PRE-MODERN JAZZ - school me?

So having come to the end of my year-long affair with modern jazz, and many of the suggestions in this thread: JAZZ IS LIKE HEROIN TO ME ! ! ! ~~~~ ILM POST-1945 JAZZ ALBUMS POLL - THE RESULTS COUNTDOWN (now counting top 25!) and also a certain curiosity after having watched Whiplash AND also a fascination with insanely cool double bass playing, I'm curious to know what I ought to check out from the era preceding 'modern' jazz.
I don't know a lot about bebop or swing or big band, but maybe some of it's good? What are the things I ought to check out and who are the big players? Who does good versions of standards like Cherokee and the other kinds of tunes they play in the film?

big topic ... i'd dig into Ellington -- the Blanton Webster Band comp might be a good place to start.

search: Louis Armstrong's Hot Five/Hot Seven

That's broad, but the #1 person to listen to in bebop is Charlie Parker, and he can be heard shredding the Cherokee chord changes on a tune called Koko, which might be the gold standard for playing Cherokee:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXPzAasKWQg

WHOOPS, sorry, here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okrNwE6GI70

For big-band, basically Blanton-Webster band Ellington, Count Basie, maybe Benny Goodman.

For slightly pre-bop small group playing, Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins.

For beautiful, slightly category-defying pre-modern jazz piano, Art Tatum.

i was gonna say though, the Clifford Brown + Max Roach albums are mid-'50s but pure gold if you're looking for great versions of standards.

FWIW, that Clifford Brown version is also pretty legendary I think.

Also, fwiw, I kind of hate Cherokee and the whole mystique around it, maybe just because it was such a jazz school *thing* that I eventually got sick of hearing about it -- a lot of hokey worship at the altar of a dead god. I do love Charlie Parker's KoKo though, that's one of my all-time favorite jazz recordings.

search: Louis Armstrong's Hot Five/Hot Seven

― you make me feel like danzig (WilliamC), Tuesday, February 24, 2015 5:49 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM!!!!!!!!!!!

dog latin get this right now: http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-complete-hot-five-and-hot-seven-recordings-columbia-legacy-mw0000254142

It's kind of an outdated idea imo too -- everyone can fucking play Cherokee changes now, so the only "cutting" aspect of it is playing it really really fast, which sounds like crap. And it's not that great a composition.

this too man, fucking shit right now!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Day:_The_Complete_Billie_Holiday_on_Columbia_1933%E2%80%931944

also, i love New Orleans jazz, but prefer to listen to contemporary musicians playing it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgNnDcCPdkE

The Ken Burns jazz documentary isn't a terrible primer

Lazy River is probably my favorite Hot Fives/Sevens era record:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJBAmeowNeU

polyphonic OTM, the Ken Burns Jazz series is good on pre-modern jazz

Aside from Duke, who is unfuckwithable, I really enjoy Benny Goodman. Recommended: "The Famous Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert", from 1938.

you can't really hear the rhythm sections on the old records (or they wouldn't let them play for real because of recording limitations), and the way current drummers like Herlin Riley, Shannon Powell, and Gerald French interpret street rhythms is way more sophisticated anyway.

xp

I'm a big fan of the Benny Goodman small-group stuff with Charlie Christian and Lionel Hampton

get this:

http://www.discogs.com/Charlie-Parker-A-Studio-Chronicle-1940-1948/release/5597525

all of the Bluebird 2LP "Complete" records are amazing - they have most of the pre-War classic artists - Goodman, Shaw, etc.

Another great Armstrong set is Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which has Hot Five/Hot Seven material, but also sides he cut as a member of King Oliver's, Clarence Williams' and Fletcher Henderson's bands, and one-offs like "St. Louis Blues" with Bessie Smith and "Blue Yodel #9" with Jimmie Rodgers.

xp yeah that parker studio chronicle thing is one of the better deals out there. packaging is nothing to speak of, but so much great music.

whew! so much to check out already. man alive, sorry if this is a stupid question, but how are Koko and Cherokee different tunes if they have the same chord changes? That style of bass playing is exactly what I'm fascinated by rn.

