Scott Hamilton on Ballads

[Dan Gould]

In the "Wynton's Sheet Music" thread Larry posted something that struck me as very difficult to understand, leading to the following series of posts:

To my ears, these musicians often speak the language they profess to love in a haphazard, inaccurate, even vulgar fashion, making gram¬matical and syntactical errors in the realm where notes are translated into emotion that are as disturbing as if they had flubbed the changes or turned the beat around. Place a typical Hamilton performance alongside a solo from such a master storyteller as Ike Quebec (or compare a Lew Tabackin effort with something by Sonny Rollins, or listen to David Murray next to Albert Ayler), and one hears countless musical/emotional gestures that have been mishandled or misunderstood, as though the perhaps unwitting emulator were wearing a tweed jacket with candy-striped pants.

To which I replied:

I know the topic is Wynton but I have to admit to being both surprised and annoyed about Larry's comments about Scott Hamilton and Warren Vache. I mean, I've certainly heard Scott called a "slavish imitator" but I've never heard him called a piss-poor one. Therefore I would love to see Larry offer specific musical examples of his tweed jacket + candy-striped pants.

Otherwise, its nothing more than another one of Larry's nicely turned phrases.

And Larry explained:

No problem, Dan. Scott came out of an R&B bar-band background (nothing wrong with that) and then got curious about some of the sources of the kind of big-toned, rhythmically rugged, overtly exciting sax playing that prevailed in the R&B bar-band realm and not only began to go more toward some of those sources stylistically (Flip Phillips no doubt was a key model) but also to work more with other young players, like Vache, who in their various ways had come to work in a neo-Swing manner. (It should be said that in addition to genuine musical and temperamental affinities on the part of these guys toward their Swing Era models, this was at least in part a response to the fact that there was a nice little niche market developing for that kind of music among The Dick Gibson Jazz Party/Concord Records et al. crowd -- i.e. people of a certain age who often had a fair amount of dough and whose feelings toward the kind of music that they genuinely loved was also significantly tinged with good-old-days nostalgia, plus in many cases a distate for much later jazz.)

Back to Scott. My main problem with his playing is that while he had the big, warm tone thing down nicely, and had a natural affinity for a somewhat simplifed version (especially in rhythmic terms) of circa 1944-5 "jump" tenor playing, he didn't seem to understand that when the better players of that style and era slowed things down and got rhapsodic, the nature and shape of their phrasing changed -- that they sounded "lyrical" because their thinking now was essentially melodic rather than organized around playing one set of "jump" figures off against another. Scott's ballad-playing, however, seemed to me to consist of much the same sort of figures as his "jump" playing, only here he just slowed them down. Think, by contrast, of how totally different in this respect up-tempo Ben Webster, or Flip Phillips, or Don Byas (the list could go on and on) are from their ballad selves. Now I'm not saying that there's only one right way to work within that style, and that because Scott's way is different, it has to be wrong. I am saying, though, that it sounds kind of lame to me and that the most likely reason he plays ballads that way is that being a genuinely lyrical improviser is not an option that's open to him. I'll add that I do have one Hamilton album that's notably better in this line -- "Soft Lights and Sweet Music" (Concord) with Gerry Mulligan. But nothing I've heard from him since has lived up to that moment of promise.

and then we had this exchange:

Larry,

thanks for the explanation. I'm going to pull out some of the earliest Hamilton recordings I have and listen to a few ballads to see if I can hear what you say is there. In the meantime, a few observations:

I think you mis-state the relationship between Concord/the jazz parties and Hamilton/Vache's development. Doesn't Hamilton have to develop beyond his presumed R&B bar band background before he becomes attractive to Carl Jefferson, et. al.? You seem to be suggesting that Hamilton did it in anticipation of finding an audience, whereas I'd argue that his development was far more organic than that. Furthermore, I don't recall a lot of mention of a "R&B bar band" background in the liner notes to those early Concord albums but it is certainly possible that Jefferson wanted to emphasize his following his Father's love of swing era jazz. Lastly on this point, did anyone of his age pre-date him in signing with Concord? I don't believe so, and would suggest that the reality was that Carl Jefferson started his label to record his favorites who had fallen out of favor in the wake of Coltrane and the rise of fusion. Thus you have a label very much like Pablo was for Norman Granz. When someone young came along who "fit" into what Carl was recording, he naturally jumped at the chance to support a young player in that

As for the comparison to Webster - a lot of other critics of the time made this connection (its said that in one concert, Scott started playing a ballad and someone in the audience yelled out "Ben Webster!" and Scott smiled through his reed and kept playing). Did all of them simply notice the surface similarities (slow, breathy tone) and never catch on to the apparent fact that his phrases themselves were inappropriate?

