West Coast Jazz Recommendations

[Teasing the Korean]

@TTK:

The Jim Flora cover was the very reason I hunted down Nick Travis' "The Panic Is On" on vinyl (not that I wouldn't like the music, though ...), and no facsimile reissue being available and original vinyls being fairly rare at that time, i finally settled for the 3-EP set.

Speaking of Jim Flora covers, though, i like this "Panic" cover as well as "Redskin Romp" and "Sons of Sauter-Finegan" better than "Collaboration". To each his own ...

Perhaps the most West Coast of all West Coast jazz albums -- almost incredibly clever/precious (can imagine many people wanting to throw it across the room), but the playing is expert (in fact, I can't imagine any players today being able to re-create its needle-point precision -- it's a matter of sensibility as much as instrumental skill). The whole thing is very entertaining and arguably entirely nuts. Too bad this reissue doesn't have the original Flora cover, one of his best:

I never pass up a Jim Flora cover. Some are better than others, but it's hard for me to rank them.

To Larry's point: I did buy the album for the cover, and spun it once, and didn't care for it. I am not a fan of Andre Previn's "jazz," at least what I've heard.

And with Shorty Rogers, I feel like I started with the best and could never find anything as good afterward. I became aware of him through a CD called "Short Stops," which collected two of his early 10" albums and the Wild One EP. I then started picking up all of the LPs I could find, but none of them ever struck me like the music on that CD. Is it because those are his best arrangements, or is it because I heard them first?

[Larry Kart]

@TTK:

The Jim Flora cover was the very reason I hunted down Nick Travis' "The Panic Is On" on vinyl (not that I wouldn't like the music, though ...), and no facsimile reissue being available and original vinyls being fairly rare at that time, i finally settled for the 3-EP set.

Speaking of Jim Flora covers, though, i like this "Panic" cover as well as "Redskin Romp" and "Sons of Sauter-Finegan" better than "Collaboration". To each his own ...

Perhaps the most West Coast of all West Coast jazz albums -- almost incredibly clever/precious (can imagine many people wanting to throw it across the room), but the playing is expert (in fact, I can't imagine any players today being able to re-create its needle-point precision -- it's a matter of sensibility as much as instrumental skill). The whole thing is very entertaining and arguably entirely nuts. Too bad this reissue doesn't have the original Flora cover, one of his best:

http://www.amazon.co...n shorty rogers

http://www.google.co...7&bih=948&dpr=1

Not wanting to criticize the STYLE of a renowned and respected critic unduly but one (recurrent!) thing keeps bugging me nonetheless: What's all this "precious" business and the derogatory use of THAT term? "Precious" is "valuable". And that's that. Yes I know that "Webster's" give another (subordinate IMO) meaning to "precious" which is what is apparently evoked - but: Do you realize how affected the USE of this term sounds by all accounts ? Isn't there any more straightforward way of describing this and what the gripes one has when one feels like resorting to such a term?

Honestly, I really find the use of that word in this context so very affected and mannered that it really clouds the subject as such.

Whatever debatable aspects there may be, there invariably must be more straightforward way of expressing one's personal negative opinion about it.

One man's meat is another man's poison anyway, but what is "precious" or (derogatorily) "clever" to one might be "elegant" or "intelligent" to another one, and in the same vein the playing of Brötzmann and others of that ilk might be described by some as "vulgar blaring" (a term you no doubt would strongly object to ) etc. etc. Lists of such qualifiers could be extended endlessly yet would only amount to exchanges of personal tastes and opinions of no overriding objective judgment.

BTW, IMO there are lots of Shorty Rogers LPs around that are more Westcoastish than "Collaboration" (which I don't pull out that often either). Seems like it all depends on what you would like to see as particularly Westcoastish in the recorded body of WCJ.

