THE HISTORY OF JAZZ.
The roots of Jazz Before 1850
Though jazz and classic blues are really early twentieth-century black music innovations, certain characteristics found in jazz do have their roots in much earlier musical traditions. Call and response, improvisation, the appropriation and reinvention of elements from Western art music: black music in the twentieth-century has never held a monopoly on these musical practices. For instance, the era American historians call "antebellum" (roughly 1815-1861) holds much of interest to researchers looking for the deep roots of jazz.
There was one condition that had to be met for a black tradition unique to North America to develop. There had to be a creole population in place, i.e. a population of blacks born not in Africa but in America. Historically, and for various complicated reasons, slaves in the United States began reproducing their numbers after the closing of the African slave trade in 1808. The creole birthrate actually climbed in the United States, as opposed to most Latin and Caribbean American colonies. Unlike in Brazil or Cuba direct African infusions into black American culture were much less pronounced in the early and middle nineteenth-century. After 1808, blacks in North America began remembering--as well as forgetting--African musical traditions, reinventing them to fit their needs in an entirely different American context. This is an important thing to remember, especially if you hold with Amiri Baraka that "Blues People" have always been curiously American "Negroes."
But the North American variation and reinvention of African tradition in the early nineteenth-century was not monolithic. That is to say, depending on the region and the demands of the musical audience--whether it be fellow slaves or plantation-owners--the music varied from place to place. Perhaps the difference between 'downtown' and 'uptown' black style even began during this era. On the one hand there were the plaintive call-and-response hollers and 'sperchils' to be found in the tobacco fields, cotton plantations, and sugar marshes that stretched from Virginia to Texas. These instances of black music-making were largely produced by and for a black slave community that understood the significance of the music in ways that whites never could. Scholars have often noted the hidden meaning of field hollers and the significance of the drums to communication between various slave groups. The drums were even banned in the British Caribbean. Meanwhile, 'uptown', there were the slaves that played for planter functions. Think here of Solomon Northup, abducted from New York and sold into slavery in the New Orleans area. He would play his violin with other slaves to entertain plantation misters and mistresses at quadrilles and fancy balls. Others slave musicians would play at the so-called quadroon balls, New Orleans galas where light-skinned slave women were auctioned off to the highest bidder. There were striking similarities between these balls and the Storyville milieu where Jelly Roll Morton learned to entertain prostitutes and their patrons.
Despite the fact that the vast majority of blacks lived in the South, there were some freemen and women in the North. Indeed, they even had their own autonomous cultural venues, like the African Grove theater in New York City. But perhaps an even more important agent in spreading black musical style to the North during the first half of the nineteenth century was minstrelsy. The minstrel show was born in the same year as William Lloyd Garrison's Liberator, 1831, when Dan Rice-for the first time in American history-"blacked up" for a variety show in New York's Bowery district. The show became increasingly formalized after the Christie Minstrels devised a much-imitated structure for it in the 1840s and 50s. Two ubiquitous components of this structure were the Stephen Foster songs and a generic instrumentation including banjoes, "bones" (jawbones scraped together for percussive effect), fiddle, and tambourine. Minstresly had of course a more spurious connection to black musical traditions than did, say, the spirituals. But it should be remembered that most Northern minstrels did go to great lengths to acknowledge the black stevedores or plantation slaves from whom they had stolen their material. This sort of Love and Theft, according to Eric Lott, set a precedent for a whole tradition of blackface in America where white performers would borrow lovingly, profitably, and heavily from black musical styles, from Dan Rice to Elvis.
Though the minstrel show declined in popularity during the 1860s, blackface has retained a unique place in American culture. When the Fisk Jubilee Singers--a black gospel group from the first all-black university--showed up in New York in the 1860s to try and raise money for their troubled institution some audience members were disappointed, expecting them to sing a bit more like the minstrels did. Indeed, blacks entering show business from the 1860s on often had no choice but to enter it as minstrels. As it turned out, white audiences after the Civil War preferred black minstrels--or blacks in blackface--considering them the "genuine" article. The irony is, of course, that blacks in blackface had to perform a stereotype of themselves contributing to the construction of pervasive stereotypes of black people based on apocryphal happy-go-lucky "Jim Crow" and "dandy" plantation types. Despite the more troubling aspects of minstrelsy, it was another place where European and African traditions met and mingled in a heady, racist, and decidedly American stew. It is also the place where many jazz performers including, for one, Bessie Smith got their start..
Some form of music shaped by the black experience in the United States had appeared in both the South and the North by the time of the Civil War. Likewise, New Orleans--being the center of the American slave trade--had already taken on special significance in the history of black music-making in America. The most interesting reference to antebellum black music is found in the abolitionist Benjamin Lundy's diary. Near the New Orleans slave market, the hub of the interstate slave exchange, blacks continued to meet on or around Congo square, under the supervision of their masters to sell their wares, exchange information, and dance to drums that Lundy sketched in his diary and claimed were straight from Africa. Another white observer, Louis Moreau Gottschalk--Americas foremost composer, inter-American cultural diplomat, and piano virtuoso of the 1850s-claimed that he grew up in the shadow of Congo Square. In what is probably his most famous composition, Gottschalk sketches for us an interpretation of another African instrument retained and reinvented by blacks in America. He called this composition "The Banjo."
Further reading: Leroy Jones, Solomon Northup, Benjamin Lundy, Dana what's her name, Eric Lott, Joseph Roach. Levine. Dana Epstein.Paul Gilroy....etc...John Blassingame.
Ragtime composer and pianist Scott Joplin
is born in Texarkana, TX on November 24, 1868. Hot cornet player Buddy Bolden is born in uptown New Orleans, La. in 1868. Buddy is considered by many to be the first person to play the Blues form of New Orleans Jazz. The handcranked phonograph is demonstrated by Thomas Edison on November 29, 1877. The phonograph will eventually allow the spread of popular music. Cornetist Joe "King" Oliver is born on a plantation near Abend, LA on May 11, 1885. Pianist and composer Jelly Roll Morton (Ferdinand La Menthe) is born in Gulfport, LA. on September 20, 1885. Jelly Roll learns harmonica at age 5 and is proficient on guitar at age 7. Blues singer Ma Rainey (Gertrude Malissa Nix Pridgett) is born on April 26, 1886 in Columbus, Ga. Thomas Edison invents the first motor-driven phonograph. Phonographs are improving but are still a long way away from being commercial. Stride piano player Willie "The Lion" Smith is born in 1893. Stride piano great James P. Johnson is born on February 1, 1891 in New Brunswick, N.J. Blues singer Mamie Smith (believed to be the first black to make a record) is born on September 16, 1890 in Cincinnati, OH. First use of the word Ragtime appears in the song title "Ma Ragtime Baby" by Fred Stone in 1893. Blues singer Bessie Smith is born on April 15, 1894 in Chattanooga, TN. Band leader Benny Moten is born on November, 13, 1894 in Kansas City, MO. Boogie Woogie piano player Jimmy Yancey is born in 1894. Stride piano player Luckyeth "Lucky" Roberts is born on August 7, 1895 in Philadelphia, PA. Clarinetist Jimmie Noone born in New Orleans, LA.
1895
Jazz History Time Line: 1896
In the Supreme Court, Plessy vs. Ferguson establishes the "separate but equal" concept that will allow segregation and "Jim Crow" to flourish. Pioneer Boogie piano
player Lloyd Glenn born in Texas in 1896.
Jazz History Time Line: 1897
Buddy Bolden organizes the first band to play the instrumental Blues (the fore-runner of Jazz). The band's repertoire consists of Polkas, Quadrilles, Ragtime and Blues. Storyville (the famed red light district of New Orleans) opens. It was named after New Orleans alderman Sidney Story. The Ragtime craze is at full tilt. Soprano saxophone and clarinet virtuoso Sidney Bechet born in New Orleans on May 14. Stride piano great Willie "The Lion" Smith born in Goshen, NY on November 23.
Jazz History Time Line: 1898
Scat singer Leo Watson born in Kansas City, MO on February 27.
Jazz History Time Line: 1899
Piano player, band leader and Jazz composer Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington is born on April 29 in Washington, D.C. to a moderately well-to-do butler/navy blueprint man. Thomas E. "Georgia Tom" Dorsey is born in Georgia. A publisher buys the rights to several Scott Joplin rags, but turns down "Maple Leaf Rag". Shortly thereafter, (farmer, ice cream salesman, and piano peddler) John Stark hears the song , likes it, and publishes it for Joplin. "Maple Leaf Rag" sells over 100,000 copies.
Jazz History Time Line: 1900
Blues become a standard feature of honky tonks and dancehalls. Horn players imitate the human voice with mutes and growls.
New Orleans players are playing a mix of Blues, Ragtime, brass band music, marches, Pop songs and dances. The Jazz stew is brewing. Some musicians are beginning to improvise the Pop songs.
The end of the Spanish-American war has brought a surplus of used military band instruments into the port of New Orleans.
Jelly Roll Morton is a youth working the "high class sporting houses" or more bluntly, brothels, as a Ragtime piano player. His wages come from tips from wealthy patrons.
Migrations from the south into Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, etc. are beginning.
Trombonist James Henry "Jimmy" Harrison is born in Louisville, KY on October 17. Harrison will invent an important style of Swing trombone.
Trumpeter Tommy Ladnier is born in Mandeville, LA on May 28. Ladnier will become one of the important early Jazz trumpeters.
History Time Line: 1900
July 4, 1900 is the day that Louis Armstrong always claims as his birthday. Armstrong's nickname will be Satchmo. He will receive this nickname in England in the early 1930's when the British hear his original nickname, Satchelmouth, incorrectly. Armstrong will be recognized as the first genius of Jazz because the entire concept of swinging will be attributed to him. Blues become a standard feature of honky tonks and dancehalls. Horn players imitate the human voice with mutes and growls. New Orleans players are playing a mix of Blues, Ragtime, brass band music, marches, Pop songs and dances. The Jazz stew is brewing. Some musicians are beginning to improvise the Pop songs. The end of the Spanish-American war has brought a surplus of used military band instruments into the port of New Orleans. Jelly Roll Morton is a youth working the "high class sporting houses" or more bluntly, brothels, as a Ragtime piano player. His wages come from tips from wealthy patrons. Migrations from the south into Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, etc. are beginning. Trombonist James Henry "Jimmy" Harrison is born in Louisville, KY on October 17. Harrison will invent an important style of Swing trombone. Trumpeter Tommy Ladnier is born in Mandeville, LA on May 28. Ladnier will become one of the important early Jazz trumpeters.
Daniel Louis Armstrong is born on August 4 in New Orleans. New Orleans clarinet player Edmund Hall is born on May 15. Hall was one of the few New Orleans players to become a Dixieland player in the 1940's and beyond. Multi-instrumentalist Frank Trumbauer is born in Carbondale, Illinois. Trumbauer is a descendent of Charles Dickens. Trumbauer's primary instrument will be the saxophone
Jazz History Time Line: 1902
Jelly Roll Morton
is now seventeen years old. He is beginning to attract attention in the New Orleans area as a brothel piano player. At this point he is playing primarily Ragtime and a little Blues. He is one of the first to play this mix that is a forerunner of Jazz. Jelly Roll will later claim to have invented Jazz in this year by combining Ragtime, Quadrilles and Blues. The phonograph has been drastically improved. Victor and Columbia emerge as leaders in the phonograph field (at that time phonograph companies made records and vice versa). People have finally started to buy phonographs and records (cylinders) for home use. This will enable the rapid spread of popular music. W.C. Handy has started a saxophone
quartet. The saxophone was a novelty in 1902. Trumpeter Joe Smith is born in Ripley, Ohio on June 28. Joe will become Bessie Smith's favorite accompanist. Clarinetist Buster Bailey is born in Memphis. Buster will be raised on the music of W.C. Handy.
W.C. Handy hears the Rural Blues played on a slide guitar (knife blade used as a slide) by an itinerant Blues guitarist in a railroad station in Tutwiler, Mississippi. It sparks a career for him and it is an important event in Amercan popular music history. Sidney Bechet borrows his brother's clarinet. The rest is history. Leon "Bix" Beiderbecke is born in Davenport, Iowa on March 10. Bix's family is a proper Victorian type family and they do not approve of popular music as a career. Jimmy Rushing (Mr. Five-by Five) is born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on August 26. Jimmy will be the primary male singer for the Count Basie band. Valve trombonist/arranger Brad Gowans born in Billerica, MA.
Jazz History Time Line: 1904
Trombonist Glenn Miller is born in Clarinda, Iowa. Miller was one of several star sideman in the 1920's trend-setting Ben Pollack Orchestra. He roomed with fellow band-mate Benny Goodman. Young trumpeter Harry James drove the bus. Stride piano player and composer Thomas "Fats" Waller is born on May 21 in Harlem as one of twelve children born to Edward Murtin Waller. Tenor saxophone giant Coleman Hawkins is born in St. Joseph, Missouri on November 21. Eddie Lang is born in Philadelphia, PA as Salvatore Massaro. Lang will become the first jazz guitarist and will thus influence all to come. Alto saxophone and clarinet
player Henry "Buster" Smith is born on August 26 in Ellis County, Texas. Buster became a favorite of Charlie Parker and is credited with teaching Charlie quite a bit. Boogie Woogie piano pioneer Clarence "Pinetop" Smith is born. Boogie Woogie piano pioneer Pete Johnson is born in Kansas City, MO. Bass saxophonist Adrian Rollini is born in New York City on June 28.
Trombonist Tommy Dorsey born, Shenandoah, PA. Dorsey recorded with Bix Beiderbeck in the 1920's and was in demand as a studio musician. He became the leader of the "General Motors" of the big band era, when his band featured arrangments by Sy Oliver, singers Frank Sinatra, Jo Stafford and the Pied Pipers, drummer Buddy Rich and trumpeter Ziggy Elman. Sidney Bechet becomes virtuoso clarinetist George Baquet's protege and he sits in with trumpeter Freddie Keppard's band as a 8 year old child. Earl "Fatha" Hines, one of the most important Jazz piano
players of all times, is born in Duquesne, PA on December 28. Twelve string guitarist and Rural Blues man Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter meets Blues man Blind Lemon Jefferson in a Dallas saloon. A partnership is formed. Boogie piano player Meade Lux Lewis is born in Louisville, KY.
Jazz History Time Line: 1906
Duke Ellington begins studying piano at age seven. Duke's piano teacher is somewhat appropriately named Mrs. Clinkscales. Alto saxophone great and Ellington band member Johnny Hodges is born in Cambridge, Massachesetts on July 25. Clarinetist and Ellington band member Barney Bigard is born in New Orleans, Lousiania on March 3. Bigard and Sidney Bechet will eventually introduce the Duke to true Jazz. Saxophonist Bud Freeman is born on April 13. Cornetist and key Dixieland figure Wild Bill Davison is born in Defiance, Ohio on January 5. Trumpeter Frankie Newton born in Emory, VA.
Jazz History Time Line: 1907
New Orleans Blues trumpet
pioneer Buddy Bolden runs amok and is committed to the state hospital at Angola on June 5. Buddy will spend the rest of his life there and will, sadly, never be recorded. Trumpet player Rex Stewart of the Ellington orchestra is born in Philadelphia, Pa on February 22. Trombone player Benny Morton of the Basie band is born in New York City on January 31. Alto sax man Benny Carter is born in New York City on August 8. Popular band leader Cab Calloway is born on December 24 in Rochester, N.Y. Piano player Joe Turner (not Big Joe) is born in Baltimore, Md. on November 3. Boogie Woogie piano player Albert Ammons is born in Chicago , Ill.
Jazz History Time Line: 1908
Vibraphone pioneer Lionel Hampton born in Birmingham, Al. Raised in Kenosha, Wisconsin. During a stint with Les Hite's band on Central Avenue in Los Angeles, he joined the Benny Goodman Quartet, which, along with pianist Teddy Wilson and drummer Gene Krupa, became the first integrated, commercially accepted jazz group. He has fronted his own Big Bands since Sept. 1940. Biggest hits: "Flying Home" and "Midnight Sun". Many early Bop stars began in his band. Trumpeter Freddie Keppard and his Creoles were playing more powerful Jazz in New Orleans than the Original Dixieland Jazz Band will play in 1917. Keppard was not recorded until many years later because he was afraid of having his style stolen. Trumpeter Cootie Williams of the Ellington band is born in Mobil, Alabama on July 24. Dixieland trumpeter Max Kaminsky is born in Brockton, Mass. on September 7. Boogie Woogie piano player Sammy Price is born in Texas. Columbia produces the first two-sided disc.
Jazz History Time Line: 1909
Tenor saxophone innovator Coleman Hawkins begins playing the piano at age five. Tenor saxophone innovator Lester Young is born in Woodville, Mississippi on August 27. Lester's family moved to New Orleans and Lester toured the midwest as a child with his father Billy's barnstorming band. Tenor saxophone great Ben Webster is born in Kansas City, MO on February 27. At some future date, Ben will save his rival Lester Young from drowning. Benny Goodman is born in the Maxwell street ghetto in Chicago to Russian immigrant parents on May 30. Drummer Gene Krupa is born in Chicago. He is the first to use and record with a full drumset in the 1920's with Eddie Condon. He will become a wild, flashy Swing Era icon who leads his own popular big band after skyrocketing to fame with Benny Goodman. He will be the drummer on "Sing, Sing, Sing" at Carnegie Hall in 1938. He will feature Roy Eldridge, Anita O'Day and Gerry Mulligan in his big band in 1940's. He will lead small groups and tour with JATP through 1950's. He will co-own a drum school in NYC with Cozy Cole. Blues publishing pioneer W.C. Handy brings saxophones into his dance band
. Trombone player Dickie Wells of the Basie band is born in Tennessee on June 10. Progressive Swing band leader Claude Thornhill is born in Terra Haute, IN on August 10. Trumpeter Roland Bernard "Bunny" Berigan is born in Fox Lake, Wisconsin. Trumpeter Jonah Jones born in Louisville, KY.
Jazz History Time Line: 1910 through 1920
ragtime is still popular, but it is dying. The first non-American Ragtime sheet music
appears in London, England. English musician Vic Filmer begins playing Rags. American black music begins to gain appeal in Europe. Dance craze starts. Foxtrot, etc. Leadbelly hears New Orleans Jazz and is not intrigued or impressed. Saxophonist Leon "Chu" Berry is born in Wheeling, W. Va. on September 13. Jean Baptiste "Django" Reinhardt is born in Liberchies, Belgium on January 23 to a gypsy family. Django will become the first European to have a major influence on American Jazz players. Piano virtuoso Art Tatum is born in Toledo, Ohio on October 13. Clarinetist and bandleader Artie Shaw (Arthur Jacob Arshawsky) is born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He will grow up in New Haven, Connecticut. Jazz and Blues proponent John Henry Hammond is born in New York City.
Blues shouter
Big Joe Turner is born in Kansas City, Mo. on May 18. Trumpeter Roy Eldridge is born in Pittsburgh, Pa. on January 30. Eldridge was an excellent player and is viewed, maybe unfairly, as the link between Armstrong and the Boppers. Roy will eventually get the nickname Little Jazz because of his diminutive size. Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson is born in New Orleans on October 26.
W.C. Handy writes Memphis Blues. It becomes a big hit and begins the publishing of the Blues. Classic Blues singer Bessie Smith begins work as a dancer in a vaudeville show. Trumpeter Freddie Keppard's band leaves New Orleans for parts unknown. Louis Armstrong forms a vocal quartet with some of his boyhood friends in New Orleans. Pianist Teddy Wilson is born in Austin, Texas on November 24. Band leader Stan Kenton is born in Wichita, Kansas on February 19. Arranger Gil Evans is born in Toronto, Canada on May 13.
W.C. Handy writes St Louis Blues. This will be his biggest hit. The Blues is going full tilt. There is a major impetus around this time for the Europeanization of the Blues. Up till now the Blues form varied between 13.5 and 15 bars to suit the lyrics or the mood of the performer. Eventually a 12 bar form based on the 1-4-5 chord progression (what we know as the Blues today) will become standard. This occurred for three reasons: 1) appealled to whites, 2) solved problems understanding, playing and notating the Blues 3) established harmonies and a form for band members to work with. Sidney Bechet is now playing in the Eagle Band with Jack Carey and Buddy Petit. Duke Ellington hears piano player Harvey Brooks in Philadelphia and is inspired to learn Ragtime. The Freddie Keppard band turns up in Los Angeles. Louis Armstrong is released from the waif's home where he learned his life's trade. Innovative drummer Kenny Clarke is born in Pittsburgh, Pa. on January 9. Clarke will become the first Bop drummer. Bass player Leroy "Slam" Stewart is born in Englewood, N.J. on September 21. Ralph Ellison is born in Oklahoma City on March 1. He will achieve critical acclaim with his novel, Invisible Man, in 1952. Ellison, who attended Tusegee Institute with the intention of pursuing a career in music
, will write influential essays on jazz music and on African American folk culture.
Louis Armstrong begins playing the bars in Storyville for $1.25 a night. Bechet is in Joseph "King" Oliver's Olympia Band, but will soon leave for Chicago. He will work with Tony Jackson and then Freddie Keppard there. Coleman Hawkins has learned the saxophone and is already playing dances at the age of twelve. Guitarist, pianist and vibrophonist Bulee "Slim" Gaillard is born in Detroit, Michigan on Jan 4. Slim became popular as half of the famed duo Slim and Slam with Slam Stewart on bass. Trumpeter Harry James born, Albany, GA. 3/15. Played with Ben Pollack mid-30's. Rose to fame with Benny Goodman's band in late 30's. Started own band 1939. Discovered and developed young vocalist Frank Sinatra. Led big bands off and on until his death on 7/5/83. Married to actress Betty Grable. Biggest Hits: "You Made Me Love You", "Two O'Clock Jump","Ciribiribin". Louis Armstrong believed James was one of the best trumpeters who ever blew.
Joe "King" Oliver leaves Kid Ory's band to front his own band in Chicago. Clarinetist Jimmy Noone leaves New Orleans for Chicago. Louis Armstrong is hired by Kid Ory to replace Joe "King" Oliver on cornet. Armstrong is also hired by Fate Marable to work the showboats. Armstrong learns to read music while working for Fate Marable. Louis Armstrong marries New Orleans prostitute Daisy Parker. Although not a prolific songwriter, Louis Armstrong writes the well known song "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate." Duke Ellington marries Edna Thompson. The Duke is currently doing very well supplying bands for dances and parties. Duke's sidemen at this point are Toby Hardwicke on bass and saxes, Arthur Whetsol on trumpet, Sonny Greer on drums and Elmer Snowden on banjo. Bix Beiderbecke has just begun to play the cornet. Earl "Fatha" Hines is hired by Lois Deppe (a man) in Pittsburgh to play piano. This is Earl's first job. Coleman Hawkins attends school in Chicago and gets to hear early Jazz players such as Jimmy Noone there. Ella Fitzgerald is born in Newport News, Virginia on April 25. The so-called "Lost Generation" of white American youths is ripe for a new kind of music. On January 1, James Reese Europe arrives in France. On March 18, James Reese Europe's 369th Infantry Regiment (The Hellfighters) Band begins a six week tour of twenty-five French cities. Bill "Bojangles" Robinson is the drum major. On April 20, James Reese Europe accompanies a french combat unit into battle and becomes the first black to face combat during WWI. Will Marion Cook's Southern Syncopated Orchestra is formed. Will Cook will shortly become a great influence on Duke Ellington's composing skills. Pianist Hank Jones is born in Detroit. Vocalese singer Eddie Jefferson is born in Pittsburgh, PA on August 3.
After years of lynching and other mistreatment of blacks by whites, the NAACP promotes the slogan "The new Negro has no fear". This type of thinking will further the cause of Jazz. In this year, 70 blacks are killed by KKK mobs. More than 10 of these are soldiers still in uniform. Sidney Bechet moves to New York City and joins Will Marion Cook's Southern Syncopated Orchestra. Bechet travels to Europe with the orchestra where he will gain accolades from Classical musicians as a distinguished musician. It is at this time that Bechet discovers the soprano saxophone. Accolades (mentioned above) given to Sidney Bechet by Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet appear in Revue Romande. This article is the first serious article on Jazz to appear anywhere. In February, James Reese Europe and his Hellfighters return home. They go on a tour of the U.S. in the Spring. On May 9, in Boston, James Reese Europe is confronted in his dressing room by Herbert Wright (one of his men). They have words because Wright thinks that Europe is treating him unfairly. Wright plunges a penknife into Europes neck. Europe bleeds to death. It is probable that young Bix Beiderbecke heard Louis Armstrong play on the riverboats that stopped in Davenport, Iowa during this year. Innovative guitarist Charlie Christian is born in Dallas, Texas. His father is a blind guitarist. Christian will be influenced by Lonnie Johnson, Eddie Lang and Django Reinhardt. Hard Bop drummer Art Blakey is born in Pittsburgh, Pa on October 11. Art will become one of the major Hard Bop leaders along with Horace Silver in the late 1950's. Innovative pianist Lenny Tristano is born in Chicago on March 19 during a major flu epidemic. His eyes are affected and he will eventually be completely blind. The Original Dixieland Jazz Band visits England and triggers an interest in the new music. Free Jazz pianist Herbie Nichols is born New York City on January 3. The Southern Syncopated Orchestra is in Europe with Sidney Bechet. On November 15, conductor Ernest Ansermet hears Bechet in London and believes that he is a genius. The Scrap Iron Jazz Band (from the Hellfighters) makes a series of records in Paris. Pianist George Shearing is born in London on August 13. Singer Anita O'Day is born in Chicago on December 18. Bandleader Paul Whiteman leaves San Francisco for Atlantic City. Bassist Al McKibbon born in Chicago, IL.
Prohibition of alcohol begins. In many respects, prohibition has the opposite of its intended effect. For example, before prohibition, few, if any women drank in bars. However, women were very likely to drink in speakeasys. Prohibition indirectly furthers the cause of Jazz. Armstrong drops in on a St. Louis dance and the band he is with blows away the most popular band in town with New Orleans Jazz. Alto saxophonist Charlie Parker (a.k.a. Bird or Yardbird) is born on August 29 in Kansas City, Kansas. Ellington has developed into a decent and fairly successful band leader earning about $10,000 a year to support wife Edna and one year old Mercer. The first recorded Blues appears when Mamie Smith records Crazy Blues. This kicks off the Classic Blues craze of the 1920's. Over forty prominent New Orleans Jazzmen have moved to Chicago. Somebody discovers that the New York brownstone basement (being narrow and running from mainstreet to back alley) is well suited to use as an speakeasy. In time, the cellars of New York City will become riddled with speakeasys providing numerous opportunities for Jazz musicians. The cabaret business begins in New York. This will eventually be the cause of the shift of Jazz from Chicago to New York. This year marks the beginning of an age of great interest in black arts and music (Jazz). The young future Bop players are being born. They will be raised in an era which will allow them to want to rebel. Thus, Bop will begin in about twenty years. Future MJQ pianist John Lewis is born in LaGrange, Ilinois on May 3. Lewis will grow up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The New Orleans Rhythm Kings are playing in Chicago at Friar's Inn. Adrian Rollini begins playing bass saxophone with the California Ramblers (a popular New York City dance band). Rollini was one of the top Jazz saxophonist's in the 1920's. He will later play with Bix Beiderbecke. Scat singer and composer Babs Gonzalez is born Newark, N.J. on July 12. Paul Whiteman and his Band record the classic Whispering in New York City. Whiteman's band does not play true Jazz but the so-called symphonic Jazz. After Sophie Tucker fails to attend a recording session, Okeh records Mamie Smith performing "Crazy Blues." This release would be the first "race" or blues recording and would sell over 250,000 copies, averaging 7500 sales a week in the early stages of its release.
Jazz History Time Line: 1921 through 1930
Future Ellington trumpeter Bubber Miley sees King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band at the Dreamland Cafe in Chicago and becomes interested in Jazz. Bubber will learn to play blue notes and growls in imitation of Oliver. These growls and slurs will later become a trademark of Ellington which are passed down to Cootie Williams and other future trumpeters. Bix Beiderbecke begins attending the Lake Forest Academy near Chicago. He will get the opportunity to gain firsthand knowledge of New Orleans and Chicago Jazz. Frankie Trumbauer works briefly for Isham Jones at the College Inn in Chicago. He says that he is happy when the black waiters smile when he plays because that tells him that he is doing it right. Sidney Bechet returns from his trip to Europe. Musicians such as Duke Ellington
become more impressed with Bechet's abilities. Sidney will eventually play for Duke for a short while. Fletcher Henderson is on the road with Ethel Waters. He hears Armstrong for the first time and immediately offers him a job. Armstrong turns him down. James P. Johnson's "Worried and Lonesome Blues" and "Carolina Shout" begin to approach Jazz. At any rate, Johnson becomes the pioneer of stride piano with these recordings. Saxophone player Coleman Hawkins joins Mamie Smith's Jazz Hounds. Young Lenny Tristano (age 2) takes an interest in piano. Saxophonist Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis born. Pop Jazz pianist Errol Garner is born in Pittsburgh, Pa on June 15. Gospel singer
Sister Rosetta Tharpe is born in Cotton Plant, Arkansas on March 20.
King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band with Louis Armstrong on second cornet makes their first recordings. Armstrong is first recorded on March 31 on the Gennet recording of Chimes Blues. Other members of the band were Warren "Baby" Dodds on drums, Honore Dutrey on trombone, Bill Johnson on bass, Johnny Dodds on clarinet, and Lil Hardin on piano. The most notable recording was the legendary Dippermouth Blues which was written by Oliver. Jelly Roll Morton moves to Chicago. By now, Jelly is more interested in his music than he is in pimping and conning. Morton will record his first piano solos during this year. The list of songs includes Grandpa's Spells, Kansas City Stomps, Milenburg Joys, Wolverine Blues and The Pearls. Morton is at the frontline of Jazz with Bechet and Oliver at this point. Early occurance of the "color barrier" being broken when Jelly Roll Morton sits in with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. In late January, Duke Ellington pays his way into the segregated section of the Howard Theatre in Washington D.C. to hear soprano saxophone master Sidney Bechet. This is Ellington's first encounter with authentic New Orleans Jazz. Duke Ellington returns to New York City after being persuaded by Fats Waller. His first stay had been a disaster. He works for Ada "Bricktop" Smith. His first job is at the Hollywood Club (later the Kentucky Club). He also works at Barron's in Harlem. The Duke finally becomes the official band leader. Snowden, the original band leader, leaves and is replaced by Fred Guy. Ellington makes his first recording (on a cylinder - acoustic recording still most used). It is a stride piano piece called Jig Walk. On June 30, Sidney Bechet cuts his first two sides "Wild Cat Blues" and "Kansas City Blues" with Clarence Williams' Blue Five. Tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins joins the Fletcher Henderson band. It is with this band that Coleman will develop his first reasonable tenor sax style. This style will be based on the trumpet style of Louis Armstrong. The Fletcher Henderson band opens at the Club Alabam on 44th Street just off Broadway with Coleman Hawkins on tenor sax. By now, Bix Beiderbecke is occasionally playing on the riverboats. Benny Moten Band cuts their first records. These records are marred by some obnoxious clarinet effects by Herman "Woody" Walder. Bessie Smith records "Downhearted Blues" and "Gulf Coast Blues." "Downhearted Blues" sells 780,000 copies in less than six months. Bessie is an instant star. Bessie marries Jack Gee, a Philadelphia policeman, who is primarily interested in her money. Gertrude "Ma Rainey" Pridgett is recorded for the first time this year. The Lois Deppe band with Earl Hines on piano cuts a few records. Hines winds up in Chicago as a result of the popularity gained. He plays as a single using a portable piano in a cafe. At this time, the combination Stride/Blues piano style which Hines pioneered was already well formed. Hines will become the most influential early pianist in Jazz. Future Bop trumpeter extraordinare Fats Navarro is born in Key West, Florida. Hard Bop pianist Elmo Hope is born. Vibraphonist Milt Jackson born 1923 in Detroit, Michigan. March 12, 1923: Gennett begins to record the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. They would release the soon to be jazz standards, "Tin Roof Blues," "Bugle Call Blues," and "Farewell Blues." Members of NORK include Paul Mares, coronet, George Brunies, trombone, Leon Rappolo, clarinet, Mel Stitzel, piano, & Ben Pollock, banjo April 6, 1923 - Gennett records and releases King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band. This would be the first recordings to feature Louis Armstrong and the incredible two coronet leads. Recordings from this session include "Canal Street Blues,' "Chimes Blues," "Weather Bird Rag," "Dippermouth Blues," "Froggie More," "Just Gone" and a few others. Member of King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band include: King Oliver & Louis Armstrong on coronet, Honore Dutrey on trombone, Johnny Dodds on clarinet, Lil Hardin Armstrong on piano, Bill Johnson on piano and Baby Dodds on drums. June 1923 - Jelly Roll Morton begins to record with Gennett, including a session with New Orleans Rh
ythm Kings ("Mr. Jelly Lord"), often considered the first inter-racial jazz recording.
