100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#20) Frank Trumbauer and Bix Beiderbecke

#20 - Bix and Tram - I'm Coming Virginia

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#19) Edmond Hall

#19 - Besame Mucho - Edmond Hall - 1944

I hate it when a recording is so stiff you can hear how many music stands are in the studio. None of that junk here. Every music stand probably banned within a five mile radius.

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#18) Thelonious Monk

#18 - Thelonious Monk - Bye-Ya

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#17) Eric Dolphy

#17 - Eric Dolphy - God Bless the Child (Live) - 1961

Seems an appropriate meditation as the March for Life is kicking off in D.C. 

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#16) John Coltrane with Duke Ellington

#16 - John Coltrane with Duke Ellington - In a Sentimental Mood

How to play a ballad.

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#15) Wynton Marsalis

#15 - Wynton Marsalis Live at the Village Vanguard 1994/94 - In the Sweet Embrace of Life

Haven't heard this before? Got an hour? Check it out...

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#14) George Lewis & Alton Purnell

#14 - George Lewis & Alton Purnell - Take My Hand, Precious Lord

For Martin Luther King Jr Day 2020: his favorite hymn played by one of the most influential New Orleans clarinetists of the last century. Alton Purnell's piano and vocal are the perfect pairing with the warmth and soul of Lewis.

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#13) Bill Smith with Dave Brubeck

#13 - Bill Smith with Dave Brubeck - Baggin' the Dragon - 1961

The most underrated jazz album ever? I dunno. Too many fit that category. But 1961's Near Myth/Brubeck-Smith has to be in the running. It's an entire album of Bill Smith compositions with Smith taking the clarinet lead in Brubeck's Quartet. The quartet never sounded better...

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

Rahsaan Roland Kirk on Clarinet

Here's an interesting bit of Trad Jazz from the album Bright Moments. It features Rahsaan Roland Kirk playing Fats Waller's "The Jitterbug Waltz" live in 1973. Almost as interesting as the playing, which is very good, is Kirk's introduction to the number and the importance of jazz history.

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#12) Woody Herman Live with Eddie Condon

#12 - Woody Herman with Eddie Condon - Blues 'Round My Head - Live at City Hall in NY - January 27, 1945


These choruses, sung and played on clarinet by Woody Herman, are barely over two minutes worth of music, but enough to show the brilliance of a man better known for his band leadership than his solo playing. A must listen for anyone.

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#11) Django Reinhardt 1939

#11 - Django Reinhardt - J'Attendrai - Live 1939

To be at one with your instrument, where your musical thought is so linked to what you're doing it's as natural as breathing: this is one of the goals of a jazz musician. The great ones exhibit it on such a high level you can actually see it, which is probably why Miles Davis stated he could judge how good a musician was by how he stood, or how he held his horn. Of all the examples of this, none is more obvious than Django, so in a sense this is not just something everyone should hear, but everyone should see.

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#10) Billie Holiday

#10 - Billie Holiday with Teddy Wilson, Lester Young, Buck Clayton, Buster Bailey, Freddie Green, Walter Page, Jo Jones

Perhaps I'm in the minority, but for me arguably the finest jazz ever recorded was by Teddy Wilson with Billie Holiday in the 1930s. The records are an anthology of the absolute finest musicians, playing in the most relaxed, warm, intelligent manner. Every one seems a gem, and this one is typical of the beauty and soul of what they accomplished. As far as I'm concerned, this is what jazz should be.

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#9) Bill Coleman

#9 - Bill Coleman - St James Infirmary - Live in Paris, 1952

There are so many great recordings of 'St James Infirmary', it would be impossible to choose a 'best' version, which is part of the reason this is not a 'best of' or 'greatest' list. Bill Coleman's live version from 1952, however, is one that everyone should know about. Not only is his warm, masterful trumpet on display, but his vocal too, which is among the very finest in interpreting this classic.

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#8) Sidney Bechet in 1946

#8 - Sidney Bechet - 'Bechet's Fantasy' - 1946

One of the finest soprano saxophone recordings ever captured; a perfect representation of Bechet's tonal beauty and melodic mastery. Jazz doesn't get better than this.

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#7) Benny Goodman Live at Carnegie Hall 1938

#7 - Benny Goodman * Live at Carnegie Hall * Sing Sing Sing * January 16, 1938

Considered by many to be the most important jazz concert ever given, "Sing Sing Sing" was the symphonic capstone to a monumental evening. The band's virtuosity is full throttle, from Benny's solo presence (which remarkably runs a range of emotion from commanding to introspective to almost prayerful), to career defining moments by Gene Krupa, Harry James, and Jess Stacy. 

