". . . a superior introduction to that pivotal jazz decade." -Playboy Louis Armstrong Earl "Fatha" Hines * Bix Beiderbecke Fletcher Henderson James P. Johnson * JackTeagarden Bessie Smith Eddie Lang. Don Redman Fats Waller The Chicagoans These are the jazz greats presented, ". . . not just personally and his- torically, but with careful attention to the music itself . . ."Ebony "Human qualities are examined with warmth and clarity, as is the socio-musical background of each musician ... an honest and sensi- tive approach . . ." The New York Post The 1920s witnessed a spirit of comradeship among jazz musicians, a powerful spirit that overcame the barriers of public apathy toward honest jazz, callousness in the music business, racial prejudice, and two economic depressions. Richard Hadlock examines the individual recordings of each important jazz musician of the time, giving us sensible analyses of style, devoid of the usual myths, cliches, and oversenti mentality. Out-of-print books and collector's records are listed for those who would like to dig deeper into what is I "the Jazz Age." The Jazz I RICHARD HA, aminer and a tributortoDow 100726 COLLIER BOOKS 866 THIRD AVENUE, NEW YORK.N.Y. 10022 THE MACMILLAN JAZZ MASTERS SERIES Martin Williams, General Editor JAZZ M ASTERS OF THE TWENTIES JAZZ MASTERS OF THE THIRTIES JAZZ MASTERS OF THE FORTIES JAZZ MASTERS OF THE FIFTIES JAZZ MASTERS IN TRANSITION 1957-69 JAZZ MASTERS OF NEW ORLEANS ./ I // MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES by Richard Hadlock COLLIER BOOKS A Diuiston of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. NEW YORK COLLIER MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS LONDON Excerpt from Jazt: Its Evolution and Essence by Andre Hodeir, Trans- lated by David Noakes, copyright 1956 by the Grove Press, Used by Excerpt from Redly the Blues by Mezz Mezzrow and Bernard Wolfe, copy- right 1946 by Random House, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the Harold Matson Company. Exceipt from Tom Davin's "Conversation with James P, Johnson" in Jazz Panorama, edited by Martin Williams, copyright 1964, The Macmfllau "Jail House Blues" by Bessie Smith and Clarence Williams, copyright MXMXXIH by Pickwick Music Corporation, New York, N.Y. Copyright renewed MCML and assigned to Pickwick Music Corporation, 322 West 48th Street, New York, New York. Used by permission, All rights reserved. Excerpts from Jazz; Hot and Hybrid by Winthrop Sargeant (E, P. Dutton, 1946}. Used by permission of the author, Copyright 2985 by Richard Hadlock All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted \n any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher. Macmiftm Vvblishing Co., Inc. 866 Third Avenue, New Yorfc, W,Y. 10022 Library of Congress Catakg Card Number: Jazz Masters of the Twenties is published in a hardcover edition by Uacmilkn fublishing Co., Inc First Collier Books Edition 1974 CONTENTS Introduction 9 LOUIS ARMSTRONG JTOm IQZj tO IQgl 13 EARL HINES 50 BIX BEIDERBECKE 76 THE CHICAGOANS 106 FATS WALLER and JAMES P. JOHNSON 145 JACK TEAGARDEN 172 FLETCHER HENDERSON and DON REDMAN 1Q4 BESSIE SMITH 219 EDDIE LANG 239 JAZZ MASTERS O JP THE INTRODUCTION A FEW WOBDS are in order on what this book is and what it is not, along with some general remarks about jazz in the twenties. Ihe book deals with the music of a select group of gifted jazz musicians who played in the twenties. It is not a treatise on the social, economic, or psychological conditions surrounding jazz at the time, although there are fleeting glimpses of some of these outside pressures. Many books already describe in detail the non- musical vagaries of the twenties, and I have elected to bypass those aspects of the period in an attempt to trace the musical changes this decade brought to jazz in America. It should be remembered, however, that the musicians dealt with here were subjected variously to many stresses and inequities brought about by Prohibition, avarice and callousness in the music business, race prejudice, two economic depressions, and public apathy toward honest jazz. Few of these men were able to earn livings as jazzmen exclusively during the twenties, although their gifts for improvisation were frequently exploited by leaders and promoters. Despite public indifference to its aims, jazz underwent exten- sive change and development between 1920 and 1930. At the be- ginning of the decade, the handful of jazz records produced was devoted largely to an agitated novelty music, dominated by vau- devillians, trick-effect artists, and musicians looking for profitable trends. Except for the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (and even this group relied partly on musical eccentricity for its success), virtually no significant jazzmen recorded until 1923. (An obscure 1922 Kid Dry date is of little importance in the larger picture.) But by 1929, most of the period's major contributors, embracing a wide variety of artistically valid styles, were making records, not- withstanding the fact that much of their product had to be mar- keted as dance, novelty, or 'race" music. In the twenties, most of those who listened at all regarded jazz as merely an energetic background for dancers; the few who sought more profound values in the music tended to accept Paul 10 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES Whiteman's concert productions (Rhapsody in Blue, etc.) as the only jazz worth taking seriously. Again, magazines ran long pieces on jazz without having much idea what it was all about. One, called The Dance, bubbled over the music with articles such as "Beyond Jazz" and "Blame It on Jazz" around 1927, but the writ- ers turned out to be concerned only with the Charleston and the fox trot, not with the musical worth of individual improvisations. In reviewing current "dance" records, the same magazine lumped together releases by Sam Lanin, Miff Mole, Fred Waring, Jelly Roll Morton, Ben Bemie, and the Dixieland Jug Blowers, without much regard for purpose, originality, or profundity. This mass misunderstanding, occurring in even large segments of the music and entertainment worlds, resulted in the develop- ment of a spirit of "underground" comradeship among jazz musi- cians. It was a spirit that permitted a free exchange of ideas across traditionally forbidding economic, racial, musical, and geographic barriers, but it also bred clannishness and the tendency to set up a closed society-within-a-society. Some musicians never recovered from this period of disengagement from the world around them. Six Beiderbecke is the classic example. Beiderbecke was actually not widely known outside musician circles in his own lifetime. Paul Whiteman's most celebrated soloist in 1928 was not Bix, but nonjazz trumpeter Henry Busse, who drew $350 a week, or $150 more than Beiderbecke. Most jazz musicians, including many who were to achieve international fame a few years later, despaired of finding recognition in the twenties. When immersed in the story of these jazzmen, then, it is useful to remember that their world occupied an almost unacknowl- edged corner of the entertainment industry throughout the so-called Jazz Age. -Much of the best jazz of the decade was doubt- less played in private sessions after regular jobs. That any worth- while jazz at all was recorded and preserved is a wonder, owing in part to the dedication and determination of the musicians and in part to the help of a few recording executives sympathetic to jazz. The choice of musicians to represent the decade is basically my own. However, it will be noted that some important names are conspicuously absent: Coleman Hawkins, Duke Ellington, King Oliver, Baby Dodds, and Sidney Bechet are examples. The reason for these omissions is that additional volumes in the series of INTRODUCTION 11 which this book is a part will cover New Orleans jazzmen and jazzmen important during the thirties, some of whom happened to be active and influential also in the twenties. I have, however, made numerous references to several of these men throughout the book. I have regarded each man's music in two ways. First, I've looked at the individual's work for its own value how the music grew, at what point it reached its apex, and, if necessary, why it declined. Second, a good deal of emphasis is placed upon each subject's historical function as a bridge from what came before him to what grew in part out of his own ideas. Indeed, the jazz masters described in this book were selected to some extent on the basis of their influence over other musicians, In the nine chapters, then, will be found more than just the bi- ographies of nine key jazz figures of the twenties. The chapter about Bessie Smith, for example, also touches on the valuable con- tributions of Ma Rainey and Ethel Waters. The story of Fletcher Henderson cannot be divorced from the early career of Don Red- man. To understand the positions of Jack Teagarden and Fats Waller in jazz history, it is desirable to know something of Miff Mole and James P. Johnson, The Chicagoans almost always have been treated as a group, and it struck me as logical to do so again. The story revolves around those whom I felt to be the most creative in their ap- proach to jazz. These eight individualists (Goodman, Stacy, Sulli- van, Teschemacher, Freeman, Krapa, Tough, and, though not a true Chicagoan, Russell) had a land of collective effect on jazz, but it was a significant effect nonetheless. (Goodman, of course, exerted a wide personal influence over several areas of jazz as well, but his largest contributions were made in the thirties. ) The book is not comprehensive in its coverage of all these play- ers. The Armstrong chapter, for example, picks up the trumpet player upon his departure from King Oliver's band and leaves him in the early thirties. So long and all-pervasive is this man's career that distinct segments of it turn up in separate volumes of the series. Most of these biographies carry through the entire lives of the subjects, although the focus is always on the twenties. This leads to at least one unfortunate implication. It may seem that, say, the 12 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES Chicagoans were at their individual creative peaks in the twen- ties. Actually, they were at their best in the thirties and forties, although their initial (and most important) collective impact was made in the twenties. For that reason, their recorded music (ex- cepting Goodman's) is followed down to recent times. The ap- proach is similar for Earl Hines, Jack Teagarden, and Fats Waller, but I have given in less detail the events after 1930. This is not a set of bio-discographies, It happens, though, that records are the only real evidence of just what any musician was playing at a given time, Therefore, I have relied largely upon re- corded performances in describing and judging each subject's music, It should be remembered that records are only a guide and may not always present a complete picture of jazz at a particular period, This is especially true of the twenties, a decade that was not really very interested in jazz for its own sake. The lists of books and LP records following each chapter are not meant to be complete biblio-discographies. They are, in the main, currently available reference material, but I have also in- cluded a number of out-of-print books and hard-to-find records for those who would like to dig deeper into the subject through libraries or stores dealing in collectors' records. I am indebted to the following persons, who gave time and/or material assistance to me in connection with this book: Jimmy Archey, Louis Armstrong, Charles Beiderbecke, Hany Brooks, Paul A. Brown, Garvin Bushell, Ralph Collins, Edd Dickerman Eddie Duran, Roy Eldridge, Phil Elwood, Phil Evans, Pops Fos- ter, Bud Freeman, Russell Glynn, Marty Grosz, Ruth Hadlock, Tony Hagert, Al Hall, Jim Hall, Horace Henderson, Earl Hines, Virginia Hodes, Darnell Howard, Lonnie Johnson, Peck Kelley' Charles Undsley, Jackie Mabley, Paul Miller, Grover Mitchell,' Red Nichols, Jerome Pasquall, Norman Pierce, Leon Radsliff, Kenneth Rexroth, Rocky Rockenstein, Joe Rushton, Pee Wee Rus- sell, Arflmr Schutt, George Shearing, Muggsy Spanier John Steiner, Jack Stratford, Joe Sullivan, Ralph Sutton, Jack Teagar- d^ Norma Teagarden, Joe Venuti, Martin Williams, Mary Lou Williams, and EstellaYancey. LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1924 TO 1931 JULIAN "CANNONBALL" ADDERLEY, an outstanding jazz saxophonist yet unborn when Louis Armstrong was beginning to receive inter- national acclaim in the twenties, once asked an older musician friend for the real facts about Armstrong. "I know Louis was good and got all the fame," began Adderley, "but who was really the tap man on trumpet in the old days?" The answer was swift and unequivocal: "Louis Armstrong was head and shoulders above them all." To a young musician of the late fifties like Adderley, Armstrong the pacesetting trumpeter seemed more legend than fact, for Louis had long since settled into a routinized presentation of his talents that offered only fleeting hints of his earlier creative powers. The physical aspects of Armstrong's playing equipment have, however, withstood the years remarkably well. It was his good fortune to be bom with an almost perfect physiological trumpet- playing mechanism, and it was mostly in the twenties that Louis put it to best use. From the beginning, the trumpeter enjoyed the physical assets of ideal lip size, extraordinarily relaxed and open throat muscles, a broad and powerful diaphragm, good strong teeth, and a robust, sinewy frame. Large lips allowed him maxi- mum compression for high notes without losing the use of soft flesh for tone quality. Louis* open throat and loose vocal cords were in his favor because the increased tension of high-note play- ing did not constrict these passages, and as a result, his tone re- mained full and clear in the highest register. His diaphragm fur- nished the push for the air that produced the Armstrong trumpet sound, and his fine physical condition accounted for the remark- able Armstrong stamina that continues to amaze his colleagues to this day. In short, Louis Armstrong was (and is) a natural trum- pet player in every physical way. Happily, he also possessed a fine musical mind. 14 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES This was tie man whom Joe Oliver sent "down home* for in 1922. Louis, already considered the best trumpeter in New Or- leans, had timorously turned down an offer from Fletcher Hen- derson the year before, but Oliver was an old friend and mentor who played the familiar New Orleans style. Louis felt secure enough to accept, and he promptly left for Chicago. He spent two important years with King Oliver s popular band making rec- ords, touring, playing shows, and learning a great deal about music and life in the world outside New Orleans. Actually, Armstrong had traveled away from home before, in Mississippi riverboat orchestras. These bands, though, were made up largely of New Orleans musicians, and the effect was that of working in a floating New Orleans ballroom. Armstrong learned more reading on the boats than he had in previous hometown jobs, which had consisted largely in playing for picnics, marching in parades, and entertaining in noisy cabarets or second-class dance halls. The trumpeter had worked often for Kid Ory, sitting in the trumpet chair held by Joe Oliver until 1918. Louis was more than content to follow in Olivers footsteps and, of course, felt honored when he received the call from Chicago. "I guess Joe decided to have two [cornets] because he figured I could blend with him, because he liked me and wanted me to be with him," Louis recalled in 1950. "He probably wouldn't have sent for anyone else. ... He must have remembered the way I played, the things we'd talked about. I must have proved it to him some way before he left [New Orleans] in 1918." Armstrong, fresh out of the waifs' home at 14, had met Oliver and had spent nearly four years studying his style. On the basis of this experience, Oliver decided he could use the youngster in 1922. Joe got more than he had bargained for. The young second trumpeter developed a quick ear for har- mony in the semi-improvising Oliver ensemble. He learned, too the value of discretion and restraint in an organization dedicated to building a Itand sound rather than a showcase for individual soloists. From Oliver himself, Louis picked up valuable secrets of rhythmic phrasing, of good blues playing, and of establishing a sure, driving lead melody line. *He s the one that stopped me playin' all those variations what they caH bebop today," Louis recalled in 1949. - 7ou get yourself LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1Q24 TO 193! 