100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#33) - Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers - Dr. Jazz

#33 - Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers - Hello Central, Give Me Dr. Jazz

To everyone out there who reads The Jazz Clarinet -- I'm praying for all of you, every day during this COVID-19 pandemic. We're all in this together: stay safe, love each other, and listen to some great music when you can. Heres's some Jelly Roll Morton for medicinal purposes.

[ 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 (#29) Jelly Roll Morton * The Chant

#29 - Jelly Roll Morton - The Chant (1926)

This band, people...this band...listen to how organically and easily they hit everything together, and the perfect delineations of the colors of the instruments...it's beautiful...no sacrifice of soul for balance, or balance for soul...incredible...

[ 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. ]

Sidney Bechet & Albert Nicholas with Jelly Roll Morton * September 14, 1939 * Bluebird * NYC

Oh, Didn't He Ramble
High Society
I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say
Winin' Boy Blues

Stanley De Paris, trumpet
Claude Jones, trombone, speech
Albert Nicholas, clarinet
Sidney Bechet, soprano saxophone
Happy Cauldwell, tenor saxophone
Jelly Roll Morton,  piano
Laurence Lucie, guitar
Wellman Braud, bass
Zutty Singleton, drums


Sidney Bechet plus Jelly Roll Morton equals a winning equation, no matter how you calculate it, and no matter how much tension there may have been in the studio at the time. These four tracks from September 14, 1939 serve as a quick proof. Opening up with a quote from "Flee as a Bird" for a solemn preamble, then the mock-solemn intonation...

Ashes to ashes, 
dust to dust,
if the women don't get ya
the liquor must...

...the band bursts into "Oh Didn't He Ramble", confidently swinging with a unanimous groove, each voice knowing exactly where to place himself. Bechet's soprano is comfortable, diving and singing, Stanley De Paris's trumpet well balanced (though apparently he and Bechet were not happy to find each other on the same date), and Albert Nicholas played the right supporting role along with the rest of the band before they break off for a dirge fade out.

The version of "High Society" they cut that day is of interest mostly for the rarity of hearing both Bechet (on soprano) and Albert Nicholas (on clarinet) play the "test solo." I'll let others come to their own conclusions as to who won this duel, but I think Albert delivers it more confidently and cleanly. His swagger for the last choruses of the tune seem to indicate pride in the accomplishment, and I can't help but wonder what Bechet thought of the resulting disc (it obviously didn't hurt his relationship with Nicholas, who he was to record with again, with great results).

The soprano soloing on "I Thought I heard Buddy Bolden Say" and "Winin' Boy Blues" are vintage Bechet and we are left, once again, wondering what would have happened if the association between Morton and the great soloist could have continued longer. But it wasn't to happen. Bechet had begun an engagement in Fonda, in upstate New York along the Mohawk River, and wasn't to make the return to New York City for the next session (Chilton, 123).

Just as so many of Jelly Roll's recordings sound like vignettes, so Bechet's time in the recording studio with him was just another vignette in the life of a great soloist. He would have one more recording session in 1939 as a sideman with The Haitian Orchestra, then turn his sites to leading his own band again. Perhaps the frustrations in the studio during 1939 made him realize it was time to take matters into his own hands as a leader, but whatever the impetus, 1940 would be a banner year for Bechet's legacy, and this date with Jelly Roll just a harbinger of things to come.

Further Reading:

Chilton, John. Sidney Bechet: The Wizard of Jazz. OUP, 1987.

Zammarchi, Fabrice. "Sidney Bechet". Notes to Sidney Bechet: The Complete American Masters, 1931-1953. Universal Music Classics & Jazz, France, 2011.

