Duke Ellington's Sidemen

Cootie Williams



Cootie Williams was the guy who had the dubious honour of replacing Bubber Miley in the late 20's. However he was no newcomer having earned his chops by playing with such luminaries as James P Johnson, Chick Webb and Fletcher Henderson. Williams continued the "jungle" style playing that Miley and the late 1920's were renowned for. He was to become one of the most sought after trumpet players in the following two decades recording with Ellington in the 1930's and also leading his own sessions. He sensationally left Ellington's orchestra to join up with Benny Goodman and established himself in the latter's sextet.

He became a bandleader in the 1940's, no mean feat considering the logistics and costs involved especially as swing was on the wane. Yet he managed to employ musicians who would become some of the most legendary names in jazz - Eddie Vinson, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Bud Powell and even Charlie Parker. It was around this time that he co-authored Round Midnight with an up-and-coming Thelonious Monk. The 1950's were not kind to Williams professionally but he did return to Ellington's orchestra in 1962 where he remained until Ellington's death.

Williams was an exceptional musician and trumpeter. He was renowned for his exquisite use of the plunger mute and phasing. Yet he could sound extraordinarily bluesy and soulful as well. Check out "Concerto For Cootie" a song that exemplifies all his attributes.




Jimmy Blanton



Any bass player who takes up a solo in a jazz band today has to thank Jimmy Blanton. While it was Walter Page who put the walk into the Basie rhythm it was Blanton (and his contemporary, Slam Stewart) who put the flair. Blanton employed the use of "pizzicato", a very common technique in today's jazz world but positively revolutionary when Blanton joined Ellington's orchestra in 1939, just shortly before Ben Webster. Many regard the Blanton-Webster period of Ellington's career as a particular golden age.

His career was to be appallingly short as he was to contract tuberculosis and pass away in 1942. His legacy was in his becoming known as "The Godfather Of Bebop" yet one can only wonder how his career would have been shaped in happier circumstances.

Have a listen to Pitter Panther Patter and see exactly what I mean.



Rex Stewart




Cornet player Rex Stewart had been around the jazz scene for quite a while before joining Ellington's orchestra in 1934. He was probably best known for his work with Elmer Snowden and in the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra in the mid 20's. He was to feature prominently in his eleven year stint with Ellington including writing the sublime Morning Glory. 



Johnny Hodges



Probably one of the most famous names in jazz to come from Ellington's orchestra. When it came to alto saxophone there were few better. Ellington played up his smooth vibrato-heavy tone in the compositions that he wrote for Hodges. (No surprise in the fact that he was a massive fan of Bechet). He joined the band in the late 1920's and was its leading soloist by the mid 1930's. He could play the blues with the best of them but perhaps it was the ballads that Ellington wrote for him that would become Hodges bread and butter in his later career. (Check out Warm Valley from 1940 as case in point). He left Ellington's big band in 1951 to pursue a solo career and made some wonderful recordings with Norman Granz. He eventually returned to the orchestra in the mid 50's and remained there until his death in 1970.



Harry Carney



Harry Carney was more than just the baritone saxophonist of the Duke Ellington Orchestra (although he was one of the earliest exponents of the instrument). He was its longest serving member joining as a 17 year old in 1927 right through to Ellington's death in 1974. He was also a friend and confidante to the Duke with the two of them riding to shows in Carney's Imperial car. These moments provided the relaxed ambience for Ellington to compose some of his most memorable songs. He was a master of the clarinet but it was with the rather unwieldy baritone that he was to make his name. He was one of the first musicians to employ the technique of circular breathing which enabled him to hold long indefinite notes to embellish his solos. 

Here's Sepia Panorama from the Blanton - Webster era which is a great example of Ellington's sound at this time and showcases Carney, Ellington and Blanton. 



Sonny Greer

Sonny Greet first met Duke Ellington as far back as 1919 and was his first drummer when he began The Washingtonians in 1924. He was to remain in the band for almost 30 years. So when you're listening to the drums on any Ellington classic from the 20's, 30's or 40's, you're listening to Sonny Greer.

Ellington wrote of Greer in his autobiography, Music Is My Mistress, ''When he heard a ping, he responded with the most apropos pong. Any tune he was backing up had the benefit of rhythmic ornamentation that was sometimes unbelievable. And he used to look like a high priest or a king on a throne, 'way up above everybody, with all his gold accessories around him, all there was room for on the stand!''