Last observation I'll make is that, presuming that Scott is indeed doing what you say he is doing, its at least somewhat ironic that someone who got criticized for recreating the past played ballads in a different way, and gets criticized for not knowing the style he's emulating well enough.

About Scott's development as I understand it, I tried to be clear, but I guess I failed. I said that out of his initial R&B bar-band bag, Hamilton then "got curious" about the Swing Era sources for that kind of sax playing. I would think that "got curious" implies that this move primarily was self-motivated, which is what I believe. I mentioned the Dick Gibson Jazz Party/Concord connection, in terms of the nature of the audience both of those things drew/draw upon, because given the existence of that audience, that meant there were good gigs there, which then plays or can play some significant role in further shaping the styles of players like Hamilton and Vache and Howard Alden and Ken Peplowski et al. who are musically inclined in that neo-Swing direction, if only because they're then consistently playing that kind of music with like-minded souls and being rewarded for doing so. As for the Gibson thing and Concord, I believe that the latter more or less grew out of or was continuous with the former. In both cases, one had men who had made a bundle outside the music business (Waterpik/Gibson, car dealership/Jefferson) and felt they could pour their money into the kinds of music they enjoyed -- more power to them and others like them, should there be anymore.

About Scott and ballads, to me the irony is that the intention, and some of the surface mannerisms, were taken for the deed itself. Again, I thought I had made that point already.

Now I've taken some time to go back over some of Scott's recordings, and because I continue to disagree strongly with Larry, I thought it might be interesting to bring all of this out on its own thread so that others may comment.

Before I get into that I'd like to note that I can find no reference in the liner notes of Scott's albums to a background in "R&B bar bands". In fact, in the liner notes to Close Up which was about his fourth or fifth recording, Fred Bouchard makes note that in 1975, he reviewed a gig Scott had in Providence for Jazz NewEngland. The tunes he mentions the group played were "Green Dolphin Street" "Laura" and "Rifftide" - not tunes I'd think "R&B bar bands" typically play. I don't know what the significance is, if any, but the impression I get is of Scott pursuing his jazz muse from an early age, and I would directly dispute the claim that Scott "came out of an R&B bar band and then got curious about some of the sources of the kind of big-toned, rhythmically rugged, overtly exciting sax playing that prevailed in the R&B bar-band realm (emphasis mine)." To me, "overtly exciting sax playing" means a lot of honking and shouting and when I think of Scott's uptempo work I do not think of that kind of playing at all, or at least I do not agree that it forms the major portion of his playing at up-tempo.

As for my close listening to some of Scott's ballad playing, I started with The Grand Appearance which I believe was Scott's first or second appearance on record, pre-dating his Concord signing. He takes on "Body and Soul" and while he hardly comes close to Hawk, I hear nothing of what Larry describes. He stays close to the melody and if anything, as many players do, ups the tempo after the statement of the theme. But jump phrases slowed down? I don't hear a one.

Next up was Tenor Shoes and "I Should Care" (a favorite ever since I heard Mobley's version) and "The Nearness of You". Great performance (particularly on the former) and to my ears, extremely rhapsodic and moving.

Finally, from Race Point, "Chelsea Bridge", as associated with Webster as "Body and Soul" is with Hawkins. And again I have absolutely no clue why Larry hears what he hears.

Now, about 15 years ago I bought a number of Scott's recordings that fell in between The Grand Appearance and Tenor Shoes but have not transferred them to CDR and therefore have not taken the time to check those out. I'm comfortable saying that Larry hears something completely different from what I hear, however.

So, I'm interested to hear from Larry if he wishes to revisit this or anyone else who wishes to comment about our difference of opinion. That is, if any of y'all are still listening to jazz.

Edited February 22, 2008 by Dan Gould

[Larry Kart]

About SH's early background, the Wikipedia entry on him says: "He began playing in various rhythm & blues outfits in Providence (Rhode Island), but subsequently shifted to jazz and the tenor saxophone."