On February 26, Armstrong, Kid Ory (trombone), Johnny Dodds (clarinet), Johnny St. Cyr (guitar) and Lil Armstrong (piano) record the second set of Hot Fives for Okeh. Armstrong leaves Dreamland (Chicago) in the spring to join Carroll Dickerson's band at the Sunset Cafe (Chicago's brightest pleasure spot). The Sunset is Chicago's most succesful black and tan. Joe Glaser is the Sunset's manager. His mother is the Sunset's owner. Armstrong is playing for Erskine Tate's Orchestra and Carol Dickerson's Orchestra. This is the year that Armstrong and Earl Hines meet. King Oliver and his Dixie Syncopators are playing at the Plantation Cafe in Chicago. Joe "King" Oliver will do his last eventful music this year with his Dixie Syncopators group. Joe does a remake of his landmark "Dippermouth Blues". It is called "Sugarfoot Strut". In September, Jelly Roll Morton cuts his first band recordings with his Red Hot Peppers group. Jelly Roll had acquired Lester and Walter Montrose as publishers. Notable songs are "Deep Creek", "The Pearls", "Wolverine Blues", "Dead Man Blues" and King Oliver's "Doctor Jazz". On an autumn day on Chicago's south side, Jelly Roll Morton rides a big gray mule with a sign that advertises the Victor Recording Company's recording of his "Sidewalk Blues". The Ellington band has finally taken shape. They are now playing bonafide New York Jazz. Joe "Tricky Sam" Nanton on trombone and Harry Carney on clarinet join Ellington. Ellington forms a significant partnership with music publisher and band booker Irving Mills. Duke Ellington
and his band record "East St Louis Toodle-o" on November 29. This is Ellington's first signature song and his first important original composition. Kansas City, Missouri becomes the wildest city in America (a perfect match for Jazz) when Tom "Boss" Pendergast (the Democratic boss of Jackson county) begins his reign over the city. Bix Beiderbecke is working in a Frankie Trumbauer band with Pee Wee Russell on Clarinet. In May, Jean Goldkette offers Trumbauer a job as musical director of one of his bands (we'll call them the Goldkette band, but the real name is the Victor Recording Orchestra). Trumbauer accepts on the condition that Bix Beiderbecke can also join the band. The Goldkette band with Bix Beiderbecke and Frankie Trumbauer start playing the Roseland Ballroom in Manhattan in early October. The Goldkette band and the Fletcher Henderson band do battle at the Roseland on October 13. Henderson is caught by surprise and is defeated by the likes of Beiderbecke and Trumbauer. Sidney Bechet visits Berlin. On learning that American reedman Gavin Bushell is there and has a Great Dane, Sidney insists that his Doberman-Bulldog mix and Bushell's Great Dane fight to prove which is the toughest. Sidney Bechet visits Moscow. Until now, Bechet was the only black saxophonist of importance. Coleman Hawkins is beginning to change that. Currently, most Jazz saxophonist's are white (not many used saxophones, only whites could afford them). Hawkins admires Adrian Rollini. Lester Young is meanwhile being influenced by Frankie Trumbauer and trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke. Benny Goodman joins the Ben Pollack band. On December 9, the Ben Pollack Band with Benny Goodman on clarinet records "Deed I Do"/"He's the Last Word" for Victor. It is Benny Goodman's recording debut. On the evening of December 9, Benny Goodman's father dies at the corner of Madison and Kostner streets in Chicago after being struck by a speeding auto. He never got to hear Benny's first recording done that very same day. John Coltrane is born on September 23 in Hamlet, North Carolina. Thelonious Monk, aged six, becomes interested in piano. Jimmy Harrison is playing saxophone for Fletcher Henderson. Jimmy is beginning to create an influential Jazz trombone style that will rule for awhile. Tommy Ladnier is playing trumpet for Fletcher Henderson. Tommy is one of the most underrated trumpeters of early Jazz. Miles Davis is born in Alton, Illinois. Shortly after, the Davis family moves to East St. Louis, Illinois. Hammond B-3 master Jimmy Smith is born in Norristown, PA. Lenny Tristano begins to take piano lessons. Swedish Jazz group called the Paramount Orchestra is formed.
Armstrong is by now enunciating no more than one beat per measure. His music swings like nothing before. Swing is under way. Louie is recording more excellent big band Swing sides such as St Louis Blues, Dallas Blues, Confessin, If I Could Be With You, and others. Listen to Columbia CD St Louis Blues - Louis Armstrong - Vol 6, JSP CD Big Band - Vol 1, Classics CD Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra 1929-1930 or Classics CD Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra 1930-1931. Armstrong's manager is now small time hood Joe Glaser. Glaser will make Louie rich but will lead him to commerciality. Ellington records his first big hit in October, a masterpiece of tone color called Dreamy Blues (aka Mood Indigo). Duke Ellington travels to Hollywood to appear in the movie Check and Double Check with Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll starring as Amos 'n Andy. Ellington retains his integrity even though the stars are middle-aged whites in blackface and the plot is demeaning to blacks. The story revolves around two dimwitted fellows from Georgia who move to Chicago and start the Fresh Air Taxi Company of America Incorpulated with only one topless taxicab. Young people begin to revolt against the standard of "niceness". "Express your true feelings" becomes a catch phrase (much like the 60's). Tenor saxophonist Ben Webster debuts with the Gene Coy band and then joins the Jug Allen band. With Coleman Hawkins and his followers Ben Webster and the young Chu Berry and his only competitor at the time Lester Young, the saxophone, in general, and the tenor saxophone, in particular, becomes a major competitor of the trumpet/cornet in Jazz. Recall that the cornet was king in New Orleans Jazz. The faster changes which a sax allows begins to push the trombone out of Jazz. Walter Page and Buster Smith of the Blue Devils walk past a little club in Minneapolis and hear a tenor sax playing "After You've Gone." The tenor style is new and spare compared to Coleman Hawkins' style. The tenor player is Lester Young who is immediately hired by Page. Alto saxophonist Benny Carter leads a group called the Chocolate Dandies drawn from the Fletcher Henderson band. Coleman Hawkins on tenor and Jimmy Harrison on trombone play excellent solos on recordings by the group. Django Reinhardt is listening to and learning from Ellington, Armstrong, Beiderbecke and last but not least Eddie Lang. Joe Oliver puts together a touring band with the help of his nephew Dave Nelson a trumpet player and arranger who once played in Ma Rainey's backup band. The band is not a success. The King is in deep decline. Teenager Billie Holiday performas at a small club in Brooklyn. Bessie Smith is virtually washed up. Classic Blues has run its course. Lionel Hampton begins to play the vibraphone. Earl "Bud" Powell (age 6) begins to study piano. He is currently learning classical music and European theory. Scotsman Tommy McQuater is the leading British Jazz trumpeter. Future alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman (Free Jazz) is born in Fort Worth, Texas. He will be reared in poverty. Future trumpet great Clifford Brown is born in Wilmington, Delaware. Future tenor saxophone colosus Sonny Rollins is born in New York City. Future Rock and Roll singer Ray Charles is born in Albany, Georgia. Singer Betty Carter is born. Helen Merrill is born.
Jazz History Time Line: 1930- 1940
Armstrong is somewhat burned out. He leaves the U.S.A. to tour Europe. In London, at a concert, people hear his nickname Satchel Mouth incorrectly and dub him Satchmo, a nickname which he will take to his grave. Armstrong records "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea", "Home" and "Hobo, You Can't Ride this Train" with Chick Webb. Recordings can be found on Classics CD Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra 1931-1932 and Classics CD Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra 1932-1933. Ellington is also getting a bit fed up with the music business. He records the classic It Don't Mean a Thing if it Ain't Got that Swing. The Benny Moten Band swings in Kansas City, Missouri with five brass, four saxes and four rhythm pieces. This band is what defined the standard Swing band. Benny's band does a famous recording session with Ben Webster on tenor sax. Ben's reputation is secured. Art Tatum comes to New York City and accepts a job accompanying Adelaide Hall. He will take New York by storm. His friend's played a little game where they would take him to after hours clubs to spring him on unsuspecting musicians, particularly, the pianists. He awed other pianists who in some cases would not play in his presence. Piano great Fats Waller once said, "I play piano, but God is in the house tonight" when Tatum was present. The Hot Club of France is founded with Hugues Panassie as the first president. The club includes Charles Delaunay and Pierre Noury. English trumpet player Nat Gonella establishes himself with the English by playing Jazz. He cuts I Can't Believe that You're in Love with Me and I Heard a Don Redman song. Japanese trumpeter Fumio Nanri spends six months in America. Louis Armstrong calls him the Satchmo of Japan. John Hammond (now an executive with Columbia) produces a session with Fletcher Henderson's Band for British listeners. This establishs Hammond as a full-fledged record producer. Pianist Tommy Flanagan is born in Detroit. Tenor saxophonist Tina Brooks is born.
Armstrong is in Europe. He begins and ends recording with French Polydor. Recordings can be found on Classics CD Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra 1934-1936. Armstrong's lip splits on a London stage. He retires in Paris for eight months. While in Europe, Armstrong fires his current manager Johnny Collins. Collins retaliates by taking Armstrong's passport back to America leaving Louis "high and dry" in Europe without a passport. Trumpeter Rex Stewart joins the Duke Ellington band. Large bands with five brass instruments (mostly trumpets and trombones), four reed instruments (mostly clarinets and saxophones which are increasing in popularity) and four rhythm instruments (usually piano, guitar, bass and drums) become the standard. The brass and reed sections normally play together as two voices which playoff against each other in "call and response" form. Riffing (developed by Don Redman with Fletcher Henderson's band) becomes increasingly popular. Benny Goodman has his own orchestra which supplies the Jazz portion of a popular radio show Let's Dance sponsored by Nabisco to advertise the Ritz Cracker. Benny Goodman acquires around 36 Fletcher Henderson arrangements dating back to the 1931 Connie's Inn appearances. Coleman Hawkins (now one of the premier Jazz players) leaves Fletcher Henderson and goes to Europe to work with Jack Hylton. He is replaced by Lester Young. The band members do not like Lester's light style. They prefer the bigger sound of Coleman Hawkins or even Ben Webster. Lester soon leaves Henderson for Andy Kirk's Clouds of Joy. Fletcher Henderson's band breaks up. Ben Webster goes to the Duke Ellington band. Fats Waller, currently the most popular pianist in the country, forms his own group. Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey change the Dorsey Brothers Band from a records-only band to a full-time unit. Quintet of the Hot Club of Paris is formed with Django Reinhardt on guitar, Stephane Grapelli on violin, Louis Vola on bass, Joseph Reinhardt (Django's brother) on guitar and Eugene Vees on guitar. This is the first non-American group to give the Americans serious competition. Their first recording is Dinah/Tiger Rag. Sixteen year old Ella Fitzgerald wins first prize at a talent contest at the Harlem Opera House. Sister Rosetta Tharpe (then Nubin) marries a Pittsburgh pastor named Thorpe. She will divorce shortly and change her name to Tharpe. Soul Jazz saxophonist Stanley Turrentine is born in Pittsburgh, Pa.
Armstrong is king of the trumpet. He is currently doing Pop songs such as Swing that Music for Decca. See GRP CD Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra - Vol 2 - Rhythm Saved the World or Classics CD Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra 1934-1936. Joe "King" Oliver is out of music. He moves to Savannah, becomes a janitor and runs a fruit stand. He is basically destitute. His teeth gave out and he could no longer play the trumpet. Ellington records Echoes of Harlem. Teddy Wilson is featured with a Goodman small band at the Congress. The color barrier (at least in the North) is beginning to crumble. Lionel Hampton is playing in the Benny Goodman quartet (formerly trio). Goodman has the most popular Swing band, but. John Hammond hears the Basie band on late night radio in Chicago and arranges for bookings, a record contract and a trip to New York for an engagement at the Famous Door. The Basie band begins to accumulate a major amount of talent because he essentially absorbed the talent of the two major southwest bands, the Blue Devils and the Benny Moten band. He will continue to attract the best southwest talent until the 1940's. A lot of people consider the Basie band the best Swing band with personnel such as Buck Clayton on trumpet, Benny Morton and Dicky Wells on trombone, Lester Young on tenor sax, Walter Page on bass, etc. The list goes on. Basie's band swings better than Goodman's and some of the Basie band members are already beginning to plant the seeds of Bop. Basie's 1936 record Lady be Good featured a very cool, behind the beat, sax by Lester Young in an era of very hot solos. Lester claims the white players Frankie Trumbauer and Bix Beiderbecke as his major influences. Basie's small band the K.C. Six records such songs as Dicky's Dream which can be found on the Columbia CD The Essential Count Basie - Vol 1. Lester Young makes his first recordings with a small group drawn from the Basie band. The band included Lester on tenor, Basie on piano, Jo Jones on drums, Walter Page on bass and Carl "Tatt" Smith and was called Jones-Smith, Inc. Lester considers his solo on Shoe Shine Swing his finest. Billie Holiday (Lester's good friend) begins to record with various small bands (usually lead by Teddy Wilson and usually containing Lester Young). These recordings which will be done over the next six years until the recording ban of 1942 will be the work on which her reputation rests. She has already discovered the two secrets which will make her the greatest Jazz singer of all with Did I Remember?, No Regrets and Billies Blues. They are 1) lift the melody away from the beat like Armstrong and 2) employ great balance. Django Reinhardt and the Hot Quintet make a recording of I Can't Give You Anything but Love. Django is playing better than ever. His showers of 16th notes presage Charlie Christian and Charlie Parker. Over the next four years, he will record the songs that make up the heart of his work. Charlie Parker buys a new saxophone after being awarded some money in an auto accident. Important Free Jazz
saxophonist Albert Ayler is born. Important Free Jazz
trumpeter Don Cherry is born.
Armstrong records such popular songs as Hoagy Carmichael's Jubilee, a remake of his own Struttin' with some Barbecue and I Double Dare You. See Classics CD Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra 1938-1939. Charlie Parker acquires a mentor. He is Henry "Buster" or "Professor" Smith, a Kansas City alto saxophonist and band leader formerly with Basie. Parker joins Smith's band. Charlie Parker is being heavily influenced by tenor saxophonist Lester Young and piano virtuoso Art Tatum. Charlie goes to Chicago and then New York. He picks up odd jobs to support his playing. One of these jobs is as a dishwasher in a club where Art Tatum is playing. Tatum plays fast with numerous chord changes. This style would be Charlie's also. Duke Ellington
meets Billy Strayhorn. Strayhorn shows him Lush Life. Ellington is duly impressed. Billie Holiday is currently with the Artie Shaw band. Basie had let her go because of her work habits. Barney Josephson books Billy to work the Cafe' Society. The Cafe' Society was one of the first clubs to accept black customers. Lester Young records a number of very influential sides for Commodore with the Kansas City Six. Young plays mostly clarinet here and produces excellent solos on Pagin' the Devil, I Want a Little Girl and Way Down Yonder in New Orleans. The Basie band is booked at The Famous Door in New York City. This event will finally give the band the publicity that it needs to succeed. John Hammond is instrumental. Trumpet virtuoso Roy Eldridge begins to work primarily in the small band format. He has developed excellent control of his ideas by now. Saxophonist Louis Jordan leaves Chick Webb's sax section to form his Tympani Five. This might well mark the beginnings of what we know as Rock and Roll. The Artie Shaw Band has its first big hit with Begin the Beguine. A lot of Shaw's fans claimed that he should have been the "King of Swing" instead of Goodman because he had numerous big hits and Goodman had only one or two. Saxophonist Benny Carter returns to the U.S. He organizes a Swing band which will enjoy modest success. King Oliver dies on April 8. Sidney Bechet is currently working as a tailor. Check out Sidney Bechet 1932-1943: The Bluebird Sessions on Bluebird CD. Sidney Bechet records a version of Summertime that many people call the definitive version of Summertime. John Hammond brings Blues shouter Big Joe Turner to New York City for a Carnegie Hall concert. Hammond's famous "From Spirituals to Swing" concert occurs at Carnegie Hall. Benny Goodman does a concert at Carnegie Hall. The famous long version of Sing, Sing, Sing is introduced at this concert. Boogie Woogie piano players Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis become the main Boogie piano players after their trio performance at the the "From Spirituals to Swing" concert. Django Reinhardt records Billets Doux, Swing from Paris, Them There Eyes and Three Little Words. Hugues Panassie' comes to New York City and organizes a recording session with J. P. Johnson on piano, Tommy Ladnier, Teddy Bunn on guitar, Bechet and others. Jump bands begin to form. These are small, Swing oriented bands featuring off color lyrics and commercial arrangements. Louis Jordan has the most famous Jump band. These bands will evolve into Rock and Roll bands, possibly in response to the later Bop revolution. Vocalist Slim Gaillard and bassist Slam Stewart (affectionately known as "Slim and Slam") become almost instantly famous with the catchy Flat Foot Floogie. Robert Johnson makes his landmark recordings for Vocalion. Many believe that these represent the transition from Country Blues to City Blues. Johnson is strictly following the twelve bar Blues form. Johnson is murdered shortly thereafter when he is given poisoned whiskey in a Mississippi bar by the jealous boyfriend of a woman he had been flirting with. Future piano player Cecil Taylor is taking piano lessons from the wife of a timpani player who played with Toscanini. She lived across the street. Taylor will become big in the Free Jazz movement. Sister Rosetta Tharpe becomes the first Gospel singer to sing at a night club when she performs at the Cotton Club. Trumpet virtuoso Lee Morgan is born on July 10 in Philadelphia, Pa.
War breaks out in Europe. At this point in time, we have the Swing players who are king and the Dixieland players who are trying to revive what they think of as "real" Jazz but ... what's this up on the horizon? It's Charlie Christian, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie who are sowing the seeds of what will take Jazz over in the next few years! By now, there are hundreds of Swing bands, but the Bop rebellion is beginning because many excellent young black players are getting irritated that the whites are making most of the money in Jazz. 52nd Street is by now called "Swing Street". It all started with The Onyx. Now, in the block between 5th and 6th Avenues, six Jazz clubs offer a high level of Jazz. Four of these are The Famous Door, Jimmy Ryan's, The Onyx and The Three Dueces. Because of space limitations, the small house band with one major soloist like Coleman Hawkins is the thing at these clubs. Clubs also flourish in Greenwich Village, Harlem and in Chicago's south side, but 52nd Street is the symbolic headquarters of Jazz. The first formal books on Jazz appear. They are Wilder Hobson's American Jazz Music and Frederick Ramsey and Charles Edward Smith's Jazzmen. These books tend to paint a storybook picture of New Orleans Jazz and help to promote the Dixieland Revival. It must be remembered that New Orleans Jazz and Dixieland Jazz have some fundamental differences. Frederick Ramsey and William Russell locate and revive interest in the sixty year old New Orleans trumpeter Bunk Johnson. Bunk is as close as you could come to getting the legendary Buddy Bolden. Alan Lomax does the famous Jelly Roll Morton recordings for the Library of Congress. This presents as close as we can get to a realistic view of the early days of Jazz. Fletcher "Smack" Henderson becomes the first black musician who is a regular member of a white big band when he becomes Goodman's pianist. Fletcher is not, however, a featured artist in the band. The Dixieland revival has two schools 1) Those committed to Armstrong, Oliver and Morton and 2) Those committed to Bix and the midwesterners. Dixieland is not really New Orleans music. It has a 4 beat ground beat instead of a 2 beat ground beat to give it a speedier feel. There are other differences. Dixieland is primarily a white movement. Armstrong is going ever more commercial. Louie plays Bottom in a parody of William Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream called Swingin' the Dream. Charlie Parker is in New York City working at Clarke Monroe's Uptown. He'll be at Monroe's for about a year. One night during this year, Charlie realizes that by using the high notes of the chords of a song, he can "play what's inside of him". The rest is the history of Bop. Charlie returns to Kansas City to play in Jay McShann's band. It will be awhile before everyone realizes that he is a genius. Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie is currently with Cab Calloway's band which also included Coleman Hawkins style tenor sax man Chu Berry. Dizzy was occasionally doing some things musically which others found strange. He would slip briefly into a chord containing notes 1/2 step away from normal. This practice will become standard Bop. The Ellington band begins a four year period of very high attainment. Many consider this period the best of Ellington. The Duke severs ties with Irving Mills and he leaves the Columbia label to record for RCA-Victor. Pittsburgh pianist and composer Billy Strayhorn joins the Duke Ellington
Orchestra. Teddy Wilson leaves the Benny Goodman small groups and Jess Stacy leaves the Benny Goodman big band. At this point the Earl Hines influenced Wilson is the most influential pianist in Jazz. Jess Stacy is also of the Hines school. Ben Webster joins Duke on tenor sax after a short stint as a charter member of the short lived Teddy Wilson band. Jimmy Blanton joins Duke on bass. Coleman Hawkins returns to the U.S. to reclaim his title. The story goes that at three o'clock one morning, Coleman enters a club where Lester Young is playing behind Billie Holiday and a battle for tenor sax supremacy ensues. Holiday says that Lester is the clear winner, but Ellington trumpeter Rex Stewart says that Hawkins blew Young away. At any rate, Hawkins remains more popular in the short run, although Lester becomes a major force as an influence on the fledgling Bop movement. Coleman Hawkins does a version of Body and Soul which many feel is among the finest masterpieces of Jazz. It is virtually an exercise in chromatic chord movement. This is a precursor to Bop harmonics. Coleman understands harmonics very well and he will have no problem with Bop harmonics. The Bop rhythm will however elude him. Earl "Bud" Powell quits high school at age fifteen and begins gigging around New York City as a professional pianist. Bud was influenced early by Hines, Teddy Wilson and Billy Kyle. He will later be influenced by Art Tatum. Mary Lou Williams tells John Hammond of a bright young guitarist from Texas named Charlie Christian. Hammond tells Goodman. Goodman is not at first impressed, but some of the band members are. They arrange for Charlie to play while Benny is off on break. Benny comes back and this time likes what he hears so much that he lets Charlie play a version of Rose Room that lasts close to an hour. Charlie Christian's unique electric guitar phrasings allow the guitar to compete as a lead instrument head to head with the trumpet and the sax for the first time. Charlie probably learned of the electric from Floyd Smith whose Floyd's Guitar Blues made with Andy Kirk's Clouds of Joy is the first important use of the electric guitar. The electric guitar was almost unknown before this. Woody Herman is leading a conventional swing orchestra and hits big with "Woodchopper's Ball." He is known by band members as a great organizer, musical coach and spirited performer. Django records Montemarte, Solid Old Man, Low Cotton and Finesse with the Duke Ellington band. Young drummer Art Blakey is playing in a band of Pittsburghers which is formed by Fletcher Henderson. Art will eventually become a first rate Hard Bop drummer and bandleader. Nat "King" Cole arrives at the idea of a trio consisting of piano, guitar and bass in which all players share a prominent role. Believe it or not, this was a very important innovation of the time and it made Nat's early carreer. He'll soon give up the piano and become the popular singer who we all know. Oscar Peterson is playing piano at a radio station in Canada at age fourteen. Saxophonist Bud Freeman remakes a number of Bix Beiderbecke and the Wolverines tunes. Mugsy Spanier, an Oliver style trumpeter, forms a Dixieland band called Spanier's Ragtimers. Ragtimer records appear in the U.S. and travel to Europe. Record companies begin to reissue the old music. Trumpeter Tommy Ladnier dies in New York at the young age of 39. John Coltrane's father and grandfather die. Pianist Albert Ammons records "Shout for Joy". Founding of Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) helps the wider exposure of independent labels and race and hillbilly music.
jazz history time line 1940 -1950
Charlie Parker goes on the road with Jay McShann to Wichita, Kansas. He is recorded by the local radio. His sound is thin and light and he is still basically a Swing player. On the other hand, the jagged phrasing, fast triplets and sixteenth are there. Charlie Christian is edging into something new both rhythmically and harmonically. He is presaging Bop. Parker usually gets most of the credit and Gillespie the rest. The Christian solo on a recording of Stardust also is showing influence of Django. Dizzy deliberately uses major thirds over minor changes in the song Pickin' the Cabbage recorded in May. In June, he uses a diminished 9th on Bye, Bye Blues. These things are new. Kenny Clarke is fired from the Teddy Hill band for his "odd" drumming. Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Christian are occasionally beginning or ending phrases on 2nd and 4th beats. This is called "offbeat". The usual practice is to use the 1st or 3rd. Henry Minton asks Teddy Hill to take over the management of his place on 118th Street. Strangely enough, Hill asks the recently fired Kenny Clarke to organize and front the band. The band is Clarke on drums, Thelonious Monk on piano, Nick Fenton bass and Joe Guy on trumpet. Dizzy Gillespie begins showing up regularly. The music is mainstream except for Clarke's "odd" drumming and Monk's unusual piano playing. Bud Powell begins showing up at Minton's. He is not readily accepted, but Monk realizes that he has potential and supports him. Ironically, Bud will become a much more sought after Bop pianist than Monk. The genius Monk nevertheless will write the 1947 song In Walked Bud in his honor. See Blue Note CD Genius of Modern Music - Vol 1, a compilation of Monk's music. Powell's influence is not Monk, but Charlie Parker. Swing is at its peak, but the seeds of Bebop have been sown and the Dixielanders are digging up the old music. Swing is doomed to fall. Big band Swing is about to be done in by the war and economics. Small band Jazz is evolving along two distinct and opposing movements. The first is the New Orleans Revival or Dixieland. This produced little that was new musically. It was a white movement to revive and exploit the black New Orleans music of the 1920's. Some notable legends resurface including Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet, Kid Ory and Bunk Johnson. Some memorable records result. The other movement is distinctly new musically and sociologically. This movement is called Bebop, Rebop or simply Bop. In addition, the small band Swing is still there and a new big band trend is afoot. This trend is called Progressive. Its proponents are Stan Kenton, Boyd Raeburn and Earle Spencer. This will eventually influence what will become Cool Jazz. Claude Thornhill organizes a Swing band that, while not successful, presages Cool Jazz. Trumpeter Oran "Hot Lips" Page becomes the first black musician who is a regular member and a featured artist in a white big band when he is hired by Artie Shaw. Meanwhile, the most successful of the early Cuban bands is formed by a man named Machito. They are called Machito and his Afro-Cubans. They start as a completely Cuban band and slowly assimilate Jazz into their repertoire. They introduce more complex rhythms to the world of Jazz, however, they are primarily successful due to their trumpet player/arranger Mario Banza (Machito's brother-in-law and former Cab Calloway trumpet player). Saxophones have all but taken over, but trumpeters such as Frankie Newton with the Teddy Hill band, Oran "Hot Lips" Page with Basie, Bill Coleman with Benny Carter and Teddy Hill and Charlie Shavers with Tommy Dorsey begin to strike back. Joe Thomas is excellent but will soon be forgotten. There is a Trad Jazz revival in Europe. The Europeans discover Joe Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton. All of Europe except England is under Hitler's control and thus Europe will remain in the Dixieland revival and Trad Jazz phase. Ben Webster has broken free of the Coleman Hawkins imitator image and has developed a style of his own. After the Teddy Wilson band breaks up, he is hired by Ellington. He benefits and he brings a strong tenor influence to Ellington for the first time. Ellington records Cottontail, a good swinger. It is actually a rearrangement of George Gerschwin's I've Got Rhythm. The feature player is tenor saxophonist Ben Webster who had recently come to the Ellington band. Cottontail anticipates Parker-style Bop. Ellington records Ko-Ko which contains elements of modality, Jack the Bear, Morning Glory, Across the Track Blues and others. According to Bluebird records and others, Ellington is beginning a peak era in his band's career. See the three CD set Duke Ellington - The Blanton-Webster Years on, you guessed it, Bluebird. Trumpeter Cootie Williams leaves Duke Ellington and joins Benny Goodman's band. Duke Ellington replaces him with Ray Nance who plays trumpet, violin and sings. Coleman Hawkins faces the challenge of Bop and encourages the young players. Lester Young records with the Benny Goodman Sextet. These recordings for some reason are not released until the 1970's. The band includes Goodman on clarinet, Artie Bernstein on bass, Charlie Christian on electric guitar, Lester on tenor sax, Buck Clayton on trumpet , Jo Jones on drums and Count Basie on piano -- that's seven? Young is the dominant force and stands out on I Never Knew. Trumpeter Roy Eldridge can now be heard at his best on I Can't Believe that You're in Love with Me with Coleman Hawkins on tenor, Benny Carter on alto and Sid Catlett on drums. Trumpeter Bunny Berigan returns to the Dorsey Band after his own attempts at leading fail. He will later attempt to lead another band and then die of pneumonia is 1942. The Yerba-Beuna Jazz Band featuring Lu Watters begins to play at the Dawn Club in San Francisco. It played the music of Oliver and Armstrong. Sister Rosetta Tharpe is the leading gospel singer and is popular in Jazz as well. Swedish trumpeter Gosta Turner is playing Dixieland. Herbie Hancock is born in Chicago on April 12. Al Jarreau is born. Smokey Robinson is born.
