Roy Eldridge

"Every time he's on he does the best he can, no matter what the conditions are. And Roy is so intense about everything, so that it's far more important to him to dare, to try to achieve a particular peak, even if he falls on his ass in the attempt, than it is to play safe. That's what jazz is all about." Norman Granz

While researching the life and music of Lester Young, one of the names that kept popping up was Roy Eldridge. What I knew of him was the (perhaps somewhat cliched) line that he was the musical link between Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie. Such simplifications seem to be rife in jazz history as historians try to create links between the different genres. This is certainly true in my opinion of Roy Eldridge.

Known to his peers as "Little Jazz" due to his short stature, Eldridge was to be one of the most important trumpet players in jazz in a career that spanned five decades. I first heard him on the aforementioned Lester Young recordings that were made for the Verve label in the mid-late1950's. His range was spectacular and his tone was a little raspy - yet his riffs were never tasteless. He was steeped in the swing tradition, as was Young, but his style continued to evolve so that he was never outdated by the sweeping changes that occurred in the music with the advent of bebop and beyond. 

Eldridge's trumpet playing is odd in that he was a musician who was not directly influenced by Louis Armstrong. This probably set him apart as he gained popularity playing with various swing outfits in the 1930's. Stylistically Eldridge himself stated that he was far more influenced by sax players than by trumpet players. It is argued that as Armstrong's playing became more predictable and less players were adapting to the decline of swing, Eldridge was probably the top trumpet player to come out of the 30's into the bebop 40s. His big breakthrough came with his association with Benny Goodman alumnus, drummer Gene Krupa, with whom he was to make many remarkable recordings in the early 40s. 

One such recording was "Rocking Chair", a fantastic example of Eldridge's chops, recorded in July 1941. Stylistically the song really is a connect the dots in terms of jazz lineage - a "sweet" horn section makes the song flow while the swing beat is held up by Krupa on the brushes (a sound which I personally have evolved a real like for since hearing Buddy Rich on "The Lester Young Trio" album). Eldridge goes through the entire register of the trumpet and hits some dizzying high notes - all without losing an ounce of soul that the song calls for. Apparently Eldridge was "blind drunk" during this recording. After sobering up he begged Krupa never to release it. Two months later his pal Ben Webster played the song back to him. Eldridge remarked, "Who's that? It's not Louis, it's not Diz." It blew his mind after he discovered it was actually him on the record. Check it out:

There is probably something in the theory that he was the musical link between Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie. His style was innovative - he could play extremely fast - and Gillespie stated that "he was the messiah of our time." The song "Heckler's Hop" for example was to prove influential in directing Gillespie's style. Recorded in the late 30's with a small combo the song is fast and edgy. It's not hard to see how a song like this would have influenced many of the bebop players searching for a new musical direction in the early 40s. 

He toured with many big names throughout the 40's, including a stint leading his own band. He emerged from a crisis of confidence after a successful stop in Paris in the early 1950's and it was around this time that he teamed up with Granz and the Verve label. He was prolific for the remainder of the decade. Health issues slowed him down later in his career. He became the leader of a house band in Manhattan during the 1970s and recorded sporadically. His final recording was the majestic "Montreaux 1977", a fitting album to close a long illustrious career. 

Lester Young. Part 1

The other night Benny Goodman, Basie, Lester Young, Jo Jones, Buck Clayton and Harry James got together in a small Harlem joint and jammed from two-fifteen to six in the morning. The music was something tremendous, for everyone distinguished himself. But one conclusion was inescapable: that Lester Young was not only the star of the evening but without doubt the greatest tenor player in the country. In fact I’ll stick my neck out even further: he is the most original and inventive saxophonist I have ever heard. (John Hammond)

If you think of the quintessential jazz photograph from the late 1930's - 40's, it's likely that you'll picture a small night club, curling cigarette smoke and a saxophone. Lester Young, who along with Coleman Hawkins was the most influential swing tenor sax player of his time, would probably be in that picture. He was the first jazz hipster - he wore a pork pie hat, held his sax at a 45 degree angle and coined the phrase, "cool". He was known as the President of Jazz, or simply "Pres". Yet he had the substance to back up the style.

Coleman Hawkins wrote the book on how to play the tenor sax. He was renowned for his gruff, aggressive tone and for his unorthodox approach to manipulating the harmony of a song. Most of the tenor sax players of the time attempted in some way to emulate him. Yet Lester Young did not. Young began playing on a c-note sax, a popular instrument in the 1920's made popular by Frankie Trumbauer. The register is somewhere in between the tenor and the alto. When Lester changed over to the tenor he tended to play the instrument a little higher than normal. His sound is deceptively simple for that but his playing was extremely profound. His style was more relaxed as he tended to float around the notes with a great sense of rhythm.

He was born in 1909 in Mississippi but spend most of his youth in and around New Orleans. He cut his teeth playing with the territory bands in Oklahoma before ending up in jazz scene of Kansas City in the early 1930's. He ultimately ended up in the original Count Basie Orchestra and was making his first recordings in 1936.