Jelly Roll Morton 1930 (featuring Lorenzo Tio, Jr; Albert Nicholas and others ) * CD 323 from JSPCD Jazzbox903 * Remastered by John R.T. Davies

For as disappointing as Volume Two of JSP's Jelly Roll Morton box is from a clarinetist's perspective, Volume three is a real treat, at least for most tracks. This disc covers the Red Hot Peppers recordings from sessions in 1930. Of particular interest to clarinetists will be two gems, "Little Lawrence" and "Harmony Blues", featuring Lorenzo Tio, Jr.. Tio was the youngest of a family of clarinet players and teachers whose influence on the history of jazz clarinet would be difficult to exaggerate. Junior taught Sidney Bechet, Jimmie Noone, Omer Simeon, Johnny Dodds, Barney Bigard, Albert Nicholas, and other important jazz clarinetists of the early 20th century, and the foundation of the New Orleans sound is evident in his playing on these records--lush, round, and soulful. Despite his activity in both New Orleans and New York over the course of his career, he actually recorded very little (only a few sessions with Clarence Williams, Sidney Bechet, and Morton), so these sides are an absolute must for jazz clarinet aficionados.

The rest of the CD is taken up with various clarinetists who generally do a good job, including Happy Caldwell, a mystery clarinetist who might have been Ernie Bullock or Jerry Blake, and Albert Nicholas, who is in much better form for these recordings than the ones from a year or so earlier. His tone is full and mellow--the sound we generally associate with his playing. His chalumeau solo on "Low Gravy" sounds particularly influenced by Jimmie Noone, and he's focused on even more on "Strokin' Away." "Blue Blood Blues" is perhaps the best of the bunch, beginning with a truly beautiful chalumeau melody, which seems to portend the chalumeau work of Acker Bilk and Terry Lightfoot some thirty and forty years later.

The disc is rounded out with two tunes featuring a mystery clarinetist of lesser quality, but the songs themselves ("Gambling Jack" and "Fickle Fay Creep") are well worth hearing.

Jelly Roll Morton 1928-29 (featuring Russell Procope, George Baquet, Albert Nicholas, & Barney Bigard) * CD 322 from JSPCD Jazzbox903 * Remastered by John R.T. Davies

When starting this blog over six years ago, I knew it would take a while before addressing recordings like these. The repertoire is important, because many of the tunes are great and the composer/bandleader was a giant of jazz, but the clarinet playing is generally bad and sometimes awful. My goal for this blog was (and remains) to build a substantial body of reviews demonstrating true greatness of clarinetists throughout the various eras. Unfortunately, the overall recorded catalog of music that was created in the 1920s and 30s, which is arguably the most important era for the clarinet, was a bit indiscriminate as to the quality of players. Many of the greatest virtuosi (Jimmie Noone, Benny Goodman) were recorded right alongside some of the worst clarinetists ever documented in the studio. The poor players are almost universally flat, can't handle high notes especially, their tone is overwraught and weak from overblowing,  they break notes, their tonguing his ham fisted, their rhythm is bad, and unfortunately, they are too often copied as "authentic" by amateurs and doubling professionals alike.

While blues grittiness and pitch inflection are an essential part of playing jazz clarinet, an overall flat and flabby tone is not competent playing, no matter who is doing it. Neither Sidney Bechet nor Jimmie Noone played this way--their styles, while far apart in terms of timbre and instrumental approach, are worthy models of imitation. The same can be said of many Johnny Dodds recordings, such as the sides he cut with King Oliver. But Dodds, like many others, struggled at times with his pitch, and we should be honest about those moments. Now a word of caution: we shouldn't take this too far as no one plays spot on in tune, in a mechanical sense, every time. You can find plenty of examples of variable intonation, especially if you're tracking note to note, in any of the great players--including classical virtuosi who work within even more limited intonational parameters. But as a rule, the great players aren't sagging consistently below pitch, or riding a quarter tone sharp either.

This collection demonstrates the big step down in clarinetistry in Jelly Roll Morton's bands after the initial recordings with Omer Simeon and Johnny Dodds. A young Russell Procope (who had improved somewhat by the time he played with Ellington) plays flat on December 6, 1928's "Red Hot Pepper" and his solo on "Deep Creek Blues" is a real disappointment for such a beautiful tune. We can only imagine what a player like Noone or Bechet would have done.