Feather-Gitler amplifies some: "Began on piano and clarinet. Played blues harmonica in local groups 1968-70. Began focusing on tenor sax at age 16. Gained experience with tenor-organ gigs in Providence. New York-New England '71-'76 with Hamilton-Bates Blue Flames." Etc.

One question would be, what kind of band was the Hamilton-Bates Blue Flames? The name suggests to me what I said before, but never having heard the band myself, I can't say for sure. On the other hand, it certainly seems likely that if SH was playing tenor-organ gigs, his style either already was implicitly big-toned and oriented toward rhythmic drive of a certain direct sort, because that's how virtually all tenormen in organ combos play; it goes with the territory, both in terms of standing up to the organ and in meeting both the expectations of audiences who go to hear tenor-organ combos and the expectations of clubowners who hire them. In any case, given that likely stylistic orientation on the part of the young SH (which probably was as much internal and it was externally determined), he then in the mid-1970s when he moved to NYC became explicitly bonded to the burgeoning neo-Swing movement, which in effect virtually wrapped itself around him and had (and still has) I beleive the somewhat revivalistic basis that I described in the piece in my book that gave rise to this dispute. By contrast, I'll mention another big-toned tenorman of Hamilton's vintage, Tad Shull (b. 1955), who is explicitly beholden to Don Byas and Lucky Thompson and has worked in some neo-Swing settings but who seems to me to be a very in-the-moment player who just happens to be oriented toward those models rather than, as in the case with many neo-Swing guys IMO, a player where the arguably respectful summoning up of the models almost inevitably implies a mood of fond nostalgia, especially in the audience.

As far as revisiting specific Hamilton performances, I can't do that right now (and probably not for a long time, even if I wanted to) because the only Hamilton album I currently own is an LP of "Soft Lights and Sweet Music," with Mulligan, though I may also have a R. Clooney LP or two with him; and because, thanks to a failed basement-waterproofing job and subsequent damage, the only music I can listen to at home right now are the CDs that happened to be within immediate reach when the flood was discovered last Sunday; everything that was in the basement on shelves (including maybe 4,000 LPs and 130 boxes-worth of books) is inaccessible, packed away down there and, in some cases, no doubt completely ruined by water-damage. But I can't get at anything down there to eeven look at it until the water-proofing problem is solved, the basement can then (I hope) be reasonably remodeled, and finally everything can be unpacked and put back on new shelves.. At the moment, I'm sadly not sure that will ever be possible. So we'll have to leave our SH disagreement where it is, unless you want to burn a CD of favorite SH performances and send it to me. BTW, do you know Tad Shull's work?

Also, does anyone here know a lot about basement waterproofing, especially what if anything you can do if you've been played for a fool?

[Guest bluenote82]

About SH's early background, the Wikipedia entry on him says: "He began playing in various rhythm & blues outfits in Providence (Rhode Island), but subsequently shifted to jazz and the tenor saxophone."

Feather-Gitler amplifies some: "Began on piano and clarinet. Played blues harmonica in local groups 1968-70. Began focusing on tenor sax at age 16. Gained experience with tenor-organ gigs in Providence. New York-New England '71-'76 with Hamilton-Bates Blue Flames." Etc.

One question would be, what kind of band was the Hamilton-Bates Blue Flames? The name suggests to me what I said before, but never having heard the band myself, I can't say for sure. On the other hand, it certainly seems likely that if SH was playing tenor-organ gigs, his style either already was implicitly big-toned and oriented toward rhythmic drive of a certain direct sort, because that's how virtually all tenormen in organ combos play; it goes with the territory, both in terms of standing up to the organ and in meeting both the expectations of audiences who go to hear tenor-organ combos and the expectations of clubowners who hire them. In any case, given that likely stylistic orientation on the part of the young SH (which probably was as much internal and it was externally determined), he then in the mid-1970s when he moved to NYC became explicitly bonded to the burgeoning neo-Swing movement, which in effect virtually wrapped itself around him and had (and still has) I beleive the somewhat revivalistic basis that I described in the piece in my book that gave rise to this dispute. By contrast, I'll mention another big-toned tenorman of Hamilton's vintage, Tad Shull (b. 1955), who is explicitly beholden to Don Byas and Lucky Thompson and has worked in some neo-Swing settings but who seems to me to be a very in-the-moment player who just happens to be oriented toward those models rather than, as in the case with many neo-Swing guys IMO, a player where the arguably respectful summoning up of the models almost inevitably implies a mood of fond nostalgia, especially in the audience.