15 a lead [melody] and you stick to it/ Papa Joe told me, and I al- ways do." The Oliver band was an ideal school of higher learning for the already advanced Armstrong, as it provided for him a logical bridge from the conservative New Orleans outlook to the more advanced musical ideas of the bustling entertainment world of Chicago. By the time Louis left Oliver in the summer of 1924, he had married pianist Lil Hardin, a non-New Orleanian and per- haps the most sophisticated member of Oliver's band, and had begun to lose his provincial New Orleans ways, As the old New Orleans gang (clarinetist Johnny Dodds, drum- mer Baby Dodds, trombonist Honore Dutrey) departed from the Oliver band, to be replaced by more-schooled players, such as clarinetist Buster Bailey, Louis began to broaden his interests, musical and otherwise, He developed his range, tone, articulation, and reading ability to new levels. Shortly after leaving Oliver, he studied embouchure with a German teacher in Chicago. (Other New Orleans jazzmen, such as Jimmy Noone and Tommy Lad- nier, also studied with Chicago teachers in an attempt to refine their "down home" playing styles, ) Lil Armstrong was as aggressive as her husband was conserva- tive, and it was largely her prodding that finally forced Louis to seek a more suitable setting for his rapidly expanding abilities. He was more than ready for a job playing first trumpet. T[ never did try to overblow Joe at any time when I played with him," Armstrong recalled many years after. "It wasn't any show- off thing Lie a youngster probably would do today. He still played whatever part he had played, and I always played pretty* under him. Until I left Joe, I never did tear out. Finally, I thought it was about time to move along, and he thought so, too. He couldn't keep me any longer. But things were always very good between us that never did cease." One of Armstrong's last recordings with the Oliver band, Krooked Blues, demonstrates how ready for independence Louis was, even in late 1923. Under the leader's attractive muted lead can be heard a distant, full-toned cornet playing a "pretty" coun- termelody. The second cornetist seems to be attempting ideas of more interest than those of Oliver himself. After an unsuccessful application to join- Sammy Stewart's l6 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES Iiighly rated band, Louis went with ODie Powers at the Dream- land 35 a first trumpet player. It was a significant initial step in the right direction. With Lil supplying encouragement, Louis gained confidence and a sense of showmanship quickly. He stayed with Powers about three months, until September, 1924, when Fletcher Henderson offered him the third chair in his new three-man trum- pet section. Henderson's was considered by many to be the best band in the country at that time, and Louis, who had not yet gained full confidence, accepted somewhat diffidently. He re- ceived only $55 a week $20 less than he had earned with Oliver a few months before but this was to be an important final phase of Louis' basic training. In Henderson's eleven-man organization, he found high ensemble discipline and contact with a wide va- riety of musical materials that extended well beyond even the am- bitious arrangements Louis had played in riverboat orchestras several years earlier. The 24-year-old trumpeter was uncomfortable at first, but he unwound within a couple of weeks, especially after his old friend from the Oliver band, Buster Bailey, joined the reed section. (It was Armstrong who had recommended Bailey to Henderson.) Fletcher began to feature Louis as a soloist and vocalist after only three weeks. It was a demanding job always working on new ar- rangements; playing opposite leading dance orchestras of the period, such as Vincent Lopez and Sam Lanin; and keeping up with other superior instrumentalists in the band, such as tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, trombonist Charlie Green, and alto saxophonist Don Redman but Louis saw it through and emerged a much improved musician for his experience. Henderson was headquartered in New York, and this meant ex- posure to a wholly new set of influences for Armstrong. Chicago had imported so many New Orleans jazzmen that it was almost like home for them, but New York had its own traditions and its own jazz stars. As Louis exchanged information with instrumen- talists like Red Nichols and Miff Mole, he was as impressed by their technical command and polish as they were by his extraor- dinary power and blues feeling. Armstrong also admired the straight section work of trumpeters who played in opposing bands at New York's Roseland Ballroom. "Vincent Lopez came in there as guest one time," Louis has LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1924 TO 193! IfJ recalled. "B. A. Rolfe was with him, and he would play a tune called Shadowland an octave higher than it was written. I ob- served that, and it inspired me to make When You're Smiling. [Louis recorded this tune in 1929.] The way I look at it, that's tiie way a trumpet should play. If something's supposed to be phyed high, you play it that way, or you play it in whatever register it should be. But I don't dig that skating around a note just because it's high." Louis had further praise for Vic D'Ippolito, first trumpeter with Sam Lanin's dance band, who "just naturally didn't play as high as B. A. Rolfe, but when it was time to hit the high notes, he hit 'em." Henderson allowed Louis' natural showmanship to blossom at this time as well. Thursday nights at the Roseland were set aside for visiting acts, and Louis joined the parade of singers and dancers with his raw-throated vocals and showstopping trumpet solos. A great favorite on such occasions was Everybody Loves My Baby, which Henderson soon recorded, complete with "scat" (meaningless syllables) vocal breaks by Louis. It was his first re- cording as a singer, but it went largely unnoticed at the time. Armstrong was still not known outside a small circle of musi- cians in 1925, but he was always successful with patrons as an en- tertainer who could sing, mug, dance, and play incredibly good cornet. On one occasion, he appeared as a special guest at Har- lem's Savoy Ballroom and brought the house down. It was dra- matic evidence to the still-humble New Orleans youth that he had something of real value as an entertainer and that people re- sponded to him alone, regardless of what setting he worked within. Louis' musical position at this juncture can be ascertained by the Henderson recordings on which he soloed. Fletcher's arrange- ments of Words, Copenhagen, Shanghai Shuffle, When You Do What You Do, How Come You Do Me Like You Do?, Why Couldn't It Be Poor Little MeP, and Mandy, Make Up Your Mind are superior period pieces but period pieces nonetheless that suddenly become transformed into stirring jazz vehicles when Armstrong solos. Even the exceptional tenor saxophone solos by young Coleman Hawkins sound stilted and bloodless alongside Armstrong's authoritative statements. l8 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES There were several factors leading to Louis' preeminence in the Henderson band. One was his deep identification with the blues, which allowed him to turn the most cloying popular tune into a heartfelt and moving musical declaration. Another was his sing- ing approach to the horn, stemming from common New Orleans musical practices and his own vocal experiences. Regardless of tempo, Louis always completed each phrase and carried each sus- tained tone out to its fullest value, creating the illusion of unhur- ried ease even in the most turbulent arrangement. New York mu- sicians aimed for just the opposite effect; they clipped their notes short and skipped from one choppy phrase to another in an at- tempt to play ever "hotter" solos. Ironically, it is Louis who still sounds *hot w on these vintage recordings, while most of the New York jazzmen appear painfully dated and about as hot as yester- day s dishwater. Still another factor that set Armstrong apart from his Hender- son colleagues was his superb sense of time and syncopation. On ShanghaiShuffle, for example, he plays eight bars of his solo on one note, but there is no sense of repetition or boredom; rather, this one note becomes a vibrant thematic unit because Louis se- lected the ideal spots to place it for maximum rhythmic impact. It was a deceptively simple-sounding device that the trumpeter was to use to good effect many times in later years. Finally, Louis stood out because he possessed the already men- tioned physical attributes for playing more trumpet than anyone eke in jazz had been able to before. These attributes, combined with his New Orleans spirit, were regarded as natural phenomena by other musicians. In addition, he was a competent third-chair section man who could handle difficult Henderson parts ("After he made one mistake," said Henderson drummer Kaiser Marshall years later, Tie didn't make it again") and a reliable sideman who took his music seriously, was easy to get along with, appeared on time, and saved his money. Henderson was thoroughly pleased with young Armstrong. While working in New York in 1924 and 1925, Louis collabo- rated with pianist Clarence Williams and clarinetist-saxophonist Sidney Bechet on a set of remarkable recordings in the New Or- leans small-band style. Bechet, a fellow New Orleanian, was probably the only jazzman in New York at the time who could LOUIS ARMSTRONG EROM 1Q24 TO 193! 1Q match Armstrong's brilliance in every way. When the two men improvised together, each prodding the other to more daring flights, they usually finished in a dead heat. The best of the series is Cake Walkirf Babies, recorded for the Okeh label in early 1925. Like many of Louis' recordings of the period, this one documents his large debt to Joe Oliver, particularly in the passages where Louis leads the collectively improvising ensemble. Despite Armstrong's authority and inventiveness on most of the Clarence Williams dates, it was the more experienced Bechet who initially set the pace and tone of each performance. A re- cording hie Tm a Little Blackbird is virtually Sidney's show. Yet Armstrong was the perfect foil for the amazing Bechet talent, for Sidney responded positively to Louis' proper New Orleans ensem- ble manners. Looking back on these sessions and an unsuccessful 1940 re-creation of them, Bechet commented in his book Treat It Gentle: That's why anyone who knows about jazz music can feel those [1940] records weren't what they should have been. You can have every tub on its own bottom all right, but that don't make real music. What I know is, those other records we'd made back in the 'twenties were talked about much more than those we made at this session in 'forty. The 2:19 "Blues, we'd put that out again, and Down in Horiky Tonk Town. But there was nothing missing from those first ones; they were something you could listen to and not have to do any waiting for the music to arrive, because it was arriving. They had that feeling right there. In the old days there wasn't no one so anx- ious to take someone else's run. We were working together. Each per- son, he was the other person's music: You, could feel that really running through the band, making itself up and coming out so new and strong. We played as a group then. Louis Armstrong was far removed from the lessons of Joe Oliver by 1940. Other classic performances recorded by Bechet and Armstrong in the mid-twenties were Nobody Knows the Way I Feel This Mornin, Mandy, Make Up Jour Mind, Coal Cart Blues, Texas Moaner Blues, Papa De-Da-Da, Santa Glaus Blues, and another version of Cake Walkin' Babies for the Gennett label. It is inter- esting to note that the first session in this Clarence Williams series was recorded at the time Louis joined Henderson and the last 20 JAZZ MASTERS OF TEDS TWENTIES just before he left to return to Chicago. On the final Bechet-Arm- strong date in October, 1925, the soprano saxophonist was no longer able to determine the musical direction of each perform- ance, for Louis had increased his stature in the preceding year and was now the dominant force in the group. He had begun, too, to move away from Oliver and to reach into his own bag of ideas. Less -and less did he utilize the plunger mute, an old Oliver trademark. Louis' breaks were now more in- volved, and his ensemble lead lines were becoming distinctly his own rather than those of "Papa Joe." On one occasion, Louis even played in a New York "Dixieland" framework not unlike that of the Memphis Five on Terrible Blues and Santa Claus Blues, recorded with Buster Bailey and Lil Armstrong under the name of the Red Onion Jazz Babies. If Louis proved musically and commercially successful under the widely differing circumstances of the Henderson and Williams recording sessions, he demonstrated an even more moving and salable side of his musical personality in a series of New York re- cordings with leading blues singers of the day. A solid market for urban female blues shouters had recently grown to large propor- tions, and Louis, as an associate of pianist Henderson (a veteran blues accompanist), found his earthy blues playing much in de- mand. Some dates included Henderson and members of his band, while others were handled by Clarence Williams, but what made most of these sessions special events were Armstrong's moving countermelodies melodies much like those he had often played beneath Joe Oliver's singing lead comet a year before. Louis* blues performances seemed to vary with his mood and the spirit of the individual singer with whom he worked. On Trixie Smith's Railroad Blues, he returns to an almost pure Joe Oliver style, but The Worlds Jazz Crazy, recorded the same day, finds Armstrong playing Armstrong, if on an elemental level. Again, behind Ma Rainey's great dark voice, Louis reverts to Oliver and the plunger mute on Countin' the Blues but matches tie stately singer in a more personal way on See, See Rider. (A small Henderson group, including clarinetist Bailey, worked this date with Rainey and Armstrong, but their abortive attempts to play convincing blues serves only to underline the superiority of Louis' contributions.) LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1Q24 TO 1931 21 The most dramatic matching of talents on record during this period was that of Armstrong and Bessie Smith, whose monu- mental voice reduced all ordinary players on her recordings to mere background kibitzers. Bessie's mixed training in Southern country blues singing and Northern showmanship paralleled Louis' own experience, and the musical exchanges between these two major performers are of considerable interest. The first date, held only a few months after Armstrong's arrival in New York, was marked by a good deal of straightforward Oliver-like comet playing. Cold in Hand Blues, Reckless Blues, and You've Been a Good Old Wagon features fundamental understated plunger- muted cornet counterstatements that might easily have been the work of Oliver at his best complete to wa-wa-mute effects. On Good Old Wagon, Armstrong even attempts the highly personal Oliver "cry," although the result is not especially convincing, and Louis seldom, if ever, attempted this again. (Incidentally, Clyde McCoy's Oliver-inspired Sugar Blues might demonstrate how far this "crying" device can be carried in unmusical directions.) In Bessie's version of St. Louis Blues, Louis seems more inclined to play his own way, with mixed results. His own expansive style sets up a highly competitive force that tends to intrude upon rather than complement the whole vocal performance. The cometist obeys the rules, all right (play when the singer breathes, answer her statements with logical phrases, provide a provocative lead-in note as a springboard for the singer's next statement); the prob- lem is simply that Armstrong commands so much attention him- self that the listener might momentarily lose touch with the conti- nuity of the blues song as interpreted by Bessie Smith. Bessie undoubtedly noted this tendency herself, for she seldom used Armstrong after that Two more dates in May, 1925, produc- ing four titles, ended their association on records. On this occa- sion, Louis had left Oliver still further behind and was operating more completely within his own style. He is very much the solo- ist on Careless Love Blues, even to running notes into Bessie's words and attempting ideas not necessarily related to the song material as Bessie understood it. The final title may have ex- pressed Bessie's feeling about the collaboration I Ain't Gonna Pky No Second Fiddle. While in New York, Louis also recorded with singers Clara 22 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES Smith, Sippie WaDace, Alberta Hunter, Maggie Jones, and others. On Maggie Jones's Screamin the Blues and Good Time Flat Blues, he again demonstrates his ambiguous musical posture of the time. The first title shows Louis in a highly cooperative blues- accompanist frame of mind, while the second, Good Time Flat, serves only as a stepping-off place for Armstrong the virtuoso cornetist. In this instance, his backing is busy, self-contained, and more musically advanced than the setting calls for. However, the recording is of value precisely because it is a fine example of early Armstrong bravura playing, and Miss Jones indeed is playing '"second fiddle." Louis spent the summer of 1925 touring with Henderson, who had lined up a long string of one-night engagements in New Eng- land and Pennsylvania. This tour brought the sound of Arm- strongs horn to many musicians in small cities who had never heard him before, beginning the spiral of influence that eventually affected every jazz trumpeter in the country and beyond. Hender- son frequently met other reputable bands in music "battles," and these contests again did much to bring Louis to the attention of musicians and, naturally, of the dancing public as well. It was during this period, too, that Louis discovered the commercial value of his natural broad range on the horn. He began catering to demands for higher notes by performing stunts, such as blow- ing more than 250 high C's in a row and topping them off with a highF. Lil Armstrong felt that her husband belonged with her in Chi- cago, so she talked the owner of the Dreamland, Bill Bottoms, into offering Louis $75 a week to play for him. At the same time, Okeh Records offered a recording contract for a series of small- band dates to be conducted in the older New Orleans style. Chi- cago had the men Louis wanted for these dates, and the job with Lil was secure, so Louis gave his notice to Henderson. Young Rex Stewart of Elmer Snowden's band was selected as Louis' re- placement, but Rex balked at even attempting to fill his idol's chair. It was several months before he finally worked up the cour- age to join Fletcher. By the time Louis left Henderson, the band had become the finest "hof band in the country, and Fletcher's arrangements, deeply influenced by Armstrong's phrasing, were moving rapidly LOUIS ARMSTRONG IHOM 1924 TO 1Q31 23 toward a modern four-to-the-bar swing idiom. The ensemble performances were no longer stilted and static, but rather free- flowing and as impelling as the improvised solos. A special attraction was Sugar Foot Stomp, which Fletcher borrowed from Oliver (who called it Dippermouth Blues) and used as a show- case for Armstrong. Louis' recording of Sugar Foot Stomp with the Henderson band makes it clear that his break with Oliver was now complete. Though his melodic lines adhere to the classic Oliver version, Louis discarded the plunger mute and swung into his solo with a distinctly modern 4/4 manner of phrasing. A couple of final New York recording sessions left no doubt that Louis was fully prepared for his own important upcoming Okeh dates. With singer Eva Taylor, he made