@Art Salt:

Correct about Lighthouse at Laguna, but wanting to see WCJ as a kind of "we can bop hard too and can be (sorta) Eastcoastish too" is a bit short of what WCJ is all about. Just like I don't believe in that "effete" denominator to lump in WCJ per se either - not nearly as often as it is evoked anyway. If you want to approach the subject negatively from the start instead of taking the music for what it is and in the context of its times and area (important IMO!), then, yes, there ARE WCJ records that sound a bit bloodless but for almost each pale and gutless 50s WCJ recording there is a formulaic and immature thrown-together East Coast blowing session of bunches of guys milking the "angry young men" tag to death.

"Precious" does not only mean "valuable." The secondary or tertiary meaning of "precious" is "affectedly refined." To me, that phrase and/or concept fits the music on "Collaboration" quite well, and I see no reason, linguistic or otherwise, to apologize for using it. Further, as I said or implied above, for me that quality is inseparable from the music's attractiveness and the fascination it has had for me for more than 50 years.

BTW, as someone who is quite familiar with Rogers' music, I'm curious -- what other Shorty Rogers LPs are there "around that are more Westcoastish than 'Collaboration'"? The only Rogers recording I can think that might qualify of is the title track of "Martians Go Home," when Manne spins that coin on his tom-tom.

Finally, I find the music on "Collaboration" to be at once elegant and affectedly refined. How so? Well, the elegance, which for me is undeniable, is also somewhat willed, as though "elegance" were a pre-existing category -- this more so perhaps in Previn's writing than in Rogers' here -- and that willed reaching toward, if you will, an image of elegance is what gives the music its precious aura. In the classical realm, the music of Reynaldo Hahn might be analogous.

[Big Beat Steve]

Thanks for your reply, and first of all, of course you do not have to apologize for using that term (like I said, I am aware of its secondary or tertiary meaning ), and certainly not to me. It just is that I find the USE of that word (and its negative connotations) and the way this term sits there in the texts where it is used in that meaning, rather ... well ... should I say, "just as affected as what affected refinement the term is supposed to descibe", see?

Now as you do not seem to use the term in all its negative sense after all, I see your point to some degree and in the sense of even agree insofar as you might indeed call music such as this "refined (affectedly so if you insist ) though elegant". So we might as well leave it at that. Different strokes, I guess ...

The point I wanted to make was just: If it is all about "affectedly refined" we might as well say so straight out, isnt' it?

As for the "affected" in that "affectedly refined" characteristic in WCJ, well, one might also say that there is a lot of affectedness in East Coast hard bop of that time too, starting with "affectedly" trying to get the "angry young man" image across in one's blowing. No details needed, but wasn't this, in not so few cases, just as much a matter of the image the artist(s) wanted to portray as some real feeling deep inside?

As for what other Rogers music appears to be more Westcoastish to me, well, apparently it all depends what you (not literally - rather "what ONE") want to see in WCJ and what strikes a vibe as being Westcoastish with the listener.

Though I wouldn't call myself anything like being intimately familiar with the whole Shorty Rogers opus of that period (though I have listened to most of his 50s leader dates) indeed I'd think of many of his "Martians" recordings as well as some of his earlier RCA work (starting with the "Popo" session etc. - the "Short Stops" collection that TTK mentions is an excellent summary, particularly the 2-LP set) when it comes to striking a pronounced WCJ vibe with me.

But again, it really appears to be a question of what one wants to see in WCJ.

Edited January 31, 2015 by Big Beat Steve

[Quasimado]

If you want to put down West Coast jazz, put down "Birth of the Cool" because that's where it came from.

Not all of it was as effete as Larry makes out - that is really one terrible example - cats playing 8 bar solos?!!!

There was plenty of similarly arranged jazz recorded on the East Coast - John Lewis, Gigi Gryce, JJ, Handy etc. who all went that way "on record" for a few years...

There were also plenty of accomplished "affected" soloists at that time on both coasts who benefited from that kind of recorded exposure ... names not required ... you know what I mean ... it became a kind of recording fashion, and the best of it, a sophisticated arrangement with that kind of soloist over at least a chorus or so, yeah - at times it sounded pretty good.

On both coasts it was mostly a recording thing - no way they played like that in clubs ...

