Bob Porter's SOUL JAZZ book

[JSngry]

How have you not noticed Jonah Jones records all these years? The covers were designed to appeal!

[Big Beat Steve]

Got my copy a couple of days ago and am impressed with what I have read so far, but what can I say after all that Jim Sangrey and MG have said? Not much ....
Just this ...

Though many of the facts are known to collectors he manages to put everything in perspective and ties strings together that have been left separate too often and too long. This book provides the overall picture that deserved to be painted, showing the evolution and continuity of the music to its full extent, INCLUDING all those who were important to the black community and laid out the foundations before the actual term and style of soul jazz really came up. Wherever you look up the book, the capsule bios and references to artists and tunes along the way make you want to (re-)explore them in various directions. Not the worst thing for a writer to have accomplished ...
Actually, its broad outlook did not come as something quite as new to me as I had figured after reading earlier comments. The details and narrative may be different but the overall approach of including the "forefathers" and giving them their due reminds me of Arnold Shaw's "The World of Soul" first published in 1970. I read its German edition in the early 80s and appreciated the book above all for its presentation of 50s R&B: The book is about halfway through until the first major building stone of soul music proper - Motown - comes up for the first time. And this does not appear incongruous at all.

As for who surprisingly isn't mentioned: Judging by the index, one omission left me puzzled: No mention  of Big John Greer? Hmmm ... And about organists, was Hank Jacobs too much of a minor player to be mentioned even among the also-rans? But these are minor quibbles.

As for the book not containing enough about record producers, DJs, distributors, MG: Time to re-read "Record Makers & Breakers" by John Broven, then?

Edited January 11, 2017 by Big Beat Steve

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

How have you not noticed Jonah Jones records all these years? The covers were designed to appeal!

Yeah - it just so happened...

Shrug.

MG

Actually, I thought you wrote "Norah Jones" and was HIGHLY confused for a second.

2 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

As for the book not containing enough about record producers, DJs, distributors, MG: Time to re-read "Record Makers & Breakers" by John Broven, then?

Well, there's not a lot on jazz in that, though a goodly bit on R&B.

MG

[Big Beat Steve]

2 hours ago, The Magnificent Goldberg said:

Well, there's not a lot on jazz in that, though a goodly bit on R&B.

MG

I know. I was thinking of the R&B bit. For want of a more jazz-oriented tome on that subject ...

BTW, anybody know of an affordable source for that Teddy Reig autobio?

Edited January 11, 2017 by Big Beat Steve

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

On ‎18‎/‎12‎/‎2016 at 10:57 PM, JSngry said:

Finished the book this afternoon, and have to say that the "snapshots" that are the form of the book tend to get a little more annoying when they move into the actual (as popularly considered) music of the book's title..chronologies are either condensed or left hanging to be taken back up later, There are also some curious de-emphasizings of the entire Joel Dorn/Atlantic era, a really brief look at Ramsey Lewis that doesn't get taken until the book until the narrative reaches the 70s (Ray Bryant's Argo/Cadet gets an earlier and more detailed look, nothing against ray Bryan, he deserves it, but, really, who sold more records to Black Audiences for that label, Ray Bryant or Ramsey Lewis?), a curious reference to Charles Earland as the last great organist to record for Prestige or something like that, which I was like, uh...Leon Spencer, perhaps? He's barely mentioned, which seems odd...)And a curious habit of referring to anything that references funk or latin musics and/or employs electric instruments other than guitar and organ as "fusion"...the last feature profile in the book is of Grover washinton, Jr. It is a kind and understanding one, and worthy of the man, but...it refers to all his records as "fusion". So I guess when "jazz" was intersecting with one kind of R&B it was "Soul Jazz", and then when R&B itself evolved, the jazz that intersected with it was "fusion? Not sure if /I get that...Also almost no, really, no mention of Ahmad Jamal. and I know very well that black people bought a LOT of Ahmad Jamal records when they came out

The guy might have some quirks, but he tells no lies, nor does he make shit up in the interest of mythology. Hooray for Bob Porter!!!

Yeah, as you've said in the thread already a few times - and the point can't be emphasised enough - Bob Porter tells no lies.