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#6) Jimmie Noone Live

#6 - Jimmie Noone Live at the Yes Yes Club * July 17, 1941 * Honeysuckle Rose

The master of the Albert System, Jimmie Noone set a new technical standard for the jazz clarinet, influencing nearly all who followed, including the likes of Barney Bigard, Benny Goodman, Edmond Hall, Pete Fountain and countless others.

Here is a late live recording demonstrating his beautiful tone, it's warmth, muscularity, and inventiveness.   

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

Some Thoughts on Our Current Jazz Culture

It happened again this morning: some article in a jazz magazine or another arbiter of fashion said "So-and-So is stretching the boundaries of jazz." 

Under such circumstances, all I can think is "oh...what are they diluting it with now?"

It's like constantly watering down a man's bourbon or mixing rye with fruit drinks and thinking that in doing so we're making an advancement in the art of distilling spirits.

As a culture, we're thinking incorrectly if we view jazz as a nation state that needs to conquer more territory, constantly expanding like an imperialist power (we could call that "neocon jazz"), or that jazz is a technology that needs to keep changing, adapting, and succumbing to marketing schemes of planned obsolescence (call that "software jazz").

"Expanding the boundaries of jazz" is as nonsensical as expanding the boundaries of bread. Wine coolers didn't expand the boundaries of wine. There never were any 'boundaries' to sane people. It's the wrong way to think about it in the first place.

Another way of putting it: to praise a jazz musician for expanding the boundaries of jazz is like praising a hitter for expanding the strike zone. We can look at that hitter and say, well, you might get lucky on some home runs, but it's not a good idea. Basically it means you don't know what you're doing.

Without getting too specific, here are some things I'd like to point out:

1. Wind ensemble music played over a hip hop groove or swing, with space given for stiff soloing over a one or two chord vamp, does not constitute "expansion of the boundaries" of jazz. It's dilution. And too many groups like this are being praised.

2. Grooveless music without blues, but vaguely improvised, does not represent an "expansion of boundaries" but rather a contraction of tradition, and a lack of understanding of what the music actually is. It's non-contextual improvising, that's all.

3. Recycling pop ideas into jazz is not an 'expansion'...it's just recycling stuff from someone else's neighborhood.

By contrast:

What if we were to have a culture (including nightclubs, concert halls, etc) that made a point of understanding and promoting the real thing, without forcing a synthetic ideology of 'expansion' upon it? That "real thing", by the way, is huge, with a tremendous amount of diversity, stretching from New Orleans through bop through modern jazz through the latest blues/groove/improvisatory music released...but I'm pretty sure there is so much ignorance among the critics, club owners, etc, that we're in danger of losing the very roots of our music.

As a point of fact, there are now very few musicians who can truly play New Orleans style jazz at a high level. And by that I mean at a consistently professional level like the musicians of old. Yet this very music, so devalued, it arguably the most joyous music the world has ever known. So we're actually losing the capacity to express such explosive joy if we lose the ability to play this music. Think about that for a moment. Wouldn't it behoove our culture to preserve and promote it?

The answer at the commercial level, or even the level of most academia, seems to be "Nah...make way for those who have 'expanded the limits of jazz'...let's wallow in our sophistication....over our cold grooves....no looking back....no remembering...." America's cultural amnesia, our addiction to the historical delete button, rears it's ugly head again. 

Every few years I get tempted to say to myself "you know what, just go play modern jazz gigs and forget all this...work on tenor and play in big bands, get every gig you can,etc" and I try for a while...but I can't actually bring myself to do it. It takes a lot of work to keep up the type of chops I have in the NOLA tradition on clarinet and soprano.

And then there is the joy. I mean the kind of joy that bursts out of you; that you give to other people. I can't do without this type of explosive joy in my playing, and the only musical key I have to unlock it is this very specific and important "roots jazz" that came forth from New Orleans. This music has lifted my spirit and pulled me through many dark days, and I know other folks it's done that for too. I've had people come up to me at gigs and tell me my music made them a better person, and that they wanted me to play at their funeral. It's that deep. How does a musician answer such a profound statement other than by continuing? No one ever said that to me after a classical concert (and I played many). 

Duke Ellington said somewhere that intelligent musicians master what they can. I've tried to stay intelligent.

But sometimes I think the club owners and managers don't believe in this music enough to give it a real run--to really promote it and commit to the culture of earlier jazz. I believe that if there was an honest commitment to it, we would have successful early jazz bands all over the country, of professional caliber, employed, and with a real following. Symphony orchestras have done it, why not us? When given the shot, I've seen young people very enthusiastic about what we do in nightclubs, but we rarely get a prime spot and if so, almost never get multiple shots at creating and sustaining an audience. My band has had a good run for the last five years, and club owners have been good to us, so I don't want to seem ungrateful in the least...but dang. The press coverage for what we do is limited almost exclusively to enthusiastic amateur sites...and the gigs not much better most of the time. I'm always wondering how long I can afford to keep doing it.