As far as revisiting specific Hamilton performances, I can't do that right now (and probably not for a long time, even if I wanted to) because the only Hamilton album I currently own is an LP of "Soft Lights and Sweet Music," with Mulligan, though I may also have a R. Clooney LP or two with him; and because, thanks to a failed basement-waterproofing job and subsequent damage, the only music I can listen to at home right now are the CDs that happened to be within immediate reach when the flood was discovered last Sunday; everything that was in the basement on shelves (including maybe 4,000 LPs and 130 boxes-worth of books) is inaccessible, packed away down there and, in some cases, no doubt completely ruined by water-damage. But I can't get at anything down there to eeven look at it until the water-proofing problem is solved, the basement can then (I hope) be reasonably remodeled, and finally everything can be unpacked and put back on new shelves.. At the moment, I'm sadly not sure that will ever be possible. So we'll have to leave our SH disagreement where it is, unless you want to burn a CD of favorite SH performances and send it to me. BTW, do you know Tad Shull's work?

Also, does anyone here know a lot about basement waterproofing, especially what if anything you can do if you've been played for a fool?

Sorry to hear about your basement, Larry. That really stinks especially considering all of those LPs and books you have done there. Hopefully, you'll be able to salvage some of the LPs and books.

About S. Hamilton, I have a ton of his albums and I like him, he's certainly not someone I listen to all the time, but I do enjoy getting out "East of the Sun" or "Back In New York" on occasion and listtening to those albums.

[Dan Gould]

About SH's early background, the Wikipedia entry on him says: "He began playing in various rhythm & blues outfits in Providence (Rhode Island), but subsequently shifted to jazz and the tenor saxophone."

Feather-Gitler amplifies some: "Began on piano and clarinet. Played blues harmonica in local groups 1968-70. Began focusing on tenor sax at age 16. Gained experience with tenor-organ gigs in Providence. New York-New England '71-'76 with Hamilton-Bates Blue Flames." Etc.

That would put his harmonica playing at the ages of 14-16.

One question would be, what kind of band was the Hamilton-Bates Blue Flames? The name suggests to me what I said before, but never having heard the band myself, I can't say for sure.

As I noted above, the tunes Bouchard mentioned in his review of their gig (sorry I wasn't specific that it was the Blue Flames he saw) were "Laura" "Green Dolphin Street" and "Riptides".

As far as revisiting specific Hamilton performances, I can't do that right now (and probably not for a long time, even if I wanted to) because the only Hamilton album I currently own is an LP of "Soft Lights and Sweet Music," with Mulligan, though I may also have a R. Clooney LP or two with him; and because, thanks to a failed basement-waterproofing job and subsequent damage, the only music I can listen to at home right now are the CDs that happened to be within immediate reach when the flood was discovered last Sunday; everything that was in the basement on shelves (including maybe 4,000 LPs and 130 boxes-worth of books) is inaccessible, packed away down there and, in some cases, no doubt completely ruined by water-damage. But I can't get at anything down there to eeven look at it until the water-proofing problem is solved, the basement can then (I hope) be reasonably remodeled, and finally everything can be unpacked and put back on new shelves.. At the moment, I'm sadly not sure that will ever be possible. So we'll have to leave our SH disagreement where it is, unless you want to burn a CD of favorite SH performances and send it to me.

Very sorry to hear this and I hope the damage isn't as catastrophic as you fear. And yes, I can send you some samples of Hamilton ballads, if you'll PM your address.

BTW, do you know Tad Shull's work?

Very well, and I view him much as I do Scott: an artist moved for whatever personal reasons to work in a style of long ago and one who has created their own sound and conception within that style.

[JSngry]

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...st&p=172279

Dan - Hamilton's R&B Background was not initially publicized, no doubt for "image" reasons, but later came out in interviews, and now is sorta "common knowledge". It's a non-issue afaic, other than for every bit of good it did him in one circle (Concord worked that shit, I was around then, & I remember it well), it did him just as much bad in another, because he really wasn't some "Swing Kid", and a lot of the flak he took was precisely because he was being looked at in the light of being something that he wasn't. But it was more..."convenient" (if ultimately more irritating) to paint the picture of a Swing Kid than it was an R&B player who naturally gravitated backwards.

