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Thad Jones & Mel Lewis Big Band


Head Man

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Yeah, people do what they can do when they can do it where they are.

The only way you get a "different" Jones/Lewis band is to have different people in a different time and a different place, and that just didn't happen. If it could have, it would have.

You get Snooky Young and Richard Davis on the same page, in an ongoing musical endeavor. Think about how much else had to be in the mix for that to have happened, as well as why it could never happen now, or possibly before or again.

Edited by JSngry
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Miles is always fun to read - he nailed Oscar Peterson to the wall in one of those things - but he also hated Dolphy, Ornette, and, I am sure, Mother Theresa, so we gotta take it all with the knoweldge that it's the wife-beater himself calling the kettle white.

I don't care what Miles said, or even our dear Chuck, for that matter. That was a very fine band, often excellent. The only thing I will say is that the track Feather chose for the blindfold test was rather strange and not totally representative. Remember that it was a Garnet Brown chart and honestly, it wasn't among the band's finest moments. Certainly I wouldn't include it on a a "Best of Thad Jones/Mel Lewis" compilation.

Edited by John Tapscott
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Miles is always fun to read - he nailed Oscar Peterson to the wall in one of those things - but he also hated Dolphy, Ornette, and, I am sure, Mother Theresa, so we gotta take it all with the knoweldge that it's the wife-beater himself calling the kettle white.

Agreed...though I'd agree with him on Mother Theresa.

gregmo

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I like the band myself sometimes, but some of Miles' points seem sound to me. The band was too "New York-studio muscular" for my tastes, like the atmosphere of an athletic team's locker room. Lots of "proud" biceps and sweat. Among possibly comparable roughly contemporary big bands, I preferred Gerald Wilson's, for one. By contrast to Wilson, some of Thad's very clever writing was IMO too clever for its own good at times.

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Yeah, people do what they can do when they can do it where they are.

The only way you get a "different" Jones/Lewis band is to have different people in a different time and a different place, and that just didn't happen. If it could have, it would have.

You get Snooky Young and Richard Davis on the same page, in an ongoing musical endeavor. Think about how much else had to be in the mix for that to have happened, as well as why it could never happen now, or possibly before or again.

IIRC In it's earliest days The Clayton-Hamilton band had that kind of mix. In fact (again) IIRC including Snooky Young.

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The band was too "New York-studio muscular" for my tastes, like the atmosphere of an athletic team's locker room. Lots of "proud" biceps and sweat.

I get that, but that whole scene also produced an unimaginably large portion of Music America Heard for the better part of at least two decades, and yes, there was an "athletic" mentality to the whole process of getting into it, thriving in it, and surviving in it. It was How America Did Business, ya' know? The Jungle, as it were, and you know how the jungle go. Miles lived in his own jungle, and it only sometimes intersected with that other one.

Like I said, Snooky Young & Richard Davis on the same team, in the same locker room. Two different guys from two different worlds, and they be making it work just dandily by not doing anything other than what they do. Worlds were not colliding, they were cooperating, Biceps, sweat, and pride? You bet. Had to be. Law Of The Jungle.

And truthfully, I see nothing automatically wrong with that, just as I see nothing automatically wrong with the lack of it. You do what you got to do to keep your space yours, whatever that is.

"Big Bands" can go real wrong real quick (and the Jones/Lewis band as it evolved and lost the first-gen "studio stalwarts" didn't necessarily go wrong, but it sure as hell changed the lens), but muscular locker-room sweat by itself is not one of the ways they do. If anything, it's one of their primal attractions. Show me somebody who doesn't enjoy a good sweat from doing something, and I'll show you somebody who just ain't all the way right.

Where it goes wrong is when all that muscular locker room sweat becomes an end unto itself. Sweat becomes its own reward, and people end up sweating from trying to sweat, not from getting the work done. Can't say that even in their later, lesser state the the Jones/Lewis band went there, although at times it came close. But the original band? Hell, that's Jungle Music, baby! (Even if it was a jungle in its death throes...go with what you know, right?)

