Thinking in Jazz

by Berliner, Paul F.

  24. For an elaboration of distinctions between independent and major labels, see Gray 1988, 21–36. Regarding independent companies like Theresa Records, their “independent status is also a product of the ideologies, organization, and meanings that the members construct for themselves, their music, their audiences, and their artists.... Theresa’s experience suggests that independent labels are not just smaller versions of Columbia Records, but that they represent a different sensibility in making records.” Ibid., 36, 88.

  25. For an insightful elaboration of important issues regarding economic, social, and political factors influencing company policies, see DeVeaux 1988.

  26. Jay McShann recalls that although his band “had a fantastic book ... [it] never got a chance to record but very little of that stuff because the record companies were in business to sell records.” He describes company management at Decca Records allowing the band to record some of their pieces only as a trade-off for the blues and boogie-woogie pieces it was pushing them to record. Gitler 1985, 65–66. Similarly, Earl Hines reports that “one time, when we went to record, and we had all those beautiful arrangements on ballads for [Billy Eckstine] to sing, the A and R man said, ‘Don’t you have any blues?’ ” Dance 1977, 241. Eckstine also complained of having to write and impose two choruses of “some little dumb blues ... lyric” on instrumental numbers because the record company required his voice as a signature for his band’s recordings. Gitler 1985, 129.

  27. DeVeaux 1988, 135.

  28. For a more complete description of copyright procedures and a discussion of their actual application in the context of Charlie Parker’s agreements with record companies, see Patrick 1975, 16–19.

  29. The one-time fees paid artists are often only minimum union scale, but depending on their reputations and on the competition among companies for their services, band leaders can negotiate much higher rates, and the fee for their sidemen can rise to as much as double the union scale. DeVeaux 1988, 154, and Wilmer 1977, 237. DeVeaux cites union scale in 1944 as being thirty dollars per person for “three hours, four tunes. And double for the leader.” Wilmer reports that minimum scale went up from sixty dollars for a three-hour session in 1965 to ninety-five dollars in 1975.

  30. Ali in Wilmer 1977, 237.

  31. Gillespie and Roach describe the economic impetus to compose and record original pieces in Gillespie 1979, 207–9.

  32. Patrick (1975, 11) attributes the jazz musician’s technique of borrowing harmonic and melodic fragments for creating new compositions, in part, to the policies of record companies and the pressures of studio work. Tommy Potter recalls of Charlie Parker that “on record dates he could compose right on the spot. The A and R man would be griping, wanting us to begin. Charlie would say, ‘It’ll just take a minute,’ and he’d write out eight bars, usually just for the trumpet. He could transpose it for his alto without a score. The channel of the tune could be ad libbed. The rhythm section was familiar with all the progressions of the tunes which were usually the basis of originals.” Reisner 1979, 183. Such practices sometimes included the spontaneous invention of song texts, as well. Billie Holiday (1969, 59) recalls periodical improvisation of lyrics for original blues compositions when they were “one side short on a [recording] date.”

  33. The precise contractual arrangements companies made with artists who contributed compositions to records varied considerably. “By acting as publishers, record companies were often able to acquire a percentage of composers’ royalties in exchange for an advance against future sales.” DeVeaux 1988, 154–55. “Parker was paid a flat fee for his compositions recorded for Savoy,” and Dial “guaranteed Parker two cents per side (the maximum rate) for all records sold using his compositions.” Patrick 1975, 18.

  In the face of the complexity of the legalities involved with the copyright law, and the uncertainty this generates as to their rights to music ownership, there is a lingering feeling of bitterness among many artists concerning exploitation on the part of record companies. Typically’ Bud Freeman writes, “Tommy Dorsey said, ‘Bud, don’t give those choruses away to publishers. They’re going to steal them.... Give it a title and have it published under your own name.’ ... I took all of my improvised choruses on given themes and gave them different titles.... Even when I did give the tune a name and published it I ended up with practically nothing.... I don’t receive all the royalties I should.... Suppose I did want to make a case of it, what could I get? Even if I won, by the time I got through paying the lawyers I wouldn’t have anything.” See notes to “Selected Discography” in Freeman. The cynical manipulation of artists by unscrupulous record company management is also portrayed in Feather 1945, 82.

