In the liner notes to Eddie Daniels' 1994 album Real Time, Buddy DeFranco writes "[Eddie] has made his mark. I have heard as many Eddie clones as I have Benny, Artie, or [myself]."
That's always seemed to me a great compliment, except for one small thing: in all my years of listening to and collecting jazz clarinet recordings, I've never heard an Artie Shaw clone. Who else had command of the instrument in all registers the way Shaw did, with complete flexibility? Who could combine those qualities with lyricism and power? And so Buddy's compliment always rang a bit hollow to me--a drop of hyperbole seemed to spoil it.
Buddy came up during that era, though, and doubtless heard many players whose efforts remained unrecorded and un heralded. I've just stumbled across one such player in Hindsight Records 3-disc set of the Harry James Orchestra entitled Bandstand Memories 1938-1948. In the middle of the third disc, there is a cut of "Oh, Lady be Good" that jumps out. Harry James doesn't play, handing over solo duty to one of his utility wind players, Ed Rosa, instead.
When I first heard it, I thought Shaw must have been sitting in with the band. Rosa's altissimo is comparable--full, strong, mellow. His technique is fluid and his language sounds directly influenced by Shaw. Indeed, here is a "Shaw clone" if ever there was one.
By 1945, James's Orchestra was huge by Big Band Era standards. A full string section and auxiliary instruments such as valve trombone, flute, bass clarinet, and bass trombone were common. Rosa is listed in the liner notes as a flutist, but he obviously doubled on clarinet--though he was obviously no mere doubler. To master the clarinet well enough to fool anyone into thinking Artie Shaw was playing is a rare accomplishment. I can't think of anyone else who has, though Buddy DeFranco's quote suggests that there were at least a few. I hope there are other recordings of Rosa's clarinet prowess available--I'll certainly post my findings if any turn up.
Until then, here is a link to the Harry James Orchestra playing "Oh Lady Be Good" with the remarkable Ed Rosa, and unsung hero of jazz clarinet, playing the solo.
[The YouTube link lists this recording as being from 1944. The recording I have is dated August 24, 1945].
Showing posts with label Harry James. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Harry James. Show all posts
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Harry James vs. The Rolling Stones
From Peter J. Levinson's Trumpet Blues: The Life of Harry James (Oxford University Press, 1999):
Someday a more accurate history of music will be written for the 20th century--one wherein musical and cultural values trump ideology. Musically, it's fairly obvious to any astute listener that Harry James's mastery of the trumpet, the skill of his band's arrangements, and quality of their nightly performances were objectively superior to an act such as the Rolling Stones (or their many counterparts in Rock history). But the argument of Rock has never really been musical--instead, it's more serious critics' claim has always been of a cultural and poetic impact so great as to warrant consideration of Rock as art music.
Despite having been born in the 1970s, and having at one time taken such arguments quite seriously myself, I now personally think that Rock music and its history are little more than a chronicle of adolescent hyperbole. The 'depth' once thought of its 'masterpieces' turns out to be rather shallow in the end (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is not profound, neither is The Wall much more than paranoid narcissism. Nearly every great masterpiece of rock history wilts when compared with other great works, whether poetic, musical, or dramatic). Yet more shocking is that the more one looks into the actual statistics of cultural impact, as Peter Levinson touches upon, the less extraordinary the hit groups of the Rock era seem. According to some accounts I've read, Bing Crosby's success rivals any Rock star's, Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw's meteoric rises were culturally similar, if not nearly identical, to "Beatle Mania", and the era they worked in was every bit as crucial to the last century as the 1960s could even pretend (I wouldn't downplay the importance of many aspects of the '60s, but there, too, hyperbole has reigned for over a generation).
Ultimately, when the Rock Generation finally subsides; when the smoke machines are finally turned off and the dust is allowed to settle, musical values will really still be left. And once the frenzy is over, who would honestly prefer Mick Jagger's crude strutting and preening to Harry James' actual music making?
It's good to remember that other histories have been similarly adjusted over time. Telemann once towered in stature over J.S. Bach (whose works were obscured for nearly a century after his death) and Spohr was once considered by many to be greater than Beethoven. Those conclusions now seem silly, as I believe comparisons between Artie Shaw and the Beatles will one day seem equally silly--the greater musicians will emerge when future generations want to preserve more than their Odes to Peer Pressure.
Rock is perpetually adolescent, by marketing design. It's shallow, pre-packaged rebellion. As a musical form, there is little to learn from it (though certain musical aspects of rock have served as inspiration for further positive development of jazz, independent of the generally shallow poetic of rock). When society gets tired of perpetual adolescence, it will hopefully turn to more enduring values. And when that time comes, our culture might be reintroduced to a far more enriching musical history than society at large understands at the present time.
