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Henry Jerome--bandleader from 1940s/50s


ghost of miles

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Was re-reading Gitler's FROM SWING TO BOP last night & noted the section about Henry Jerome, who led one of the first allegedly "progressive" big bands. Some weird, interesting tidbits about this band; here's Eugene Chadbourne's writeup at AMG:

Like it or not, Henry Jerome manifests an impenetrable link between rockabilly, easy listening, the kitschy poetry of Rod McKuen, the economic policies of the 20th century, and perhaps even the Watergate break-in. Listeners who find easy listening to be anything but that and are dismissive of the notion that practicioners of this genre might possess any versatility whatsoever would do well to study the biography of this artist, generous chunks of which must be recounted if only to back up the bold claims made in the first sentence.

One immediate question concerning the man's not-so-uncommon name would be whether it is the same Henry Jerome who produced both the classic debut recordings of Johnny Burnette's trio as well as a stack of easy listening sides including the chart-scaling Brazen Brass of 1961. The answer is yes, Jerome revealing a surprising range of musical interests upon assuming an A&R position with the Coral label. This move came some three decades after Jerome, originally a trumpeter, started his initial series of orchestral groups.

In the mid-'30s the bandleader fronted Henry Jerome & His Stepping Tones, a ten-piece ensemble that featured vocalists such as David Allen, Frank Warren, and Kay Carlton. This group broadcast on the ABC network from an Edison Hotel venue known as the Green Room, exposure that led to fairly regular engagements despite prevailing critical opinion that this group was "barely adequate musically." Jerome's best-known vocalist came along in 1944: Johnny Mandel would also find great fame as a songwriter but at this point was dealing with Jerome's notion of a modernized sound influenced by bebop.

Two of the gentlemen in the group also grappling with these arrangements were none other than Alan Greenspan — future Chairman of the Federal Reserve — on bass clarinet and saxophonist Leonard Garment, eventually to become an unfortunately overly busy counsel during the administration of Richard Nixon. Garment and Greenspan became great friends on the bandstand and it was this bond that led the former to put up the latter for the job of Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Nixon later naming Greenspan to his nearly infinite Federal Reserve stewardship.

Despite the seemingly winning combination of modern sounds and budding political bigwigs, the '40s Jerome band lacked the commercial potential to survive past the end of the decade. He became a musical director at Decca, concentrating on large band recording rather than touring projects in the Brazen Brass mode as well as the popular discography of McKuen. He moved over to Coral in 1959, where his clients included Burnette and Lenny Dell & the Dimensions. The Burnette sides, including hits such as "Train Kept a Rollin'," remain among the undisputed masterpieces of the rockabilly sound. Jerome continued working during the '60s, putting out an album of his own on the United Artists label and writing the theme songs for a pair of silly television shows, The Soupy Sales Show and Winky-Dink and You. Jerome used the pseudonym of Al Mortimer for many of these published works.

Jerome alludes to airchecks of the 1940s band, but I couldn't find any in my initial online searches... just the Hal Kemp tribute record from 1957.

Heh... probably should've posted this in Politics. No comment on the Garment-Greenspand bandstand alliance.

Edited by ghost of miles
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Was re-reading Gitler's FROM SWING TO BOP last night & noted the section about Henry Jerome, who led one of the first allegedly "progressive" big bands. Some weird, interesting tidbits about this band; here's Eugene Chadbourne's writeup at AMG:

Like it or not, Henry Jerome manifests an impenetrable link between rockabilly, easy listening, the kitschy poetry of Rod McKuen, the economic policies of the 20th century, and perhaps even the Watergate break-in. Listeners who find easy listening to be anything but that and are dismissive of the notion that practicioners of this genre might possess any versatility whatsoever would do well to study the biography of this artist, generous chunks of which must be recounted if only to back up the bold claims made in the first sentence.

One immediate question concerning the man's not-so-uncommon name would be whether it is the same Henry Jerome who produced both the classic debut recordings of Johnny Burnette's trio as well as a stack of easy listening sides including the chart-scaling Brazen Brass of 1961. The answer is yes, Jerome revealing a surprising range of musical interests upon assuming an A&R position with the Coral label. This move came some three decades after Jerome, originally a trumpeter, started his initial series of orchestral groups.