The old-timers who were there were crazy about Chick Webb, unless I'm mistaken.

oh yea that parker studio chronicle thing is great

and yea the ken burns documentary was pretty good on pre-modern jazz

Not a stupid question. In straight-ahead jazz a common thing to do is to play the melody or "head," then solo over the chord changes, then play the "head" again. Koko just doesn't have the melody of Cherokee. If you want to hear an earlier record of Cherokee in the pop/swing style it was conceived in, this one was a hit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnNUd7NzTMo. I don't think it's an especially great version, but it gives you the sense of how a standard might have been played by a popular orchestra as opposed to a heady bebop combo.

Remember also that many jazz standards were really written as songs to be sung -- sometimes for broadway, or else as standalones.

this a very famous tune and i love it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMbRV5d7TeY

man alive otm, it's cool to listen to vocal versions of standards before the bop deconstructions of them. in college i used to listen to Sinatra versions a lot just because they were easy to find and true to the melody.

this is so great... i started reading this book about derek bailey just over a year ago but i had no real grounding in jazz at the time, let alone the pre-modern stuff so a lot of the references meant nothing to me. thanks a lot for these, peeps.

I had a teacher who really insisted on listening to vocal versions before you played a standard, he thought it was almost ridiculous to play it otherwise.

Was that teacher not Texas Ted?

different tunes if they have the same chord changes?
Technical term for this is "contrafact." Well, when the chord changes are unique, not standard changes like blues or rhythm changes. For instance, Johnny Smith wrote "Walk, Don't Run" as a contrafact of "Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise."

The OKeh Ellington is a great collection of some of his earliest work -- the sound is terrible (late-80s shitty mastering), but the music is uniformly amazing.

I'd also recommend the Fletcher Henderson set A Study In Frustration.

Johnny Hodges (Duke Ellington's alto player) playing 'Daydream' really gets me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iJU8ec0DWk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9Sm1Pg2Abs

so there are parallels between contrafact in jazz and 'version' in dub reggae? i guess if i think of it in those terms it makes sense to me.

I agree w recs of Armstrong's Hot 5/Hot 7, also his album w Ellington ( and yes to all the Duke prev mentioned, plus Flaming Youth, another collection of his early stuff, and the Newport comeback album).
Hell yes Benny Goodman w Charlie Christian, and all the Christian you can find (he died young alas, but there's at least one legit box set). Scott Joplin, King Oliver (blanking one exact title, but think it was BBC engineer who cleaned up his tracks back in the 80s, so we could finally really hear him)Jelly Roll Morton, Mugsy Spanier, Coleman Hawkins (his Ken Burns series collection is a good place to start), Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald (especially with Louis Armstrong), Roy Eldridge, Benny Carter, Anita O'Day, Count Basie, Lionel Hampton.

Django Reinhardt!

I recommend the following sets:

Count Basie, Complete Original American Decca Recordings (3CD set covering 1936-39)
Duke Ellington, Masterpieces 1926-49 (4CD set with basically every tune you've ever heard of by him)
Duke Ellington, Never No Lament: The Blanton-Webster Band (3CD set, concentrating on his mid 40s work)
Charlie Parker, The Complete Savoy & Dial Master Takes (3CD set of 1940s material w/Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, many others)

Where is the love for JAMMIN' THE BLUES? It might be my favorite music film of all time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1EYOdIr-HE

This is a "jam session."

