Singer/songwriter
Ben E. King is one of the best performers of the smooth soul singer set. King,
who was born Benjamin Earl Nelson in Henderson,
North Carolina, in 1938, got his
start in music with a revamped version of the Drifters, in 1958.
As the
lead singer of this new incarnation of the Drifters, King lent his velvet pipes
to the hits, “There Goes My Baby,” (which he co-wrote) “Save the Last Dance for
Me,” and “This Magic Moment.”
Due to a
contract dispute with Drifters manager George Treadwell, King left the group
and embarked on a solo career in 1960. King would soon find solo success with a
number of classic hits including the Phil Spector-produced “Spanish Harlem” and
“Stand by Me.” Both of these songs are among the finest pop records made in the
decade. King would score a number of lesser hits in the early Sixties with the
songs, “Young Boy Blues,” I (Who Have Nothing),” and “Hear Comes the Night.”
King’s
classic hits can be found on the compilations, “Stand By Me-The Best of Ben E.
King and Ben E, King and the Drifters” (1986), “Stand By Me (The Ultimate
Collection” (1987), and “Anthology” (1993).
Julia Lee
was among the best female jazz singers and pianists of the Thirties and Forties.
Lee was born in Boonville, Missouri, in 1902, and grew up in Kansas City.
Lee began
her career in the Twenties as a pianist with several bands including the band
of her brother, George Lee. She made her recording debut in 1927 as a pianist
for Jesse Stone. In 1935, Lee embarked on her own solo career and made her
first recordings on for Capitol Records in 1945.
During the
Forties, Lee scored a number of R&B hits including, “Gotta Gimme Whatcha
Got,” “Snatch and Grab It,” “King Size Papa,” and “My Man Stands Out.” She was
accompanied on these recordings by the likes of Red Nichols, Jay McShan, Benny
Carter, and Red Norvo.
Lee’s
classic recordings can be found on the following albums: Classics Julia Lee
1927-1946” (1995) and “Classics Julia Lee 1947” (1995).
Saxophonist Charlie Parker is considered by
many to be the best musician in the history of jazz. He is one of the few jazz
musicians who could rival the technical brilliance and originality of Louis
Armstrong and Art Tatum. Parker’s drug-addicted life and early demise is jazz
legend and a tragic example which would be repeated by several jazz musicians
who followed him.
Parker was nicknamed “Yardbird” which was
eventually shortened to simply, “Bird.” Many of his compositions, including
“Yardbrid Suite” and “Ornithology” would be inspired by that nickname.
Charlie Parker was born in Kansas City, Missouri,
in 1920. He began to play the saxophone at age 11, and had joined a musician’s
union instead of attending high school. He practiced diligently in the late Thirties,
and by 1938, he was good enough to join the band of pianist Jay McShann. While
in his teens, Parker had become addicted to morphine after being administered
the drug in hospital after a car accident. His morphine addiction would lead to
a heroin addiction which would contribute to his early death at age 34.
Parker quit the McShann band in 1939, and
headed to New York City
to begin a solo career. In the early Forties, Parker was experimenting with
soloing methods. His experimentation constituted some of the early developments
of be-bop music, a subgenre of jazz with which he would forever be linked. He
would soon be collaborating with Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Bud Powell, and
others. In summer 1945, Parker and his friends recorded “Ko-ko” and other sides
at a session for the Savoy
label. That session and its recordings would become a watershed moment for
bebop music.
By this time, Charlie Parker’s heroin addiction was
causing him to miss gigs, and he resorted to busking on New York City streets to support his
addiction. Parker then moved to Los
Angeles where heroin was difficult to find, and he
began to drink heavily to compensate. He was often in bad shape at recording
sessions and needed, at times, to be physically supported by others. Parker
moved back to New York City
where he died, in 1955.
The best original albums and collections of Charlie Parker’s music include, “Charlie Parker with Strings” (1950), “Charlie Parker
with Strings Vol.2” (1950), “Charlie Parker” (1953), “Big Band” (1954), “Summit
Meeting at Birdland” (1977), “At Storyville” (1985), “The Genius of Charlie
Parker” (1954), “The Charlie Parker Story” (1956), “The Genius of Charlie
Parker” (1957), “Anthology” (1974), “Charlie Parker on Dial” (1974), “Bird/The
Savoy Recordings (Master Takes)” (1974), “The Very Best of Bird” (1977), “The
Complete Studio Savoy Recordings” (1978), “Bird: The Complete Charlie Parker on
Verve” (1988), “Bird: The Original Recordings of Charlie Parker” (1988),
“Masterworks 1946-47” (1990),”Yardbird Suite: The Ultimate Collection” (1997),
“The Complete Savoy and Dial Studio Recordings 1944-1948” (2000), “The
Essential Charlie Parker” (2004).