In the mid-'30s the bandleader fronted Henry Jerome & His Stepping Tones, a ten-piece ensemble dr. that featured vocalists such as David Allen, Frank Warren, and Kay Carlton. This group broadcast on the ABC network from an Edison Hotel venue known as the Green Room, exposure that led to fairly regular engagements despite prevailing critical opinion that this group was "barely adequate musically." Jerome's best-known vocalist came along in 1944: Johnny Mandel would also find great fame as a songwriter but at this point was dealing with Jerome's notion of a modernized sound influenced by bebop.

Two of the gentlemen in the group also grappling with these arrangements were none other than Alan Greenspan — future Chairman of the Federal Reserve — on bass clarinet and saxophonist Leonard Garment, eventually to become an unfortunately overly busy counsel during the administration of Richard Nixon. Garment and Greenspan became great friends on the bandstand and it was this bond that led the former to put up the latter for the job of Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Nixon later naming Greenspan to his nearly infinite Federal Reserve stewardship.

Despite the seemingly winning combination of modern sounds and budding political bigwigs, the '40s Jerome band lacked the commercial potential to survive past the end of the decade. He became a musical director at Decca, concentrating on large band recording rather than touring projects in the Brazen Brass mode as well as the popular discography of McKuen. He moved over to Coral in 1959, where his clients included Burnette and Lenny Dell & the Dimensions. The Burnette sides, including hits such as "Train Kept a Rollin'," remain among the undisputed masterpieces of the rockabilly sound. Jerome continued working during the '60s, putting out an album of his own on the United Artists label and writing the theme songs for a pair of silly television shows, The Soupy Sales Show and Winky-Dink and You. Jerome used the pseudonym of Al Mortimer for many of these published works.

Jerome alludes to airchecks of the 1940s band, but I couldn't find any in my initial online searches... just the Hal Kemp tribute record from 1957.

Heh... probably should've posted this in Politics. No comment on the Garment-Greenspand bandstand alliance.

alan greenspan played in jerome's group for some time. the later jerome had some kind of bouncing sound for the stereo.

Economist and chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

Born March 6, 1926, in New York City. Considered by many to be the second most powerful man in the United States, Greenspan has headed the seven-member board since 1987, doggedly fighting to keep inflation down and increase consumer confidence in the economy.

Raised by his mother and grandmother in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan, Greenspan actively pursued his interest in music. After graduating from high school, he studied at the Juilliard School and spent a year travelling with the Henry Jerome Band as a tenor saxophone and clarinet player. From 1944 to 1948, he attended New York University’s School of Commerce, graduating summa cum laude with a degree in economics. He earned his M.A. in 1950, but left before finishing his doctorate—he ultimately received his Ph.D. in 1977—to form an economic consulting firm, Townsend-Greenspan, with the bond trader William Townsend. Townsend served as president of the company until his death in 1958, when Greenspan became its president and principal owner.

In 1952, Greenspan married Joan Mitchell, a painter. Their marriage was annulled after only a year, but it was she who introduced him to Ayn Rand, the novelist and social philosopher. Greenspan, who remained friends with Rand until her death in 1982, was greatly influenced by her philosophy of “Objectivism,” or the pursuit of economic self-interest to the exclusion of the interests of society as a whole.

Edited by alocispepraluger102
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I was just as intrigued as Ghost of Miles by this name of Henry Jerome when I read SWING TO BOP (one of those jazz books you enjoy reading over and over and over again from start to finish) as it was mentioned relatively frequently for such an obscure band.

My initial reaction initially was something like "What - a transitional band from swing to bop I don't have in my record collection and can't find in any discographies? WTF?"

At first I drew a blank too and wrote it off as one of those unrecorded post-big band era bands that blossomed very briefly after 1945. What with Tiny Kahn and Al Cohn in its lineup, I figured it might have sounded like that Gene Roland rehearsal band.

However, there is at least one Henry Jerome LP on the Circle label (CLP-51), featuring Lang-Worth transcription recordings made in 1950 and 1952 (released in 1983).

I found it a couple of years ago and of course grabbed it (Swing to Bop had stuck in my mind). I got it very cheaply - otherwise it would have been a BIG disappointment. It's more of a hotel-style or mickey-mouse setup in the style of Hal Kemp or the like that may have been popular with the more plush, more sedate set of U.S. society of the late 40s/early 50s.

That "modern" sounds of that Henry Jerome bands mentioned in the book must have been a brief intermezzo in this man's bandleading career.

BTW, if that AMG info quoted below is correct, then that connection of Henry Jerome with rockabilly and the Johnny Burnette Trio that is alluded to is a streaky one at best.