Among possibly comparable roughly contemporary big bands, I preferred Gerald Wilson's, for one. By contrast to Wilson, some of Thad's very clever writing was IMO too clever for its own good at times.

I get that too, but...apples and oranges, really, Gerald's writing never had any "cleverness" in it at all. It was all about unambiguity, move the air in a straight line, and keep it moving. I very much dig Wilson's writing, but other than him & Thad both used non-standard voicings (each of a widely different nature than the other, btw), and utilized flutes in the reed section,,,,yeah, apples and oranges.

A closer comparison in terms of actual technique might be Oliver Nelson, another Man Of The Jungle, and one who went all the way in (and didn't get out alive...). Oliver and Thad both liked, generally, to cluster things up right in the middle and keep the tops and bottoms more open. But Oliver was not a melodic madman like Thad was. He was about as sober with that stuff as you could be in that regard, which is where the intensity comes from in his best writing - sounds so normal on top, sounds so...seething on the inside. Thad had no such dichotomy. He wrote the way he played (and Thad Jones as an "advanced" soloist going back to his very first recordings is something still awaiting a more full recognition), which is to say..."quixotic". "Too clever for its own good", yeah, okay, but I don't see how that doesn't happen as a "nature of the beast" thing except for when it does, as in Thad's later writing which seems to fall empty of inspiration and becomes entirely self-referential. And that's not "too clever", that's....no clever.

Geez, I've not played in a real big bad for 15-20 years now. And haven't really missed it. But this talking about it like this is getting me to wonder when will the next time be,and if so, why?

And all you young folk and/or provincials who've never had a chance to hear a REAL full-throttle big band (as in non "lab", "rehearsal", etc.) going full-throttle, well, you don't know. You just don't know. It's one thing to feel air being moved by sound coming out of a few amps of a few instruments, quite another thing altogether for 15 or so people to all move wir individually and collectively at times in rhythmic unison, at times not. Just a whole 'nother way of musical life.

IIRC In it's earliest days The Clayton-Hamilton band had that kind of mix. In fact (again) IIRC including Snooky Young.

Snooky Young had one of the more remarkable musical careers that could be had doing what it was that he did. I don't know that full recognition/attention has been given to him or his career or what it took for him to do it.

Amazing man, Snooky Young.

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About Oliver Nelson, while Thad may have maintained a higher overall standard, and Nelson had his cheesy moments, I'll take Nelson's superb "Afro-American Sketches" over anything that Thad did.

About "New York-studio muscular" and " that whole scene [producing] an unimaginably large portion of Music America Heard for the better part of at least two decades," that "whole scene" was not one scene musically, and the nature of "New York-studio muscular" got a fair bit more sweaty-muscular between, say, 1954 and 1964 (or 1975). Early on in that evolution, I recall the 1957 album "Elliot Lawrence Plays Gerry Mulligan Arrangements," in which a band of the better NY studio players of that time was assembled to play the charts that Mulligan had written for Lawrence's working band some ten years before that. Mulligan was indignant about the way they were performed at the recording session, feeling that much of the nuance of his charts (probably not unlike that of his "Birth of the Cool" pieces) had been turned into something generically neo-Basie. Though I myself pretty much like "Elliot Lawrence Plays Gerry Mulligan Arrangements," I can certainly hear what Mulligan meant there. Those NY studio guys had and/or developed a "default mode," and it seems to have gotten more sweaty-muscular as time went on.

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Well sure it did. America did, and these guys were getting paid to Sound Like America, or at least some peoples' versions of it.

And no, that "whole scene" was not "one scene musically, but that's what made it a jungle - lots of scenes to maneuver in and around, any # of them containing more money/gigs/stability, and possibly even a little bit of power in terms of referring subs and maybe even doing a little contracting.

Making a living, a good living, playing music, actually playing it and not talking/thinking about it, is not a career path for anybody who wants to "stay pure". That's a luxury that cannot be afforded, literally!

All I'm saying is that it's one thing to not like that "thing". I can dig that, because it reflects how sometimes Survival dictates Truth instead of the other way around. But...that's the way shit often is, and not just occasionally, so I'm not gonna be the one who decides that Survival maybe isn't a Truth Unto Itself, much less wonder if those who have made their peace with that in an overall benign manner made the wrong call.