I recommend the following sets:

Count Basie, Complete Original American Decca Recordings (3CD set covering 1936-39)
Duke Ellington, Masterpieces 1926-49 (4CD set with basically every tune you've ever heard of by him)
Duke Ellington, Never No Lament: The Blanton-Webster Band (3CD set, concentrating on his mid 40s work)
Charlie Parker, The Complete Savoy & Dial Master Takes (3CD set of 1940s material w/Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, many others)

― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Tuesday, February 24, 2015 7:43 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Inexplicably, the Ellington Blanton-Webster Band set is out of print. Which is like Macbeth being out of print. I think there's an import, though, which doesn't command as ludicrously high prices as the US edition.

I cannot believe such a seasoned poster still needs it fucking spoon-feeding to him AGAIN! tbh, spend more enjoying it rather than talking bollocks about it is the way forwards imo.

Oh yeah, jazz docs, good idea. Jazz On A Summer's Day is still great, and easy to find. I've got the soundtrack to The Sound of Jazz, it and a few others mentioned in the following article turn up on YouTube sometimes, and (some) may be on DVD. This is about a festival at the Paley Center (hopefully preceding a box set etc.)

From WSJ:

Filming Sonic Emotion
Robert Herridge’s TV programs changed the way people viewed jazz.
By
Marc Myers
Jan. 14, 2015 6:38 p.m.

Halfway into “The Sound of Jazz”—an hourlong live CBS special that aired on Dec. 8, 1957—Billie Holiday did something impetuous that would change the way jazz and jazz musicians were viewed by TV audiences. As Count Basie and an all-star big band wailed away on “Dickie’s Dream,” the singer strolled into the studio, stood for a few moments nodding to the music, and then coolly walked over to the piano to talk to Basie while he was soloing. Four television cameras caught the drama.

Robert Herridge: Jazz on TV

The Paley Center for Media

Through Jan. 18

Minutes later, as Holiday sat on a stool and sang “Fine and Mellow” accompanied by a small group of musicians, the cameras zoomed in even closer, letting viewers see the pain on her face and the sly, loving glances she shot soloists. For a TV audience unfamiliar with jazz, Holiday became an emotional guide, providing a soulful narrative that helped viewers understand how they should feel about what they were seeing and hearing.

Much of the credit for the relaxed cinéma vérité camerawork of “The Sound of Jazz” belongs to Robert Herridge, a producer of TV dramas and a tireless champion of the performing arts. Four of his late-’50s TV jazz programs—“The Sound of Jazz,” “Frankie and Johnny,” “Jazz From Sixty-One” and “The Sound of Miles Davis”—will be screened at New York’s Paley Center for Media on Jan. 17 and 18. Watching them in crisp black-and-white from start to finish reveals much about jazz’s struggle for high-culture acceptance in the 1950s and Herridge’s passion for preserving and promoting the music.

By insisting that studio cameramen shop for drama in musicians’ faces, Herridge treated jazz as a theatrical performance on par with the staging of Shakespeare or Dostoyevsky. It was a bold move in 1957, when network television was largely a white medium that rarely featured modern jazz, let alone integrated ensembles. Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie performed on TV together only once, on a local New York station in 1952, while Bobby Troup’s “Stars of Jazz,” which launched in 1956, was a Los Angeles TV showcase. After “The Sound of Jazz” aired, however, more reverential and dramatic programming followed, including “The Subject Is Jazz” (1958), “Jazz Scene USA” (1962), “Frankly Jazz” (1962-63) and “Jazz Casual” (1961-68). There also were four Timex All-Star Jazz Shows on CBS in the late ’50s, a pair of “Swing Into Spring” specials and jazz on talk shows hosted by Steve Allen.

Yet despite winning many of TV’s major awards during his career—including three Emmys—Herridge, who died in 1981 at age 67, is barely remembered today. Back in the ’50s, he pioneered the concept of television as open theater—placing talented actors in stripped-down sets while multiple cameras slid around capturing their live performances. In 1957, Herridge extended this concept to jazz, encouraging musicians to observe each other performing.

