Jay McShann, Last of the Blue Devils

Jay McShann, like Joe Turner, bridges the world of jazz and blues. The Last of the Blue Devils represents a new Atlantic issue (SO 8800) where he is joined by Paul Ouinichette, Joe Newman, Buddy Tate, John Scofield, Milt Hinton and Jackie Williams. McShann is known as the leader of the big band from which Charlie Parker emerged. Ouinichette a well known tenor player also was associated with McShann. McShann's band was known as a band that played the blues. Recordings in the 1940s with singer Walter Brown were quite popular and led to a limited view of his own talents which hopefully this album will rectify (along with other recent recordings including the wonderful duet album he did with Buddy Tate on Sackville).

This album should win McShann many new fans. It swings with a vengence with lots of bluesy swinging piano that shows slight traces of Art Tatum. McShann takes five persuasive relaxed vocals. He redoes "Confessin' the Blues" which he recorded with vocalist Walter Brown and has since been done by Little Walter, B.B. King and the Rolling Stones. Bird, Brown and McShann composed "Hootie Blues" which features some nice electric piano from him capturing an almost organlike flavor. McShann's singing is quite like bluesman Lowell Fulson and it may be more than coincidental that both come from Oklahoma.

Besides the five blues vocals, there are five instrumentals including one solo piece. McShann is in good company with especially good work from Tate and trumpeter Joe Newman. All told a most wonderful album that any lover of jazz or blues can iII afford to be without. Atlantic may be part of the WEA conglomerate but releases like this show that label founder Ahmet Ertegun still hasn't forgotten the music that the label was built on and we are grateful. Mr. Ertegun, may we have more of the same, please.

This review originally appeared in the Buffalo Jazz Report March 1978 Issue 49. I likely received a review copy from the Buffalo Jazz Report, now Jazz & Blues Report. This may be available on CD used or digital. Here is "Blues Devil Jump" from this album,

 

Alyn Shipton Ably Tells Cab Calloway's Story

British jazz critic and historian Alyn Shipton has authored a marvelous biography, "Hi-De-Ho: The Life of Cab Calloway," that should lead to a reevaluation of the remarkable career of a person who most only will know from his iconic personality. Some will only know Calloway from his performance of "Minnie the Moocher," in the movie "The Blues Brothers," while others will remember him from his performances on Broadway and others will have heard some of his recordings and think of him as a popular vocalist.

Shipton traces his early years in Rochester and Baltimore, to Chicago where he was influenced by his older sister Blanche, through his linking up with the Alabamians who would become the Missourians and eventually his Orchestra. He gets engagements at the mob-connected Connie's Inn and the Cotton Club, and linked with Irving Mills, also Duke Ellington's manager at the time, and with Mills connections and these performances develops into a pioneering scat singer (second perhaps to Armstrong) while leading a disciplined and terrific jazz big band that had excellent musicians and soloists in addition to his remarkable singing.

There is the discussion of the many musicians who were part of the Calloway Band such as Ben Webster, Milt Hinton, Danny Barker, Doc Cheatham, Jonah Jones, Dizzy Gillespie and Chu Berry and how Calloway was constantly improving the band, trying to get strong sections as well as soloists. It is interesting that after Chu Berry replaced Ben Webster, instrumental features for the band become much more frequent and Cab featured a small band within his Orchestra as well. And the stories of life on the road and the friction sometimes between Cab and members of his band, such as the infamous incident when he accused Dizzy Gillespie of throwing spitballs and Dizzy coming after him with a knife.

And the body of recordings that Calloway produced over his life is examined in the context of his career as Shipton recounts the tours, his appearances in film (including the Betty Boop cartoons and the unique process that was used to animate his dancing style (that Shipton observes presages Michael Jackson's "Moon Walk'). Shipton takes us through his remarkable early recording of "St. Louis Blues," that was far removed from Louis Armstrong's big band recording, to the immortal "Minnie the Moocher," and the musical elements that were so original here and in its various sequels. Shipton discusses the music clearly and cogently without the use of detailed technical musical analysis so this book will be of interest to general readers.

Calloway, like his other contemporaries, suffered from the decline of the big bands but Shipton details how he started working with small groups, and then how his performance as "Sportin' Life" in a revival of Porgy & Bess re-established him as a leading performer and entertainer as well as on other productions such as the All Balck cast of "Hello Dolly," as well in the touring cast of "Bubbling Brown Sugar." I did not remember he was a featured performer on The Ed Sullivan Show for one of the broadcasts that also featured The Beatles. It was a rich musical life that continued until shortly before he passed away.

Shipton discusses the stresses of leading the band with its substantial touring inflicted on Calloway's personal life. How he had a lengthy estranged relationship with his first wife, and how hiss second wife forced him to give up his race track gambling habit while he tried to do his best as a father to his children.

As Alyn Shipton observes in his introduction, prior to this project he had scant awareness of the full and impressive range of Cab Calloway's accomplishments. After reading "Hi-De-Ho", the reader will have a full awareness of Cab Calloway's remarkable life and music.

I received my review copy of this book as a reviewer for Amazon.Com’s Vine Program and I initially posted this review on amazon.com.

Ghosts of Harlem Will Be Great Gift For Jazz Lover

The following review has been written for Jazz & Blues Report and hopefully will appear in the December issue. I certaainly think this book (with an included CD) would make for a terrific present for the jazz lover in your family or a gift for yourself. This lists for $75 but amazon has it for a bit over $50 as I post this.