You Cant Shush Katie, contributing a magnificent solo that briefly changes the musical level of the recording from dull to inspired. Days before leaving New York, Louis recorded with James P. Johnson, Don Redman, and others in a session that included another I Ain't Gonna Play No Second Fiddle. This appears to be Armstrong's first recorded effort on the trumpet, for in place of his characteristic rounded cornet tone, there is the penetrating, edgy sound of the longer in- strument. If it is indeed a new and different horn, it seems admi- rably suited to Armstrong; his playing on these casual November, 1925, recordings ranks with his finest early work and perhaps due to the incisive trumpet tone is enhanced by an even more authoritative air than had prevailed on earlier recordings. Immediately upon his return to Chicago, Louis plunged into an around-the-clock schedule of record dates and club work, Veteran New Orleans trombonist Kid Ory had come in from California (at Louis' request) to make records and to work with the Armstrongs at the Dreamland. Soon Erskine Tate, a popular orchestra con- ductor who specialized in movie theater work, convinced Louis he could play for him and still have time to handle the Dreamland job later in the evening. Working (on trumpet) with Tate brought a new audience to Armstrong an audience of young people, conservative middle-class fans, and musicians who couldn't afford the Prohibition prices of after-hours nightclubs. Okeh Records knew it had a valuable property in this amazing young trumpeter and put Armstrong to work again as a blues ac- companist. In the first year of his contract with the label, Louis 24 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES recorded more sides with blues singers than with his own Hot Five. The blues sessions were deliberately earthy and calculated to appeal essentially to Southern migrants living in the North. A few of the blues songs had genuine folk roots, but many were hastily contrived pieces designed to delight listeners who craved uninhibited lyrics. To Louis, it was all blues, and his performances rode on his own creative moods rather than on the quality of the song materials. On Chippie Hill's Trouble in Mind, for example, Louis seems to lose interest somewhere along the way and even misses a couple of obvious cues. But Chippie s Pratt City Blues, recorded later in 1926, has superb mature Armstrong. On Pratt City, Louis accompanies tastefully and works in his own modern ideas as well, making full use of his speed and range rather than hewing to simple, folksy counterstatements. By this time, he seemed virtually unable to be other than what he really was a blossoming virtuoso trumpet player. Louis' best-selling blues rec- ords were turned out with singers Hociel Thomas, Sippie Wallace, and, of course, Bertha "Chippie" Hill. In the course of his stint at the Dreamland, Louis put the finish- ing touches on his musicianship, his creative outlook, and his rep- utation as the best jazz trumpet player in the land. The declining though still friendly Joe "King" Oliver knew better than to chal- lenge Armstrong, but others tried it from time to time. Freddy Keppard, once top trumpeter in New Orleans, attempted to cut down the younger lion, without success. Johnny Dunn, an East- erner, also met defeat in a contest at the Dreamland. Louis' de- scription of the encounter reveals something, too, about the land of thoroughgoing musician he had become: "I was playing an act at the Dreamland in Chicago one time, and I was playing something in seven sharps for the act so help mel Well, Johnny Dunn was the big thing in New York then, with that five he was playing. He was tearing up New York, playing the Palace and everything. (Of course, a lot of those people who went for him, they hadn't even heard of Joe Oliver.) He came out to Chicago with one of those big shows, and he came up on the band- stand where I was playing and says, 'Give me some of that/ I gave him that trumpet, and every valve he touched was wrong. Those sharps just about ate him up. So he gave me back my horn, di- rectly, and finally when I looked around, he done just eased away." LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1924 TO 1Q31 2$ The first recordings by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five were cut for Okeh in November, 1925, a few days after Louis' return to Chicago. Lil and trombonist Ory, who shared the Dreamland bandstand with Louis, had no trouble fitting into the group. Clar- inetist Johnny Dodds and banjoist Johnny St. Cyr were fellow Oliver alumni and New Orleanians who understood exactly what the musical situation demanded. There were almost no adjust- ments to be made and not even much need for rehearsals. Each member of the group contributed ideas or melodies a few days or hours before each session, then simply walked into the studio and played. Drawing on a common fund of experience and attitudes, these five musicians, who never operated as a going group outside the Okeh studios, turned out a series of records of remarkable consistency and high average musical quality. Although the Hot Five recordings do not present an accurate picture of Armstrong's musical activities between late 1925 and late 1927, they do reflect his musical growth during that period. There are many Louis Armstrongs on the various Hot Five ses- sions, almost all of them worth attention. Despite the appeal of the rather dated New Orleans Dixieland format (Louis at first bowed to tradition and played cornet on these occasions), the winning blues styles of the individual play- ers, and Armstrong's own brilliant horn, it was probably the lead- er's gruff vocals that accounted for the commercial success of these records. Okeh furnished dealers with pictures of the coraet- ist to be given away with the records, and this, too, helped sales. It also helped Armstrong's reputation. Louis was little more than a "novelty" singer in 1926, but his public loved his shouts and garbled lyrics. Only later did he be- come a sensitive jazz singer and a significant influence over others in this field. The introduction of the electric microphone around 1926 helped to bring Louis' voice down to a decibel rating suit- able for good music, but it was some time before the important quality of tenderness came into his vocal work. The group's first date was a rewarding one. The initial tune, My Heart, is Lil's, and it is a thoroughly charming melodic-harmonic vehicle. Louis seems in a sunny mood and plays with an easy kind of swing rather rarely heard on records in 1925. On the second tide, Yes, Tm in the Barrel, the 25-year-old cornetist pays another 26 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES tribute to Joe Oliver with some traditional plunger work. The third selection, Gut Bucket Blues, is a common blues, with sales appeal added by way of spoken introductions of the individual players. In February, 1926, the Hot Five turned out seven outstanding recordings, one of which Heebie Jeebiesiput Louis in the best- seller category. The novel touch that sold the performance was an apparently impromptu scat vocal by Armstrong. It is unlikely that, as the story goes, this event took place without plan because Armstrong happened to drop his copy of the song's lyric. It occurs in the second vocal chorus; had Louis planned a straight reading, there would have been no reason to do it twice. Scat singing was not new, but Heebies Jeebies became a hit The other six titles recorded that month were: Georgia Grind, an entertaining minor performance; Oriental Strut, a St. Cyr tune that Louis carries almost single-handedly; Muskat Rambk, an old theme credited to Ory and featuring splendid New Orleans lead cornet; LiTs Jour Next, carrying intimations of the majestic style Armstrong developed more fully later; Cornet Chop Suey, a tour de force exposition of Louis' ever-expanding musical imagination. Cornet Chop Suey was the first of many recordings that were to be Armstrong showpieces from start to finish. The supporting players are of little importance; they seem merely to be along for the ride as Louis introduces his composition, states the verse, then tears into the principal tiheme and its variations. Constructing his solo (and his entire performance is really one long solo) with seemingly simple eighth- and quarter-note patterns, the cornetist dispkys a superb sense of melodic balance and restraint. Each note falls into place with almost discomforting rightness and in- evitability, yet with a bubbling spontaneity that could come only from on-the-spot improvisation. Cornet Chop Suey combines die finest expression of the simple New Orleans outlook with the most advanced 1925 concepts of swing phrasing, many of which stemmed from Armstrong himself, of course. In addition to its im- portance as a piece of music, it was a triumph for Louis as a tacti- cal solution to his Hot Five dilemma: how to remain a true New Orleans musician while upholding his position in the advance guard of young trumpet players. New Orleans jazzmen have always been sensitive to ensemble LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1924 TO 193! 2/ effects, and it is likely that Ory and Dodds, while in awe of Arm- strong's abilities, were not always pleased with his soaring di- gressions. One need but listen to the stirring ensemble passages of the New Orleans Wanderers and Bootblacks, recording groups al- most identical to Armstrong's, save for George Mitchell playing a "proper" New Orleans-style lead cornet, to discover how much of the all-out New Orleans ensemble spirit was missing from the Hot Five dates. Interestingly, the Wanderers-Bootblacks sessions took place at the time of the Hot Five's greatest popularity. The Hot Five ensemble work was good enough for most listen- ers, however, and Louis gained still more prestige in the world of show business. He became the prime drawing card in the Tate orchestra at the Vendome Theater. After the inevitable overture, the trumpeter would jump out of the pit and onto the stage to per- form a special number such as Heebie Jeebies, recreating his scat vocal through a megaphone. Some patrons attended the theater to hear Armstrong and left without even finding out what film was being shown. Early in 1926, Lil and her group decided to demand more money from the Dreamland. It was refused, and the band quit. Louis' problem was not one of finding work (he continued to play with Tate), but rather of which offers to accept. He considered rejoining Oliver, who now fronted an enlarged band with three saxophones, but that would have meant going back to the second cornet chair and to the built-in restrictions of Oliver's modified New Orleans style. Kid Ory, for whom Oliver had once worked in New Orleans, had no reservations about joining Joe's band, but he represented the older generation of Louisiana jazzmen. Finally, partly owing to the urging of Earl Hines to "come over to us young guys," Louis joined Carroll Dickerson's Sunset Cafe or- chestra. There he worked with well-trained musicians like pianist Hines, saxophonist Stump Evans, bassist Pete Briggs, and trum- peter Shirley Clay. To lend a touch of home, there were also New Orleanians Honor6 Dutrey on trombone and Tubby Hall at the drums. The Sunset was one of Chicago's most popular clubs, and in the course of his year-and-a-half stay there, Louis made secure his position as the world's leading jazz trumpeter. His records were selling briskly, tourists paid well to see him perform, and musi- 28 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES cians flocked to the Sunset to study his style. Like other Chicago clubs, the Sunset served then illegal liquors openly and was never raided. A floor show, complete with dancers and a chorus fine, was the main attraction, Armstrong, of course, was regarded as an entertainer as well as a sideman in tibe band. Young jazzmen like Jess Stacy, Joe Sullivan, Frank Teschemacher, and Bud Freeman, whom proprietor Joe Glaser permitted to skip the door charge, es- pecially enjoyed the moments of pure music that came with the dancing between shows or in occasional Armstrong features. Eventually Glaser, whose eye was on the dollar, saw Armstrong as a potentially more successful leader than Dickerson and offered Louis the job. The trumpeter accepted and turned over responsi- bility for the band to Earl Hines. (Armstrong, in fact, has man- aged to avoid such duties throughout his career, preferring to dele- gate them to better organizers so that he might concentrate on his own playing.) As Louis Armstrong and His Stompers, the band (Dickerson sidemen Briggs, Dutrey, and Hall also stayed on) be- came a front-rank Chicago attraction during 1927. "Besides the band, we had twelve chorus girls, twelve show girls, and big-name acts," Glaser has recalled. "The place sat about six hundred people, and we had a high-class trade not like some of the other joints the best people. There were lines for every show, and, mind you, we charged admission just to get in from a dollar twenty to two-fifty or so, depending on how busi- ness was." Fronting a show band, playing eight or nine hours a night, at- tempting to juggle a failing marriage and a budding romance, Louis somehow continued to find time for varied recording assignments. He had used the trumpet more often on records the year before, most impressively on a pair of titles by the Erskine Tate orchestra. With this highly disciplined unit, Louis adopted a fast, showy style quite unlike his Hot Five comet approach. Tate's Stomp Off, Let's Go and Static Strut are wild, virtuoso perform- ances that probably came closer to the Armstrong theater and dub patrons knew than all the rest of Louis' recorded work in 1926. It does not follow, however, that the Hot Five sessions were musically invalid. On tie contrary, the rigid rules of New Orleans playing probably put a useful brake on Armstrong's natural incli- LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1924, TO 1931 2Q nation to exploit his abilities exhibitionistically. Although he had begun to sound almost ill at ease with the less brilliant-sounding cornet (there were many poorly articulated notes on the Hot Five sessions), he worked creatively within the offhand gutbucket at- mosphere of the Hot Five dates. In 1926, the quintet turned out more than a dozen sides, A few are marred by roughhewn commercialism (Don't Forget to Mess Around, Tm Gonna Gitcha, Droppin Shucks, Big Fat Ma), but most are enormously appealing compounds of magnificent cornet solos, New Orleans playing, competent collective improvisation, and a pinch of country hokum. King of the Zulus is, like Cornet Chop Suey, an extended Armstrong solo of striking emotional depth that leaves Louis' colleagues far behind. Who's It? features a novel slide-whistle chorus by Armstrong, some fumbling Johnny Dodds (the clarinetist tried to turn every tune into a blues), and a superb, flamboyant cornet finale. Sweet Little Papa, which seems to borrow from the melodic structure of Cornet Chop Suey, intro- duced several arranged passages to tie independent phrases to- gether, a practice that became more usual with each successive session. Records like Jazz Lips reveal that by late 1926, Louis had com- pletely outgrown his old New Orleans friends, Only Johnny Dodds stood a chance of coming close to Louis' sheer drive and power, but even he was a poor second. Jazz Lips is, like most of the Hot Five performances, marked by simplicity and restraint; yet there is a flippant ease coupled with, paradoxically, an in- creased degree of tension that represents a new phase for Louis. To a few New Orleans old-timers, it may have stood for a further departure from the mother style, but to young jazzmen, Jazz Lips carried exciting implications of a new kind of improvisatory freedom, Louis was in top form the day he made Jazz Lips, and the same session produced some outstanding ensemble playing in Sunset Caf6 Stomp, an elegant blues called Skid-Dat-De-Dat, in which the trumpeter makes bad notes into good ones by way of some very agile thinking, and a catchy tune named Big Butter and Egg Man from the West, which features one of Armstrong's very best solos of this period. The Big Butter and Egg Man chorus, which gO JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES was widely copied by other musicians in subsequent years, is ec- statically described by critic Andre Hodeir in Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence: In this record, Armstrong manages to transfigure completely a theme whose vulgarity might well have overwhelmed him; and yet his chorus is only a paraphrase. The theme is not forgotten for a moment; it can always be found there, just as it was originally con- ceived by its little-known composer, Venable. Taking off melodically from the principal note of the first phrase, the soloist begins with a triple call that disguises, behind its apparent symmetry, subtle differences in rhythm and expressive intensity. This entry by itself is a masterpiece; it is impossible to imagine anything more sober and balanced. During the next eight bars, the paraphrase spreads out, becoming freer and livelier. ^Armstrong continues to cling to the essential notes of the theme, 'but he leaves more of its contour to the imagination. At times he gives it an inner animation by means of intelligent syncopated repetitions, as in the case of the first note of the bridge. From measures 20 to 23, the melody bends in a chromatic descent that converges toward the theme while at the same time giving a felicitous interpretation of the underlying harmonic progression. This brings us to the culminating point of the work. Striding over the traditional pause of measures 24-25, Armstrong connects the bridge to the final section by using a short, admirably inventive phrase. Its rhythmic construction of dotted eighths and sixteenths forms a contrast with the more static context in which it is placed, and in both conception and execution it is a miracle of swing. During this brief moment, Louis seems to have foreseen what modem conceptions of rhythm would be like. In phrasing, accentuation, and the way the short note is increasingly curtailed until finally it is merely suggested (measure 25), how far removed all this is from New Orleans rhythm! A few days later, the Hot Five recorded two more titles. Irish Black Bottom is a weak commercial song damaged by Dry's wrong notes, LiTs unbending keyboard style, and an uninspired Armstrong vocal; You Made Me Love You (not the later popular song) is, on the other hand, a brilliant performance featuring Dodds at his slashing, bluesy best and Armstrong in peak form. Although the Hot Five made more recordings in later months, Jou Made Me Love Yow signaled the end of this period for Arm- strong; hereafter, his full-blown improvised masterworks were to LOUIS ABMSTRONG FROM 1Q24 TO 193! 