But Herridge would not have been able to attract the likes of Holiday, Coleman Hawkins, Gerry Mulligan, Lester Young, Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, Ben Webster, Ahmad Jamal and many others if not for jazz journalist Nat Hentoff. “Herridge had the idea for ‘The Sound of Jazz’ when he approached me and [New Yorker magazine critic] Whitney Balliett for musicians,” said Mr. Hentoff, 89, in a phone interview. “The first thing he said was, ‘Go after the people you want on the show. I don’t care if the audience knows their names. I just want it to be pure jazz.’”

Balliett, who often reviewed jazz, preferred to take a back-seat role as Mr. Hentoff called in favors. Once the artists were assembled, the next step was a lighting rehearsal a week before airing. “For a moment, the show was nearly scrapped,” recalled Mr. Hentoff. “A high-level CBS official sent Herridge a note telling him that he couldn’t put Billie on TV—that she had been in prison for drugs. Herridge was a deadly serious guy, especially when it came to the arts. He called the executive and told him that if this was his final insistence, everyone would leave and there would be no show. The executive backed off.”

Despite being told to dress casually for the broadcast, most of the musicians ignored Mr. Hentoff’s instructions. All were convinced that a network TV show would be a lavish affair. “Billie spent $500 on a dress and cursed me out when she discovered there wasn’t a glamorous set,” said Mr. Hentoff. “That may be why she walked onto the Basie set—to give Herridge more casual reality than he expected. But Herridge and the cameras ate it up. She kissed me after.”

Herridge told the cameramen to “get the faces” of the musicians and treat them like actors in a drama. He went so far as to tell them to ignore the voice of director Jack Smight in their headsets if they saw something special. “Herridge wanted the musicians to play to their peers, not to the cameras,” said Charles “Chiz” Schultz, 83, the show’s associate producer, in a phone interview. “It seemed insane to the musicians but it worked for TV.”

About a half-hour before going live at 5 p.m., no one could find eccentric pianist Thelonious Monk. “I went outside onto West 55th St. and looked up the block,” said Mr. Schultz. “Monk was standing there, with his arms and hands outstretched in front of him. It was raining, and when I made my way over and asked if he was all right, Monk said, ‘I need to feel what it’s like out here first.’ After a minute, he came with me. That was some kind of insight into Monk.”

In April 1959, Herridge filmed Miles Davis in an orchestral setting with Gil Evans conducting and then with his quintet, featuring John Coltrane, playing “So What” from Davis’s forthcoming album “Kind of Blue.” The hourlong “Sound of Miles Davis” aired in July 1960. Also in 1959, the half-hour television ballet “Frankie and Johnny” was taped featuring original music by Charles Mingus and performed live by a Mingus-led ensemble.

In September 1960, “Jazz From Sixty-One” was broadcast. The half-hour show featured the Ben Webster Sextet and the Ahmad Jamal Trio. Here, Herridge had Webster’s group play first and then surround the piano to watch and listen to Ahmad Jamal. Herridge’s cameras caught the drama as older jazz artists like Buck Clayton and Jo Jones stood entranced by Mr. Jamal’s swinging, delicate sound.

Among those on the set captured by the cameras was a 34-year-old Mr. Hentoff, a pipe clenched in his teeth, nodding happily in time to the music. Fortunately for jazz, Herridge knew that the music performed on TV would be more memorable if viewers could see the reactions of insiders who were hearing it.

Mr. Myers, a frequent contributor to the Journal, writes daily about music at JazzWax.com.

Jordan, I also really dig Day Dream. I had a brief, sort of contrairian phase in music school where I got into a lot of pre-bebop jazz because everything in school focused on bebop/hard bop and I got bored of it. For a while, I was obsessed with the Nat King Cole trio and especially this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09Ze0v700ik

That 3 disc Count Basie thing is the most joyous music I've ever heard! Been a favorite for years and probably the most accessible and just plain fun early jazz I've heard alongside the Louis Armstrong 20s stuff. Django Reinhardt is pretty essential, too -- the bass is particularly prominent as his group was all string instruments. I'm not an expert, though.