Anyhow, my answer thus far in 2020 is simple: I'm gonna keep swinging and thinking of where to proceed. There has to be a way...

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#5) Louis Armstrong Dinah Live 1933

#5 - Louis Armstrong * 'Dinah' * Live in Copenhagen, 1933


Originality, virtuosity, invention, quotation, innovation: in short, the complete musician, all bursting with a joy you cannot get from any other music. God's gift to America: Louis Armstrong.

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

Conn or Buescher? The Question of Sidney Bechet's Soprano Sax

Conventional wisdom and several websites suggest that Sidney Bechet played a Buescher True Tone Soprano Sax from the 1920s throughout his later career. I'm pretty sure I've seen plenty of footage and photographs of him with that Buescher, so this video surprised me. In it, he seems to be playing not a Buescher but a Conn, with the distinctive right hand thumb ring clearly displayed in the first number on this video ("Buddy Bolden's Stomp").

If anyone knows about this and Bechet's use of a Conn Soprano Sax, please let me know! It would be interesting to find out if there is any documentation of when he played this other than the video.

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#4) Artie Shaw Live in 1939

#4 - Artie Shaw * 'The Carioca' * Live in 1939


The unity of Artie Shaw's whole concept--from his expressive development of the altissimo register of the clarinet, to the clear band arrangements, slotting the instruments perfectly and giving space for his counterpoint--is on display from this 1939 air check. Add to that an all star crew that included a young Buddy Rich drumming and chirping the band on, and you've got one of the jazz tunes everyone should hear...

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#3) Pete Fountain Live in Santa Monica 1961

#3 - Pete Fountain 'Tin Roof Blues' Live in Santa Monica 1961

As I wrote in an album review a couple of years back, this performance of 'Tin Roof Blues' is something special:

One of several high points in the album is the 4 minute 46 second masterpiece that is 'Tin Roof Blues.' Jack Sperling's swung triplet blues pattern on drums and Stan Wrightsman's piano soul set the table for Pete's slow, unfolding blues--one of the finest captured on record, in my opinion. Like Bechet on 'Blue Horizon', Pete begins in the chalumeau and patiently climbs, singing sweetly, letting the band push, then pushing himself, the discussion between the musicians leading to an full, insistent, even piercing altissimo climax that perfectly utilizes the unique expressive power of the clarinet. This is one of those recordings that truly demonstrates the capacity of clarinet among other blues instruments.

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

National Bobblehead Day

Apparently January 7th is designated "National Bobblehead Day" by whatever authority is capable of proclaiming it. All over social media, those of us who have bobbleheads are supposed to share our favorites. Well I don't own many, but of the ones I have, this is clearly the favorite!

Pete Fountain Bobblehead
Eric Seddon Collection

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#2)

#2 - Bootie's Blues, Count Basie 'On the Road' live at Montreux 1979

Released on a relatively obscure live album by Count Basie late in his career, "Bootie's Blues" features journeyman trombone man and plunger-master Mitchell "Bootie" Wood. A native of Dayton, OH, Wood was in and out of the jazz business from the 1930s until his death in 1987. Over the course of those years he performed and recorded with many great bands, but most notably Ellington and Basie. 

This performance features Wood's plunger and blues mastery. Particularly invigorating is his intensity ramping up to the big brass climax of the number. 

Footnote: throughout this series, I'm going to try to prioritize live recordings that are not necessarily well known. Of course I'll throw in some war horses now and then (because they're great or they wouldn't be war horses) but I'd like a tune like "Bootie's Blues" to be typical--just a great number that many might have missed. I've also always thought that live jazz is the best. Despite the many great studio recordings out there, jazz is ultimately a communal and interactive art form--not just between musicians, but with the audience as well. The intensity Wood generates on this number wouldn't have been possible without the audience.    

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#1)

This isn't a comprehensive list, nor do I claim these are the "most important" or "best", but following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest are "beyond category", I'm going to start 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes that I love, and feel everyone should have the chance to hear.

Since Duke has been a guiding light to the idea, let's start with his live version of 'Take the A Train' in 1957. Though the studio version is excellent, and a must-listen in itself, this particular live version has such verve and meaning -- I particularly love how Harry Carney's baritone sax comes through, almost like he's leading from the bottom. It also gives a snapshot of the Ellington band on an average night in the late 50s; an era when it was difficult to keep a Big Band on the road or together at all. The commitment of the musicians shines through.