Various: Classic V-Disc Small Group Jazz Sessions (Mosaic MD11-279)
This 11-CD set is a collection of 1943-1949 swing-era and early bop recordings originally made exclusively for the US armed forces during World War II. It consists of 220 tracks, nine of which have never previously been released, taken from the original V-Discs, air checks and tape recordings. The sound quality is superior to that on any of the many previously issued V-Disc anthologies. It includes a 40-page illustrated booklet, an extended essay by Michael Steinman, a complete discography from all the sessions and vintage photographs.
In 1942 James C. Petrillo, head of the American Federation of Musicians, called for a strike that banned all instrumental recording by record companies in protest against poor financial deals. Army lieutenant Robert Vincent asked him to allow AFM members to record discs – without pay – for the military. Petrillo agreed with the proviso that they could not be sold and must be destroyed at the end of the war. Special V-Disc phonographs were manufactured and dispatched, together with an assortment of steel needles and lyric sheets. The discs were packaged in envelopes with distinctive red, white and blue letterings, bearing the warning “This record is the property of the War Department of the United States and use for radio or commercial purposes [is] prohibited.” By 1945, over eight million discs had been sent overseas. Many jazz musicians volunteered, but when George T. Simon asked Lawrence Brown and Harry Carney to appear on V-Discs, they refused: “If you are asking us to do it for the Army, forget it – not when you consider the way they have been treating our people.”
An analysis – or even a summary – of all these performances is not possible. This review can only flag up the more rewarding choices made by Steinman and his colleagues at Mosaic. Among the more notable musicians included in this massive anthology are Sidney Bechet, Jack Teagarden and Louis Armstrong, Muggsy Spanier, Wild Bill Davison, Pee Wee Russell, Buddy Rich, Ella Fitzgerald, Mildred Bailey, James P. Johnson, Jimmy Rushing, Eddie Condon, Teddy Wilson, Roy Eldridge, Art Tatum, Bobby Hackett, Hazel Scott, Jo Stafford, Woody Herman and his All-Stars (including Bill Harris, Flip Phillips, Marjorie Hymans and Ben Webster), Nat King Cole, Gene Krupa, Dave Tough, Red Norvo, Peanuts Hucko, Clark Terry and (last but not least) Lennie Tristano. Other V-Disc jazz artists, previously unknown (to me) are drummer Johnny Blowers, Bill Stegmeyer (clarinet), Loumell Morgan, Page Cavanaugh, Dave Martin and Vivian Gary (p).
The best known and most celebrated V-Disc was (and remains) that titled “All Star Jam Session”, including Jack Teagarden, Louis Armstrong, Bobby Hackett, Billy Butterfield, Lou McGarity, Johnny Guarnieri, Herb Ellis and Cozy Cole. Steinman notes: “If the V-Disc series had produced nothing but this session we would still bow down in reverent gratitude.” Needless to say, Louis – who unexpectedly walked into the studio – awed his colleagues with two takes of Jack-Armstrong Blues.
Honourable mentions must be made of the 21 Art Tatum 1945/46 recordings, with spoken introductions, especially Poor Butterfly, Begin The Beguine, and an astonishing Gershwin Medley. Fats Waller (piano, organ and vocals) appropriately receives 13 entries – with inimitable vocals and “suggestive” comments (try This Is So Nice It Must Be Illegal). The Woody Herman sessions open with a sparkling Northwest Passage, with the leader verbally urging on his nine men (and one woman). Ben Webster excels on John Hardy’s Wife.
I could write more, but space is limited. Suffice to say that this Mosaic compendium, despite the inclusion of too much repetitive Dixieland, deserves extended, enjoyable and serious attention.
[See also my article: “Jazz on V-Disc: America’s not-so-secret weapon”, Jazz Journal, Vol. 68, No. 2, February 2015.] Further copious information and discography is available on Mosaic’s webpage – mosaicrecords.com/product/classic-v-disc-small-group-limited-edition-box-set-279-11-cds/
Chet Baker: Sings (Number 1 Essentials 291013)
Rarely out of print, Chet Baker’s first vocal and trumpet recording issued in 1954 on a 10-inch LP was followed by CD and more LP releases containing “bonus” tracks. In 2022 I reviewed and commended Chet Baker Sings – The Definitive Collector’s Edition, which included an illustrated booklet, The Making Of Chet Baker Sings, by Brian Morton. He also provides comments on this reissued LP and plausibly suggests that like Louis Armstrong, Chet “came to singing after establishing himself as a trumpet player … singing was as natural to him as breathing.” In a separate sleeve note, Will MacFarland adds that the album “brought Baker new fame and a new audience that was less familiar with jazz than with pop music”. These 15 seminal tracks are recommended to both the unacquainted and Bakerite hi-fi completists.