But he DOES have his personal views. I argued with him vehemently about his view that Freddie McCoy was an unimportant Soul Jazz musician: the first to start moving jazz in the funk direction, only months after "Out of sight" and "Something you've got". But I failed to persuade him. Bob surely had a good deal of influence at Fantasy in the period they were producing all those Soul Jazz twofer CDs. And not one McCoy album was ever reissued on CD. It was left to Ace in the UK to mine McCoy's discography for classic dance material.

I think Ramsey Lewis is another example of him undervaluing someone. It's not hard to find out that he had more hit albums (32) than any other jazz artist except Nancy Wilson (36). (Even Miles Davis only got 31 hit albums, in case anyone wants to know.) So Bob MUST know this. And Ray had only 2 hit albums. But in fairness, Ray WAS having hit singles a long time before Lewis poked his head above the parapet. And indeed, was probably only the second jazz pianist (after Ahmad Jamal) to get hits. (Though by that token, Dakota Staton had a top 4 album which spent a year on the pop chart - "The late late show" - 8 months before Jamal's monster hit featuring the fabulous groove cut of "Poinciana", and SHE was included in a list of singers.) So well, I don't mind the man having opinions. But you've gotta have done the work to know when an opinion is an opinion or a truth and, as you note somewhere, it's probably impossible for that work to be done now as too many people have died. Bob's one of the last around to know those people.

Oh, and I've got to point out two beautifully sarcastic things that made me laugh a lot.

One's a reference to Basie ceasing to keep an arrangement of "Take the A train' in his band book after Ellington's death, which "could be played in answer to a request by an important white person who didn't know the difference between Duke Ellington and Count Basie."

The other was the story of the difficulties cause by the Musicians Union when Bob Weinstock had done a deal with Fantasy. "Rather than call a lawyer to settle the dispute, Weinstock called his old friend and business partner (in Birdland Records) Morris Levy. The problem promptly disappeared."

I greatly enjoyed those bits.

MG

[JSngry]

1 hour ago, The Magnificent Goldberg said:

I argued with him vehemently about his view that Freddie McCoy was an unimportant Soul Jazz musician: the first to start moving jazz in the funk direction, only months after "Out of sight" and "Something you've got".

Ok, let's play your game - how many hit records did Freddie McCoy have? I know he made a lot of records, but how many were hits (by whatever standard it is you're using to define the word)?

Oh, there's this: http://www.billboard.com/artist/302451/freddie-mccoy/chart

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

10 hours ago, JSngry said:

Ok, let's play your game - how many hit records did Freddie McCoy have? I know he made a lot of records, but how many were hits (by whatever standard it is you're using to define the word)?

Oh, there's this: http://www.billboard.com/artist/302451/freddie-mccoy/chart

Yeah, definitely - one tiny pop chart entry.

But, sorry Jim, how many hits did Charlie Parker have? One, "Barbados' made #15 on the R&B chart for one week in December 1948. Freddie was the first jazz musician to follow the path he pioneered. THAT makes him worthy of mention, not his hit-making record.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I think the really valuable thing about the book is that, without ever coming out and saying so, it puts before the public a clear notion that there's no such music as Soul Jazz. When I spoke to him in '96, he defined Soul Jazz as 'entertainment for black adults'. I wondered what the difference was, in that light, between Houston Person and Louis Armstrong in the 1920s, Sammy Davis Jr and Pam Grier. Thinking more about it, over the years, I fell in that Soul Jazz, unlike all other kinds of jazz, has no specific aesthetic; no central idea(s) or concept around which the music's built and against which it may be judged by critics. All comers were welcome on the Soul Jazz stage, whether they were swing musicians like Jacquet, beboppers like Stitt, hard boppers like Lee Morgan, jump band singers like Cleanhead, blues singers like Junior Parker, soul/funk singers like James Brown, and the material that had come out of those specific kinds of music, and also doo-wop and some avant garde jazz, was all used and welcome on those stages. Because it's a pop music and, like white pop music, it consumes all that comes near it. So it doesn't matter much what the musicians actually play.

But, well, it had to swing. That's as near an aesthetic judgement as one can make and encompass all of what Porter's talking about. And it had to be played in certain locations that were focused on that community, which is not an aesthetic matter but was important. And it had to come out of and be at one with whatever its specific audience was thinking/doing at the time, also not an aesthetic matter except insofar as GETTING HOLD OF THAT meant that the people involved in various bits of the industry of getting money out of the pockets of one lot of people and putting it into the pockets of another lot had to be keyed into that community or they couldn't get a result and, consequently, neither could the musicians with whom they were involved.

