The JAZZ Story
playing career with renewed vigor. (Editor's Note-Carter just turned
eighty and is still playing and recording.)
THE UNIQUE DUKE
Another artist whose career spanned more than fifty years is Duke
Ellington (1899-1974). By 1972, he was one of New York's most
successful bandleaders, resident at Harlem's Cotton Club--a nightspot
catering to whites only but featuring the best in black talent.
Ellington's unique gifts as composer-arranger-pianist were coupled
with
equally outstanding leadership abilities. From 1927 to 1941, with very
few
exceptions and occasional additions, his personnel remained unchanged--
a
record no other bandleader (except Guy Lombardo, of all people) ever
matched.
Great musicians passed through the Ellington ranks between 1924 and
1974. Among the standouts: great baritone saxist Harry Carney
(1907-1974), who joined in 1927; Johnny Hodges (1906-1970), whose
alto sax sound was one of the glories of jazz; Joe (Tricky Sam) Nanton
(1904-1946), master of the "talking" trombone; Barney Bigard
(1906-1980); whose pure-toned clarinet brought a touch of New Orleans
to the band; Ben Webster (1909-1973), one of Coleman Hawkins' greatest
disciples; drummer Sonny Greer (1903-1982), and Rex Stewart
(1907-1967) and Cootie Williams (1910-1985), an incomparable trumpet
team. Among the later stars were trumpeter Clark Terry (b. 1920) and
tenor saxist Paul Gonsalves (1920-1974).
Ellington's music constitutes a world within the world of Jazz. One of
the
century's outstanding composers, he wrote over 1,000 short pieces,
plus
many suites, music for films, the theater and television, religious
works and
more. He must be ranked one of the century's foremost musicians,
regardless of labels. His uninterrupted activity as a bandleader since
1924
has earned him a high place in each successive decade, and his
achievement is a history of Jazz in itself.
Three outstanding contributors to Ellingtonia must be mentioned. They
are
trumpeter-composer Bubber Miley (1903-1932), the co-creator of the
first
significant style for the band and, like his exact contemporary Bix
Beiderbecke, a victim of too much, too soon; bassist Jimmy Blanton
(1918-1942), who in his two years with Ellington shaped a whole new
role
for his instrument in Jazz, both as a solo and ensemble voice; and
Billy
Strayhorn (1915-1967), composer-arranger and Ellington alter ego who
contributed much to the band from 1939 until his death.
STRIDE & BOOGIE WOOGIE
Aside from the band, for which he wrote with such splendid skill,
Ellington's instrument was the piano. When he came to New York as a
young man, his idols were James P. Johnson (1894-1955), a brilliant
instrumentalist and gifted composer, and Johnson's closest rival,
Willie
(The Lion) Smith (1898-1973). Both were masters of the "stride" school
of
Jazz piano, marked by an exceptionally strong, pumping line in the
left
hand. James P.'s prize student was Fats Waller. New York pianists
often
met in friendly but fierce contests--the beginnings of what would
later be
known as jam sessions.
In Chicago, a very different piano style came into the picture in the
late
`20s, dubbed boogie-woogie after the most famous composition by its
first
significant exponent, Pinetop Smith (1904-1929). This rolling,
eight-to-the-bar bass style was popular at house parties in the Windy
City
and became a national craze in 1939, after three of its best
practitioners,
Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis, had been presented
in concert at Carnegie Hall.
KANSAS CITY SOUNDS
Johnson was from Kansas City, where boogie-woogie was also popular.
The midwestern center was a haven for Jazz musicians through-out the
rule of Boss Pendergast, when the city was wide open and music could
be
heard around the clock.
The earliest and one of the best of the K.C. bands was led by Bennie
Moten (1894-1935). By 1930 it had in its ranks pianist Count Basie
(1905-1984) who'd learned from Fats Waller; trumpeter-singer Oran (Hot
Lips) Page (1908-1954), one of Louis Armstrong's greatest disciples;
and
an outstanding singer, Jimmy Rushing (1903-1972). The city was to put
its
imprint on Jazz during the `30s and early `40s.
DEPRESSION DAYS
The great Depression had its impact on Jazz as it did on virtually all
other
facets of American life. The record business reached its lowest ebb in
1931. By that year, many musicians who had been able to make a living
playing Jazz had been forced to either take commercial music jobs or
leave
the field entirely.
But the music survived. Again, Louis Armstrong set a pattern. At the
helm
of a big band with his increasingly popular singing as a feature, he
recast
the pop hits of the day in his unique Jazz mold, as such artists as
Fats
Waller and Billie Holiday (1915-1959), perhaps the most gifted of
female
Jazz singers would do a few years later.
Thus, while sentimental music and romantic "crooners" were the rage
(among them Bing Crosby who had worked with Paul Whiteman and
learned more than a little from Jazz), a new kind of "hot" dance music
began to take hold. It wasn't really new, but rather a streamlining of
the
Henderson style, introduced by the Casa Loma Orchestra which featured
the arrangements of Georgia-born guitarist Gene Gifford (1908-1970).
Almost forgotten today, this band paved the way for the Swing Era.
THE COMING OF SWING
As we've seen, big bands were a feature of the Jazz landscape from the
first. Though the Swing Era didn't come into full flower until 1935,
most
up-and-coming young jazzmen from 1930 found themselves working in big
bands.
Among these were two pacesetters of the decade, trumpeter Roy (Little
Jazz) Eldridge (1911-1989) and tenorist Leon (Chu) Berry (1908-1941).
Eldridge, the most influential trumpeter after Louis, has a fiery
mercurial
style and great range and swing. Among the bands he sparked were
Fletcher Henderson's and Teddy Hill's. The latter group also included
Berry, the most gifted follower of Coleman Hawkins, and the brilliant
trombonist Dicky Wells (1909-1985).
Another trend setting band was that of tiny, hunchbacked drummer Chick
Webb (1909-1939), who by dint of almost superhuman energy overcame
his physical handicap and made himself into perhaps the greatest of
all Jazz
drummers. His band really got under way when he heard and hired a
young girl singer in 1935. Her name was Ella Fitzgerald (b. 1917).
THE KING OF SWING
But it was Benny Goodman who became the standard-bearer of swing. In
1934, he gave up a lucrative career as a studio musician to form a big
band
with a commitment to good music. His Jazz-oriented style met with
little
enthusiasm at first. He was almost ready to give it up near the end of
a
disastrous cross-country tour in the summer of `35 when suddenly his
fortunes shifted. His band was received with tremendous acclaim at the
Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles.
It seems that the band's broadcasts had been especially well timed for
California listeners. Whatever the reason, the band, which included
such
Jazz stars as the marvelous trumpeter Bunny Berigan (1908-1942) and
drummer Gene Krupa, not to mention Benny himself, now scored success
after success. Some of the band's best material was contributed by
arrangers Fletcher Henderson and his gifted younger brother Horace.
As the bands grew in popularity, a new breed of fan began to appear.
This
fan wanted to listen as much as he wanted to dance. (In fact, some
disdained dancing altogether.) He knew each man in each band and read
the new swing magazines that were springing up--Metronome, Down Beat,
Orchestra World. He collected records and listened to the growing
number
of band broadcasts on radio. Band leaders were becoming national
figures
on a scale with Hollywood stars.
OTHER GREAT BIG BANDS
Benny's arch rival in the popularity sweepstakes was fellow
clarinetist
Artie Shaw (b.1910), who was an on-again-off-again leader. Other very
successful bands included those of Jimmy Dorsey and Tommy Dorsey,
whose co-led Dorsey Brothers Band split up after one of their
celebrated
fights.
