Wes Montgomery and Harold Mabern, Coltrane's "Impressions," March 27, 1965

The great pianist Harold Mabern turned 76 last Tuesday. He's on several of my favorite sides: Grant Green's earliest recordings (with Jimmy Forrest, December 10, 1959), 1964's now-classic Inside Betty Carter and, the subject of today's post, Wes Montgomery's trio dates in Paris and Belgium 1965.  As Thom Jurek describes it for his CD Universe review of the recording of the Paris concert, performed 48 years ago this evening:

Wes Montgomery's 1965 concert at the Theatre des Champs Elysees [let Google translate the French for you, if necessary.--T.F.] in Paris is one of the greatest live dates ever recorded from the decade. Here, Montgomery, pianist Harold Mabern, drummer Jimmy Lovelace, bassist Arthur Harper, and saxophonist Johnny Griffin—who guested on three selections at the end of the gig—tore the City of Light apart with an elegant yet raw and immediate jazz of incomparable musicianship and communication.

Montgomery was literally on fire and Mabern has never, ever been heard better on record.  From the opening bars of "Four on Six," Montgomery is playing full-on, doing a long solo entirely based on chord voicings that is as stellar as any plectrum solo he ever recorded.  Mabern's ostinato and legato phrasing is not only blinding in speed, but completely gorgeous in its melodic counterpoint.  And while the bop and hard bop phrasing here is in abundance, Montgomery does not leave the funk behind.  It's as if he never played with George Shearing, so aggressive is his playing here.   

Nowhere is this more evident than in the tonal inquiry that goes on in the band's read of John Coltrane's "Impressions," in which the entire harmonic palette is required by Montgomery's series of staggered intervals and architectural peaks in the restructuring of the head.  Likewise, in Griffin Montgomery finds a worthy foil on "'Round Midnight" and the medley of "Blue and Boogie/West Coast Blues." Montgomery assumes the contrapuntal role as Mabern floods the bottom with rich, bright chords and killer vamps in the choruses. Highly recommended. 

A few weeks later in April of 1965, Montgomery and Mabern appeared (again with Arthur Harper on bass) on Belgian television and, thanks to YouTube, we can get a glimpse of what Mr. Jurek enthused over:

Although we lost Wes on June 15, 1968, Harold Mabern has been teaching several generations of jazz musicians at William Paterson University. He also continues to perform, often in ensembles led by tenor saxist (and one of his former WPU students) Eric Alexander.  Last year he gave a priceless interview in which he tells about his being "at the right place at the right time" in late 'fifties and early 'sixties in Chicago and New York (including his first Birdland gig) and, more touchingly, about the trauma of witnessing the murder of his friend, Lee Morgan (at Slug's jazz club forty years ago last February 19).  


Simply put, Mabern has played with nearly all of the jazz greats who were his contemporaries. But now he's one of the greats with whom it is the privilege of others to play.  A belated Happy Birthday, Harold!  Thanks for keeping the flame.

The Coltrane-Hartman Collaboration, March 7, 1963

47 years ago today, two men named John walked into Rudy van Gelder's studio and made music history, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, with the indispensable assistance of McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums.

1. "They Say It's Wonderful" (Irving Berlin) - 5:15
2. "Dedicated to You" (Sammy Cahn, Saul Chaplin, Hy Zaret) - 5:27
3. "My One and Only Love" (Guy Wood, Robert Mellin) - 4:50
4. "Lush Life" (Billy Strayhorn) - 5:20
5. "You Are Too Beautiful" (Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart) - 5:32
6: "Autumn Serenade" (Peter DeRose, Sammy Gallop) - 4:11

At just over 31 minutes in length, it was shorter than the average LP, but incomparably richer esthetically:

"Though Coltrane and Hartman had known each other since their days playing with Dizzy Gillespie's band in the late 1940s (Hartman had been with the band on an on and off basis, and Coltrane played [third] alto with the band in 1949), Hartman is the only vocalist with whom the saxophonist would record as a leader. Initially when producer Bob Thiele approached Hartman with Coltrane's request that the two record together Hartman was hesitant as he did not consider himself a jazz singer and did not think he and Coltrane would complement one another musically. However, Thiele encouraged Hartman to go see Coltrane perform at Birdland in New York to see if something could be worked out. Hartman did so, and after the club closed he, Coltrane, and Coltrane's pianist McCoy Tyner, went over some songs together. On March 7, 1963 Coltrane and Hartman had decided on 10 songs for the record album, but en route to the studio they heard Nat King Cole on the radio performing "Lush Life", and Hartman immediately decided that song had to be included in their album. The legendary compilation was made that same day . . . ."  (From the Wiki entry)