Not only was he the drummer in those difficult early days but he was also its source of income due to his prowess on the pool table. He provided the "eating and walking around money" that they needed until they began to hit the big time.

Barney Bigard



Bigard was the New Orleans connection in Ellington's orchestra. He learned his trade at the feet of Lorenzo Tio and after moving to Chicago he played tenor saxophone with some heavy hitters in the mid 20's including Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Johnny Dodds and Jelly Roll Morton before switching to clarinet. From the time he joined Ellington in 1927 to his leaving in 1942 he established himself as one of the finest exponents of the instrument. He also had a hand in co-writing one of Ellington's most famous pieces, Mood Indigo. 



Tricky Sam Nanton



Along with Bubber Miley in the 1920's, Sam Nanton was the man that gave the Ellington Orchestra its dirty, growly edge that set it apart from the early competition. While King Oliver and Miley gave the musical world the wa-wa, Nanton gave us the ya-ya, an effect that made his instrument sound uncannily like a human voice. While such effects could prove gimmicky in the wrong hands this was never the case with Nanton who possessed the most powerful technique and proficiency.

Check him out on one of Ellington's finest songs from the late 1920´s, Black And Tan Fantasy

Charlie Christian

"Who the hell wants to hear an electric guitar player?"
Benny Goodman

This quote came from the 1930´s when John Hammond suggested to Goodman that he give an audition to Charlie Christian. It´s a stark reminder that the instrument, which was to become synonomous with popular music in the latter half of the twentieth century, was held in such little regard by the man who defined popular music in the 1930´s having been dubbed "The King Of Swing". Yet Christian auditioned successfully and became an integral part of Goodman´s orchestra. In time, he was to be crowned one of the greatest jazz guitarists of all time.



The first time I listened to Charlie Christian was when I was about 14 years old. Having been a huge fan of Chuck Berry my interest was piqued when he was asked about his musical influences. He proceeded to name check T-Bone Walker and Charlie Christian. As I was primarily interested in learning rock and blues I ate up T-Bone´s music and licks voraciously (forgive the pun). Charlie Christian was a tougher nut to crack though. I managed to get my hands on the album "The Genius Of The Electric Guitar" from my local library. I´ll be honest and say that my 14 year old self was a little disappointed. The majority of the tracks were three minute songs from the Benny Goodman Sextet recordings in which Christian was given a limited time to show his abilities. Too many clarinets and trumpets for me at that time!

Now older and perhaps a little wiser I can approach Charlie Christian´s music within a broader context. He was a pivotal figure in the world of jazz being one of the musicians who straddled the two worlds of swing and bebop. By day he was recording with Benny Goodman and established swing artists like Cootie Williams and Lionel Hampton. By night he immersed himself in the world of after-hours jam sessions in Harlem at places like Minton´s Playhouse. He wasn´t the first jazz guitarist to play the electric guitar but, being heavily influenced by the sound of Lester Young´s saxophone, he was the first to give it its distinctive voice that was to prevail in practically every jazz record that employed a guitar for the next thirty years.

All of this is even more remarkable when you consider the brevity of his career. He was born in Texas in 1916 and by the early thirties he was establishing a name for himself on the Oklahoma circuit (even striking up a friendship with previously mentioned T-Bone Walker). He acquired his first electric guitar around 1937 (a Gibson ES-150) and came to the notice of producer and promoter, John Hammond, who also happened to be Benny Goodman´s brother-in-law. After a nervy audition Christian´s star soared over the next couple of years.

Check out Solo Flight as an example of Christian´s work with Goodman. He wanted his guitar to sound more like a horn, hence the reason that he doesn´t really sound like Django Reinhardt or Eddie Lang, more like his hero Lester Young.



But as the world was hurtling toward its second global conflict, jazz was to experience an important musical schism. Christian was part of a group of musicians that were experimenting with a looser more dynamic style that was to become bebop. There are some great recordings that demonstrate this dating back as far as 1939 when he was touring with Goodman (Blues In B and Waiting For Benny are great examples). Yet it is the amateur recordings made when Christian was jamming at the after-hours clubs in Harlem that really show the direction of the music. Jerry Newman, a student from Columbia University and a Benny Goodman nut, managed to bring a recorder into Minton´s Playhouse in 1941 and captured a free wheeling Charlie Christian in full flow. Topsy was one of the results. (Check out Kenny Clarke´s sublime bebop drumming as well)



Yet less than one year later Charlie would sadly have succumbed to tuberculosis. The musical baton was to be picked up by the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker. Any guitar player to emerge post 1941 would be influenced by him. This also included guitarists outside of the jazz sphere including BB King, Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix and beyond.