Q

Edited February 1, 2015 by Quasimado

[JSngry]

If you want to put down West Coast jazz, put down "Birth of the Cool" because that's where it came from.

?

And if you want to put down "Birth Of The Cool", put down Gil Evans w.Claude Thornhill, because that's were it came from.

[Larry Kart]

If you want to put down West Coast jazz, put down "Birth of the Cool" because that's where it came from.

Not all of it was as effete as Larry makes out - that is really one terrible example - cats playing 8 bar solos?!!! - WTF were you thinking?

There was plenty of similarly arranged jazz recorded on the East Coast - John Lewis, Gigi Gryce, JJ, Handy etc. who all went that way "on record" for a few years...

There were also plenty of accomplished "affected" soloists at that time on both coasts who benefited from that kind of recorded exposure ... names not required ... you know what I mean ... it became a kind of recording fashion, and the best of it, a sophisticated arrangement with that kind of soloist over at least a chorus or so, yeah - at times it sounded pretty good.

On both coasts it was mostly a recording thing - no way they played like that in clubs ...

Q

I didn't say that all WCJ was effete, and I don't think that the music on "Collaboration" is a "terrible example," just a fairly extreme one that I, again, have found attractive and fascinating for more than 50 years.. As for the 8-bar solos, at that time on both coasts to a fair degree,the template of the 3-minute or so 78 or 45 rpm single was still common, and many 12-inch LPs consisted of 12 roughly 3-minute tracks (as "Collaboration" did), which meant that solos often would be fairly brief, though Rogers and Previn get a full chorus on most tracks IIRC. Yes, in clubs it would be different, e.g. the pieces that were recorded at the Lighthouse (I think) by Rogers, Art Pepper, and Hampton Hawes and eventually released by Don Schlitten on Onyx (I think).

[Larry Kart]

Thanks for your reply, and first of all, of course you do not have to apologize for using that term (like I said, I am aware of its secondary or tertiary meaning ), and certainly not to me. It just is that I find the USE of that word (and its negative connotations) and the way this term sits there in the texts where it is used in that meaning, rather ... well ... should I say, "just as affected as what affected refinement the term is supposed to descibe", see?

Now as you do not seem to use the term in all its negative sense after all, I see your point to some degree and in the sense of even agree insofar as you might indeed call music such as this "refined (affectedly so if you insist ) though elegant". So we might as well leave it at that. Different strokes, I guess ...

The point I wanted to make was just: If it is all about "affectedly refined" we might as well say so straight out, isnt' it?

As for the "affected" in that "affectedly refined" characteristic in WCJ, well, one might also say that there is a lot of affectedness in East Coast hard bop of that time too, starting with "affectedly" trying to get the "angry young man" image across in one's blowing. No details needed, but wasn't this, in not so few cases, just as much a matter of the image the artist(s) wanted to portray as some real feeling deep inside?

As for what other Rogers music appears to be more Westcoastish to me, well, apparently it all depends what you (not literally - rather "what ONE") want to see in WCJ and what strikes a vibe as being Westcoastish with the listener.

Though I wouldn't call myself anything like being intimately familiar with the whole Shorty Rogers opus of that period (though I have listened to most of his 50s leader dates) indeed I'd think of many of his "Martians" recordings as well as some of his earlier RCA work (starting with the "Popo" session etc. - the "Short Stops" collection that TTK mentions is an excellent summary, particularly the 2-LP set) when it comes to striking a pronounced WCJ vibe with me.

But again, it really appears to be a question of what one wants to see in WCJ.

The music on "Short Stops" strikes me as a blend of Kenton, Second Herd Herman, and (on some tracks) updated '30s Basie -- which is to say two bands in which Rogers actually played and wrote for and one that contained his chief model as a soloist, Harry Edison. Yes, all three of those elements were present in the WCJ cook book, but the sheer fierceness of much of the music on "Short Stops" (that trumpet section! -- Rogers, Maynard Ferguson, Conrad Gozzo, Pete Candoli, John Howell) is not what I think of when I think of WCJ.