Bop begins in New York City. At first, Bop is only a few new ideas. The Minton guys (see 1940) hear of an obscure alto sax player named Charlie Parker who is now playing at Clark Monroe's Uptown House. They go to hear Charlie. He's doing similar things to the things that they are doing but he's way ahead. Kenny Clarke and Thelonious Monk arrange for Parker to sit in at Minton's. The stage is set. Charlie Parker is still with Jay McShann. Charlie makes his first recordings for Decca. His style is by now discernable. His playing is confident and strong. Charlie meets Dizzy Gillespie when Diz sits in with McShann at the Savoy Ballroom. The Boppers hit 52nd Street. Parker begins to sit in at Minton's (the breeding ground of Bop). Dizzy Gillespie is well schooled in music. This is particularly important in building a theory to support Bop. In May, Dizzy is playing primarily in the Roy Eldridge mold, but he is slipping into the Bop-like stuff that he'd been fooling around with for two years. Bud Powell meets the creators of Bop at Minton's (an event later immortalized in the Monk song In Walked Bud). He will become Bop's premiere pianist. Others at Minton's include Monk on piano, Kenny Clarke on drums and Dizzy on trumpet. Monk will become a high priest of Bop. Parker and Dizzy are given credit for founding it. Clarke developed the rhythm on which it sits. The guys at Minton's after hours sessions were playing something close to Bop at this time, but no one could imitate it because it hadn't been recorded yet. The recording ban (starting in 1942) will make the development of the new Bop something of a romantic mystery even to this day. A quote from Tony Scott: "When Bird and Diz hit the street [52nd Street] regularly, everybody was astounded and nobody could get near their way of playing music. Finally, Bird and Diz made records, and then the guys could imitate it and go from there." Art Blakey stated years later that Monk was the guy who started it all, not Parker or Gillespie. On a few recordings made by Jerry Newman at Minton's, Monk seems to be Tatum influenced at this point. His style will become much sparer. Kenny Clarke's new Bebop style of drumming (see 1937) is finally documented on a May recording at Minton's. Bop players are substituting different but related chords for normal, mainstream "Swing" chords. Rhythm changes in Bop are bigger than the harmonic changes however. They are using faster tempos for fast songs and slower tempos for slow songs. The beats are divided more evenly for fast songs and fast tempos than Swing. Bop players are deliberately playing "off-beat". Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson joins the Cootie Williams orchestra. Roy Eldridge becomes the first black performer to be accepted as a permanent member of a white big band when he joins drummer Gene Krupa's big band. John Coltrane's mother moves to Philadelphia. Coltrane receives a clarinet as a gift and he joins community and school bands in High Point, North Carolina. Later in high school, after hearing Johnny Hodges, Coltrane decides to play the alto saxophone. Lester Young is among his favorite musicians. The Ellington Band continues on what critics say is its best period. Duke records such favorites as I Got it Bad and That Ain't Good, Take the A-Train, The Brown Skin Gal, Chelsea Bridge, etc. See Bluebird CD Duke Ellington - The Blanton-Webster Years. Duke records as a soloist for the first time. Vibes man Lionel Hampton leaves Benny Goodman to form his own big band. Cab Calloway is hit by a spitball during a concert in Hartford, Connecticut. Although trumpeter Jonah Jones probably threw it, Calloway blamed Dizzy Gillespie. A fight ensued and Calloway was nicked by a knife. Dizzy was fired. Check out Joe Thomas's trumpet masterpiece Stompin' at the Savoy with Art Tatum, Joe Turner and Edmond Hall. Future piano innovator Bill Evans is asked to sit in for a missing pianist in his brother's Jazz group. Stan Kenton forms his first band. Gil Evans joins the Claude Thornhill band. The band moves in the direction of Bop. Bassist and future composer Charlie Mingus gets a job with Louis Armstrong's big band. Billie Holiday begins an affair with drug addict Jimmy Monroe and becomes addicted to drugs herself. Charlie Christian collapses from tuberculosis, which he had for a few years. He is sent to Seaview Sanitarium on Staten Island. Swing is both peaking and on its way out. It will become defunct because the younger musicians will be drawn to Bop. But, currently, bands such as Benny Goodman Band, Glenn Miller Band, Tommy Dorsey Band, etc. are as highly regarded as the Beatles will become in the 60's. Mel Powell, a Hines-like piano player, joins the thriving Goodman Band. Tenor saxophone player Chu Berry is killed in a automobile accident. Jelly Roll Morton dies on July 10 in Los Angeles. Dixieland trumpeter Wild Bill Davison moves to New York where he becomes a regular at Nick's and Condon's. Otis Redding is born in Georgia. Saxophonist Lester Young turns Jack Kerouac, the founding father of the "beat generation", on to his first marijuana cigarette
The recording ban limits recording of the fledgling Bop movement. The result is that Bop origins remain mysterious to this day. The ban had resulted from a strike by the Federation of American Musicians which began in August. It is becoming very clear to musicians that Bop is indeed a new music. A number of Jazz musicians are now playing Bop. Armstrong marries a Cotton Club dancer
named Lucille Wilson. They will remain married until Louie's death. Charlie Parker is now jamming regularly at Minton's and playing the Savoy Ballroom with the Jay McShann band. An example of Parker's work at this time is Sepian Blues recorded with McShann. It is Blues inflected Swing. Parker was a Blues player. An amateur recording of Parker playing Cherokee at Minton's is made by Jerry Newman. This is music in transition. Parker quits McShann in July and joins Noble Sissle's Band where he plays clarinet and alto sax. Parker is acquiring a very bad drug habit and bad personal habits in general. The Earl Hines big band seems to be a breeding ground for Bop. Many of the Bop players are currently with Hines. The list includes Parker, Gillespie, trombonist Benny Green, drummer Shadow Wilson and others. The band's vocalist is Billy Eckstine. Both Hines and Eckstine are from Pittsburgh, Pa. Ellington wins Downbeat Poll. Some records from this year are C-Jam Blues, Moon Mist, Sentimental Lady and Perdido. See the Blanton-Webster collection which was mentioned earlier. Lionel Hampton has a huge hit with Illinois Jacquet's sax playing on Flying Home. Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie are both playing in Lucky Millinder's band. Dizzy Gillespie writes two of his all-time classic compositions, A Night in Tunisia and Salt Peanuts. Charlie Christian dies from tuberculosis in February. He had been improving but his friends began to bring liquor and women into the sanitarium . It proved to be too much. He was only 22. Bandleader Woody Herman commissions trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie to write some compositions which lead to a newer, more progressive sound for his band. Trumpet player Miles Davis (sixteen years old) is playing with a local East Saint Louis band called the Blue Devils (not the Walter Page group). New Orleans legend Bunk Johnson is fitted with dentures and begins to play trumpet again. Future Free Jazz pianist, Cecil Taylor (only 9) is already interested in Jazz, especially Swing. Belgian Robert Goffin and Englishman Leonard Feather act on Goffin's idea to have a formal class on Jazz history and analysis. The class consists of fifteen lectures by Feather and Goffin which are augmented by recordings and musical demonstrations by such artists as Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman. The class which attracted almost one hundred serious Jazz students was given at the New School for Social Research in New York. It was repeated later in the year. Bunny Berigan dies of alcoholism related pneumonia. Berigan was a fine trumpeter, second only to Armstrong in the warmth and sincerity of his tone. Pittsburgh pianist Erroll Garner comes to New York and finds steady work on 52nd Street. One of the first European Trad bands is founded by French student Claude Abadie. Aretha Franklin is born in Memphis.
Capital and Decca sign with the musician's union. Bop is becoming well known among young Jazz players. Charlie Parker is now in the Earl Hines band playing tenor sax. Dizzy is playing trumpet for the Hines band at the same time. John Coltrane graduates high school and moves to Philadelphia. In the fall, Coltrane attends the Ornstein School of Music to study alto sax. Charlie Parker marries Geraldine Scott. Ellington initiates a series of annual concerts at Carnegie Hall with Black, Brown and Beige, an extended concert of nearly 50 minutes. Ben Webster leaves Ellington to work on 52nd Street in NYC. Ben hears an obscure alto sax player named Charlie Parker and is duly impressed. In December, Lester Young records a number of very influential sides for Keynote as the Lester Young Quartet. Young is showing signs of change in his playing. His tone is getting thicker and his lines are not nearly as sculptured. Afternoon of a Basie-ite is particularly good. Gillespie leaves Hines and joins Ellington briefly. Later, Diz takes a group consisting of Gillespie on trumpet, Oscar Pettiford on bass, George Wallington on piano, Max Roach on drums and Don Byas on tenor into the Onyx on 52nd Street. This is a Bop band. They play the Onyx thru the winter of 1943-44. This is the public's first real exposure to Bop. Bop pianist Bud Powell gets first major job with ex-Ellington trumpeter Cootie Williams. Records made by this band shows Bop style very clearly. Bop trumpeter Fats Navarro is currently playing with Andy Kirk's Clouds of Joy. Art Tatum forms a trio with Slam Stewart on bass and Tiny Grimes or Everett Barksdale on guitar. Audiences are attracted. Fats Waller dies on a train while returning from a tour. Mingus leaves Armstrong to work in Kid Ory's revival band. Pianist Lenny Tristano is currently teaching at the Christiansen School of Popular Music and playing piano and reeds professionally in Chicago. Stan Kenton has a hit with Artistry in Rhythm which is based on Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe. A trend to more complex arrangements begins. Robert Goffin convinces Esquire editor Arnold Gingrich that a "real" Jazz poll, one in which Coleman Hawkins could win for tenor sax instead of Tex Beneke, is needed. Thus is born the Esquire Jazz Band Poll. At Esquire publisher David Smart's suggestion, a concert performed by the winners will be given at the Metropolitan Opera House on January 18, 1944. Louis Armstrong wins the first Esquire Jazz Band Poll for trumpet. Other winners include Coleman Hawkins for tenor sax and Billie Holiday for vocals. Pianist Andrew Hill, at age 6, is currently singing and playing accordian in talent shows around chicago. Jamaican born pianist Wynton Kelly makes his professional debut at around twelve years of age. Pianist Graeme Bell starts a Trad band in Australia. Red Norvo switches to vibraphone. Bluesman John Lee Hooker arrives in Detroit
It still seems clear at this point that Swing will rule, but. Bop hits with full force. The musicians union strike ended at the end of 1944 and a lot of Bop gets recorded in 1945. Bop has broken into the open. It seems to have sprung up fully formed. This is not really the case. It just seems that way because of the musician's strike. Bop players begin to dress like business men instead of popular performers. Cool becomes the word, not hot. Things become hip, not hep. Performers cooly bow at the end of a tune. They don't mug. They become aloof. The Bop players have changed the music considerably. It is almost as if they have taken the New Orleans and Swing forms apart and reformed them in a manner similar to what Picasso did when he arrived at the idea of Cubism. The clarinet has nearly disappeared from Jazz at this point courtesy of the saxophone. By now, the sax is king even forcing trumpeters to take notice. Jazz is becoming the preferred music of white renegades (will be until the mid 60's). Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie become known as partners and the co-founders of Bebop. Diz and Bird and Bird and Miles Davis record a number of tunes in Feb, May and Nov which establish Bebop. These tunes which are the most influential sides since the Hot Fives and Sevens include Groovin' High, Salt Peanuts, Hot House, Koko, Billie's Bounce and Now's the Time. These and other tunes which mark the beginning of recorded Bebop can be found on several Savoy Jazz CD's including The Charlie Parker Story and The Genius of Charlie Parker as well the Stash CD The Legendary Dial Sessions: Vol 1. Diz and Bird go to California to work in a small combo at a club called Billy Berg's. They had been booked by Parker's manager Billy Shaw. Parker is now getting very heavily into drugs. Parker takes up with a hat check girl named Doris Sydnor while he is still married. Miles Davis graduates high school and moves to New York to become a musician. He enrolls in Julliard at his parents request. John Coltrane is drafted and plays clarinet with the Navy Band in Hawaii. Monk is too individualistic of a piano player to be pinned to one school. He is not really a Swing or a Bop player but he has elements of all styles. Monk is, ironically, not the Bopper's piano player of choice. His phrasing is unique and is considered to be perverse by many. The Bop piano players of choice are Bud Powell, Al Haig and George Wallington. Bud Powell has a mental breakdown at age 21 and is sent to Pilgrim State Hospital on Long Island. He'll be in and out of institutions for the next four years. Fats Navarro replaces Dizzy Gillespie in the Eckstine Band. Clifford Brown's father gives him a trumpet. Saxophonist Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis is leading the house band at Minton's Playhouse (until 1952). Pianist Wild Bill Davis is currently working for Louis Jordan. Soprano saxophone virtuoso Sidney Bechet continues to record. Check out The Sidney Bechet Sessions on Storyville CD. Armstrong wins Esquire Gold award for vocal but Swing is going out of style with the musicians. The Woody Herman big band is incorporating Bop in tunes such as Caldonia and Apple Honey. Duke Ellington wins the Esquire Gold award for arranger and bandleader as well as the Metronome poll. Oscar Pettiford joins Duke on bass. Roy Eldridge is in his mid-thirties, at the height of his magnificent trumpet playing powers, and he is becoming passe'. Musicians such as Roy are unfortunately being pushed out by the Boppers and their music. Art Tatum is thrown into obscurity by the emergence of Bop (a music that he probably influenced substantially). Lenny Tristano is currently one of the most thoroughly schooled musicians in Jazz. Benny Carter moves to Hollywood and begins to write movie and TV scores. The teenaged Art Farmer and his twin brother Addison spend their summer in Los Angeles just as Bop is breaking out. The term "Moldy Fig" (sometimes "Mouldy Figge") appears for the first time in reference to the old school Jazz players in the Esquire letters column in a letter from a Navy man named Sam Platt. Eddie Condon opens his Dixieland oriented Jazz club called Eddie Condon's in the Greenwich Village section of New York City.
Charlie Parker breaks down completely on July 29 after a recording session. He is admitted to Camarillo State Hospital. He will later write Relaxin' at Camarillo. Parker does his first Dial recordings. These are some of the landmark recordings of Jazz. They are available on the Stash CD series The Legendary Dial Masters - Vol 1 and Vol 2. During 1946 Parker will also start with Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic. His sidemen include Miles Davis on trumpet, Red Rodney on trumpet, Kenny Dorham on trumpet, Duke Jordan on piano, Al Haig on piano, Tommy Potter on bass, Max Roach on drums, Roy Haynes on drums, Lester Young on tenor sax and Coleman Hawkins on tenor sax. Dizzy Gillespie forms a big band, against all odds, at a time when most big bands are going broke. Bud Powell is recognized as Bop's premiere pianist. Thelonious Monk is now playing in Dizzy Gillespie's big band. Later this year, Monk signs a contract as a leader with Blue Note. Monk will work as a small band leader from now until 1959. Saxophonist Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis forms the group Eddie Davis and His Beboppers. Armstrong wins the Esquire Gold award for Vocalist. Armstrong stops recording for Decca and begins his second go-around with Victor. The first vinyl record is produced. After his discharge from the Navy, Coltrane returns to Philadelphia and works in rhythm and blues bands led by King Kolax, Big Maybelle, and Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson. Vinson insists that Coltrane switch to tenor sax to give him more room on the alto. At first Coltrane is reluctant, but the new instrument grows on him. His early models on the tenor saxophone include Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins. Coltrane will continue to work with Vinson on and off for the next two years. Charles Mingus is now with Lionel Hampton's band. The Ellington biography Duke Ellington is written by Barry Ulanov. Ellington wins Esquire Gold award and the Downbeat poll. Russell Procope joins Duke on clarinet and alto sax. In December, eight of the biggest Swing bands break up. The list includes Benny Goodman, Harry James, Tommy Dorsey, Jack Teagarden, Benny Carter and 3 more. The Swing era is truly over. Big band Jazz will not die out entirely though. Django Reinhardt sleeps through a Carnegie Hall concert with Duke Ellington. Lenny Tristano (Mr. Cool on the piano) arrives in NYC and takes Jazz into more coolness and complexity. His primary source of income is teaching. He quickly develops a reputation as a crazy genius among musicians. He has a lot of new musical ideas. He is consciously trying to weld Jazz and Classical. The seeds of Cool are being planted by Kenton and Herman. Stan Kenton has the leading Swing band. Woody Herman's is a close second. These bands are both embracing the Cool. Woody Herman presents Igor Stravinsky's Ebony Concerto at Carnegie Hall. A very cool and Canadian Gil Evans arrives on 52nd street. Claude Thornhill reforms his band. His principal arranger is the "soon to be Cool" Gil Evans. Nat "King" Cole records the classic Christmas song The Christmas Song. This will later be covered by Johnny Mathis. A lot of people don't even know that Nat recorded this first. Ray Charles begins his professional carreer. English piano player George Shearing visits the U.S. Future Fusion drummer Tony Williams is born in Chicago. Tony will be raised in Boston.
Birdland (named after Charlie Parker) opens in New York City. Notable 1947 Savoy recordings by Charlie Parker can be found on The Charlie Parker Memorial - Vol 2, The Genius of Charlie Parker and Bird at the Roost - Vol 1. Max Roach and Miles Davis get fed up with Charlie Parker and quit. Charlie Parker begins recording for Clef/Verve. This will continue until his death in 1955. Dizzy Gillespie brings his big Bop band to Europe. The impact is great. The LP is introduced by Columbia. This is significant because it will make it possible to make longer, more spontaneous recordings. Swing has been all but pushed out by Bop in the U.S. and by Trad in Europe. Most young players in the U.S. are in the Bop camp. Clifford Brown is playing in Philadelphia with the likes of Kenny Dorham, Max Roach, J.J. Johnson and Fats Navarro who offered much encouragement. Humphrey Lyttleton forms his own Trad band in England. Elements of the coming Cool style are popping up in Woody Herman's recording of Early Autumn. Stan Kenton borrows Machito's Cuban drummer for a memorable recording of The Peanut Vendor. It is a big hit for Stan. Kenton and Herman are very influential. Gil Evans, John Lewis, Gerry Mulligan and John Carisi begin informal meetings to exchange ideas. Miles Davis will be brought in as trumpeter. See the Birth of the Cool CD. The Miles Davis nonet performs at the Royal Roost on Broadway. Ornette Coleman graduates high school and goes on the road with a traveling variety show. Ornette gets fired in Natchez for trying to interest other players in Jazz. Bassist Charles Mingus quits the Lionel Hampton band. Pianist Hank Jones becomes Ella Fitzgerald's accompanist. Armstrong forms the first version of the Jazz All Stars with Jack Teagarden on trombone, Barney Bigard on clarinet, Dick Carey on piano, Sid Catlett on drums and Arvell Shaw on bass. Their music fits in with New Orleans revival. Louis Armstrong performs at the Jazz festival in Nice, France. Duke Ellington tours England and France. Although his band is on the decline, he wins the Downbeat poll again. Ben Webster rejoins the Ellington band. At the age of 3, Keith Jarrett begins to play the piano
. Ray Charles integrates a Country and Western band called the Florida Playboys. Mitch Miller overdubs Patti Page singing her own harmony on Money, Marbles and Chalk. This might be the first use of this technique. John Lee Hooker records "Boogie Chillen." This will become his first big hit.
The battle lines form. In the U.S. Bop, Swing, Trad, Cool and Dixieland are being played. Bop is king here. In Europe, two schools emerge. They are Bop and Trad with the decided advantage going to Trad. Cool Jazz begins in a series of recordings made by Miles Davis, et al. Many people attach more importance to the "et al" than to Davis. Nevertheless, a nucleus of people from the Claude Thornhill band including Lee Konitz, Bill Barber, Gerry Mulligan, Joe Shulman and Gil Evans apparently arrived at the ideas which led to Cool and then called Davis in as a trumpeter and maybe more importantly, a known name. Songs include Denzil Best's Move, Mulligan's Jeru and Rocker as well as Israel and Boplicity. See the Capitol Jazz CD Miles Davis - Birth of the Cool. Latin influences become more important in Jazz. Jerry Wexler, future partner of Ahmet Ertegun of Atlantic Records, persuades his current employer, Billboard, to change the term "Race Records" to "Rhythm and Blues." The term has been replaced occasionally by terms such as "Soul Music", but is currently in vogue again. The 45 RPM record is introduced by Victor. The first vinyl LP is made. Charlie Parker takes his first trip overseas. He takes part in the Paris Jazz festival. The new Parker quintet features Parker on alto sax, Al Haig on piano and Red Rodney on trumpet. Listen to the CD's Bird at the Roost - Vol 2 and Vol 4 on Savoy/Vogue. John Coltrane first appears on record as a member of Dizzy Gillespie's big band, playing alto saxophone. He will stay with Gillespie until 1951, later doubling on tenor sax. During his tenure with Gillespie, Coltrane plays on George Russell's "Cubana-Be, Cubana-Bop," one of the first modal recordings and also a landmark Latin jazz composition. Ben Webster leaves Ellington again. He moves back to Kansas City to work in the Jay McShann band. In addition, he begins work at this time in pioneering Rhythm and Blues bands playing a new music which might easily be called Rock and Roll. He will eventually work with Johnny Otis and others. An interesting thing appears to be happening, it seems as if many Swing musicians displaced by Bop are working in small bands pioneering Rock and Roll which will eventually totally eclipse Jazz. Talk about irony. See the EmArcy CD The Complete Ben Webster on EmArcy for some examples. Bud Powell makes recording of Cherokee for Verve which clearly shows the Charlie Parker influences in his playing. Powell has seemingly recovered from his latest bout with depression. He is playing regularly and well, but he is also drinking a lot. During the next two years, he will cut his most important records for Blue Note. These Blue Note recordings will be recognized as masterpieces. J. J. Johnson is now the premiere trombone player in Jazz. Bill Evans is attending college at Southeastern Louisiana College. The college is about 100 miles north of New Orleans. Bill is playing piano regularly in a rural juke joint. Art Blakey returns from Africa. His name is now Abdullah Ibn Buhaina and his work becomes some of the most imaginative in Jazz. Lenny Tristano group records some unique sides that are closely listened to by Jazz musicians...even musicians that don't like the music. The tunes are Intuition and Digression. The players are Lee Konitz on alto sax, Warne Marsh on tenor sax, Billy Bauer on guitar, a drummer and a bassist. The drummer and bassist are not given much latitude. Tristano is interested in complicated systems of chord changes and he wants to create pure melodic lines with shifting meters or without meter. This music is close to Free Jazz and is 5 to 10 years early. At the end of the Tristano session above, in May 1949, Tristano tells engineers to leave the mike open. Each instrumentalist plays in a melodic system of his own choice. The Tristano group is playing Free Jazz about ten years before its time and musicians and record company execs are puzzled. The record is not issued for quite some time. Ornette Coleman gets a job with the Clarence Samuels Rhythm and Blues group. The band goes on tour and Ornette is beaten up in Baton Rouge, La. His sax is destroyed. The reason for the beating is either because the locals think that his music is bizarre or because they are tired of musicians stealing their girls.
Time Line Commentary: Trumpeter Jerry Gonzalez born in New York, NY. Clarence went the next day and bought Ornette a new saxophone. A few days later, Clarence brought Ornette to New Orleans where, according to Mr. Samuels, he got excited with the music on Bourbon Street and decided to stay in New Orleans. Am not sure, but imagine this is when Ornette met Ed Blackwell. When Clarence left town, Ornette stayed. How about that? All the best, Jerry Brock Clarence Samuels Coleman Hawkins is now out of the vanguard of Jazz. Hawkins was another displaced Swing idol. He was as capable as anyone of understanding Bop harmonics. Since he had been improvising on the chord structure longer than anyone at this point. However, like many Swing musicians, the Bop rhythms completely escaped him. Roy Eldridge is another displaced Swing giant. Django Reinhardt, another Swing giant, is bruised and battered. He also finds himself irrelevant due to Bop. The list goes on and on. New Orleans trumpeter Bunk Johnson dies. Clarinetist George Lewis emerges as a leader and tours Europe giving more impetus to the Trad movement. Two other important clarinet players come to Europe. They are Sidney Bechet and Mezz Mezzrow. Charles Delaunay and Hughes Panassie split. Delaunay takes the Bop side and the magazine. Panassie takes the New Orleans side and the Hot Club. Armstrong goes on European tour. Cuban bandleader Luis del Campo becomes enamored with Jazz and begins to hire Jazzmen. This is a switch. Usually, it was the Jazz bands which hired cuban musicians. The del Campo band had five rhythm men including three drummers, a piano and a bass. In February, Machito's drummers sit in with Will Bradley's Dixieland Jazzband and the incomparable Ella Fitzgerald. The result was astonishing and airshots of this session are collector's items. Norman Granz persuades Oscar Peterson to join the Jazz at the Philharmonic(JATP). The popular style pianist is an instant success. Albert Ammons dies. Blues man John Lee Hooker has his first million seller with Boogie Chillun. Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee by Stick McGhee becomes the first hit on the relatively new Atlantic Records. Not to be out done, RCA responded with the 45 RPM disc, thus began the battle of the 'speeds' and the death of the 78 RPM.
Bop is in command, Dixieland revival is in full bloom, Cool is up and coming and the Swing players are bewildered. Trad is as big in Europe as Bop is in the U.S. Drugs run rampant in Bop. The West Coast School (also called Cool and sometimes called Bopsieland) produces some big hits such as the Chet Baker/Gerry Mulligan rendition of My Funny Valentine. Colleges and Universities across the U.S. have Dixieland bands. The craze is big now. Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm group records a big hit called Rocket 88 which many believe is the first true Rock and Roll record. Rocket 88 was written and sung by Jackie Brenston. By this time, it is possible for a Jazz star to get rich without compromising. A competent Jazz musician can make a good living without compromise. Audiences are finally somewhat indifferent to a mixed black and white band. Barney Josephson (Owner of Cafe' Society) is forced out of business by the right-wing politics of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Charlie Parker becomes the first modern Jazz soloist to perform with strings and woodwinds in a symphony style group. Parker is well represented on the album Bird at the Roost - Vol 3. Fats Navarro is present on this one. While still married, Parker hooks up with a woman named Chan Richardson. Dizzy Gillespie is at his peak. Dizzy Gillespie reduces his working big band to a sextet. Coltrane stays on with the group, playing both alto and tenor saxophone. Tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins records with Fats Navarro and Bud Powell. Fats Navarro dies of drug-connected tuberculosis. He is only twenty-six. Bud Powell records some memorable Tatum specialties like Tea for Two, Yesterdays and April in Paris. Clifford Brown is almost killed in an automobile accident. Dizzy visits him in the hospital during his year long recovery and urges Clifford to move forward with his career as a trumpeter. Billie Holiday breaks off with John Levy, the third drug addict she has dated. The first was Jimmy Monroe, then Joe Guy and now John Levy. Levy proved to be perhaps the worst. Once, he framed her to save himself from a drug bust, but she returned for more abuse anyway. At this point, she has little to show for all her work. Her voice is going and so is her health. Art Tatum is back as a major Jazz figure. Pianist John Lewis is a thoroughly schooled musician after the army and the Manhattan School of Music. He is very prominent in the Cool movement. Stan Getz hires Horace Silver to play piano in his quartet. After the incident in New Orleans, Ornette Coleman joins the Pee Wee Crayton band. Pee Wee who is from Fort Worth takes the band, including Ornette Coleman, to L.A. When they get there, he fires Ornette. Ornette stays there. Pianist Cecil Taylor is gigging around New York City. Pianist Andrew Hill (age 6) learns his first blues changes for piano from Pat Patrick. Ellington band tours Europe. Paul Gonsalves joins the Duke on tenor sax. The Del Campo band is playing Jazz numbers with a rolling rhumba rhythm that attracts large dance audiences. Del Campo is inclined to turn the band loose and then dance with the ladies. He very dramatically dies on the dance floor while doing this very thing. The cause is a bad heart. New Orleans clarinetist Edmond Hall is currently playing Dixieland (not his favorite) at Eddie Condon's. George Shearing develops commercial success but becomes very commercial in the process. Singer Bobby McFerrin is born. Crazy Leo Watson dies in Los Angeles on May 2. Future mega Pop star Stevie Wonder is born as Stevie Morris in Detroit.
Jazz History Time Line: 1950 through 1960
45 rpm records are introduced to the public. Jazz is starting to be considered legitimate by colleges and universities. The first American Jazz festival occurs in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. in the autumn. This festival precedes the first Newport Jazz Festival by almost three years. Armstrong wins Record Changer All Time All Star Poll 1951. John Coltrane moves back to Philadelphia and enters the Granoff School of Music to study the saxophone and music theory with Dennis Sandole. By this time, John Coltrane is familiar with Nicholas Slominsky's "Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns". Coltrane's heroin use becomes a serious addiction. Gillespie fires him because of drug-related problems. Clifford Brown, the brilliant young trumpeter from Wilmington, Del., returns to music after a year recovering from an auto accident. Clifford gets much encouragement from Dizzy. Clifford has a good reputation among older Bopsters. Tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins joins the Miles Davis group. Rollins is a Coleman Hawkins influenced player. Because of this he is running counter to the current tide of Lester Young addicts. How ironic that ten years ago, Hawkins was the popular one. Pianist Cecil Taylor begins to study music at the New England Conservatory. He had previously attended the New York college of Music. Cecil begins to mingle with young Boston musicians such as Jackie Byard(p), Gigi Gryce(as), Charlie Mariano(s), Serge Chaloff(s), Joe Gordon(t). Cecil has interest in Bop, especially Bud Powell and Horace Silver. Ornette Coleman is working as a day laborer in L.A. He gets gigs when he can, but they are few. People think that he doesn't know how to play. He'll spend nine tough years this way. Musicians such as trumpeter Chet Baker and saxophonist Gerry Mulligan form the "Cool School" in California, of course. Sidney Bechet moves to Paris. Sidney becomes one of the first black American musicians to do this. Many more (Bud Powell, etc.) will follow due to less racial tension. Thelonious Monk records the classic of modern music Straight, No Chaser. Thelonious Monk is sentenced for drugs and is banned from playing the NYC clubs for six years. Narcotics which were probably not his were found in Monk's car. Monk will not inform. Although he could not play in clubs, he could record. Miles Davis is currently recording little because of heroin addiction. However, his interests are beginning to shift from the Cool to the harbingers of Hard Bop. Saxophone player Jackie McLean debuts on records with Miles Davis. Soul sax player Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis is currently recording with Bennie Green and Art Blakey. Bud Powell is back in a mental institution. Charlie Parker is still hopelessly addicted to drugs. Roy Eldridge makes the claim that he can tell the difference between a black player and a white player merely by listening. Leonard Feather gives Roy a blindfold test. Roy fails. Django Reinhardt makes a comeback at the Club St. Germain in Paris. Louis Bellson joins Duke Ellington on the drums. Sister Rosetta Tharpe marries for the third time. The wedding draws 25000 paying guests. Boogie Woogie piano player Jimmy Yancey dies in Chicago on September 17.
Not as much is happening in Jazz. Bop is getting old. Classically trained pianist John Lewis forms the Modern Jazz Quartet (MJQ) with vibraphonist Milt Jackson, bassist Percy Heath and drummer Kenny Clarke. Lewis insists that group members wear tuxedos to dignify Jazz. Thelonious Monk begins to make records for Prestige. Coltrane joins alto saxophonist Earl Bostic's R&B group. Cecil Taylor is drawn to Brubeck and Stravinsky. Free ideas are brewing. Lee Konitz is with Stan Kenton. Bop trombone player J. J. Johnson is working as a blueprint inspector (until 1954). Young Nebraskan trumpet player Chet Baker plays with Charlie Parker before joining Gerry Mulligan's pianoless quartet. Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker form the pianoless quartet. Django Reinhardt's health is failing. He's getting stiffness in his fingers. Armstrong takes yet another European tour. Disc jockey Alan Freed produces what could be called the first Rock and Roll concert. Ahmet Ertegun of Atlantic Records buys Ray Charles' contract for a mere $2500. Les Paul introduces his new invention, the solid body guitar, when Gibson begins marketing the classic guitar which bears Les' name. Les Paul uses a custom-made Ampex tape recorder and begins experimenting with over-dubbing and other innovative recording techniques.
