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. ]

Pete Fountain * New Orleans at Midnight * Coral Records (CRL 757429 Stereo / CRL 57429 Mono) * 1963

Side One

1. Creole Love Call (*)
2. I Want To Be Happy
3. Brahms' Lullaby (+)
4. Ballin' The Jack
5. Moonglow (++)
6. Rockin' Chair (*)

Side Two

1. Midnight Pete (+)
2. Bourbon Street Parade
3. Swing Low
4. Makin' Whoopee
5. Battle Hymn Of The Republic
6. Midnight Boogie (++)

Pete Fountain, clarinet
Bobby Gibbons, guitar 
Godfrey Hirsch, vibes
Stan Wrightsman, piano 
Morty Corb, bass
Jack Sperling, drums 
(*) Nick Fatool, drums
(+) John Propst, piano
(++)Ray Sherman, piano 



1963 was a remarkable year for Pete Fountain, and for jazz clarinet in general. Pete's contributions include no fewer than four albums: Plenty of Pete, Music from Dixie, Mr. New Orleans, and the subject of this review, New Orleans at Midnight. The year also featured a ground breaking opus of the Buddy DeFranco/Tommy Gumina Quartet entitled pol*y*tones (a very important album desperately in need of reissue), and the classic Benny Goodman Quartet reunited for their last studio recording, Together Again.  

Compared with the other albums from this year, New Orleans at Midnight is a real 'sound'-focused album: Pete's crooning side is on full display. The arrangements are tight and well thought out, and like its name, this album gives the vibe of an 'after hours' set, less focused on hot soloing. One exception, and a high point of the album that has been reissued on various "Best of" compilations, is Pete's rendition of 'Bourbon Street Parade', which is among his finest recordings and my personal favorite by a clarinetist of this classic Paul Barbarin tune. 

It's also with gratitude that I find the 'Battle Hymn of the Republic' on this album, played with depth and reverence. This makes a nice contrast with Pete's spirited version of 'Dixie' from his earlier French Quarter album, perhaps handling respectfully and symbolically some of the difficulties of American history that were still turbulent in the 1960s, and resonate even today.

When dealing with New Orleans jazz, or jazz in general, there is no way of avoiding America's trouble history with race and racism. I might as well say here that I'm always a bit on edge when I hear a jazz band play 'Dixie.' I know that for white southerners of Pete's generation it might have meant something different, but there are too many disturbing stories such as those related in Tom Sancton's book Song for My Fathers  (a must read for anyone interested in the history of New Orleans jazz, particularly in the 1960s) detailing humiliating circumstances of black bands being forced to play the tune under racist circumstances. Like so many of our symbols, which get necessarily reevaluated as time progresses, this tune has its baggage that cannot be ignored. Let me try to be clear on a subject that is anything but easy: I think 'Dixie' is a great tune, musically. But symbolically it is problematic for me in the context of the 1960s, especially. This would be a very troubled thing for me if we didn't have Pete's clear pronouncement on race and jazz, along with his own homage and gratitude to George Lewis and other great black musicians, in his autobiography:

I used to go down to St. Bernard Street and sit in with a lot of the black bands. I must have been one of the only white musicians doing that because the union frowned on it. But I wasn't a member of the union, and I felt too that if they were nice enough to let me sit in, I was going to give them the best I had. I've never been at all concerned about the way a musician looks. I listen to what comes out of his horn, and judge only that. And jazz and blues are black music first; some of the sounds I was hearing were mighty good. 

I sat in with George Lewis and Papa Celestin and some of the greatest black bands in jazz. George Lewis particularly fascinated me. He played a fine clarinet, and I would always watch him closely; then I would get up and add my own piece to what he was playing. We had a great time, and I learned a great deal from these sessions. [from A Closer Walk: The Pete Fountain Story. The Henry Regnery Company, Chicago (1972) pg 38-39] 

This sort of acknowledgement, and the sort of risk taking Pete Fountain, George Lewis, and others engaged in for the sake of sharing and making music, is very powerful. One can make an argument (and I often do!) that in mid-century, the two most important New Orleans jazz musicians were Lewis and Fountain. Lewis lead the charge of the New Orleans revival from the late 1940s through the 60s, and was responsible for much of the global Trad Jazz explosion during those years, while Pete took the music to new levels of virtuosity, fusing it with other forms in the process. This quiet, after hours version of the 'Battle Hymn', so unusual for a white southerner to play in that era, seems to me an beautiful and eloquent statement.