Now let's get lost in their classic take on Billy Strayhorn's  "Lush Life": 

And on Guy Woods and Robert Mellin's "My One and Only Love": 

The last word (at least here) is from reviewer Jacob Teichroew:

"The most striking aspect of this album, filled with songs about love's shortcomings, is the simplicity with which both Coltrane and Hartman treat the melodies. Hartman, never much the bebop singer, chose to stay close to original melodies as a general rule, letting his velvety tone and thoughtful phrasing become the focus. Coltrane, who had a few years before recorded Giant Steps (Atlantic, 1959), a document of his technical wizardry, was inspired by Hartman's simplicity. On John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, Coltrane plays as if he is singing. The result is a stunning combination of lyrical and emotional expression.  Coltrane went on to produce many more albums, and developed an often-studied body of experimental work. Hartman never saw quite the same level of fame, and never strayed far from nuanced, romantic jazz. While Coltrane is now considered an American icon, Hartman is unknown to all but jazz enthusiasts. However, on this record, the two talents meet to create a dark and beautiful masterpiece."

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.

Birdland, 1949-1965: Hard Bop Mecca

First, happy birthday to Barry Harris (b. 1929) and Curtis Fuller (b. 1934)!  (Two stories for future posts!)


61 years ago, December 15, 1949, a basement club -- following (I'm not sure of the order) the Ubangi, the Ebony, and The Clique -- opened as Birdland: The Jazz Corner of the World.  Its birth coincided with the demise of  "The  Street," i.e., the serendipitous concatenation of jazz clubs that sprung up on 52nd Street between Fifth and Seventh Avenues in the wake of Prohibition. (For a complete history, see Patrick Burke's scholarly Come In and Hear the Truth: Jazz and Race on 52nd Street.  Arnold Shaw's 52nd Street: The Street of Jazz makes an excellent companion reader.)

A daytime shot of legendary 52nd Street -- on its last legs in the late '40s.

The upscale jazz club and restaurant on Manhattan's West 44th Street possessing legal title to "Birdland" is therefore not topic of this post.  (On its home page, take the "History" link to a fact-filled page about its historic predecessor.) With all due respect to that venue for the great music and food it offers, it is not the historic Birdland that was effectively the House of Hard Bop from its first stirrings in the early '50s to its ripening in the early '60s.


The address is 1674 Broadway, at the corner of 52nd Street . . .

A view of NE corner of Broadway & 52nd Street

. . . but Birdland had its own number, 1678 (probably to expedite delivery of the great volume of mail it must have received compared to that of other tenants), as can be seen on this flyer from 1955, every detail of which is worth savoring:

Above, left pane: Broadway looking north, fans line up for Sarah Vaughn; 
right pane: looking south.  
Below: This is what awaited them:

Above, right pane: George Shearing's "Lullaby of Birdland," the club's theme song is noted.
Below: cover of contemporary sheet music for "Lullaby of Birdland."


Above: notable guests included: Duke Ellington, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Sammy Davis, Jr., Marlon Brando, . . . and Harry Belafonte, who helped open Birdland on December 15, 1949. Just a sampling of the stars who regarded Birdland as the place to see and be seen -- and hear - great jazz.  Yet nothing marks the spot.

The cover of Birdland's menu:

For the first few weeks of its existence, Birdland's guests were greeted by birds in cages suspended from the ceiling.  They were a nice touch, but the poor things could not survive the combination of smoke and air-conditioning.


The current occupant of that basement is Flash Dancers (part of its awning is visible, next to Leone's Pizza Pasta) -- of which I will say no more:

Here's a daytime shot, 1960, by William Caxton:

Clearly the inspiration for the cover art for Birdland Stars 1956:

At All About Jazz, Bertil Holmgren sketches a portrait of Birdland as he  experienced it one night in June 1962, when the John Coltrane Quartet was "on duty":

A rather small club, maybe 150 square meters, after descending down the stairs from 52nd Street [that makes no sense to me; but in our exchange of comments, Mr. Holgren stood by his memory], which is a side street to Broadway at Times Square [Birdland was situated in the Times Square area, but Times Square, where the New York Times was once published, like Longacre Square before it, was ten blocks south of Birdland], the room opened up with the bandstand right in front and with a bar along the left wall.  

