Indigenous Music
Hentoff, Nat
INDIGENOUS MUSIC Nat Hentoff Jazz and Eternal Youth On the first two evenings in March 1985, Book-of-the-Month Records (a division of Book-of-the-Month Club) recorded a cultural event at New...
...It was still a mighty band with Cootie Williams, Lawrence Brown, Johnny Hodges, and Harry Carney in the ranks...
...It was 1940, and Duke was fielding the most incandescent set of sidemen of his career— among them Rex Stewart, Tricky Sam Nanton, Johnny Hodges, Ben Webster, and the most compelling vocalist Duke ever had, Ivie Anderson...
...But for reasons unknown, the set was never released until now...
...On this night, too, the Ellingtonians felt like joining the dancers in having a ball...
...Residents of New York and Pennsylvania should add their local sales tax...
...With so much pleasure in the world, his music says, why lose time lying in bed with the shades down...
...You don't have to be a member of the Book-of-the-Month Club to own this three-volume set of America's own classical music, Swing Reunion (CI 1-7627...
...It can be ordered from the same address as Swing Reunion for $22.95 plus $1.75 for shipping and handling...
...On all orders, add $1.75 for shipping and handling...
...But unlike Astaire, he really improvises...
...Duke Ellington at Fargo, 1940 (Book-of-the-Month Records 30-5622) is a three-volume set available on LP and also on two cassettes...
...Just as exhilarated as his sidemen, actually more so, was Ellington, whom you can hear encouraging his players to stretch out even more...
...On February 25, the price will go up to $24.95...
...Koenig went, and was much pleased...
...On the road, some nights are like slogging through a muddy field, others are routine, but once in a while all members of the band remember why they became musicians in the first place...
...The band was on one of the seemingly endless road tours of the time, having arrived in the Crystal Ballroom in Fargo, North Dakota, after playing in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the night before...
...Duke saw no reason why an artist should not entertain...
...Les Koenig was a great listener...
...He's dead, and so is Les Koenig...
...On record or cassette, the album costs $24.95...
...The compact disc version is $27.95...
...The place this time was the Holiday Ballroom in Chicago, and the date was May 31,1964...
...Also available through Book-of-the-Month Records is an extraordinary historic recording of an evening with the Duke Ellington orchestra on the road...
...There was only one horn, and only one was needed...
...Duke Ellington once told me that the most important thing he looked for in a musician was whether he knew how to listen...
...But the music of that night keeps the passion of both men alive...
...INDIGENOUS MUSIC Nat Hentoff Jazz and Eternal Youth On the first two evenings in March 1985, Book-of-the-Month Records (a division of Book-of-the-Month Club) recorded a cultural event at New York's Town Hall that will be of more lasting significance than many of the books selected by its parent organization...
...By temperament and discipline, he is incapable of brooding...
...Clearly, this was a night when the musicians felt like letting go...
...In his phrasing, in the subtlety of his colors, and in his dance-like beat, Benny Carter has the grace of a Fred Astaire...
...Indeed, the more original the art, the more satisfying the entertainment should be—for the performers as well as the audience...
...Ben was enjoying the gig so much that he called up Lester Koenig, owner of Contemporary Records, and asked him to come down with an engineer...
...The rest of the rhythm section consisted of electric guitarist Remo Palmieri and drummer Louis Bellson...
...I knew Koenig and produced some record dates for him in the East long ago...
...As I can attest from having been a youthful hanger-on at Ellington dance dates, the band preferred playing for dancers...
...and on an up-tempo number, Ben could swing an orchestra through the roof...
...There is also his stamina...
...Ben Webster at the Renaissance (Contemporary C-7646) puts you at a front table, fully exposed to the irrepressible life-force that was Ben Webster's...
...The address is Book-of-the-Month Records, Camp Hill, PA 17012...
...As Stanley Dance points out in his characteristically authoritative notes, since Ellington's piano that night "is well recorded throughout the album, the proof is here of how hard he personally worked to hold things together and ensure that the customers got their money's worth...
...Carter is a sunny, buoyant improviser...
...Teddy Wilson was on piano, Red Norvo on vibraphone, George Duvivier on bass, and Freddie Green, long in charge of the "rhythm wave" for Count Basie's orchestra, was on guitar...
...Benny Carter has been playing alto saxophone professionally since 1924, and no one on the instrument, of whatever age, can match the fresh continuity of Carter's ideas and his total control of his instrument...
...Ben Webster played with Ellington, and when he left, no one was ever quite able to take his place...
...In October 1960, Ben was playing at a small club, the Renaissance, on Sunset Strip in Hollywood...
...Anewly released addition to the traveling Ellington canon is Duke Ellington All Star Road Band, Volume 2 (Doctor Jazz Records W2X40012...
...None of the successors had his enormous presence—not only that huge tone and the equally huge romanticism that was the essence of Ben, but also the depth and fullness of his jazz time...
...Titled Swing Reunion, the chamber concerts were performed by a number of the most elegantly impassioned impro-visers of the classic era of jazz...
...No other tenor saxophonist played ballads with such sensuous, infectious yearnings...
...A couple of summers ago, I saw Benny outlast Dizzy Gillespie in an outdoor jam session in Greenwich Village...
...He had a state-of-the-art rhythm section: pianist Jimmy Rowles, guitarist Jim Hall, bassist Red Mitchell, and drummer Frank Butler...
...That way, you can immediately see the effect of your music on people who are not cramped in seats, and what their swinging bodies tell you adds purposeful zest to your playing...
Vol. 50 • February 1986 • No. 2