  34. Hawkins describes his lack of interest in “Body and Soul” in Hawkins 1955, 18. Another source cites James Maher’s reporting that “it was Norman Granz’s idea to let Hawkins play alone.” Guralnik 1987, 27, 29. Joe Glaser and Kid Ory recount Louis Armstrong’s scat debut on “Heebie Jeebies” in Shapiro and Hentoff 1966, 108–9.

  35. When “money for composer fees, rehearsals, studio time, and engineering was scarce ... [small companies] ... often [pursued] a cheap and convenient way to record ‘new’ material with a minimum of rehearsals, retakes, and composer fees ... [and favored such routines as an] ... improvised piano introduction, unison statement of theme by saxophone and trumpet, improvised saxophone solo for the B section of thirty-two measure AABA themes.” and so on. Patrick 1975, 11–13.

  36. In the context of my interview with Melba Liston, she spoke of bad road experiences on tour with both Billie Holiday’s and Dizzy Gillespie’s bands. She was referring, in part, to her experiences with racism in the South, and the “hygenic difficulties of being the only woman on a touring road bus.”

  37. George Wettling says of Joe Oliver and his renowned Creole Jazz Band, “Unless you were lucky enough to hear that band in the flesh you can’t imagine how they played and what swing they got.” Ibid., 100.

  38. Jimmy McPartland tells of the genesis of “Shirt Tail Stomp” in the musicians’ clowning, “playing as corny as possible.” in Shapiro and Hentoff 1966, 279.

  39. References to Davis’s and Macero’s collaboration are in Kernfeld 1988c, 363, and Chambers 1985, 222.

  40. Regarding this common dilemma, Lester Young, too, reported, “I get all kinds of insults about ... ‘You don’t play like you played when you were with Count Basie.’ ... They get all trapped up, they go, ‘Goddamn, I never heard him play like this!’ That’s the way I want things, that’s modern—dig?” Postif interview cited in Porter 1985b, 102.

  41. John McLaughlin was given “complete freedom” in the recording studio at a stage in his career after his previous records had become popular. Shankar, personal conversation, 1983. From contract to contract such liberties can change considerably. According to Ross Russell, Charlie Parker was “responsible for the selection of all material recorded by Parker-led groups for Dial, although this privilege was not granted to certain other jazzmen.” Subsequently, however, when Parker signed a contract with Norman Granz, he found himself under pressure to record popular songs—”pretty tunes written by good writers”—rather than the blues alone. Patrick 1975, 22, 19.

  42. For a description of the endeavors of several artists, including Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Duke Ellington, Stanley Cowell, Betty Carter, and Sun Ra, to establish their own independent labels over the years, see Gray 1988, 88. For an elaboration on the experiences of free jazz musicians with independent labels, see Wilmer 1977, 227–40.

  Jazz as a Way of Life

  1. Over the years, the media’s focus on issues such as substance abuse within the jazz community has contributed to the mistaken impression that drugs and alcohol play a significant role in the creative process of jazz. In fact, they are independent features of the lives of some players, serving some—and not others—as a means of occasional relaxation or stimulation to energize themselves during the strenuous demands of late hour performances.
Some artists in this study who at one time had drug habits attributed them to the influence of Charlie Parker, and their own naive notion, as youngsters, that if they imitated their hero in every respect, they would be able to achieve the same kind of inspiration he did in his own performance. Others were drawn into drug use in the face of social pressures by other musicians who were addicts. Parker himself felt desperately trapped by his addiction and tried often, in vain, to discourage his followers from pursuing the same course. Shapiro and Hentoff 1966, 379. Artists frankly discuss the problem of drugs in the jazz community in ibid., 371–82; and in Hentoff 1978, 75–97. See also chapter 2, note 18.

  2. Roach’s horn players mimic traffic on Brown, rec. 1954a. Improvisation with Wolf song on Winter, rec. 1978, and Kirk, video 1988.

  3. Davis discusses Tony Williams on Davis, video 1986.

  4. Discussion of “Harlem Air Shaft” in Shapiro and Hentoff 1966, 224–25. The composition can be heard on Ellington, rec. 1940.