[GA Russell]

FWIW, when I think of West Coast Jazz, I think of...

1) the Gerry Mulligan Quartet with Chet Baker, and

2) the Shorty Rogers Short Stops collection.

If a recording doesn't remind me of one or the other, I don't think of it as West Coast Jazz.

[ArtSalt]

Yes, in clubs it would be different, e.g. the pieces that were recorded at the Lighthouse (I think) by Rogers, Art Pepper, and Hampton Hawes and eventually released by Don Schlitten on Onyx (I think).

They were certainly released on Don Schlitten's Xanadu in the late 70s/1980.

There's the Art Pepper Early and Late shows which are with Hampton Hawes, Joe Mondragon and Larry Bunker which was recorded at Hollywood's Surf Club, February 12th 1951. Bob Andrews recorded the shows.

The other recording is from December of that year and includes Shelly Manne and Howard Rumsey, I think that's the Lighthouse gig.

There's a live Wardell Gray as well. But I haven't listened to that.

I would add Stan Getz Roost sessions as a good example of the cool style of 1950-52 having no east or west coast allegiance.

[Big Beat Steve]

FWIW, when I think of West Coast Jazz, I think of...

1) the Gerry Mulligan Quartet with Chet Baker, and

2) the Shorty Rogers Short Stops collection.

If a recording doesn't remind me of one or the other, I don't think of it as West Coast Jazz.

FWIW too, Gerry Muligan hated being lumped in with the "West Coast Jazz" tag.

But I see what you mean.

As for you mentioning "Short Stops" too, well, what more is there to say in the lightn of the above exchanges?

@Art Salt:

That Wardell Gray set is great. Though I've always liastened to it as "Wardell Gray" as such, not primarily as "live WCJ".

Talking about documentss of how WCJ was apt to sound live, let's not forget the two recordings of Sept. 13, 1953 featuring Chet Baker and Miles Davis sitting in with the Lighthouse All Stars (issued decades later on COntemporary).

@Larry Kart:

I see your point, but doesn't all this prove that there were many, many more facets to WCJ even within Shorty Rogers' work, and wouldn't a bigger band by necessity sound different than a small combo? I must admit I see less than before what you would think as being "typically WCJ" if you rule out this early Shorty Rogers period, but certainly you would not go by the principle of "If it lacks body then it is WCJ" or "If it isn't worked out from A to Z then it isn't WCJ"? Case in point, I am somewhat underwhelmed by some of Dave Pell's post-Kapp recordings that I've heard (no I haven't heard all) and I'd understand those who come up with the "effete" tag there but is this all that there is to WCJ by anybody's yardstick? After all the Lighthouse All Stars ran the whole gamut too and would even be given to doing some fierce honking on their saxes. Tongue in cheek or not, are we to know if this wasn't some studio-recording evidence of a certain cross-pollination that may have taken place at live settings intended not just for cocktail slurping near the beaches but also some dancing too? (Remember Big Jay McNeely was a West Coast act all along too).

Again, to me all this proves that WCJ (in the basic sense of jazz produced at the West Coast during that period) can be a lot of different things, depending exclusively on what you want to see in WCJ, and there just is no OBJECTIVE rule of stating that if this is WCJ then that cannot be WCJ.

Edited February 1, 2015 by Big Beat Steve

[Teasing the Korean]

My quoin

FWIW, when I think of West Coast Jazz, I think of...

1) the Gerry Mulligan Quartet with Chet Baker, and

2) the Shorty Rogers Short Stops collection.

If a recording doesn't remind me of one or the other, I don't think of it as West Coast Jazz.

My quintessential west coast jazz albums include:

The Short Stops Collection (CD version)

Shelly Manne plays Peter Gunn vol. 1 and 2

I Want to Live - Gerry Mulligan and Johnny Mandel LPs (collected together on CD)

Annie Ross with Gerry Mulligan

[JSngry]

Chico Hamilton on PJ.