All the other tunes on this remarkably mixed bag of an album are well performed and satisfying. It might not be the greatest of Pete's golden era Coral records, but it is a worthy entry, with a touch of important symbolism.

Pete Fountain Mardi Gras Beads (Eric Seddon Collection)

Pete Fountain with Phil Zito * Dixieland Express * Columbia (CL 6110) * 1950

Side One

Bob Cats
Shine
Bye and Bye
Original Dixieland One Step

Side Two

She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain
Zito's Zag
Clarinet Marmalade
Tulane Swing

Phil Zito and his New Orleans International City Dixielanders

Phil Zito, drums
Pete Fountain, clarinet
George Girard, trumpet
Joe Rotis, trombone
Roy Zimmerman, piano
Emile Christian, bass


In the last months of 1949, a nineteen year old Pete Fountain went into the studio to record with Phil Zito's band, the somewhat wordily named New Orleans International City Dixielanders. Until someone tells me otherwise, from the research I've managed, these appear to be the first commercial recordings of Pete Fountain.

Impressively, Pete was already a mature New Orleans style player--in fact,  he was beyond what most players reach in terms of the technical demands of this music. To perform this style effectively, a clarinetist needs a commanding sound in all registers--one that can cut through trumpet, trombone, and rhythm section with equal polyphonic strength, all while maintaining a good tone and intonation. Most clarinetists fall short in one or more of these categories. Beyond that, the clarinetist must maintain excellent rhythmic drive, playing firmly in the groove of the beat, and swinging effectively. Because the clarinet is the fleetest instrument on the front line, with the largest tesitura, arpeggiating the chord structures and outlining the harmonies is often a primary task. In short, the clarinet's role, like all others in a New Orleans style band, has specific demands rhythmically and harmonically. Fountain, by age 19, was already master of these aspects--forming rococo embellishments to the melodies at times, harmonizing George Girard's trumpet leads at others, creating altissimo obligatos at climaxes--all while making sure not to step on anyone else's line. He was also a strong soloist, featured throughout this album from the very first chorus on 'Bob Cats' forward.

This is a short, ten-inch LP, featuring only eight numbers which average somewhere around two minutes and fifty seconds or so per tune. That means there isn't much musical 'stretching out' in terms of soloing here. Indeed, most of these numbers sound like previews--we're left to imagine what the band sounded like live when they really took off from these templates and let it rip.

Highlights include Pete's work on 'Bob Cats', and his obligato playing on the opening of 'Bye and Bye' followed by his uptempo comping and chorus. This recording of 'Bye and Bye' is particularly interesting in that it attests to the influence of George Lewis, which Pete was to cite later in his career. While Faz and Benny were his most dominant influences, Pete often talked about the importance of sitting in with Lewis: this early recording is probably the most eloquent example of the fruits of that relationship. Pete was already the more technically adept player, and would go on to musical projects beyond the abilities of Lewis, but the focus on soul, the spiritual, and tradition was to play an important and decisive part in Fountain's art throughout his career.

The rest of this band is excellent--truly complimentary musicians for Pete, and an excellent example of Hot Jazz, New Orleans Style, Dixieland or whatever you want to call it. The polyphony is there, the groove, the mastery of their instruments. The only complaint: there isn't more of it. Fortunately Pete was to spend a long lifetime adding recordings for us...

Benny Goodman and George Lewis * Tonight at BLU Jazz +

Tonight my band and I continue our survey of historical jazz clarinet composers "From Bechet to Today" taking on the legacies and contributions of two very different, yet nearly equally influential artists: Benny Goodman and George Lewis.

Now stylistically speaking, despite his vast influence over many players, I don't really solo like Benny. I love his playing and his originals, though, which are really very interesting proto-modern numbers that give a soloist plenty of room to stretch. Here's a chorus of mine on my very favorite Goodman composition, "A Smooth One" from last fall at The Bop Stop in Cleveland. We'll feature this tune again tonight...

