Mary Lou Williams: Night Life

Mary Lou Williams is probably the most important female African-American jazz pianist. Williams was also a fine songwriter and arranger and she worked with major figures in jazz including Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington. Williams was born Mary Scruggs in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1910.

Williams played with Duke Ellington’s band, The Washingtonians, in 1925. By the late Twenties she was pianist in the Andy Kirk’s band, “The Twelve Clouds of Joy.” While with Kirk, Williams supplied the band with the songs, “Cloudy,” and “Little Joe from Chicago.” Williams made her first recordings with Kirk in 1929/30 and recorded the piano solo sides, “Drag ‘Em” and “Night Life.” These solo sides would see Williams become a national name and brought her to the attention of Benny Goodman, Earl Hines, and Tommy Dorsey who all hired her as an arranger.

Williams became involved in the bebop movement of the Forties and wound up as a mentor of sorts for the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker.

In the Sixties, Williams began recording religious jazz music, and she continued recording prolifically until her death in 1981.

Williams best recordings can be heard on the following albums: “Mary Lou Williams Trio” (1944), “Signs of the Zodiac” (1945), “Piano Solos” (1946), “Black Christ of the Andes” (1964), “Zoning” (1974), “Mary Lou’s Mass” (1975), “The Chronological Classics: Mary Lou Williams 1927-1940” (1995), “The Chronological Classics: Mary Lou Williams 1944-1945” (1998) and The Chronological Classics: Mary Lou Williams 1945-1947” (1999).

Roy Eldridge: Little Jazz

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Most jazz critics consider Roy "Little Jazz" Eldridge as the successor of Louis Armstrong in the evolution of jazz trumpet players. Armstrong is almost universally considered as the greatest jazz trumpeter in history; however, Eldridge is viewed as the musician who took the hot New Orleans style of Armstrong and turned it into something new.

Eldridge was notable for his rough and speedy technique, particularly when playing high notes on the trumpet. A now almost forgotten trumpeter, Jabbo Smith, who rivaled the virtuosity of Armstrong in the late Twenties, was a huge influence on Eldridge, as was Armstrong.

In terms of jazz cornet/trumpet greatness, the progression is loosely as follows: Buddy Bolden-Freddie Keppard-King Oliver-Louis Armstrong-Roy Eldridge-Dizzy Gillespie-Miles Davis-Clifford Brown.

Eldridge was born to a musical family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1911. As a child, Eldridge became a drummer in the band of his brother, Joe, before his brother convinced him to pick up the trumpet. By the age of 20, he had started his own band in Pittsburgh and then left that band to join the band of Horace Henderson, brother of the great New York bandleader, Fletcher Henderson. Shortly thereafter, in 1930, Eldridge moved to New York City.

In New York, Eldridge found work with a number of dance bands, and by 1935, while as a member of the Teddy Hill Orchestra, Eldridge made his first recordings. Eldridge would eventually land a gig with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra from 1935-36, becoming Henderson’s star soloist by lending his hot solos to the Henderson classics, “Christopher Columbus” and “Blue Lou.”

Eldridge later moved on to work with white bands led by Gene Kroupa, and later, Artie Shaw. The presence of an African-American musician in a white band was a rarity in the segregated America of the Thirties. In the post-war era, Eldridge became one of the leading musicians that toured under the banner of “Jazz at the Philharmonic.” He also freelanced with the bands of Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald and Benny Goodman.

Eldridge’s best recordings include, “Drummer Man” (1956) with Gene Kroupa, “Rockin’ Chair” (1956), “Little Jazz” (1989), and  a number of compilations dedicated to his music. Eldridge died in 1989.

Woody Guthrie: This Land is Your Land

Woody Guthrie was the most important figure in the history of American folk music. Guthrie was more than a singer and musician. He was a real-life incarnation of John Steinbeck’s character of Tom Joad from the Grapes of Wrath and a committed left-wing political activist.