The Ink Spots were a hugely-influential
jazz vocal group that forms a direct link from the jazz and popular music of the
Thirties to the R&B music of the Forties and rock and roll of the Fifties.
The group consisted of various members during a lengthy 20-year run, but the
vocal lead was usually handled by singer Bill Kenny on most of the group’s
recordings.
The original Ink Spots came together in Indianapolis, Indiana,
in 1933, with members Orville Jones, Ivory “Deeks” Watson, Jerry Daniels, and
Charlie Fuqua. Bill Kenny joined the fold in 1936.
The group made their first recordings for
Victor, in 1935, with versions of “Swingin’ on Strings” and “You’re Feets Too
Big,” the Fats Waller song.
The early singles of the Ink Spots sold
surprisingly poorly, but the group scored a huge hit in 1939 with the song, “If
I Didn’t Care.” The single sold 19 million copies and featured the Ink Spots
signature “top and bottom” style in which Bill Kenny sang the lead and Orville
Jones performed the “talking bass” below the lead vocal.
During the Forties, the Ink Spots scored a
slew of hits including many that hit the top position on the pop charts. Of
these hits, “Gypsy” proved to be the biggest, remaining at the top of the
charts for 13 weeks.
The original Ink Spots disbanded in 1953,
just before the dawn of the rock and roll era. Many groups adopted the name, “Ink
Spots,” and claimed kinship to the original group.
The original Ink Spots recordings are best
heard via the following collections: “The Best of the Ink Spots” (1955), “The
Best of the Ink Spots” (1965), “The Ink Spots in Hi-Fi” (1967), and “The
Anthology” (1998).
Prior to the meteoric rise
of Elvis Presley and rock and roll, Frank Sinatra was the biggest male singing
phenomenon that popular music had ever seen. Sinatra’s rise to prominence was
accompanied by the same female hysteria that would be heard with the rise of
Presley and The Beatles in later decades.
Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey
in 1915. He got his start as a big band jazz vocalist with the Harry James
Orchestra in 1939. His first recording with James was “From the Bottom of My
Heart.” Sinatra would stay with James for about one year and record other sides
such as “Here Comes the Night” and “My Buddy.” In 1940, Tommy Dorsey lured
Sinatra away from James, and it was with Dorsey that Sinatra would find
stardom. Sinatra’s first recording with Dorsey was, “The Sky Fell Down.” Sinatra
would stay with Dorsey for five years and record dozens of hit singles
including, “Stardust,” “It’s Always You,” “Blue Skies,” and “Embraceable You.”
By the time Sinatra left the Dorsey
Orchestra, he was already a pop star and was ready to move on to recordings and
performances with himself getting top billing. Sinatra continued to record
scads of hit songs throughout the mid-late Forties and early Fifties and branch
out as an entertainer by acting in movies. He eventually formed the infamous
“rat pack” with show business cronies, Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin.
By the mid-Fifties, when rock and roll was
beginning to replace swing and vocal jazz as America’s new pop music, Sinatra
openly railed against the new music for being primitive and crude causing Elvis
Presley to publically express his dismay at the comments.
Sinatra would begin to record his own
albums in 1945, with his first notable effort being “The Voice of Frank
Sinatra” (1946) on Columbia Records with The Nelson Riddle Orchestra. Several
albums would follow, and then in 1954, Sinatra would record his first
classic album, “Songs for Young Lovers” The
following year Sinatra would record the album that is generally cited as his
masterpiece, “In the Wee Small Hours” in which Sinatra delivers sixteen songs
of heartbreak in inimitable style.
Numerous other essential albums would
follow for the next twenty years with the best being, “Songs for Swingin’ Lovers!”
(1956), “A Swingin’ Affair” (1957), “Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely”
(1958), “September of My Years” (1965), and “Sinatra at the Sands” (1966).
Artie Shaw was the greatest white
clarinetist of jazz, save perhaps, Benny Goodman. Like Goodman, Shaw was a
classically trained musician that excelled at playing other styles of music
besides jazz. Shaw had his own orchestra which rivaled Benny Goodman’s
orchestra in popularity during the Thirties. Shaw had a huge pop hit with the
song, “Begin the Beguine” in 1939.
Shaw was born Arthur Jacob Arshawsky in New York City. He faced a
great deal of anti-Semitic discrimination during his youth in New Haven, Connecticut,
so anglicized his name as Shaw. During the Thirties and Forties, Shaw was the
rival of fellow clarinetist and band leader, Benny Goodman.