The second half of the program will feature originals and spirituals associated with George Lewis, the great New Orleans trad clarinetist whose band set off New Orleans revivals globally in the 1950s and '60s. Included tonight will be his original numbers 'St Philip's Street Breakdown' and 'Burgundy Street Blues'. Here's my band playing the traditional spiritual 'Go Down Moses' on a concert of ours last fall. We'l play this again tonight.

 

Uniting all of these elements of style and influence, I'll be performing some originals as well (as we do on all of our programs). Tonight we'll lead off with a tune I wrote last year, and which has become quite popular with local audiences: 'Jeremiah Blues'...

We hope to see some of you in Akron tonight at one of DownBeat magazine's top rated jazz clubs in the world: BLU Jazz +. For our international readers, perhaps I can bring my music closer to you someday!

Keep swinging!

-Eric

George Lewis * Trios and Bands * 1943-45 * American Music AMCD-4

St Philip Street Breakdown *
Over the Waves *
La Marseillaise *
New Orleans Hula *
Hindustan *
Ciribiribin *
San Jacinto Stomp *
Gloryland **
High Society **
San Jacinto Blues
Ice Cream *
Life Will Be Sweeter *
Old Rugged Cross *
Lead Me Savior *
This Love of Mine *
Over the Waves *
Careless Love ***
Just a Little While to Stay Here ***
Just a Closer Walk With Thee ***

(*)The George Lewis Trio:

George Lewis * clarinet
Lawrence Marrero * banjo
Alcide Pavageau * bass

(**)With Kid Shots:

Louis 'Kid Shots' Madison * trumpet
George Lewis * clarinet
Jim Robinson * trombone
Lawrence Marrero * banjo
Alcide Pavageau * bass
Baby Dodds * drums

(***) N. O. Stompers:

Avery "Kid" Howard * trumpet
George Lewis * clarinet
Jim Robinson * trombone
Lawrence Marrero * banjo
Chester Zardis * bass
Edgar Moseley * drums


Like George Lewis Plays Hymns, recorded thirty years later, this CD, George Lewis: Trios & Bands from American Music (AMCD-4) is remarkable for the amount of solo clarinet, outside of the usual New Orleans ensemble tradition. According to the liner notes, many of the trio numbers on this disc were the result of Lewis's dissatisfaction with a full band recording he'd made just prior to them. He asked to be given more studio time, with just a banjo and bass--even saying he'd work for free. Lawrence Marrero and Alcide Pavageau brought their instruments over to Lewis's St Phillip Street kitchen the next Monday evening, and were paid to record seven of their favorite dance tunes and hymns. Because of the spare instrumentation, we get a very clear look, so to speak, of Lewis's playing from this era.

Also included on this disc are some very important historical documents. The 1944 session that produced "Ice Cream" and "Life Will Be Sweeter" were recorded right after Lewis returned from the hospital, where he had been treated after a life altering accident: his chest had been crushed in an accident on the banana docks. The joy and verve of Lewis's playing is still there--perhaps even enhanced.

Perhaps most remarkably, from a repertoire sense, the New Orleans Stompers 1943 recordings at the end of this disc, of "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" and "Just a Little While to Stay Here", staples of the trad jazz repertoire, are here presented for the first time on record by a jazz band.

For those wanting an introduction to mid-career George Lewis, this disc serves as a great primer. As an historical document, it's essential.

George Lewis and His Ragtime Band * Jazz At Vespers * February 21, 1954

Just a Little While to Stay Here
Bye and Bye
The Old Rugged Cross
Sometimes My Burden is Hard to Bear
Down By the Riverside
Just a Closer Walk With Thee
Lord, You've Been Good to Me
When the Saints Go Marching In

George Lewis * clarinet
Avery "Kid" Howard * trumpet
Jim Robinson * trombone
Alton Purnell * piano
Lawrence Marrero * banjo
Alcide "Slow Drag" Pavageau * bass
Joe Watkins * drums

While DownBeat and Time magazines were wondering what happened to the jazz clarinet in the 1950s, George Lewis was flying under their defective and underdeveloped radars, touring the globe and inspiring generations of imitators in Europe, Japan, Australia, Canada, and even here in the US. The professional jazz press, located mostly in New York and traditionally loathe (even to this day) to look beyond the nightclubs and fashions of that largest of provincial minded cities, simply ignored a vital, and global, trad jazz movement largely spurred by Lewis.