Guthrie was born in Okemah, Oklahoma in 1912. When he was 14 he began playing the guitar and harmonica and learned the English and Scottish folk songs from the parents of his friends. Despite being a bright student, Guthrie dropped out of high school and started busking on streets. When he was eighteen his father called for him to come to Texas to attend school, but Guthrie spent his time busking and reading in the library.  By 1930, Guthrie joined thousands of other “Okies” (Oklahomans) who were migrating to California to search for work and escape the “dust bowl” drought that plagued Oklahoma.

In California, Guthrie worked odd jobs, and by the end of the thirties, he had managed to land a job playing folk and “hillbilly” music on the radio. At this time he would write the songs about his experiences during the dustbowl era migration to California that would later become his legendary collection of dustbowl ballads. In 1936, he would begin to perform at communist party events in California, and although he never joined the party, he would later be tagged as a communist.

By the 1940s, Guthrie was in New York City, and his “Oklahoma cowboy” nickname and reputation endeared him to the leftist folk music community in the city. He would record his album, “Dust Bowl Ballads” (1940) for the Victor Records in Camden, New Jersey, shortly after his arrival. The album has long been hailed as a superb document of an episode of American history told by a man who lived it. Guthrie would also record for Alan Lomax of the Library of Congress, singing and speaking about his adventures of the dust bowl period of ten years before.

Guthrie would land another radio job in New York, this time as the host of the “Pipe Smoking Time” show which was sponsored by a tobacco company. He also appeared on CBS radio on the program, “Back Where I Came From”. He managed to get a sopt on the show for his friend, the legendary black folk singer, Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter. By 1941, Guthrie was off to Washington State to write and perform songs about the construction of Grand Coulee Dam in the employ of the American Department of the Interior. Guthrie wrote 26 songs for a film which was to be produced about the project, but the film never came to fruition. The songs, “Pastures of Plenty” and “Grand Coulee Dam” would become well known nonetheless.

In 1944, Guthrie met Moses Asch of Folkways Records for whom Guthrie would record hundreds of songs including the first recording of perhaps his best known tune, “This Land is Your Land”. Folkways would later release these songs in various collections.

By the mid 1950s, Guthrie’s health was deteriorating with the onset of Huntington’s disease. He was eventually bedridden in Bellevue Hospital, and in 1960 was visited by a very young and awestruck admirer, Bob Dylan.

David Allen Coe Longhaired Redneck

David Allen Coe, born in Akron, Ohio, in 1939, along with Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard, helped to pave the way for a country subgenre of music called “outlaw country.” The subgenre featured longhaired, denim-wearing heroes like Coe who embraced and expressed a rule-breaking philosophy of life.

Coe, like Merle Haggard, came by his outlaw image honestly. Both Coe and Haggard did lengthy stretches in prison prior to the start of their music careers. Coe’s debut album, released shortly after his release from prison, is a bluesy masterpiece. The album was titled, “Penitentiary Blues.” With songs like “Cell 33,” Dear Warden,” and “Death Row,” the album is musically and lyrically riveting.

Coe released many fine country albums during the Seventies including, “The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy” (1974), “Longhaired Redneck” (1976), “Texas Moon” (1977), and “Tattoo” (1978). In 1975, Coe scored a major country hit with a cover version of Steve Goodman’s, “You Never Even Call Me by My Name.”

Coe is still alive and well and active in music.

David Allen Coe-Photo by Matthew Woitunski

Dizzy Gillespie Albums and Classic Sides

The great jazz trumpeter, Dizzy Gillespie, was one of the musicians at the forefront of the development of be-bop music in the Fifties. He was born John Birkes Gillespie in Cheraw, South Carolina, in 1917. Gillespie earned the moniker, “Dizzy,” for his ebullient personality and antics while performing.

 After hearing the great Roy Eldridge on the radio as a child, Gillespie decide then and there that he, too, wanted to be a jazz trumpeter. Gillespie got his start in New York City, in 1935, playing in the bands of Teddy Hill and Edgar Hayes. It was with the Teddy Hill Orchestra that Gillespie would make his first recording, “King Porter Stomp.” Gillespie stayed with Hill for one year and then freelanced with several bands for a while before finally winding up in Cab Callaway’s Orchestra in 1939. Calloway would fire Gillespie three years later following an altercation between the two men.