If it is so that Jerome moved to Coral as late as 1959 he didn't even catch the Trio at the tail end of its involvement with Coral. The classic Trio sides had been made in 1956/57, and the classic Tiny Bradshaw cover "The Train Kept a'Rollin'" quoted below was released in October, 1956. By 1959 Burnette had moved on to Imperial and then Liberty.

Or did that Decca man Jerome do producer's work for Coral on the side?

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  • 12 years later...
On 1/23/2007 at 8:19 PM, alocispepraluger102 said:

 

alan greenspan played in jerome's group for some time. the later jerome had some kind of bouncing sound for the stereo.

 

Economist and chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

Born March 6, 1926, in New York City. Considered by many to be the second most powerful man in the United States, Greenspan has headed the seven-member board since 1987, doggedly fighting to keep inflation down and increase consumer confidence in the economy.

 

Raised by his mother and grandmother in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan, Greenspan actively pursued his interest in music. After graduating from high school, he studied at the Juilliard School and spent a year travelling with the Henry Jerome Band as a tenor saxophone and clarinet player. From 1944 to 1948, he attended New York University’s School of Commerce, graduating summa cum laude with a degree in economics. He earned his M.A. in 1950, but left before finishing his doctorate—he ultimately received his Ph.D. in 1977—to form an economic consulting firm, Townsend-Greenspan, with the bond trader William Townsend. Townsend served as president of the company until his death in 1958, when Greenspan became its president and principal owner.

 

In 1952, Greenspan married Joan Mitchell, a painter. Their marriage was annulled after only a year, but it was she who introduced him to Ayn Rand, the novelist and social philosopher. Greenspan, who remained friends with Rand until her death in 1982, was greatly influenced by her philosophy of “Objectivism,” or the pursuit of economic self-interest to the exclusion of the interests of society as a whole.

Not Joan Mitchell the celebrated Abstract Expressionist but another painter of that name, a Canadian.

On 1/23/2007 at 3:00 AM, Big Beat Steve said:

I was just as intrigued as Ghost of Miles by this name of Henry Jerome when I read SWING TO BOP (one of those jazz books you enjoy reading over and over and over again from start to finish) as it was mentioned relatively frequently for such an obscure band.

My initial reaction initially was something like "What - a transitional band from swing to bop I don't have in my record collection and can't find in any discographies? WTF?"

 

At first I drew a blank too and wrote it off as one of those unrecorded post-big band era bands that blossomed very briefly after 1945. What with Tiny Kahn and Al Cohn in its lineup, I figured it might have sounded like that Gene Roland rehearsal band.

 

However, there is at least one Henry Jerome LP on the Circle label (CLP-51), featuring Lang-Worth transcription recordings made in 1950 and 1952 (released in 1983).

I found it a couple of years ago and of course grabbed it (Swing to Bop had stuck in my mind). I got it very cheaply - otherwise it would have been a BIG disappointment. It's more of a hotel-style or mickey-mouse setup in the style of Hal Kemp or the like that may have been popular with the more plush, more sedate set of U.S. society of the late 40s/early 50s.

That "modern" sounds of that Henry Jerome bands mentioned in the book must have been a brief intermezzo in this man's bandleading career.

 

BTW, if that AMG info quoted below is correct, then that connection of Henry Jerome with rockabilly and the Johnny Burnette Trio that is alluded to is a streaky one at best.

If it is so that Jerome moved to Coral as late as 1959 he didn't even catch the Trio at the tail end of its involvement with Coral. The classic Trio sides had been made in 1956/57, and the classic Tiny Bradshaw cover "The Train Kept a'Rollin'" quoted below was released in October, 1956. By 1959 Burnette had moved on to Imperial and then Liberty.

Or did that Decca man Jerome do producer's work for Coral on the side?

I vaguely recall having a Jerome 10-inch album (was it on MGM?) when I was 12 or so, but  I have no idea what it sounded like.

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Talk about digging out ancient topics ... :D

That CD sounds interesting, but the prices on amazon.de - hmmm ....
And I wonder why they used such an ill-fitting 70s pic on a 40s music release. If that CD came from an estate linked to Jerome they ought to have had access to more fitting illustrations more evocative of the contents ....

