And, it was also the age of the Soloist - one of the unusual aspects, as the large group and section work would seem to hide the players within the ensemble. As Joachim Berendt mentions: “the thirties also became the era of great soloists: the tenor saxists Coleman Hawkins and Chu Berry; the clarinetist Benny Goodman; the drummers Gene Krupa, Cozy Cole, and Sid Catlett; the pianists Fats Waller and Teddy Wilson; the alto saxist Benny Carter and Johnny Hodges; the trumpeters Roy Eldridge, Bunny Berigan, and Rex Stewart.”
If any one lived the history of the era it was Benny Goodman and his emergence as the King Of Swing is a chronicle of the era. Although there were two pioneering bands before Goodman - the Dorsey Brothers and the Casa Loma Band - they did not hit the right combination of musical elements to impact the way Goodman did. The Goodman Band actually replaced the Casa Loma unit on the Camel Caravan radio show in 1936 and Sterns states that the Goodman story is how “many qualities suddenly jelled in one band to produce a blend of enormous appeal”.
Goodman was born in 1908 and came to New York with the Ben Pollack Band - which had both Goodman and Jack Teagarden as soloists - in 1928. This unit functioned till the Depression hit and Goodman survived doing Club Dates and radio programs with the commercial orchestras. He met John Hammond in 1933 and Hammond worked out a session for the English Gramophone Company.
Usually, the record companies of the period insisted on very conservative and commercial material - what was already selling [seems things haven’t changed much]. Goodman himself had recorded in 1928 and on the recording had mimicked Ted Lewis who was sufficiently impressed to hire Goodman - a job which got him through the Depression.
The Hammond date was different. First, he insisted on special arrangements and as such it was a hit in England. When the US companies picked up on the recording Hammond successfully defended against a coupling of each side with a sweet commercial number. This recording of Shirt Tail Stomp [Brun 3975] enabled Goodman to make a series of recordings for Columbia - at a new low of $100 per side [still the days of 78’s]. One of the developments of these Columbia dates was the increasing employment of Black musicians by Goodman - Teddy Wilson, Coleman Hawkins, and Mildred Bailey.
Goodman finally broke the precedent against mixed bands when he hired Teddy Wilson at the Hotel Congress in Chicago. He readily admits John Hammond’s influence in this - against the strong social conventions and prejudices of the period.
By 1934, Goodman had his own band and a below scale job at Billy Rose’s Music Hall - then the Big Break.
The National Biscuit Company was ready to launch its new Ritz cracker and had settled on using the radio to advertise. They supported the ‘Let’s Dance’ radio show with three bands - Xavier Cougat, Kel Murray, and Benny Goodman. The Company financed 8 new arrangements for Goodman - who purchased them from Fletcher Henderson. The small but devoted following that developed through the program brought the Goodman Band to the attention of MCA [Music Corporation of America]. Willard Alexander at the agency was the one who persuaded MCA - much to Benny Goodman Goodman Band annoyance of most of MCA - to book the band. They were placed in the Hotel Roosevelt in NYC [the home of Guy Lombardo] - the band was not a success. Alexander in desperation arranged a tour of mostly one night stands culminating on the West Coast. This too, was not very successful for Goodman - although he switched to ‘sweet’ dance band arrangements to get through the tour.
At the Polomar Ballroom in Los Angeles, the band had become desperate. Moral was low and its continued existence was questionable. Goodman took the plunge: “If we had to flop, at least I’d do it in my own way, playing the kind of music I wanted to…I called out some of our big Fletcher arrangements for the next set…the first big roar from the crowd was one of the sweetest sounds I ever heard in my life.”
The Swing Era was born the night of August 21, 1935.