"I Found a New Baby" was the first of an astounding total of seventy Billboard pop chart hits by Harry James and his Orchestra that extended [from 1938] through 1953. If one considers that the Rolling Stones have had forty-one Billboard pop chart hits but in a thirty-five year period, one must conclude that Harry James was actually a more dominating force in popular music during the years of his greatest prominence." (pg. 70)
Someday a more accurate history of music will be written for the 20th century--one wherein musical and cultural values trump ideology. Musically, it's fairly obvious to any astute listener that Harry James's mastery of the trumpet, the skill of his band's arrangements, and quality of their nightly performances were objectively superior to an act such as the Rolling Stones (or their many counterparts in Rock history). But the argument of Rock has never really been musical--instead, it's more serious critics' claim has always been of a cultural and poetic impact so great as to warrant consideration of Rock as art music.
Despite having been born in the 1970s, and having at one time taken such arguments quite seriously myself, I now personally think that Rock music and its history are little more than a chronicle of adolescent hyperbole. The 'depth' once thought of its 'masterpieces' turns out to be rather shallow in the end (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is not profound, neither is The Wall much more than paranoid narcissism. Nearly every great masterpiece of rock history wilts when compared with other great works, whether poetic, musical, or dramatic). Yet more shocking is that the more one looks into the actual statistics of cultural impact, as Peter Levinson touches upon, the less extraordinary the hit groups of the Rock era seem. According to some accounts I've read, Bing Crosby's success rivals any Rock star's, Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw's meteoric rises were culturally similar, if not nearly identical, to "Beatle Mania", and the era they worked in was every bit as crucial to the last century as the 1960s could even pretend (I wouldn't downplay the importance of many aspects of the '60s, but there, too, hyperbole has reigned for over a generation).
Ultimately, when the Rock Generation finally subsides; when the smoke machines are finally turned off and the dust is allowed to settle, musical values will really still be left. And once the frenzy is over, who would honestly prefer Mick Jagger's crude strutting and preening to Harry James' actual music making?
It's good to remember that other histories have been similarly adjusted over time. Telemann once towered in stature over J.S. Bach (whose works were obscured for nearly a century after his death) and Spohr was once considered by many to be greater than Beethoven. Those conclusions now seem silly, as I believe comparisons between Artie Shaw and the Beatles will one day seem equally silly--the greater musicians will emerge when future generations want to preserve more than their Odes to Peer Pressure.
Rock is perpetually adolescent, by marketing design. It's shallow, pre-packaged rebellion. As a musical form, there is little to learn from it (though certain musical aspects of rock have served as inspiration for further positive development of jazz, independent of the generally shallow poetic of rock). When society gets tired of perpetual adolescence, it will hopefully turn to more enduring values. And when that time comes, our culture might be reintroduced to a far more enriching musical history than society at large understands at the present time.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Big Band Jazz Clarinet: Essential Performances (1)
1. Benny Goodman & His Orchestra * Live at Carnegie Hall * 1938
Let's not kid ourselves: Benny Goodman's 1938 Carnegie Hall concert was clearly the most important single event in the history of Big Band Clarinet. It marked the first time an all-jazz program was offered at the nation's most revered venue for classical performance, and had it flopped, the resulting clatter would have resounded throughout Goodman's career and altered the critical trajectory of jazz.
Goodman was the right man for the job in many ways. For one thing, he had already emphasized the history of the artform on his Camel Caravan radio show. This rare penchant for educating a popular audience probably paid dividends for his Carnegie Hall presentation, which featured a brief review of jazz history. This section emphasized the contributions of many artists, including Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Duke Ellington, and Count Basie (some of Duke's men even performed in the sequence, and the Count himself performed). Some of the performances are more convincing than others, and the extended on-stage jam session on 'Honeysuckle Rose' might be considered a miscalculation. But even if this is concluded, there remains Goodman's unassailable intent, which was to help a subscription audience, who might have little understanding of what they were hearing, learn on the spot.
Over 80 years later, the recording still grips. Like the opening chords of Beethoven's 'Eroica', it is always bracing, and repeated listening never blunts the impact. The tension is palpable, and the soloing of Goodman, Harry James, Ziggy Elman, and Gene Krupa especially, are electrifying.
The concert contained an amazing breadth of material. There were standards like Gershwin's 'The Man I Love' and 'I Got Rhythm'; Irving Berlin's 'Blue Skies'; originals like 'Don't Be That Way' and 'Swingtime in the Rockies'; and ethnic numbers ranging from the Scottish 'Loch Lomond' to the Yiddish 'Bei Mir Bist du Schoen'. The concert confidently and unselfconsciously demonstrated that jazz was America's artistic voice--like Whitman's poetry and the nation itself, containing multitudes and belonging to all.
The performance of Jimmy Mundy's famous arrangement of 'Sing Sing Sing' has been written about at length in many other places. Suffice it to say here that the clarinet solos, with their poignant sense of loneliness and probing, alternating between commanding and pleading, and ending in a prayer-like ascent to double C, are among the most important ever played. Much has been made, rightly, of Jess Stacy's inspired solo which followed. Rarely noticed is that Stacy's solo would have been impossible had not Benny (and Harry James before him) set the musical mood perfectly.