BTW and FWIW, I don't find that "It's jazz history" to be an apology or excuse but a reminder to those who (ought to be) in the know that "this band is no big name from the history of jazz but it played its part at the time and it pays to search out the unknowns and explore the often-overlooked niches because THIS is what puts flesh on the bare bones of the music ..." And spot on they are IMO ...

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I ordered the damn thing, should be here today. Not expecting much, but, like others, read about the band in Swing To Bop, which I recently pulled off the shelves to do a little freshening up on Boyd Raeburn's band. While scouring for Raeburn airshots, this thing popped up, and, well, destiny, right? Powerless against fate, we are.

$15.00 is a reasonable enough price for a privately issued CD published in 1977. I'd be shocked if there's too much more than 30 minutes of music on it, but oh well.

And it IS "jazz history". Just keep in mind that historical value and musical value are readings off two different scales weighing two different quantities.

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On 6/27/2019 at 7:01 AM, JSngry said:

I ordered the damn thing, should be here today. Not expecting much, but, like others, read about the band in Swing To Bop, which I recently pulled off the shelves to do a little freshening up on Boyd Raeburn's band. While scouring for Raeburn airshots, this thing popped up, and, well, destiny, right? Powerless against fate, we are.

$15.00 is a reasonable enough price for a privately issued CD published in 1977. I'd be shocked if there's too much more than 30 minutes of music on it, but oh well.

And it IS "jazz history". Just keep in mind that historical value and musical value are readings off two different scales weighing two different quantities.

The Amazon delivery got sidetracked to the point that they volunteered to ship a replacement, which arrived today.

Can't really call this a "bebop big band", the soloists aren't really there (Al Cohn (?) is the closest), nor are the charts, totally. But - there's no mistaking that bebop was what was driving this music. The tempos and definitely Tiny Kahn's drumming keep this from being just another "advanced swing" band...that's what it almost is, but the scales have tipped just enough forward. Just enough. And the charts...they're trying to get there, and again, leaning just far enough forward. "Swing to Bop" indeed...and it's close, real close.

Truthfully, I was expecting some hipster novelty that only touched the surface, but this is a really interesting record in terms of chronology,  and not without some musical interest as well. Looks like Henry Jerome and/or his estate is responsible for this package, which might explain why the packaging is so "aw shucks, we played be bop, but more importantly, we had Allan Greenspan" quality of it.  A deeper examination of whatever archives are left, and a more serious annotation about time/place and implications would serve this music better than does this incarnation.

Heartily recommended for anybody who likes that type of thing.

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23 hours ago, JSngry said:

So this could be Stan Levey on some of these cuts...or the other guy...interesting.

This really really is far better record than I was expecting. I wonder if there's more...

...as DiNovi says, maybe Levey, maybe Tiny Kahn, maybe Ellis Tollin.  Pretty good choices.

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Ok, several days of playing this record now, and...is there more of this material? And has it been examined by serious jazz people? Because the impression that I get is that

  1. this is an estate produced affair, and they don't really "get" it in terms of legitimate jazz history, I mean, they make as much a fuss about Allan Greenspan as they do anything else (and there's a thing or two where there's two tenors, and if the second one is Greenspan, then that cat could play, and if it's not - and it's probably not - then who the hell is it?
  2. Maybe "serious jazz historians" don't give a fuck because it's Henry Jerome, and all that comes with that. Or maybe they have looked at it, and this is all that's of interest. But geez, all the talk about history and Savory and all this and all that, and I had to accidentally stumble across this record on Amazon, like 20 year or so after it was first put out? Gene DiNovi talks about Bird & Diz & Budd Johnson (hell, Budd Johnson, you keep popping up in ALL the most interesting places!) coming out sand sitting in...something was going on with that band, and now the question is simply how much of it got on the air, and how much of that is preserved?

It's bugging the piss out of me that this is as good (not "great", just really good) as it is and that nobody's really called it out, for whatever reason. Is it possible that it doesn't fit with anybody's "narrative", that it's as simple as that? Don't bother us with facts, we've got a tale to construct?

No, Henry Jerome wasn't a driving force behind the development of be-bop, not even. It seems like he was an opportunistic-ish guy who hoped to ride a wave. But - look, there's the band, there's the players, there's the music. I'm thinking attention should be paid to that, regardless of whose band it was. And, possibly, more attention needs to be paid than has been.

Possibly.