Shoe Shine Boy

His first recording with a small group and right from the off he demonstrates a completely different tone from his contemporaries, Hawkins Webster and Chu Berry Light and airy played with adventure and abandon. Lester always preferred the small ensemble setting. This tune also perfectly showcases the innovative rhythm displayed by Jo Jones and Walter Page.

Roseland Shuffle

A superb high tempo showcase for Lester Young and Count Basie on the piano. The back and forth between the two is awesome. This is also a perfect example of riff style swing popularised by the Count Basie Orchestra. This was recorded in 1937

Young would continue to make some great small group recordings in the late 30's and early 40's. (His work with Billie Holiday was a particular highlight and something I will tackle in a separate post.)

Lester Leaps In

An uptempo number from 1939 that would prove to be a big inspiration to those who emulated Lester Young's technique.

He left the Basie band in 1940 and was to spend the next few years recording in Los Angeles and New York before being drafted into the army in 1944. This was to prove to be a pivotal moment in his career and his life...

Coleman Hawkins, "Body & Soul" & The Birth Of Bebop

And so to a huge turning point in the history of jazz, essentially the movement away from the big band swing sound to the more sculptural rhythms of bebop. Before going forward I wish to highlight that I have still so much to learn in terms of the major players and the dynamics of the swing jazz era. However the reason for the major step forward at this time is to acknowledge that I have spoken in some posts (the last one being a prime example) about many of the big band musicians making the transition from swing to bebop, yet if I am to be honest I really don't know what bebop really is! Sure, I can tell the sonic difference between Count Basie's One O'Clock Jump and Charlie Parker's Ornithology, yet I never really understood the jazz connection. Like most forms of music, bebop didn't just appear from nowhere. There is a lineage from the very earliest forms of jazz through to this very complex form of music. The music was also born from the social situation of the time. One man who straddled the genres and indeed facilitated the transition was tenor saxophonist, Coleman Hawkins.

Jazz = saxophone. A simple equation, yet one not possible without the influence of Coleman Hawkins. From its invention in the 1840's to the early 20th century, the saxophone never really found a proper home. Some early recordings of jazz featured the instrument but in a very vaudevillian, comedic fashion. If they needed the sound of a horse on a record they called in the sax player. Coleman Hawkins was to change all that. His career spanned from the early 20's right through to the 1960's, yet the one thing that was to define him was his constant search for musical innovation. Like all musicians in the 1920's he was heavily (heavily!) influenced by improvisational style of Louis Armstrong, who he had first hand experience playing with in the Fletcher Henderson orchestra.

His recordings from the 20's through the whole of the 1930's and 1940's were prodigious (so much so that I have been unable to locate any sort of reliable discography) and over time he developed his own earthy, bluesy sound which was extremely distinctive. He remained with Henderson's orchestra right through to 1934 when he decided upon making a trip to Europe, just as the Swing craze was taking hold of America. He was to remain there for the guts of five years, the highlight probably being the recordings he made with the Quintette du Hot Club de France, featuring Django Reinhardt, Stephane Grappelli and Benny Carter. Upon his return in 1939 he appeared to be very disappointed at the lack of musical progress being made by most of his contemporaries. It was at this time that he recorded Body and Soul, one of the most important three minutes in jazz history.

Body and Soul

Body and Soul is pretty much a jazz standard. Written in 1930 it was to eventually become recorded by many, many artists, including Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday. Village Voice critic Gary Giddins reckons there are close to 3000+ versions. To understand what Coleman Hawkins did with the tune I recommend listening to an earlier version. Here's Benny Goodman's version with Teddy Wilson on piano and the legendary drummer, Gene Krupa in 1935.

It's a fantastic rendition of the song with Goodman's clarinet coming across as clean as a whistle. However, they never stray too far from the melody of the original tune. Hawkins' approach was to prove to be both revolutionary and evolutionary. Apart from the opening bars the tune was pure improvisation, his saxophone teasing with the base notes but effortlessly moving around them.

Journalist Will Friedwald explains it beautifully: "Hawkins and the tune are friendly for about two bars, getting along marvelously, before they unexpectedly part company. Hawk may be thinking about the tune here and there, maybe even stealing a glimpse at it, but he never looks straight at it"

It was recorded in one take after an all night gig, in October 1939, at a Manhattan bar called Kelly's Stables with no rehearsal and no charts. Taking a swig of cognac he asked Gene Rogers, the pianist to strike up the initial chords..

"He's playing the wrong notes!" "Where's the melody?". These were the initial responses to Hawk's recording. However as the world was about to lurch into another war that was to bring a massive social upheaval, so too the world of jazz was turned on its head. The song was to be a massive hit on jukeboxes right through to the 1950's. True to his improvisational and innovative beliefs, Hawkins never played the song the same way again after this session. Yet the idea of converting an old Tin Pan Alley tune into a more free-spirited and creative song was to prove hugely influential as the 30's became the 40's and bebop was to become the jazz drug of choice...

To round off, check out another fantastic Coleman Hawkins tune from 1944, the time when most bebop records were first beginning to be recorded. Woody'n You (featuring a sublime Dizzy Gillespie solo) clearly demonstrates how much the music had shifted from the previous decade.