Miles Davis has kicked the drug habit. He is currently putting together small groups. He records Walkin' with Horace Silver on piano, J.J. Johnson on trombone and Lucky Thompson on saxophone. This song signals the beginnings of Hard Bop or Funk. Miles gets a lot of credit here, but Horace Silver's contribution was probably greater. Miles records Sonny Rollins' Oleo with a group which includes Miles on trumpet, Sonny Rollins on tenor sax, Percy Heath on bass, Horace Silver on piano and Kenny Clarke on drums. Miles refuses to record Bag's Groove with Thelonious Monk accompanying because Monk's playing is "too disturbing". Sonny Rollins and Miles Davis record Airegin. Sonny Rollins takes a sabbatical from music to kick the heroin habit. Johnny Hodges fires Coltrane for drug-related problems. Coltrane returns to Philadelphia to work in R&B groups, including one led by seminal jazz organist Jimmy Smith. John Coltrane meets Juanita Grubbs, who goes by her Muslim first name, Naima. The couple will marry next year. John Coltrane is working for R&B singer Big Maybelle in Cleveland. During the performance, Big Maybelle says that Coltrane is her favorite musician. Horace Silver initiates the first version of the Jazz Messengers to record for Blue Note. Horace Silver is currently one of the most sought after pianists in Jazz. Pianist Bill Evans has become a master of composition and harmony. Cecil Taylor begins to abandon the standard Jazz piano approaches. He begins to use chords, not as building blocks, but as swatches of color like the French Impressionists. Clifford Brown wins the Downbeat critic's award for best new star on trumpet. Clifford becomes a sought after musician. Clifford Brown and drummer Max Roach form a quintet called the Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet. See CD's from this group on EmArcy. Clifford Brown records with Art Blakey at an early live concert at Birdland. Trombonists J. J. Johnson and Kai Winding form a quintet. Lee Konitz has his own band now. Saxophonist and composer Gigi Gryce and trumpeter Art Farmer co-lead a band at the Tijuana Club. The first Newport Jazz festival occurs in Newport, Rhode Island. Pianist George Wein is responsible for inviting the musicians. Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson leaves Cootie Williams and returns to Houston to become a music teacher and part-time musician. Tony Williams begins to play drums with his father at the age of 8. He will learn much from listening to Art Blakey and Max Roach. Pianist Art Tatum is now seriously ill. He stops drinking, but it is probably too late. Louis Armstrong goes on a Japanese tour. Louis Armstrong quits Decca and records Satch Plays W. C. Handy for Columbia. Gene Krupa and Cozy Cole co-found a school of percussion in New York. Swedish baritone saxophonist Lars Gullin becomes the first non-American to win in Downbeat's Critic's poll. Ray Charles does the successful I Got a Woman. Here, Ray took the tune and rhythm from a Spiritual song and substituted decidedly unspiritual words. Elvis Presley records the first of his seminal sessions at Sun Records. Kansas City Blues shouter Big Joe Turner records the very early Rock and Roll song Shake, Rattle and Roll. This song will be covered by the Philadelphia-area Country turned Rock and Roller Bill Haley. For awhile, Haley's version will be more popular. Bill Haley and the Comets record Rock Around the Clock. The U.S. Senate and the U.S. people, in general, stop taking Senator Joseph McCarthy seriously and a relatively liberal period begins. Shelly Manne, Shorty Rogers and Jimmy Giuffre form an unusual trio at a recording session and perform a couple of free pieces.
The Hard Bop style is emerging via people like drummer Art Blakey and piano player Horace Silver. Blue notes are disappearing from Jazz. They are being replaced by minor notes. For instance, the blue seventh becomes the minor seventh, etc. Cool Jazz hits its last peak as saxman Jimmy Giuffre eliminates drums and strong bass altogether giving an implicit beat rather than an explicit beat. Charlie Parker performs in public for the last time on March 4 at Birdland. Charlie Parker dies of a heart seizure, hemorrhage and general pathetic health on March 12 in NYC in the home of Baroness Nica de Koenigswarter. Most of the major Bebop figures are dead or ineffective (mostly because of heroin). Charlie Parker died in front of the TV. He was watching Tommy Dorsey and his band. Charlie's last words are a comment that Dorsey sounded great. During the finale of the Charlie Parker Memorial Concert, Monk selects a tune that only he and Dizzy Gillespie are familiar with and Gillespie can't remember it. In the confusion, quick thinking Red Allen does a fast switch to the Blues and saves the moment. Monk's Prestige contract is taken over by Riverside. Monk records some Ellington tunes and standards to stop the talk that he can only play his own compositions well. Monk's music is starting to be referred to as "zombie music". Even this late, Monk's playing is still often ridiculed. Miles Davis hires Coltrane to play tenor sax in his new Hard Bop quintet. Davis actually wants Sonny Rollins, but Rollins is busy kicking his drug habit and doesn't feel ready. The quintet also includes Paul Chambers (bass), Red Garland (piano) and Philly Jo Jones (drums). Art Blakey puts together the first of his Jazz Messenger groups featuring Kenny Dorham on trumpet, Hank Mobley on tenor sax, Doug Watkins on bass, Horace Silver on piano and Blakey on drums. The sound will continue to define Hard Bop. Bassist, composer and leader Charlie Mingus begins his period of greatest influence. Drummer Kenny Clarke quits the MJQ and moves to Paris. Connie Kay replaces Kenny Clarke as drummer for the MJQ. Connie will stay with this extraordinary band until his death. Jimmy Smith debuts the Hammond B-3 organ as a Jazz instrument in an organ-guitar-drum trio in Atlantic City. Smith's Hammond will become a Jazz force. Pianist Cecil Taylor becomes a major Free Jazz figure way before the time of Free Jazz. Gigi Gryce and Art Farmer's quintet becomes a permanent unit now. Saxophonist Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis forms a trio which includes Shirley Scott. Tenor sax player Tina Brooks tours with Lionel Hampton. Piano player Bud Powell can play well only sporadically now. Sonny Rollins joins the Max Roach-Clifford Brown Quintet. Rollins says that Clifford showed him that it is possible to lead a good clean life and still be a good Jazz musician. Piano player Herbie Nichols records the first of four sessions for Blue Note. Free Jazz is not far off. Archie Shepp begins college. Art Tatum gives his last solo performance. Artie Shaw gives up music as his career. Artie never played a clarinet in public again. Johnny Hodges rejoins the Duke Ellington orchestra. Drummer Sam Woodyard joins the Ellington band. Leonard Feather finishes his first Encyclopedia of Jazz. Downbeat becomes the most widely read jazz periodical in the U.S. (until 1965). James P. Johnson dies. Ray Charles does Hallelujah I Love Her So. Former Blues guitarist Chuck Berry is playing a new style of guitar which is essentially Blues guitar fused with Country guitar. This is a major innovation and the result is the classic Rock guitar style of such songs as Sweet Little Sixteen which was later borrowed by the Beach Boys for their song Surfin' USA. Cecil Taylor makes his recording debut. Sun Ra makes his first recordings as a bandleader.
Bop still rules. All future Jazz should follow from it. But...will this happen? Thelonious Monk gets his cabaret card back. He's allowed to play clubs in New York again. Monk plays the Five Spot with Johnny Griffin, Roy Haynes, John Coltrane, etc. Monk appears on the CBS Television Show The Sound of Jazz in December. Monk is rapidly becoming a leading figure in the world of Jazz. Monk records Monk's Music. Monk is declared a genius. Coltrane kicks his heroin habit "cold turkey" by locking himself in a room in his mother's house in Philadelphia with only cigarettes and water. At the same time he also stops drinking alcohol. During this critical period Coltrane devotes his life to God. John Coltrane joins pianist Thelonious Monk's quartet, working with bassist Wilbur Ware and drummer Philly Joe Jones. They perform regularly at New York's Five Spot from spring through autumn. Coltrane's playing and his reputation both skyrocket. Jazzland/Riverside records the Thelonious Monk quartet for Thelonious Monk/John Coltrane (reissued by Fantasy). Blue Note Records will subsequently release a live recording from the Five Spot Quartet that was originally taped by Coltrane's wife Naima (Thelonious Monk Quartet Live at the Five Spot). Thelonious Monk teaches Coltrane how to play multiphonics on the saxophone. Coltrane also develops a rapid, sweeping harmonic style that critic Ira Gitler terms "sheets of sound." Sonny Rollins leaves the Miles Davis group. Davis hires Coltrane to replace him in the fall of 1957, at the conclusion of the Five Spot Monk Quartet gigs. The new Davis group also features pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Philly Joe Jones, and saxophonist Cannonball Adderley. Prestige signs Coltrane to his first record contract. His first record under his own name is simply entitled Coltrane (not to be confused with the Impulse! recording of the same title which came later). Subsequent Prestige releases from 1957 include Dakar, Lush Life, and Traneing In, all reissued by OJC. Coltrane also records the critically renowned Blue Train for Blue Note. Coltrane records A Blowin' Session with Johnny Griffin, also featuring Hank Mobley as part of the three-tenor front line. Sonny Rollins goes out on his own. Charlie Mingus records The Clown which includes the controversial Haitian Fight Song. Mingus also records East Coasting which includes the amazing Conversation. Metronome Year Book declares Jimmy Smith the new star of 1956. Pianist Tommy Flanagan cuts his first LP as a leader. It is The Tommy Flanagan Trio Overseas with Wilbur Little on bass and Elvin Jones on drums. Alfred Lion of Blue Note is introduced to Tina Brooks' saxophone playing. Orin Keepnews and Bill Grauer issue an album of Bill Evans work. The pianist's first album has little commercial success, but it brings him to the attention of Miles Davis. Art Pepper records Meets the Rhythm Section with Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums (Miles Davis' rhythm section). This album is excellent even though Art didn't know about the session until the morning of the date, hadn't played in weeks and had to repair his dried out cork with tape. Ellington does the CBS TV special A Drum is a Woman. Ellington also premieres Such Sweet Thunder, a Strayhorn suite, at Towne Hall. Ellington wins the Downbeat poll for composing. Armstrong tours the British West Indies. Armstrong releases Satchmo, A Musical Biography. Sidney Bechet marries a French woman in Antibes. This is a big social event on the Riviera. Cecil Taylor is invited to play the Newport Jazz Festival. His detractors are most Bop musicians who are afraid of being pushed aside as they pushed aside the Swingers only a decade or so before. Cecil Taylor gets a break. The Termini brothers, owners of the Five Spot in the East Village, hire Dick Whitmore of Boston to bring in a small group. Whitmore hires Taylor and some of his associates as the rhythm section. As it happened, modern artists frequented the place and they sympathized with Taylor's free approach. Taylor became a force. Orval Faubus, governor of Arkansas, opposes school integration in Little Rock. Mingus will later immortalize the incident in The Fables of Faubus on Mingus Ah Um in 1959. Norman Mailer's book White Negro is published
Miles Davis - Kind of BlueThe best-selling jazz recording of the era (and a perfect introduction for the jazz newbie), Kind of Blue helped introduce a new sound for jazz. Working from relatively simple structures, the musicians here lay out wonderfully lyrical extended improvisations. Generally considered the best Jazz album ever and still sells 5,000 copies a week. Kind of Blue in March and April.
Kind of Blue will become the best selling classic jazz album ever, and will have a
huge influence on jazz artists for generations to come. -->Miles Davis is clubbed for loitering by police outside of Birdland. Miles was playing at Birdland at the time and had just stepped outside for a break. In September, Coltrane plays on George Russell's big band recording New York, New York (Decca) along with some of the biggest names in jazz. About two weeks after his work on Davis's Kind of Blue, John Coltrane records Giant Steps (Atlantic), an eloquent demonstration of his "sheets of sound" style. Along with Blue Train, this is one of his most influential early recordings. Coltrane also records Coltrane Jazz (Atlantic), which experiments with tone polytonality. Polytonality involves playing a melody in one key over a chord sequence in another. Coltrane discovers the soprano saxophone by accident in another musician's suitcase. He begins to explore the possibilities of this new instrument. Influential tenor sax player Sonny Rollins takes another sabbatical from Jazz. People think that he's off inventing a new kind of Jazz. At this point in time most people believe Sonny to be as important to Jazz as Coltrane. Ornette Coleman arrives in New York. The Ornette Coleman Quartet's stint at the Five Spot splits the Jazz world. Ornette Coleman records Tomorrow Is The Question in March. This album features Ornette on alto sax, Don Cherry on trumpet, Percy Heath or Red Mitchell on bass and Shelly Manne on drums and is available on OJC. Ornette Coleman records Change Of The Century in October. This album features Ornette on alto sax, Don Cherry on pocket trumpet, Charlie Haden on bass and Billy Higgins on drums, and is available on Atlantic LP. AAJ Building a Jazz Library: Masterpieces Ornette Coleman - The Shape of Jazz to ComeAfter four decades, this disc remains true to its title. Saxophonist Ornette Coleman solidified his group in 1959 to the working quartet recorded here. They broke convention and provided a major stepping stone on the road to free jazz Charles Mingus records Better Git It in Your Soul on the LP Mingus Ah Um. Charles Mingus records the song Fables of Faubus on the LP Mingus Ah Um. This is a sarcastic song which criticizes Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas who fought against school integration in Little Rock in 1957. Mingus is censured by Columbia for this one. Thelonious Monk leads a large orchestra at Town Hall in February. Bill Evans forms trio with brilliant young bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian. Their work can be found on the excellent Portrait In Jazz on OJC. Wynton Kelly replaces Bill Evans in the Miles Davis group. Trumpeter Kenny Dorham releases his debut album Quiet Kenny. He chooses nostalgic tunes for the record. His renditions do not lean toward flashy showmanship.
Ornette Coleman records This Is Our Music
in August. This album features Ornette on alto sax, Don Cherry on pocket trumpet, Charlie Haden on bass and Ed Blackwell on drums, and is available on Atlantic LP. The Black rights movement is currently in full swing. Left wing thought is taking hold. Free Jazz and Black rights become intertwined. Ideas of the soon to arrive "hippie" or "hippy" culture are brewing. People should be free to "do their own thing." Free Jazz and Modal Jazz are pushing Bop forms aside. In Free Jazz, it is as if the musicians have blown apart the older forms (New Orleans, Swing and Bop) and represented them in a form that is musically analogous to the Abstract Art of Jackson Pollock. Bop is becoming passe. In fact, Dixieland players at this point may be producing more interesting music because the Dixieland form is more varied than Hard Bop. The mainstream of Jazz (New Orleans > Swing > Bop) is drying up. The heyday of Soul Jazz (a popular form of Hard Bop) is beginning. Miles Davis records Sketches of Spain with the help of Gil Evans. Ornette Coleman finishes The Shape Of Jazz To Come in July after starting it in October of 1959. The album features Ornette on alto sax, Don Cherry on pocket trumpet, Charlie Haden on bass and Billy Higgins on drums, and can be found on Atlantic CD. Ornette releases the anthem LP Free Jazz in December. This album can be found on Atlantic CD. The players include Ornette on alto sax, Don Cherry on pocket trumpet, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Eric Dolphy on bass clarinet, Charlie Haden and Scott LaFaro on bass and Ed Blackwell and Billy Higgins on drums. The original album cover featured an appropriate Jackson Pollock painting. This was one of the most important albums in the Free Jazz movement. Charles Mingus leads a quartet with Eric Dolphy, Ted Curson and Dannie Richmond. Charles Mingus in a 1960 interview comments regarding Ornette Coleman. "Now aside from the fact that I doubt he can even play a C scale...in tune, the fact remains that his notes and lines are so fresh. So when Symphony Sid played his record, it made everything else he played, sound terrible. I'm not saying everybody's going to have to play like Coleman. But they're going to have to stop playing Bird." (Quote is from "Another View of Coleman," Downbeat 27:11 (26 May 1960): 21 - I saw it in the Rosenthal book, page 152 - see bibliography) Over six days in October, Coltrane records material for three albums. The first one released, My Favorite Things, features his recorded debut on the soprano saxophone. "My Favorite Things," a highly modal piece, will become a Jazz favorite. Coltrane's quartet on this date includes pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Steve Davis, and drummer Elvin Jones. Two other albums recorded by Coltrane during these marathon October sessions were Coltrane's Sound and Coltrane Plays The Blues. Coltrane's The Avant-Garde, which delves into Free Jazz, was also released during 1960. Coltrane also becomes interested in and influenced by Ornette Coleman. He records Coleman's "The Invisible." Archie Shepp records for the first time on The World of Cecil Taylor. Pianist Barry Harris moves to New York City. Barry records Barry Harris at the Jazz Workshop with Sam Jones and Louis Hayes. Trumpeter Freddie Hubbard's first Blue Note LP Open Sesame includes tenorist Tina Brooks. Tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter joins Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. At what is first scheduled to be just another "blowing date," tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley records the classic Soul Jazz album Soul Station. The rhythm section includes Art Blakey, Wynton Kelly and Paul Chambers. How could you go wrong with these four first-rate musicians? Pianist Bobby Timmons records his debut album This Here Is. It includes his most popular originals This Here, Moanin' and Dat Dere. Lalo Schifrin joins Dizzy Gillespie's band as a pianist, but more importantly as an arranger and composer. See the Verve CD Gillespiana. Poll results printed in Leonard Feather's Encyclopedia of Jazz list Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Lester Young and Count Basie as top Jazz figures in that order. This points out the lag between fan and musician appeal. Sister Rosetta Tharpe becomes very popular in Europe. Ray Charles does Georgia On My Mind. In Liverpool, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best name their group The Silver Beatles.
Jazz History Time Line: 1960 -1970
Ornette Coleman is temporarily out of Jazz because of a salary dispute. Ornette perceives (and is probably correct) that he is not making money like the other big names in Jazz and goes on strike. Ornette Coleman retires for several years. John Coltrane records Coltrane (Impulse!) in April and June with McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums. Coltrane's classic quartet records Ballads, a strikingly softer, quieter and simpler album than his recent high-energy work. Coltrane records a number of live albums, including Live At Birdland (Charly) and Bye Bye Blackbird (OJC). Sonny Rollins puts together a band with Don Cherry on trumpet and Billy Higgins on drums. This group will make the album Our Man in Jazz. Miles Davis does Quiet Nights with Gil Evans and a large band. This will be Miles' last big band work until Aura in 1989. Miles Davis finally makes the Billboard charts. Pianist Bill Evans records Interplay. Over the next ten or twelve years, Bill will be very prolific. Albert Ayler makes his recording debut in Europe. The First Recordings of Albert Ayler is recorded. This album is available on Sonet CD. Cannonball Adderley and Cleanhead Vinson record the classic tunes Back Door Blues and Kidney Stew for Riverside. Sun Ra and his Arkestra resettle in New York. Pianist Andrew Hill goes to the West Coast. Ellington records The Money Jungle in September with Max Roach and Charles Mingus. Talk about big names. This is a very good album which can be found on the Blue Note label. Tenor saxophonist Stan Getz records the album Jazz Samba. This is a major commercial success. The music here represents variations on Latin dance music. This type of music becomes popular in nightclubs. The Latin Dance Jazz boom has begun. The first hit to break the charts wide open is Desafinado followed by The Girl from Ipanema. Saxophonist Tina Brooks' short recording career is unfortunately over.
In October, trumpeter Bill Dixon organizes a series of Free Jazz concerts called the October Revolution at the Cellar Cafe in New York, featuring John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman and others. Out of this festival grows the Jazz Composer's Guild, which includes Dixon, Archie Shepp, Roswell Rudd, Cecil Taylor, Paul Bley and Carla Bley, among others. The young pianist Herbie Hancock and drummer Tony Williams begin work with Miles Davis. AAJ Building a Jazz Library: Masterpieces
Eric Dolphy - Out to Lunch (Blue Note)Eric Dolphy was always a big fan of bird calls, and much of his playing here reflects that natural sonority. This disc transports a relatively straightahead group into adventurous, inventive territory--with dramatically successful results. Out to Lunch. The album features Eric, Bobby Hutcherson
on vibes, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Richard Davis on bass and Ed Blackwell on drums.
Eric will die shortly thereafter at the all together too young age of thirty-six. -->Eric Dolphy goes to Europe in April to tour with Charles Mingus. At the end of the tour, he elects to stay in Paris, dying shortly thereafter on June 29. Pianist Andrew Hill records Point of Departure (Blue Note) in March with reed player Eric Dolphy, saxophonist Joe Henderson, trumpeter Kenny Dorham, bassist Richard Davis, and drummer Tony Williams. AAJ Building a Jazz Library: Masterpieces
John Coltrane - Love SupremeOne of Coltrane's most spiritually moving recordings, this disc has been popular among devotees and neophytes alike. It's a heart-felt celebration of divine love, with equal measures of devotion and exploration. Recorded in December with his classic quartet: pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Elvin Jones. A Love Supreme with his working quartet of McCoy Tyner,
Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones. His liner notes offer the dedication "THANK YOU GOD."
ALS will become Coltrane's best-selling record ever, reaching certified gold status
(500,000 copies sold) in early 2001. -->Saxophonist Ben Webster moves to Europe, eventually settling in Denmark until his death in 1973. Bop piano great Bud Powell returns to the United States. He is playing well at times. He has an extended stay at Birdland. At the Antibes Festival, Ella Fitzgerald (accompanied by pianist Tommy Flanagan, trumpeter Roy Eldridge, bassist Bill Yancey, and drummer Gus Johnson) is interrupted by crickets in the pine forest while she sings "Mack the Knife." She quickly improvises a blues to the rhythm of their chirping and calls it "The Cricket Song." The performance is documented on Ella At Juan-Les-Pins (Verve). Thelonious Monk makes the cover of Time magazine, which calls him the "high priest of bebop." (Originally slated for November, 1963, the cover story was delayed due to the Kennedy assassination.) Click here to read the article in its entirety. Pharoah Sanders makes his recording debut with Pharoah's First (ESP). Albert Ayler records Spiritual Unity with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Sunny Murray, the first release on Bernard Stollman's ESP label. Japanese impresario Tokutara Honda stages the World Jazz Festival in Japan. Miles Davis is the biggest draw. Boogie woogie pianist Meade "Lux" Lewis dies on June 7. Robert Moog develops the Voltage Controlled Amplifier and Voltage Controlled Oscillator of the modular Moog synthesizer. Moog was previously best known for the theremin kits he sold out of his apartment starting in 1961.
Aretha Franklin records I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You (Atlantic), which features the hit single "Respect," by Otis Redding. In the final stages of developing liver cancer, Coltrane records three records which see public release: Stellar Regions, Expression, and Interstellar Space. The latter two would have to wait several years before release. The Olatunji Concert (recorded live) would be discovered later. His other recorded material from 1967 remains in the private collection of Alice Coltrane. John Coltrane dies of liver cancer on July 17 at the age of 40. Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler perform at his funeral, and a church will be created in his name in San Francisco. Composer Billy Strayhorn dies on March 31. Shortly thereafter, Duke Ellington records the tribute And His Mother Called Him Bill (RCA). Vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson records Oblique (Blue Note) with Herbie Hancock on piano, Albert Stinson on bass and Joe Chambers on drums. Miles Davis records Nefertiti with Wayne Shorter on tenor sax. Miles Davis records Sorcerer. The album cover features a picture of his second wife, actress Cicely Tyson. Nefertiti, with his '60s quintet, follows shortly thereafter. The Beatles record the tremendously influential Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. This album is not only influential on the Rock front. It will influence all types of music including Jazz. Guitarist Jimi Hendrix releases his debut, Are You Experienced? (Track, UK; Reprise, US), with bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell. Albert Ayler records the live In Greenwich Village (Impulse!) in December 1966 and February 1967. Bop pianist Elmo Hope dies on May 19. New Orleans clarinetist Edmond Hall dies on February 11. Boogie woogie piano player Pete Johnson dies on March 23. Clarinetist Buster Bailey dies on April 12.
Miles Davis records In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew, starting the fusion revolution. Bitches Brew sells a half million copies its first year. Drummer Tony Williams forms an early fusion band called Lifetime with guitarist John McLaughlin and organist Larry Young, recording Emergency! (Polydor). Frank Zappa records his second solo album, Hot Rats, with Jean-Luc Ponty on violin (among others). ECM (Editions of Contemporary Music) Records is established in Munich by Manfred Eicher. The label's first release, recorded in late 1969, is the Mal Waldron Trio's Free at Last with pianist Mal Waldron, bassist Isla Eckinger, and drummer Clarence Becton. Tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins dies of liver cancer on May 19.
Dreams, a fusion group featuring Billy Cobham plus Randy and Mike Brecker, releases its self-titled debut on Columbia. Saxophonist Wayne Shorter, pianist Joe Zawinul, bassist Miroslav Vitous, drummer Alphonse Mouzon and percussionist Airto Moreira form the fusion supergroup Weather Report. Free jazz saxophone
player Albert Ayler dies on November 5. Pianist Chick Corea, reedist/percussionist Anthony Braxton, bassist Dave Holland and drummer Barry Altschul form the free jazz group Circle. They record Early Circle and Circulus (Blue Note
). The rhythm section of the group also records Song of Singing (Blue Note) under Corea's name. Duke Ellington records New Orleans Suite (Atlantic).
Jazz History Time Line 1970 through 1980
Hard bop trumpeter Lee Morgan is shot dead at 33 by his common-law wife, Helen More, at Slug's, a New York City jazz club, on February 19. Thelonious Monk shuts himself up in the home of Baroness Nica de Koenigswarter. He will remain there until he dies in 1982. Recall that Charlie Parker died in 1955 in Baroness Nica de Koenigswarter's apartment. Not the same place, but nonetheless an interesting fact
Pianist Herbie Hancock records the classic jazz/funk album Head Hunters (Columbia), which includes "Chameleon" and "Watermelon Man."
Fusion band Weather Report finishes recording its fourth album, Mysterious Traveler (Columbia). Saxophonist Wayne Shorter records the samba-influenced Native Dancer (Columbia) with acoustic/electric pianist Herbie Hancock, singer Milton Nascimento, and percussionist Airto Moreira, among others. Nineteen year old guitarist Pat Metheny from Kansas City becomes the youngest teacher ever at Boston's prestigious Berklee College of Music. Vibraphone player Gary Burton hires Berklee colleague Pat Metheny, whom he met the year before at the Wichita Jazz Festival, to join his newly expanded quintet. The group, which includes Burton, Metheny, guitarist Mick Goodrick, bassist Steve Swallow, and drummer Bob Moses, records the album Ring (ECM). Guitarist John Abercrombie records Timeless (ECM) with Jan Hammer on keyboards and Jack DeJohnette on drums. John Coltrane's Interstellar Space (Impulse!), a series of duets recorded in 1967 with drummer Rashied Ali, is finally released. Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington dies on May 24. Hard bop tenor saxophone player Tina Brooks dies on August 13. Jazz-rock trumpeter Bill Chase, leader of the group Chase, dies on August 9
Miles Davis retires. He will not even play his horn for about four years. He will, however, return to playing in 1980. The Thelonious Monk
Quartet plays the Newport in New York Jazz Festival. The Quartet, which includes Thelonious Jr., Larry Gales and Paul Jeffrey, appears at the Lincoln Center
Herbie Hancock records the quintet V.S.O.P. with Freddie Hubbard and Miles Davis alumni Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams. Fusion group Weather Report records Heavy Weather (Columbia). Free Jazz drummer Sunny Murray states (Jazz Magazine, June) that "the music (Free Jazz) didn't stop a decade ago." Flugelhorn
player Chuck Mangione records Feels So Good (A&M), which sells millions of copies. The short format is heard on commercial radio stations from coast to coast. Pianist Errol Garner dies of a heart attack on January 7. Rock and roll icon Elvis Presley dies on August 16. The disco music dance craze is going full tilt. Herbie Hancock uses a vocoder (voice synthesizer) on the popular hit "I Thought It Was You" from Sunlight (Columbia). The World Saxophone Quartet records its intense first album, Point of No Return (Moers).
Charles Mingus dies on January 5 at the age of 56 in Mexico. That same day, 56 whales beach themselves on the shores of Mexico. Trumpet virtuoso Wynton Marsalis comes to New York and a hard bop revival will soon be underway. A jam session at the Brecker brothers' club will produce the group Steps Ahead. Gil Scott Heron is experimenting with a new form of music which involves spoken poetry set to music, similar to what will later be known as hip hop and rap. Vocalese singer Eddie Jefferson dies on May 9 in Detroit, Michigan. The first Sony Walkman (model TPS-L2) hits the market. Two years later the word "Walkman" enters the dictionary, and the product changes listening habits forever. Max Roach and Anthony Braxton record One in Two, Two in One (Hat Hut), their second duo album.
Jazz History Time Line: 1980 through 1990
Trumpeter Miles Davis returns to jazz after a six year retirement. He is the featured artist at the Kool Jazz Festival. 24 year old guitarist Emily Remler records her debut album Firefly (Concord) with Hank Jones on piano, Bob Maize on bass and Jake Hanna on drums. Guitarist John Scofield records Shinola (Enja) live in Munich in December with Steve Swallow on bass and Adam Nussbaum on drums. Pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi records From Toshiko with Love
The CD is introduced to the general public. This new digital technology will eventually spawn a huge nostalgia market for all types of music, including jazz. One reason for this is that, even though CD's appear to be expensive, they are virtually indestructible compared to vinyl. Wynton Marsalis records Think of One (CBS) with Branford Marsalis on saxes, Kenny Kirkland on piano, Phil Bowler on bass and Jeff Tain Watts on drums. This album will win a 1984 Grammy. Saxophonist and composer Gigi Gryce dies on March 17. Miles Davis records Decoy with John Scofield on guitar and Branford Marsalis on saxophone, among others. Art Farmer and Benny Golson revive the '60s Jazztet with Moment to Moment (Soul Note).
Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis wins a jazz Grammy for the bop album Think of One. Marsalis also wins a Grammy for classical music this same year. Later he would state that it is harder to play jazz than classical. Miles Davis wins the Sonning Prize, an award from the Danish government which normally goes to a non-jazz composer. This would result in the 1989 release Aura, composed by Palle Mikkelborg. John Scofield records
Electric Outlet (Gramavision) with alto saxophonist David Sanborn, trombonist Ray Anderson, synth player Pete Levin, and drummer Steve Jordan Nigerian-born Sade Anu debuts with Diamond Life, a hybrid of R&B passion, jazz finesse and pop accessibility that results in such hits as "Smooth Operator" and "Your Love is King."
For more information about Sade, read Daniel Garrett's article Sade, a Smooth Operator, sings of No Ordinary Love, and Is That A Crime?.
Guitarist John Scofield records Still Warm (Gramavision) with Don Grolnick on keyboards, Darryl Jones on bass and Omar Hakim on drums. This album is produced by Steve Swallow. Vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, pianist Kenny Barron, bassist Buster Williams, and drummer Al Foster record In the Vanguard live at the Village Vanguard in December. Trumpeter Randy Brecker records In the Idiom (Denon) with Joe Henderson on tenor, Ron Carter on bass, David Kikoski on piano, and Al Foster on drums. Young British saxophonist Courtney Pine records Journey to the Urge Within (Antilles). The French government creates the Orchestre National de Jazz (ONJ). Miles Davis records Tutu (Warner Brothers). Miles Davis is granted a honorary doctorate by the New England Conservatory.