[Larry Kart]

Chico Hamilton on PJ.

You bet. Also almost anything arranged by Jack Montrose -- all those fugal textures and other twiddly bits, which normally drive me up the wall, although Montrose's Atlantic album with his frequent partner Bob Gordon is a gem.

Twiddly Montrose, relieved by Clifford Brown:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1YwQJJPdpM&spfreload=10

Montrose and Gordon:

[Peter Friedman]

It seems clear that attempting to agree on a definition of West Coast Jazz is a tough if not impossible task.

These are some of the things I usually think of when I think of West Coast Jazz.

1. Shorty Rogers recordings.

2. Highly arranged pieces.

3. Less agressive playing by musicians

4. A cadre of specific musicians such as Shorty Rogers, Early Bud Shank, Bob Cooper, Chet Baker, Jack Monterose, Bob Gordon,

Shelly Manne, Larry Bunker, Bill Perkins.

None of these are absolutes.

The Basie influence is often there, but somehow sounds a bit more "cool" when played by West Coast musicians.

The Mulligan Quartet especially with Chet seems more in line with WCJ than the Sextet.

I don't view Zoot, or Getz as West Coast jazz players even though they Could be seen in that camp.

The famous Shelly Manne Quintet recordings with Joe Gordon and Richie Kamuca , as well as recordings by Teddy Edwards and Harold Land are , for me, more in the Hard Bop genre.

So the boundries are quite loose.

[Larry Kart]

It's Jack Montrose, not to be confused with contemporary tenorman JR Monterose.

"JR" BTW stands for "Junior" -- full name is Frank Anthony Monterose Jr. -- thus JR should not be written J.R.

I like Peter's list of West Coast jazz traits and would add, perhaps as a subset of "highly arranged," touches of classically tinged counterpoint.

[JSngry]

Although, as the great Ted Gioa book about the subject demonstrated, the use of "West Coast Jazz" as a stylistic term runs head-on against some immovable objects when looked at in terms of geography.

Or, I might add, in terms of individuals. The other side of this Hamilton LP is live, and although the colors and general flavor is not that different....yeah, it is.

[Larry Kart]

Although, as the great Ted Gioa book about the subject demonstrated, the use of "West Coast Jazz" as a stylistic term runs head-on against some immovable objects when looked at in terms of geography.

Or, I might add, in terms of individuals. The other side of this Hamilton LP is live, and although the colors and general flavor is not that different....yeah, it is.

Looking at West Coast Jazz in terms of geography alone makes little sense. Certain aspects of the laid-back California life style and climate -- that makes a little more sense. The prevalence of studio work and the nice fit of that work with the skills of disbanded former Kentonians, Hermanites, and other young veterans of the rapidly ebbing/vanishing big-band era -- now we're getting somewhere. The tendency of some of the musicians just mentioned (e.g. Lennie Niehaus, Jack Montrose, Duane Tatro, Marty Paich, Jimmy Giuffre, Shorty Rogers, et al.) to embark upon advanced (or if you prefer "advanced") musical/compositional studies at local colleges, with private teachers (including some of the L.A. area's notable European emigre composers), and at places like Westlake -- that was important, not only for the writers and players directly involved but also because they then created/shaped settings that shaped the work of other players who worked within them. Also, backtracking a bit, the norms of studio work -- where neatness probably counts for a good deal more than it does on the average bandstand -- couldn't help but foster similar habits elsewhere. Further, there was the social atmosphere of studio work, with its office work-like bureaucratic tensions and regularities/regimentation, its sometime need to kiss the contractor's ass, the enforced passivity of sitting by the phone waiting for the next studio call (Bill Perkins in a Cadence interview speaks eloquently of how emotionally debilitating that could be), the good living studio work could provide, coupled with the awareness that a black mark or two could torpedo your comfortable lifestyle (I believe some such pattern contributed to Frank Rosolino's downward spiral), and you've got a recipe for a certain ... "tightness" might be the word.

[Big Beat Steve]

I like Peter's list of West Coast jazz traits and would add, perhaps as a subset of "highly arranged," touches of classically tinged counterpoint.