Earl "Fatha" Hines

If the only song that Earl Hines recorded with Louis Armstrong was "West End Blues" then his place in the history of jazz would undoubtedly have been cemented. As it was, his remarkable career spanned from the 1920's into the early 1980's. He has been described as "the first modern jazz pianist" and he was to have a huge influence over the players that followed him including the likes of Teddy Wilson, Jay McShann and Count Basie.



In the 1920's, stride piano attempted to break away from the stultifying nature of ragtime and was very much to the fore during the Harlem Renaissance scene. One of the biggest hits of the period was "The Charleston", written by stride pianist James P Johnson. Stride piano employed a very "busy" style of play, using a left hand that was required to emulate bass and percussion. Hines was one of the first to break away from this by incorporating more complex accents and beats. He was pretty much doing on the piano what Louis Armstrong was doing with the trumpet in the mid 20's.

The two met in the Musicians Union Hall in Chicago in 1926 and they immediately recognised each others talents. Hines was to replace Lil Hardin Armstrong in the Hot Five and in 1928 they made recording musical history when they recorded "West End Blues". Other numbers recorded at that time included "Beau Koo Jack", "Muggles" and "Tight Like That", pretty much setting the standard for aspiring jazz musicians of the time and beyond. The song "Weather Bird" is a must listen-to.  With free wheeling, innovative improvisation and the highest musicianship this is one of the most important musical cuts of the early 20th century in my opinion.



Hines held court in the Grand Terrace Cafe in Chicago well into the late 1930's. One of the proprietors of this establishment was none other than Al Capone whose career advice to Hines was "be like the 3 monkeys: you hear nothing, see nothing and say nothing". It was from here that he made his coast to coast radio broadcasts hitting the ears of Nat King Cole and Art Tatum.

A consummate professional (hence the nickname), he was also unafraid to push himself musically. His song "Cavernism" predates the height of the Swing Era by a couple of years although it sounds decidedly post-Goodman. He also gave Charlie Parker his first professional break and worked with Dizzy Gillespie in the early bebop years (unfortunately unrecorded).



He enjoyed something of a purple patch late in his career. He recorded well over 100 albums in the 60's and 70's including some highly acclaimed solo recordings. New Yorker magazine dubbed him "a whole orchestra by himself".

To finish up check out Hines playing with one of my favourite artists and guitarists, Ry Cooder, performing the superb "Ditty Wah Ditty" from Cooder's solo album Paradise and Lunch. 

Artie Shaw

I first heard clarinetist Artie Shaw when I was looking into the career of Benny Goodman a year or so ago. I more or less dismissed the music and (with complete irrational snobbery) decided to not include him in the blog. I felt the music came across as too smooth without any jazz sensibility with the exception of his recording of Stardust. I could not have been more wrong. Artie Shaw was a consummate musician with a very colouful career and life and to not at least tip my worthless jazz hat in his direction would be to render the intention of this blog meaningless.



I've been playing a greatest hits of Artie Shaw quite a lot recently. It's impossible not to when the first two songs on the collection are Begin The Beguine and the aforementioned Stardust. The former is just one of those songs that you recognise but you don't know exactly where from. The song was an absolutely massive hit when released in 1938. Shaw himself attributes it to the fact that it was a complex and challenging song but one that contained a very strong melody that was in contrast to the popular Basie style riff arrangements that were popular at the time.



What sets Artie Shaw apart from his contemporaries was his complete contempt of public life and the music industry. In his short musical career he led more than ten orchestras and disbanded them all within months (it seems that he threw in the towel more times than Little Richard!). Yet he always managed to strike gold on his comebacks working with such talents as Billie Holiday, Hot Lips Page and Roy Eldridge. Check out Stardust with its utterly sublime trumpet solo from Billy Butterfield on trumpet and Jack Jenney on trombone recorded in 1940. (Shaw himself hits some great high notes on this track as well).



He served in World War II in the Pacific theatre and earned a medical discharge due to almost losing his hearing after a Japanese bomb attack on his unit. His return to music in the late 40's saw him produce some of the more innovative and inventive music of his career. He tried his hand at classical clarinet and even took a liking to bebop. ("The first time I heard Charlie Parker, I thought "Very interesting." He was doing some things chordally, that hadn't been done before. I came from the same people.") Yet, like for most of the swing era guys who tried to break into this new scene, it was to prove a commercial flop. 