In 1943, Gillespie would join Earl Hines band which featured Charlie Parker and was beginning to create a new music which would become bebop. From there, it was on to the Billie Ekstine band, which also featured Parker. He would later leave the Ekstine band because he wanted to play in a smaller ensemble.

In the mid-Forties, Gillespie, Parker and other jazz musicians such as Max Roach, Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, and Kenny Clark would meet at clubs such as Minton’s Playhouse and Monroe’s Uptown to jam and experiment. It was at these jams that bebop was born.

Gillespie would become a member of the “Quintet,” the legendary be-bop supergroup formed in Toronto in 1953, with Parker, Powell, Charles Mingus and Max Roach. Following his one-show tenure with the Quintet, Gillespie would form his own Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra.

Among the best of the classic sides that Gillespie recorded in the Forties and Fifties are: “A Night in Tunisia,” “Salt Peanuts,” “Hot House,” “Manteca,” “Perdido,” and “Night and Day.”

Gillespie’s best albums begin with the Quintet. His “Salt Peanuts” from the album “Live at Massey Hall” is perhaps the best moment of many brilliant moments on that live recording of the Quintet’s only show. Other fine Gillespie albums include, “Dizzy In Paris” (1953), “For Musicians Only” (1958), ”Gillespiana” (1960), “Groovin’ High” (1953).

After Gillespie had had his fill of bebop, he became interested in Afro-Cuban music. Gillespie died in 1993.



James P. Johnson: King of Stride Piano

James Price Johnson was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1894. He was a ragtime turned stride pianist whose composition, “The Charleston,” became one of the anthems of the “jazz age” of the Twenties. Johnson and Jelly Roll Morton were probably the two pianists most responsible for taking ragtime music and turning it into jazz via the piano.

Although he started out playing ragtime music in the tradition of Scott Joplin, Johnson became the innovator of a jazz sub-genre of piano playing that was dubbed, “stride.” This piano style got its name from the walking or “striding” sound produced by the pianist’s left hand. Stride piano incorporated elements of the blues and it allowed for on the spot improvisation which is an essential characteristic of jazz music. Ragtime was a rigidly composed form of music which stifled improvisation.

A future jazz star, Fats Waller, would become Johnson’s protégé’, adopt his stride style, and later expose it to the masses.

Johnson was a prolific composer, and he wrote some of the most familiar compositions of the roaring Twenties. Aside from the Charleston, he penned, “You’ve Got to Be Modernistic,” “If I Could Be with You One Hour Tonight,” “Carolina Shout,” “Keep Off The Grass,” and “Old Fashioned Love,” among others. In addition to jazz and pop tunes, Johnson wrote waltzes, ballets and symphonic pieces.

Johnson’s finest recordings can be found on a number of compilation albums including the multi-volume “Chronological Classics: James P. Johnson” (1996) series and “Snowy Morning Blues” (1991), “Harlem Stride Piano” (1992), and “Father of Stride Piano” (2001).

The Carter Family: The First Family of Country Music

The Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers are the two artists most responsible for the early development of the country music industry. Before them, the folk music of the Appalachian region of the United States was folk music played by locals for their own amusement, and it remained a regional art form. The music was casually referred to as just “Hillbilly Music.” The Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers were not the first country artists to record, Charlie Poole, Ernest Stoneman, Eck Robertson and others had made recordings before them, but Rodgers and the Carters turned hillbilly music into pop music.

The original Carter F

amily consisted of the sisters, guitarist Maybelle, and lead singer Sara, and occasional back-up singer A.P., Sara’s husband. The family hailed from Clinch Mountain, Virginia.

The Carter Family first recorded in Bristol, Tennessee for record producer, Ralph Peer, in 1927. They were paid 50 dollars for each song they recorded. Among those songs were “Wandering Boy” and “Poor Orphan Child” which Victor released as a single in the fall of 1927.

The next year, 1928, saw the Carter Family in the Victor studios in Camden, New Jersey, where they recorded their classics, “Keep on the Sunny Side,” “Can the Circle be Unbroken,” “Wildwood Flower,” “River of Jordan,” and many others. They were not paid for these recordings, but were promised royalties based on sales. By 1930, the Carter Family had sold over 300, 000 records in the United States.

