Rabbit's Blues: The Life and Music of Johnny Hodges

Rabbit's Blues: The Life and Music of Johnny Hodges
Con Chapman
Oxford University Press
New York: Oxford University Press: 232 pages

Nearly fifty years after he passed away, we finally have a full biography of Johnny Hodges. Hodges was arguably the premier alto saxophonist before Charlie Parker. Perhaps it was his close association with Duke Ellington that underscored the absence of a full biography. After all, his musical career was so intertwined with that of Ellington. Also, he was a taciturn person who sought to keep his private life private and was also a person of few words. With this background, we can appreciate Con Chapman's efforts to detail Hodges' life and music.

Chapman has written a straightforward account of the great saxophonists life and his music as he straightens out some facts about his life. In the Prologue, he notes that the first name by which he is known does not appear on his birth certificate and his given name does not appear on his death certificate. While his birth year is cited as 1906, his birth certificate shows he was born in 1907, and he provides several cases where wrong information is given about him. Other misconceptions are corrected here as well as telling Hodges story.

Chapman first examines Hodges roots, tracing his parents back to Virginia before they moved to the Boston area. His family was a musical one, but his attraction to the saxophone was because he found this one soprano saxophone in a store window "looked so pretty." He details Hodges education on the saxophone that included a few lessons from teachers and other players. Sidney Bechet was a significant influence whom he met when Bechet was in a show in Boston. Also, he learned from listening to records, and he gained experience playing with local artists in Boston as well as travel to New York.

In New York, he scuffled playing in dance clubs and jam sessions, before playing with Bechet at a club the New Orleans artist-owned. Eventually, Willie 'The Lion' Smith took over the band, and at some point, he joined Chick Webb's band, which became established at the new Savoy Ballroom. At some point, Otto Hardwick, who played alto, soprano and baritone saxophones with Duke, was injured in a taxicab accident and Ellington sought Hodges to replace him. Ellington has twice before asked Hodges but was rebuffed, but it was Webb who convinced Hodges this time, telling him it would be better for him in the long-time. So began an association that would last, with one significant interruption, until Hodge's death.

A good portion of the book, of course, is concerned with Hodges' time with Duke. This includes discussing some of the recordings, and live performances Hodges had while with the Duke. There is also discussion of small group recordings Hodges made with members of the Ellington Orchestra, and with non-Ellington small groups including accompanying vocalists such as Billie Holiday and Mildred Bailey. There is also the relationship he had with Billy Strayhorn and other members of the Orchestra including his fellow Bostonian, Harry Carney, and tenor saxophonist Ben Webster who was influenced by Hodges sound and approach to ballads, blues and more.

Chapman explains the factors causing Hodges to leave Ellington Orchestra, going out on as a leader and featured star performing and recording. Chapman details Hodges participation with Jazz at the Philharmonic and an association with Lawrence Welk. Chapman also notes the circumstances leading to Hodges return to the Ellington orchestra with whom he would remain with for the rest of his life. There are also chapters devoted to Hodges' very distinctive 'Tone,' his rivalry with other alto saxophonists, especially Benny Carter, "The Blues" which was always a significant part of his sound and repertoire, and finally a consideration of Johnny Hodges' legacy in Jazz.

In discussing Hodges music, Chapman does not employ technical musical examples in discussing Hodges playing, but his descriptions help bring his music to life in words as best as one can. A biography of Johnny Hodges has been long overdue and Chapman, not merely has filled a hole in the jazz literature, but provided a thoroughly researched, literate, and engaging biography. In addition to telling Johnny Hodges story, it details Hodges legacy and accomplishments as one of the most influential saxophonists in the history of Jazz.  I note that my advance copy did not include photos or an index. These will be in the actual published book.

I received my copy from a publicist. Tomorrow I will post a short Johnny Hodges playlist.

Whisper Not: The Autobiography of Benny Golson

Whisper Not: The Autobiography of Benny Golson
Benny Golson and Jim Merod
Philadelphia:Temple University Press:
2016; 336+xvi pp.

Anyone who has had the pleasure of seeing the marvelous saxophonist and composer Benny Golson, has been treated to not simply marvelous music but also his storytelling in introducing the tunes performed, whether recollections about growing up with John Coltrane, or the origins of some of his classic compositions such as "Along Came Betty," "I Remember Clifford," "Stablemates," and so many more. Now, Benny has put some of these stories and more in this new volume that was written with Jim Merod.