Shaw’s best work was with the small band he
assembled called, The Gramercy Five. The Gramercy Five recordings are
considered by jazz critics to be among the best ever jazz recordings.
Essential recordings by Shaw include the
following studio albums and collections: The Great Artie Shaw” (1959), “This is
Artie Shaw” (1971), “The Complete Gramercy Five Recordings” (1989) and “The
Chronological Classics: Artie Shaw and His Orchestra 1938” (1998), and “The
Chronological Classics: Artie Shaw and His Orchestra 1939” (1999).
Jazz
singer/songwriter/pianist Thomas “Fats” Waller was born in New York City, in
1904. While he is not a household name to the extent of fellow jazz legends,
Armstrong, Ellington, Basie, and Goodman, Fats Waller was no less important or
influential. In the opinion of his fellow musicians, especially Louis
Armstrong, he was a giant among giants.
As a
youth in New York City, Waller sought out the Harlem stride piano legend, James
P. Johnson, and became the great pianist’s understudy. Soon thereafter, Waller
was one of the best stride pianists in the city. The stride style is sort of
the jazz version of boogie-woogie, and as such, it is quite palatable to the
ears of rock music fans. Waller would eventually become one of the very best
pianists that jazz ever produced. Only the likes of Art Tatum, Earl Hines,
Teddy Wilson and Oscar Peterson could match his virtuosity.
In addition to being one of the finest musicians in early jazz, Waller was one
of the best and most prolific songwriters in jazz, penning the standards,
“Honeysuckle Rose” and “Ain't Misbehavin.” Many of Waller’s compositions are
humorous, and display his penchant for writing clever lyrics laden with
double-meanings.
Waller’s first recording was made as early as 1922, with the sides, “Muscle Shoals
Blues” and “Birmingham Blues” recorded for the General Phonograph Company.
After a few more recording sessions in 1923, Waller’s recording career would
begin in earnest in 1927 with a solid string of classic sides that would
continue until his death in 1943.
Waller’s
first big hit, “Ain’t Misbehavin,’” appeared in 1929, and was followed by scads
of others including, “African Ripples,” “Honeysuckle Rose,” “Viper’s Drag,”
“I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter,” It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie,”
“S’Posin’,” “You’re Feets Too Big,” “All That Meat and No Potatoes,” “The Joint
is Jumpin’,” and “A Good Man’s Hard to Find.”
These
recordings and more can be found on several excellent compilations of Waller’s
music such as the multi-volume “The Complete Fats Waller,” “The Very Best of
Fats Waller” (2000), and “The Centennial Collection” (2004).
Jazz
singer/songwriter/pianist Thomas “Fats” Waller was born in New York City, in
1904. While he is not a household name to the extent of fellow jazz legends,
Armstrong, Ellington, Basie, and Goodman, Fats Waller was no less important or
influential. In the opinion of his fellow musicians, especially Louis
Armstrong, he was a giant among giants.
As a
youth in New York City, Waller sought out the Harlem stride piano legend, James
P. Johnson, and became the great pianist’s understudy. Soon thereafter, Waller
was one of the best stride pianists in the city. The stride style is sort of
the jazz version of boogie-woogie, and as such, it is quite palatable to the
ears of rock music fans. Waller would eventually become one of the very best
pianists that jazz ever produced. Only the likes of Art Tatum, Earl Hines,
Teddy Wilson and Oscar Peterson could match his virtuosity.
In addition to being one of the finest musicians in early jazz, Waller was one
of the best and most prolific songwriters in jazz, penning the standards,
“Honeysuckle Rose” and “Ain't Misbehavin.” Many of Waller’s compositions are
humorous, and display his penchant for writing clever lyrics laden with
double-meanings.
Waller’s first recording was made as early as 1922, with the sides, “Muscle Shoals
Blues” and “Birmingham Blues” recorded for the General Phonograph Company.
After a few more recording sessions in 1923, Waller’s recording career would
begin in earnest in 1927 with a solid string of classic sides that would
continue until his death in 1943.
Waller’s
first big hit, “Ain’t Misbehavin,’” appeared in 1929, and was followed by scads
of others including, “African Ripples,” “Honeysuckle Rose,” “Viper’s Drag,”
“I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter,” It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie,”
“S’Posin’,” “You’re Feets Too Big,” “All That Meat and No Potatoes,” “The Joint
is Jumpin’,” and “A Good Man’s Hard to Find.”
These
recordings and more can be found on several excellent compilations of Waller’s
music such as the multi-volume “The Complete Fats Waller,” “The Very Best of
Fats Waller” (2000), and “The Centennial Collection” (2004).
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).
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 LincolnGardens 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).