9 The Old and the New
The swing era lasted just ten years - from l935 to 1945. In researching this article, I realized when the Swing Era ended, it also marked the end of Jazz as a Dance and a Popular music. It also marked a change in the culture of this country. What went before was never to be again - the society that created the music from New Orleans Dixieland through this era had changed for good. I personally feel that World War II created such an accelerated pace of change - technologically and socially - that the post war years do not relate to that immediate past. That past time had been destroyed by the immense social disruption which accompanied the War itself - but, it was the foundation (good or bad) for who we are today. As such, my orientation for this period is both the culmination of fifty years of musical evolution and as a transition to the “modern” - a new way of viewing the world and a new way of viewing Jazz.
Swing Music made big money - the trend toward larger groups was stimulated by this ability. I looked through the Keepnew’s Pictorial History of Jazz and came across an amazing photo. It was a picture of the marquee of the Strand theater in New York City and Artie Shaw’s band was to play at this venue.
His name is displayed in lights - a dominating presence in size and wattage. On the marquee itself, his band is given equal billing with the movie - Wings of the Navy. It was so strange for me to see this - only rock stars got that kind of exposure! But then I realized there was no difference between the Shaw date and any high profile popular music of today - they were immensely popular and immensely lucrative. The bottom line was this similarity. But then, slipping back into my present day orientation the strangeness returned - it did not ‘fit’ my view of what Jazz is. That Artie Shaw picture indicated to me that the very functionality of the music itself - and the percentage of Art perception associated with it is radically different in our times.
Jazz up to the advent of Bebop was a dance music. Its function was to provide musical accompaniment for dancing - in venues designed for dancing. Its very development was a striving to fill larger and larger spaces which existed to fill the social need for dance entertainment. Swing did this better than anything that had come before - but it was the final music whose function was social. Bop changed the artistic percentage - its focus turned inward, centering on the musical elements and the expressive abilities of the individual artist in manipulating those elements. The audience was left to participate only as consumers of art, not participants.
This change in orientation would have profound effects on the future course of Jazz. The most immediate effect was a narrowed audience - one which was capable of following complex and abstract musical expression. Those who wished to dance either did not embrace the new music or sought out alternatives. This accelerated as the following generations explored new alternatives which provided that dancing function. Within the genre itself, the musician increasingly viewed himself as an artist - and artists are not motivated by audience share but rather by standing in the artistic community. The music increasingly feedback on itself - as any ‘pure’ art will and ultimately created an audience of musicians and cognoscenti - it relegated itself to an artistic niche. What Paul Whiteman wanted so many years before - acceptance by the musically knowledgeable had come to pass. Now, it shared the same fate as the art music of the concert hall: an audience that viewed it as art, created by artists, and to be judged only on its artistic elements. It had effectively pulled back from any hope of again being a Popular Music.
Please don’t assume that Bop was the death of jazz - in many ways, Bebop was a logical conclusion to the Swing Era and many of its elements had direct roots in the Swing Bands of the Era. The Basie Band which lent so much momentum and depth to the Swing Era planted many of the seeds which sprouted into Bop. Basie’s piano style led directly to a de-emphsis of the left hand in modern Piano, the drumming of Jo Jones left a mark on all Bop drummers, and Lester Young’s relaxed style of playing directly influenced the Cool School. In addition, the rationing of World War II changed the whole economic basis for the large bands - touring was virtually impossible during the war years and many players were called or volu
nteered to serve - Glen Miller being the most visible casualty. The economic basis for the music business would no longer support large units and the small group came to the fore.
Also, the musicians themselves were striving to break loose from the musical cliches of the Era. Bop reflected a revolt against the confines of the Big Bands - the sparse solo spots in the swing arrangements minimized the opportunities for exploratory improvisational expression. This also reflected a change in emphasis from the melodic to the improvisational. The younger players chaffed at the restrictions the Swing style and the Big Band imposed. Part of this was due to the 78 rpm record which was limited to 3 min per side. This limitation was not removed until the advent of the 33 rpm record in 1948 (seems another Jazz style is tied to a technological innovation). And finally, in some ways, the younger players felt section work did not favor or reward creativity but rather craftsmanship - and the craftsmen were earning more than their fair share of fame.