This is not a usual autobiography where the person provides a chronicle of his life. Instead the book is more of a systematic organization of vignettes of the manner he would tell in performance, except perhaps he gets into more depth about some and a number of them are matters that would not normally come up unless he was being interviewed.

The book is organized into eight parts and it would give an overview of the contents to describe each of the parts and some of the contents of that part. After Merod's preface, which provides an overview of Golson's life and contribution, while his own introduction is an indication of the positive, as opposed to negative, messages he hopes to provide in detailing his story.

Part 1 is entitled John Coltrane and in its three chapters discusses his interactions with Coltrane including John and him meeting Bird and Diz and then being the musical dynamo. Part II is entitled "The 'Hood' and Youthful Reckonings" and includes some of his early musical adventures as well as his Uncle Robert and Benny's first visit to Minton's, early musical experiences and then hard times. Part 111, entitled "Great P People," takes us to his experiences with the likes of Bull Moose Jackson and Earl Bostic, Art Blakey, Tadd Dameron, Clifford Brown and Fats Navarro, Jimmy and Percy Heath, Betty Carter, Art Farmer, and others. as well as discussing going to Howard University and further matters. Part IV, "Hollywood," was a revelation for me as I was unaware he had left the jazz world to spend several years scoring for film and TV. Included are his recollections of what was musically involved along with his three years with the show, "M*A*S*H."

Part V, "Amazing Friendships," has his recollections of Quincy Jones, Harry 'Sweets' Edison, Dizzy Gillespie, Philly Joe Jones (who he went back with to his youth), Thelonious Monk, Max Roach, Dinah Washington and Curtis Fuller as well as tells the story of The Jazztet that he and Art Farmer co-led. Part VI, "Music and Writing," includes his discussion of how his approach to writing music developed along with discussions of "Stablemates," his first recorded song, "Along Came Betty," and "I Remember Clifford." He was (and still is) not happy with changes Miles Davis made in his composition in the first recording of "Stablemates" (which included John Coltrane in Davis' Band). Elsewhere he recalls very sad circumstances of learning of Clifford Brown's passing that led to one of his most famous compositions. The last chapter in this part, "The Ballad and 'Weight,'" is one of the most thought provoking, as Golson considers playing of ballads such a great factor in the music's art and the import of the ballad as almost a genre in itself while in playing ballads, emphasis is on the weight given to each specific note played.

Part VII, "Icons," has his recollections of persons he had met that stand apart from simply great musicians. Included is his recollections of Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, and performing in the film, "The Terminal." There are also recollections of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, Coleman Hawkins, Art Blakey, Kenny Dorham, Lee Morgan, Peggy Lee, Diana Ross, Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, Milt Jackson, Charles Mingus, Benny Goodman, Gigi Gryce, Larry Young, Mickey Rooney, Redd Foxx, Jersey Joe Walcott, and Muhammad Ali amongst those disccussed. Part VIII, "Verses And A Coda," includes how he resumed his musical performing career after his Hollywood hiatus, the centrality of the blues and the Coda which is a brief discussion of his becoming a Jehovah Witness.

The text is clean and readily accessible as a Golson melody and a photo album includes a number of memorable images. Golson is such a positive person, and that is conveyed throughout his graceful telling of his story. This is an important addition to the body of jazz biographies and autobiographies.

I purchased this. Here is Benny talking about John Coltrane.

Mr. B is Cary Ginell's Important Biography of Billy Eckstine

Mr. B.: The Music and Life of Billy Eckstine

by Cary Ginell

2013: Hal Leonard Books 

Cary Ginell, author of a recent biography of Cannonball Adderly, has a new book as part of the Hal Leonard Jazz Biography Series, Mr. B.: The Music and Life of Billy Eckstine. Like his biography of Adderly, this is intended to be a concise and accessible biography. I found this, like the Adderly book, a brisk and well done read. In researching Eckstine's life, Ginell mined print source sews reports, interviews and like from like the Pittsburgh Courier, DownBeat, Metronome and other sources along with interviews with those that knew him well. Ginell provides a chronicle of Mr. B's life from growing up in Pittsburgh, going to school, his early days as a performer, changing the spelling of his last name from Eckstein to Eckstine, joining the Earl Hines Orchestra and later after that band disbanded his formation of the legendary bebop big band, his days as one of America's most popular singers and more.