Shaw's legacy was his striving quest for perfection. After achieving all he felt that he could from his music he put down the clarinet for the final time in 1954 at the age of 44 - staggering considering that he lived until his mid 90s. He spent the remainder of his life focusing on his other love - literature - and wrote a number of works including a biography entitled "The Trouble With Cinderella". The book was surprising in that it hardly mentions his eight marriages including those with such stars as Lana Turner and Ava Gardner. I suppose it has something in common with this blog post then!

Hot Lips Page

One of the tracks that blew me away when recently listening to an album by Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra for the jazz library was "Lafayette". The reason? The absolutely scorching trumpet solo from Oran "Hot Lips" Page. Before we continue, please have a listen.

Early Basie, no? Perhaps a little more up tempo than the classic Basie riff sound that was to dominate jazz five years later. Some ingredients for a classic pre-swing jazz track are included in this track. An opening tenor sax solo from one of the legends of the instrument, Ben Webster; jazz bass innovator Walter Page and Count Basie himself on the piano. However, for me, the outstanding moment is Hot Lips Page's blistering solo. Such was his talent that he opted to leave the Basie band right before they were to make it big in 1936. He had decided to try for a solo career under the guidance of Louis Armstrong's manager, Joe Gleason. The fact that you may not have heard of Hot Lips Page but you know undoubtedly who Louis Armstrong is, is an indication of where Hot Lips Page's career sadly went. 

 

Oran Thaddeus "Hot Lips" Page was born in 1908 in Dallas Texas. His early musical career saw him move around the States quite a bit. Before the age of 20 he had already provided backing for such blues legends as Ma Rainey, Ida Cox and Bessie Smith. His grounding in the blues was to remain with him for the remainder of his career and provided a very important element to his jazz improvisation. In fact a lot of Page's recordings that I have listened to recently are pure out and out blues. Not surprisingly then he is regarded as an innovative force in early R 'n' B. Yet he was also involved in many musical events that were to shape the direction of jazz from the early 30's onward. 

He was a member of the hugely important band The Blue Devils in the late 1920's which was eventually to become Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra. He was prominently featured in a legendary recording session that took place in New Jersey in December 1932. Some of the tracks that were recorded that day included Moten Swing and the above mentioned Lafayette. This was the music that was to pave the way for the Swing era that dominated jazz in the 1930's. After opting to go solo, Page had modest success fronting his own orchestra in the latter part of the decade. As well as a superb trumpeter he was also a formidable vocalist very much in the style of Louis Armstrong. 

Page was never to achieve much success as an orchestra leader. Yet as a sideman he made some fantastic tracks in the 1940's. His travels across the country were to see him work and record with Artie Shaw, Ben Webster and Sidney Bechet, to name a few. He performed in Carnegie Hall in 1942 with Fats Waller, although sadly only one track of the concerts has survived. Page also pushed himself musically and was unafraid to experiment as evidenced by his attendance and participation at the 1942 jam sessions various Harlem nightclubs. These sessions involved many of the artists that would make bebop the next driving force of jazz. 

Hot Lips Page & Sidney Bechet (New York 1947)

I have really enjoyed researching and listening to the music of Hot Lips Page. It is really hard to pin his musical style down and to put a label onto his work as a whole. Riff style jazz, smooth orchestra, small combo stuff, pop, novelty songs, duets, out and out blues - he covered a lot of bases and it would be unfair to characterise him solely as a blues singer or a jazz trumpeter. His body of work speaks for itself. So too perhaps do his last known recordings which were of a raucous live show that included the tracks St Louis Blues, Sheik of Araby, On The Sunny Side Of The Street and a fantastic St James Infirmary. Unfortunately after much trawling of the internet I cannot find any versions to embed here. They are on the Chronological Classics album 1950 - 1953 and are well worth seeking out. Traditional good time jazz at its best performed by one of the greats who deserves way more recognition. 

Here's another earlier cracking version of St James Infirmary that Page recorded in 1947.  

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...