3! set a blistering pace for those who ventured to accompany him, relegating almost all of his associates, including Dodds, to posi- tions as mere pawns in Armstrong's musical games. In April, 1927, Louis recorded a batch of tunes for the compet- ing Vocalion label. Four were unusual quartet sessions with wash- board player Jimmy Bertrand in which Armstrong attempted to hold back his command, power, and inventiveness. This was probably done to avoid detection by the Okeh people, but it also served to prove that Louis was a highly flexible player and could, if he wished to, still play a simple New Orleans lead. More stimulating was a series made with Johnny Dodds and, in his initial appearance on records with Louis, Earl Hines. Again the New Orleans spirit prevailed, despite the time given over to solo playing. Louis' thirty-two-bar solo on Wild Man Blues, though subdued, is nonetheless a fine example of sustained me- lodic improvisation at slow tempo. Using a fundamental embel- lishment approach to the melody, the trumpeter maintains con- tinuity and holds the listener's interest with notes and phrases that cross bar lines, as well as with anticipations up to two beats ahead of upcoming melodic statements. Melrose Brothers, pub- lishers of Wild Man Blues, transcribed the solo and published it as part of their commercial orchestration of the tune. To make matters easier for average dance-band trumpeters, Louis' single excursion into the upper register ( above concert F on the top line of the staff) was lowered a full octave in the stock arrangement. Because Armstrong and Hines were kept under wraps, the Dodds recordings only suggested the possibilities that could grow out of this association. It was to be more than a year before the pianist and trumpeter could record some of their specialities The full sound of seven men on the Dodds session may have jogged Okeh into permitting Armstrong to use a similar instru- mentation. However it came about, Louis turned out eleven classic recordings in less than a month after his date with Dodds. He used the regular Hot Five plus tuba player Pete Briggs of the Dickerson band and his old New Orleans friend, drummer Baby Dodds, Not surprisingly, the group cut a new Wild Man Blues on the very first day. The other ten tunes are not, in themselves, es- pecially distinguished; two had been featured on the prior Dodds 02 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES session (Melancholy, Weary Blues}, and the rest were blueslike Armstrong originals (Keyhole Blues, That's When Til Come Back to You, Potato Head Blues, S.O.L, Blues, and Gully Low Blues) or simple structures already familiar to the participants (Twelfth Street Rag, Willie the Weeper, Alligator Crawl). With a full rhythm section driving him, Armstrong now pulled out most of the stops, although his essentially New Orleans band continued to exert a slightly sobering influence over him. The sec- ond Wild Man Blues is, of course, a more expansive affair, full of fast runs and high-note ornamentations, but the basic approach is not unlike the earlier version. (Superior electrical recording qual- ity on these Okeh records made all of Louis' work sound much better than it had before, incidentally.) On the second Melan- choly, Armstrong improves the attractive written melody without really changing it very much. Twelfth Street Bag, a difficult com- position to pky seriously, emerges as a slow stomp, which Johnny Dodds characteristically plays as a blues and which Louis finally transforms into a moving concerto. S.O.L. Blues and Gully Low Blues are the same tune with al- tered lyrics. It is of interest to observe here that Armstrong's solo improvisations are improved in the latter version. The first four bars of each solo are identical, suggesting a carefully worked out advance sketch, but Gully Low makes more intelligent use of dra- matic pauses, allowing deeper penetration into the lower register for contrast to the sustained high A-flat that introduces each two- bar phrase. Incidentally, S.O.L. Blues, recorded the day before, was not issued until collectors became interested in it many years later. Keyhok Blues is a superb blues with a charming scat vocal by Armstrong and some deeply felt trumpet playing. As in many of his best recordings, Louis jumps into improvised situations here iiat require great skill and inventiveness to resolve gracefully. This penchant for trying the impossible and somehow escaping with honor fascinated other jazzmen as much as did the technical aspects of Louis* playing. After Armstrong, there was much more individual experimentation of this land in jazz. The Hot Seven sessions were one more step removed from New Orleans jazz than the Hot Five records had been, Drummer Baby Dodds, a conservative New Orleanian, once recalled the impres- LOUIS ABMSTRONG FROM 1924 TO 193! 33 sion these dates made upon him: "With Louis' recording outfit, we used four beats to the measure. That was different from the older days in New Orleans, when we always used two. King Oli- ver used two also. And Louis used a tuba instead of a string bass. I had started playing with a bass viol and always felt closer to it than to a tuba." One of Armstrong's enduringly classic solos in his Hot Seven series is Potato Head Blues. Using basic phrases made of simple eighth- and quarter-note patterns, a few dotted eighths, and some triplets, Louis organizes his musical thoughts in a truly re- markable way. His solo is a triumph of subtle syncopation and rhythmic enlightenment; strong accents on weak beats and whole phrases placed against rather than on the pulse create delightful tension. This tension is then suddenly released with an incisive on- the-beat figure, which in rum leads into more tension-building devices. Thus does Armstrong build the emotional pitch of the solo over a full chorus. While listening to such well-conceived musical essays, one has the feeling that Louis might have gone on building for several more choruses had he not been restricted by the three-minute limit on recorded performances at that time. The trumpeter un- doubtedly played longer solos in his nightclub and ballroom ap- pearances, and he did, indeed, frequently record logical solos of two or more choruses a couple of years after making Potato Head Blues. With this new lot of electrically recorded Armstrong perform- ances, the attention of jazzmen everywhere was directed to Chi- cago and the next Okeh releases. Bix Beiderbecke was turning out his finest recorded work for the same label at the same time, and there were en(Jless discussions as to who was the greater hornman. One musician who was active in both Chicago and New York about this time, saxophonist Jerome Pasquall, put it this way in a taped interview: "Bix was at the Roseland while I was with Smack [Fletcher Henderson]. He was a wonderful cornetist with a marvelous ear and had many, many followers. There was a big dispute around then whether Bix or Louis was greater. Well, nowadays [1953] almost everybody agrees that Louis is tops, though I imagine there are still a lot of diehards who say Bix is King. When Bix played, it g4 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES was almost perfect, everything dean and neat, as though he didnt want to make any mistakes; whereas Louis was playing so much that he would occasionally drop a blue note, but, my Lord, the things he was doing, Bix wouldn't even have attempted." There was, of course, one large difference between the two heroes after 1927: Bix began to disintegrate, while Louis grew bet- ter and betterby 1931, Beiderbecke was dead, Armstrong at the peak of his powers. Not only records and in-person appearances were responsible for the spread of Armstrong's influence in 1927; Melrose Brothers, a jazz-minded music-publishing house, added to the cumulative impact by incorporating more of Louis' ideas in its orchestrations. The publishers also issued a book of 50 Hot Choruses for Cornet by Louis that sold widely throughout the country. These choruses were recorded by Melrose, transcribed, and published in such a way as to permit any horn player to insert an Armstrong solo in his part of an orchestratioa It's anybody's guess how many fledgling jazzmen struggled through Louis' beautifully conceived thirty- two-bar solo on Someday Sweetheart, with its dramatic climax on trumpet high D, or what number of competent sidemen fell apart in the middle of Louis' superb version of Some of These Days (in concert G), but it may be assumed that many musicians learned from this remarkable collection. From it, too, comes the realiza- tion that Louis Armstrong drew from a seemingly bottomless well of ideas; on or off records, the trumpeter played at a remarkably consistent creative level. Few of his fifty solos recorded for Mel- rose were less than excellent, and several ranked with his very best work Unfortunately, the recordings from which they were transcribed have vanished Of special interest is a single recording made between two Hot Seven sessions in May, 1927. It is Chicago Breakdown (a Melrose property also included in 50 Hot Choruses), the only surviving re- corded document of the Sunset Cafe band. Included on this date were Boyd Atkins and Stump Evans (saxes), Honore Dutrey, and Earl Hines. The ten-piece band suited Louis' big tone very well, and in Hines there was a player who could parry and thrust on Armstrong s own musical level. It was a stimulating session and a harbinger of recordings to come, but this single side was not issued at the time. LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1Q24 TO 1Q31 35 In the summer of 1927, Louis' band met Fletcher Henderson's in a contest at the Sunset Cafe. Fletcher tried, without success, to hire Armstrong back, but by this time the trumpeter was earning more money and fame than even Henderson could offer. Iron- ically, at the end of summer, Joe Glaser decided it was time to change his show, and the Stompers were out. Armstrong had switched his theater work from Tate at the Vendome to Clarence Jones at the Metropolitan, but it was not enough for him to play only a few hours in a pit band each night. He thrived on playing in nightclub shows. Louis, Earl, Ldl, and drummer Zutty Singleton (an old New Or- leans friend who had been playing at the Cafe de Paris during the summer) hatched a scheme to present their own show in their own club. Lil rented a ballroom called Warwick Hall, and ihc new partners called their room the Usonia. They planned a Thanksgiving opening, but the new and elaborate Savoy Ball- room opened nearby at the same time, and the Usonia went al- most unnoticed By December, the Hot Six (Armstrong, Hines, Singleton, George Jones, Charlie Lawson, and William Hall) were without work and unsure of the future, despite their leader's enor- mous popularity. Louis, Earl, and Zutty were close companions and frequently attended parties or jam sessions together during this slack period. They continued to be much in demand at in- formal social and musical gatherings. Carroll Dickerson, by now fronting the band at the new Savoy Ballroom, invited Louis and Zutty to join him, and in April, 1928, the two jazzmen became part of the show that had, a few months earlier, put them out of business. Hines went his own way, join- ing Jimmy Noone about the same time. The three friends main- tained tibeir close ties, however, as can be heard in a series of su- perlative Okeh recordings made under Armstrong's name late that year. Show business is intrinsically a risky, up-and-down life, and m looking back at Armstrong's high tide of success in 1927, it seems likely that his popularity at the Sunset was of the ephemeral va- riety so common to musical revues. During tibis peak, the trum- peter's Hot Seven recordings reflected his own will to a greater extent than any he had made before. With the collapse of tie Sunset engagement, Louis returned to (or possibly was told to re- 36 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES turn to) the Hot Five formula. By this time, however, the old rou- tines had become anachronistic and less suitable than ever for Louis' sweeping improvisations. The banjo-piano combination, good enough for the limited range of preelectrical recordings, now seems pitifully thin and inadequate as an Armstrong rhythm sec- tioa Cry s antique dut-dut style and Dodds's lack of harmonic sophistication also seem to be holding Louis back. Armstrong him- self, who has long believed in playing his very best regardless of surrounding circumstances, is as brilliant as ever on these Hot Five records, from the quaint, New Orleans-style Or ys Creole Trom- bone to the highly informal Put "Em Down Blues, fee breaks through the conservative barriers on The Last Time and even has Dodds abandoning his traditional ensemble parts on Got No Blues, recorded at a later session. Struttin' with Some Barbecue, recorded in December, is a radiant experiment in the construction of long lines without sacrifice of melodic simplicity and rhythmic momen- tum. Dodds's subdued solo here and the arranged ending of Bar- becue suggest that even the New Orleans gang was now begin- ning to sense the decline of the Dixieland approach. On December 10 and 13, 1927, the Hot Five held its last record- ing sessions, with guitarist Lonnie Johnson added to fill out the undernourished rhythm section. The New Orleans ensemble pat- tern was weakened still further. On these records, Dodds and Ory fifl out the background harmony unobtrusively and join Armstrong in elemental riff patterns along lines fairly typical of the period. The result of these shifts of emphasis is a more in- spired Armstrong than ever. Four titles were made, all containing good examples of Louis near the apex of his musical career. Once in a White, notable for its dazzling cornet solo set against a syncopated stop-time backdrop, is otherwise rendered the New Orleans manner, but Savoy Blues is a low-key blues carried out with riffs and an easy tempo that give Louis lots of room to try his more advanced ideas, fm Not Rough is a curious mixture of country blues and an apparent attempt to capitalize on the dou- bfe-tae device that was helping to sell a ample raauer ana saoe My Best Gal Turned Me Down by 5cke). Hotter Than That, closely related to Tiger Roe K a fitting tour de force climax to the extended Hot LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1024 TO 193! 37 Five series of recordings. It contains many of Louis' most com- monly used phrases, even to a string of repeated high Cs, but it is an outstanding accomplishment as an ordered progression of lively ideas that seem to form but a single musical thought. Only the necessity for breathing appears to have prevented Armstrong, in performances like Hotter Than That, from executing whole choruses at a time as long, unbroken single statements. In mid-iQsS, Louis, Earl Hines, and Zutty Singleton finally got together on records. They recorded nine selections as Louis Arm- strong and His Hot Five (actually, it was a sextet; clarinetist Jimmy Strong, guitarist-banjoist Mancy Cara, and trombonist Fred Robinson, all from the Carroll Dickerson band, were the other members). But from the very first note, it was obvious that this was a group totally unlike the old Hot Five. Now Louis was permitted to make records in his own name that accurately re- flected the sort of music he had been playing for a living for some two years. Armstrong and Hines, dipping into their recent experi- ences at the Sunset for material and ideas, established new stand- ards for jazzmen everywhere with these nine performances. The series began, fittingly, with a piece called Fireworks, a dis- play number pieced together from Dickerson specialties and Tiger Rag. It is, like many of the Hines-Armstrong sessions, a kind of miniature big-band arrangement, complete with pyramid chords, rapid-fire exchanges among the participants, and complex ensemble maneuvers. In a tune called Skip the Gutter, Louis and Earl challenge each other's imagination and agility in "chase" pas- sages of pure whimsy and antithematic improvisation. Double- time effects such as had been used on Tm Not Rough had now become commonplace, and the new Hot Five made the most of them. Two Deuces is another excursion in advanced jazz playing that bristles with harmonic alterations, double-time routines, and all-out improvisations. Don't Jive Me, probably taken from show material used in Sunset or Savoy productions, tests Armstrong's musicianship as well as his ability to think fast in a musical game of high order. The trumpeter and pianist constantly challenge themselves by starting phrases that cannot possibly fit the ar- rangement, then squirming out of them just in time to save the performance. It was breathtafcingly daring music that set a terri- fying pace for young jazzmen. 