Not only are these recordings historically significant, they are aesthetically pleasing, too. The Carters were a great string band that displayed technical brilliance and perfectly sung harmonies. Mother Maybelle was a brilliant guitarist who invented a guitar picking technique that was adopted by scads of country guitarists in subsequent years.

The Carter Family is one of the most important artists of the 20th century, and they must be heard by anyone who wishes to understand the development of American popular music. The best compilations of the Carter Family’s classic sides include the following releases: The Original and Great Carter Family” (1962), “In the Shadow of Clinch Mountain” (2000), “Wildwood Flower” (2000), and “1927-1934” (2002).

Louis Armstrong: The Bach of Jazz

Louis Armstrong is one of the most important figures in the history of Western popular music, and likely the most important figure in the history of jazz music. He is not only the most famous jazz musician, but he is considered by many to be the most brilliant musician who ever played the music. It was Armstrong’s innate genius as a cornet soloist during the Twenties that helped transform jazz from disposable dance music to the art form that it has become. 

Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1901. His father abandoned the family shortly thereafter, leaving little Louis to live with his mother and sister. Armstrong and his mother lived in a section of New Orleans which was so violent, that it was referred to as “The Battlefield.”

By the time Armstrong was around five-years-old, he was already performing on New Orleans street corners, and he later landed a job hauling a junk wagon. Sometimes, Armstrong would fetch coal, which could be used for warmth on cold nights, for local prostitutes. His employer, the Karnofsky family, provided him with the money to buy his first cornet, and Armstrong took the instrument home and taught himself to play.

On New Years’s Day, 1912; Armstrong was arrested for firing a pistol into the air on New Years’s Eve. Armstrong was known to local police for his often colourful behavior, and he was removed from his home and sent to the “Colored Waif's Home for Boys.”

At the waif’s home Armstrong received music lessons on the cornet from musician Peter Davis, and eventually became the leader of the Waif's Home Band. He was released in 1914, and during a coal delivery to the Storyville district, met Joe “King” Oliver, the best-known cornet player in the New Orleans. Oliver became Armstrong’s mentor, and helped him get work with a number of local bands.

By 1918, Armstrong was a member of the Kid Ory band with Oliver as its leader. When Oliver moved to Chicago, Armstrong took over the leadership of the band. The next year Armstrong was hired by Fate Marable to play in his band aboard Mississippi River steamboats.

In 1922, Armstrong was lured to Chicago by Oliver to join his band, “King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band,” which featured a stellar lineup of musicians including Oliver on cornet, Kid Ory on trombone, Johnny Dodds on clarinet, Baby Dodds on drums, Charlie Jackson on banjo, and Lil Hardin on piano. Armstrong became the second cornetist and with Oliver, created a sensation at the city’s Lincoln Gardens with the brilliance of their cornet duets.

Armstrong made his first recordings with the Creole Jazz Band for the Gennett label in 1923. The first recording Armstrong appeared on was “Chimes Blues” which featured a brilliant Armstrong solo. With Armstrong on second cornet, The Creole Jazz Band made some of the best and most influential recordings of early jazz including, “Mandy Lee Blues,” “Dippermouth Blues,” “Just Gone,” and “Canal Street Blues.”

Armstrong married the band’s pianist, Lil Hardin, in 1924. Later that year, he moved to New York City and joined Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra and continued to perform and record superb solos for Henderson. During this period, Armstrong established himself as the premier blues sideman on recordings with Bessie Smith, Bertha “Chippie” Hill, and others. Perhaps the most famous of Armstrong’s blues collaborations is the session with Bessie Smith that produced “St. Louis Blues” and “Reckless Blues.”

Despite achieving much in New York, Armstrong quit Fletcher Henderson’s band and returned to Chicago in 1925 to make his first recordings for Okeh with his recording group, “Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five.”