His lengthy recording career is recounted as well from the big band days to his substantial legacy as a singer of classic pop songs. Ginell recounts his successes and triumphs as well as frustrations and the obstacles of racism that limited and frustrated some of his ambitions. It was ironic that with Earl Hines he had two major hits, Jelly, Jelly and Stormy Monday Blues (a very different song than the T-Bone Walker song), as he generally resisted singing blues, in great part because record companies at the time generally limited most Black recording and artists to blues. 

Ginell details his recording career and goes in detail about his time with Savoy, with whom his big band made so many legendary recordings, ad then his signing with MGM. He had signed with MGM as a single with the hope of also having a career in films, but a factor that the Studios provided a lack of suitable (that is non-stereotypical) roles for Blacks led to his hopes and ambitions being dashed. Racism was also a factor in the decline of his status as one of America's leading popular vocalists who at a time had a status on the level of Frank Sinatra. 

Ginell recounts the unintended consequence of the 1950 publication in Life Magazine of a pictorial on Eckstine that included an innocent looking picture (included in the pictures and illustrations incorporated in this biography) of Mr. B with admiring white teenage girls after a show. The reaction to this included a letter from a Georgian saying he was disgusted with Life for printing these pictures, and that was a printable response. As Ginell observes, this photo with an indication of racial tolerance was much "too early to do anything but alienate the still regressive and prejudiced American society." It did not open doors and in fact shut doors for Eckstine with Ginell quoting Tony Bennett and Dr. Billy Taylor.

Mr. B continued to be a significant recording artist and performing through the fifties and sixties and Ginell traces his sessions for MGM, and then Mercury and Roulette with whom he made some of his greatest recordings. And he went from headlining the Paramount in New York in the forties to becoming a major attraction on the night club circuit such as New York's Copacabana and Las Vegas as well as the Catskills and Pocono Mountains. He active involvement with the Civil Rights Movement is also recounted. 

Ginell also details Eckstine's various aspects of his domestic life, including his divorces. His children's recollections of growing up with his as their dad also provide perspective on his life. He had some financial issues including apparently some tax debts although Ginell does not explain the reason underlying these debts. The IRS did seize and sell property to pay off a quarter million dollar debt in 1986.

Billy Eckstine was a trailblazer as well as a great artist. Ginell observes that he was "popular music's first romantic African American icon," his legacy was obscured because while he had many hits, he lacked an iconic recording like Sinatra's My Way or Bing Crosby's White Christmas. He made his mark in live performances, of which few were documented on a recording and a substantial body of his recording carer remains un-reissued. Be he deserves better. He struggled to be treated as the equal of white entertainers, which "showed a resiliency,sense of purpose and defiance that is as essential to the American experience as the efforts of Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. The possessor of one of the most glorious voices in history does not deserve his anonymity." 2014 will be the centennial of his birth and it is time to reassess his talent and career "as one of the most important and essential bodies of work of the twentieth century." Gary Ginell's Mr. B.: The Music and Life of Billy Eckstine, makes a strong case for this re-assessment and is an important addition to the jazz literature.  

I received my review copy from a publicist for the publisher. Here is some vintage Billy Eckstine.

Michelle Mercer's Insightful Wayne Shorter Biography

FOOTPRINTS: THE LIFE AND
WORK OF WAYNE SHORTER
by Michelle Mercer 
JEREMY P. TARCHER/PENGUIN

At the Hollywood Bowl not too long before he passed, Miles Davis told Wayne Shorter, “You know, you need to be more exposed.” A rather intriguing comment about Shorter who certainly has had a most distinguished career in jazz as a musician, a composer and a person. Shorter was a central figure in the bands of Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers and the second great Miles Davis Quintet, before forming Weather Report with Joe Zawinul, and then having the fruitful partnership with Brazilian singer, Milton Nascimento, and in more recent years lea ing his own highly regarded group. Throughout this tenure, he has enriched the jazz corpus with such classic compositions as Africaine, Native Dancer, Lester Left Town, Footprints, Delores, E.S.P., Infant Eyes, Neferiti, Mysterious Traveler, Super Nova, and Speak No Evil, to list a few. At the same time, Shorter’s playing, which fortunately is fairly well documented, shows him to be one of the great saxophonists of the past few decades and certainly one who may have shown influence from John Coltrane, but certainly developed his own approach.