Bassist Jaco Pastorius dies on September 21 from injuries suffered when he is severely beaten by a bar bouncer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Miles Davis and Marcus Miller record the soundtrack for Siesta (Warner), dedicated to Gil Evans. Pharoah Sanders records Africa (Timeless), drawing from his experience with John Coltrane. Impulse! releases Michael Brecker's self-titled record with Pat Metheny on guitar, Charlie Haden on bass, Jack DeJohnette on drums
, and Kenny Kirkland on keyboards. Sax, flute and keyboard player Greg Osby (formerly of M-BASE) debuts as a leader with Greg Osby and Sound Theatre (JMT), featuring Michele Rosewoman on piano, Fusako Yoshida on koto, Kevin McNeal on guitar, Lonnie Plaxico on bass, and Paul Samuels and Terri Lyne Carrington on drums. Guitarist Mike Stern records Time in Place (Atlantic) with Bob Berg and Michael Brecker on tenor sax, Don Grolnick on organ, Jim Beard on keyboards, Jeff Andrews on bass, Peter Erskine on drums, and Don Alias on percussion. Woody Herman dies on October 29. Herman led big bands his entire life with sidemen including Stan Getz, Milt Jackson, Bill Harris, and Davey Tough. CD's are becoming commonplace in record stores . Soon they will make vinyl records almost obsolete.
Columbia finally releases Miles Davis's Aura, originally recorded in 1985 with a big band consisting primarily of Danes. Aura was composed by Palle Mikkelborg as a tribute to Davis, in honor of the trumpeter winning the 1984 Leonie Sonning Music Prize. Miles Davis's Miles: The Autobiography, written with the help of Quincy Troupe, is released. Saxophonist, flutist and percussionist Anthony Braxton sees several releases, including Seven Compositions (Trio) (HatArt) with Adelhard Roidinger on bass and Tony Oxley on drums; a tribute to Warne Marsh called Eight (+3) Tristano Compositions (HatArt); and the large group Eugene (1989) (Black Saint). The British label Acid Jazz is recording groups with names like the Brand New Heavies who play Jazz with a driving dance beat. Courtney Pine records The Vision's Tale on Antilles with Ellis Marsalis on piano, Delbert Felix on bass and Jeff Watts on drums. Intuition releases N.Y.C. by fusion band Steps Ahead, led by Mike Mainieri. Claude Barthelemy becomes director of the French Orchestre National de Jazz (ONJ). Trumpeter Woody Shaw dies on May 10. Warner releases Quincy Jones' Back on the Block with a number of big names in American music
, including Ray Charles, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and Ella Fitzgerald. A&M releases Dizzy Gillespie and Max Roach's Max & Dizzy: Paris 1989
Guitarist John Scofield blends bop, swing and Hendrix-like guitar playing on Time On My Hands (Blue Note
) with Joe Lovano on tenor sax, Charlie Haden on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums
. Antilles releases British reed player Courtney Pine's Within the Realms of Our Dreams with Kenny Kirkland on piano, Charnett Moffett on bass and Jeff Watts on drums. British Acid Jazz band The Brand New Heavies break through with their self-entitled release. N'Dea Davenport adds vocal support to the pop-oriented tunes. Gunther Schuller reconstructs and records Charles Mingus' Epitaph for jazz orchestra. Novus releases Steve Coleman's Rhythm People. Nonesuch releases John Zorn's Naked City. Bop singer Sarah Vaughan dies in N.Y. Vaughan was one of the finest bop singers and remained one of the most sought after for most of her life. Piano player Joe Turner (not Big Joe) dies. Tenor saxophonist David Murray records The Special Quartet with pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Fred Hopkins, and drummer Elvin Jones. Trumpeter Tom Harrell records Form with Joe Lovano, Dave Liebman and John Abercrombie. Alto saxophonist Gary Bartz records West 42nd Street. The Art Ensemble of Chicago records Thelonious Sphere Monk with Cecil Taylor. Renee Rosnes records For The Moment with Steve Wilson and Joe Henderson.
OKAY! Were back and I think the side effects are from that trip is that I aged a little. When I recover. We'll hop on the magical history bus and go trip through rock and roll history.
OKAY WERE BACK AGAIN!
I hope every bought their permission slips with for this ride. Because we going to explore the
HISTORY OF ROCK AND ROLL
Rock-and-Roll (räk'n roll') n. first so used (1951) by Alan Freed, Cleveland disc jockey, taken from the song "My Baby Rocks Me with a Steady Roll". The use of rock, roll, rock and roll, etc., with reference to sexual intercourse, is traditional in blues, a form of popular music that evolved in the 1950's from rhythm and blues, characterized by the use of electric guitars, a strong rhythm with an accent on the offbeat, and youth-oriented lyrics.
A form of popular music arising from and incorporating a variety of musical styles, especially rhythm and blues, country music, and gospel. Originating in the United States in the 1950s, it is characterized by electronically amplified instrumentation, a heavily accented beat, and relatively simple phrase structure
1955 through 1964
Lets explore the roots of rock in such a way as to illuminate the natural progression of musical styles. Too often the study of rock begins with Bill Haley and His Comets and includes scant information about the blues and rhythm records that he, and others, used as a model. A musical genre does not simply appear, it gradually evolves to a point in time when some event-performance, publication, or recording allows listeners to perceive its unique qualities and apply a label. Wyonnie Harris' 1947 recording of "Good Rocking Tonight" was one of many "rhythm records" made during the late 1940s, however when it was recorded by Elvis Presley in 1954 it seemed like a new and different approach. What made it seem new and different was its context. Without exploring the history of black popular music, country and western music, race relations, technical developments, and the music business one can be led easily to the conclusion that rock and roll was some new and different music which appeared suddenly.
This page begins with the African musical traits brought here beginning in 1619 and attempts to trace their fusion with the European music brought here by the colonists. The story of this musical interaction is also the story of American popular music and includes the plantation songs of Stephen Foster, the ragtime of Scott Joplin, the blues of Bessie Smith, the jazz of Count Basie, and the jump bands of Louis Jordan. The knowledge of the stream of American popular music allows one to understand that rock and roll was a natural result of the combined forces that affected the music.
Changing the World:
Rock 'n' Roll Culture and Ideology
The origins of rock 'n' roll is that it started with slavery. The history books can give you the details; what's important is that rock 'n' roll can be traced in a direct line to an utterly unnatural phenomenon: the forced uprooting of tens of thousands of Africans from their native lands and cultures, and their transplantation to a new world as different from what they had known as black is different from white. Add in the fact that families were split apart, slaves from different tribes were thrown together on the same plantations, and, of course, these reluctant visitors were chained, whipped, imprisoned, and compelled to perform excruciating hard labor for barely subsistence nourishment. Keep in mind that these conditions continued, on this continent, for well over a century, until less than 150 years ago.
I realize that this is hardly news, but sometimes it seems that white Americans have forgotten, or want to forget, that slavery ever existed, let alone so recently as the 1860s. There are any number of ways to put it in revealing perspective. Think of the condition that European culture had achieved by the mid-1800s: the emergence of Impressionist art; the great novels of Hugo, Flaubert, Tolstoy, and Dickens; the intellectual enlightenment of de Tocqueville and Descartes; the revolutionary ferment of Marx. Any average liberal arts student encounters most of these great cultural developments to some degree: the core of modern Western civilization was formulating overseas. Meanwhile, Americans still thrashed fellow humans into pitiful servitude, and treated them legally as no more than personal property. This unavoidable element of our nation's history is ignored over and over by ideological chauvinists who oppose Affirmative Action and civil rights legislation, who decry "reverse discrimination" and claim it is "unfair" to try to force integration or to ameliorate African Americans' disadvantages at the expense of innocent European (or Asian) Americans. ("Hey, my ancestors immigrated in 1912. I'm not responsible for slavery!") That anyone could find in the predominance of poverty within black communities in America anything but the continuing legacy of human bondage is unfathomable, and truly frightening. The only conceivable explanation is that some people keep forgetting about slavery:
"Why the hell are you so bent over and weak?"
"Well, I was a slave for forty years. They beat me twice a week."
"Oh, that's right. I forgot."
Why the hell are so many blacks stuck in hopeless ghetto lives, resorting to drugs, crime, and violence to fill the void of their existence? Because their great great great grandfathers were slaves; their great great grandfathers were illiterate, disenfranchised sharecroppers; their great grandfathers were dirt poor farmers or laborers who moved to Northern cities when the Depression wiped out what meager opportunities remained in the South; their grandfathers were equally poor children of the first ghettos, jobless and uneducated, with no hope for escape; and their fathers found scarcely better chances despite the prosperity of the post-War years, the hope of the civil rights movement, and the slowly emerging sense of unity among African Americans as a race. Many of today's young blacks, of course, cannot look back through a lineage of fathers, grandfathers, and so on, because so many "fathers," themselves often little more than children, disappeared before or soon after their progeny were born. Such is the cycle of deprivation where hope is unknown.
Public policy and individual determination have only dented this tragic legacy; for the majority of African Americans today, slavery's evil scars remain open. Yet the white establishment forgets about slavery, forgets about blacks, really. A "Roots" comes along and poignantly revives the suppressed collective memory for a while, but amnesia soon returns. When a Jesse Jackson persists in underlining the injustice between the races, white America is concerned, or bemused, or insulted, but only occasionally inspired, the way they should be, the way otherwise despairing blacks are inspired. Other countries have endured slavery and pay the price in their own way. In America, slavery was more dominant, more integral to the nation's economic and social fabric than anywhere else, and in the most wealthy and advanced country on earth, slavery's price is the highest of all -- and the bill has not been paid in full.
To understand rock 'n' roll, therefore, we must understand what slavery was, and where it left the sons and daughters of Africans who knew nothing of the European roots of American culture. For slavery provides the perfect rationale, the perfect explanation for why rock 'n' roll should stand apart from other musical forms, as a cultural revolution unto itself. Every society, after all, has its indigenous music, which serves as entertainment, accompaniment to ritual and ceremony, bonding force, story teller, preserver of history. Rock 'n' roll, certainly, is modern American folk music in these respects, successor to Stephen Foster and Cole Porter. But that is only a minor facet of rock 'n' roll's place in American, indeed in world society since 1955, and the larger elements of rock's influence reach far beyond the traditional cultural adhesive status of other folk musics. To solidify this claim, and to explain it, we can point directly to slavery, which forcibly mixed the radically different elements of two cultures in a boiling cauldron (rather than a melting pot), bringing to white, rural, agrarian America a series of rhythmic and vocal traditions that originated on the other side of the planet in Africa, and adding an important spiritual, melancholy, almost fatalistic sensibility that grew up by itself in the slaves' imprisoned souls.
This last ingredient is crucial: they didn't sing the Blues back in Africa. Rock 'n' roll is an African-American hybrid, but its strongest root is the very suffering, and survival, of generations of slaves, who learned how music could help a man to transcend earthly pain for awhile. The Blues sings of sadness, toil, and loss, but the reason for singing the Blues is to relieve the hurt these things cause. The Blues, with its simple, repetitive rhythms and chords and lyrical phrases, provides a comforting communal message that musician and audience can share, as long as they know where the singer is coming from. It's no wonder that Blues singers were so popular during the Depression, especially in the South, among both black and white audiences. It's also easy to understand the strong bonds between the Blues (and later R&B and rock 'n' roll) and Gospel music: from a secular point of view, singing about the Lord lifting you up and singing about the Blues fallin' down like rain are spiritually equivalent acts.
So while the musical innovations brought to America by the Africans involved rhythm primarily, along with new variations on the use of the human voice for both melody and rhythm, their more fundamental contribution to the legacy that was to spawn rock 'n' roll was the use of the music itself for emotional, spiritual purposes. The rhythms especially, of course, figured prominently in this application, because the drudgery of repetitious work -- picking endless bales of cotton, chopping wood, etc. -- could be relieved somewhat by a superimposed musical rhythm. In this way the function and form of the music reinforced themselves. When the Blues evolved into a more general style in the decades following emancipation, the repetitious element remained intact, partly because it made the music easy to learn for folks who had no access to refined teaching or expensive instruments. The spiritual function also remained, but evolved, as the oppression of the slaves transformed into mere deprivation, hopelessness grew into mere purposelessness.
But it is not nearly sufficient to identify black musical heritage from slave work songs through Ragtime, Blues, Jazz, Gospel, R&B, and the like, and simply extrapolate the line further to encompass Rock 'n' Roll. Rock 'n' roll starts from these foundations, but it adds more, and what it principally adds is white America, both in the music and in the audience. White America slowly discovered the endearing, inspiring musical heritage that had become central to African Americans' lives, and, establishing a tradition that is practiced to this day, began to imitate and adapt black music. Thus the hybrid forms arrived; at one time or another, rock 'n' roll has incorporated Country and Western, Swing, Classical, Big Band, Folk, and even Tin Pan Alley musical elements, just as it has incorporated Blues, R&B, and the other indigenous black styles. It would be wrong, therefore, to claim that rock 'n' roll is an inherently "black" music, although clearly without the presence of African slaves and their descendants there would have been no rock 'n' roll to speak of. It's harder to say that without whites there wouldn't have been rock 'n' roll, partly because it's hard to imagine what that would mean in practice--American Apartheid, perhaps: no opportunity for or attempts at cultural integration. But since white America was where all the wealth and power lay, there was never any question that the natural economic evolution of black music--or other arts, or business, or politics--would be toward gaining white favor, if only to share in the pie. White America, on the other hand, must have taken to black music solely because it was enjoyable, since there was no pecuniary incentive in the pre-civil rights era to embrace the relatively isolated, unknown African American culture. In any event, the two groups met and formed the first and strongest cross-cultural art form in America. Rock 'n' roll belongs to that heritage only: the meeting of peoples.
In America, such a meeting on practical physical terms was unique after the Civil War, although the history of international immigration and assimilation in the New World forms something of a precedent for the learning of alien traditions in this country that is probably unheard of anywhere else. To my knowledge, no other country publicly acknowledges St. Patrick's Day, the Chinese New Year, Mardi Gras, Halloween, St. Valentine's Day, all the Jewish religious holidays, and the full spectrum of Christian holidays to anything approaching the degree that the United States does. More than a token recognition of international coexistence, however, rock 'n' roll has become a culture unto itself. It is in fact one of the few uniquely identifiable elements of what can be described as "American" culture: something that does not exist anywhere else in the world except as derived from its American roots. Some other such elements might include our preoccupation with television, professional team sports, and automobiles, and perhaps our capitalist industrial imperative (not that capitalism originated here, but we may have elevated it to an industrial economy sooner and more extensively than other nations). High Tech--whatever that means, presumably industrial applications of post-World War II scientific research, especially in semiconductors and in the physical and biological sciences--may also be a part of American culture, but it is moving and changing so fast across the globe that it is perhaps one of the first features of World culture. If so, it might compete with post-1950s rock 'n' roll (or "rock music" generally) for that honor, since rock has long since moved well across almost all national boundaries.
Lest we forget, it is worth contemplating briefly the other significant historical events between the emancipation of the slaves and the birth of this intercultural infant in the mid-1950s. A couple stand out: World Wars I and II. The first was important, in this context, mostly for indirect reasons, i.e., it set the stage for the second. The time period and circumstances of World War I also brought about rapid developments in the technology of radio communication, whose commercial application starting in the 1920s lay the single most vital industrial foundation for rock 'n' roll's eventual emergence.
Quite simply, prior to radio, there was almost no means of hearing music without being present at its live performance. The occasional exception was for the fortunate few owners of phonographs, and the fortunate fewer among musicians who had their music recorded. Of course, radio and recording technology have been cohabitating since the earliest amateur broadcasters spun classical discs into makeshift transmitters from their garages for neighborhood listeners. Recording is the older of the pair, and recorded music predates the twentieth century, but only with the advent of radio did records obtain the vehicle to become a truly mass medium. Perhaps the oldest truism in what has come to be called the "Recording Industry" is that people won't buy a record unless they've heard it first (especially one by a new group or musician). Radio created a means for people to sample records, and thus the opportunity for record sales to produce significant profits--significant enough by the middle of the century to make millionaires out of a few "recording artists," and to create an incentive for countless small time entrepreneurs to get into the business of finding, developing, and marketing such artists on their own independent record labels.
That radio is the spinal chord in this industry's nervous system is fairly obvious today; what is worth remembering is how relatively new radio is to the history of music. Its dramatic rise as an entertainment medium in the late 1920s, and dominance of American culture in the subsequent two decades before television's ascension, directly and crucially paralleled the transformations and cross-pollinations of musical styles that finally became rock 'n' roll. In a way, although most nostalgic memories of the Golden Days of radio focus on proto-television-type dramas, comedies, news flashes, and advertisements, radio's most enduring legacy may be this musical metamorphosis that began with the inception of radio technology and reached maturity just as radio was giving way to television in America's living rooms. Indeed, even radio's relative fall from prominence as a multi-faceted, universal entertainment source may have spurred rock 'n' roll's success, because with television taking over all the serial and variety programs, there was a lot of spare air time needing to be filled, and recorded music was the ideal, inexpensive choice. During radio's heyday, however, music was only one of a potpourri of selections available along the dial--but it was this very diversity of programming that allowed music itself to evolve. Never before had it been possible for different racial and regional populations to encounter each other's native musical styles without actually venturing out to a live performance, which in the case of the Blues might have meant an impromptu backyard boogie session, or just as likely a spirited gathering behind state prison walls; or in the case of white country music, a hoedown on the farm. In either event, white and black music lovers would not have felt particularly comfortable in the others' environment.
With radio's non-discriminatory access to transmissions from anywhere within the vicinity--which on a clear night can amount to hundreds of miles in any direction--widely diverse groups could meet and learn about each other without having to travel, or to hang out where they were drastically out of place. It was even possible to encounter appealing, unfamiliar music somewhere along the dial and not realize how relatively alien was its source. That is, it was no secret that certain stations or programs played primarily black or "race" music, and more often than not vocal distinctions alone would reveal a singer's ethnicity, but to notice those distinctions one had to be reasonably aware of the other group in the first place, and furthermore one had to be thinking in terms of racial differences, rather than music for its own sake. For many listeners, it was enough to discover something different and exciting on the radio; they could enjoy it without worrying about its larger social significance. And when the "audience" consisted of musicians themselves--people who were interested in developing their own stylistic variations--racial or cultural differences were truly irrelevant compared with the inspiration afforded by a new sound. Imagine how that odd beat, or use of guitar or horns, or that funny lyrical twist or uplifting voice, crackling across the evening airwaves, must have sounded to the musical entrepreneurs of the 1920s and 1930s. Imagine how hearing Blues greats like Bessie Smith and Robert Johnson for the first time affected fledgling composers struggling to adapt their songs to contemporary tastes. Even the Jazz giants of the era--Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and the rest--extended their influence through radio play and record sales, as well as through movies and sheet music distribution, to reach distant audiences that would have been inaccessible otherwise, and their consequent effect upon the growth of such hybrid forms as Western Swing and urban "Jump" Blues was considerable.
Still, the bulk of this musical experimentation was taking place far from the awareness of the general public, at what might be thought of as the "cutting edge" of U.S. cultural development. Most Americans were little concerned with music at all, as the country struggled to withstand the ravages of the Depression, and hurtled once again toward War overseas. What music they did attend to consisted mostly of Hollywood and Broadway show tunes, big band numbers, and the crooning of such emerging stars as Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and the Andrews Sisters. Music itself, although always important, was simply not as central an element of average Americans' daily lives as it has been for those of us who grew up in the Rock Era. There were, of course, no "stereos" nor any equipment capable of reproducing music at a quality level remotely approaching live or in-studio sound. Most rock fans, I would guess, would soon tire of the music if the best sound systems they had available were equivalent to 1940s vintage monaural phonographs, or even the best radios of the time. In such an environment, a catchy tune and sing-along lyrics were about the best one could expect to hold a wide audience's interest; it's doubtful that a fuzz-box and Hendrix-style feedback would have made much of an impression. Owning a large record collection, which today is as common as filling a few bookshelves with paperbacks, was for seriously devoted fans only, usually Classical or Jazz aficionados. Life in the 1930s and 1940s just involved other sets of tastes, interests, and priorities for the majority of the population.
And as of December 7, 1941, the principal preoccupation of virtually the entire population became the War. Now here's another topic that a lot of us don't keep in perspective, I think. The War. The entire rock 'n' roll era, the entire rock generation, has been a "post-War" phenomenon, which means that nearly all of us, almost everyone involved with and interested in rock, did not experience and does not remember the War. As the years go by, the percentage of the U.S. population answering to that description grows larger and larger; we've long since been a majority. As a post-War child myself, by about 14 years, I can no better speak from personal knowledge of that period than I can of slavery or the Depression, but I sense--in my parents and grandparents, in the older generation of politicians, businesspersons, retirees, and veterans, in the recollections of books, films photographs, headlines--something of the meaning of the War for those who lived through it. Or perhaps more accurately, I sense the absence of that meaning for those of us who did not know the War.
For America, World War II lasted only 3 years and 8 months: not long from the point of view of one's entire lifetime. To most of us, the memories of any specific four year period of adulthood soon become blurred as we grow and change and encounter perpetual newness through life. Change, in fact, is so constant for us these days that the mid-1970s, say, 1974 through 1978, seem ancient and largely irrelevant to today's world. For those who lived through the War, however, I believe it was different. For two or three entire generations of Americans--school children, young adults, older citizens, all of the 100 million or so people living and aware in this country during the years 1941 through 1945--the War became the most significant, indelible memory of their lives, coloring and shaping and controlling their every thought and perception of the world for all the decades that followed.
This is to say nothing in particular of those who actually fought in the War, and came home injured or heroic or not at all; nor do I refer at the moment to Europeans and their front yard view of the War, nor even to the refugees who fled here from destruction and genocide--all these were naturally changed forever by World War II: they were among its victims. I'm pointing rather to the vast group of Americans who had no direct personal involvement with the Hell-on-Earth occurring overseas, who simply stayed home and did their part, sending off sons and husbands and brothers to fight, buying war bonds, writing letters, running air raid drills, watching newsreels, and hoping that the boys would come home safely. This was by far the majority of Americans: the spectators to the War, the audience. They had no idea, just as those of us who never went near Vietnam have no idea, what the war was really like, in the trenches, the camps, the airplanes and ships. But because they were the audience, and because the show was so absolutely all encompassing, they too were profoundly affected by it, forever.
Four years may be short to present memories, but imagine watching a movie that lasts for four years. A movie that is excruciatingly tense, with thousands of subplots, spectacular heroes and heroines, hideous villains, constant gut-wrenching plot twists, tremendous poignancy, anguish, excitement, fear, and whose ending--cataclysmic and joyous, horrifying and exultant--is uncertain until the very last hours. You go to bed with the latest developments on your mind, you wake up to learn what has happened while you slept, while the four-year movie played continuously. And you have no choice but to watch it, to follow the story, because it is on every screen, covered on the front pages of every newspaper, every day, bulletins flashing from every radio, and everyone around you is watching at the same time. For four years.
Now try to imagine, more than all of this, that it's no movie, it's real life, out there, somewhere: it's colossal evil and immeasurable fear, untold sacrifice and suffering, superhuman heroism, pain and death, glory and triumph, every day, unrelenting, overwhelming. You may not experience any of it yourself (perhaps if you did, it would be easier to cope with, to understand), but you are acutely aware at every breathing moment that it is happening, that its outcome is supremely important to your future, the world's future, there's little you can do to help but you are compelled to join in with everyone else and try, and even when those occasional moments arrive when some nearby distraction (a party? your wedding? your child's birth?) takes your attention away, you only feel all the more inside how insignificant is everything in your life in comparison with what's happening over there, in the War. Try to imagine it, and realize that you cannot possibly begin to imagine it, but know that for tens of millions of Americans, your parents and grandparents, it happened. Don't think for a nanosecond that you've been through anything remotely similar because you haven't, because there hasn't been a World War III: the Koreas and Vietnams and Iraqs are but a blip on the screen by any standard of comparison.
The bottom line on World War II is that modern American (and world) history began when it ended; World War II was the Genesis, the Big Bang, that set in motion all that has occurred in the subsequent decades; nothing since that time is unrelated to the War. So it's all very good to talk about historical trends in American music from a detached perspective: Blues, Jazz, Swing, Tin Pan Alley, Rhythm and Blues, Country, Rock 'n' Roll . . . and, oh yeah, those "patriotic" songs during the War era. But the truth is that life stopped, evolution ceased, and music was swallowed along with the rest of America by the War, and what it spit out afterward was not simply a continuation of what had already been going on before, but a new, different, clean slate: post-War music, or a post-War stage on which to strike up a brand new band.
Because the War generations, you see, were destined to live with the War, and all of its trappings, permanently thereafter. The image of the War would remain vivid in infinite glorifying films, shows, stories, fiction and truth. The music of the era would continue too, in Sinatra and Glen Miller tunes, in Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald, in all the stars and sounds that rose to prominence in that time, and whose entertaining provided bittersweet respite from the anxiety and intensity. For the War generation, new music, invented afterward, could serve no purpose, perhaps because there was no purpose left to serve. With War over, there was less reason for these veterans to become passionate, to look for escapes or inspirations; placid, repetitive entertainment, basking in the mellow glow of victory over despair, might be enough. Rock 'n' roll fans and critics tend to deride Tin Pan Alley "crooners" for their slow, syrupy love songs, with no beat and sleepy string arrangements (Joe Piscopo's Sinatra goof is the quintessential rock satire of this style), but I'm not sure we always understand where that audience of "Music of Your Life" listeners is coming from. Why would they need upbeat, loud, exciting, fast music like rock 'n' roll? They had World War II, enough excitement to last a lifetime, thank you.
If we begin to understand that perspective, then we can find some insight into how rock 'n' roll did appeal to the post-War generation. By 1954, anyone who was a teenager was personally unacquainted with World War II; even a 19 year-old had only been ten when it ended, and the younger teens had been infants while the War raged. By the mid-1950s, the Baby Boom--kids born in droves to returning soldiers and their wives, and to the generally jubilant and prosperous population of post-War America--was starting to grow up, and to listen to rock 'n' roll. This vast new chunk of humanity between our shores could not possibly share the feelings and memories of their parents, could not know what the War had meant, and how profoundly it had influenced the older generations. They could not, in truth, share their parents' complacency with the post-War world, peaceful and prosperous and unthreatening as it was in contrast to what came before. If anything, it was the absence of any great challenge, whether war, depression, industrialization, or political change, that spawned the celebrated restlessness of young Americans in the 1950s. The symbol of the generation, James Dean's Rebel Without a Cause, testified to the itching need of teenagers to discover some purpose in their lives. Whereas a decade before, every moment of every day had brought vitally important developments and concerns that affected the entire country, mid-1950s daily life was, on the surface, drab and unchanging. Ike was President for eight years. The Korean conflict and the Cold War were disturbing, but remote and ultimately meaningless to kids.
The situation was a little different for young African Americans, however. Their restlessness did find an outlet, a purpose, in their own home towns: the cause of justice and dignity. Perhaps--and this is only a guess--the presence of an underlying sense of purpose embodied in the emerging black music of the time is what appealed so much to white youth. It wasn't the lyrics, really. The Blues talked of pain, but usually man/woman pain, not social injustice. The newer, upbeat style known as Rhythm and Blues as often spoke of dance ("Good Rockin' Tonight," "Shake, Rattle, & Roll"), or cars ("Rocket 88"), or sex ("Work with Me, Annie," "Sixty Minute Man"), or dreamy love ("Sh-Boom," "Earth Angel," "Sincerely"), as it did of hurt ("Hound Dog," "(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean," "Ain't It a Shame"). It may have been that specific words weren't necessary, that the feeling of the music was enough. Black music in the late '40s and early '50s was finding newer and stronger means to express the solidarity felt within the black community, how that community differed from the white controlled world, and how, in truth, African Americans were becoming proud of the difference. Music itself, with a steady, upbeat rhythm, was central to the community identity, and the pleasures and passions of life that blacks expressed through their music may have seemed more immediate and authentic because of the composers' and performers' real sense of alienation. The political purpose of civil rights was only just beginning to surface as a unifying cause among blacks, and it was arguably the tightening of the community through cultural communication that gave rise to civil rights awareness in the first place, not the other way around. Thus, the purposefulness to be found in black music was perhaps no more complicated than the joy with which the made it, the joy of a close-knit people discovering themselves. Most white Americans lacked any sense of group alienation--after all, their "kind" had ruled the land for centuries--but white teenagers, who felt cut off from their parents' past, might have been attracted to black communal expressions because of their own emerging sense of loneliness. Liking black music was tantamount to wanting to join the group.
In any event, the rock 'n' roll legends tell of how it slowly became apparent to a few foresighted record store owners, and then disc jockeys, and then producers, that black music was appealing to more and more young whites, that a new social trend was underway, far from the mainstream of popular entertainment, but not so far that there wasn't any money to be made from it. Sometime in the early 1950s, the term Rhythm and Blues entered the popular lexicon, and a handful of entrepreneurs began trying to exploit the commercial possibilities of this newly defined genre. Hindsight relates that the likes of Alan Freed, Sam and Dewey Phillips, the Bihari and Chess Brothers, and Ahmet Ertegun were visionaries who single-mindedly forged ahead through the doubts and rejection of the traditional radio and recording industry establishment and arrived at the glorious new horizon that they had always perceived before them. Hindsight, however, is usually even less clear than foresight; what is more likely is that these and other pioneers took chances on new music because they had no opportunity to succeed by pushing traditional music. They were outsiders, innovators, small time gamblers without connections into the big time corporations that dominated fields, and they had nothing to lose by exploring new paths. If Sam Phillips could have recorded Perry Como and Nat "King" Cole at the peak of their careers, don't doubt that he would have. In that event, however, it is just as likely that Elvis Presley would have happened upon some other, equally hungry upstart, and history might not have changed too much.
In this sense, the emergence of numerous alternative radio programs and independent labels, and the parallel growth of R&B, is perhaps creditable less to specific individuals than to the general economic health of the nation during the early 1950s. An improved economy created the excess leisure time and spending money that teenagers invested in musical entertainment, and it established the relatively favorable conditions that permitted small start-up companies to enter the marketplace, with low initial costs, and expanding demand that was not being served by the existing, risk-averse and prejudiced giants of the industry. From an economic perspective, in fact, one can make a good case that the popular music revolution of the 1950s is extremely comparable to the personal computer revolution of the 1980s--but that would be a rather dull digression, so I won't pursue it.
Certainly Sam Phillips and company had some vision, however, and more important, they had taste. The founding producers of rock 'n' roll liked the music they created, and were undoubtedly driven in their quest to make it popular by their own enjoyment of what they were doing as well as by the profit motive. It bothers me that Phillips's most well known pre-Elvis observation was something to the effect that "If I could find a white man who sings like a black man, I could make a fortune". Dwelling upon this quote creates the impression of a cynical, racist, dispassionate greed in the man, as if he almost resented having to record black singers. I don't know what Phillips's prejudices might have been, but it's unlikely he was a racist given the business he was in and his role in developing R&B as well as rockabilly performers. His statement was obviously an accurate characterization of the entrenched segregation in the music industry, and an astute analysis of how it was evolving. If it would take a white performer to open the ears of the parochial masses, then that would be (and was) a good thing, since the white audience's new found awareness of this captivating musical form would benefit its original (black) practitioners as much as the white imitators who first spread the word.