Too often, swing era music is caricatured as 'fun', 'lighthearted', merely diverting music, as though the musicians involved were just having one big, carefree party while playing. But a tune like 'Sing Sing Sing' was hardly fun, nor did it express anything carefree or merely entertaining. Harry James said later:
Whatever his fears, however this music might have rattled him, James gave a solo for the ages on that cold night in 1938.
If we listen to it with fresh ears, 'Sing Sing Sing' is driving, intense, and sometimes disturbing music. It wasn't nostalgic to the men who first performed it, and it needn't be now. I consider the Goodman Carnegie Hall performance of Mundy's arrangement to have been every bit as profound a statement as Vaughan Williams's sixth symphony. This is part of the reason that Carnegie Hall concert was such a success: the music equalled or surpassed the depth of what was usually played there.
Let's not kid ourselves: Benny Goodman's 1938 Carnegie Hall concert was clearly the most important single event in the history of Big Band Clarinet. It marked the first time an all-jazz program was offered at the nation's most revered venue for classical performance, and had it flopped, the resulting clatter would have resounded throughout Goodman's career and altered the critical trajectory of jazz.
Goodman was the right man for the job in many ways. For one thing, he had already emphasized the history of the artform on his Camel Caravan radio show. This rare penchant for educating a popular audience probably paid dividends for his Carnegie Hall presentation, which featured a brief review of jazz history. This section emphasized the contributions of many artists, including Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Duke Ellington, and Count Basie (some of Duke's men even performed in the sequence, and the Count himself performed). Some of the performances are more convincing than others, and the extended on-stage jam session on 'Honeysuckle Rose' might be considered a miscalculation. But even if this is concluded, there remains Goodman's unassailable intent, which was to help a subscription audience, who might have little understanding of what they were hearing, learn on the spot.
Over 80 years later, the recording still grips. Like the opening chords of Beethoven's 'Eroica', it is always bracing, and repeated listening never blunts the impact. The tension is palpable, and the soloing of Goodman, Harry James, Ziggy Elman, and Gene Krupa especially, are electrifying.
The concert contained an amazing breadth of material. There were standards like Gershwin's 'The Man I Love' and 'I Got Rhythm'; Irving Berlin's 'Blue Skies'; originals like 'Don't Be That Way' and 'Swingtime in the Rockies'; and ethnic numbers ranging from the Scottish 'Loch Lomond' to the Yiddish 'Bei Mir Bist du Schoen'. The concert confidently and unselfconsciously demonstrated that jazz was America's artistic voice--like Whitman's poetry and the nation itself, containing multitudes and belonging to all.
The performance of Jimmy Mundy's famous arrangement of 'Sing Sing Sing' has been written about at length in many other places. Suffice it to say here that the clarinet solos, with their poignant sense of loneliness and probing, alternating between commanding and pleading, and ending in a prayer-like ascent to double C, are among the most important ever played. Much has been made, rightly, of Jess Stacy's inspired solo which followed. Rarely noticed is that Stacy's solo would have been impossible had not Benny (and Harry James before him) set the musical mood perfectly.
Too often, swing era music is caricatured as 'fun', 'lighthearted', merely diverting music, as though the musicians involved were just having one big, carefree party while playing. But a tune like 'Sing Sing Sing' was hardly fun, nor did it express anything carefree or merely entertaining. Harry James said later:
I don't think I ever told anybody this, but I was going through a real mental thing and it was all built around 'Sing Sing Sing'. [...] [It] happened the first time time I was supposed to get up and play my chorus on 'Sing Sing Sing'. I just couldn't make it. I fell back in my chair. Ziggy [Elman] said to me, 'Get up!' but I couldn't; so when he saw what was happening, he got up and played my solo. I was completely out of my mind. It happened again another time, too, and so every time the band played 'Sing Sing Sing' I'd get bugged and scared it would start all over again. You know, that Stravinsky-type thing that the trombones and then the trumpets play just before the chorus? Well, that would really set me off. I tried to explain it to Benny, and I'd even ask him to play 'Sing Sing Sing' early in the evening, so I could relax the rest of the night. But of course, that was his big number and I couldn't blame him for wanting to hold off. So finally I just left the band. I couldn't trust myself anymore.[quoted in James Lincoln Collier's Benny Goodman and the Swing Era, Oxford, 1989. Pg 222]
Whatever his fears, however this music might have rattled him, James gave a solo for the ages on that cold night in 1938.
If we listen to it with fresh ears, 'Sing Sing Sing' is driving, intense, and sometimes disturbing music. It wasn't nostalgic to the men who first performed it, and it needn't be now. I consider the Goodman Carnegie Hall performance of Mundy's arrangement to have been every bit as profound a statement as Vaughan Williams's sixth symphony. This is part of the reason that Carnegie Hall concert was such a success: the music equalled or surpassed the depth of what was usually played there.
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