Michelle Mercer was fortunate enough to get Wayne’s cooperation in writing her biography and overview of his music, Footprints: The Life and Work of Wayne Shorter. Not only was she able to interview and spend time around Shorter, but this also enabled many of Shorter’s associates to cooperate with her. Shorter is not the simplest interviewee, and as Herbie Hancock notes Shorter does not simply answer questions, he reacts. “Reactions, not just answers, that are chock-full of wisdom. In his jovial way, and with an innately uncanny sense. Wayne says what a person needs to hear in order to expand himself.” As Ms. Mercer notes in her introduction, getting to write this biography involved more than simply charting the events of Wayne’s life, which she does. It involved being around him and realizing his still evolving life and career.

Growing up in Newark, Wayne was fortunate to have a mother that nurtured his creative whims which included an early display of artistic talent and allowed his imagination to flourish., as well as be critical of social norms and institutions, and in their neighborhood where some of the immigrant families were less fortunate than the Shorters, his parents pointed this out “to discourage racial stereotyping and encourage self-reliance.” Then he went to Arts High whose alumni include Sarah Vaughan, Melba Moore, Connie Francis and Woody Shaw where his artistic bent was encouraged and while there discovered music, namely bebop, which led him to develop an interest in playing music at the age of 15.

Perhaps a late beginner, nevertheless Shorter quickly picked up the technical aspects of music, including reading quickly, and started playing in local bands and going to New York University as a music education major while still playing and starting to compose, and playing the Palladium on a bill with Tito Puente who recalled to Wayne years later how Wayne’s band from Newark had kicked his band’s ass. He met and started working with Horace Silver, and later met John Coltrane, with whom he would practice together, and then begin a friendship with Joe Zawinul. While with Maynard Ferguson, he was recruited by Art Blakey to replace Hank Mobley, where his talent a saxophonist and composer blossomed. It was one of the great editions of Blakey’s Band with Lee Morgan on trumpet. While with Blakey, some called him a Coltrane clone but Sonny Rollins noted that while Wayne liked Trane and himself, he was innovative himself and it came out in how he constructed his solos, “He was an honest boy and a real player.”

With Blakey he introduced such songs as Lester Left Town and Africaine. With Blakey, he toured Europe for the first time and the closing concert in Paris featured several expatriates including Bud Powell who sat in with the Messengers. Afterwards Powell, Blakey and others socialized, but Wayne went back to his room, drinking some wine and work on some tunes. At 3 A.M., there was a knock on the door, and opening it he was surprised to see Bud Powell, not Lee Morgan or Walter Davis, who came in and asked Wayne to play something. Wayne launched into Dance of the Infidels, after which Bud thanked him and left, an event that stuck in Wayne’s mind like other encounters he had with famous jazz legends.

The time with Blakey was the first major exposure of Shorter’s talents and contemporaneous with his first recordings as a leader on Vee-Jay, which have been followed over the past few decades by his tenure with Miles Davis in Davis’ Second Quintet, and contemporaneous with his Blue Note releases like Speak No Evil, and Super Nova. Then with long-time friend Joe Zawinul he was an integral part of perhaps the greatest fusion band, Weather Report, where he focused on soprano sax in order to be heard. Then there was the V.S.O.P reunion at the 1976 Newport in New York Jazz Festival and the accompanying tour, and after a number of years he recorded his first solo album in years and introduced the United States to the remarkable Milton Nascimento, and on to later gigs with Joni Mitchell and a tour with Carlos Santana, to his present band.

Mercer chronicles the life as well as the personal evolution of Shorter as he adapted and became committed to Buddhism attempting to balance the religion’s demands to the conflicting demands of a musician’s life, his marriage to Ana Maria, his ailing first child Isak whose brain damage may have been as a result of a vaccination and the devotion of the family to the child, sheltering Tina Turner through the worst of her times with Ike at the point where she finally broke away and went on her own, and when Ana Maria changed flights to meet him in Europe and boarded the tragically fated Flight 800 in 1995.