Larry - As far as the stylistic "misunderstanding" or whatever it is, keep in mind that Hamilton doesn't bother me, nor does he thrill me, but I look at it like he plays how he plays precisely because he's not a Swing Kid, and thank god for that. It may be "wrong" or "out of context" or whatever, but only if you look at it like he's really a "student" of these older, classic styles, and I don't think he is. I think he's just a bar band player who plays what he knows how he knows it w/o putting a lot of stock in too much else. Considering how many "studied" players turn out shit that really pisses me off, I kinda like how Hamilton's lack of pretense & lack of substance kinda balance each other out.

[JSngry]

And I mean that as a compliment, of sorts, even though it doesn't sound like one.

[John L]

And I mean that as a compliment, of sorts, even though it doesn't sound like one.

It sounds like a compliment, just a backhanded slap compliment.

I really enjoy those trio albums that Hamilton did with Dave McKenna and Jake Hanna, although even more for McKenna and Hanna than for Hamilton.

Edited February 23, 2008 by John L

[jlhoots]

I don't think I'll be as erudite as some of the previous posters.

Suffice it to say, I like Hamilton.

I've been impressed by what I've heard on the Venus CDs with Eddie Higgins.

I also enjoy his collaborations with Harry Allen & Alan Barnes.

Many of his early Concords also hold up for me.

Edited February 23, 2008 by jlhoots

[Larry Kart]

Jim -- Given what you've just said and looking back at the points you made on that old thread, I'd like to adopt your position on SH almost wholesale. He was not really one of the Swing Kids, just ended up being packaged that way -- to his benefit in some ways up to a point. I wonder, though, whether the whole thing would have gotten off the ground quite the way it did if it weren't for SH's existence; it's like the movement needed a young tenor player of that type for it to feel right, in that "Geez, maybe history can run backwards" way that, say, the existence of Coltrane et al. made so appealing in those circles. (A player I know whose career has been largely based in the Swing Kids thing, though now he's no longer a kid, acknowledges having benefitted from it but also complains bitterly about being circumscribed by it creatively -- that is, those audiences only want to hear that thing from him, though he certainly can be quite creative doing that thing.)

BTW, nothing against R&B backgrounds over here. And nothing against revivalistic impulses and movements per se. It's just that in my experience jazz revivalism tends to be a very tricky thing -- yielding unique precious metal at times (e.g. Dave Dallwitz, the Bell brothers, Ade Monsborough, et al. in Australia; Jean-Pierre Morel and his pals in the Les Petit Jazz Band in France) but more often producing what seems to me to be fools' gold. The crucial factor, aside from sheer talent, seems to be nostalgia or the lack of it. Love for certain things of the past because they speak to you, excite you, yes; but embracing pieces of the past because it feels, or you think it would feel, more comfortable to be there rather than here is usually a recipe for disaster.

[Dan Gould]

And I mean that as a compliment, of sorts, even though it doesn't sound like one.

Well then, let's go back to a compliment that actually sounded like one:

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...st&p=171891

Hamilton is a different matter. I very much felt about him for a good while the way I do now about Alexander - good player, but damned if I know why I should care. The world's full of good players, so freakin' what?

But about, I dunno, 5-10 years ago (I don't buy the records, I just kisten to the radio), I heard him starting to mature, and the process seems to have been continuing. To put it bluntly, he started being interesting to me, he made the case as to why I should care. Not profoundly or overwhelmingly, but enough to where when I hear his name on the radio, I now listen in anticiparion rahter than in dread.

Of course, given how your views have evolved since that post was written, I can understand if the pendulum has gone backward on Hamilton for you.

[Guest bluenote82]

Another album I enjoyed alot:

[JSngry]

And I mean that as a compliment, of sorts, even though it doesn't sound like one.

Well then, let's go back to a compliment that actually sounded like one:

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...st&p=171891

Hamilton is a different matter. I very much felt about him for a good while the way I do now about Alexander - good player, but damned if I know why I should care. The world's full of good players, so freakin' what?

But about, I dunno, 5-10 years ago (I don't buy the records, I just kisten to the radio), I heard him starting to mature, and the process seems to have been continuing. To put it bluntly, he started being interesting to me, he made the case as to why I should care. Not profoundly or overwhelmingly, but enough to where when I hear his name on the radio, I now listen in anticiparion rahter than in dread.