Indeed, the endless white covers of R&B numbers like "Sh-Boom," "Hearts of Stone," and "Sincerely" that topped the pop charts in 1953-54 directly helped to "legitimize" R&B as a style (albeit watered down) with a wider audience, and rather than stealing revenues from the original artists, provided a further opportunity for them to prosper as a group. To rock 'n' roll purists, these cover recordings are nauseating, lacking the very soul that makes the originals so enticing, but to the uninitiated older white mainstream, the schmaltzy dilution of rhythms and instrumentation and lily white vocal styles were just close enough to the more familiar Tin Pan Alley sound to be both appealing and unthreatening. As far as a large portion of the white audience was concerned, rock 'n' roll was more plausible as an evolutionary than as a revolutionary concept. The Crew Cuts were no menace to God and Country.
For teenagers, however, restlessness and alienation must have been approaching historic proportions by 1955, for all at once the levee broke, and a tidal wave swept through.
Rock 'n' roll has never been just a music. Heavy Metal, Rhythm & Blues, Art Rock, New Wave, and the rest may be primarily styles or genres, but as subcategories of rock, or of rock 'n' roll, they do not cumulatively add up to the whole. Rock 'n' roll is a movement, a lifestyle, a culture, and possibly an ideology. It is a tradition, in some ways a folklore, in many ways a belief system. And all that rock 'n' roll is today it owes to a brief window of history: two years, no more than three, when the fabric of American popular culture was torn apart and rewoven, and a new era explosively began.
Looking back from these Classic Rock vantage points, it's easy to visualize the early rock 'n' roll days. By now, they've been relived and recreated in hundreds of movies, television programs, magazine articles, biographies, and anthologies. Those were the Happy Days, the Fabulous Fifties, when that Old Time Rock 'n' Roll was blasting from every jukebox, and Peggy Sue rode in her boyfriend's '57 Chevy to the Sock Hop, ready to Rock Around the Clock. It was when Elvis was King, when life was simpler, when they played all those wonderful love songs that touched our hearts when the living room lights were dimmed... The fifties are forever frozen in American memory by these kinds of images, and they may even be fairly accurate, for all we know.
Still, despite the nostalgia crazes, '50s rock 'n' roll hasn't survived as a "popular" music in the way that '60s rock has. By that I mean that '50s rock 'n' roll is treated almost universally as "oldie" music, more of a nostalgic curiosity, whereas rock from the Beatles to the present still has a "contemporary" feel to it. Sixties rock hasn't faded from popular AOR radio stations—Dylan, Stones, Beatles, Doors, Hendrix, and others remained connected to modern rock by an invisible cultural thread throughout the 1980s—and many of the major stars and comebacks of the decade—Steve Winwood, John Fogerty, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Motown—were sixties veterans. The original rock 'n' rollers, however, enjoyed no such longevity in the post-Beatles world. Elvis's popularity from 1963 on was largely confined to his aging original fans—he was something of an embarrassment to the younger generation; Chuck Berry, while personally very resilient, achieved his last real hit with the novelty "Ding-a-Ling" in 1972, and otherwise has played generally to the oldies audience; Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers, Carl Perkins were all basically irrelevant to rock's development after the early '60s; and other major stars of that initial era have diminished to utter obscurity.
The consequence of this historic dividing line is that, whereas today's teenagers born in the 1970s can recite Beatles and Dylan lyrics from memory, the great original rock 'n' roll tunes are only vaguely familiar even to 35-year-olds who grew up immediately in the wake of the rock 'n' roll explosion. I have a lot of "party tapes" containing a broad mix of songs from different eras including the fifties that I will presumptuously install in the cassette deck at a gathering or on a long car ride. Invariably, I absorb awkward and disappointed stares and groans when, on such a tape, an Elvis Presley or Chuck Berry tune follows a more "modern" song; someone usually insists on fast-forwarding past it.
This is too bad, because the music from that time, especially from the epochal years of 1956 and 1957, is truly great music. Sure, it lacks any overriding social or political themes, there are no screaming guitar solos or overdubbed synthesizers, and the recordings are generally poor (and pre-stereo). But the energy, vitality, and originality of breakthrough rock 'n' roll is unmatched by almost anything that has come along since, and in its context, the ferocity with which this music burst upon the scene was nothing short of amazing. At daybreak, 1955, "rock 'n' roll" was still just a vague notion, an alternative term for Rhythm & Blues, and popular as a genre only among that clandestine cadre of youth who had discovered the R&B radio stations. "Doo-Wop" vocal groups such as the Penguins had penetrated the mainstream with songs like "Earth Angel" (1954), and there were many successful white covers, but this was all very restrained compared to true R&B, about which the majority of the country knew next to nothing. By daybreak, 1956, however, the first beachheads had been established, and as of the middle of that year, a full scale invasion was underway on all fronts. And like the allies at Normandy, the onslaught just kept on coming, with barely time for its teen audience to catch their breath from dancing to one hit before the next—bigger, faster, more enthralling—exploded at their feet.
It somehow seems that post-'50s rock fans have the impression that the rock 'n' roll hits of that era occurred over a long span of time. To understand the importance of this watershed moment in modern history, however, it is necessary to realize that it was only a moment. The great classic rock 'n' roll songs didn't crawl out of the woodwork one at a time, one or two per month; they fell from the sky almost simultaneously. It was, I believe, the relentlessness of this deluge that, in the end, made rock 'n' roll and all that came after it so enduring, so permanent.
Following is an annotated list of thirty songs, including the month when each song was either recorded or released. This is just a sampling from the period, albeit many of the biggest hits; there were countless dozens of others in the same style being released at the same time. Try to imagine (if you didn't experience it) what it was like for teenagers once rock 'n' roll first shot forward, to encounter in rapid succession each of these overwhelmingly potent hits. Try to imagine waking up every morning with the increasing realization that a revolution was occurring all around you, that the next wave was likely to hit at any moment, that you were a part of this accelerating phenomenon day in and day out, and all your friends were caught up in it too. About once a week, someone would arrive at school or at the soda shop to announce, "You've got to hear this great new record!" And indeed it was great, and the excitement just grew and grew, until it was bigger than anything before: it was a way of life, a burning passion wanting more and more and proclaiming with religious fervor that it would never die or diminish, but would grow to engulf the world with its message of euphoria and the wonders of life and love and youth. And so it has, the reasons for which to be found in the suddenness and the intensity of the songs themselves that ignited the era.
1. Bill Haley and His Comets, "Rock Around the Clock".
Recorded and released in 1954, this song languished until 1955 when suddenly kids across America and then in England discovered the idea of upbeat dancing ("rocking"!) nonstop, for the fun of it. Where no similarly fast-paced, rocking style song had ever been a major hit before, "Rock Around the Clock" became a smash, the best selling record of the entire year, spawning at least two movies that featured the song and Haley's group. Purists tend to discount this song, despite its vital role, because Haley was white, because he never had another hit of the same magnitude, and because, musically, with its big band/swing overtones, it doesn't quite match the standard "rock 'n' roll" formula. To assert that "Rock Around the Clock" is not the seminal rock 'n' roll song, however, is like asserting that Babe Ruth wasn't the greatest baseball player: you'd better have some strong arguments, because the facts are against you.
2. Bo Diddley, "Bo Diddley". Released early 1955.
This is the purists' preferred choice. Although Bo Diddley himself has remained a relatively unknown artifact in contrast to most of the big name rock 'n' rollers, the riffs he popularized with his signature tune are as immortal as any sound in popular music. He uses his guitar as a rhythm instrument, strumming basic blues progression chords with a halting accent on the upbeat through the first three beats of the bar, then adds the downbeat on the fourth: _/ _/ _/ /_. Something like that. Younger rock 'n' roll fans will recognize this syncopation as identical to that in the oft-covered "Not Fade Away". In its emphasis on the upbeat, "Bo Diddley" also crudely foreshadows basic Reggae rhythms. Most of all, this was a catchy, irresistibly danceable number that undoubtedly perked up the ears of many young listeners, and not a few aspiring musicians.
3. The Platters, "Only You". Released mid-1955.
A smash crossover hit, not the only or even the greatest that the Platters would achieve with their smoothly orchestrated crooning style and their impeccable singing voices. These kinds of mellow black singing groups had been accepted and successful for years by 1955, and the Platters were merely the most successful of them all, and it is legitimate to ask how much direct relevance, other than their race, they had to the rock 'n' roll explosion. I can think of two answers immediately. First, lead singer Tony Williams's singing style, exemplified in this song, really stood out from the rest of the music, as he twisted and manipulated his vocal cords to emulate a kind of imploring stutter followed by a long croon: "Uh-uh-oh-only yoooou..." Elvis Presley soon tried the same trick, and got similarly impassioned responses, especially from females. Second, it is a mistake to ever to exclude so-called "mellow" songs from the panorama of rock 'n' roll music (forcefully though some would try). From the very beginning, rock 'n' roll fans have demonstrated that a solid mix of loud, hard core, fast paced dance music and softer, slower, romantic music is preferable to a one-dimensional style at either extreme. Teenagers in the fifties bought Platters and Presley records side by side and played them one after the other, and that tradition hasn't changed in thirty-odd years; almost every band, in fact, except the roughest and most uncompromising, tends to diverge into fits of mellowosity from time to time. Witness Aerosmith's "Dream On," the Stones' "Angie," the Clash's "Broadway,", not to mention "Stairway to Heaven, and countless others. You can say that these songs aren't true "rock 'n' roll" songs, but some kind of latter day Tin Pan Alley infused within rock, but that is a capricious distinction. Mellow is a part of rock, a component of the whole, if only to provide an occasional respite from sensory overload and energy release, or perhaps to fulfill the promise of rebellion, the object of angst: peace, romance, tranquility—the rewards for fighting so hard. The mellow songs, after all, were always the ones played at the end of the dance.
4. Chuck Berry, "Maybellene". Recorded May 1955.
Still, this is the stuff we really came to hear. With "Maybellene," Chuck Berry arrived, and so did the Real Thing. This song has every element of bona fide rock 'n' roll: a fast backbeat, blues-based chords, knockout guitar solos, a charismatic lead singer belting out lyrics about fast cars and unfaithful women. That this tune came to be in 1955 indicates how rapidly things were changing. "Maybellene," because of its sound and who performed it, was the no-turning-back threshold rock 'n' roll event. "Rock Around the Clock" may have set the table and whet appetites, but it was Chuck Berry who served up a main course that left the feasters insatiable.
5. Little Richard, "Tutti Frutti". Recorded September 1955.
To kill the metaphor, Little Richard might have been dessert. Not as polished nor as skilled, nor as intelligible, as Chuck Berry, he made up for crudeness with raw energy. A badly recorded monophonic relic like "Tutti Frutti" could still hold its own against the hardest hitting rock of any era when it comes to revving up an audience. Richard's powerful, flexible shouting/singing is mirrored by nearly out-of-control backing instrumentals: drums, bass, piano, saxophones. You can picture the band bouncing around in ecstasy, and the teenagers of the fifties, just discovering this amazing new sound, doing the same. A lot of people, we can guess, must have begun asking themselves, "what's going on here?!"
6. Carl Perkins, "Blue Suede Shoes". Recorded December 1955.
Now you're beginning to get the idea. These are songs you're familiar with, but they were each new and unexpected to that original audience. Already the topic of dancing—fast, rhythmic, boogie dancing—was being celebrated in songs. Songwriters could feel the groundswell as much as anyone. What Perkins represented, in addition, was the same thing that Elvis was about to epitomize: the wedding of R&B with Hillbilly/Country and Western, Black with White music. Chuck Berry fit this mold as well, a black man with a country flair. Perkins came out of Sam Phillips's Sun Records where Elvis had produced some minor hits with "That's All Right" in 1954 and "Baby Let's Play House" in 1955. Despite his eclipsing career, however, Elvis can't lay claim to this first and perhaps greatest Rockabilly smash.
7, 8. Elvis Presley, "Heartbreak Hotel," "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You". Recorded February 1956.
Two more items for the "Can you believe it?" category: Can you believe that all the above potent rock 'n' roll was recorded and popular before Elvis Presley really broke on the scene? And can you believe that Elvis's first two monster hits were so utterly mellow as these two? You should believe both, because it helps to demonstrate that by no means did Elvis create the rock 'n' roll revolution that he soon came to rule. He entered into the middle of the chaos and immediately became its focus, but it would have happened without him: it already had.
Listening to these songs today, their most remarkable feature is Presley's voice itself. He takes the Platters' Tony Williams's techniques, and any other predecessor's, to new, uncharted pinnacles. For a singer who was only just encountering widespread popularity, his singing resonates with amazing fortitude and confidence, especially on "Heartbreak Hotel," where Presley alternately shouts with full lungs "Well since my baby left me" and then gulps back the words "they'll make you so lonely baby" as if under water, without missing a beat. These are really blues songs, nicely arranged, with slow but steady rhythms, nondescript except for these astounding vocals. That Elvis rose so suddenly to such unprecedented fame on the strength of these initial hits, and of those that came immediately after, is proof that young rock 'n' roll fans were in fact quite discriminating; they recognized and responded to his exceptional musical gift. Marketing strategies and shameless manipulative promotion may have dominated his subsequent RCA career, but Elvis made it because he deserved to. That is, he was not merely a white guy who sang like a black, but a magnificent talent who was somehow keenly attuned to the culture. I would assert that before Elvis became the movement, he sensed it, however unconsciously, and moved on instinct to became its leader.
9. Chuck Berry, "Roll Over Beethoven". Recorded February 1956.
There's not much point in elaborating on Chuck Berry's genius ad infinitum, since it's been done so much recently. Everything about this song, from the lyrics to the rhythm to the quintessential Berry guitar licks, is the most vital rock 'n' roll, the definition of rock 'n' roll, which is exactly what the song tries to be. A slick, black, country R&B singer announces with unmitigated audacity that a new musical era has arrived, and in so announcing, he makes it come true.
10. Little Richard, "Long Tall Sally". Recorded February 1956.
This was a good month. Every bit as energetic and motivating as "Tutti Frutti," this song adds slightly more comprehensible lyrics, and compounds the theme of "havin' me some fun tonight" that was at the foundation of the movement. And, with the messages being put on vinyl during this epic month, a movement was precisely what was underway. The peak was yet many months away but already American teenagers' awareness of a special new force in the world was spreading exponentially. Its benign credo—that everyone should enthusiastically celebrate fun and romance and camaraderie—only partly masked the evidence that rock 'n' roll's popularity arose on a platform of discontent. The Blues component of R&B, and of rock 'n' roll, remained hidden within the enjoyment, translated into lost love or sheer musical combustion, but in a way to have "fun" itself was rebellious—to have this much fun, anyway, to dance about wildly, shouting and reeling to exhaustion. And the growing adherence to rock 'n' roll as a purpose, an end in itself, signalled that this was more to kids than just a good time.
11. Roy Orbison, "Ooby Dooby". Recorded April 1956.
12. Gene Vincent, "Be-Bop-a-Lula". Released June 1956.
This was the heyday of rockabilly, when complete unknowns could flex their proficient vocal cords to an R&B beat, add a country flair such as a washboard or string bass, and take over the nation for a few weeks. These tunes, especially Vincent's, are unforgettable variations on the standard rockabilly sound. Twenty-five years later, the Stray Cats' Brian Setzer could only dream of replicating its authenticity. Orbison, meanwhile, achieved an immense and unlikely comeback with his participation in the original Traveling Wilbury's, before his untimely death in 1989.
13. Bill Doggett, "Honky Tonk". Released June 1956.
One of the first big instrumental rock 'n' roll hits, elevating the saxophone to top billing, and proving that it was not merely the singers' words or images that inspired rock 'n' roll fans, but the style itself. "Honky Tonk" reached number two on the charts on the strength of a very catchy melody and an unshakable rhythm, nothing more. The beat, incidentally, is enhanced by clapping hands that somehow bring the whole recording closer to the audience: it's hard not to clap along.
14. Elvis Presley, "Don't Be Cruel". Recorded July 1956.
This was the first major peak in the rock 'n' roll explosion. "Don't Be Cruel" reached number one simultaneously on Billboard's pop, R&B, and country charts, the first record ever to do so. The symbolism is obvious: blacks, country folk, and average suburban whites were all enthralled with the phenomenon represented by Elvis. Topping both the pop and R&B charts at once was actually fairly common for both black and white artists in the early 1950s, and sporadically thereafter; it was bringing in the country fans that was more remarkable. Presley would do the trick a couple of more times, and the Everly Brothers and Jerry Lee Lewis would also achieve the same feat in the next two years, but country music listeners soon retreated from the rock 'n' roll coalition, and recent decades have seen a fairly sharp separation between country music and rock music, with the pop charts tilting back and forth between derivatives of each. Black popular music, in particular, no longer displays any significant relation to country, and vice versa. For a brief time, however, there was certifiable unity across these highly diverse audiences, adding to the legend of primeval rock 'n' roll.
"Don't Be Cruel" is certainly a worthy recording to be granted this honor: upbeat, well-sung, and competently arranged and recorded. In its context, it seems merely to have arrived at the right time, when teenagers of all stripes were buying records in droves and were loony over the King. Nor did it hurt that the flip side of the single was Elvis's version of "Hound Dog," noticeably louder and harder than Willie Mae Thornton's. With this release, if not before, Elvis achieved a "can do no wrong" status with his fans, and with a broader segment of the American public. Although Establishment critics and unsuspecting parents either dismissed or lambasted him, the entertainment industry couldn't ignore Presley's unprecedented appeal, and income potential. He began appearing on television shows, movie contracts were drawn up, and each record he released outsold the last. It is sometimes hard to remember, I think, that the pitiful shell who sedated himself to death in 1977, and whose spirit is shamelessly retrieved in uncounted sleazoid magazines on a weekly basis, was actually a vibrant 20-year-old godchild in 1956, whose very newness and unbridled pleasure in his own craft sent legions of youthful fans into recurrent ecstasy. That intense a reception (which of course is what keeps his name and face beside the checkout counters) has been replicated only once in the intervening decades, with the arrival of the Beatles from another shore. No Springsteen, Grateful Dead, Bon Jovi, Madonna, or Michael Jackson can claim inheritance of Elvis's throne, regardless of how many records they sell or concert hall seats they fill. His was a breakthrough in cultural evolution itself: the origin of the Superstar. All the others have merely followed his lead, imperfectly silhouetting the Elvis Presley idol. Until a new phenomenon arrives that captures the world as only he and the Fab Four did, all subsequent "pop stars" must be counted as no more than disciples.
15. Fats Domino, "Blueberry Hill". Released September 1956.
That this record was as popular as it was (#4, #1 on the R&B chart) in the midst of the rock 'n' roll outburst demonstrates the enduring rhythm and blues influence among the popular audience. This is a mellow New Orleans ballad, far removed from the Elvis-Chuck Berry school—a pleasant change of pace in fact—and it works largely because it is so authentic. Of course, Fats's jolly public image worked too, again in contrast to the sex and youth appeal of the major teen stars. To be different and real, and true to one's roots, has always been the surest success formula for rock 'n' roll performers.
16. Elvis Presley, "Too Much". Released January 1957.
There's been some discussion among rock 'n' roll historians that the movement nearly died, almost as suddenly as it arrived, in late 1956. The hiatus represented here for example (September to January), seems a lifetime compared with the rapid-fire releases of early and mid-1956. I don't see that rock 'n' roll was at all sickly, however; it may have just needed a breather. Certainly unless talents like Elvis, Berry, Little Richard, et al, were concurrently removed from the scene (q.v. 1959-60), there was little chance that the creativity and the energy would dry up. And once inspired, the teenage audience would surely never choose to abandon its discovery, contrary to the wishful expectations of many adults. In any event, hindsight proves that rather than fading, rock 'n' roll was in for a renewed thrust in 1957 that would even surpass the bedlam of the previous year. Elvis appropriately opened the gates with this hit, which reached #1 despite not being
released as a single.
17. The Coasters, "Young Blood". Recorded February 1957.
The first of many Coasters hits (they previously charted as the Robins with "Smokey Joe's Cafe"), and also one of the first major successes for songwriters Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, two of the hidden heroes of rock 'n' roll. In addition to composing many of Elvis's greatest hits, Lieber and Stoller were behind dozens of songs by such black performers as the Coasters, the Drifters, and Lavern Baker. Here was a more subtle marriage of black R&B with white music: two white songwriters creating hit material for black singers, and reaching the top of the R&B charts in the process. The lines between cultural groups were that blurred, both behind the studio doors and in the ears of the listening audience. Compared with the level of segregation that has returned lately to the rock industry, this achievement, less than three years after Brown v. Board of Education, and well before the Civil Rights movement really caught hold, is doubly impressive. As with other remnants of '50s rock 'n' roll, music like the Coasters' tends to be ignored or sneered at by contemporary listeners, even "nostalgic" ones. That is especially unfortunate, given the ideal of common heritage and mutual appreciation they symbolized.
18. Chuck Berry, "School Days". Released March 1957.
This is another, even better example of that cross-racial model. In what is arguably Berry's greatest anthem, his combined ballad of teenage life in the mid-1950s and salute to the triumph of rock 'n' roll, there is an unmentioned and fascinating incongruity. Chuck Berry, a thirtyish black man from St. Louis by way of Chicago, is describing the lives of white teenagers in the suburbs of Milwaukee and Cleveland and Baltimore. More to the point, this "negro" was singing about classrooms and "juke joints" where no blacks attended. Intentional segregation was still dominant throughout America, but that didn't extend to the records that kids bought and listened to. By showing his intuitive understanding of his audience's youthful restlessness, and providing a free and exhilarating way out, Chuck Berry may have contributed as much to the impending shift in young whites' racial attitudes as the Supreme Court and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. "Deliver me from the days of old" could have more than one meaning.
19. Elvis Presley, "All Shook Up". Released March 1957.
Considering his tremendous popularity, Presley sure can't be accused of resting on his laurels, going through the motions. I'm only including a handful of his 1956-57 hits on this list; there were others equally memorable. Elvis's songs did indeed decline to a relatively mediocre level by 1959 when he entered the army, but for three or four years he had an astounding series of not only successful but original and quality recordings.
20. The Everly Brothers, "Bye Bye Love". Released April 1957.
Now things really start to heat up, as the second wave of artists and recording companies arrives. The Everlys also emerged from the country and western school to discover a new rhythm and a massive audience. They introduced white vocal harmonies that would inspire the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and Simon and Garfunkel, and yielded danceable music that relied primarily upon acoustic guitars. The theme, lost love, was as old as they come, but the approach was altogether new.
21. Jerry Lee Lewis, "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On". Released May 1957.
Believe it or not, it gets even better. Jerry Lee Lewis's reputation has endured for more than thirty years, which is surprising if you consider that he only had three real hit records, covering less than two years. A big part of the reason, of course, is the controversies he incited with his raucous antics and his underage bride; Jerry Lee would have been prime National Enquirer material. But another, perhaps more important cause of his persistence is the records, "Whole Lotta Shakin'" premier among them. The pounding, single chord piano solo is by itself both Jerry Lee's trademark and a rock 'n' roll institution. My favorite bit is his soft-spoken "Shake it baby, you can shake it one time for me." Just the title of the song captures everything one needs to hear about rock 'n' roll's incipient meaning—rhythm, slang, colloquialism, and pervasiveness—only it says it with feeling instead of pretentious analytical detachment.
22. Buddy Holly and the Crickets, "That'll Be the Day". Released May 1957.
The general consensus seems to be that, had he lived, Buddy Holly was destined to become rock 'n' roll's greatest champion, eclipsing even Elvis and Chuck Berry. Back in 1957, it must have been almost too much to take, after the succession of great performers and songs that had engulfed the nation already, including the above new entries from the Everlys and Jerry Lee, to be again assaulted by still another new singer, whose song was yet one more notch above its predecessors. The kids must have been exhausted (listening to this tape is exhausting!). Rock 'n' roll by springtime 1957 was like an opiate or a strong drink that just kept getting stronger, steeping its fans in loftier euphoria with each passing week.
23. Little Richard, "Lucille". Released May 1957.
Pre-historic Heavy Metal: the louder it is played, the more exciting it sounds. White Snake has nothing on Little Richard.
24. Huey "Piano" Smith and the Clowns, "Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu". Released mid-1957.
How come there has been so much attention given to the origins of the term "rock 'n' roll," but no one asks about the origins of "boogie woogie"? As another euphemism for dancing and/or sex, it seems almost more appropriate, more dirty. As a throw-away New Orleans fun song from 1957, this little gimmick is as representative as any of the atmosphere that year. It stood out well enough that fifteen years later in 1972, fellow Louisianan Johnny Rivers (of "Secret Agent Man" fame) was able to produce a number six hit with his cover version.
25. Elvis Presley, "Loving You". Released June 1957.
Presley's baritone on this, the ultimate slow dance number, is almost too powerful: his "don't you be blue..." virtually rumbles the floor. The recording could probably do without the silly backing chorus, but that was the state of the art for the time. In fact, the entire song would be unappealingly syrupy if it weren't for Elvis's extraordinary voice. It wasn't enough that he whipped young girls into a frenzy with his gyrations and bopping—this kind of record had them swearing off any other lover, devoting their lives to Elvis's worship. Tommy the greaseball down the street never sang like that.
26. Everly Brothers, "Wake Up, Little Susie". Released August, 1957.
Aside from the Everlys' musical contributions, particularly their pioneering harmonies, this song stands out from its time as startling evidence that teenage sex was not, in fact, an invention of the 1960s. The characters in the song, Susie and her boyfriend, are about to get in trouble because they fell asleep at the movies on a date, and now it's four o'clock in the morning. Their "reputation is shot." They lament, "what are we gonna tell our friends when they say 'ooh la la!'?" In other words, the whole world is going to assume that they've been out screwing! That the clean cut kids in the song are actually innocent doesn't change the fact that the suspicions must be founded in some awareness of and concern about teenagers messing around—i.e., it must have happened for real sometimes. And this is the mainstream white culture were talking about: the Everly Brothers were as harmless and cute a duo as rock 'n' roll produced, not some dubious black blues pickers with a bottle in their pocket and a leer in their eye. If they knew what sex was, and that—ooh la la!—it sometimes happened between teenagers, then everyone must have known... So much for the innocence of the era.
27. Buddy Holly, "Peggy Sue". Released September 1957.
Another of Holly's legendary offerings, showcasing his acrobatic vocal cords and his innate sense of rhythm. For me it doesn't have the overwhelming inspiration of "That'll Be the Day," nor is it in a league with his less familiar "Rave On," but "Peggy Sue" somehow came to symbolize for many people the whole fifties era. The credit for that lies largely in the name Peggy Sue itself. They don't give girls names like that any more; it retains a certain pre-sixties naivete and cuteness, an image of pig tales, bobby socks, long wool skirts, innocent smiles, high school proms. Whether or not such girls ever existed is rather irrelevant: our memory of the era can be solidified by such icons (reconstructed, in this case, thirty years later by Kathleen Turner in the film "Peggy Sue Got Married"), just as the fleeting image of Buddy Holly himself somehow captures the essence of that time and preserves it. Buddy Holly never had a chance to get old and alter or shatter the world's impression of him; Peggy Sue never ages either. Somewhere in teenage fantasy heaven he is still courting her and she is coyishly shying away from his advances. The sun is shining on their suburban town, the proverbial '57 Chevy convertible is parked in front of her house, and good times rock 'n' roll is thumping over at the Malt Shop, down the street from the school field where the football team is practicing. Why is it so easy, so automatic, to conjure up these visions? Similar stereotype pictures of other eras seem less clear, more ambiguous. The fifties are defined, in our times, by their simplicity; complexity is what came later.
I don't have any answers, other than a suggestion that perhaps lives were simpler in the fifties, at least for a couple of years. Rock 'n' roll was not really disruptive to the American social fabric, despite its tremendous and sudden impact on teenagers' lives; it actually provided a structure that was somewhat lacking before, a code of living that required the car, the dance, the Friday night date, the entire lifestyle depicted and celebrated in the songs. Until other influences splintered and diversified the audience, maybe rock 'n' roll, for all its rebellious reputation, inspired conformism more than anything else.
28. Danny and the Juniors, "At the Hop". Released November 1957.
Case in point: the Hop. This song is as much a command—"let's go to the Hop"—as a description of an event. By this time, with rock 'n' roll intractably established as the dominant influence in teens' lives, the music often spoke directly about itself, singing its own praises. To a cynical outsider, this could have seemed like brainwashing propaganda; to the insider it was more like ritual celebration. Either way, the lifestyle was exponentially reinforced. But the point of this whole discography is that it was all justified, because, damn it, the music was so great! Inspiration inspired further inspiration, and the young American (and soon European) audience was gleefully carried along on the wave. In every way, this wonderful little piece of propaganda by Danny and the Juniors fits that qualification.
29. Jerry Lee Lewis, "Great Balls of Fire". Released November 1957.
Another masterpiece mixture of beat, boogie piano, lyrical tricks, personality, energy, sexiness. Another exhibit in the Hall of Fame, another Classic. In 1957, just another button on the juke box.
30. Chuck Berry, "Sweet Little Sixteen". Released January 1958.
The rock 'n' roll juggernaut didn't stop in 1958, but it slowed down a bit from the breakneck pace of 1956-57 that I've tried to portray here. To close out the period, Chuck Berry submits another quintessential anthem. Among its many merits, this song introduced the idea of nationwide unity in the rock 'n' roll community, ticking off a handful of cities that span the continent, where "they're really rockin'" and "all the cats want to dance with sweet little sixteen." Other songs have since repeated this theme, including Martha and the Vandellas' "Dancin' in the Streets" and Huey Lewis's "Heart of Rock 'n' Roll." Such was Berry's brilliance, and such was the magic of rock 'n' roll, that it made kids feel that they belonged to something big, important, and widespread. There is nothing gratuitous about comparing that revolution with the movements inspired by written words, e.g., Thomas Paine's, in other eras.
Thus we have the inception of the Rock era, brought about by a confluence of ideas and feelings and creative experiments, founded on the restlessness and dispossession growing among American children of the second World War. This was no small moment in history, for the effects of these two years' echoes continue to spread, to other nations, to new generations, to the thrones of power and the seats of wealth, as well as to the dispossessed and restless youth of a new era. Rock 'n' roll revival is only partly nostalgic: it also signifies a yearning for rejuvenation, for the kind of uncompromised exuberance that those star-crossed kids shared over thirty years ago. Although the movement has wandered many and varied paths during those years, it has retained at least the unconscious memory of its glorious birth. And in many respects we can claim that the entire diverse and volatile history of Rock, both the music and the movement, boils down to a search for its own roots, for Paradise regained. That Paradise should be defined in simplistic, youthful, romantic, communal, non-ideological terms—all traits from which rock has so often deviated, or that have eluded so much of rock, in the ensuing decades—only reinforces the conviction that the ideology of "Rock Around the Clock," "Blue Suede Shoes," "Roll Over Beethoven," "Don't Be Cruel," "Whole Lotta Shakin'," "Peggy Sue," and "Sweet Little Sixteen," is the only rock ideology that has ever really mattered.