Although it didn’t seem possible for Armstrong to outdo his work with Oliver, he did just that with a set of recordings of unparalleled brilliance, “The Hot Fives and Hot Sevens.” With support from former Creole Jazz Band members, Johnny Dodds, Baby Dodds, Lil Hardin, and Kid Ory, plus banjo player Johnny St. Cyr, Armstrong redefined jazz music on colourful recordings with equally colourful titles such as “Struttin’ with Some Barbeque,” Skid-Dat-De-Dat,” “Cornet Chop Suey,” “Big Butter and Egg Man,” and “Yes! I’m in the Barrel.”

Armstrong would be heard singing for the first time on these recordings and revealed that in addition to being the best jazz instrumentalist, he was also a vocalist of exceptional ability. Armstrong was credited with creating the wordless singing style of “scat” during a Hot Five recording session for “Heebie Jeebies” when he dropped the paper which contained the words to the song. Instead of stopping, Armstrong improvised some wordless vocalization.

By the late Twenties, The Hot Five had expanded to the Hot Seven with the addition of the great Earl Hines on piano and some shuffling of the original Hot Five lineup. This new outfit continued to produce sides of jazz genius such as, “Willie the Weeper,” “Potato Head Blues,” “Wild Man Blues,” “Alligator Crawl,” and the recording which has been cited by many jazz critics as the single most brilliant recording of jazz music, “West End Blues.”

While recording with the Hot Five, Armstrong worked with Erskine Tate and the Carroll Dickerson Orchestra. Armstrong moved with Dickerson to New York City in 1929, and appeared the same year in the Broadway musical; “Hot Chocolates.” In 1931, Armstrong appeared in his first film, “Ex-Flame.”

Armstrong was gradually becoming a nationally-known music star, and his fame began to spread abroad largely due to the success of the Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings. He toured the United States and Europe throughout the Thirties. During the Forties, his appearances in films and exposure via radio solidified and magnified his star status. He would perform at Carnegie Hall, in New York City, in 1947.

Armstrong continued to be an extremely popular figure in jazz throughout the evolutions of the music through swing, bebop, and the avant-garde. While many of the musicians who were with him during the creation of the music had been forgotten, Armstrong never ceased to have a viable career. He continued to tour the world, including visits to Eastern Europe and Africa. He also continued to record with his fellow jazz musicians. His health began to deteriorate in 1959, however, when he was hospitalized following a heart attack in Italy.

In 1964, Armstrong’s single “Hello, Dolly!” became the number one hit on Billboard’s pop charts, just as the Beatles were first experiencing “Beatlemania” in America. Armstrong’s hit with Hello Dolly was the last time a jazz recording would top the pop charts before rock and roll took full control of them.

Armstrong continued making movie and television appearances, in addition to performing live, despite continuing heart problems, hospital stays and advice from his doctors to rest. Armstrong’s rendition of the song, “What a Wonderful World,” became a hit in 1968. The song would become a hit again in 1988, when it was included in the film, “Good Morning Vietnam.” In 1971, after performing at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, Armstrong died in his sleep at his home.

Armstrong’s best recorded works are from the Twenties, but fortunately, these recordings are quite well-preserved. Even his first recordings with King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band are quite high-fidelity considering they were recorded before the use of microphones. Several excellent compilations of the Hot Fives and Hot Sevens and Armstrong’s later Twenties work are available from Columbia, and they all feature excellent sound quality. Good compilations can also be found of Armstrong’s recordings with King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band.

Armstrong started recording full-length albums in the Fifties, and his best albums include, “Louis Armstrong Plays WC Handy” (1954), “Satch Plays Fats” (1955), “Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar Peterson” (1959), and “Satchmo Plays King Oliver” (1960).

Sippie Wallace: I'm a Mighty Tight Woman

Sippie Wallace was another of the early female blues singers who started her recording career in the Twenties on the heels of Mamie Smith’s 1920 recording of “Crazy Blues,” the first-ever blues recording. Wallace was born Beulah Thomas in Houston, Texas, in 1898.

Wallace made her first recordings for the Okeh label in 1924 with “Leaving Me Daddy is Hard to Do.” She enjoyed a number of hits with Okeh during the Twenties with the songs, “I’m a Mighty Tight Woman,” “Jack O Diamonds Blues,” “Dead Drunk Blues,” and “Lazy Man Blues.” Wallace, like Alberta Hunter and Ida Cox, would enjoy a lengthy career and continue to perform well into old age. Wallace died in Detroit in 1986.