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1 hour ago, JSngry said:

Ok, several days of playing this record now, and...is there more of this material? And has it been examined by serious jazz people? Because the impression that I get is that

  1. this is an estate produced affair, and they don't really "get" it in terms of legitimate jazz history, I mean, they make as much a fuss about Allan Greenspan as they do anything else (and there's a thing or two where there's two tenors, and if the second one is Greenspan, then that cat could play, and if it's not - and it's probably not - then who the hell is it?
  2. Maybe "serious jazz historians" don't give a fuck because it's Henry Jerome, and all that comes with that. Or maybe they have looked at it, and this is all that's of interest. But geez, all the talk about history and Savory and all this and all that, and I had to accidentally stumble across this record on Amazon, like 20 year or so after it was first put out? Gene DiNovi talks about Bird & Diz & Budd Johnson (hell, Budd Johnson, you keep popping up in ALL the most interesting places!) coming out sand sitting in...something was going on with that band, and now the question is simply how much of it got on the air, and how much of that is preserved?

It's bugging the piss out of me that this is as good (not "great", just really good) as it is and that nobody's really called it out, for whatever reason. Is it possible that it doesn't fit with anybody's "narrative", that it's as simple as that? Don't bother us with facts, we've got a tale to construct?

No, Henry Jerome wasn't a driving force behind the development of be-bop, not even. It seems like he was an opportunistic-ish guy who hoped to ride a wave. But - look, there's the band, there's the players, there's the music. I'm thinking attention should be paid to that, regardless of whose band it was. And, possibly, more attention needs to be paid than has been.

Possibly.

Maybe the keyword would be "unsung hero" (even if of the minor league variety)? A bit like the Tom Talbert orchestra (in a Stan Kenton vein) or the Earle Spencer band (that at least had been graced with thoughtful reissues) or the Gene Roland band?
Like most others (I guess), I became aware of the relatively large space devoted to the Jerome band in the "Swing to Bop" book and took note because to me it is those "obscure" acts (obscure to us today, that is) who actually complete in the overall picture. Like I said in this thread before, the one LP by Henry Jerome I found close to 25 years ago was fairly disappointing jazz-wise but as I had not been aware of the band or their other (much later) doings this was probably my own fault, figuring that the early 50s band might have been like the mid-40s band. Apparently the story of THIS part of the band's career had not been documented elsewhere outside "Swing to Bop".

Leo Walker's "Big Band Almanac" says this (below):

36177955uk.jpg

Judging from the above, and as for the "narrative" by "serious jazz historians", maybe it will take someone to write a book or very lengthy essay on "the Sweet bands could also swing" to even up the score? (So, you historians, take note! ^_^)

As mentioned elsewhere, I ordered my copy this morning, it already is in the mail - more expensive than a single Mosaic CD as part of a set but to me this is one of those "jump on it when it is around or miss out and don't see it again for who knows how many years" cases - contrary to the usual suspects of the "name" acts the reissues of whom are all over the places all the time. So if in doubt, this is where the priorities lie (mine, anyway).

BTW, did you work out a royalty deal with the Jerome family or estate yet? :D When I checked our amazon.de for this CD last week after you first mentioned it here there were several resellers starting from the 16 EUR price range (some European, some US, some probably listed on other amazon sites too), but when I rechecked earlier this week there were only two left (one of which I bought), and now there are NONE on amazon.de. So there must have been quite a handful who jumped on this item during the last few days. Spurred into action by this thread, I wonder? :D

 

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I do hope that interest is being spurred, but I doubt I have anything to do with it, I'm not "present" anywhere else except here, and this is a pretty isolated nook of the universe.

I don't even know that I'd call him an "unsung hero" like Talbert, Spencer, or Roland. Those guys were all writers who had bands to serve their ideas. I can't even consider him to be a Kenton or Raeburn type, leaders who had a vision of "modernity" but needed others to actually do it.

No, I think that Henry Jerome was a guy who got convinced that bebop was going to be the next big thing, so he went there with the people who had convinced him. In the process, he had a really good band. But did he hustle the shit out of it like Kenton or Raeburn? No. It seems that he did the bebop thing until a better offer came along.

And that's where a lot of "jazz history" is deficient, imo. It's so focused on narratives of specific peoples/places/things that when something like this happens, nobody pays attention (other than Ira Gitler, and then pretty much as far as I can tell just in the one book). But the band/music on this disc, leave of the announcements, and you'd be well within the bounds of reasonability to guess a band that did have narrative cred.