Inexplicably, the Ellington Blanton-Webster Band set is out of print.

Wow, that's crazy! Yeah, there's a Japanese import of Never No Lament available. I still have the earlier one (just called The Blanton Webster Band); sounds fine to me, I'm not much of an audiophile when it comes to vintage jazz.

for Basie my pick is 'The Atomic Mr. Basie', it has great sound/tunes/performances and a cool cover. honestly i never went far beyond that.

every now and then i come very close to buying those big recent mosaic ellington box sets, which I think cover the 30s/early 40s - i've read that they have far superior sound to anything previously released. pricey though...

Count Basie, Complete Original American Decca Recordings

sooo... which of these 3CD sets are people referring to? A Spain-only import seems unlikely...

http://www.discogs.com/Count-Basie-The-Original-American-Decca-Recordings/release/2087838

or

http://www.discogs.com/Count-Basie-Complete-Original-American-Decca-Recordings/release/4642247

or something else?

every now and then i come very close to buying those big recent mosaic ellington box sets, which I think cover the 30s/early 40s - i've read that they have far superior sound to anything previously released. pricey though...

― tylerw, Wednesday, February 25, 2015 10:34 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, I really wanna get this one:
http://www.mosaicrecords.com/prodinfo.asp?number=248-MD-CD

I'd heard the sound is great, too -- Mosaic can be counted on for that.

The sound on Never No Lament is definitely fuller than on the previous (80s) RCA issue, but has added/annoying distortion in spots (particularly "Jack The Bear"). It's frustrating that this particular era of Ellington hasn't yet gotten the reissue/remastering treatment it deserves.

Nice call, Tarfumes, on A Study in Frustration ... that set sounds great and is also useful to compare to Duke, Basie, and Goodman.

I was surprised to learn that Sun Ra played and arranged for Henderson's band in the late 40s!

Sleeve, the first linked Count Basie Decca 3xCD in my case. But it looks like they are identical aside from the artwork?

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Decca-Recordings-1937-1939/dp/B000003N3G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1424880213&sr=8-1&keywords=count+basie

Yes, I should have mentioned the Nat King Cole Trio, especially incl. guitarist Oscar Moore. Also should have mentioned Herbie Nichols. He's bop, but not in any historically familiar way; mainly---he's Herbie Nichols!
Cab Calloway, whom I think of as pre-rock rock, in some ways (ditto Charlie Christian), and Louis Prima & Keely Smith with Sam Butera and the Witnesses--but they all have plenty jazz appeal too (well maybe not Prima's crew as much, but still great). Slim Galliard's guitar x vocal stylings (his own language, or dialect of jive mothertongue, at least).

There are a fair few comparisons to be made between Calloway and Armstrong. They both have surprisingly gothy tendencies

When it comes to bebop, don't forget this guy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrO45Tzvhxg

Would add Lester Young Complete Aladdin Recordings from 45-47 as a collection I've had for about 10 years and am always in the mood to listen to.

I'm having a little disconnect about bop recommendations ITT because I think of it as where jazz crossed over from pre-modern to modern history. It's where jazz changed from a dance music to a chamber music. But never mind that, I'm glad for recommendations regardless of era.

The 1973 comp "Stars of the Apollo" is a great place to start sampling- It has a lot of the artists already mentioned, and it tends towards novelty numbers in a good way: immediately accessible with a raunchy sensibility. The last side shows how these sort of numbers morphed into r'n'b and modern jazz, too.

http://www.discogs.com/Various-Stars-Of-The-Apollo-Theatre/release/2831186

http://open.spotify.com/album/5eGsNHVy0Rfhmxl0QA3noD

oh man that looks great

If you're really into bass playing, this is a great comp.
http://www.dust-digital.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/dtd-04_600.jpg

sooo... which of these 3CD sets are people referring to? A Spain-only import seems unlikely...