This rather sterile description of the book fails to convey the richness of the narrative. Footprints doesn’t describe Wayne’s compositions in technical detail but conveys a sense of the recordings and his playing. More importantly it conveys the complexity of his person and his relationships. The book opens and repeats with the narrative Wayne going backstage to meet Miles Davis at one of Miles’ last, if not the last, performances, and after others were sent out, being told he needed to be exposed. Shorter has never had a flamboyant personality and while sometimes shy, he has always been thoughtful and caring and has known when to say things. Fortunately he continues to expose himself as he plays and bring us his magic in performance and on record. Footprints includes 19 pages listing Wayne’s compositions and the first recordings (if they were recorded) of the composition.

One wishes there had been a discography of Wayne’s recordings, but that probably would have been a book in itself. Footprints was a fascinating and enlightening read that will be hard to stop reading at times, and like I often do after being engaged with the book has led me to reexamine Wayne’s musical legacy. 

This review originally appeared in the July-August 2007 jazz & Blues Report (Issue 295).  I do not remember if I purchased this or received a review copy. I close this review with this 2003 video of Wayne Shorter performing Footprints.

Being Prez Is Concise Look At Life And Music Of Lester Young

Being Prez: The Life & Music of Lester Young
Dave Gelly
Oxford University Press (2007)

Its been nearly five decades when Lester Young passed away and while he has been served by a few very scholarly biographies, the level of detail and technical discussion of his music may have put off some which is a shame since Young was a major innovator in jazz history. At a time when Coleman Hawkins was the man on tenor saxophone, Lester created a totally new style that influenced countless subsequent tenor players but saxophonists of all styles including the musical revolutionary Charlie Parker. British music journalist and saxophonist Dave Gelly has provided us with a concise consideration of Young’s life and music making use of the important works of Frank Büchmann-Muller, Louis Porter and Douglas Henry Daniels among others. Gelly takes us from Young’s youth, his father’s “abduction” of him from his mother’s home and growing up in the family band his father led to the last days as his health was failing him and his passing.


Lester Young’s journey includes playing as part of a circus in a minstrel show and also on the T.O.B.A. circuit. Then in 1926-27 the winter was spent in Minneapolis and while he later went back on tour with his father’s show, he dropped out rather than another tour in the Jim Crow south. Eventually he hooked up with Art Bronson’s Bostonians, and then the Blue Devils, Bennie Moten, a tour with King Oliver and eventually Bill ‘Count’ Basie. Lester established himself in the Kansas City scene and was a feared competitor in a jam session as recounted in the legendary one when Coleman Hawkins came to Kansas City. Not that long thereafter he was recruited for Fletcher Henderson’s Band but was never accepted there as the band wanted someone more in the line of Hawkins’ style.


A return to Kansas City led to his being back with Basie and the emergence of the Count and his band, who had their own travails to go through, including being induced to sign a horrible contract with Decca. But finally it led Lester into a recording studio where he waxed four sides for the American Record Combination under the name of Jones-Smith, since Basie was signed to Decca. Gelly writes: “This was the moment when Lester Young finally sidled out of the shadows, the moment when he ceased to be just a name, a rumor from the territory, a set of tall tales concerning jam sessions in bars and hotel lobbies and shoeshine parlors, and became a sound. For the first time, his music was caught, frozen onto shellac grooves and sent out into the world…”


About the first recording, Shoe Shine Boy, “Basie and the rhythm section play the introduction, setting tempo and mood, and then, after forty-five seconds, Lester young bursts forth. The first impression is of blazing energy and complete self-assurance. He plays with all the confidence and poise of a young man fully aware of his powers and in complete control of them. … Faced with such unhesitating fluency, it is easy to understand why other musicians at jam sessions would simply lay down their instruments and look goggle-eyed. … Here, constrained by the three-minute limit of the ten-inch, 78 RPM record, he confines himself to two choruses, sixty-four bars, lasting exactly one-minute, but it is obvious that he has barely hit his stride. The take was a perfect one… .”