 Behold, the left wall (that's Jay McNeely on tenor sax):

[Holgren continues:] To the right, on the opposite side from the bar, as well as just in front of it, there were rows of chairs reserved for listeners only, and in the middle a number of tables, maybe ten to fifteen, were placed where certain solid and liquid nourishments could be taken.  

Behold, the right wall: Erroll Garner and Art Tatum

On stage: Bud Powell, Miles Davis, Lee Konitz, Art Blakey

Bird with Strings, 1951

[Holgren continues:] On the tables were nothing but white-and-red-chequered cloths and black plastic ashtrays carrying the words “Birdland - The Jazz Corner of the World” in white. . . .  

[Holgren continues:] Since the drinking age limit was 21, how I, younger than that, managed entrance belongs to the secrets you learn when you are desperate to gain admission!  Initially I would be sitting as far from the bar as possible (an imperative requirement by the door guard), but eventually I would slowly move forward and by the time Trane started set no. 2, I'd have him one meter in front of me, the McCoy [Tyner] piano to the left, [Jimmy] Garrison to the right and a steam boiler called Elvin [Jones] further back.  This felt to me a bit like being in the middle of the engine room on The Titanic . . . .  I believe they started playing at around 9:00 P.M., in forty-five minute sets interrupted by half hour intermissions, and the place closed at 5:00 A.M.

The roster for opening night is worth a study in itself:

For ninety-eight cents -- "including tax" -- one could have the history of jazz parade before one's ears "from Dixieland to Bop."  Imagine Charlie Parker, Lennie Tristano, and Lester Young on the same stage!  (Is that Max Kaminsky and Kenny Dorham on trumpets in the photo below?  And who's the fellow looking at the camera?  Where is he now?)

The "Roy Haines" listed on the poster is, of course, Roy Haynes, still going strong at 85.  He played the new Birdland on the original's 60th anniversary last year (and was there again last week)!

On August 25, 1959, on the Broadway sidewalk just outside Birdland, Miles Davis was beaten and arrested by police for insisting that they misapprehended his chivalry.  As the Wikipedia article on Miles summarizes the altercation:

After finishing a 27-minute recording for the armed service, Davis took a break outside the club.  As he was escorting an attractive blonde woman across the sidewalk to a taxi, Davis was told by Patrolman Gerald Kilduff to "move on."  Davis explained that he worked at the nightclub and refused to move.  The officer said that he would arrest Davis and grabbed him as Davis protected himself.  Witnesses said that Kilduff punched Davis in the stomach with his nightstick without provocation.  Two nearby detectives held the crowd back as a third detective, Don Rolker, approached Davis from behind and beat him about the head.  Davis was then arrested and taken to jail where he was charged with feloniously assaulting an officer.  He was then taken to St. Clary Hospital where he received five stitches for a wound on his head.  

Davis attempted to pursue the case in the courts, before eventually dropping the proceedings in a plea bargain in order to recover his suspended Cabaret Card, enabling him to return to work in New York clubs. [End of Wikipedia account.]

More details are provided on this blog post on last year's anniversary of the beating.  

A while back, with this event on my mind,  meandering near that spot, I was startled by a billboard-size advertising of VH-1's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Awards.  The huge poster hung on the north wall of the Sheraton Manhattan Hotel, just south of 1674 Broadway.  Startled, because as though looking down on the spot where he was humiliated, across the street and across half a century, was the triumphant visage of Miles himself, a Hall inductee.  I could not interest any passerby in this irony.

A collection of albums subtitled "Live at Birdland" would fill a shelf. Chronologically, this is probably the first:

Miles Davis' from 1951:

Here's "Lullaby of Birdland" composer George Shearing's from '52:

Bill Evans, 1960:

But this pair of 1954 albums (Volume 1 and Volume 2) turned Birdland into the Bethlehem of Hard Bop (which is, after all, what we're mainly about here):

I almost left out this classic from 1963!

Birdland still pleasantly haunts the memories of thousands of musicians and their fans.  Their numbers dwindle daily, however, and the few who do remember seem to wish not to be bothered about it.  

(One exception is Nat Hentoff who, during a phone chat, confirmed its location for me and related his brief encounter with Bird himself [once banned from the club named after him for want of a cabaret license] on the stairs between the club and a street-level eatery, which was probably where Leone's pizza parlor is.)  

For sixteen years the greatest music in the world was generated nightly within its walls until it succumbed to the accounting ledger logic that doomed The Street a generation earlier.  Birdland deserves its historian. May those of us who can offer oral testimony, artifacts, and other evidence be ready when he or she makes inquiry.  

In the meantime, if you wish to share your knowledge about or memories of Birdland on this blog, by all means, do so!