The influences of these two eras are with us today - 50yrs from the end of Swing and the advent of Bop.
But, to my mind, the real impact is not the musical elements but rather the orientation with which we view the music. We seem to be caught between two opposing camps. One is the popularity and economic rewards associated with the Swing Era - a time when the music was economically healthy, the performing venues plentiful, and musical craftsmanship its own reward. The second, is the artistic values of Bop - when creativity, improvisatory exploration, and instrumental prowess turned inward to the music itself. This legacy is still being resolved.
10 Bop Till You Drop
The advent of Bob was sudden and for the working musician it was almost ‘overnite’ - but in reality, the origins span a greater length of time and several factors contributed to its development. First, WWII had great impact on the Black Community in this country. The color line between Black and White started to break down and the economic potential of the Black audience started to be noticed. The Broadway and 52nd Street Clubs started to advertise for the Afro-american market and this in turn created a highly receptive audience which in turn influenced the music. Secondly, within the music itself, the color line which had begun to break down in the ‘30’s - and hastened by WWII - enabled a closer association between musicians and eased the transition of influences and innovations which no longer had to cross a color barrier. What gave the appearance of ‘overnite’ was the recording ban of 1942-44 - those who depended on recordings for jazz music did not encounter it till 1945. And this music which emerged was a radical departure from the Swing Era as the very function of the music had changed from Dance to Art.
The Bop Era was both an internal revolution and a evolution with regard to the Swing Era. Most of what I have encountered focuses on the revolution - but I would state that there were equal parts of both. Last month, I mentioned the revolutionary aspects and these are the accepted elements which sparked the music - I agree totally with these factors but the evolutionary is also significant. I offer the musical lives of “Two Giants” - one the revolutionary and one the evolutionary. They were opposites in almost every aspect of there lives - both musical and personal - and yet were inseparable musical partners in this new music.
Dizzy Gillespie [born on October 21, 1917] came from a well structured and musical family. His father, who was a amateur musician, taught his kids several musical instruments. Dizzy, as such, studied harmony and theory while still young and had music studies paid for by his father till age 15. He took over Roy Eldridge’s chair in the Teddy Hill Band in 1937. Eldridge was Dizzy’s musical idol and played a good imitation of him but gradually developed his own style. An interesting note from the Berendt book states that the time distance between Dizzy and Armstrong is surprisingly short - the Hill band grew out of the Lewis Russell Orchestra and Russell had taken over the King Oliver Band in 1929. A case might be stated that Dizzy’s immediate roots in jazz are the traditions of New Orleans and Chicago Dixieland. It should be noted that his first recording - in 1937 - was Jelly Roll Morton’s King Porter Stomp with the Teddy Hill Band. Returning to the States after a tour of Europe in 1937 with the Hill Band - where his playing abilities were already recognized - he became a member of the Cab Calloway Orchestra [with the famous/infamous Diz cutting Cab story].
Dizzy, in spite of his admission of ‘difficulty’ copying Eldridge’s style and that he ‘quite didn’t get it’, worked in the bands of Benny Carter, Charlie Barnet, Lucky Millander, Earl Hines, Duke Ellington, and Billy Eckstine. He also started to arrange and Woody Herman, Jimmy Dorsey, and Ina Ray Hutton bought his material. I think it is safe to say that Gillespie was well versed in the Swing Era Idiom. This association with large groups was his first love. Deep down inside, he was a big band player - he founded his first band in 1945 and from ‘46-50 led large bands almost exclusively. The Afro-cuban experiments were also presented in a large group format. It is with this history that Dizzy evolved out of the Swing Era into Bop - for while embracing and creating the new idiom he made logical advances based on his previous experience. If Parker was the ‘tortured creativity’ of the Bop Revolution, Dizzy was the one who ‘gave it the power and glamor’ to conquer the jazz world - for part of him still held with the idea that music was functional entertainment not exclusively Art.