After all, Mulligan was correct. Definitely. But Elliot Lawrence got the record made, not Mulligan, so he was correct as well. So - who between them was actually wrong?

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Well sure it did. America did, and these guys were getting paid to Sound Like America, or at least some peoples' versions of it.

And no, that "whole scene" was not "one scene musically, but that's what made it a jungle - lots of scenes to maneuver in and around, any # of them containing more money/gigs/stability, and possibly even a little bit of power in terms of referring subs and maybe even doing a little contracting.

Making a living, a good living, playing music, actually playing it and not talking/thinking about it, is not a career path for anybody who wants to "stay pure". That's a luxury that cannot be afforded, literally!

All I'm saying is that it's one thing to not like that "thing". I can dig that, because it reflects how sometimes Survival dictates Truth instead of the other way around. But...that's the way shit often is, and not just occasionally, so I'm not gonna be the one who decides that Survival maybe isn't a Truth Unto Itself, much less wonder if those who have made their peace with that in an overall benign manner made the wrong call.

After all, Mulligan was correct. Definitely. But Elliot Lawrence got the record made, not Mulligan, so he was correct as well. So - who between them was actually wrong?

About "Well sure it did. America did, and these guys were getting paid to Sound Like America, or at least some peoples' versions of it," I think you're painting with a rather broad brush here in the implicit externality of your "getting paid to Sound Like America" formulation. (I'm reminded of the Paul Desmond line, "Where do I go to sell out?") I think that a lot of this stuff was generated by the players and arrangers themselves. Shifting coasts, I'm reminded of Shorty Rogers Basie-material album of circa 1956-7, where the pieces of the '30s Decca-Okeh Basie band were recast for a band that included IIRC five trumpets, with Maynard Ferguson often playing an octave above everyone else. Exciting to some degree, as you might imagine, but the lilt and charm of the likes of "Topsy" et al. went into the trash bin. Was Roger taking orders here? Not likely. Was he expressing his own vulgarity/lack of understanding of what what he supposedly was honoring/interpreting was really like? Yes, I suppose, but that's too harsh and not quite accurate IMO. Rather, it's that Shorty (and his East Coast equivalents) were handling material they genuinely admired from their youth and adolescence, but feeling that they wanted to do something with/"update" it, they thought not in terms of how to extend that music's deeper language elements (e.g. the no-hands glide of the rhythm section, the fourth-dimension songfulness of Lester Young, the plasticity and wit of Dickie Wells, the biting tartness of Sweets Edison, etc.) but rather of how to project its external aspects with greater physical force, Basie a la Kenton perhaps.

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Oh, you're talking about their jazz studio work. I'm not. I'm talking about all that other studio work, the kind nobody talks about because nobody wants to talk about it, kinda like how Al Cohn made a great living writing for, who was it..Ice Capades? Miss America? Something(s) like that. Think of all the jingles, non-jazz pop songs, TV work, all that work work there was, and how many of those guys were in it.

Anyway, point being doing stuff like that changes your wiring. Has to. But - you get to keep playing and you make a good living (or did, not much, if any, of that type of work left any more). It's a trade-off that might not be the right "artistic" choice, but geez, there are far worse things to be done with a life than to be able to keep playing and make a good living and still be able to play Credible Consumer Jazz, far worse things.

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Now I have no idea if this was NY or LA, but listen o this band, live, no doubt, totally tight and bristling with SOME kind of energy, at least at the beginning of the show, listen to those lead players, especially the lead trumpeter, just NAILING it. And who the hell is that bass player?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFJ1x_NAjgQ

This is in no way jazz ("jazz" at best) and no doubt to get into this circle of gigs, any more...hardcore notions of jazz you had would have to be checked at the door (and no doubt left there unclaimed by some), but OTOH, you know that this gig and others like it paid like a mofo, and yeah, make a good living not NOT swining and definitely NOT sucking at your instrument because you don't keep your chops up, go ahead on with that. I can't find fault.