When Don McClean recorded "American Pie" in 1972 he was remembering his own youth and the early innocence of rock 'n' roll fifteen years before; he may not have considered that he was also contributing the most sincere historical treatise ever fashioned on the vast social transition from the 1950s to the 1960s. For the record, "the day the music died" refers to Buddy Holly's February 1959 death in a plane crash in North Dakota that also took the lives of Richie ("La Bamba") Valens and The Big Bopper ("Chantilly Lace"). The rest of "American Pie" describes the major rock stars of the sixties and their publicity-saturated impact on the music scene: the Jester is Bob Dylan, the Sergeants are the Beatles, Satan is Mick Jagger. For 1950s teens who grew up with the phenomenon of primordial rock 'n' roll, the changes of the sixties might have seemed to turn the music into something very different: "We all got up to dance / Oh, but we never got the chance." There's no doubt that, coincident with Holly's death, rock 'n' roll began declining into a hibernation that left the music nearly dead when compared with the vitality of only a few months earlier. And it's not too hard to understand why. Imagine a football team winning the Super Bowl one year, and then losing to injury, free agency, or retirement its starting quarterback, and its best receiver, running back, defensive lineman, and cornerback, as well as its coach and half the front office, all over the course of the next season. Not likely to win another championship, or even a game, for quite some time.
That's not too far from the plague that hit rock 'n' roll in 1959-60. Within little more than a year, Holly--easily the brightest young star of the moment and possibly the wave of the future--was dead, Elvis had been drafted and was stationed in Germany, Chuck Berry was arrested and indicted under the Mann Act for transporting a minor across state lines, Little Richard gave up music to become a preacher, and Jerry Lee Lewis was vilified and ostracized for marrying his underage cousin. Meanwhile the recording industry was hit with a major scandal over payola schemes between record labels and disc jockeys, a controversy that would bring down some of the most innovative independent studios and revered jockeys, including the legendary Alan Freed himself. The Day the Music Died, indeed.
So here we had this void widening, starting about February of 1959, and coincidentally I was born at the same time, and then the calendar changed decades and a man named John Kennedy showed up talking about a New Frontier. On the charts, the top slots were handed over to the likes of Paul ("Put Your Head on My Shoulder") Anka, Connie ("Everybody's Somebody's Fool") Francis, Brenda ("I'm Sorry") Lee, Bobby ("Volare") Rydell, Ricky ("Travelin' Man") Nelson, Pat ("Moody River") Boone, Bobby ("Take Care of My Baby") Vee, and the wonderful Frankie Avalon. If anyone doubted that rock 'n' roll had crashed and burned, these frightening wraiths were convincing proof.
Take Frankie's "Venus". Please. (Not to be confused with "Venus" by the Shocking Blue a decade later, a brilliantly original and stimulating tune which was itself covered by Bananarama in 1987.) This was the Number Three hit for all of 1959, and it has as much in common with Danny and the Juniors' "At the Hop" (Number One for all of 1958) as with Tony Bennett's Greatest Hits. Throughout the song a backing chorus of female vocalists croons a high pitched "oooh" that's meant to sound like a Siren (of the Venus, Goddess of Love, kind) but more resembles a siren (of the here-come-the-cops-hide-the-loot kind). The music is understated to a fault, with a little rolling snare drum, daintily picked string bass, and subtle glockenspiel or some such instrument. And then there is Frankie, All American Boy, humbly calling out in the most innocent adolescent voice for Venus to please send him a girlfriend:
Venus make her fair A lovely girl with sunlight in her hair And take the brightest stars up in the skies And place them in her eyes for me (No Long Tall Sally for this putz.)
Needless to say, all of the above were white and cute and unthreatening, and were shamelessly hyped by the corporate conglomerates that had usurped rock 'n' roll from the struggling independent labels which had to rely on talent rather than promotional budgets to sell records. Matters weren't entirely bleak, of course, for black artists were still generally pursuing a faithful strain of indigenous, unsanitized music that was eventually to evolve into Soul, and some of the best--Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson--managed to crack the pop charts on a fairly regular basis. There were other encouraging trends too: instrumental groups like the Ventures and Duane Eddy and the Rebels showcased guitar and saxophone as lead instruments, laying the groundwork for the later experimentation of the Yardbirds, the Velvet Underground, and Jimi Hendrix with loudness, feedback, and distortion. And a young man named Phil Spector decided that how the records sounded was just as important as the melody and the lyrics, at the same time as he realized that teenage boys (of which he himself was but lately one) liked their girls slinky and sexy--and in groups of three--so he introduced "girl groups" to the pop world, along with a style of record mixing soon to be known as his trademark "Wall of Sound," and established himself before the age of 25 as the forefather of all future behind-the-console geniuses.
It wouldn't be fair to toss Spector's ladies (the Teddy Bears, the Crystals, the Ronettes) and the other early female trios (the Chantels, the Shirelles, the Chiffons, and the great Motown girls groups--the Marvelettes, the Vandellas, culminating with the aptly named Supremes) onto the same pile as the aforementioned teen idols. Spector's work alone placed his records far above the mass produced, interchangeable pop ballads of that cadre, and the distinctive girl group sound established a new sensuality to pop hits that was nowhere apparent in the squeaky clean offerings of Connie and Brenda and Annette. Just assembling three or four sizzling senoritas with buxom figures and beehive hairdos on one stage and having them sing fervent love songs in unison was enough to overload any pubescent boy's unspoken urges. The first such harem was Spector's Teddy Bears, whose lone hit was 1958's "To Know Him is to Love Him". Innocent enough? Well, it certainly doesn't hose down any smoldering teenage fantasies to imagine that three gorgeous chicks could simultaneously and instantaneously fall for a guy just by meeting him: skip the small talk. Now contemplate the group's name for a second. Actually Elvis Presley got the jump on this idea with his 1957 #1 hit, "Let me be Your Teddy Bear". Depending on your point of view, a teddy bear is a sweet, delicate image of childhood devotion (= certified parental acceptability), or something soft and cuddly that you squeeze and caress and bring to bed with you (= intimate sexual fantasy). After the Teddy Bears, some of the girl groups began to unveil their come-ons a little more directly, e.g., the Shirelles' "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?" and "Tonight's the Night" (both 1960), or the Ronettes' "Be My Baby":
I'll make you happy babyJust wait and see For every kiss you give me I'll give you three
The girls also began to insurrect a little against pristine social norms by falling for more unsavory fellows whom their parents would reject (and who would happily kick sand in Frankie Avalon's face): the Crystals' "He's a Rebel" (1962), the Angels' "My Boyfriend's Back" (1963), and the Shangri-Las' venerable "Leader of the Pack" (1964). (Spector daringly but chauvinistically took this trend a bit too far with the Crystals' 1962 "He Hit Me (and it felt like a kiss)," which thankfully never found the airwaves.)
Anyway, that was the landscape circa 1959 to 1963. There were glimmers of innovation under a dung heap of schmaltz and cynical manipulation. But five years is a long time, as long as the original rock 'n' roll outburst had lasted, and the interminable succession of commodity hits and hitmakers during that interval ultimately severed the period of groundbreaking newness that epitomizes the fifties from what is now universally associated with the sixties. In social reckoning, the sixties didn't begin until 1963, even though the fifties ended in February 1959, and perhaps that's good, because it gave the world time to percolate, and rock 'n' roll time to regroup, while the Older Generation let down its guard, thinking "Thank goodness that's over with!"
So what did happen, and how did it happen? If we're going to talk about worlds changing, there's no doubt that the world did change after 1963, and with earthshaking rapidity. Why? What was going on?
Well for one thing a guy named Bob Dylan was going on. I have to wonder what would have happened in this country if Dylan had never made it to New York, if Kennedy hadn't been killed, if the Beatles had never gotten together, if Berry Gordy had gone into some other line of business, if Martin Luther King hadn't been born. In hindsight, it's tempting to think of the intertwining events and personalities of the sixties as "inevitable," to assume that historical forces created the Dylans and the Kings, and if those particular individuals hadn't emerged, others would have filled the same roles. This theory presumes that the world was simply ripe for change, and that the clever few simply anticipated and perceived these trends and deftly rode the wave to the top. I can't believe it's that simple. Listen to what Dylan was singing in 1963:
Come gather around people wherever you roam And admit that the waters around you have grown And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone If your time to you is worth savin' Then you better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin' . . .
He wrote this before Kennedy was assassinated, before the Beatles conquered America, before Vietnam and civil rights and women's liberation were widely popular causes. Dylan himself was only well known in the narrow folk music community; if it hadn't been for Peter, Paul and Mary covering "Blowin' in the Wind," most of America wouldn't have even heard his music by then. Here was this lone voice calling out angrily that Big Changes were on the way, and if you put it in the context of the moment when he was singing, there was no particularly strong reason to expect that he would be right. After all, the big hit records of the year were still being made by acts like Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs, the Singing Nun, Paul & Paula, and the 4 Seasons.
Now the question is, does this make Dylan a prophet or just extremely perceptive and farsighted? Perhaps not quite either. I would argue that, in a sense, Dylan was something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Bob Dylan, by being who he was, through the force of his own will and vision, was to a great extent a cause of the changes that came about in the sixties, just as he predicted them. That was the power of his music. Listening to "The Times They are a-Changin'" now, three decades later, still stirs an emotion of hope and anticipation. At the time, I've got to believe that his young and restless audiences were tremendously moved by the images of a song like this. At the Newport Folk Festival in 1963 the reports were that he simply blew away the entire audience. Can't you just picture those thousands of listeners, and all the tens of thousands more who bought his first records, finding in themselves a growing conviction that Bob Dylan was conveying a new and important message, a call to action? They would look at each other and say "yeah, 'the Order is rapidly fadin'!" Such attentive early fans became the vanguard of the Youth movements shortly to come. As the message and the inspiration were strengthened through "Blowin' in the Wind," "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," "Masters of War," ""With God on Our Side," Subterranean Homesick Blues," "Like a Rolling Stone," and so many others, the vision of changing times merged with unfolding events into a documentary of reality, for which Dylan seemed to supply the soundtrack.
This is not to suggest that Dylan or anyone was solely responsible for social upheaval, or that no substantial change would have occurred without him. No individual is going to cause a revolution, musical or otherwise. As Elvis and Chuck Berry were preceded by vital forebears, Dylan was in part anticipated by the Kingston Trio, the Weavers, Pete Seeger, and especially Woodie Guthrie. Nevertheless, despite a hospitable climate and simmering unease among much of the population, by no means was "Bob Dylan"--the concept of Bob Dylan--inevitable. The point is far more evident if we apply it to Martin Luther King, a man who unarguably altered the social and political complexion of the nation by the force of his words and the depth of his convictions. There had been black leaders before him, and the principles of equal rights and empowerment had been advocated and even advanced in the preceding decades. But the arrival of this extraordinary man brought a tidal wave of passion and commitment to purposeful change that was absolutely unprecedented in a community that had suffered unchecked oppression for the entire history of its existence on this continent. Had King not emerged, black consciousness and activism, and political successes, would undoubtedly have come about in some form over time, but it is inconceivable that the pace of the civil rights movement would have been anywhere near as rapid. To believe otherwise is to assert that Dr. King himself was irrelevant, in which case George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and FDR were also irrelevant.
Individual persons can and do (and shall) affect the course of human events, sometimes dramatically and not always for good. Bob Dylan was not a King (McClean called him a Jester) or a President, but neither was he a passive observer or even just another folk singer. What Pete Seeger and Woodie Guthrie had not accomplished, despite the beauty and insight of their music, was to penetrate near enough to the mainstream of the pop culture, or even to mainstream songwriters, to provoke any interest in political, conscience-raising subject matter. The issues of militarism, segregation, poverty, pollution were certainly all on the table--Kennedy and others had at least acknowledged them in the political forum--but the youthful pop music audience still consisted mainly of apolitical kids whose musical interests tended to reinforce their detachment from larger societal concerns. What Bob Dylan did first and most resoundingly was to inspire people. He told his audience to open their eyes; they did. He pointed out problems, hypocrisy, suffering, and expressed his personal feelings of outrage and compassion in so forceful a manner that listeners came to share those feelings, to find them within themselves. This makes Dylan not a prophet but a leader, an agent for change in a society that did not know it was awaiting his arrival.
That this is true is evidenced not only by the dramatic social transformations soon emanating from college campuses overrun with nascent revolutionaries, but by the overnight ascent of folk and folk rock on the cold, unfeeling scale of the record charts. Dylan himself began to sell records, in particular albums, by the hundreds of thousands: The Times They Are A-Changin', his third album, reached Number 20 in 1964, and his landmark Highway 61 Revisited hit Number Three the next year, after which Dylan albums were instant gold records for more than a decade. In his wake, in addition to Peter, Paul and Mary, who first brought "Blowin' in the Wind" to Number 2 in 1963 and followed with numerous hits of their own, a veritable army of new bands and solo artists earned fame and glory performing "folk" (i.e., acoustic guitar, harmonica, lamenting balladeer singing style), "folk rock" (electrified folk motif), and/or "protest" music (lyrics about Them vs. Us, or Bombs, or A Better World, or almost anything other than My Boy/Girlfriend Left Me). These included, in 1965 alone, Joan Baez, the Lovin' Spoonful, Barry McGuire, Donovan, the Turtles, Sonny and Cher, and above all the Byrds. Soon to follow were even greater heroes: the Mamas and the Papas, Simon and Garfunkel, Buffalo Springfield, Arlo Guthrie, the Band, and the folk rock Super Group of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young (respectively of the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, the Hollies, and Springfield again). By the end of the decade, these had been augmented with a bevy of singer-songwriters--Joni Mitchell, Cat Stevens, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Melanie, Carole King (author of "Will You Love Me Tomorrow")--all directly founded on Dylan's archetype. As Charlie Parker was a living legend to his peers in the pioneering of bebop jazz, Bob Dylan remained the unchallenged sovereign of folk/protest rock even among the most (musically and commercially) accomplished of his adherents, not to mention among true believing fans. His title was "The Conscience of a Generation".
There's an important post-script to the Dylan legend from the mid-1980s, by which time Dylan's generation had reached what passed for maturity. In those days (and still today) the label "Yuppies" was often derisively attached to former Hippies (usually by members of the same generation who had gone into journalism), who had supposedly stashed away their idealistic aspirations in favor of a pursuit of materialism little different from that of the parents they had once scorned. Meanwhile, their Conscience had nearly disappeared into irrelevance; Dylan's response to the aimlessness of the late seventies was to find Christianity and lose much of his audience, releasing the "born again" albums Slow Train Coming (1979) and Saved (1980), which yielded weak reviews and poorly attended concerts (at which he seldom played his older songs). By 1985 he and his music seemed firmly ensconced in the Oldies closet, when Quincy Jones, Lionel Richie, and the organizers of the "We Are The World" recording session coaxed him to join them and contribute a solo stanza.
The brief episode that ensued encapsulates both the magical atmosphere of the extraordinary 1985 period of social consciousness in rock, as well as the uniqueness of Dylan's legend. Apparently Dylan, long out of the spotlight, was so self-conscious that he wouldn't perform with others watching, and all but a handful of technicians and Richie had to leave the studio. Even then, Dylan's singing was tentative and shallow, until Richie demonstrated what he was looking for on the record by imitating the distinctive early Dylan nasal whine, which Dylan then imitated back. Life magazine published a photograph of Richie rolling on the floor in ecstasy as he listened to the resulting tape, made by the real Dylan, back at last. The consequences of this moment were several. Dylan's four lines on "We Are The World" are (along with Cyndi Lauper's) the most stirring of a song that boasts about three dozen megastars; and with that twenty second cameo, Dylan suddenly seemed to regain both his confidence and his audience. Inside of a year, Dylan closed out the Live Aid concert marathon (worshipfully introduced by no less than Jack Nicholson), helped initiate and performed at the subsequent Farm Aid concert, and joined with Tom Petty on an electrifying national tour on which he revived many of his long dormant classics to delirious crowds of old and new fans. Dylan was not only back, he was singing about the right things again, at a time when his voice, his Conscience, were most sorely missed. For thousands of 1960s veterans caught in the trap of 1980s ideological stagnation, a fleeting memory of times when real change seemed possible was rekindled.
Meanwhile, back in the '60s, there was this place called England. Most Americans hadn't thought much about Great Britain since the end of World War II. From the standpoint of the American music market, the "British Invasion" began literally overnight in 1964, but on the other side of the ocean an American Invasion had been underway for many years. It is interesting to explore the reasons why America found immediate fascination with anything British, but it may be even more worthwhile to ask why the British so wholeheartedly embraced an indigenous American tradition. After all, in bringing their version of rock 'n' roll to our shores, English bands were merely trying to emulate a style that was already familiar to us; but rock 'n' roll (and before it Blues and Jazz) had no inherent base in Britain to encourage its adoption, no comparable slave descendent or Country and Western frontier musical and cultural traditions. To the extent Britain was a pluralistic society like America, its minorities were generally vestiges of the Empire's former colonies—Indians, Arabs, Islanders—having little historical affinity with the African American minority that spearheaded most twentieth century musical innovation on this continent. Yet rather than develop their own native musics for the post-war period, the older English generation largely fell back on a fading culture of folk songs and show tunes, while the younger generation hungrily grabbed American black music and rock 'n' roll to satisfy its appetite.
The revolution was slower to arrive in England than in America, perhaps because the shock of war remained more immediate for the population at large, and economic and psychological recovery took longer. As a result, however, the disaffection that set in among young people of the post-war generation was probably deeper, and in a more hierarchical society whose class system was still largely intact by the arrival of the 1960s, the basic frustration of teenage life in a working class community when economic times were less than prosperous produced a bubbling cauldron of unrest that was ideally designed to welcome the symbols and images of rock 'n' roll's first rebellions.
Initially the musical influence of rock 'n' roll in England was fairly benign, mostly because it was taken on by imitators who did not well empathize with the energetic source of the music in the States. These British pseudo-Elvises tended to combine some of the feel and style of rock 'n' roll with the lighter, dance hall sound of standard English popular songs. Performers such as Lonnie Donegan ("Rock Island Line," 1954), Tommy Steele ("Rock with the Caveman," 1956), and Billy Fury ("Halfway to Paradise," 1961) pioneered as pop stars within England and to some extent on the Continent, but their styles were only vaguely rock 'n' roll as America came to know it. The term "Skiffle" was invented to describe the hybrid popularized by Donegan and other contemporaries. For the most part these musicians remained well within the social norms of inoffensive entertainment; the thirst of British youth (and the hostility of British elders) was reserved for the imports from America of the true originals, on vinyl, in films, and in person. (They were notably less accessible by radio, which was controlled by the notoriously conservative BBC, leaving young fans to rely on quasi-illicit off-shore "pirate" radio broadcasters for their fix of the real thing.)
Perhaps the two most authentic early progenitors of a legitimate British adaptation of rock 'n' roll were Cliff Richard (and the Shadows) and Screaming Lord Sutch (and the Savages). Both bands, behind their agitated leaders, exhibited a daring and ostentatious flair that appealed to and played off of youthful tensions, rather than deflected them. They came to prominence in the 1960-61 time frame—Cliff Richard in particular was a big star, with several British Number One hits through 1963 ("Livin' Doll," 1959 was the first and possibly biggest, even reaching Number 30 in the U.S.)—a time when young English men were exerting increasing independence and rebelliousness, and developing a sense of identity as a group similar to American rock 'n' rollers in the mid-fifties.
Soon this youth subculture emerged into full public view, in the form of a variety of widespread and opposing clans of teenagers known as teddy-boys, mods, and rockers. For some reason British teens have since these early times always exhibited a greater obsession with the visual requisites of the social trend of the moment, whether it be the narrow tie and impeccable suit of the mid-60s mods, or the yellow tomahawk hairdo and safety pin of the post-punk era; American performers and fans have tended to be the followers in this area of rock culture, and generally less meticulous in sustaining any given style of dress. In the smoldering years of the early 1960s, rivalry in dress and attitude frequently spilled over into rioting in the streets, and Britain experienced a version of teen rebellion that even Americans had not witnessed. This disorder was spurred by the music, by the cultural anemia of post-war England, by class conflict, and by amphetamines, the drug of choice for a huge segment of British youth.
Out of this environment arose a new generation of British musicians, schooled on American R&B and rock 'n' roll, and personally familiar with the daily lives of their audience, because they shared the same experiences. They thus produced music that was in its world an authentic recreation of the original American style, spawned by similar conditions. And to certify their validity, young British fans suddenly flocked to their countrymen's records with an exuberance that rivaled American kids' adoption of Elvis and Chuck Berry and the rest.
The Beatles, of course, founded the movement and built the mold (see next chapter). But although the Beatles unilaterally blazed the trail both within England and across the ocean for a new generation of rock 'n' roll creative expression and new heights of popularity and commercial opportunity, the most deeply rooted sentiments of the British youth audience were in fact better reflected in the music of the less polished, more streetwise groups whose national and international fame followed immediately in the Beatles' wake. Not that the Beatles circumvented the experiences of average English kids: they drew their own inspiration directly from that same world, which they inhabited too; but in the suddenness and dizziness of their ascent they quickly left much of that world behind, to conquer new ones. Among the others who filled the void, three bands and three songs stand out as both definitive of the moment and the place, and timeless in their musical potency.
The first and greatest needs no introduction but its own. After more than thirty years, its opening notes are still the most exhilarating guitar riff ever to announce the arrival of a song. A get-up-out-of-your-chair jolt, an "All Right!" Hold the conversation for a moment, grab the nearest dance partner, and get into this:
I can't get noSat-is-fac-tionI can't get noSat-is-fac-tion'Cause I try, and I try,and I try, and I try . . .I can't GET NO . . .
It's interesting that the Rolling Stones, easily the most enduringly popular and prolific rock band of all, are still essentially defined by their first major hit (#1 in the U.S. for 4 weeks in the summer of 1965; "Time is On My Side" had reached Number Six in 1964). They've had—how many?—forty, fifty albums, scores of hit singles, and even though their legend has grown out of sight, they have never really improved upon their initial masterpiece, "Satisfaction". (You know, it's the record companies that insist on elaborating on song titles with parentheticals like "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and "Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)". They think record buyers are too clueless to learn the names of songs if they aren't articulately repeated two dozen times in the chorus. Jagger and Richard didn't name it "Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo," they just sang it that way; the title was "Heartbreaker," but the execs figured that fans might confuse it with Grand Funk's or Led Zeppelin's "Heartbreaker"s, so they said, "Why don't we put that doo-doo stuff in the title so the kids will know which one they're buying?" Do you suppose Robert Louis Stevenson's publishers tried to retitle "The Charge of the Light Brigade" something like "Half a League Onward (The Charge of the Light Brigade)"?)
There are certainly many other artists who have either never moved beyond their first big success or have relied on an old standard as a perpetual show-stopper, but none has the all-encompassing history of the Stones. The truth is that the durability is justified. "Satisfaction" absolutely flattens all comparisons with other debut hits and encore numbers, as well as with other Stones records, especially if you consider the context. This song sounds brand new and original even today; in 1965 it was revolutionary. The lead guitar intro, demanding to be played at extra high volume, violently contrasted with prevailing light-handed, melodic styles. The driving beat eclipsed anything coming out of the pre-fab studios of New York's Brill Building, or the Motown hit factory. You had to harken back to the originals—Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard—to find that kind of energy in a song from the first chord on. Even more important was the disgruntled theme, the cynicism in Jagger's voice and words:
. . . and he's tellin' me more and moreabout some useless informationsupposed to fry my imaginationI can't GET NO . . .
Here was a link to the indignation of Dylan, only it echoed from the walls of dance clubs and the speakers of juke boxes instead of hiding in Greenwich Village cafes or at folk festivals. These words were heard from the beginning by the masses—the masses of kids anyway. The sense of rebelliousness personified in the fifties by James Dean was reincarnated in the character of Mick Jagger, only the new rebel had a bit more of a cause. It still wasn't War or Poverty or Injustice, not yet; it was the less tangible but just as real sense of Hypocrisy and Phoniness and Pretentiousness.
The Rolling Stones embodied this rebellion in their appearance, attitude, and music. Theirs was a direct assault on genteel aristocratic sensibilities, threatening yet bemused. The Kinks were more subtle. They dressed more neatly, avoided public confrontations, and kept their music on the restrained, if loud, side. But what they avoided in overt animosity they made up for with stinging sarcasm in "A Well Respected Man" (1965):
'Cause he gets up every morningAnd he goes to work at nineAnd he comes back home at five thirtyGets the same train every time'Cause his world is built on punctualityIt never fails.
As with "Satisfaction," this was not a challenging of policies or ideas, it was a challenging of values. "Punctuality," a seemingly benign and laudable habit, becomes an object of scorn the way Ray Davies pronounces it. Soon to follow were neatness, grooming, manners, formality and convention of any kind, all the traits for which English society had always prided itself. Indeed, English gentry's self-congratulatory claim to some right of colonial dominion in the Third World always rested on the belief that they were, after all, more civilized than the natives. Here their own children were turning on them, flaunting and laughing at their stuffy pomposity. This was the beginning of a momentous shift in perspective among young fans, one that followed the British bands to America (where Dylan's devotees were already sowing the same seeds). Rejection of parental authority was one thing; kids will stay out late, drink, try drugs and sex, and challenge the law regardless of the era (or the music). It is altogether different to reject simple fundamental elements of a social order such as personal appearance and courtesy. Only twice in the rock era have such extremes of alienation been visible, the mid-to-late sixties emerging Hippie culture, and the late seventies Punk movement. (One might consider Gangsta Rap as a third such wave.) If anything, the former may have been more revolutionary, in part because it was unprecedented.
And he's oh so goodAnd he's oh so fineAnd he's oh so healthyIn his body and his mindHe's a well respected man about townDoing the best things so conservatively.
How quickly did it happen? The tremendous cultural leap from Bobby Vee cleancutness to utterly defiant sloppiness came about so suddenly it had to be frightening to the outside world. Of course, to the inside world, those joining the cause, it was exhilarating, but sudden nonetheless. The first wave of "long" hair, started by the Beatle mop-tops, began no earlier than 1964 in America. By 1967, three fleeting years later, male hair as short as the original Beatles or Stones was almost laughable within the prevailing hip culture. Lavish, ostentatious clothing just as quickly gave way to worn, old, tattered jeans and jackets and t-shirts. For a long time, any outfit that was too neat or shiny or excessively adorned was a clear signal of uncool unhip attitudes (with the sort-of exception of the temporary fascination with psychedelic fashions that surfaced in the public consumption media through Hollywood and well intentioned but relatively clueless TV outlets like "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In"). This was true not only among the rock performers, but among the audience, the youth culture as a whole. From the mid-sixties straight to this day, the dominant fashion for a large body of teenage schoolchildren is the extremely casual look. Blue jeans, which have formed a massive international trade market, are practically the universal high school dress code in many parts of America. Prior to the Sixties invasions, it was considered unthinkable to allow your kids to attend school in anything less than dress clothes; many schools had real, strictly enforced dress codes, most of which in the U.S. have long since fallen to the pressures of change. This change was rooted firmly in the cynicism, the profound hostility toward the established order, that grew up in the sixties.
By 1966, with the invasion nearly complete, the Who tossed out the last semblance of conformity, and threw down the gauntlet:
People try to put us d-d-downTalkin' 'bout my generationJust because we g-g-get aroundTalkin' 'bout my generation
Now the challenge was fully revealed, as it was in many other songs and bands of the moment. Full scale, defiant, unified rebellion. The movement gained steam, and even if its focus remained non-specific (well, Vietnam somewhat, but that was more of an American issue, and hadn't quite matured by '66, and the rest of the popular topics, civil rights, women's rights, environmentalism, were all just as vague as anti-establishmentarianism and inter-generational conflict), the commitment of its partisans was solid.
It's so hard to isolate that era and not apply knowledge of what followed, not only through the rest of the Sixties, but right up to the present. Were they just naive kids, finding a newer and louder way to flex their muscles? Were they the founding members of a powerful youth movement that would change the fabric of society? Would they eventually wind up as securities analysts and electronics salesmen? Where would it all lead?
The slogan coined by the Who was bitterly final: "Hope I die before I get old." Patrick ("Give me liberty or give me death") Henry wasn't even that extreme. Well Pete Townshend and Roger Daltry have made it considerably past forty now, and doubtless "old" has become more a state of mind than an age; nor was it fortuitous that Keith Moon died young. One thing is certain here in the distant future: it is a lot more difficult for today's youth to despise and distrust the entire older generation—many of them came up with the idea in the first place. The most rebellious Sixties Hippies have kids of their own now, listening to their own music (or perhaps their parents'). Meanwhile, the Establishment has absorbed countless former rebels, who now populate the offices of oil companies and corporate law departments. The Who's generation, in fact, pretty much runs the world, with the exception of the few older fogeys who retain some of the highest power positions. It's a lot harder for faithful veterans to know whom to oppose any more—and that may be the real problem. It was easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys when the bad guys consisted of anyone over thirty. Today some of the worst offenders (violent racists, Wall Street thieves, reactionary demagogues) are under thirty, and the older crowd is increasingly heterogeneous. And you can't go by dress code either. Two suit-and-tie short-hairs standing side by side on the subway might harbor polar opposite political beliefs, social values, and musical tastes.
If it all makes you wonder whether there ever was a point, then perhaps the Sixties are more dead than we thought. The point was, in fact, rebellion for its own sake. It was Thomas Jefferson, not Abbie Hoffman, who said "A little revolution now and then is a good thing." The British Invasion of American culture and music in 1964 helped instigate a revolution that may not have overthrown the established order, but that shook it up mightily, and that was indeed a good thing. Still, despite the images of political conflict and violence that linger from that era, it was not an armed insurrection that the Brits brought with them to America. Theirs were more devious weapons: cheekiness, playfulness, bemused disrespect, sarcasm. Many of the most memorable scenes from early Sixties "rockumentaries" are those where young stars like Jagger and Richard, Lennon and McCartney, or Townshend and Daltry are interviewed by the basically straight members of the British or American press about their newfound fame. They delighted in belittling themselves, making fun of the reporter's questions (often without him realizing it), and generally goofing off in a situation that, for most people, would have seemed to be a tremendously important, career-make-or-break situation. This type of irreverence, which was institutionalized by Monty Python's Flying Circus in the 1970s and David Letterman in the 1980s, made a telling point that was not lost on the audience: fun is what it's about, above all else, whatever the circumstances or surroundings, and people who can't deal with that idea are losers, no matter how "important" or "successful" they may be. Fun itself was rebellious. Where the fun devolved into hostility, that hostility was directed at those who didn't understand and actively worked to impede the fun.
Not that Fun was a new idea in England or America, or in rock 'n' roll. It was precisely the same idea that had propelled the music forward in the first place. By 1955 the U.S. was becoming a decidedly un-fun place for teenagers, and the same was the case in England by 1960; rock 'n' roll offered an incredibly fresh opportunity to rediscover fun in each case. And by the time the British version washed up on American shores in 1964, there was a desperate new outbreak of non-fun in abundance, owing to the shock wave generated when President Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963. A dose of madcap British lunacy was precisely what the doctor ordered for a younger generation that hadn't even been around to taste the Fifties' hopeful elixir.