Lewis's story is one of perseverance like few others. He was virtually unnoticed for the first several decades of his musical career, working most of his professional life before his mid-forties as a longshoreman unloading coffee bags in New Orleans. His biggest 'early' break came when he got the call to join Bunk Johnson in NYC in 1945, where he got some notice during one of those rare "revivals" when traditional polyphonic New Orleans style jazz gets noticed in the Big Apple. He was already 45 years old and had been playing professionally since he was a teenager. After Bunk's death in 1949, the band continued under the name of George Lewis and His Ragtime Band.

For a bandleader with as many obstacles to his career as George Lewis, it is remarkable how many landmark, important recordings he made. At a time when jazz was becoming increasingly associated with heroin, anger, and esoteric musical language on the one hand, or tepid commercial sheen on the other, Lewis continued to plow the rough, fertile ground of spirituals, marches, and polyphony developed in his native city. Among those important recordings Jazz At Vespers ranks high.

That the recording happened at all was largely thanks to the Reverend Alvin Kershaw, then rector of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Oxford, Ohio, whose passion for and dedication to jazz was extraordinary. Around the time of this recording, Rev. Kershaw had gained a bit of national celebrity from appearances on The $64,000 Question (jazz was his chosen category) and on a Sunday religious program, Look Up and Live, where, according to the original album liner notes, he said "To worship properly, we should offer God all of ourselves, our feelings as well as our thoughts. Jazz, which appeals to our emotions, helps us to do this."

The notes to the album go on to say that Kershaw had brought the band to Holy Trinity once before the recording as well, for a Sunday service in 1953. He made it clear to a Cincinnati newspaper at the time that "jazz musicians playing spirituals...are an outgrowth of the suffering of their people [and] have something of universal truth to pass along to his more fortunate congregation." On February 21, 1954, because of a cancellation the band received elsewhere, Kershaw suggested the Lewis band take over the music for Holy Trinity's regular Sunday Vespers service, and this recording was the result.

The recording captures Lewis's ensemble perhaps at zenith. This was the band that had such a powerful impact upon the English trad jazz scene (which in many ways remains more organized and vibrant than the trad jazz community in the US). Monty Sunshine, Acker Bilk, Terry Lightfoot, and countless others imitated and learned from George Lewis, branching out creatively into their own styles afterwards; a young Ringo Starr heard the band and was awed by Joe Watkins's drumming (and once you hear Watkins, you can hear how deeply it impacted the future Beatle). The root of all this music is the spiritual, and the specific depth of uniting human emotion to praise and lamentation, communally. There are few recordings as important as this in jazz history. It does not feature virtuoso playing; it is pure ensemble. It's also something every jazz musician should experience and study.

George Lewis Plays Hymns * 1964 * Milneburg Records MCD 1

George Lewis Plays Hymns


In the Upper Garden
Does Jesus Care
God Will Take Care of You
His Eye Is On The Sparrow
When I Come To The End Of My Journey
Nearer My God To Thee
Sing On
I Shall Not Be Moved
What A Friend We Have In Jesus
At The Cross
Where He Leads Me
Only A Look
Lily of the Valley
Near the Cross
Rock of Ages

George Lewis * clarinet
Joe Robichaux * piano
Pacide Adams * bass


On March 10th and November 28th of 1964, George Lewis recorded one of his most heartfelt and unusual albums. Backed only by Joe Robichaux's piano and Placide Adams's bass he sang fifteen hymn tunes through his Albert system clarinet, simply, clearly, and sincerely.

We can't know exactly what it must have felt like to be in the room with him, but the recording remains one of the best recorded representations of traditional New Orleans clarinet sound.

Unlike the usual procedure of recording in a studio, Lewis requested these be made in a private residence (the uptown home of trombonist Paul Crawford), to enhance the intimacy of the album. The sound is noticeably different--it's great to have a document of his sound in the type of place musicians often actually play this music, whether practicing or for private gatherings.