  5. The recording “Alabama” was made on November 18, 1963, and has been included on Coltrane, rec. 1963.

  6. Armstrong comments on the inspiration of popular music in Shapiro and Hentoff 1966, 204.

  7. For a sample of these trends, inspired by international music, see studies for jazz in Africa by Collins (1987, 188); for jazz in India and Puerto Rico, by Pinckney (1989–90, 48, 50; 1989, 245); for jazz in Haiti, by Averill (1989, 217); and for jazz in the Soviet Union, by Slobin (1984, 201) and Starr (1983).

  8. During a return trip to the country in the summer of 1986, it was my pleasure to interact with seasoned artists and aspiring players such as pianist John Nyathi, saxophonists Vukeeley Judge and Biddy Partridge, trumpeter Nigel Samuels, and many others.

  9. Of the dreams Coltrane discussed with friends, one exposed him to a “beautiful droning sound.” In another, during the period in which he was experimenting with intricate chord substitution schemes, Charlie Parker actually appeared and counseled him to “keep on those progressions cause that’s the right thing to do.” Simpkins 1975, 58, 60.

  10. A seven to ten-year range I have commonly heard described in the jazz community. In Lennie ‘llistano’s pedagogical method, a minimum apprenticeship of eight years was necessary for students to develop an appropriate base from which to develop their own individuality. McKinney 1978, 182.

  11. Ken McIntyre of the Music Department at Wesleyan University, CT, personal conversation, Winter 1970.

  12. Another scholar also suggests that different improvisation approaches can occur simultaneously in different ensemble parts. “The saxophonist might paraphrase the theme and then invent a new, fast-moving formulaic melody, while the pianist maintains the harmonic structure, though with his own local variations, the double bass player creates a formulaic walking bass line from the given harmony, moving in quarter-notes from chordal root to chordal root, and the drummer plays strings of rhythmic patterns, including variations on swinging cymbal rhythms and irregularly placed bass-drum beats (or bombs).” Kernfeld 1988b, 561.

  13. There is some speculation about instances of comparable real-time composition in the abilities of prodigious composers like Mozart, Chopin, and Schubert, who are said to have written music as quickly as they conceived it with minimal revision. Nettl1974, 10. See also chapter 8, note 4.

  14. Other scholars have also commented on various historical dimensions of improvisation. “No one can genuinely improvise outside an existing tradition with which he is intimately familiar,” maintains Donington (1970, 11). Gates (1988, 63–64) interprets improvisers’ references to earlier styles and earlier versions of pieces in the most general sense as a “Signifyin(g)” process whose features of “repetition and revision,” of respectful extension and of “intertextuality”, are analogous to those found in “Afro-American formal literary tradition.” “Every jazz performance is an interpretation of the history of the tune,” according to Bowen (1990). An artist “cannot escape his own musical habits, his previous musical experiences, his personal performance facility and compositional procedures.” Bymside 1975, 224. “The conversation or interaction between jazz musicians takes place overtime as well as in time.... [Artists] reveal themselves to be self-conscious participants in musical history” through their adoption of wide-ranging features of performance from the use of traditional repertory, or a particular groove, to the use of particular mutes that “invoke reference” to individual trumpeters who favored them. Monson 1991, 206–7.

  Elaboration on “the dialogical, conversational character of black music” and, drawing on Gates’s theory of African American literary criticism to interpret improvisation as “Signif[ying] on (1) the structure of the piece itself, (2) the current Signifyin(g)s of the other players in the group, and (3) the players’ own and others’ Signifyin(g)s in previous performances,” is in Floyd 1991, 277, 279–80. Artists pay tribute to their musical predecessors in Jacquet, video 1993, and Zardis, video 1993.

  15. Comments on the music culture of some Sufi groups are based on the findings of ethnomusicologist Philip D. Schuyler, University of Maryland/Baltimore County, who shared them with me in a personal conversation, spring 1992.

  16. Davis quotation from Davis, video 1986.

  17. Abrahams 1970a, 97. For a complete discussion of the subject, see ibid., 97–172.

  18. “Honky Tonk Bud” is the result of a collaboration among lyricists John Toles-Bey and David Smith, composer Edward Wilkerson Jr., and producer-director Scott Laster. Toles-Bey and Wilkerson, video 1986.

  19. For an insightful analysis of Davis’s rock fusion period, see Tomlinson 1991, 257–63. Davis’s own discussion of his changing interests is in Davis 1990, 311–32.