I must admit I feel rather uneasy about this "highly arranged" aspect, particularly if it's "clasically tinged". Sorry, but to me this seems - yet again - like limiting WCJ in the sense of "typical" WCJ to those parts of WCJ that are more easily targeted (and dismissed) by the fervent 50s hard bop freewheeling blowing session partisans to whom hard bop is the beginning and end of all worthy and enduring 50s jazz as such (though you personally may in fact see this "classically tinged highly arranged" music as a merit in its own right).

But IMO this needlessly narrows down the spectrum of all the WCJ that DID exist.

Why?

Isn't there enough WCJ around that is not all that "arranged through"? And for every John Graas there is an MJQ, etc. etc.

As for Peter's list, basically I agree but the "less agressive" would be almost impossible to pin down. Less aggressive compared to whom?

Wasn't WCJ rather a case of being "more laid back and more relaxed"? I don't feel this necessarily is the opposite to "aggressive" playing. It is a trait of its own IMO.

Agreed that the Edwards and Land et al. recordings would be atypical in that they lean towards hard bop and i did not understand Gordon's or Gioia's or Tercinet's books's chapters on these recordings as singling them out as the most typical and desirable of WCJ jazz recordings either but they were part of the spectrum too, if only to show that Westerners could blow (and Easterners OTOH did their share of intense pre-arranging too).

Like Peter said, whatever criteria you adopt, they are no absolutes.

[JSngry]

Although, as the great Ted Gioa book about the subject demonstrated, the use of "West Coast Jazz" as a stylistic term runs head-on against some immovable objects when looked at in terms of geography.

Or, I might add, in terms of individuals. The other side of this Hamilton LP is live, and although the colors and general flavor is not that different....yeah, it is.

Looking at West Coast Jazz in terms of geography alone makes little sense. Certain aspects of the laid-back California life style and climate -- that makes a little more sense. The prevalence of studio work and the nice fit of that work with the skills of disbanded former Kentonians, Hermanites, and other young veterans of the rapidly ebbing/vanishing big-band era -- now we're getting somewhere. The tendency of some of the musicians just mentioned (e.g. Lennie Niehaus, Jack Montrose, Duane Tatro, Marty Paich, Jimmy Giuffre, Shorty Rogers, et al.) to embark upon advanced (or if you prefer "advanced") musical/compositional studies at local colleges, with private teachers (including some of the L.A. area's notable European emigre composers), and at places like Westlake -- that was important, not only for the writers and players directly involved but also because they then created/shaped settings that shaped the work of other players who worked within them. Also, backtracking a bit, the norms of studio work -- where neatness probably counts for a good deal more than it does on the average bandstand -- couldn't help but foster similar habits elsewhere. Further, there was the social atmosphere of studio work, with its office work-like bureaucratic tensions and regularities/regimentation, its sometime need to kiss the contractor's ass, the enforced passivity of sitting by the phone waiting for the next studio call (Bill Perkins in a Cadence interview speaks eloquently of how emotionally debilitating that could be), the good living studio work could provide, coupled with the awareness that a black mark or two could torpedo your comfortable lifestyle (I believe some such pattern contributed to Frank Rosolino's downward spiral), and you've got a recipe for a certain ... "tightness" might be the word.

And yet, black people! Watts! LAPD!!!

All on the West Coast, damn near everywhere too (except in the commerical studios of the time).

And always, heroin, for anybody and everybody who wanted it.

There should have been, and still should be, a better name for it than "West Coast"...even "cool" is problematic. Becuase if "this" is indeed "that", the this other thing is NOT that...and yet it is, it's just not getting pimped. Sorry, no money for you! YOU, otoh, time to get paid, is this enough? Here's a little extra, just in case.

Then again, the truth will set you free, and the truth is that at some point, let the suckers consumers have their labels of convenience, let them be conned, and exploited, every bit as much as the victims (although probably not with the same frontline economic impact), the people who aren't there when people come looking for "West Coast" or any such other thing. And let the victims plot their revenge, for fashionability does nothing if not present those with a plan the ability to realize it.