Kenny Barron & Buster Williams: The Complete Two As One (Red Records RR123336-2)
Recorded at the Umbria Jazz Festival in July 1986, Barron and Williams presented integrated and lengthy interpretations of such classics as This Time The Dream’s On Me, I Love You, All Of You, and On Green Dolphin Street. This two-CD set, in pristine sound, is beguiling and sprightly. Barron had already recorded with Stan Getz and Red Mitchell; Williams – a versatile super bassist – accompanies and stimulates Barron (and vice versa) on the 9 tracks. In a brief essay Luca Bonafede comments that on Two As One, Barron and Williams perform with “Olympian freshness” and that individual and combined talents “give life to a unique language of extraordinary knowledge and musicality”. As we allegedly used to say: “Right on!”
Tina Brooks Quintet: The Complete Recordings – Master Takes (Essential Jazz Classics 2618)
Because of a drastic and fatal heroin habit, hard-bop tenor saxophonist Tina (Harold Floyd) Brooks (1932-1974) never realised his full potential. These “master takes” (four albums under his own name) were all made for the Blue Note label, but only one, True Blue, was released in his lifetime. The others – Minor Move (1958), Back To The Tracks (1960) and The Waiting Game (1961) – were stockpiled by Blue Note boss Alfred Lion, who found Brooks totally unreliable. But he still managed to appear on 12 Blue Note studio sessions – and in 1960 was Jackie McLean’s understudy in Jack Gelber’s Broadway stage play The Connection.
These albums find him in the varying, supportive and sympathetic company of Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Jackie McLean, Kenny Drew, Kenny Burrell, Jimmy Smith, Duke Jordan and Art Blakey. Brooks’ muscular tenor phrasing evoked shades of Hank Mobley. An aggressive soloist, he was also capable of more lyrical effusions, as on Nat King Cole’s The Ruby On The Pearl, Stranger In Paradise and his own compositions Good Old Soul, Theme For Doris and Miss Hazel. Richard Cook suggests that “at his best [Brooks] was a wholly individual and compelling improviser, with a middleweight tone which was surprisingly expressive”.
As for his influences, Brooks once said that “My first teacher was my older brother David, a tenor man who plays like Don Byas and Arnett Cobb. [But] Prez was the first one to really get my attention.” Michael Cuscuna offers this estimate of a remarkable musician and kindly man, who sadly fell silent after the mid 1960s:
“Tina Brooks was a magnificent talent who was among us all too briefly. He was a unique, sensitive improviser who could weave beautiful and complex tapestries through his horn. His lyricism, unity of ideas and inner logic were astounding. Far lesser talents have been far more celebrated.”
Every track on this invaluable compilation evinces the veracity of this tribute.
Al Jarreau & NDR Bigband: Ellington (ACT 9060-2)
Singer Al Jarreau was born in Milwaukee in 1940 and died in Los Angeles in 2017. An eclectic vocalist, he won six Grammys in three different categories: jazz, pop and R&B. His vocal style was unusual, appealing to a wide audience and several generations. Critics admired his vocal dexterity, which included clicks, growls and barely audible spoken asides. He could also mimic the sound of African, Asian and Brazilian musical instruments. One reviewer of his 1981 performance at New York’s Savoy conceded that “he may be the most technically gifted singer working in jazz fusion today” but thought that this live performance “lacked the emotional range of great jazz … the absence of even the slightest blues inflections kept his music from cutting deeply”. Jarreau himself was undeterred by such criticism and said “I try to be receptive and to be listening, and to not be afraid to try something new.” He appeared on many American TV shows, at Ronnie Scott’s, and was particularly popular in Germany.
This tribute to Duke Ellington was recorded with the excellent NDR resident house-band in Amsterdam and Monte Carlo only three months before Jarreau’s death, 12 February 2017. Jarreau’s aim, he said, “was for me to find myself inside the music and maybe find a different kind of statement about Ellington so [that] people could hear the music in a different way from anything they had heard before”.
Unfortunately he achieved his goal, but the effect was not what he intended. Apart from the sterling ensemble and individual contributions from the orchestra, led by its chief conductor Jörg Achim Keller, the Ellington spirit failed to permeate or underwrite the proceedings. Jarreau himself was engaged with the material but given his age and deteriorating health was not up to the self-imposed task. On some songs – Drop Me Off In Harlem, In A Mellow Tone, Take The “A” Train and I Ain’t Got Nothing But The Blues – he relies too heavily on repetitive vocal tricks and mannerisms which divest these famous compositions of any real meaning. But on Come Sunday and I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart, we catch glimpses of a much younger (and appealing) Al Jarreau. To set the record straight, try and obtain his elusive LP album 1965 (recorded in that year) – a high point of an all-too-brief jazz career.
2024 favourite
My jazz record of the year has to be The Terry Gibbs Dream Band, Vol 7: The Lost Tapes, 1959 (Whaling City Sound). Discovered by accident in the Gibbs residence, it is equal – if not superior to – the previous six Dream Band releases. Wish Terry a happy 100th birthday if and when you acquire it. Staggering…