Of course, given how your views have evolved since that post was written, I can understand if the pendulum has gone backward on Hamilton for you.

Well yeah, maybe, but here's the deal - I still kinda dig Hamilton, that hasn't changed, it's just that I really don't care if I hear him or not. Same with lots of stuff, just knowing it's out there and knowing that it's good is enough for me. Why? Because that stuff ain't going anywhere, if you know what I mean, and right now, I myself feel a need to "move", and spending time at places like this ain't gonna get that done. But hey, if I do hear Hamilton (or lots of other things) today, it's still good, I don't recoil in horror or TimeTrap Phobia or anything like that. Fun is where you find it after all, and I'm always good for some fun. It's "where you live" that I'm looking at, and yeah, that's something else, but fun? Hey, if there ain't no room for fun....fuck it.

And ok, "lack of substance", that's not exactly what I meant to convey. Maybe lack of "substance" would have been better, meaning that Hamilton has never been about pushing him, The Music, or anything "forward", nor has he ever been about Making Grand Statements or anything. He's just been about playing how he plays as well as he can and that's that. Which, actually, I admire. And unlike many players today of whom it can be said that what they do is all they do, the guy really has developed a natural swing, for which I really do think he can thank his R&B roots. I mean, when I was younger (and it's only gotten moreso), the younger "serious" jazz players were not playing for and with a "dance impulse", which is another matter altogether & which may or may not be satisfying depending on just where you end up going, but the point is, that 4/4, foot-patting swing, that could be found in one type of lounge bands & non-funk R&B/blues bands, and there, that was pretty much the name of the game. As I've heard it, Hamilton was around the same scene that produced Roomful Of Blues, who always copped a nice 4/4 swinging dance beat. Those type bands were part of my "training period" just as much as the free groups, funk bands, and "serious jazz" groups I played in (then as now, I'm pretty much a musical slut - and proud of it! )

The point being that you can develop all the "stylistic trappings" of a "Swing Tenorist" playing those musics and not ever have to confront the innards thereof. Which is ok by me, because your goal is to play what makes people want to feel good where they are, not to write a doctoral dissertation on the different ways that Ben Webster altered the timbre of a middle Bb, if you know what I mean. The downside to that is that, hey, you can still put some more "meat" in there and not lose the gig, if you know what I mean. But that's what's so cool about life - there's other people who do that, so rather than just bitch about what somebody's not, you can appreciate the/whatever beauty that they do have and then move on elsewhere when/if you want something else. No, it's not all good, but it's more good than a lot of us readily recognize, even if it is fragmented all over the place like a mofo. It would sure be easier if it wasn't, but whatcha gonna do 'bout that, eh?

[JSngry]

Hey BN - I see you changed your attribution form Coryell to Duke.

Cool!

[JohnS]

We've booked Scott to playat our club on several occasions. He always puts on a decent show. Swing, ballads even a bit of bebop. The audience always goes away happy. But, for me, when it comes to home listening he doesn't excite of hold my interest. The album with Mulligan must be one of the dullest affairs I've heard from Mulligan. But then I have this 'curse of Concord' theory. So many of their productions don't seem to have very much life in them.

The only Hamilton cd I have at the moment is 'After Hours'. A pleasant enough set of ballads but a lot of the credit must go to the Flanagan/Cranshaw/Nash rhythm section for keeping things interesting.

[Dan Gould]

We've booked Scott to playat our club on several occasions. He always puts on a decent show. Swing, ballads even a bit of bebop. The audience always goes away happy. But, for me, when it comes to home listening he doesn't excite of hold my interest. The album with Mulligan must be one of the dullest affairs I've heard from Mulligan. But then I have this 'curse of Concord' theory. So many of their productions don't seem to have very much life in them.

The only Hamilton cd I have at the moment is 'After Hours'. A pleasant enough set of ballads but a lot of the credit must go to the Flanagan/Cranshaw/Nash rhythm section for keeping things interesting.

Well mileage certainly does vary, as After Hours is a favorite, and the tenor and the rhythm section has a lot to do with that.

Just curious, John, have you heard the Ray Brown Trio or Gene Harris Concords, and if so, do they also suffer from your "curse of Concord"?