[Larry Kart]

Of course, black people. But West Coast Jazz the musical style and the jazz that the black musicians of California were making at the time didn't cross paths that much, this side of Buddy Collette, Curtis Counce the sideman (not the bandleader), Hampton Hawes the sideman (and the copping of Hawes' cum Carl Perkins' style by Andre Previn), etc. You want to talk about social justice or social injustice, fine -- I thought we were talking about the actual stylistically rather coherent music that, for better or for worse, was labeled West Coast Jazz at that time. I can see (I think) why you're saying that West Coast Jazz was a label of convenience designed to con and exploit consumers "every bit as much as the victims." But having lived through that era as a burgeoning and reasonably socially aware jazz fan, I can tell you that a whole lot of people (I being one of them) found WCJ (when applied to the music to which it was commonly applied at the time) to be as accurate a label as could be, in the sense that the music so labeled had a good deal of stylistic coherence. Some of us liked that music/found it charming, some of us (I was one) began to feel that it was a bit isolated/desicated or even kind of creepy in relation to the contemporary music of, say, Silver, Rollins, Blakey, et al., not to mention that of "mainstream" masters like Eldridge, Hawkins, Benny Carter, etc. And some of us (I'm one of them) eventually came to regret my/our virtual blanket dismissal of the WCJ I/we had once liked and found that music (I hope on a sound basis) interesting all over again. Do I then need to pay penance at the altar of Teddy Edwards or Walter Benton? Perhaps. But when I heard Edwards, Benton, Hawes, Carl Perkins, L. Marable, James Clay, et al. back in the day, I thought they were fine players.

[johnblitweiler]

Always for me, the mostly white musicians who recorded for PJ and Contemporary (and Mode, Tampa, etc.) in the 1950s - mostly studio musicians, mostly big-band vets - and of course Brubeck, these were the West Coast idiom. Rather heavily arranged, rather closer to swing rhythms than to bop, rather advanced harmonies, rather self-conscious about being modern, rather more "rathers," always "tasteful" - that's how they seemed to me. The blues wasn't really blue, invisible heroin, invisible ecstacies. No jamfs, racism, not even messy or messed-up or lost loves - nobody heard the cruelty of the lyrics of "My Funny Valentine." Very much a period music - Chico Hamilton then turned to Charles Lloyd, Bud Shank became a full-blooded Benny Carter man, Shelly Manne led hard-bop combos, etc. etc. The real world, the jazz mainstreams, overtook West Coast by the 1960s. What remained were Brubeck-Desmond, G. Mulligan's bouncing rhythms, not a whole lot else.

[JSngry]

Larry, I like a lot of that music still, and some of it even more now than then. Definitely more of it now than then.

Just saying, though, I'm, say, Carl Perkins, I'm waiting to get paid, and some cat with my name is famous for "Blue Suede Shoes", bad enough, but I see the line for "West Coast Jazz", and I'm thinking, hey, I'm West Coast, I'm Jazz, there will be something for me in this line, and then I get to the window and the teller breaks for lunch with a sign that says, "Sorry, Sounds Too East Coast-ish For West Coast Jazz, Try The East Coast Jazz Line For Your Fame And/Or Fortune", and you know, that's gotta not be a good thing. Especially when you start looking for that line and see a whole row of windows that say "Fix Now! No Waiting". Line gets too long, they open up another right away, like the grocery store of your dreams. Oh, ok, Coast Barrier erased here, Free at Last! And then it's like, oh, ok, you play jazz and you are west coast BUT you do not play West Coast Jazz, and gee, I wanna get high right now just thinking about how silly that all is. Still is, more now than then, really.

That's all I'm saying, nothing to do with the music, nothing to do with race, everything to do with the business, which I know gladly uses every advantage it can, including music and race and drugs and god knows what else, but if I don't need the labels any more to find, identify, and enjoy the music, I'm kinda like, fuck all that, you know? As a conversation starter, ok, still inevitable, I'm sure, but the point to be made is that what is there to be heard is best defined by the hearing, so let's get real and look at what's really past the window, not just what's seen through it.