38 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES There was another, more far-reaching aspect of Armstrong's playing that emerged on records at this time. It came as a synthe- sis of his earlier restrained melodic invention and the advanced technical displays just described. Now, in 1928, Armstrong was able to put the best features of both styles to work for him and evolve a modern melodic approach that would serve as the foun- dation for jazz trumpet developments in the thirties and forties. The new Armstrong outlook can be heard on three titles made with the revised Hot Five Squeeze Me, A Monday Date, and West End Blues. Squeeze Me was the first of many Fats Waller balladlike songs recorded by Louis. It is a thoroughly "modern" performance that includes a vocal without instrumental support and a high-tension trumpet break incorporating a fragment of High Society. (This phrase was later worn thin by modern jazzmen of the forties and fifties.) It is in Louis* solo phrasing, however, that something then new and different happens. With solid four-to-the-bar backing, the trumpeter somehow creates the impression of more space be- tween pulses and improvises accordingly. His ideas come faster and in more tightly packed bundles now; rather than conceiving his solos as single chorus-length ideas, he begins constructing a chain of four-bar and even two-bar thematic units, each a minia- ture chorus unto itself but an essential link to the next unit and a logical part of the whole solo as well. It was a startling effect, even in its early stages. Monday Date is a good example of the rhythmic freedom that came with the addition of a good drummer like Zutty. No longer required to establish the beat as well as the melody, Louis seems to float over the tune. His use of quarter-note triplets here was doubtless rekted to this new rhythmic independence. Again there is the "unit" rather than the chorus method of solo construction. West End Blues, perhaps Armstrong's finest recorded perform- ance of his career, also came from this mid-ig28 Okeh session. It has everything: big-toned bravura trumpet playing; effective con- trast of expressive simplicity and instrumental complexity; logical development of mood and theme from beginning to end; a heart- wanning, tender scat vocal refrain; a perfect balance of all histori- cal aspects of the Armstrong musical personality. West End was LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1924 TO 1Q31 3Q written by Joe Oliver and Clarence Williams, both of whom were connected with Armstrong's earlier development. West End begins with a magnificent trumpet cadenza in 2/4 that builds in intensity as it moves from quarter notes to eighth- note triplets to sixteenths to sixteenth-note triplets over twelve bars of brilliant unaccompanied playing. The two blues choruses Armstrong plays after this (and they are not consecutive) are put together in exactly the same way as the overturelike cadenza. The first chorus moves from initial simplicity to a set of ingenious tri- plet figures. The final chorus picks up the thread again and moves into dramatic sixteenth-note passages and sixteenth-note triplets that correspond exactly to the final part of the opening cadenza. Furthermore, throughout this astonishing set of improvisations, Louis plays a deeply moving blues that never flags in emotional pitch. West End Blues, an intuitive improvised composition- performance created by a zy-year-old trumpet player from New Orleans, is a milestone in the history of jazz. In December, 1928, ten more excellent sides were recorded by Armstrong and Hines. Louis' success at the Savoy prompted Okeh officials to release these under the name Louis Armstrong and His Savoy Ballroom Five. The same men participated, but saxophon- ist-arranger Don Redman was brought in to give die group a big- ger orchestral sound. It was obviously time for Louis to record with a big band, but Okeh seemed reluctant to take the step. The December sessions were, on the whole, even more ad- vanced than those held six months before. Drummer Singleton was much improved, and the addition of Redman hastened the complete departure from the old Hot Five sound. Louis* trumpet solos, freer than ever, are marked by swift legato passages, thirty- second-note runs, and audacious ideas that only pianist Hines comes close to matching. On selections like No One Else But Yo and Beau Koo Jack, there seems to be no limit to Armstrong's imagination or to his ability to play as fast as he can think. Again, the trumpeter was building logically upon his own past, for the support provided by Redman's arrangements was a natural link to Louis' experience in Henderson's band, of which Redman was also a member. Weather Bird Rag, a tune Louis had played with Joe Oliver, is 40 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES a monumental duet performance by Hines and Armstrong It is, too a symbol of the trumpeter's complete abandonment of the Ol- iver style, for this display piece is improvisation for improvisa- tion s sake, and the New Orleans old guard had little use for that outlook Still, with all its wild volleying of modern ideas, Weather Bird retains a strand of melodic continuity and thematic unity. With his solid New Orleans training, Louis seemed virtually inca- pable of losing a melody entirely. Save It, Pretty Mama and Hear Me Talkin 9 to Ja are touched with a distinct Eastern flavor, due to Redman's arrangements and Trumbauer-like alto saxophone playing. Louis seems to have picked up the idea; his work on Hear Me Talkin is as close to Bix Beiderbecke as Armstrong ever came. Muggks is a fascinating essay on rhythm, much of it built around a single tonic note, in which the trumpeter displays his extraordinary sense of time. In the course of thirty-six bars, Louis explores some thirty different ways of rhythmically phrasing a single measure of music. Despite its outward simplicity, Muggks was a new kind of Armstrong triumph. Basin Street Blues is an extension of the exceptionally free me- lodic style noted in Squeeze Me. St. James Infirmary left no doubts about the desirability of the smooth, even 4/4 rhythm that was then sweeping Chicago as it already had New York. Finally, there is a colossal trumpet solo called Tight Like This, which is actually little more than a series of double-time arpeggiolike em- bellishments on a minor blues theme. Here is a fine demonstration of another important facet of the Armstrong talent his sense of drama. Tight Like This is intelligently built up over sixty-four measures (four choruses) so gradually and smoothly that the lis- tener is scarcely aware of the increase in tension and excitement until the final bars are reached. In each period of Armstrong's career, there has been a recorded clue to his next venture, With Oliver, his rare solos were hints of the virtuoso performer featured with Henderson; from bis New York stint came the Red Onion Jazz Babies sessions with Lil that were the forerunners of later Hot Five recordings; and during the period just discussed, a single Carroll Dickerson record pointed the way Louis was to go within a year's time. Though Dickerson appears to have been a competent leader, his full band was not in LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1Q24 TO 1931 43, demand on recordings, and his only record was not even issued, except in Argentina. It is, however, valuable for the glimpse it affords of the band in which Louis played at the Savoy in 1928. The titles are Symphonic Raps and Savoyager's Stomp. Raps is a forward-looking arrangement studded with unusual harmonies, whole-tone devices, and bustling solos. One can hear, too, the in- fluence of Jean Goldkette and Paul Whiteman scores in this ambi- tious display piece. It is also related to Fireworks (and, indirectly, Tiger Rag), which Armstrong's small group recorded only- a few days before. The big band seemed to have a salutary effect on Armstrong, whose ear picked up the involved harmonies of Sym- phonic Raps as easily as it had die more elemental changes of old New Orleans numbers. Louis' fleet and authoritative solo on this recording was at least ten years ahead of itself. Savoyager's Stomp, a dressed-up version of Muskat Ramble, underscored again how ready Louis was to record with a big (ten-piece) band. By late 1928, Louis had built his reputation to a new peak He was earning $200 a week with Dickerson and picking up extra money from record dates and casual appearances. Melrose Broth- ers had added Louis Armstrong's 125 Jazz Breaks for Cornet to their catalog some time earlier, and trumpeters in every city of the country were attempting to copy his phrases. The Savoy was mak- ing regular broadcasts that were heacd for hundreds of miles around Chicago. Louis was already big time, but he had yet to take on the toughest and most important show business town of all New York. The prospects had been good when he appeared there with Henderson, but that was four years before. What would it be like now? When the Savoy attendance began to drop a bit and the club professed a shortage of funds for paying the band, Louis and the Dickerson band made a collective decision to strike out for New York. As Armstrong was the drawing card and had some connections in the East, he would front the band. Dickerson would remain as musical director. It sounded like a good arrange- ment, and they started out for New York in the dead of the winter of 1928-1929. Over the years, Armstrong's luck has been almost as phenom- enal as his trumpet playing. Of course, his position as one of the great figures in jazz and as a gifted entertainer has brought many 42 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES opportunities his way, but his reception in New York can be considered only sheer plunger's luck. After a few odd jobs such as one at the Audubon Theater, where the group substituted for Duke Ellington, the Armstrong-Dickerson band landed in Con- nie s Inn, one of the three biggest nightclubs in town. The club's regular band (Leroy Smith's) was hired for an upcoming Broad- way stage show called Connie's Hot Chocolates, leaving a va- cancy that Louis and his friends simply walked into. Connies Inn was even larger and more impressive than the Savoy in Chicago. The show began at midnight, drawing an after- theater crowd, and evening clothes were required. A conservative couple would have had trouble spending less than $40 in a single night at Connies. Despite the Great Depression, customers poured in to hear Louis and his audience-proven routines. Another stroke of luck came with an offer for Louis to join the Sat Chocolates cast on Broadway. Through the spring of 1930, the trumpeter-singer-entertainer stopped each show with his ver- sion of the revue's hit number, Ain't Misbehavin', Within a year of arriving in the big city, Armstrong was established as a leading name in show business. Okeh Records responded by giving him more musical latitude and a larger share of the talent budget. Al- though Louis* recordings from this point on were almost entirely big-band dates, there were a couple of small-group sessions. One was a dismal *Hot Five" affair the last in the line with singer Victoria Spivey. The other was a fine casual jam session with Joe Sullivan, Zutty, Eddie Lang, Jack Teagarden, and others, on which Louis played a splendid blues solo. Pianist Sullivan has re- called that Louis tossed off this chorus while "standing against the wall with his eyes closed." The first New York date produced Mahogany Hatt Stomp, a big-band New Orleans-style performance of charming simplicity, and, more importantly, I Can't Give You Anything But Love, which presented Armstrong for the first time on records as a supe- rior, sensitive ballad singer. The wide-voiced instrumental backing by Luis Russell, created solely for the purpose of supporting Arm- strong, invited Louis to reach out for new melodic and harmonic ideas on his horn as well. ( He was already familiar with this tune, incidentally, for he had recorded it with singer Lillie Delk Chris- tian in Chicago a few months earlier.) LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1Q24 TO 1931 43 From the moment he landed in New York, Louis also became an object of adoration for all New York jazzmen. Some admired him primarily for his finesse, others for his power and range, still others for the emotional depth of his work. No one argued any more about his supremacy. The Dorsey brothers arranged for him to play on a couple of their recording dates, with generally good results (an exception is a curious version of To Be in Love, on which Louis seems to attempt an imitation of Bix Beiderbecke, without success). A gifted trumpeter named Jabbo Smith was in and out of New York about this time, and some competition-minded jazzmen began to regard Smith as a possible contender for Armstrong's crown. Cornetist Red Nichols remembers a night when the two met *Jabbo had a wide range, but his high notes were more falsetto, not full-blown like Louis'," recalls Nichols. "He played a lot of notes, but some of them were just faking, while Louis maintained a high musical level at all times. When they played together, there just wasn't any comparison." (Smith did, however, point out the possibilities of an even more advanced style than Armstrong's. With his impish, many-noted flights and his harmonic daring, he foreshadowed the later styles of Red Allen, Charlie Shavers, and Roy Eldridge, although these trumpeters were primarily inspired by Armstrong. ) Between July, 1929 and early 1932, Louis reached the height of his creative and physical powers as a trumpet player. This period is thoroughly documented by a prodigious outpouring of magnifi- cent recordings. Of some sixty titles cut in less than two years, nearly every one has remained the classic, definitive version by which jazz trumpeters (including Armstrong) ever since have had to measure their own work. Recording the best popular tunes of the time, Louis was responsible for many of these songs becoming jazz standards. His were the first recorded jazz interpretations of Ain't Misbehaving Black and Blue (both from Hot Chocolates), Rockin* Chair, Body and Soul, Memories of Yo, and dozens of others. The usual format was trumpet solo (muted) -vocal- trumpet solo (open), which allowed plenty of room for Louis to build his ideas. As it turned out, it was also a sound commercial formula; Armstrong records began to be heard on jukeboxes and 44 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES to move briskly in stores. Louis' good luck was holding up as well as was his celebrated embouchure. In September, 1929, he recorded Some of These Days, a su- perlative example of the art of logical construction in an extended solo. In this case, the vocal becomes part of Louis' overall melodic blueprint, serving as a natural bridge from the low-key, insinuat- ing opening to the jubilant concluding chorus. A final, inevitable sustained high note finishes off one of the earliest ( and still one of the best) extended solos in the annals of recorded jazz. Only a few jazzmen (Lester Young, Jess Stacy, Sidney Bechet, and Sonny Rollins come to mind) have demonstrated a comparable ability to increase the dramatic pitch of a long solo without losing either melodic control or thematic unity in the course of their own crea- tion. Judging from his records, Louis' tone acquired still more body and strength at this time. Sometimes he played with almost no vi- brato, yet bis sound was warm and intimate. More and more, he employed a legato manner of phrasing, leaving behind the heavy- tongued "punching" style so characteristic of hornmen in the twenties. On almost straight readings of tunes like When You're Smiting and Song of the Islands, Louis underscores the quality of majesty in his work with trumpet phrases that seem lifted from the Golden Era of opera singing, Indeed, on a piano-trumpet duet recording of Dear Old Southland, Louis gives a veritable trumpet recital, quite unlike the musical cat-and-mouse game he indulged in with Earl Hines less than two years before. In early 1930, Connie's Hot Chocolates wound up its successful season, Leroy Smith returned to Connie's Inn, and the Dickerson band, without immediate prospects for work, broke up. In June, Louis opened at Frank Sebastian's New Cotton Club in Culver City, California, with Les Rite's orchestra. This was a good band (trombonist Lawrence Brown and drummer Lionel Hampton were members), one that could do justice to Armstrong on a se- ries of records that caught him at the summit of his musical life. Together they sailed through great performances like Ding Dong Daddy, a beautifully conceived set of improvisations as logical as the earlier Some of These Days and as thrilling as Tight Like This. By now, Louis was playing fast, compressed figures, held together by inner discipline and outward assurance, that were radically ad- LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1924 TO 193! 