh focus to both his gorgeous tone and the explosive drumming.

From Bob Blumenthal's liner notes (2001):

. . . It was at this last session [trombonist J.J. Johnson's first for Blue Note] that [Blue Note founder] Alfred Lion offered the trumpeter a date of his own, which was held on August 28.  By that time, Brown had become a member of Lionel Hampton's orchestra.  he included another Hampton sideman, Gigi Gryce, on alto sax and flute,

as well as Charlie Rouse on tenor.   

Heath was again on bass, together with one of his partners in the recently-formed Modern jazz Quartet, pianist John Lewis.  The drummer was Art Blakey, who would feature Brown on the memorable A Night at Birdland recording for the label six months later. . . .

The final two years of Brown's abbreviated career were spent in partnership with Max Roach and produced his most famous recordings, yet the present performances are in no way inferior.  On the contrary, they announced the musician Blue Note justifiably failed when the sextet session was first released as a New Star on the Horizon--a star that unfortunately shone all too briefly.

Beside musical delight, this recording has personal significance to me: it took place the very day I emerged from the womb into the light. 

I sometimes romantically imagine the synchronicity of Brownie's wailing in the studio and mine in labor and delivery.

C'mon, by how many hours could I be off?

Lee Morgan: Another Hero Gone Too Soon

The very idea of Lee Morgan at age 72, which birthday he would have reached today, verges on the incongruous. For jazz lovers he will ever be the youngster who inherited the hard bop trumpet mantle that the magnificent Clifford Brown (briefly Lee's teacher) relinquished tragically at age 25 in 1956. On November 4-6 of that year Lee, a little more than four months after Brown perished in a car accident, recorded two inaugural albums, Lee Morgan Indeed! and Introducing Lee Morgan.

Lee's own voice escaped Brownie's gravitational pull during his tenure with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. (You haven't lived until you heard his solos on their 1960 A Night in Tunisia!) If Lee had done nothing more than contribute to the success of Coltrane's iconic Blue Train session for Blue Note Records, which he did in 1957 while still a teenager, his place in history would have been secure.  But as his discography reveals, he created so much more before he was gunned down at Slug's on February 19, 1972 at age 33, including his soul-jazz breakthrough The Sidewinder.

I appreciated him too late.  I saw him perform only once, at a fundraiser for Angela Davis at the City Center on West 55th Street in Manhattan, about a year before he was killed.  (I'd appreciate hearing from anyone who has the exact date.)  At the time, my grasp of the history of the music I loved was weak.  Now that is less so, I have the pleasure of bringing Lee Morgan to the attention of others.