But to quote somebody I would generally be loathe to quote, facts are stubborn things. And here this music is, just where it says it is, being more or less what it claims to be, if not the "bebop" of the Gillespie big band or even the Eckstine band when it tipped over into real bebop, at least as close as some soon to come, and closer and certainly exponentially closer to 1944 Basie than to Hal Kemp (right down to the tenor playing...).

So...what else is there to hear, and why (presumably?) is nobody looking for it?

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Well, I still feel this thread has something to do with the dwindling number of amazon reseller copies available and that some forumists who did not speak up in this thread took note anyway and were curious enough to grab a copy. Or why else would the supplies be depleted all of a sudden within a few days just NOW?

FWIW, George T. Simon briefly mentions the bop activities of the band in his "The Big Bands":

36180172bh.jpg

As for the deficiencies of "jazz history", I agree with you all the way. It may be due to to a focus on "names that provide a hook for selling" instead of going really deeply into "who else there was" and who has not been coverd before (as this increases the required research exponentially) or maybe due to an approach that prefers to stay on the safe ground of known narratives (of the major names) that are either added to or refuted in order to leave a mark as a writer who "breaks new ground"? I dont know either, but maybe the writers active around here might like to chime in to explain how THEY see the field of their fraternity.
I think with enough determination it CAN be done, though. I remember reading about a book focusing specifically on very early (10s/20s) New Orleans jazz orchestras (not combos but full "big bands"). Some 100 of these large orchestras active in and around N.O. were covered, and though NO recordings exist for ANY of them the author managed to fill an entire book with profound contents, as the review I read somewhere confirmed.
Anyway ... covering uncharted territory and filling out the blanks left by others may be one reason why I really appreciated the "Before Motown" book. And even THAT one did not capture all the names. There used to be an online photo album of mostly private photos of late 40s/early 50s jazz (or jazz-ish) artists from Detroit, several of whom (mostly white ones) were not mentoned in "Before Motown" at all, including another undocumented big band led by one Elmer (?) Savegan. I downloaded a couple of photographs from that album in 2012 but then ... poof .. all of a sudden the entire website of albums (good-times.webshots.com), including this one, had gone down and all the albums disappeared. According to my notes of the caption of the picture of the Savegan band I downloaded at the time (below) the musicians were identified as follows: Godrons, Elmer (?) Savegan, Pete Richards, Freddie Boldt. ("Who??" But this shows there remains a lot to be explored and told). Looks like this band did their own version of the Four Brothers.

36180201hn.jpg

 

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22 hours ago, JSngry said:

Ok, several days of playing this record now, and...is there more of this material? And has it been examined by serious jazz people? Because the impression that I get is that

  1. this is an estate produced affair, and they don't really "get" it in terms of legitimate jazz history, I mean, they make as much a fuss about Allan Greenspan as they do anything else (and there's a thing or two where there's two tenors, and if the second one is Greenspan, then that cat could play, and if it's not - and it's probably not - then who the hell is it?
  2. Maybe "serious jazz historians" don't give a fuck because it's Henry Jerome, and all that comes with that. Or maybe they have looked at it, and this is all that's of interest. But geez, all the talk about history and Savory and all this and all that, and I had to accidentally stumble across this record on Amazon, like 20 year or so after it was first put out? Gene DiNovi talks about Bird & Diz & Budd Johnson (hell, Budd Johnson, you keep popping up in ALL the most interesting places!) coming out sand sitting in...something was going on with that band, and now the question is simply how much of it got on the air, and how much of that is preserved?

It's bugging the piss out of me that this is as good (not "great", just really good) as it is and that nobody's really called it out, for whatever reason. Is it possible that it doesn't fit with anybody's "narrative", that it's as simple as that? Don't bother us with facts, we've got a tale to construct?

No, Henry Jerome wasn't a driving force behind the development of be-bop, not even. It seems like he was an opportunistic-ish guy who hoped to ride a wave. But - look, there's the band, there's the players, there's the music. I'm thinking attention should be paid to that, regardless of whose band it was. And, possibly, more attention needs to be paid than has been.

Possibly.

Jerome, I believe, was pretty much a frontman/chameleon. A parallel from a bit later on might be trumpeter Larry Sonn, who "led" several swinging Coral  big band albums in the '50s with the likes of Al Cohn and Phil Woods and then vanished into the woods, so to speak. Earlier on, Sonn IIRC led Latin-style bands in Mexico.

https://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/larrysonn

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