  20. Davis’s interest in Coleman in particular represents an interesting shift in his former ideas and tastes, for he had dismissed the value of Coleman’s music during the sixties. Davis also acknowledges the influence of British composer Paul Buckmaster on his music (1990, 322).

  21. For reference to Davis’s experimentation, see Tomlinson 1991, 257.

  22. For presentation of Davis’s stage demeanor, see Davis, video 1986.

  23. Coltrane explains this view, stating that he “know[s] that there are bad forces, forces put here that bring suffering to others and misery to the world, but I want to be the force which is truly for good.” Kofsky 1973, 241. Similarly, Abdullah Ibrahim regards music as “a healing force ... [that] transcends all political, social and ethnic barriers because it speaks directly to the heart.... I do not think of myself as a pianist or a composer. My talent is a medical formula handed down from the creator. I am a dispenser of medicine.” Zwerin 1982, 18.

  24. Williams’s quotation is on Vaughan, video 1991.

  DISCOGRAPHY

  This list provides the recording session dates and names of the original companies associated with selected recordings cited in this work, emphasizing those that provide the basis for its original transcriptions. In some cases in which the original albums are no longer in print or are difficult for readers to obtain, it mentions reissues. Part 1 arranges compositions chronologically by session date under the names of featured artists. Part 2 follows the same basic scheme but lists those albums or CDs whose citation in this work does not include reference to specific compositions. For further information, see comprehensive jazz discographies by Bruyninckx (1980), Kraner (1979), Lord (1992), and Rust (1978).

  1. Listing by Artist and Composition Titles

  ADDERLEY, JULIAN “CANNONBALL”

  “Somethin’ Else;” March 9,1958. Somethin’ Else, Blue Note BST-81595.

  ARMSTRONG, LOUIS

  “Big Butter and Egg Man from the West;” Nov. 16, 1926. The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz (compilation), CBS, Inc., CD Edition RD 033 A5 19477.

  “S.O.L. Blues” and “Gully Low Blues,” May 13 and 14, 1927; “Struttin’ with Some Barbecue;” Dec. 9,1927. The Louis Armstrong Story, Columbia CBS 66427.

  “Weather Bird;” Dec. 5, 1928a. The Smithsonian Collection
of Classic Jazz (compilation), CBS, Inc., CD Edition RD 033 A5 19477.

  “Muggles” and “Tight like This,” Dec. 12, 1928b. The Louis Armstrong Story, Columbia CBS 66427.

  BAKER, CHET

  “Like Someone in Love,” July 30, 1956. Let’s Get Lost, CapitaI/Pacific Jazz CDP 7 929322.

  BLAKEY, ART

  “Soft Winds;” Nov. 11, 1955. The Jazz Messengers at the Cafe Bohemia, Volume 1, Blue Note CDP 7 46521 2.

  “Moanin’” (original and alternate take), Oct. 30, 1958a. Moanin’, Blue Note CDP 7 465162.

  “I Remember Clifford;” Nov. 22, 1958b; “Moanin’,” Dec. 17, 1958b. Jazz Messengers 1958-Paris Olympia. Fontana 832 659–2.

  “Like Someone in Love;” Aug. 7, 1960. Like Someone in Love, Blue Note CDP 7 842452.

  BROWN, CLIFFORD

  “I Can Dream, Can’t IT” (takes 1–3), Oct. 15, 1953. The Clifford Brown Quartet in Paris, Prestige OJCCD-357–2.

  “Parisian Thoroughfare;” Aug. 2 and 14, 1954a. The Immortal, Limelight LM2-8201.

  “Jordu,” Aug. 2, 1954b. Jordu, EmArcy MG 36036.

  “What’s New?,” Jan. 18, 1955a. Clifford Brown with Strings, EmArcy 814642–2.

  “The Blues Walk,” Feb. 24, 1955b. More Study in Brown, EmArcy 814 637–2.

  CHAMBERS, PAUL

  “The Theme;” July 14, 1957. Bass on Top, Blue Note BST-81569.

  COLTRANE, JOHN

  “Blue Train” and “I’m Old Fashioned;” Sept. 15, 1957. Blue Train, Blue Note CDP 7 460952.