Her music is best heard via the compilations, “Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 1 (1923-1925)” (1995) and “Complete Recorded Works, Vol.2 (1925-1945)”

King Oliver: New Orleans Jazz Pioneer

Joe “King” Oliver is among the seminal figures in the history of jazz music. Oliver was an influential musician in the early days of jazz whose hot cornet playing influenced all those who followed in his footsteps including Louis Amstrong, Oliver’s student, charge and employee. It was Oliver who convinced Armstrong to leave New Orleans for Chicago, and play second cornet in Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band took the first steps on a journey that would see Armstrong revolutionize jazz and American popular music.

Oliver was born in New Orleans in 1885 and was blinded in one eye as a child. He often played cornet while wearing a derby hat in such a way as to obscure his bad eye. Oliver was one of the first cornetists to use a mute to alter the sound of his cornet. Using a mute, he was able to produce a wide variety of sounds including the whinnying of a horse.

Oliver started his professional career in New Orleans around 1908. He was a member of several marching bands, and he worked at various times in Kid Ory’s band. Ory began referring to him as “King” Oliver around 1917.

In 1919, Oliver moved to Chicago with Kid Ory and played in Bill Johnson’s band at the Dreamland Ballroom. Oliver formed “King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band” in 1922, and landed a residency at Chicago’s Lincoln Gardens. His new band featured some of the best jazz musicians of the time including clarinetist Johnny Dodds, trombonist Honore Dutrey, pianist Lil Hardin, drummer Baby Dodds, and Louis Armstrong on second cornet.

King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band 1923 recording sessions for the Gennet label produced some of the best-ever recordings of jazz with “Chimes Blues,” “Just Gone,” “Dippermouth Blues,” and “Snake Rag.” These recordings revealed the brilliant dual cornet playing of Armstrong and Oliver, and introduced Armstrong’s virtuosity to the world. Armstrong soon headed to New York City to join Fletcher Henderson Orchestra and the Creole Jazz Band would cease to be in 1924.

Oliver took over Dave Peyton’s band in 1925, renamed it the “Dixie Syncopators,”and moved the band to New York in 1927. Once in New York, Oliver passed up a chance to have the Dixie Syncopators become the house band at the Cotton Club. Duke Ellington took the job and went on to fame and riches. In 1929, Luis Russell took over the Dixie Syncopaters and changed their name to “Luis Russell and his Orchestra.”

Oliver recorded until 1931, but his New Orleans hot jazz style was falling out of fashion. Oliver finally settled down in Georgia, where he worked as a poolroom janitor until his death in 1938.

Oliver’s classic sides are available on the following compilations: “King Oliver’s Jazz Band 1923” (1975), “King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band: The Complete Set” (1997), and the series, “The Chronological Classics: King Oliver” (1991).

James Reese Europe: Harlem Hellfighter

James Reese Europe was one of the earliest figures of jazz music. He was a great bandleader and an inspiration to African-Americans in the early years of the last century. Europe was the leader of Europe’s Society Orchestra that first recorded in 1913. That orchestra ostensibly played ragtime music, the forerunner of jazz; however, Europe’s orchestra played a highly- improvised version of ragtime which could easily be classified as jazz. Europe took ragtime music and speeded it up considerably, making it a frenetic and highly infectious and danceable music.

Europe was the first African-American bandleader to ever make a commercial recording and in 1914, Europe and the Society Orchestra recorded Castle’s Lame Duck” and “Castle House Rag” for the Victor label.

During World War One, Europe was enlisted in the U.S, army as a lieutenant with the African-American 369^th Infantry Regiment that was dubbed the “Harlem Hellcats.” Europe also directed the regimental band and with them made recordings for the Pathe brothers while stationed in France. Europe and the band also performed concerts, making a hit of the number, “Memphis Blues.”

Shortly after returning to America at the conclusion of the war, Europe was stabbed in the neck with a pen by one of his drummers during the intermission of a concert in Boston. Europe succumbed to the wound, and became the first African-American citizen to be honoured with a public funeral in New York City.