The Ghosts of Harlem
Hank O’Neal
Vanderbilt University Press

At one time Harlem was the center of the Jazz World with such bands and performers as Duke Ellington, the Savoy Sultans, Chick Webb and others playing as part of shows at such legendary places as The Cotton Club, Connie’s Inn, the Savoy Ballroom, the Lafayette Theatre and the Apollo Theatre along with other places such as Monroe’s and Minton's. In “The Ghosts of Harlem,” Hank O’Neal provides a brief history of Harlem’s jazz scene from its heyday to its decline after World War 11, as well as provides interviews of 42 artists who were part of Harlem’s vibrant scene and get their memories as well as views on what led to the decline.

Its not a dry oral history either as author O’Neal is a gifted and noted photographer. While some may know him as the principal person behind the Chiaroscuro Records label, he was at one time on duty for the Central Intelligence Agency, before his more known musical activities which also included producing the Floating Jazz Festivals, the source of the various jazz, blues and other themed music cruises of today. Also he is well respected as a photographer and author having compiled “The Eddie Condon Scrapbook of Jazz,” “Gay Day: The Golden Age of the Christopher Day Parade,” and “Berenice Abbott”, about his friend, the noted photographer. His talents as a writer, interviewer, photographer and record producer are all given effect in this handsome coffee table volume that is richly illustrated with both his own portraits, mostly taken with a view camera, as well as archival photos from various sources. This updates the original version which was published in France in 1997).

The early chapters set the table as he explores some of the that made Harlem, contrasting his contemporary photos with historical photos as he discusses the venue, who played there and lets us see how its now a church, an apartment building or a few clubs still exist and feature live entertainment, including some jazz. The bulk of the book is devoted to the interviews of The Ghosts of Harlem. They are Ghosts only in a figurative sense, as O’Neal has common themes in the interviews including some basic biographical information, when and how they first came to Harlem, what memories they had of the places they played and what performers they remember as outstanding as well as thoughts or observations on the decline in jazz and any recent visits or experiences they had.

The persons interviewed range from such prominent jazz figures as Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Carter, Cab Calloway, Milt Hinton, Clark Terry, Benny Carter, Illinois Jacquet, and Joe Williams, along with such important persons, if not as widely known among the general public, as Andy Kirk, Eddie Durham, Sammy Price, Buddy Tate, Danny Barker and Sy Oliver. The recollections are fascinating as O’Neal is a gifted interviewer (some of his Chiaroscuro CDs included jazz speak tracks with the performers recollections included), and his contemporary portraits are mixed in with historical photo as well as label shots of 78s that the artist was featured or performed on.

Added to the interviews is a compact disc with eleven performances from the Chiarascuro catalog featuring 17 of the Ghosts of Harlem including Illinois Jacquet, Buddy Tate, Milt Hinton, Jonah Jones, Doc Cheatham, Eddie Barefield, Red Richards, Al Casey, Cab Calloway, Dizzy Gillespie, Danny Barker, Frank Wess, Harry Edison, Major Holley, Benny Carter, Clark Terry, and Joe Williams, and a bit of Jazz Speak with Eddie Barefield, Cab Calloway, Eddie Barefield and Milt Hinton recollecting about the times together in Cab’s great band as they joke about whether Cab had his Studebaker or Lincoln in the Pullman Car they traveled in while touring.

This is a large and heavy book. 432 pages with 475 b&w photographs and the CD with over an hour of music and talk. Its is fascinating and by its very nature invites one to delve back into it again and again. “The Ghosts of Harlem have come to life in this superb book. Something to keep in mind when looking for a gift for a jazz lover in your circle of friends or family.

Milt Hinton's marvelous life

I just finished this morning reading Playing the Changes: Milt Hinton’s Life in Stories and Photographs, by Milt Hinton, David G. Berger & Holly Maxson (Vanderbilt University) and while I still have a more formal review to write wanted to spread the word about this remarkable book. The late Milt Hinton was one of the most venerated jazz musicians. In addition to his bass playing, he also was an accomplished photographer. Some twenty years ago, Hinton and Berger authored The Bass Line which the present volume updates and serves as a pictorial autobiography as it includes family photos and others from the Hinton family collection in addition to over 100 new photos by Hinton that was added to this upgraded addition. And there are phots of everyobe from Coltrane, Ellington, In addition to recounting his days with Cab Calloway or the New York recording studios, he also has several pages discussing his photography, how Keg Johnson convinced him to get a Leica (his first camera was an Argus) and later purchasing a Canon (I believe one with a trigger). There is also a CD of interview segments with the late jazz master and the book’s dimensions are of a coffee table book. This is not a book to casually lug around, rather one to sit back, kick one’s shoes off and savor.

Mingus' Complete Town Hall Concert

1994 saw Blue Note release Charles Mingus, The Complete Town Hall Concert. As long a fan of the late bassist, composer and leader, it certainly was a delight to listen to and here is a review from the November 1994 Jazz & Blues Report.

Blue Note’s CD reissue of Charles Mingus’ Town Hall concert provides a more complete view than the previous releases of this material. The posthumous performance of Epitaph created some interest in hearing more of this concert, which contained some of the big band scores that formed the basis for the latter suite. The concert has a reputation of being a low point in Mingus’ career, in part because of the prior, less complete releases of this material. While rough edges are obvious, the recovery and release for the first time of much of this is revelatory. This is Mingus at his more exploratory with the turbulent, almost explosive, ensembles, shifting tempos and flavors, and searching solos perhaps best exemplified by Epitaph Part 1 with its echoes of Mingus’ Pithecanthropus Erectus at the beginning, with suggestions of Ellington later, with Eric Dolphy, Clark Terry and Britt Woodland among those featured.The relatively melodic Peggy’s Blue Skylight provides a contrasting mood. Some of the others present include Ernie Royal, Jimmy Cleveland, Charles McPherson, Buddy Collette, Zoot Sims, Pepper Adams, Jaki Byard and Milt Hinton. It should be caveated that this is not an album for those new to Mingus who would be better served by the Rhino double compact disc set, or Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus on Candid.