45 vanced for 1930. The same characteristics turn up in his remark- able ballad performances with Hite f m in the Market for You, Confessing If I Could Be with You, Memories of You, and Body and Soul Sometimes embellishing the straight melody, sometimes creating new themes of his own, Louis established with these bal- lads a lush, unsentimental, "singing trumpet" approach that affected every trumpeter of the thirties and is still widely used today. By selecting the most harmonically sophisticated songs of the period (Star Dust, Body and Soul, You're Lucky to Me, Youre Driving Me Crazy, etc.), Armstrong also set up new criteria for future jazzmen to apply in their search for challenging raw material The culmination of Louis' development as a trumpet player and jazzman can hardly be pinned down to a specific date, but with his October, 1930, recording of Sweethearts on Parade Armstrong took his music about as far as it could go. Here all. the elements of Louis' extraordinary style seem to come together technique, taste, tone, advanced harmonic ideas, understatement, rhythmic enlightenment, bravura declarations, drama, melodic sureness, balanced construction, and humor. Historically, Sweethearts on Parade ranks with Ding Dong Daddy and the later (1931) Star Dust as a preview of the style that brought fame to Roy Eldridge and set the stage for further explorations by Dizzy GiDespie. (It should be noted that not all observers share this view. Critic Charles Edward Smith once wrote in Down Beat that Louis' Sweethearts on Parade is an example of "Low Jive, synonymous with plain kidding.") Following his run at the New Cotton Club, where the trum- peter had again enjoyed the benefits of regular radio broadcasts, Louis? went to Chicago in early 1931 to at last form his own band. He picked up some old friends trombonist Preston Jackson, drummer Tubby Hall, and New Orleans bassist John Lindsay and opened at the Showboat Cabaret. From this point on, Louis spent most of his time on the road. He is still traveling in the sixties, and he has toured many countries, beginning with his first European trip in 1932. Even as his own band took shape, a new emphasis crept into Armstrong's recorded work. With a few gratifying exceptions, the new releases stressed his role as entertainer and singer. Gradually, x6 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES the quality of his song materials declined, and there were more frequent lapses of taste and musical judgment. There was stiH much wonderful trumpet playing, but the humor became forced and the band incredibly sloppy. (The band problem was eventu- ally solved by Louis' turning over the entire matter to Luis Bussell.) In 1931, Louis and Lil separated, although their divorce was not final until 1938, At 31, the trumpeter was still a robust young man of infinite good will who attracted more friends than he could handle. The Depression had not harmed him very much, and he was beginning to realize just how important a musi- cian he was the serious enthusiasm of European fans and critics for his work was soon to make a deep impression on Armstrong. With this solid foundation of contentment, he settled into a rela- tively predictable groove, where he has remained to this day. Not that Louis was lazy far from it; he simply could not push beyond his 1930 level. Eventually, he dropped below it, but he has never permitted himself to play less than first-rate trumpet. Armstrong's influence on other jazzmen has been greater than that of any other single trumpeter in the short history of the music. The roster of Armstrong-inspired performers reads like an all-star poll. Even some of those who had been, counted at one time or another as Bix Beiderbecke disciples Bill Davison, Bobby Hackett, Rex Stewart, and others cite Armstrong as their main influence. Trumpet men like Buck Clayton, Muggsy Spanier, lips Page, Joe Thomas, Wingy Mannone, Red Allen, Taft Jordan, Bunny Berigan, Joe Newman, Harry James, Billy Butterfield, Ruby Braff, Cootie Williams, and Roy Eldridge have left no doubts about their deep regard for Louis. So multifaceted was Armstrong's huge talent that most of these trumpeters have cre- ated their own musical identities around but one or two character- istics of the master's style. Spanier concentrated on Armstrong's early Oliver-like drive and pure tone; Thomas went after his gift of understatement and melodic symmetry; James struck out for Louis' range and technical powers; Williams, when not saddled with the task of re-creating Bubber Miley solos for Duke Elling- ton, achieved something like Armstrong's majesty of phrase; Beri- gan came startlingly close to Louis' emotional warmth and dra- LOUIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1Q24 TO 1931 47 matic eloquence; Eldridge and Allen used Armstrong's most complex melodic and rythmic figurations as points of departure; Page came close to Louis' intense blues style, vocally and instru- mentally. Not only trumpet men were deeply affected by Armstrong; There is recorded evidence of his changing the outlooks of count- less others arranger Fletcher Henderson, saxophonists Coleman Hawkins and Bud Freeman, trombonists Jack Teagarden and Lawrence Brown, pianists Earl Hines and Joe Sullivan, and even vibraphonist Lionel Hampton, to name a few. In a more general way, Louis brought the art of the jazz solo to a new creative peak and to an unprecedented prominence before the listening public. His extended choruses caused jazz musicians everywhere to direct their thinking along similar lines. Ensemble playing skills did not decay with this new emphasis upon solo playing, although collective improvisation by several horns, on its way out anyway, all but disappeared. On the contrary, the soloists led the way to more interesting part writing by arrangers and su- perior ensemble playing by jazz performers. Armstrong's natural swing and exceptional methods of utilizing syncopation made a deep impression on, arrangers of the twenties such as Henderson, Don Redman, Bill Chain's, and Tiny Parham. Louis took the ballad style that found its earliest expression in Bix Beiderbecke, imbued it with oratoriolike dignity, and founded an elegant method of paraphrasing popular songs that has en- dured. Echoes of Armstrong's finest ballad performances of his 1929-1931 period can be traced in the work of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, as well as in that of many of their contempo- raries. After 1929, Louis' voice became a fine musical instrument that affected countless singers, jazz and otherwise. His "jive" vocals led directly to the styles of many minor (though commercially suc- cessful) artists, such as Cab Galloway, Louis Prima, the Boswell Sisters, the Mills Brothers, and Wingy Mannone. His ballad sing- ing deeply affected a number of superior singers, such as Bing Crosby, Ethel Waters, Mildred Bailey, Lee Wiley, and Billie Hot day. Without Armstrong, the story of jazz singing, up to and in- cluding Ray Charles, might have been quite different 48 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES The substance of Louis' music cannot be explained, in the final analysis, by his remarkable physical equipment, his showmanship, or even his skill with the trumpet. It is the man's mind that has produced this vast body of marvelous music. Armstrong has al- ways been utterly serious about his trumpet playing, even in the frivolous years of the twenties, when many jazzmen assumed their music couldn't last and proceeded to blow themselves out at an early age. *To play it right," Louis stated when he was 50, "you've got to make music a business and I'm not talking just about the money now. A lot of cats get in the money, and then, when you look around, they're not playing anything, they can't play. ... My band doesn't play for any hour before I get on the stand. When that band hits the first note, it's Sleepytime, and I'm playing it And that's the way it's always been. I've watched all that glam- orous this-that-and-the-other among the musicians, and I've al- ways said, 'Go ahead, have your ball,' but now it's simmered down, and only the fittest can survive." Louis Armstrong has entertained royalty, been called his coun- try's most effective ambassador, changed the course of America's music, and become a wealthy man in a wealthy land. For all that, he remains an inner-directed musician of rare humility and sensitivity. His words, like his magic, are worth pondering: "It's my conso- lation, too, to hit that note the way I like to hear it. I've got to hear my own honi, and it's got to please me, don't forget that. That's what a whole lot of youngsters don't seem to pick up on." Recommended Reading Armstrong, Louis: Swing That Music, Longmans, New York (1936). Hodeir, Andre: Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence, Grove New York (1956). McCarthy, Albert: Louis Armstrong, Barnes, New York (1961). Ramsey, Frederic, and Charles Edward Smith: Jazzmen, Harcourt, Brace, New York (1939). Shapiro, Nat, and Nat Hentoff (eds.) : Hear Me Tdkin' to Y0, Rine- hart, New York (1955). tOTJIS ARMSTRONG FROM 1Q24 TO 1931 49 Recommended Listening Young Louis Armstrong, RIVERSIDE 12-101. The Perry Bradford Story (one track), CRISPUS-ATTUCKS PB-ioi. The Fletcher Henderson Story, COLUMBIA C^-ig. The Bessie Smith Story, VoLi, COLUMBIA CL-855- The Louis Armstrong Story, Vols. i, 2, 3, 4, COLUMBIA CL-851, CL- 852, CL-853, CL-854- Jazz Odyssey: The Sound of Chicago, COLUMBIA C$L-32. Jazz Odyssey: The Sound of New Orleans, COLUMBIA C3L-30. EARL BINES No MUSICIAN has exerted more influence over the course of piano jazz history than has Earl Hines. With Hines, the last ties to rag- time fell away and a whole new concept of keyboard improvisa- tion took shape. Earl accomplished all this while operating almost entirely outside New York City, and no major American pianist, jazz or otherwise, had done that before, either. He was bora Earl Kenneth Hines in Duquesne, a small town now part of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His father, a crane foreman on the coal docks, maintained a comfortable home, and Earl grew up amid the usual middle-class trappings of the early twentieth century, including a parlor organ that his mother played fre- quently. The instrument intrigued Earl, and occasionally he pre- tended to accompany his mother on a newspaper "keyboard" spread out on a chair. The family noted his interest without much surprise, for Earl's father was a fair trumpet player and his uncle, Bill Phillips, played all the brass instruments. Earl experimented briefly with the trumpet, but it didn't take, although he learned to play a few tunes before giving it up. It was about 1914, when Earl was 9, that Mrs. Hines traded in the organ for a piano so that her son could begin serious keyboard studies. His first teacher was Emma D. Young of McKeesport. Making swift progress, Earl moved on to other teachers and more advanced lesson books. He read from Czerny and acquired a liking for Chopin and Debussy. For six years, Earl was inten- sively trained in traditional piano techniques, most of which came quickly and easily to him. Dividing his time between sports and music, young Hines was. rapidly acquiring the two assets that were to make him one of the most durable and flexible jazzmen of all time brimming good health and a thoroughgoing command of the keyboard. Hines has often protested that he went into jazz only because he could make more money faster than in other music. However, he was exposed to all lands of music during his formative years. There were his f ather s brass band, the piano rolls of Zez Confry So EABL HINES $1 and James P, Johnson, traveling show bands, and, of course, the classics. Aunt Nellie Phillips, with whom Earl lived in the city, favored light classics and frequently took her nephew to good shows or revues at local theaters, including Lew Leslie's Black- fads and the Noble Sissle-Eubie Blake hit Shuffle Along. These events were Earl's first contacts with first-rate "rhythm" music, with which he was completely delighted. While attending Schenley High School in Pittsburgh, the pianist formed a trio with a couple of friends who played drums and banjo. Together they worked out popular songs of the day, probably in the novelty-ragtime style that flourished just after World War I. When music jobs at night began to turn up, Earl accepted them without concern about how the hours might affect his schoolwork. After two years at Schenley, he dropped out for good and turned to music on a full-time basis. A singer from Springfield, Ohio, named Lois B. Deppe was ap- pearing at the Liederhouse in Pittsburgh about that time and had become dissatisfied with his accompanying pianist, who could not read. Earl took the job, bringing his own drummer with him as part of the contract. Deppe paid his new pianist $15 a week and board. They remained at the Liederhouse for about a year, adding instruments to the orchestra as business improved. By the time Lois B. Deppe and His Serenaders began touring Ohio and Pennsylvania in the early twenties, Earl found himself in a big band, struggling to be heard over a row of horn players. He dis- covered a time-honored way to make the piano stand out in a large group, simply by playing melody notes as octaves in the upper range of the keyboard, Allowing the natural ring of the oc- tave interval to work for him, Earl was able to hold his own with- out losing the fast, light touch he had cultivated. This move alone set him apart from many "stomp" pianists, who relied more upon brute strength than finesse in their efforts to penetrate orchestral walls of sound. The unique Hines style was beginning to take shape now. There were many influences along the way; some came from a pair of impressive local pianists, Johnny Waters of Toledo and a big-band pianist named Jim Fellman. "Very few pianists were using right-hand tenths then," Hines recalls, "but Johnny Waters could reach twelfths and thirteenths 52 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES and play melodies with the inside three fingers at the same time! I tried for Johnny with my right and for Jim Fellrnan, who had a great left, with my other hand." Pianists like James P. Johnson and Luckey Roberts passed through Pittsburgh with shows, and Earl was quick to hear the New York style and to pick up what he could use from it. In work- ing out his octave style, too, Earl discovered that he could com- pensate for the inevitable loss of speed by borrowing some ideas from the dramatic syncopated phrasing of good trumpet players. He was particularly fond of trumpeters Joe Smith (who toured with Sissle and Blake) and, a little later, Gus Aiken (who toured with Ethel Waters and James P. Johnson). By 1922, records by singers Ethel Waters and Mamie Smith, along with their jazz ac- companiments, were influencing young musicians like Hines all over the country. Playing for singers was one of Earl's specialties. Deppe made a few records for Gennett at Richmond, Indiana, in the winter of 1923-1924, and Earl, who had joined the musi- cians' union a few months before, was included on the dates. They are among the rarest items on the collectors' market. Of the four band sides, one Congaineis a Hines composition. These re- cordings helped to promote the Deppe orchestra and its piano player as well. The entire group even appeared on radio (KDKA) at that time. Earl sometimes worked casual engagements booked by Deppe and occasionally put groups of his own together. His baritone saxophone player on one such occasion was Benny Carter. The owner of Pittsburgh's Collins Inn, where Earl had worked frequently, operated another club, called Elite #2, in Chicago near Thirty-fifth and State, the heart of the South Side entertain- ment belt He was unhappy with his local Chicago band and sent for violinist Vernie Robinson's quartet, complete with drummer, bassist, and Earl Hines, who happened to be in the group at the time. Earl arrived at the Elite #2 in 1924 and, after playing a month for Robinson, took over leadership of the band and stayed for a year. There were several good pianists in and around Chicago at that time, including Jelly Roll Morton and Glover Compton, but the best of them for Earl^at any rate was Teddy Weatherford, who had a fast, flamboyant style and an adventurous left hand! EABL HINES 53 Like a well-trained young boxer, Hines studied Weatherford's tricks, drew from them what he wanted, and finally conquered the established pianist in his own territory. Earl's essentially Eastern approach, rooted in a light but firm touch and impressive tech- nical command of his instrument, was too much for the Chicago keyboard men, and the competition melted away. Teddy Weath- erford left town in 1926 and never returned ( and, his talent spent, died in India about twenty years later ) , Earl moved to the larger and more celebrated Entertainer's Cafe in 1925, playing opposite Carroll Dickerson's excellent big band. Within a short time, he joined Dickerson's group, then began a series of Pantages vaudeville appearances that eventually took Earl and the band to California and back. They were on the road for forty-two straight weeks. The Dickerson band was a carefully drilled outfit that special- ized in flashy ensemble work and clean musicianship, goals wholly consistent with Earl's own. "Hot" solos were featured, of course, by jazzmen like trumpeter Natty Dominique, trombonist Honor6 Dutrey, and saxophonist Cecil Irwin. When the band landed back in Chicago, Louis Armstrong, home again after a stint with Fletcher Henderson, was the man every bandleader wanted. Ersldne Tate had him at that moment, but Dickerson and King Oliver, his former mentor, were making offers anyway. Louis was considering rejoining Oliver, but Hines and his friends argued that he should "go with the young guys" and not fall back with the "old" New Orleans men. As it turned out, Hines and Armstrong joined each other's bands and played two jobs for a while, dashing off after an evening with Tate to finish out the night with Dickerson. Tate's specialty was movie theaters, and the work called for a fast, versatile pianist. Teddy Weatherford had achieved much of his local fame in Tate's or- ganization at the Vendome Theater, and Earl, too, became more widely known there. Musicians, though, were more interested in the sound of the Dickerson band at the Sunset Cafe, for there Armstrong was featured prominently and the sidemen drummer Tubby Hall, violinist-reedman Darnell Howard, and Hines were a few seemed more in tune with the brand of jazz Louis was As the popularity of Armstrong grew throughout 1926, Hines 54 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES found his own star rising as well. The Sunset's proprietor, Joe Glaser, decided that Louis was his real drawing card and ar- ranged to edge Dickerson out altogether. In 1927, the band be- came Louis Armstrong and His Stompers, and Hines was ap- pointed musical director. It was about this time, too, that Earl made his first recordings in Chicago. In a set of four selections recorded with a group of old-guard New Orleans stylists and Armstrong, Earl seems somewhat ill at ease at the piano. Clarinetist Johnny Dodds, making his ini- tial appearance on records as a leader, establishes such nerv- ously fast tempos that even Armstrong sounds uncomfortable. Earls solo contributions are brief and perfunctory, revealing a conservative left hand, which was either not completely devel- oped yet or simply inhibited by an attempt to match the mood of the session, and an equally uninspired right hand, concerned largely with dashing off simple on-tte-beat melodic fragments in octaves. Melancholy has the best Hines of the four Dodds titles; Earl's solo is marked by right-hand tremolos, a Jelly Roll Morton- like glissando or two, and a positive, declarative keyboard touch. But if this was a fair representation of Hines in April, 1927, the pianist must have made some major discoveries in the month that followed; for in May, Earl recorded Chicago Breakdown, proba- bly the first good example of his unique artistry to be caught on wax. (Strangely, the recording was not issued until George Avak- ian discovered it in Columbia's vaults many years later. ) Chicago Breakdown is of considerable interest on several counts. The choice of a Jelly Roll Morton composition hints that Hines and Armstrong might have been more intrigued by the music and arrangements of Morton (whose finest recordings im- mediately preceded the Chicago Breakdown date) than is com- monly supposed. The recording is valuable, too, as an only clue to the sound of the Dickerson-Armstrong