Most of the invading hordes of uniformed, mop-headed Limeys pouring up from the beaches in 1964 immediately after the Beatles' sneak attack fit that prescription perfectly. Besides the aforementioned Big Three, there were countless footsoldiers whom the suddenly Anglophile American youth embraced with undiscriminating glee: the Dave Clark 5 ("Glad All Over"), the Searchers ("Needles and Pins"), Gerry and the Pacemakers ("Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying"), Manfred Mann ("Doo Wah Diddy Diddy"), Herman's Hermits ("I'm Henry VIII, I Am"), and so many others, arriving in a seemingly endless blitzkrieg (Why is that only military metaphors seem to apply to this moment of history? Do we secretly still fear the Redcoats?) that obliterated the entire foundation of the existing rock 'n' roll genre, indeed nearly the whole American entertainment industry. Consider: British acts were virtually non-existent on the U.S. charts in 1963 and preceding years. In 1964 alone, no fewer than thirty releases by British acts reached the U.S. Top Ten, with nine rising to Number One, and dozens more lower on the charts. Napoleon never dreamed of such conquest.
Of course, Napoleon never had an advance team like the Beatles to lead the charge
Rock and Roll Timeline
1877
Thomas Edison invents the phonograph for playing back stored sounds. The first recording hemakes is "Mary Had a Little Lamb."
1915
The Chicago Automatic Machine and Tool Company invents the jukebox that plays records (asopposed to the cylinder recordings type of player that had been around since 1889).
1917
In 1917, the first jazz record was issued in the U.S. when Nick LaRocca’s Original DixielandJazz Band released "The Dixieland Jazz Band One-Step."
1929
The 78 rpm record is introduced.
1931
Adolph Rickenbacker invents the electric guitar
1936
Billboard puts out its first record sales chart in 1936.
1938
Bluesman Robert Johnson records his first record
Pete Johnson and Joe Turner cut their first boogie records in Kansas City
Boom of boogie woogie in Chicago
Telefunken helps develop magnetic tape for use with tape recorders.
John Hammond's 'Spirituals to Swing' concert in NYC
Saxophonist Louis Jordan leaves Chick Webb's sax section to form his Tympany Five. This might well mark the beginnings of what we know as Rock and Roll
1939
Leo Mintz founds a record store in Cleveland, the "Record Rendezvous", specializing inblack music
1942
Louis Jordan launches "jump blues" (rhythm and blues) with "Choo Choo Ch'Boogie "
Los Angeles bluesman T-Bone Walker incorporates jazz chords into the blues guitar with "IGot A Break Baby"
Savoy is founded in Newark (NJ) to promote black music
1943
King Records is founded in Cincinnati by Syd Nathan to record hillbilly. In 1946 adds race music.
1945
Les Paul invents "echo delay", "multi-tracking" and many other studio techniques
Johnny Otis assembles a combo for "Harlem Nocturne" that is basically ashrunk-down version of the big-bands of swing
Jules Bihari founds Modern Records in Los Angeles, specializing in black music
1946
Muddy Waters cuts the first records of Chicago's electric blues
Carl Hogan plays a powerful guitar riff on Louis Jordan's "Ain't That Just Like a Woman"
Lew Chudd founds Imperial Records in Los Angeles, specializing in black music
Specialty Records is founded by Art Rupe in Los Angeles to specialize in black popularmusic
1947
Billboard writer Jerry Wexler invents the term "rhythm and blues" for electric blues
Roy Brown writes and cuts "Good Rockin' Tonight" in Texas
Chess Records is founded in Chicago by two Polish-born Jews, Leonard and Phil Chessm to promote blues and later rhythm and blues
Ahmet Ertegun founds Atlantic Records in New York to promote black music at the border betweenjazz, rhythm and blues and pop
1948
Detroit R&B saxophonist Wild Bill Moore releases "We're Gonna Rock We'reGonna Roll"
John Lee Hooker records Boogie "Chillen'" for Modern Records, a a single, which topped theR&B charts in 1949.
Columbia introduces the 12-inch 33-1/3 RPM long-playing vinyl record
Homer Dudley invents the Vocoder (Voice Operated recorder)
Memphis' radio station WDIA hires Nat Williams, the first black disc jockey
The magazine Billboard introduces charts for "hillbilly" and "race" records
1949
Fats Domino cuts "The Fat Man," a new kind of boogie
Hank Williams' "Lovesick Blues" reaches the top of the country charts
Scatman Crothers cuts "I Want To Rock And Roll" (1949), with Wild Bill Moore onsaxophone
RCA Victor introduces the 45 RPM vinyl record
Todd Storz of the KOWH radio station starts the Top 40 radio program
The Billboard chart for "race" records becomes the chart for "rhythm and blues" records
Aristocrat changes its name to Chess
Dewey Phillips (white) deejays race music show 'Red Hot and Blue' in Memphis (Delta blues, Chicago blues, boogie)
1951
The white Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed decides to speculate on the success of LeoMintz's store and starts a radio program, Moondog Rock'n'Roll Party, that broadcastsblack music to an audience of white teenagers
The first rock and roll record, Ike Turner's Rocket 88, is released
The first juke-box that plays 45 RPM records is introduced
Howling Wolf and Joe Turner popularize the "shouters"
Gunter Lee Carr cuts the dance novelty "We're Gonna Rock "
1952
Bill Haley Saddlemen become the Comets
Bob Horn's Bandstand TV program airs from Philadelphia every weekday afternoon
The Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed (aka Moondog) organizes the first rock and rollconcert, the Moondog Coronation Ball
Les Paul invents the first solid-body electric guitar, named the 'Les Paul', for the Gibson Guitar Company
Sam Phillips founds Sun Records and declares "If I could find a white man who sings withthe Negro feel, I'll make a million dollars"
Charles Brown's "Hard Times" is the first hit by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller to enter thecharts
Little Richard's first records released
1953
Bill Haley's "Crazy Man Crazy" is the first rock and roll song to enter the Billboard charts
The Orioles' "Crying in the Chapel" is the first black hit to top the white pop charts
Leo Fender invents the Stratocaster guitar
Sam Phillips records the first Elvis Presley record in his Sun studio of Memphis using tworecorders to produce an effect of "slapback" audio delay
The black market constitutes 5.7% of the total American market for records
Vee-Jay Records is founded in Indiana, is owned by James and Vivian Bracken, specializing in black music
Elvis Presley makes his first (private) recordings
1954
Boom of Doo Wop
Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" is the first rock song used in a movie soundtrack
The record companies switch from 78 RPMs to 45 RPMs
Japanese electronic company TTK (later Sony) introduces the world's first transistor radio
Ray Charles forms his band
In 1954, Big Joe Turner recorded the original version of the 1950s hit, Shake, Rattle and Roll.
Johnny Cash forms the Tennessee Two with Luther Perkins and Marshall Grant,
1955
Chuck Berry cuts his first rock and roll records, the first ones to have the guitar as the maininstrument, and invents the descending pentatonic double-stops (the essence of rock guitar)
Bo Diddley invents the "hambone" rhythm
The Chordettes and the Chantels are the first girl-groups
Ray Charles creates "soul" music with "I Got A Woman," a secular adaptation of an oldgospel
Ace Records is formed by Johnny Vincent in New Orleans, specializing in black music
The Blackboard Jungle is released featuring Bill Haley and His Comets "(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock"
RCA signs Elvis Presley
The Everly Brothers make their first studio recordings
Alan Freed's Rock 'n' Roll Ball" draws huge, half-white audience
Carl Perkins records "Blue Suede Shoes"
Sales of 45 rpm records finally outsold 78s.
1956
Colonel Tom Parker signed on as Elvis Presley’s manager
Heartbreak Hotel starts Presley-mania
Presley's first film, Love Me Tender
The rock 'n' roll music of white rockers is called "rockabilly" (rock + hillbilly)
Screamin Jay Hawkins' "I Put A Spell On You" introduces voodoo into rock'n'roll
Wanda Jackson is the "Queen of Rockabilly"
The popularity of rock and roll causes the record industry to boom and allows independentlabels to flourish
In impromptu recording session occurs at Sun Studios with the million dollar quartet consisting of Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash
Elektra pioneers the "compilation" record, containing songs by different musicians
Buddy Holly had his first official recording session in 1956. It was held in Nashville at producerOwen Bradley’s, Barn Studio.
Brenda Lee signs a recording contract at the age of 11, after five years of singing professionally
Gene Vincent made his first appearance on national TV by performing on The Perry Como Show
American Bandstand first aired on nationwide TV
1957
Chuck Berry releases "School Day" and "Rock and Roll Music"
Golden Age of the teen-idols
Link Wray's Rumble invents the "fuzz-tone" guitar sound
Buddy Holly recorded, That’ll Be the Day, at a Norman Petty's New Mexico studio.
Billboard begins the Hot 100 singles chart
Buddy Holly and Sam Cooke made their first appearances on the same The Ed SullivanShow
1958
Elvis is drafted into the Army
Carl Perkins left Sun Records in 1958,becoming the first big rockabilly artist on theColumbia label.
Golden age of instrumental rock
Eddie Cochran overdubs all instruments and vocals on "Summertime Blues" and "C'monEverybody "
Lowman Pauling invents guitar distortion and feedback on the Five Royales' "The Slummer"
RCA introduces the first stereo long-playing records
Don Kirshner opens offices at the Brill Building
David Seville's "The Witch Doctor" and the Tokens' "Tonite I Fell In Love" are the firstnovelty hits
Bobby Freeman's "Do You Wanna Dance" begins the "dance craze"
Stax Records is founded in Memphis to promote black music
Little Richard quit rock and roll in 1958 to attend Bible college.
Dion and The Belmonts and Laurie Records both had their first hit when the band’s, "I WonderWhy," made the Top 40
Jerry Lee Lewis had 34 of his 37 concert dates in the U.K. cancelled in 1958 when it wasdiscovered that his new bride with him was also his 13 year old cousin.
Buddy Holly makes his final studio recordings " It Doesn’t Matter Any More," "Moondreams," " RainingIn My Heart" and "True Love Ways"
The Dick Clark Show TV Show began
1959
Rick Hall founds the FAME studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama
The Drifters' "There Goes My Baby" introduces Latin rhythm to pop music
Berry Gordy founds Tamla-Motown in Detroit to release pop-oriented soul records
600 million records are sold in the USA
Buddy Holly dies at 22 in a plane crash
Since 1955, the US market share of the four "majors" has dropped from 78% to 44%, while the market share of independent record companies increased from 22% to 56%
Since 1955, the US market has increased from 213 million dollars to 603 million, and the market share of rock and roll has increased from 15.7% to 42.7%
1960
Elvis appears on the Ed Sullivan Show following his release from the Army.
Twist is the biggest dance-craze in the year of the dance-crazes
Larry Parnes, Britain's most famous impresario, arranges a show for the Silver Beetles inLiverpool
Sam Cooke signed with RCA Records in 1960, bringing his hits on Keen Records with him
The Shirelles' "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" coins a form of romantic multi-part vocal harmonies
The British producer Joe Meek uses the recording studio like an instrument for "I Hear a New World "
Eddie Cochran dies at 22
Ray Charles has his first #1 hit "Georgia On My Mind "
1961
Dick Dale uses the term "surfing" to describe his instrumental rock and roll
Stax begins to produce soul records in Memphis
The Peppermint Lounge opens in New York
Roy Orbison has his first number #1 hit, "Running Scared"
Phil Spector and partner Lester Sill released the "Oh Yeah Maybe Baby" on their new label Philles
1962
The Supremes first recordings are released.
James Brown record his famous Live At the Apollo album
1963
Surf music rules the airwaves
Little Stevie Wonder recorded his first #1 hit, "Fingertips – Pt. 2,"
1965
Alan Freed, the man who gave rock ‘n’ roll its name, died in 1965 at the early age of 43
A LITTLE BIT OF RECORD HISTORY
1 Jazz at the Philharmonic: Blues, Part 2 (1944)
2 Joe Liggins: The Honeydripper (1945)
3 Helen Humes: Be-Baba-Leba (1945)
4 Freddie Slack : House Of Blue Lights (1946)
5 Big Boy Crudup: That's All Right (1946)
6 Jack McVea: Open The Door, Richard (1946)
7 Lonnie Johnson: Tomorrow Night (1948)
8 Wynonie Harris: Good Rockin' Tonight (1948)
9 Bill Moore: We're Gonna Rock,We're Gonna Roll (1948)
10 Orioles: It's Too Soon To Know (1948)
11 John Lee Hooker: Boogie Chillen (1948)
12 Arthur Smith and the Crackerjacks: Guitar Boogie (1948)
13 Stick McGhee: Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee (1949)
14 Jimmy Preston: Rock The Joint (1949)
15 Louis Jordan: Saturday Night Fish Fry (1949)
16 Professor Longhair: Mardi Gras In New Orleans (1949)
17 Fats Domino: The Fat Man (1950)
18 Muddy Waters: Rollin' and Tumblin' (1950)
19 Hardrock Gunter: Birmingham Bounce (1950)
20 Hank Snow: I'm Movin' On (1950)
21 Ruth Brown: Teardrops From My Eyes (1950)
22 Arkie Shibley: Hot Rod Race (1950)
23 Les Paul and Mary Ford: How High The Moon (1951)
24 Jackie Brenston with His Delta Cats: Rocket 88 (1951)
25 Dominoes: Sixty Minute Man (1951)
26 Johnnie Ray with the Four Lads: Cry (1951)
27 Clovers: One Mint Julep (1952)
28 Bill Haley and the Saddlemen: Rock The Joint (1952)
29 Dominoes: Have Mercy Baby (1952)
30 Lloyd Price: Lawdy Miss Clawdy (1952)
31 Hank Williams: Kaw-Liga (1953)
32 Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thorton: Hound Dog (1953)
33 Big Joe Turner: Honey Hush (1953)
34 Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters: Money Honey (1953)
35 Crows: Gee (1953)
36 Big Joe Turner: Shake, Rattle, and Roll (1954)
37 Royals/Midnighters: Work With Me, Annie (1954)
38 Chords: Sh-Boom (1954)
39 Bill Haley and His Comets: (Were Going To)Rock Around The Clock) (1954)
40 Robins: Riot In Cell Block #9 (1954)
41 Elvis Presley, Scotty and Bill: That's All Right (1954)
42 Penguins: Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine) (1954)
43 LaVern Baker and the Gliders: Tweedle Dee (1954)
44 Johnny Ace: Pledging My Love (1954)
45 Ray Charles: I've Got A Woman (1954)
46 Bo Diddley: Bo Diddley (1955)
47 Chuck Berry: Maybellene (1955)
48 Little Richard: Tutti Frutti (1955)
49 Carl Perkins: Blue Suede Shoes
(1956)50 Elvis Presley: Heartbreak Hotel (1956)
THE HISTORY OF THE ELECTRIC GUITAR
The development of the electric solid body guitar owes a great deal to the popularity of Hawaiian music in the 1920s and 1930s. Hawaiian guitars were solo instruments played with a metal slide. Electric Hawaiian guitars were the first instruments that depended entirely on their sound being amplified electrically not just acoustically.
A key figure was Adolph Rickenbacker who originally he was to make metal components for Dopera Brothers' National Resonator Guitars. While at National, Rickenbacker met George Beauchamp and Paul Barth who had been working together on the principle of the magnetic pick-up. Together they formed the Electro String Company and in 1931 produced their first Hawaiian guitars. Their success prompted Gibson and others to start producing electric guitars,
In the 1940s Gibson new electric models became firmly established. People began to work on ways of applying the solid body of the Hawaiian and steel guitars to regular instruments. In 1944, Leo Fender, who ran a radio repair shop, teamed up with Doc Kaufman, a former Rickenbacker employee, started K & F Company and produced a series of steel guitars and amplifiers. Fender felt the large pick-up magnets in use at the time need not be so large. He incorporated a new pick-up which he wanted to try out into a solid body guitar based on the shape Hawaiian but, with a regular properly fretted fingerboard. Though only meant to demonstrate the pick-up the guitar was soon in demand. 1946 saw the formation of Fender Electric Instrument Company and the introduction of the Broadcaster.
At the same time Les Paul was working in the same direction. Paul experimented with pick ups throughout the 1930s but, had experienced feedback and resonance problems and began to think about a solid body guitar after hearing about a solid body violin by Thomas Edison.. Paul was convinced the only way to avoid body feedback was to reduce pick up movement and the only way to do that was to mount it in a solid body.
Paul persuaded Epiphone to let him use workshop on Sundays, where in 1941 he built the historic "log" guitar
In 1947 Paul Bigsby in consultation with Merle Travis built a solid body electric guitar that shared certain design features with the Broadcaster that Fender introduced in 1948. Bigsby wasn't far from Fender operation in Fullerton and there is some question who was looking over whose shoulder
Fender was more concerned with utility and practicality rather then looks and wanted a regular guitar with the clear sound of a electric Hawaiian but, without the feedback problems. The result was the the Broadcaster which he began producing in 1948 later renamed the Telecaster.
In 1954, Fender began producing the Stratocaster. Along with the Telecaster and the guitars Les Paul was designing for Gibson, they set the standard for solid body guitars.
HISTORIC GUITAR SOLOS
-Bone Walker: Got A Break, Baby (1942). This is the very first recording T-Bone made on electric guitar, and as such, I believe it is the first (fretted) electric blues guitar solo ever recorded. What an incredible starting point for our great tradition! T-Bone just pours out one great idea after another, with clear authoritative melodic lines, beautifully articulated trills and bends and classic bluesy double-stops, a marvelous sense of swing, great syncopations with phrases "turning over" against the beat in surprising ways, and his matchless control of dynamics. He also of course anticipates Chuck Berry with those two-note bends and the classic syncopated 5th-swung-against-itself lick that would become a Chuck trademark. Fabulous performance!
Billy Butler, lead guitar, on: Bill Doggett: Honky Tonk (1956). Other than Chuck Berry's licks on "Johnny B. Goode," I think this beautiful, subtle, jazzy, flowing masterpiece is the most-imitated guitar solo in the whole blues tradition -- I've heard lots of great, famous blues men play it note-for-note on stage, as if to prove they could cover Billy Butler's licks, some of which are trickier than they sound, others of which (like the first two bars of chorus 2) are not technically difficult but are amazing in their inventiveness and elegance. Billy makes it all sound so relaxed and effortless! This solo defines what I mean about solos with compositional strength, melodic integrity, a complete statement. I gave you the whole performance here (issued as "Part 1" and "Part 2" on record), so you could hear the great, hellishly syncopated lick he plays (bars 5-8) when he re-enters for the tune's very last chorus.
Scotty Moore, lead guitar, on Elvis Presley: Hound Dog (1956). Scotty's playing with Elvis has two distinct phases. On the early Sun recordings, when the band was very small and he needed to fill more space, he often played a Merle Travis-based fingerpicking bag, laying down a body of gorgeous (and much-copied) licks and fills that helped define rockabilly as a style for all time. Then when El moved to RCA and recorded with bigger, louder groups, Scotty switched over to a T-Bone-inflected lead-line style at which he proved equally adept and exciting. Maybe for their sheer influence I should have included a Sun side here, but I chose to go with "Hound Dog" for its utter drive and wild excitement, and for the way Scotty moves like a flash from the growly low-string licks into the bright, cutting upper-register stuff.
Chuck Berry: Carol (1958). Chuck is certainly one of the most influential guitarists of all time... I'll have much more to say about him in an upcoming feature. This is another case where I could have chosen the better-known, and more copied, solo -- "Johnny B. Goode," of course -- but went with this variation on the same themes because, although "Johnny" has more sheer drive and a hotter guitar sound, Chuck's work on "Carol" is more varied and inventive. Favorite aspects of this wonderful performance: the marvelous blues fills after every line of (especially) verse 1 -- notice that they're mainly single-note lines in spite of how much we associate Chuck with the double-stop sound; also the way he picks up his great, ascending IV-chord fill from the verse and uses it again in the solo; the long, surprising, descending parallel-thirds line late in the solo; the fact that the intro lick is integrated into the song structure itself... And then of course there's the phrasing on the two-string bend (just before the vocal) -- a point over which Chuck and Keith Richards nearly came to blows! in a scene from the great Taylor Hackford documentary film, Chuck Berry: Hail, Hail Rock and Roll!
James Burton, lead guitar, on Dale Hawkins: Suzie Q (1957). James Burton's is a name known only to connoisseurs, but he has expanded and helped redefine the sound of the electric guitar at least three times in his career: in the mid-to-late sixties as a principal architect of the "Bakersfield" Telecaster sound which is the basis of country lead as it's played today; in his late '50s-early '60s work with Ricky Nelson which brilliantly integrated Scotty Moore's and Chuck Berry's concepts with country and pop vocabulary and pioneering uses of whole-note bends on lighter strings; and also, back in '57, by simply creating this one incredible, enormously influential record. (All these phases of Burton's career will be examined in more depth in a forthcoming essay... watch this Website!) These definitive "E7" theme licks have kept finding their way into one great rock and country hit after another, down through the years. Despite the bogus composer credit, this tune originated as a Burton guitar instrumental, to which Dale Hawkins later added lyrics when their band got a chance to record. The classic "theme" chorus would be reason enough to include this record, but we also get 2 more fine solos later, both of which feature fiercely-syncopated IV-chord figures closely related to that final chorus of Butler's in "Honky Tonk."
James Burton, lead guitar, on Ricky Nelson: Just A Little Too Much (1959). Burton's unique combination of guitar skills and sounds was a heaven-sent match for the special blend of rockabilly and Brill Building pop which Johnny and Dorsey Burnette cooked up in the songs they were writing for Ricky. It's tough to pick just one of the many blazing little masterpieces James dropped into those records, but I chose this lesser known tune for its startling, dancing uses of fretted notes bouncing off open strings, and for its combination of tough blues feeling with high-spirited, even humorous, rock'n'roll drive. Can you hear him working both the high and low open E strings? Note also the classic Burton construction at the tail end of the solo: the high, climactic licks conclude, and are then followed by a surprising, tasty (and perfectly rounded off) "afterthought" flourish to finish up... he pulls this off again and again, and it just slays me every time.
Snooks Eaglin: Yours Truly (1960). Snooks has been playing phenomenal guitar and singing beautiful, soulful R&B in New Orleans since the early '50s, and he's just as hot today as he ever was. Check out his latest album, Soul's Edge (Blacktop 1112) -- he's on fire! But this incredible solo from back in '59, you just gotta check out... so light and flowing and fast and funky -- it just grabs everyone who hears it.
Lonnie Mack: Memphis (1963). Lonnie alternates here between a snappy "Suzie Q"-like 12-bar blues theme of his own, and the chord changes to Chuck Berry's great song "Memphis," phrased in the sliding 6th-to-9th chord voicings that I believe were first introduced by Charles Brown's original guitar player, Johnny Moore. Chuck didn't play these voicings in his own record of "Memphis"; they do appear on the Johnny Rivers hit cover of the tune, also from '63 -- I'm not sure whether Rivers copped the idea from Lonnie or vice versa. Either way this is a marvelous record, cooking and concise. And dig how Lonnie cuts loose and wails on the second, higher round of his blues chorus, pushing the bent root note against the fretted version, pouring out his ideas smoothly at top speed, and shivering those high sustains like a banshee! Very few cats could play this way back in '63!
Freddy King: Remington Ride (1963). Some of the characteristic trademark moves of Freddy's many great King/Federal instrumental tunes (discussed in my essay on him, this Website) do not occur in this amazing performance. He doesn't use low-string themes here, to name just one obvious example, and the tune is much less structured than most of his others. But it's by far the longest of his instrumentals, and it's so wonderful to hear him just wail on freely for chorus after chorus, I had to include it. The form of the tune itself, with its slightly offbeat chord changes, is another strong point; Freddy's copping the piece from Herb Remington, the Western Swing steel guitarist -- one of many fascinating examples of blues/country cross-pollination.
Rudy Richard (probable), lead guitar on Slim Harpo: We're Two of a Kind (1964). This solo, and the following one, are studies in the power of the repeated use of the move I call "the strongest note on the guitar" -- the whole-step bend to the tonic (which is then sustained and often vibratoed). Notice how beautifully Rudy Richard (presuming it's him; session data for these great old Excello sides is a little sketchy) plays the song, phrasing his thoughts like the lyric but still making each phrase a beautiful piece of ringing, singing guitar tone -- and then driving home all the deep emotion of the blues as he picks up the intensity towards the end.
Little Milton: Feel So Bad (1966). You'd be hard put to find a blues record with any more sheer soul, sheer feeling and emotional power, in both its vocal and lead guitar work. This performance has been a primary inspiration to me for thirty years, and it still surprises me and hits me hard today. There's nothing too complex or technically difficult about the notes and phrases Milton plays here -- but the exact way he places and attacks them is utterly masterful, he just tears right into your heart. And what a singer! If you don't believe this one, man, you won't believe nothin'! I love that funky, soul-inflected bass groove too.
Jimi Hendrix: Little Wing (1967). This is Jimi in one of my very favorite bags, the soft-soul trills-and-slides style that Curtis Mayfield pioneered for us all in his early-'60s classics with the Impressions ("People Get Ready" etc. etc.). Hendrix clearly loved this style, and a lot of his most open, emotional playing and singing comes out in tunes like this. Really the "solo" for which I selected this cut is the magnificent opening passage on which he is playing completely solo -- but we get a wonderful later one as well, including that grand, powerful high theme line, and (check this out!) his startling use of a classic country lead guitar lick -- the Burton-esque pedal-steel-style bend figure -- on the G-to-F chord section (bar 7)... proving (as if we didn't know) that Jimi's ears were wide open to every form of soulful music.
Jimi Hendrix: All Along the Watchtower (1968). Bob Dylan was a huge influence and inspiration for Hendrix, and this masterpiece pays the best kind of tribute Bob could possibly have asked. One of the greatest things about this solo is of course its sense of structure, the way each distinct section introduces a whole new set of ideas that follow perfectly after what's gone before. The individual themes are so perfectly shaped and sculpted -- instantly hummable melodies. And I love how Jimi's trademark same-note-simultaneously-on-two-strings high lines, here picked tremolo style, evoke the howling wind of Bob's sparse, spooky lyric.
Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, lead guitar, with Steely Dan: My Old School (1972). There are many great guitar solos throughout the Steely Dan canon, many superb guitarists to thank for them, many cool stories about how those solos came to be played under the exacting producers' eyes of mysterioso perfectionists Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. But no one ever topped the fire, variety, and endless inventiveness that Skunk Baxter poured into every line of his two solos on this great song. He moves from clean sweet-soul melody riffs, to bluesy Hendrix-style rock cries, to jazz octaves, Bakersfield twang licks, Robertson-esque harmonic tweaks and more, in the blink of an eye -- every phrase dancing and perfectly placed, the mood at once wry and passionate like the song itself. The way his licks at the end are bouncing off the piano and horn figures is some sort of collective genius, and as the song fades out you'd swear they're going to romp on for minutes more of this wonderful stuff.
David Spinozza, lead guitar, on Dr. John: Right Place Wrong Time (1972). Mac Rebennack (Dr. John) says they recorded this classic track with the solo left open, thinking to overdub a sax later... then someone suggested a guitar, David Spinozza happened to be around, he took a shot and fired this gem off on the very first take! It's amazing how perfectly he matches the rising surge of energy in the rhythm track (laid down by New Orleans' incomparable Meters, with the great Leo Nocentelli scratchin' out the ultra-hip rhythm guitar lick). Spinozza starts with a few sparse, sinister warning phrases; then almost before you realize it, the track has turned a big corner through the II-V change, he's ridden right up with it, and suddenly he's screamin' out those Albert King/Jimi Hendrix blues bends. Then just as suddenly, a rapid-fire descending line, and he's gone! Pure excitement.
Robbie Robertson, lead guitar, with The Band: Back to Memphis (1973). It's become almost a clich? of writers discussing the Band, to cite Robertson's super-spare, dry, crackling solo at the end of the classic "King Harvest" as his all-time guitar masterpiece. Of course I love that solo too, but he's recorded many equally great ones throughout his career, and I wanted to showcase some other, perhaps less known, sides of his playing, as displayed in this good-time rock'n'roll rave-up number from the Band's set at Watkins Glen. This song, a 24-bar blues in form, is actually a quite obscure Chuck Berry number, but Robbie plays totally his own bag of tricks here, with very little reference to Chuck's style. His use of open strings as he moves up the neck (see bars 5-6 of his first chorus; also first 4 bars of chorus 2, etc. etc.) is phenomenal; so is the way he keeps a dramatic high-tonic drone note ringing against his melody line in bars 5-8 of chorus 2; and I laughed out loud at the way he slips that snarly low-string lick (almost a "Suzie Q" quote!) into the final V chord of this break. More on Robertson below.
Albert Lee, lead guitar, on Dave Edmunds: Sweet Little Lisa (1979). This barn-burner takes the Bakersfield Telecaster vocabulary -- the stutter-bend-and-twang, throw-in-imitation-pedal-steel-tricks, idiom -- to a wild new level of excitement. It's a non-stop thrill ride of rapid-fire hot licks -- but in each wild chorus, Albert manages to pull his melody line back onto the road at the last minute, for a satisfying conclusion that proves he knows exactly where he is and what he's doing the whole time.
Steve Ray Vaughan, lead guitar, on Bennie Wallace: All Night Dance (1986). I wanted to bring the focus a little closer to the present on my last couple of tunes, and I thought this number would be a treat for Stevie Ray fans who haven't caught his guest appearance on this presently-unavailable album by jazz sax man Wallace. I love hearing Vaughan work with a larger, richer-sounding band instead of his more usual trio format, and I think maybe it inspired his performance as well. He sure sounds great framed by those rich horns and Dr. John's magnificent piano work. The tune actually sort of hearkens back to "Honky Tonk" (above), with Stevie showing off some unusual jazzy voicings and smooth tremolo picking just as Billy Butler did on the Doggett piece. His control of the tremolo technique at that speed is amazing, and he blazes along from one great idea to another -- Texas-school syncopations, fresh uses of fifths and sixths, classic aching single-note blues lines -- all with flawless transitions, superb internal logic, and, of course, tons of authentic blues feeling.
Robbie Robertson: Slo Burn (1994? recorded earlier?). Of course Robertson's widely acclaimed for some of his classic songwriting, and for his songwriter-storyteller role and overall vibe of artistic integrity; and yes, he's vaguely recognized as a good, tasty lead guitarist too. I'm going to go much further out on a limb in assessing him as a player! It's my opinion that he stands in a class with Hendrix, and only Hendrix, as the most innovative, diverse, complex, distinctive, and powerful guitar voice of his era. He's played definitively beautiful solos and color parts in an amazingly wide range of styles and idioms; his timing, as both lead and support player, is fantastic; his uses of open-string and drone techniques, "harmonics" licks, tremolo picking and volume-swell tone effects are utterly personal, imaginative and unique. The different historical periods of his work -- with Ronnie Hawkins, with Dylan, several distinct phases with the Band, and his solo and soundtrack work of the last 16 years -- are each distinctive and deserve serious examination; yet at this same time his personal voice is unmistakable at every stage. He's been a rebel and innovator on the instrument right from the start, and continues to break new ground today, as this moody, moaning, instrumental piece from a 1994 film score bears witness. And of course, through all his evolutions and technical innovations, the essence of his playing has always been the pure, searing emotion he wrings from his strings. "Slo Burn," like all of his best work, fascinates me as a guitarist -- but utterly haunts and transports me as a listener.
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