Edited by JSngry
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Now I have no idea if this was NY or LA, but listen o this band, live, no doubt, totally tight and bristling with SOME kind of energy, at least at the beginning of the show, listen to those lead players, especially the lead trumpeter, just NAILING it. And who the hell is that bass player?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFJ1x_NAjgQ

This is in no way jazz ("jazz" at best) and no doubt to get into this circle of gigs, any more...hardcore notions of jazz you had would have to be checked at the door (and no doubt left there unclaimed by some), but OTOH, you know that this gig and others like it paid like a mofo, and yeah, make a good living not NOT swining and definitely NOT sucking at your instrument because you don't keep your chops up, go ahead on with that. I can't find fault.

It was LA and the band was led by Van Alexander, who was a Capitol Records guy, so it probably was the same basic body of players who cropped up on Billy May's Capitol albums.

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Some of the likely players:

Barney Kessel

Ted Nash

Alvin Stoller

Stu Williamson

Conrad Gozzo (there's your lead trumpeter)

Al Hendrickson

Manny Klein

Nick Fatool

WIlbur Schwartz

Chuck Gentry

Uan Rasey

Tommy Pederson

Bob Hardaway

Joe Howard

Skeets Herfurt

Heine Beau

Joe Triscari

Ray Sims

An older group of guys by and large than, say, the Terry Gibbs band crowd.

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Yeah, well there you go, the evolution of the Swing Era Big Band culture from the dance floor to the studio to the "rehearsal band", to "concert" organizations, (which basically means no steady daily gig w/o some kind of subsidy) with generations being added and subtracted along the way. New York and LA. At some point, the whole thing devolves, but with Jones/Lewis, you get the last period of continuity as the evolution ended and the devolution began. As much as everybody wanted it to be so, Jon Faddis never could be Snooky Young, Mel Lewis and Pepper Adams and Thad Jones could never again play with Kenton & Basie, Bob Brookmeyer (who was a really gifted guy, but apparently kind of dark and "high standards" - either one is fine, but combined it gets kind of...exponential - he hired the players apparently, so there's your Sweaty Studiolarity right there, between him and Phil Woods,can you say UH-oh....) would have ended up doing god knows what, maybe...the mind reels...it was what it was because it pretty much had no other choice, so for me, I'm ok with all of it because...greatness comes with a price, ya' know? Especially Last Gasp Greatness.

Jimmy Maxwell, we hardly knew ye.

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All this discussion of the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Band is interesting, but for me does not tell the story. I consider my self fortunate to have seen the Jones-Lewis Band live many times.

At the Village Vanguard 2 or 3 times, in Rochester, New York a couple of times, and even twice in Oslo, Norway. With the exception of Basie and Ellington, that band was by far the most musically enjoyable I have heard. I preferred the Jones-Lewis band to the many others I have seen live including Gerald Wilson, Toshiko, Clayton- Hamilton, Bob Florence, FranKie Capp,and countless others.

The Writing by Thad and Brookmeyer and the great soloists such as Pepper Adams, Roland Hanna, Billy Harper and Thad were marvelous. When that band performed there was an electricity in the air that permeated the room.

Two bands that I also consider at the top of the "heap" - Kenny Clarke/ Francy Boland and The Gerry Mulligan Concert Band . I was never able to see either of them live, so my reaction is based solely on their recordings.

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  • 8 years later...

Cecil married his sister? YUCK.

There was a Bridgewater Brothers record on Denon, part of the Reggie Workman A&R project. I wanted to like it, even a little, but just could not.

I do like Dee Dee, though, and am glad that she divorced her brother, I mean, what were they thinking with that, eh?

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4 minutes ago, JSngry said:

 

There was a Bridgewater Brothers record on Denon, part of the Reggie Workman A&R project. I wanted to like it, even a little, but just could not.

 

Actually, there are two Bridgewater Brothers LPs on Denon.

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35 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Cecil married his sister? YUCK.

There was a Bridgewater Brothers record on Denon, part of the Reggie Workman A&R project. I wanted to like it, even a little, but just could not.

I do like Dee Dee, though, and am glad that she divorced her brother, I mean, what were they thinking with that, eh?

My bad, LOL!

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