[JohnS]

Sorry Dan, I've not heard the anything by Gene Harris on Concord. But hearing Gene over here s not too long before he died I can't imagine him putting in a dull performance. I didn't mean to generalise too much about the label as I can't hear everything and overall I'm not that fond of many of their artists so that probably has a bearing on my opinion. But there's definitely something about the label and the production that even artists I should like seem to turn in run of the mill performances.

[Ken Dryden]

The curse of Concord? I would think that the Maybeck solo and duo series, sessions by Dick Hyman and Ruby Braff, Ken Peplowski, Howard Alden, the Dave Brubeck Quartet, Gene Harris (except for the last couple with the dull vocalist Curtis Stigers) and Jim Hall would be of interest to most jazz listeners, just to name a few. And don't overlook Marian McPartland.

Scott Hamilton was obviously a favorite of Carl Jefferson and I enjoy him, though I think Ken Peplowski is a more intense tenor saxophonist.

Edited February 23, 2008 by Ken Dryden

[JSngry]

I dunno, I get that "Concord Dull" thing too, even with people I usually dig, like Al Cohn. I was really off into Cohn's Xanadu sides for a while, then picked up his Concord for more of the same, and...nope.

Maybe it's their eq-ing or something, but there's a lack of...something, somewhat reminiscent of the "flavor remover" that Woody Allen claimed his mom put all her cooking through.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I also feel that Concord doesn't generally make records - even by people I like a lot - as good as I'd like them to make, though I don't have a great many (because they don't generally...) But there are exceptions: I love Kenny Burrell's "Tin tin deo", Red Holloway & Clark Terry "Locksmith blues" and Dan recently put me on to the Gene Harris Trio + Stanley and that can't be described as anywhere below the standard of anything he or Gene had ever put out on other labels. But it was live and it must be hard to apply a flavour remover to a live gig.

My theory is that, just as there was strong quality control at Blue Note, there is, or has been, strong quality control at Concord, but it's aiming in a slightly different direction; the same direction, I think, that it was aiming at at Verve. But without people like Hawk, Ben, Illinois, Prez, Bird on the roster.

MG

[Tom in RI]

Here's a quote from Preston Hubbard's website which speaks a bit to the nature of Hamilton Bates and the Blue Flames, there's also a picture of the band there,

When I graduated high school, I worked in a warehouse to save money for RISD, where I had been accepted on partial scholarship and would later attend for two years with Tina Weymouth and Chris Franz, from the then not-yet-formed Talking Heads. I started the Blue Flames, a quartet, with my high school friend Scott Hamilton, who has gone on, after taking New York by storm, to be an international jazz star and Concord Jazz label's biggest selling artist.

We began as an R&B band, but over a five year period metamorphosed into a straight up mainstream jazz band. Standards and ballads. We turned our backs on rock music, cut our hair off (it was not a fashionable thing to do then), and became total jazz Nazis. It was all good, though, because we were focused, and I really cut my teeth on that shit and got serious about the bass, especially the upright bass. We were thrilled and honored to back Roy "Little Jazz" Eldridge for a week once, with Charlie Watts in attendance one night, and I even got to smoke weed with Roy in his hotel bathroom! I would later be lucky enough to play with many greats and idols of mine.

Scott Hamilton guested on Roomful of Blues 1st lp. I saw him as part of a band backing Helen Humes in the mid 70's in Providence which I remember enjoying quite a bit. I last saw Hamilton playing with Roomful founder Duke Robillard at Chan's in Woonsocket, RI maybe 4-5 years ago. It took Scott a couple of tunes to get warmed up but it was a very enjoyable evening. I understand Larry doesn't care for Hamilton and I think his explanation why is quite articulate but I don't think its necessary to take it a step further and label his work as "wrong" just cause you don't like it.

[Guest bluenote82]

I also dig this one alot:

[Guest bluenote82]

I dunno, I get that "Concord Dull" thing too, even with people I usually dig, like Al Cohn. I was really off into Cohn's Xanadu sides for a while, then picked up his Concord for more of the same, and...nope.

Maybe it's their eq-ing or something, but there's a lack of...something, somewhat reminiscent of the "flavor remover" that Woody Allen claimed his mom put all her cooking through.

Don't discount Marian McPartland's and Jim Hall's work on Concord. That album I mentioned by the Gene Harris/Scott Hamilton Quintet is really good. Herb Ellis turns in one of his best sessions on that album in a long time.