By July 9, 1929, Procope had been replaced by George Baquet, who isn't any better. His clarinet is particularly bad on the out chorus of "Burnin' the Iceberg" and haunts "Courthouse Bump" and "Pretty Lil" from the same date as well. His intonation is so bad it sounds almost like a drunken parody at times. His low level playing continues on the next day's session, flabbing his way through a solo on "Sweet Aneta Mine" and sticking out horribly for his flatness on "New Orleans Bump (Monrovia)."

The torture continues on July 12, 1929, when Baquet rasps, flabs, and squeaks his way through "Down My Way", "Try Me Out", and "Tank Town Bump." I can't stress it enough: This is not 'authentic' jazz clarinet playing; it's just incompetent. Frankly, this sort of playing is unlistenable for any serious clarinetist, revealing that the standards for our very difficult instrument were sometimes poorly maintained on recordings, even by the most important band leaders. The clarinet playing is so bad the recordings would have better without a clarinet--and unfortunately, perhaps in part because of hideous performances like these, many bandleaders started deciding exactly that.

By November 13, 1929, Jelly Roll had replaced his clarinetist again, this time for a Red Hot Peppers session featuring Albert Nicholas, the childhood friend of Sidney Bechet who was to record successfully with him later in life. These recordings are not Nicholas's greatest recorded work by a long shot--he tends to be on the flat side, and his solos aren't great-- but he's at least a step up from the truly abysmal playing of Baquet.

Even Barney Bigard can't rescue this album, though his clarinet playing is better than most on the disc. The final four tunes, recorded on December 17, 1929, feature the Jelly Roll Morton Trio with Bigard on clarinet and Zutty Singleton on drums. Bigard struggles with his high clarion, altissimo intonation, and his attacks. Even though his ideas tend to be decent (he was a far more competent clarinetist at this point than anyone else on the Jelly Roll Morton sessions from these years) that really isn't saying much. His playing is excruciatingly out of tune on tunes like "Turtle Twist" and "My Little Dixie Home." This isn't good Bigard...it's actually embarrassingly bad for someone who was to play better (if inconsistently) in the future.

So why bother writing a review like this? Well, there are a couple of reasons. One of them is to say there have to be professional standards. If  a player can't handle the instrument on a basic level of musicianship, they can do real damage to the estimation of the instrument overall. Players like Buddy DeFranco and Artie Shaw routinely dismissed or disparaged the early New Orleans players, implying or openly saying they weren't important to the history of the instrument in jazz. If all anyone had heard were these Jelly Roll Morton sides, or some of the Hot Fives session where Johnny Dodds struggled with his intonation, this could be understood as an act of professional self preservation as much as anything else. This disc features such bad clarinet playing, it makes you want to go back in time with a saw and savagely adjust their barrels. But to dismiss all of New Orleans clarinet because of this would be terribly wrong. All one has to do (and should do) is listen to some Jimmie Noone as an antidote.

This disc earns a broken reed for clarinetists.

Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers (featuring Omer Simeon and Johnny Dodds) 1926-27 * CD 321 from JSPCD Jazzbox903 * Remastered by John R.T. Davies

[This review covers the first disc of the five CD JSP boxed set of Jelly Roll Morton remasters by John R.T. Davies.]

If you've listened to a lot of early jazz before checking this out, the first thing you recognize is just how good the band is. In terms of ensemble playing, the colors of the instruments and how they are used by Morton are just as good as it gets. The Red Hot Peppers are as hot as the best King Oliver and Louis Armstrong recordings, while the colors and subtlety of tone are as good as the bands of Bix and Tram. The compositions are second to none, being the work of one off the greatest composers of any genre in the first half of the 20th century. The featured clarinetists are Omer Simeon and Johnny Dodds (with some help from Barney Bigard).