Chu Berry

“He’s one of the fastest, most inventive and creative minds that has ever been in my band. He doesn’t set his choruses, he continually bobbing up with something he hasn’t done before.” Fletcher Henderson

Leon "Chu" Berry was one of the most prominent tenor saxophone players of the 1930's. His reputation was on a par with those swing sax players that proceeded Coleman Hawkins. Yet he possessed a very different style from Hawkins and he showed no fear in trying to push the instrument further, as jazz evolved from the New Orleans/ Chicago style in the 20's to Swing in the 30's. Berry was even present at some of the early sessions at Minton's Playhouse in New York, the time of early bebop.

He began his recording career by playing on one of the last sessions of blues legend, Mamie Smith. This more or less defined his early work, by sitting in on the sessions of Benny Carter, Spike Hughes, Teddy Wilson and Billie Holliday. The bulk of his recordings were with the big bands of Fletcher Henderson and later, Cab Calloway. He was renowned for pushing his fellow band members to new heights as he sought a way of developing his own sound and jazz music itself.

His technique was not as growling as Coleman Hawkins or Ben Webster. His sound conveyed a much smoother, mellower tone with a wonderful vibrato. While Webster could display his trademark guttural sound on a high tempo number like Cotton Tail, Berry could also show his chops but with a much softer tone on a song like "Sittin' In". While I'm not saying that one song is better than the other it does prove that this was an extremely versatile instrument and that sax players of this era could express themselves in different ways. This song was from a fantastic session recorded in late 1938 with trumpeter Roy Eldridge. Check it out.

The session also included Berry and Eldridge's experimental version of Body & Soul. Recorded almost a year before Hawkins' seminal version, it showed that they were not afraid of experimentation.

Chu Berry was to sadly die just a few years later at the age of 33. While touring with the Cab Calloway Band he became involved in a fatal car accident. It's a testament to his talent that, although he died so young, the body of work he left was to ensure his place among the greats of swing tenor saxophone and as a jazz pioneer.

Benny Goodman

And so onto Benny Goodman, whom Time magazine saw fit to call "The King of Swing" in 1937. As as per usual with my posts I had better get my preconceptions and ignorance out of the way first!

I had long associated Benny Goodman with the music of Glenn Miller and the kind of style associated with the massive hit "In The Mood". However it has long been debated that Miller's style of music was too commercial and overly practiced to be considered part of the hot jazz/improvisational lineage. Here's a quote from a Time magazine article written in 1942 entitled "Jive for Epicures" -

"U.S jive epicures consider the jazz played by such famous name bands as Tommy Dorsey's or Glenn Miller's a low, commercial product. Their heroes are unsung swingsters who improvise nightly for a favored few in hotspots like Chicago's College Inn, Manhattan Nick's. Their treasured classics are discs made in the '20s by such Chicago immortals as the late Leon ("Bix") Beiderbecke and King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band."

(As an aside it's also interesting to note from the article that the jazz afficionados in 1942 sat rapt in their seats as they considered it "sacrilege" to dance. This is a clear demonstration that jazz had reached a fundamental turning point at this time - from a musical form that encouraged dancing to the more, perhaps snobbish point of view that it was an art form that required serious listening. The definition of jazz even at this stage was becoming extremely blurred)

Goodman's popularity came about at a time when improvisational jazz was out of favour. He had been around the scene since the mid 20's as a session musician alongside his contemporaries Tommy Dorsey and the aforementioned Glenn Miller. His band demoed for a national radio show, NBC's "Let's Dance", a show that showcased a variety of musical styles.

As the Let's Dance show was weekly, Goodman was persuaded by his agent John Hammond to buy a load of "hot" jazz arrangements from Fletcher Henderson. The Goodman Orchestra's style developed and could be compared with the jazz sounds coming out of Kansas City at the time - big band swing with room for musical improvisation. Due to his time-slot on the show of 12.30am eastern, not many people on the East Coast heard Goodman's orchestra. However, the time difference meant that a lot of ears were tuning in in California and this was to prove instrumental in his career.

Let's Dance was cancelled midway through 1935 and Goodman was forced to take the band on the road. Their kind of music was not going down successfully with many audiences as they bused across the country. As the tour bombed they became progressively more broke and very dispirited as they reached California by mid summer. They had landed a three week gig at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles. Probably to ensure that they were able to see out the three weeks they began their first engagement by playing cautiously - stock pop tunes which to their surprise met with a very lukewarm response from the audience. As they were the ones tuning in to the Let's Dance show they were expecting the same music. It's widely regarded that it was Gene Krupa, Goodman's extraordinary drummer, who said to him - "if we're gonna die, let's die playing our own thing". The result caused mass hysteria and so it was that the events at the Palomar have been described as the moment when the Swing Era really took off.

