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 He was steeped in the swing tradition, as was Young, but his style continued to evolve so that he was never outdated by the sweeping changes that occurred in the music with the advent of bebop and beyond.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 2

"Anyone who doesn't play by Lester is just wrong!" (Brew Moore)

If you listen to the first track Lester Young ever recorded, "Shoe Shine Boy" (1936), and contrast this with the final track twenty some years later, "Tea For Two" (1959), the differences are stark. The former demonstrates Young's innovative, airy tone. The latter seems a little disjointed and breathy. Unsurprising, as he was a very sick man at this time and, even though he was only 49, he had lived a life twice over. Many think the turning point in his life was due to the hard times he suffered when he was drafted into the military. The regular army was no place for a creative soul like Lester Young. He was court-martialed for possession of marijuana and alcohol. His one year army career was spent in the detention barracks in Alabama followed by a dishonourable discharge. It's an easy tack to take - genius before the army, burnt out after the army. I don't believe such a simplistic view deserves any credit. True artists evolve and Lester Young was a true artist. His experiences only added another colour to his palette.

Here is a great recording of an NPR interview with Lester's biographer Douglas Daniels. He gives an extremely eloquent critique of his time in the army and the effect on his playing.

I personally have found the recordings he made since December 1945 to be some of the finest I have listened to since embarking on this project. Some of my personal favourites have included the recordings he made with Nat King Cole and Buddy Rich (known as the Lester Young Trio). Check out the superb interaction between the three on "I've Found A New Baby". The song demonstrates the swing tradition that they came from but is at the same time extremely innovative.

Lester continued to make superb recordings throughout the rest of the 40's and 50's for the Verve label under the watchful eye of producer Norman Granz. These recordings produced superb collaborations with the likes of Oscar Peterson, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Roy Eldridge and Teddy Wilson to name but a few. His lifestyle would ultimately restrict his technique but I refute any charge that he didn't play anything but from the heart.

Lester was interviewed on tape towards the end of his life by a young French jazz enthusiast named Francois Postif. These rare recordings show Young reminiscing on his career and offer insight into his opinions on the world of jazz up to that time. One quote remains telling: "I don't like a lot of noise - trumpets and trombones. I'm looking for something soft. It's got to be sweetness man, you dig?"

To finish up here is one of the few videos of Lester playing "Mean To Me" (with Willie "The Lion" Smith on piano). The song begins in quite a pedestrian manner until Lester instructs the drummer to add "a little tinky boom, ya dig"! Great stuff.

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.

Satchmo By Satchmo. The Louis Armstrong Tapes

To mark the 110th anniversary of the birth of Louis Armstrong (Aug 4), BBC Radio 2 is commemorating the event with a couple of programmes devoted to the man himself.

Kicking things off tonight is a documentary looking at the private, home made tapes made by Louis himself. The tapes were recorded between 1950 - 1971 and have gone largely unheard by the general public. This is a great chance to delve into the inner thoughts of one of the most important musicians of the 20th century as he ruminates on his career and the people he knew or worked with; from Bessie Smith to Joe "King" Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton (who it seems he has a bone to pick with!)

The man responsible for the documentary is Paul Sexton. Here is a piece he wrote in The Telegraph regarding what we are to expect.

Also, here is a link to BBC Radio 2. The programme begins at 11.00pm BST and will probably be available online for a while after.

Ben Webster

Ben Webster was regarded as one of the "big three" (or four, including Chu Berry, depending on who you talk to) leading tenor saxophone players of the swing era . After 1935, when Coleman Hawkins decided to leave for Europe, Webster, along with Lester Young, were the heirs apparent in filling the vacuum. He was, however, no clone of Hawkins. He was highly regarded as having a completely individual style. He ranged from having a smooth, sensual and lush sound with a heavy vibrato on ballads to a very harsh distinctive growl on more up-tempo numbers (hence his nickname, The Brute). He did however share a common trait with Hawkins in that they both came from Kansas City, which meant that their playing styles always retained an element of the Blues.

He was on the scene in New York in the the mid 1930's before hooking up with the Duke Ellington Orchestra shortly after WWII broke out. This was an important time for both Webster and Ellington, so much so that the period became known as The Blanton-Webster Band. (Jimmy Blanton was one of the first jazz bass players to use the instrument for soloing and helped pioneer the "pizzicato" method of plucking the bass strings). Check out one of the most famous tunes to come out of this time, Cotton Tail, where Webster's aggressive growl comes to the fore.

The 50's was a very busy time for Webster as he made a lot of solo albums and found time to collaborate with a lot of great musicians, including Coleman Hawkins, Oscar Peterson and Art Tatum. Here's Time After Time, a song from his 1957 album Ben Webster & Associates. This is a superb example of the sensual tone that he could extract from his tenor sax when it came to playing bluesy ballads.

For me the Ben Webster you want to listen to firmly depends on your mood. His most adventurous work in my opinion was in the early days with Duke Ellington's Orchestra. Ellington knew his musicians very well and composed his music with them specifically in mind. In Webster's later work he appears to be more comfortable with the ballads and in developing his unique sound, rather than challenging himself musically. This is not to take away from any of his later work as some of the albums from the late 50's and mid 60's that I have listened to are superb.

The Cannonball Jazz Library 7: Sidney Bechet.

The very early recordings of Sidney Bechet make the next entry to the Cannonball Jazz Library. Essential listening as Bechet was the only early jazz stylist who could hold a candle to the talent of Louis Armstrong. Clicking the album cover will take you to the library.

Here's a short video on the Bechet's early career. Some of the stuff regarding the arrest in Paris is probably anecdotal at best but it gives a glimpse into his genius.