[GA Russell]

And with Shorty Rogers, I feel like I started with the best and could never find anything as good afterward. I became aware of him through a CD called "Short Stops," which collected two of his early 10" albums and the Wild One EP. I then started picking up all of the LPs I could find, but none of them ever struck me like the music on that CD. Is it because those are his best arrangements, or is it because I heard them first?

TTK, that was precisely my experience as well!

[Teasing the Korean]

I don't get the "overly arranged" criticism of WCJ. If arranged music Isn't "jazz" enough, then I'm happy to appreciate it as music on its own terms and not worry about what it is called. I don't care how "jazz" is supposed to be approached if I like the final results.

Edited February 2, 2015 by Teasing the Korean

[Larry Kart]

Larry, I like a lot of that music still, and some of it even more now than then. Definitely more of it now than then.

Just saying, though, I'm, say, Cal Perkins, I'm waiting to get paid, and some cat with my name is famous for "Blue Suede Shoes", bad enough, but I see the line for "West Coast Jazz", and I'm thinking, hey, I'm West Coast, I'm Jazz, there will be something for me in this line, and then I get to the window and the teller breaks for lunch with a sign that says, "Sorry, Sounds Too East Coast-ish For West Coast Jazz, Try The East Coast Jazz Line For Your Fame And/Or Fortune", and you know, that's gotta not be a good thing. Especially when you start looking for that line and see a whole row of windows that say "Fix Now! No Waiting". Line gets too long, they open up another right away, like the grocery store of your dreams. Oh, ok, Coast Barrier erased here, Free at Last! And then it's like, oh, ok, you play jazz and you are west coast BUT you do not play West Coast Jazz, and gee, I wanna get high right now just thinking about how silly that all is. Still is, more now than then, really.

That's all I'm saying, nothing to do with the music, nothing to do with race, everything to do with the business, which I know gladly uses every advantage it can, including music and race and drugs and god knows what else, but if I don't need the labels any more to find, identify, and enjoy the music, I'm kinda like, fuck all that, you know? As a conversation starter, ok, still inevitable, I'm sure, but the point to be made is that what is there to be heard is best defined by the hearing, so let's get real and look at what's really past the window, not just what's seen through it.

Jim, I'm having a tough time following you here. Carl Perkins deserves to get paid because there's the label "West Coast Jazz" and he's a terrific player and he lives on the West Coast and they're giving money to those other West Coast guys just because they live there and they're music fits the WCJ label stylistically, but Perkins doesn't get paid because his style of music doesn't fit the music that's been labeled WCJ? To that I say, on two somewhat different fronts, Hampton Hawes and Horace Silver.

The former, stylistically similar to Perkins, did get paid fairly well I think for a good while -- probably about as much over a comparable period of time as, say, Pete Jolly -- but of course Hawes screwed up almost as definitively and for much the same reasons as Perkins did. Silver, to me, raises the question whether a player like Perkins -- highly individual, soulful, you name it, but quirky, probably not that flexible, not cut out to be a leader given all the "personal issues" static, etc., would have "gotten paid" if he were based on the East Coast of his time, let alone anywhere else in the U.S. To return to Silver, he got paid not only because he too was a terrific highly individual player, but also because he was ideally suited to be a leader, wrote lots of great music, and lived his life in a take care of business manner. Also, Silver had the backing of Alfred Lion and Blue Note; Hawes had Lester Koenig and Contemporary in his corner for a good stretch of time; while Perkins had, if anyone, Dootsie Williams and Dootone.

As for labeling per se, which is what seems to be getting your goat. Sure, labels can be reductive or even just plain erroneous, but the label WCJ -- per Litweiler's descriptive post #96 above -- happened to fit most of the music so labeled at the time quite well IMO.

Or maybe it's just that I don't quite get what you're saying.