band of 1927 and to the mutual benefits Earl and Louis derived from playing together regularly. It is unfortunate that Okeh chose to record Armstrong mostly with his old New Orleans friends in 1927, for the decision deprived us of hearing the more modern Sunset Cafe band and its two star performers during a highly creative period in their pro- fessional lives. EABL HINES 55 Earl's brief solo on Chicago Breakdown is a trifle stiff and stodgy, but many of the now familiar trademarks were already there the sudden break in the regular bass rhythm; the crisp, clean treble-octave voicing; and the short, hornlike melodic phrases. In the ensemble portions, too, Hines cuts through the band sound in characteristic fashion, although he had not asserted himself in this way on the more traditional Dodds session a month before. Musicians and sophisticated patrons flocked to the Sunset to hear Armstrong and Hines in 1927, but only Louis landed the rec- ord dates, which were aimed at a market of displaced South- erners in lower-income brackets. As an entertainer and a highly sophisticated modern musician, Hines had no place in these *down home" recording sessions. Furthermore, the New York pianists had pretty well cornered the solo recording field, so Earl failed to record again until May, 1928, several months after he had left Armstrong as a regular sideman. The Sunset job finally ran out in the fall of 1927, but Earl and Louis, together with their closest friend, drummer Zutty Single- ton, were full of confidence and enthusiasm. The three were regu- lar visitors to after-hours clubs, open jam sessions, and private parties, where they always wound up playing and entertaining as a kind of miniature show. They decided to stick together as long as possible. The trio worked short jobs together in theater bands such as Clarence Jones's and occasionally sponsored dances of their own. In November, Lil Armstrong rented a ballroom called Warwick Hall and turned it over to the three musicians, who tried producing an original revue there. The new Savoy Ballroom opened at the same time just around the corner and wiped them out. It became painfully clear that outstanding musicianship, even combined with showmanship, would not automatically draw cus- tomers. Despite a devoted clan of followers (mostly of the non- spending variety), the triumvirate was soon at liberty again. Earl made an exploratory trip to New York about this time, but nothing came of it When Hines returned to Chicago in early 1928, Louis and Zutty had grown tired of the uncertain life and joined Carroll Dickerson, who now led the band at the successful Savoy. Earl, somewhat depressed, looked about for a secure job 56 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES for himself and found a spot, just vacated by Glover Compton, with Jimmy Noone s five-piece band at the Apex Club. He spent most of the year there. The Apex was a favorite hangout for musicians, and in the course of Earl's stint with Noone, young pianists Joe Sullivan, Jess Stacy, Casino Simpson, and many others were deeply affected by his now mature style. Noone was a New Orleans clarinetist and a bit on the conservative side, but, unlike Johnny Dodds, he was a master craftsman as weH as a jazz artist, and Jimmy appreciated the advanced musical ideas put forth by Earl. Happily, Hines's work at this time has been preserved on records, permitting a clear picture of the pianist's progress through early 1928. In May, the Noone quintet (alto saxophonist Joe Poston, ban- joist Bud Scott, and drummer Johnny Wells were the other mem- bers) recorded four good performances that effectively combined elements of New Orleans jazz, popular music of the day, honest entertainment, and brilliant musicianship into a highly personal band style. Earl was not yet in the proper setting for his talents, but the small group gave him a good deal of freedom, notwith- standing the jailing clang of Bud Scott's banjo. Indeed, on some selections, one might think it was Hines himself who led the band, for Earl moves right into the foreground alongside the alto and clarinet I Know That You Know, a display piece for Noone, suggests that Earl was not entirely comfortable with the breakneck pace established by the leader. The piano solo is neither inspired nor unusual by Hines standards, although Earl never lags behind Every Evening is a stylized stomp played in the New Orleans manner, and heavy-handed stomps were never Earl's forte. How- ever, his solo breaks away enough to show flashes of the arresting scuttling bass lines for which he was soon to become famous and a glimpse of the jagged-right-hand flights which were beginning to fall into place at this time. More satisfying is Sweet Sue, in which Earl embellishes the slow, straight melodic lead with a back- ground chorus that is the high point of the recording. The impact of this passage comes largely from Hines's trumpetlike phrasing, complete with "vibrato" at die end of each phrase (achieved by right-hand tremolos) and natural "breath points" inserted just as they might be in a trumpet solo. The use of treble octaves is again EABL fflNES 57 important here, for it gives to Earl's short phrases the brassy au- thority needed to make them completely convincing. Four or Five Times has stomp overtones again, but Earl works independently of the idiom most of the way. There is, however, a slight heavi- ness in the piano bass line despite efforts by Hines to get under and lift the performance with his right hand. Following an additional pair of Noone sides in June and a date with a dreary new singer named Lillie Delk Christian (Armstrong and Noone also participated in this one), Earl began a historic series of Okeh sessions with Louis and members of the Carroll Dickerson Savoy orchestra. In two hot June days, the old trio Louis, Earl, and Zutty reunited and, with trombonist Fred Rob- inson, clarinetist Jimmy Strong, and guitarist Mancy Cara added, finally recorded the kind of music that had been convulsing other musicians in Chicago for many months. Armstrong's was the over- riding voice, but Hines placed such a high second that his name began to be mentioned along with Louis' whenever musicians got together. Many of the musical devices and tricks on these recordings probably came from the Dickerson band, particularly on pieces like the elaborate Fireworks, which concludes with choruses bor- rowed from the perennial showstopper Tiger Rag. The ensemble effect is more that of a small orchestra than of a New Orleans band, reflecting the influence of arrangers Bill Challis, Don Redman, and Fletcher Henderson, among others. For Hines, who never had much use for old-time jazzmen or "back-room musi- cians" (as he once called Jelly Roll Morton), these were ideal small-band settings in which to stretch out and try some of the ideas he had been developing. One of the best demonstrations of Hines successfully matching wits with Armstrong occurs on Skip the Gutter, a relaxed traditional vehicle, where the two musicians trade two-bar and four-bar ideas without interference from the rest of the group. It is really a two-man affair all the way, as each tempts the other to extend himself a little further on successive breaks. Both handle double-time ideas with an easy, sure sense of pulse, and the match finishes a draw. On Sugar Foot Strut, Earl plays with full solo force behind Louis' vocal instead of filling in with an ordinary accompaniment part. As in Noone's band, the pianist constantly pushed himself 58 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES toward the front line, only reluctantly dropping back into the rhythm section when absolutely required to. This tendency can also be heard on Squeeze Me and on Hines's composition Monday Date. Now and then, as in Armstrong's monumental West End Blues, Earl retires to a more conventional supportive role, boost- ing the trumpet player with rolling bass tremolos and provocative treble harmonies, but it was not his nature to hang back for long. Hines was and is a large, aggressive man who enjoyed the musical challenge of working with the gifted Armstrong but, like many Eastern-style pianists who came up in a world of ragtime, elaborate stage shows, and cabaret entertainers, lacked the deep identification with the blues that marked the work of the best New Orleans players. When inspired by Armstrong, the pianist occasionally came close to the idiom, but his later work was al- most entirely devoid of the earthy, relaxed spirit so fundamental to successful blues playing. It does not follow, however, that the blues played no part in the Hines style, for he was perceptive enough to realize that good jazz phrasing must borrow something from the blues if it is to avoid academicism. Now established as a leading pianist, Earl was asked to sit in on a July, 1928, Carroll Dickerson recording. The result is of special interest because it is the only recorded document of the excellent Savoy orchestra of that period. The two selections, Symphonic Raps and Savoyager's Stomp, are remarkably like big-band exten- sions of the Hines-Armstrong recordings full of potential har- monic pitfalls, advanced scoring techniques, and dazzling solos. Although the current of influence must have flowed in both direc- tions, these recordings underline the suggestion that part of Hines's unorthodox bravura style may have stemmed from the ar- ranged music he played with the Dickerson orchestra. Earl continued to work with Noone throughout the summer months of the year. The group's first batch of records had sold well, and they returned to the studios in August to try six more selections. Again Hines reverted to a more conservative style than he had shown on the Armstrong sessions. His attempts at under- statement (Apex Blues) seem awkward and unnatural, while his more usual arabesques (Sweet Lorraine) are closer in spirit to Jelly Roll Morton than to Armstrong. Another Monday Date was recorded, and, unlike the Armstrong version of two months be- EABL HINES 59 fore, this one has Earl in an almost frenzied mood. Oddly, this solo suffers from an overabundance of zeal. A splendid Hines solo in this final Noone series occurs on King Joe. Except for some barely audible timekeeping by the drummer, the rhythm section drops out for Earl's solo, and this simple de- vice provides the pianist with exactly the kind of freedom he needs for his extraordinary rhythmic explorations. In the fall of 1928, Earl began rehearsing with a group of friends and, apparently with no specific plans for making public appearances, building a small library of arrangements that all en- joyed playing. It was a natural thing for Earl to do, for his experi- ence with Deppe and Armstrong, which had put him in direct command of two very different big bands, had left the pianist without much enthusiasm for serving as a sideman. He finally left Noone and was replaced by Alex Hill and, later, Zinky Cohen, two qualified Chicago pianists much affected by the Hines style. By December, Earl had hit his full musical stride. In this single remarkable month, the pianist from Pittsburgh recorded fourteen tides with Louis Armstrong, cut twelve piano solos, and, on his twenty-third birthday, launched his own ten-piece orchestra at a leading Chicago ballroom. Of the Armstrong dates, ten are enduring expositions of Louis and Earl at their creative peak as a team. There could be no un- certainty now about the status of Hines; each performance affirmed and reaffirmed that a spectacular and influential stylist had been developed in South Side Chicago, On tunes like Beau Koo Jack, Earl approaches his solo as if it were an extended break, with the rest of the band (again Dicker- son men, with altoist Don Redman added) obligingly suspending all other sounds for that moment. In this happy environment, Earl demonstrated some new ideas. The octave melody phrases were now frequently replaced by streaking single-note lines, sometimes arching gracefully over four or eight bars in a continuous pattern bearing Httle or no resemblance to the pianist's famous "trumpet* style. In the tradition of all good Eastern pianists, Earl's bass fig- ures were masterpieces of eccentric design and spontaneous wit It was this feature of his style that made his rhythm men readily agree to drop out during the piano solos; a bass player, for exam- ple, courted disaster if he tried to follow Earl's rhythmic peregri- 60 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES nations. Hines, however, never lost die pulse, even when it was completely out of sight, and this remarkable ability had much to do with the success of his music. Broken rhythms were, of course, older than ragtime, but no pianist before Bail Hines not even James P, Johnson ever took so many chances in the heat of spon- taneous improvisation without experiencing many failures. Hines seemed never to miss. Fast countennelodies, long lines of sixteenths, thirty-seconds, and sixteenth-note triplets (many suggesting ideas that were to come much later with Lester Young and Charlie Parker), har- monic adventures sometimes actually over Armstrong's head, bril- liant use of double-time figures to increase tension, intelligent spacing of pauses for dramatic impact, and a mature sense of mu- sical architectonics were some of the characteristics of Earl's work in late 1928 that amounted to a milestone in the annals of keyboard jazz. Other notable Hines-Armstrong titles are Save It, Pretty Mama, No, Muggles, Tight Like This, Hear Me Talkin' to Yfl, and St. James Infirmary. On Basin Street Blues, Earl plays celeste with his usual positive air. Hines's ambition to be heard as a front-line instrument was given free play in one other Armstrong recording. It is a duet transformation of an old King Oliver tune called Weatherbird Rag, and the two jazzmen obviously had a merry time testing each other's strength without the normal restrictions imposed by a con- ventional jazz band. One need only to contrast this extraordinary collaboration with a rather hidebound Jelly Roll Morton-King Ol- iver duet recording of some four years earlier to understand how far Hines and Armstrong had helped to bring jazz in that short time. Earl's solo recordings in 1928 present a curious contradiction: though even more impressive in strictly pianistic terms than his Armstrong work, they occasionally suggest a man to whom music is a kind of advanced game of wits and perhaps little more. "Music is like baseball," Hines has said. 'The reason we didn't go for back-room musicians much was that it didn't take anything to figure it out. If it's not a challenge, there's no fun in it." Many jazzmen would agree, but perhaps not so many would want the kind of compliment that a Hines sideman once offered, EABL fflNES 6l quite sincerely: "Earl is just like a machine but a machine that swings!" There were moments of tenderness, real or posed, for the "ma- chine that swings," though. His Blues in Thirds is a charming mood piece, if not a true blues in its depth of emotional expres- sion. It was recorded first in Chicago as Caution Blues, but Earl's QRS version, made in New York a couple of weeks later, is the more sensitive rendition. When QRS, ordinarily a piano-roll company, asked Hines to make phonograph records in December, he went immediately to New York for the date. Entering the studio without music or even very much idea of what he would do, Earl sat down and played eight tunes: Blues in Thirds, Panther Rag (obviously Tiger Bag, already recorded in part as 57 Varieties}, Monday Date, two other blues, and three originals titled Chicago High Life, Stow- away, and Just Too Soon. Beneath the elaborate superstructures, these last three compositions are made up largely of stock pro- gressions borrowed from songs like Sister Kate, Big Butter and Egg Man, and other good jam-session favorites. That Earl hoped to make an impression in his New York record- ing debut may be deduced from these recordings in two ways: his tempos are exhibitionistically fast; and in several instances (Monday Date is one), he paraded his command of the Harlem "stride" style, perhaps added for the benefit of critical local pian- ists like Johnson and Waller, The QRS solos (and those recorded in Chicago as well) are unique virtuoso performances. Though the Armstrong stamp still appears on some of Earl's ideas, this group of records marks his break with the trumpeter as a co-musician and as a continuing in- fluence. From here 0% eacfe man went his own way. Actually, too much has been made of the impact of Louis on EarL It is likely that the trumpeter's manner of phrasing encour- aged Hines to develop his hornlike treble lines more convincingly, but there is little evidence of wholesale Borrowing of musical con- cepts. Armstrong was a master builder, one who constructed a solo from the ground up; Hines tended, at this time, to think in four-bar or eight-bar fragments, each a unit unto itself. Louis moved with the rhythm section, often relaxing just behind the 62 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES pulse; Hines pushed the beat, creating the illusion of accelerating while keeping perfect time. Most importantly, Armstrong thought in essentially vocal terms; Hines improvised primarily in abstract instrumental fashion. It was while he was in New York that Earl heard from Lucky Millinder, a sort of middleman between the Chicago underworld and the local music business, who was looking for a known musi- cian to head up a band at the Grand Terrace Ballroom. Hines thought of his rehearsal group, assured Millinder that he was ready to go, and took the next train for home. It was a good choice by Millinder, for Earl's knowledge of showmanship, staging, and musical directing put the fast-moving Grand Terrace show on a par with the revues at the Sunset and the Savoy. The band was a good one, if a little rough at first, and included top men like trumpeters George Mitchell and Shirley Clay, a Miff Mole-inspired trombonist named William Franklin, ex-Dickerson saxophonist Cecil Irwin, and Lester Boone, a good jazz tenor saxophone player. For a couple of months, trumpeter Jabbo Smith also worked with this band. Franklin, Alvis, and Ir- win contributed original arrangements to the band's book, which was already expanding rapidly. By early 1929, the Hines band offered a respectable sound