Ed Lewis's liner notes are excellent, discussing the sessions themselves and the importance of hymn tunes to the history of jazz, pointing out the natural ecumenism of the New Orleans musical world which saw no contradiction in the Catholic George Lewis known for his interpretations of great Protestant hymns.

Most importantly to the jazz clarinetist (after the spiritual substance and depth of this record, that is) is the chance to hear George Lewis's sound, reflectively, clearly, beautifully reproduced, without anything beyond the most genteel accompaniment. Every nuance of his talking style can be appreciated, and the more one listens, the more the warmth of his particular soul effects your heart. There is something of an emotional and spiritual sharing that Lewis accomplishes through his sound that all jazz musicians, and perhaps all musicians in general, ought to aspire to. Indeed, the spiritual substance of the record is entirely wedded to his sound in a manner rarely matched by any instrumentalist.

George Lewis is in many ways an important and indispensable clarinetist in the history of jazz. For those accustomed to listening only to the more technically advanced or commercially successful players, he is a particularly important touchstone to the spiritual roots of the music and expressive range of clarinet tone. This unique album is an important document and resource, of permanent interest in any jazz clarinet library.

Included on the CD version of this album is a seven minute interview with George Lewis, only adding to it's historical importance.      

Book Review : Tom Sancton * Song for My Fathers: A New Orleans Story in Black and White

Jazz clarinetists are particularly fortunate when it comes to autobiographies. Contributions to the genre include some of the most important players in the history of the instrument: Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Barney Bigard, Woody Herman, Pete Fountain, and Mezz Mezzrow have each published volumes, and at least one of them—Sidney Bechet’s Treat It Gentle—ought to be considered a masterpiece of American literature in its own right. Among the more recent books written by jazz clarinetists, however, is an extremely important memoir by Tom Sancton: New Orleans native, one time Paris Bureau chief for Time magazine, and trad jazz clarinetist.

Sancton’s book is entitled Song for My Fathers: A NewOrleans Story in Black and White (Other Press, New York, 2006). Beginning with the New Orleans jazz funeral of Doc Celestin on December 18, 1954, we’re given more than a glimpse into a crucial two decades of Crescent City history, unfolding through the eyes of young Tom Sancton. Son of a reporter and aspiring novelist, whose mother was a southern belle, he is thrown into the world of Creole and black jazz musicians during the foundation of Preservation Hall. His perspective is unique: a white kid in that milieu, at a point in time that will never be repeated—when musicians like George Lewis, Creole George Guesnon and Sweet Emma Barrett pioneered the early jazz revival.

The book is masterful, combining many genres seamlessly. A coming of age story, a chronicle, an analysis of oral tradition music making, with the flair and page-turning quality of a novel, this is simply one of the best books about jazz, and about New Orleans, I’ve ever read. Through much of it, Sancton’s adolescence on display as he learns to play clarinet, falls in love for the first time, and tries to balance his passion for jazz with school and other obligations. We overhear him taking music lessons from Lewis and Guesnon; in the process becoming privy to their struggles, ambivalences, and hesitations, as they were finally showcased and given a share of success for the music they helped pioneer and preserve. Throughout the book, the figure of his father looms large: the younger Sancton’s admiration, then disillusionment, with his father is skillfully and poignantly told, settling into a sober middle aged reassessment. None of this interferes with the musical aspect of the story—instead, like the quality of New Orleans jazz itself, Sancton’s life and the music become inseparable.

Like Sidney Bechet’s autobiography, this written demonstration of the life becoming the music, and the two flowing in and out of each other, is the most remarkable aspect of the book. Anyone who seriously involves themselves with New Orleans jazz must eventually come to this conclusion: it is the life one lives, and the depth of one’s soul, that must come through the music. There is no faking it. And Tom Sancton fakes nothing: you can smell the Zatarain’s, feel the humidity, taste the danger of bullets being thrown during a parade, get lost in the tunes—you can experience with him a type of hero worship turning bitter, then mellowed, then resolving into something like pure gratitude. I picked this volume up on the recommendation of a friend from NOLA, and at first wasn’t so sure what to think. It ended up giving me a far deeper appreciation of music, life, and the relationship of the two.

[ This review first published in the September 2015 edition of the EARLYJAS Rag ]