I have the second one you linked.

I also have that bass box; pretty great.

This Lionel Hampton set kinda serves as a survey of small group swing in the late '30s--it is Hampton as featured player (on vibes, drums, vocals or piano) with over 20 different all star groups--

http://www.discogs.com/Lionel-Hampton-The-Complete-Lionel-Hampton-Victor-Sessions-1937-1941/release/2951249

And here's a great collection of small group non-commercial jazz from the '40s recorded for a tiny label--features a ton of major & minor players at their best, prime sound quality, and touches on the transition from swing to bop--

http://www.freshsoundrecords.com/the_keynote_jazz_collection_1941-1947_11-cd_box_set-cd-6062.html

I've found the Properbox releases are pretty much always well-selected overviews for swing & early bop (plus have the advantage of drawing from multiple labels) & often trump the more expensive major label releases of the same material.

Stars of The Apollo was a huge part of my education, re early and progressive jazz, also those novelty numbers, ranging from "I Want A Hot Dog For My Roll" tp the original "I Put A Spell On You," by Screamin' Jay Hawkins. Also "Reefer Man," by I forget who, but it's cheerful and absurdist. Also maybe a novelty hit in its time: the very plain-spoken, aggressive androgyny of "Gimme A Pigfoot (also a reefer, and a bottle o' beer) of Bessie Smith, who, come to think of it, sounds oike she might be an inspiration for Howlin' Wolf.
The relationship of swing to bop is v. inneresting, and check Parker's early work with Kansas City bandleaser Jay McShann; also, I'd say, Goodman-Charles-Christian-Krupa, live on the radio, competing with bop, sounds like; kind of a para-bop at times (r is that historical listening only?)
Still got a King Pleaure twofer, The Source, where he croons and wails words over re-recorded bop-associated material, sometimes with the original soloists, I think. His biggest hit was probably "Moody's Mood For Love," based on the excellent (and evern much later, sometimes asskicking) James Moody's version of "I'm In The Mood For Love." Also a wonderful re-set of Parker's "Kansas City" (not the r&b/rock hit), "Redtop" and others: he could be romantic, rough-edged, witty---some say he just ripped off Eddie Jefferson, but the Jefferson I've heard doesn't have nearly as much flair, as much old-time/anytime clever appeal.

And there's Ira Gitler's Swing To Bop, An Oral History of the Transition..., which led to me to a lot of good stuff.

King Pleasure could sing his own new words to melodic lines established, re-composed, you could say, by improvised, previously recorded solos, on shrewdly selected jazz sides, ones that already had a measure of crossover appeal, or potential. Lambert, Hendricks & Ross did it too, but they were modernistic, baby; KP had the old & new school appeal.

these sets were pretty revelatory for me
http://www.allenlowe.com//alpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/devilintune-comp.jpg
in some ways it sort of does away with the "great man" theory of jazz, instead highlighting regional scenes, weird movements, revivals etc. but also just a ton of great music.
http://www.allenlowe.com/for-sale/

One less heralded early jazz players I love is Don Byas. Check out how modern he sounds, but with a mellifluous tone and proximity to the melody that became more rarely heard after bop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsooysJ8KkU

There's a set of his expatriate recordings from Paris that is really marvelous.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ksqQjcxeL._SY355_.jpg

the Allen Lowe book that is the basis for those Devilin' Tune sets looks really interesting, I'm going to grab that from the library

Don't know if there's a better thread for this, but I've really been enjoying revisiting Erroll Garner lately:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMeMxhciMPk

I love that super-draggy phrasing and lush interior harmony over the very spare rhythm section, makes me want to make a film just to use it in the opening credits.

I just got a copy of The Complete Concert By the Sea. It is wonderful music. He plays with so much warmth.

I like Jimmy Lyons's introduction on the second disc: "If you enjoy being fractured, please be now fractured by Erroll Garner."