of its own that seemed to lie some- where between the loose swing of Bennie Moten's Kansas City band and the advanced ensemble precision of William McKin- ney's Cotton Pickers. There were, too, overtones of smaller stomp bands in arrangements like Beau Koo Jack and of the strutting Harlem style in numbers like Everybody Loves My Baby. These and several other titles were recorded for Victor in February, 1929, barely two months after the band opened at the Grand Terrace. During these early band years, Earl expanded his harmonic scope, partly through the influence of Cecil Irwin, whose arrange- ments for the band reflected the saxophonist's formal studies of harmony and increased interest in "modern" voicing. Ninths, elev- enths, sixths, and minor sevenths began to appear more frequently in Hines s piano improvisations, adding new dimensions to his al- ready complex style. An intriguing example of this new turn is contained in a February, 1929, solo recording of Glad Bag DoU. Two separate versions, takes from the same recording session, EABL HINES 63 have been issued that offer some clues to Earl's transitional posi- tion at that time. Take i is a straightforward compound of Mor- ton, Johnson, Waller, and Hines, full of strutting Harlem devices, that concludes on a major chord with the sixth added for interest The second take is slower and more thoughtful, ending with a tense flatted fifth a modern touch, indeed, for 1929, Throughout, Hines's affection for Waller's frothy stride manner is evident. Earl's bass lines, alternating chromatic tenths with harmonically sophisticated oom-pah figures, are a mixture of Waller and his own ideas as originally developed from Jim Fellman in Pitts- As he continued to work with a large band, Hines began to rely more upon his supporting musicians, causing the full semiorches- tral sound of his piano to undergo subtle changes. The rhythm section took over many of the functions of the pianist's left hand, leaving Earl free to experiment further with running-bass coun- termelodies. Right-hand octaves were still useful in many in- stances, but more and more single-note improvisations were ap- pearing in the pianist's solos. (By now, the widespread use of electric microphones had encouraged pianists everywhere to play with a faster, lighter touch.) Finally, Earl no longer had to prove his ability to other jazzmen, for he was acclaimed by musicians throughout the country and, as a bandleader, could send his music in any direction he wished without having to force the issue from the keyboard. This, too, had its effect upon his playing, now becoming less frantic and more contemplative but no less venturesome with each passing month. By 1932, Earl had enlarged his band to twelve men. Cecil Irwin, Darnell Howard, and Omer Simeon made up the sax sec- tion; trumpeter Walter Fuller, who also arranged for and sang with the band, was a major asset; guitarist Lawrence Dixon, trumpeter-saxophonist George Dixon, bassist Quinn Wilson, trom- bonist Louis Taylor, and saxophonist Irwin all contributed origi- nal tunes and arrangements. British composer and arranger Regi- nald Foresythe formed a close friendship with Hines at this time and wrote a theme song, Deep Forest, for him. Foresythe's ad- vanced harmonic concepts again affected the pianist's personal musical outlook. The Grand Terrace landed a network radio wire about that time, and regular broadcasts of the band from Chicago 64 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES began to be heard across the nation. It was a happy period for Earl despite the raging Depression that was crippling most of the American economy at the time. There was security, little travel, musical satisfaction, personal celebrity, and the excitement of planning musical shows around performers such as Ethel Waters and Bill Robinson. Young players like Teddy Wilson were coming around to leam from him, and visiting jazzmen from out of town frequently asked to sit in. For a green bandleader of 27, Earl Hines was doing rather well. At this time, Earl turned out a pair of recorded solos, Love Me< Tonight and Down Among the Sheltering Palms. The second is an especially notable performance, for it reveals a new level of maturity in its orderly progression from simple melodic statement to conservative embellishments to an agitated climax of broken rhythms and fuguelike cross-melodies. The solo, in short, is built to stand as a single spiral of variations on a theme, and it repre- sents an advance from Hines's earlier montage methods. The band took on a more positive identity in 1933, when arranger-saxophonist Jimmy Mundy joined up. With Mundy ar- rangements like Cavernism and Madhouse, the reputation of the band soared, and musicians began comparing the Hines band with Fletcher Henderson's superb organization. In this setting, Earl's playing took on a new warmth that had only occasionally been revealed before. Hines continued to strengthen his band from 1933 to 1935. Trrnnmy Young, a modern trombonist and an entertaining singer, joined the brass section. Singer Herb Jeffries became a prime at- traction with recordings like Blue. The best addition of all, how- ever, was tenor saxophonist Budd Johnson, replacing Cecil Irwin, who was killed in a car accident. Johnson was a first-class soloist and a highly skilled, forward-looking arranger. He was also a good organizer and eventually took over many of Earl's personnel problems. In 1934, the band started recording for Decca, a new company that took over many of the old Brunswick label's established art- ists, including Hines. Someone at Decca had the singular notion that the band ought to turn out a string of modernized Dixieland tunes, so Earl recorded Sweet Georgia Brown, Thafs a Plenty, Angn/, Mapk Leaf Rag, Copenhagen, and Wolverine Blues. The EARL HINES 65 balance of the Decca output of 1934 and 1935 was made up of new versions of old hits: Cavernim, Ro&etta (Hines's best-known composition), Blue, Bubbling Over, and Julia. The material was not really suited to a band as good as this one was, but Earl tossed off a number of impressive solos, particularly those on Copen- hagen and Wolverine Blues. The best of the Grand Terrace era was over by 1936. From the time the Hines band commenced broadcasting some five years be- fore, more and more months of each year had been devoted to traveling. Now the band was away from home more often than not In 1936, Benny Goodman lured arranger Jimmy Mundy away from Hines, and Fletcher Henderson became the darling of the Grand Terrace operators. Earl was, in fact, lucky to get even six weeks at the ballroom between Henderson runs. And there was no arguing with the Capone-trained backers of the Terrace it wouldn't have been good for the "health," as contemporary movie villains were wont to say. The Decca contract lapsed, and no one bothered to record the band at all that year. Hines stayed on the road. Most of the trouble, of course, came from Earl himself. He was not a good businessman and always seemed to make the right move at the wrong time. He also was, it must be added, neither popular among musicians nor skilled in public relations. Though its .fortunes rose and fell on the waves of mismanage- ment, the Hines band was still a musically rewarding outfit to hear. In 1937 ^^ 1 93^> a few more records were released. By now, Earl had updated his playing again, featuring light, airy solos over buoyant swing-band arrangements. The crisp, almost metallic, and very authoritative keyboard touch was still there, as were the broken rhythms and double-time figures, but a fresh, graceful quality that hadn't been noticeable before appeared in some of his work now. The melodic lines were longer and smoother, with fewer stops and starts, and seemed to ride easily over the band rather than welling up from within it. The Morton-Johnson dicta, which held that a good pianist must imitate a full orchestra, were almost completely put aside. The new piano hero of the pe- riod was Teddy Wilson, and it is quite possible that Earl borrowed an idea or two from the fleet and precise Wilson, just as Teddy had once learned much from him. It is likely, too, that Hines's 66 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES deep regard for the clarinet style of Benny Goodman caused some modification of his old Armstrong-like "trumpet" lines. Much of the pianist's work from this time on was closer to clarinet- saxophone conception than to trumpet ideas. Good examples of this new phase of Earl's development are Pianology, Rhythm Sundae, and Fkny Doodle Swing. Honeysuckle Rose, a concur- rent quartet performance featuring clarinetist Simeon and tenor saxophonist Johnson, was a happy affair in which Hines and John- son explored some outside harmonies while remaining inside the familiar Fats Waller composition. From 1938 to 1940, Earl's band continued its downward slide. Though still bound by a one-sided contract with Ed Fox of the Grand Terrace, most of Hines's time was spent on tour. Budd Johnson returned to the group after a year or so with Gus Arnheim, but at one point about half the band, including Walter Fuller, quit altogether. Earl switched booking offices, but it didn't seem to help. In an era of successful big bands and unprecedented public enthusiasm for jazz, the Hines unit, though offering good music, might as well not have existed. Metronome magazine's 1938 annual readers' poll, in which swing fans voted for the "Best of All Bands," listed Earl Hines and company in seventy-ninth place. There wasn't much cause for rejoicing, either, when the magazine's 1939 poll pulled the band up to the sixty-first spot. Walter Fuller's departure in 1940 was another blow. (The pop- ular singer-trumpeter took his own band into the Grand Terrace but was pulled out by the union some months later when manager Fox failed to meet the payroll.) Budd Johnson was in and out for a while, but he finally returned to help Earl shajte a totally new land of band. The old contract with Fox had been adjudged worthless by the musicians* union, and Hines decided to give the band business a fresh try. He already had a new record contract with Bluebird, a hit record shaping up in Boogie Woogie on the St. Louis Blues (a commercial and uncharacteristic piano spe- cialty), another new booking agency, a fresh band put together by Johnson, and he was soon to have a new singer named Billy Eckstine. When Billy recorded Jelly Jelly for Earl in December, 1940, the upward swing had already begun, but it was Eckstine who finally brought Hines the success he had been unable to find alone. EABL BONES 67 Just as he was beginning his term with Bluebird, Earl recorded two long solos for the very young Blue Note label, The Fathers Getaway ("Father," often pronounced "fatha," being a nickname Hones had acquired from a radio announcer in the Grand Terrace days) and Reminiscing at Blue Note. They were his first recorded unaccompanied solos in seven years. The first is an explosive burst of energy and ideas into which Earl seems to be trying to cram everything he had ever learned. There is a segment of pure James P. Johnson, a sustained tremolo suggesting his Boogie Woogie on the St. Louis Blues routine, a series of wild rhythmic gyrations and some melodic broken-field running that seem on the verge of getting out of hand but never do, and an incredible tangle of block chords, suspensions, and breaks within breaks. The result is a kind of amalgam of new and old Hines in a display of virtuosity that no pianist of 1939, save one, could have matched. (The one, of course, would be Art Tatum, who himself began as a Hines- Waller disciple.) Reminiscing at Blue Note is a curious hodge- podge, full of references to boogie-woogie, pseudomodern har- monies of the twenties, Harlem piano, and smatterings of Hines favorites like 7ou Can Depend on Me. Three solos for Bluebird recorded in 1939 and early 1940 deserve mention. One is the inevitable Rosetta, which begins conserva- tively enough but eventually winds up as a tightly compressed knot of ideas, concluding, it seems, just before the snapping point. Body and Soul reminds the listener that Earl was still, though a more modem musician than before, a little too much the hard-boiled pianist to lose himself completely in a sensitive bal- lad performance. Child of a Disordered Brain is essentially a solo in the style of Fats Waller, upon which is superimposed a dizzy- ing succession of out-of-time breaks and other familiar Hines devices. The development of the Hines band from 1941 to 1943 is an important early chapter in the story of modern jazz and is better told elsewhere. Suffice it to point out that Budd Johnson gathered the best modern players he could find, helped to build a distinc- tive library of advanced arrangements, and acted as a valuable liaison between Hines and his men; that during this period the band included outstanding performers like Dizzy Gillespie, Char- lie Parker, Sarah Vaughan, Scoops Carry, Freddy Webster, and 68 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES Benny Green; and that Eckstine's departure to form his own band in 1943 sent Earl's rating down to the bottom of the polls again. During this period of intimate contact with modern jazz, Earl's own style moved ahead somewhat on his band recordings but ap- peared to stand still on solo records. On the Sunny Side of the Street and Melancholy Baby, for example, are 1941 solos that actually seem to go back to the stomping and romping of Morton and Waller, although Hines flourishes are present, too, Yet Earl's short solo on his 1941 band recording of Yow Dont Know What Love Is is built on a hard, firm line that was thoroughly modern for its time. The exploratory urge and the fondness for musical puzzles that distinguished the musical character of the budding jazzmen in the early forties were exactly the drives that propelled Hines. It is unfortunate that the sound of Earl's greatest band ( 1943) wa never preserved, owing to a recording ban called during that year by the musicians* union. Earl's next venture grew out of an anomalous ambition he had nurtured a long time: to front a huge stage orchestra built along Paul Whiteman lines, complete with a string section. (Strings with dance bands were in vogue again by the early forties.) He added a covey of draftproof female violinists and some French horns to his new seventeen-piece band and featured concert ar- rangements of selections from Showboat and other old war- horses. Hie experiment lasted a few troubled months, after which the strings and horns suddenly vanished. By mid- 1944, Earl was back to seventeen men, including reedman Scoops Carry, trum- peter Willie Cook, and tenor saxophonist Wardell Gray. The recording ban Was over in 1944, ^^ Earl recorded some twelve-inch sides for Keynote, featured with groups led by Cozy Cole and Charlie Shavers. Amazingly, they were the first records Earl had made since 1928 with a group of jazzmen who were not only reasonably modern in outlook but also near Hines's own mu- sical level in ability. The Cole releases are especially satisfying, for Hines was matched with Coleman Hawkins, and both men seemed to enjoy the experience enormously. Each had passed through much the same learning processes in the preceding two decades, and each stood on the threshold of modern jazz in 1944. Earl was uncommonly relaxed for the date, employing a light but authoritative touch and even trying his hand at some uncharacter- EABL BONES 69 istic bits of understatement. The four excellent performances are Blue Moon, Just One More Chance, Father Cooperates, and a re- worked Honeysuckle Rose called Through for the Night. With trumpeter Shavers, Earl recorded another Rosetta, an uncom- monly slow version of Star Dust, and two other on-the-spot com- positions. Again one man on the date matched Earl's skill and artistry drummer Jo Jones. With Jones assisting, Earl's back- ground chording for front-line soloists is decidedly modern, totally unlike his work behind Armstrong in 1928. A session for Apollo during this period found Earl once more in the company of his peers, in this instance altoist Johnny Hodges, bassist Oscar Pettiford, and drummer Sidney Catlett. Of six titles, Life with Father is the best example of Hine's 1944 style. A set of four 1944 recordings with a trio that again included bassist Pettiford points up even more clearly what was happening to Earl at this time. Many of the arresting left-hand figures had fallen away in favor of light chromatic accents and occasional harmonic punctuations. The advent of bold, modern string-bass lines had made this move by Earl not only possible but musically desirable. In addition, Earl had long been hinting at a more soft and gentle approach, although his own best work never seemed to lean very much in that direction, and the modern rhythm section encouraged him to bring out that side of his musical personality. *In the twenties," Earl recalls, "much of the music was loud, two-beat gutbucket stuff. It was like shouting all the time. I pre- ferred musicians who played soft and beautiful things men like cometist Joe Smith, who used to stop the crowds cold using a co- conut shell for a mute. Trombonist Tyree Glenn has some of that quality today." Earl once selected Tommy Dorsey as his favorite trombonist, because Dorsey had "technique, good taste, experience, and a real knack for organization and selecting song material." These, it seems, were the qualities Hines now tried to stress in his own work. It was a more feasible proposition from 1944 on, when the prerequisites for jazzmen that prevailed in the twenties and early thirties volume, powerful attack, heavy rhythmic emphasis, and a "down home" blues feeling had been superseded by a new set of values harmonic research, long melodic lines, rapid-fire artic- ulation, and rhythmic experimentation. The only drawback was 70 JAZZ MASTERS OF THE TWENTIES that Hines at 39 was not in a position to build an entirely new style on the principles of bop, and his middle-of-the-road ap- proach, while perfectly sound musically, led nowhere commer- cially. Not wishing to play Dixieland or early forms of swing, but unable to participate fully in the modern movement of the mid- forties, Earl relied instead upon his new, softer, less aggressive mode of expression and entered what might be called his