Omer Simeon, who was once called the "unsung hero" of the jazz clarinet by Barney Bigard, takes the clarinet part for the very first set, recorded in Chicago on September 15, 1926, demonstrating his excellent control of the horn and music on "Black Bottom Stomp", "Smoke-House Blues", and "The Chant." These tunes really show a depth of orchestrational ideas, ensemble sensitivity,  and formal innovation not often matched in jazz, and Simeon is a perfect fit.

Someday Sweetheart has one of the earliest (if not the first) jazz bass clarinet solo, also by Omer Simeon. Omer's tone is much more beautiful than many post-bop bass clarinet solos we hear these days. Those who play this instrument ought to have an honest sound concept--strong, balanced, rich-- and this Simeon solo is a great place to start.

Simeon's playing is also on display in his breaks to open "Doctor Jazz": he then adds a clever solo made memorable by his four bar whole notes. When it comes time to trade licks the blow over the ride out chorus and breaks, Simeon shows himself once again to be one of the top clarinetists of the '20s.

"Cannon Ball Blues" is a great example of ensemble color and balance once again, the group communally composing and highlighting the well directed arrangement. There is something natural about this band--it doesn't strain at the music or at expression, but simply goes about its business creating a thoroughly satisfying blues, like late afternoon sunlight on a front porch. Sometimes it's important to just be in the music, rather than trying to say anything. Recordings like these are a perfect antidote for the cult of overwrought self expression.

The first of the Red Hot Peppers recordings featuring Johnny Dodds is called "Hyena Stomp", and the difference in the band is immediately felt. Less genteel than Simeon, more aggressive in his overall sound concept, a tune featuring rhythmic guffawing seems a great way to introduce him. Yet even with all of that, Dodds seems much more at home and relaxed in the Red Hot Peppers than in the Louis Armstrong Hot Fives and Sevens. In fact, perhaps because of Jelly Roll's dictum that an ideal jazz performance should be "sweet, soft, plenty of rhythm", Dodds is able to show a wider range of artistry and emotion. And for all their entertaining novelty qualities, none of Jelly Roll's numbers really descend into typical novelty shallowness. Instead, they seem like emotional or biographical vignettes. "Billy Goat Stomp" is another perfect example. There is actually something beautiful in this minor key tune and the subtle colorations of the band, amidst the bleating effects!

Of all the tunes he recorded, few are as closely associated with Johnny Dodds as "Wild Man Blues." He cut it no less than three times--the first on May 7, 1927 with the Louis Armstrong Hot Seven, the second just a few weeks later with Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers on June 4, 1927, and the third over a decade later, with himself as leader of Johnny Dodds and his Chicago Boys, paradoxically recorded in New York City on January 21, 1938. To compare and contrast the three is instructive. My favorite is last one, as he gives himself the melody and shows his range of soulful talking style on it. Of the two earlier recordings from 1927, I prefer the Red Hot Peppers to the Hot Sevens, but any way you cut it, it's a a special treat to hear the same man playing the clarinet parts in two important ensembles, just weeks apart.

"Jungle Blues" is another tune that uses effects but entirely avoids 'novelty' or faux-exoticism.  Thanks to the gentle balance of Morton's rhythm section, Johnny is really allowed to sing, giving us the beauty of his tone shining through all his soulful figurations.

The grittier, rougher Dodds chalumeau is on display for "Beale Street Blues," and his section playing is lively and confident on that remarkable, complicated tune, "The Pearls."
 
The last two  tracks on this album--"Wolverine Blues" and "Mr Jelly Lord"-- are taken from a session recorded in Chicago on June 10, 1927, and are of particular importance to jazz clarinetists, as they present the Dodds brothers as a trio with Jelly Roll Morton. Aside from their own musical qualities, they set precedent for the Benny Goodman trio eight years later, which was to blossom into the Goodman Quartet and Sextet; perhaps the most important work of Benny's career. Dodds is impressive throughout, grooving grittily but fleetly through "Wolverine Blues" and with that special sense of laid back, in the pocket rhythm he had on "Mr. Jelly Lord." The relaxed, perfect counterpoint between Morton and Dodds is a fitting way to end this collection, which moves from surprise to surprise and strength to strength.