From there on we follow Lester with the Basie Band as it plays various hotel rooms that the band perhaps was not suited for and start to make their marvelous recordings. He meets and begins a life-long friendship with Billie Holiday (some under Teddy Wilson’s name) and participates on a number of her finest recordings as well as plays behind her when she sings with Basie. Then there is his relationship with Texas tenor saxophonist Herschel Evans, whose style was more akin to Hawkins and while Basie exploited the contrasting styles on many recordings and performances. Evans alas was one of many jazz artists who died so prematurely. Lester would leave Basie and lead his own group, although as an individual he lacked the temperament and relied on assistance of others while producing more wonderful recordings.


There was the reunion with Basie and then the disaster of his army experience when he should never have been inducted and which he became the victim of southern racism. The army experience shaped his sensitive personality even more and after the war he would resume his career which Gelly traces while interweaving a thoughtful dissection of pertinent recordings, taking us to the legendary couple bars he played behind Billy Holiday at The Sound of Jazz television show and some final performances at the Blue Note Café in Paris (His time at the Blue Note was part of the inspiration for the character played by Dexter Gordon in the movie Round Midnight).


Gelly’s concise and lively written biography certainly presents Young’s formidable musical legacy to us as he notes, “The beauty of Lester Young’s music endures.” Included is a thoughtful selected discography of Young’s recordings that add to the value of this biography of one of the seminal artists of jazz history.

I wrote this review in late 2007 for Jazz & Blues Report but do not believe the review was published.  I may have  received a review copy from the publisher.

Randy Weston's Fascinating Musical Journey

Randy Weston
African Rhythms: The Autobiography of Randy Weston
Composed by Randy Weston, Arranged by Willard Jenkins
2011: Duke University Press


2011 has seen a number of important biographies and autobiographies involving significant jazz and blues artists. One of the best may be African Rhythms: The Autobiography of Randy Weston. Instead of the usually by x as told to y, this book informs us it was composed by Randy Weston and arranged by Willard Jenkins. This probably more accurately describes the process which the great composer and pianist Weston and journalist, educator and broadcaster Jenkins produced this book.

Weston has led a remarkable life, growing up in a very culturally aware home and having crossed paths with and worked together with some of the most remarkable individuals. His father was a follower of Marcus Garvey and the message of self-determination that is seen in his pride as a black man and this is reflected in his life. The rich narrative takes us from his growing up in Brooklyn in a neighborhood where Max Roach, Cecil Payne, Duke Jordan and Ray Copeland were also growing up to his embrace of the "Motherland" including his travels there and his living there and operating a famed club there to being recognized as the Jazz Master he is.


The narrative takes us to the Berkshires where Weston's a career as a jazz pianist began with him participating in programs on jazz history with pioneering jazz historian, Marshall Stearns and then made his first recordings with bassist Sam Gill for Riverside, followed by one that used his own compositions and an early live recording. The memories and perspective of Orrin Keepnews who produced those early recordings are quite valuable. He is simply one of many of Weston's associates who help fill in the story.


Melba Liston is amongst the most amazing of the persons that Weston has been associated with and we are introduced to her. They worked together first on the Little Niles, record date and her arrangements continued to enhance his music over the decades, even when she had suffered significant health setbacks. And then there was Weston's Uhuru Afrika, his suite dedicated to Mother Africa, and his involvement with the African American Musicians Society. While known as a composer already, he considered this his major work to date and collaborated with many including Langston Hughes, Yusef Lateef, Ron Carter, Clark Terry, Charles Perslip and others. It also took some effort to get his label to release this project with Weston having to do an album based on a Broadway show. But it did, and he also recalls later performances of this suite. And its message was heard, leading to the South African government banning it.


Weston would soon make a pilgrimage to Africa as well as tour their with his band whether playing pioneering festivals or on State Department sponsored tours. Eventually, Weston settled in Tangier which became the base for much of his activities and opened up his African Rhythms Club, which became a focal point for jazz and African Culture in North Africa. It was also where he connected with the remarkable Gnawa people with whom he developed a close rapport as a people and their music.


And at some point he returns to the United States and resumes his career as an honored elder of the music. He discusses some of his compositions and other significant performances, talks about his present band and its members (and they contribute their impressions as well). African Rhythms also contains a discography of his recordings and a list of the honors he has received. It is a truly wonderful read.


This was a purchase.