Goodman's career spanned the next five decades. Many have remarked on his personality and temperament - mainly in a negative sense. To me this is perhaps not surprising given the times he was living in trying to maintain a large and expensive orchestra. He is widely regarded as being colour blind in terms of the musicians he chose. His trio and quartet work with Lionel Hampton and Teddy Wilson were the first examples of a fully open and integrated band. He was probably very demanding of his musicians but this appears to be the trait required of a successful big band leader.

To my ear his music can come across in a wide spectrum - from dated swing era tunes to absolutely extraordinary stuff. His clarinet style is very precise but soulful (though he doesn't push the envelope like Bechet). He had a plethora of hits from 1935 to the beginning of World War II and I have chosen one of my favourites to demonstrate his sound. This is "Bugle Call Rag"( originally recorded by The New Orleans Rhythm Kings in 1922). Goodman's orchestra takes a New Orleans style standard and records it with sleek big band precision.

Jazz In The Swing Era

By the mid 1930’s the old guard of the New Orleans and the 1920’s Chicago sound were having mixed fortunes. Buddy Bolden had died in the same insane asylum in which he was put way back in 1908. Jelly Roll Morton had lost his recording contract. Joe “King” Oliver had lost his band and died penniless. Sidney Bechet at one time had given up on music and opened a tailor’s shop in New York. Louis Armstrong was still as popular as ever though – especially amongst the mob bosses fighting over his contract!



In Europe they were gearing up for another war. In America millions were still out of work. One industry that didn’t feel the effects of the Great Depression however was radio. As soon as radios and jukeboxes began playing swing, record sales increased exponentially. The embryonic big band sound first heard being played by the orchestras of Fletcher Henderson and Paul Whiteman was now reaching maturity by the mid 1930’s – and a lot of ears. As the music became more popular so too did the demand for more material. More compositions were being written down and sold. (This had the side effect though of frustrating a lot of musicians who became tired of playing the same things night after night.) People were saving their pennies to hear the bands that were criss-crossing the countries on one night stands. And they wanted to dance. Big bands were now becoming household names – names like Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James and Glenn Miller.

"Swing music was an electrifying development in American popular culture. It... unleashed forces that, I think, people didn't know existed. There had been dance bands, sweet bands, sentimental bands. But when Benny Goodman reached those kids at the Palomar ballroom in California, it was like 20 years later with rock and roll... he was playing a swinging rough music that had been played in black communities for years. Ellington, you know, wrote It Don't Mean a Thing if it Ain't Got that Swing three years earlier and Chick Webb's band was doing it and Fletcher Henderson's... it swept the country. It was, it unleashed some kind of pent up...excitement and, and, and physicality that I think nobody was quite prepared for... And, also, this was the Depression. It was not an easy period. And this was a music that was just pure pleasure. Pure physical pleasure."
Gary Giddins.

The sound of jazz music was changing. Vocalists were coming to the fore. It was at this time that renowned vocalists like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald were becoming noticed. The music was becoming more refined and the solos employed were infinitely more expressive and colourful. The catalogue of talented musicians that emanated from this period is impressive. Their instruments were evolving and providing a rich palette from which they could express themselves – the drum was no longer a simple time keeper – Gene Krupa, Chick Webb and Buddy Rich saw to that. Trumpet players were mixing the influences of Louis Armstrong and Bix Beiderbecke to create their own sounds. The guitar was now becoming electrified and added another element to the developing sounds. Finally, the saxophone, once a novelty instrument was becoming the dominant one in the hands of Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Johnny Hodges, Chu Berry and Lester Young.

I personally have mixed feelings about the music from this time. Some of the stuff that I’ve listened to and will expand on further in the blog is sublime. However for me 1930’s swing doesn’t tick all the boxes. Some of it hasn’t stood the test of time and there is a sense that some of it is rather corny. Like the films that came out of that era – you could watch some of them over and over again, whereas others haven’t aged well at all. The big band sound can, on its own, seem rather stuffy. However, on the up side, it did find a great home with vocalists, in my opinion. The Rat Pack sound of Las Vegas obviously finds its roots here and the likes of Sammy Davis Jr and Frank Sinatra optimised the big band feel in a way that their songs actually get better over time.

This was the period though that jazz was becoming truly adventurous.