[Guest bluenote82]

Hey BN - I see you changed your attribution form Coryell to Duke.

Cool!

Yeah, I figured I'll give credit where credit is due. Coryell quoted Ellington when he said that, so anything the Duke says is good by me.

[Nate Dorward]

The exact quote from Duke is: "If it sounds good, it's good music, and if it doesn't, then it is the other kind." Link to Music is My Mistress here--the context is an interviewer asking him his opinion of "young's people's music", i.e. rock/pop.)

[Larry Kart]

Tom in RI (and Dan and probably others her, too) -- About the "wrong" part, one of the fundamental premises of the whole Neo-Swing movement (actually going back to the mainsteam label and movement that arose initially in Britain in the mid-1950s) ... well, perhaps I'd better quote a chunk from my book before going on with this thought:

"The term 'mainstream”' is in jazz parlance not merely descriptive. Coined in the mid-1950s, reportedly by English critic Stanley Dance, it arose from the belief in some quarters that bop, and modern jazz in general, was something of an artistic wrong turn, and that a number of still vigorous Swing musicians (for example, trombonist Dicky Wells, trumpeter Joe Thomas, and tenor saxophonist Buddy Tate) were far less visible on the jazz landscape than they ought to be. Thus the labeling of such musicians as mainstream was at once an expression of aesthetic preferences and an attempt to translate those preferences into permanent values. But even though the style of music that led to the coining of “mainstream” has now edged over into revivalism, if only because almost all the original Swing stylists are no longer with us, when the term is used today it retains some of its original ideological wishfulness. The belief or the hope is that within shifting stylistic boundaries a majority of musicians still agree on how the music can and should be played, that it is within this area of language agreement that the music’s most genuinely creative figures are at work, and that the course of the music will and should flow along in this manner. In fact, things are a bit more complicated than that."

Me back in the present now:

So "mainsteam" thinking (and beginning in the mid'70s the Swing Kids thing) is in part based on the idea (entertained by some but not all of its players and probably by more of this music's audience) that, as I said above, "bop, and modern jazz in general, was something of an artistic wrong turn" -- "wrong" in part because some of it was felt to be alienatingly hectic, angry, or just ugly (remember Coltrane and Dolphy being labled "anti-jazz"?), and/or needlessly complex, and devoid of attractive, recognizable, warm human/humane values; and wrong as well in practical commercial terms, in that jazz once was a popular music and now much of it figuratively was turning its back on any chance to connect with its surviving former audience and any new audience of similar size to boot.

So the moral gauntlet was thrown down here initially by the formulators of the "mainstream" ethos, and such thinking pervades many (but not all) revivalistic or preservation-of-the-noble-past movements in jazz. (See Wynton and J@LC for the most familiar, "Fire of the Fundamentals" examples, musically and in terms of moralistic table-pounding. That the Swing Kids movement arose a few years before Wynton arrived on the scene may or may not be an accident.) In any case, want I want to hear from those musicians who explicitly or implicitly claim to be in touch with the touchstones of the jazz past (and to be of artistic value in their own right in part because they are in touch with/are inspired by those touchstones) is some evidence in their own playing that they really do understand, musically and emotionally, those elements of the jazz past that they profess to love. Tad Shull, for instance, pretty much convinces me that he is knowledgably, truly inspired by Byas and Lucky Thompson, and I'd say the same of Mark Turner's obesience to Warne Marsh, and Grant Stewart's synthesis of Mobley and Rollins (though I'd prefer fewer explicit "Sonny-isms" from Stewart and more energy at times from Turner). Among the no longer young Swing Kids per se, though (including SH, who again seems to half-fallen into the "movement" aspect of the thing au natural), I hear a lot of guys who seems to me to present some of the surface aspects of their models as though that were enough. If so, doing that alongside the implicit (and sometimes explicit) moral-aesthetic claims to "rightness" that their music makes or that is made for their music, kind of pisses me off. For example, even though it's just a phrase and SH himself didn't come up with it, a website devoted to SH says that he has "The Perfect Mainstream Tenor Sound." As I said in a previous post, the Swing Kids movement was in effect looking or for just such a guy who had just such a sound, and I think that for a fair percentage of that audience, the presence of that sound and the fact that it was coming from a somewhat romantic-looking young man, was close to enough. As Allen Lowe might say: "What about Percy France? Any gigs here for Hal Singer?"