Charlie Parker [Born August 29, 1920] did not have the same early musical experiences that Dizzy did - his family life was just not as stable, supportive, or musical. His first attempts at sessions were a disaster, but the experiences [as a 10 year old] pushed him to try harder and by 1936 no one in his peer group came close to equaling him on Alto - by age 15 he was already supporting himself as a musician and
[some evidence of] his narcotics habit. He joined the Jay McShann Band in 1937 and, consistent with his early musical experiences, played and heard the Blues nightly with that band - a riff based Kansas City organization. He held menial jobs to make ends meet but always seemed to ‘scuffling’ for money. He quickly was bored with the stereo typed changes of Swing and early on searched for something else. At this stage, his playing was not well received [the Jo Jones and the Cymbal incident], but the revolutionary in him could not be suppressed.
He came to NYC in 1941 with the McShann band and there, played with Dizzy for the first time [they met originally while Dizzy was in KC in 1939]. When the McShann unit left for Detroit, Parker accompanied them but left soon afterward - he never cared much for Big Bands. After this, he went almost nightly to Minton’s to sit in with the regular band of Thelonious Monk-Piano, Charlie Christian-Guitar, Joe Guy-Trumpet, Nick Fenton-Bass, Kenny Clark-Drums. He met Gillespie again and the two became inseparable - by 1942 they were playing regularly together and had begun to record in spite of the recording ban which held up releases. Much has been said of these Minton’s sessions but Monk put it all in perspective: Dizzy Gillespie Charlie Parker “Nobody, was sitting there trying to make up something new on purpose. The job at Minton’s was a job we were playing, that’s all”.
Parker found the Quintet Format [Sax, Tpt, amp; 3 Rhythm] his favored musical palate - the Charlie Parker Quintet became the modern jazz equivalent to Armstrong’s Hot Five of the Traditional Era. This format has become the Bop standard and to this day is the typical small group makeup. The sounds he was searching for inwardly, when brought to the surface, were truly new to Jazz. It is interesting to note, that when asked to name favorite musicians, the majority were Late 19th amp; 20th Century Classical composers: Brahms, Schoenberg, Ellington, Hindemith, amp; Stravinsky [listed by Berendt]. The album he considered the culmination of his musical life was the Parker and Strings recording - it was as close as he got to the Modern Symphonic literature he so admired. I also would note that these were the ‘cutting edge’ composers of their idiom - Stravinsky felt so constrained by the limitations of Conventional Harmony he created his own swirl of controversy. It would seem that the Bop Revolutionary admired the revolutionary spirit and art these musicians lived and expressed - and heard a compani
onship and empathy to his own search.
The Revolutionary and the Evolutionary who were so different personally and in musical influence also shared, besides a friendship, the admiration of their peers for their instrumental proficiency and musical innovation - becoming recognized masters of their respective instruments and creators of a new music.
But, this journey ultimately took two different paths - the Evolutionary becoming Elder Statesman and the Revolutionary a mythical figure.
11 A Fork in the Road
The Music of Parker and Gillespie soon promulgated its own branches - again, either in reaction to or as an outgrowth of the elements which came to characterize the Bop movement. The two immediate offshoots were the Cool School and Hard Bop [and its offshoot the Funky style]. The Hard Bop movement was centered around New York City and is associated with - among others - Art Blakey, Hank Mobley and Horace Silver, (both of whom were in the original Jazz Messengers Quintet of 1955), Lee Morgan, Donald Byrd, Sonny Rollins, Max Roach, Clifford Brown, and Art Farmer. This is the East Coast Sound offered in comparison with the West Coast Cool - which in turn was a sub-set of the Cool School (as was Third Stream Music). These two movements - Hard Bop and Cool - spanned the decade of the ‘50’s. And in their turn would spawn further developments in the ‘60’s. It should be noted, that Berendt recognized the terminology of East/West as a ‘record company slogan’ not a stylistic description - more accurately the tension was between a Classicist direction and an updated Bop (which also incorporated elements of Gospel, Funk, and the Blues).
Jazz: A Short History Page 4