MG

[JSngry]

I thought Bird had a pretty big hit with "Just Friends"."the biggest hit of his career" goes the story.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

5 hours ago, JSngry said:

I thought Bird had a pretty big hit with "Just Friends"."the biggest hit of his career" goes the story.

Well, if you can find evidence of a chart entry for that, I'll be surprised, but agree

MG

[JSngry]

"Hits" meant airplay as well as sales. I really don't know how/if "Just Friends becmase a "hit", but it seems to be more or less unanimous that it did.

[Peter Friedman]

One name missing from this entire thread that surprised me a bit is Jay McShann. On the one side was his early big band, and on the other side his small group and solo piano/ vocal  recordings. As a piano player he fits well with others such as Sammy Price and even Ray Bryant.

 

Were McShann and Sammy Price discussed in the book?

[robertoart]

Seen as how this book has been so well received and appreciated here, wouldn't it be great if Mr Porter might kindly join in a discussion here himself and add in a small way to the wonderful insights and memories he has shared in his book. It would be a fine opportunity to have a kind of tangential appendix to things. I can't see any way such a question and answer type discussion could be anything other than a celebration and further flowering of the general tome of the book. 

[Big Beat Steve]

13 hours ago, Peter Friedman said:

One name missing from this entire thread that surprised me a bit is Jay McShann. On the one side was his early big band, and on the other side his small group and solo piano/ vocal  recordings. As a piano player he fits well with others such as Sammy Price and even Ray Bryant.

 

Were McShann and Sammy Price discussed in the book?

Jay McShann has five entries in the index, Sammy Price only one (only in conection with his presence on 52nd Street and in the studios in the mid-40s - indeed a bit too little to do him justice, but maybe his lengthy absences from the US in the 50s kept him out of the focus of this book?).

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

There are so many great players missing or merely just mentioned, to really do justice to them all would be quite impossible. And frankly, a list of names and references doesn't make a book (unless it's a discography )

What Bob Porter's done has been to give us the story truthfully and, in my view, he's chosen the limited number of people to explore very wisely. What more can you ask of a history?

MG

[JSngry]

How many hits did Jay McSchann have between 1945-1975?

[Big Beat Steve]

Of course, if you go strictly by chart criteria then these omissions are quite justified.

Again, the names that have been mentioned missing seem to be very minor complaints to me. But isn't it so that some of these artists might well have played a role in shaping the music due to their "live" presence on the "circuit" where the public was exposed to them and reacted to them? The evolution of the music - any music - (even in hindsight) is defined by more than just chart presence.

But no - this does not detract from the value of the book IMO.

 

[JSngry]

Sales are just one part of the overall picture. Live work, yes, definitely. Airplay, yes, definitely. What musicians themselves were interested in, yes, definitely.

What I like, love, actually, about this book is that it does not function to change any notions of what we already know/believe/whatever. Instead, it gives us more to know, enlarging the context, not redefining it. It's in no way a "revisionist" history, it's a broadening history!

And yes, the title has a very specific timeframe that it considers - 1945-1975. And that's pretty much where it stays. Again, no lies.

I wonder what Bob Porter thinks about George Howard?

[paul secor]

4 hours ago, JSngry said:

How many hits did Jay McSchann have between 1945-1975?

At least two. "Ain't Nobody's Business", with Jimmy Witherspoon fronting McShann's band was the "best selling race record of 1949" , according to Wikipedia.

And "Hands Off", by McShann's band with Priscilla Bowman doing the vocal, was number one on the R&B charts for three weeks in December, 1955. 

 

[JSngry]

Well there you go then. Proof of relevancy! Proof of worth! A life justified! 

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Well, true. Both of those hits were excellent examples of what was going on in their respective days. While most of his references in the book are just listing territory bands with whom some of the great tenor players learned their stuff, one does briefly discuss his seventies work for Black & Blue with some of those same musicians. And Black & Blue material is not unimportant in the wider scheme of things because there was the best part of bugger all going on for those guys in the USA after the early seventies.

MG

[Big Beat Steve]

I must admit that "Ain't Nobody's Business" had totally slipped my mind.

Overall, this sums up the essence of this book very well:
What I like, love, actually, about this book is that it does not function to change any notions of what we already know/believe/whatever. Instead, it gives us more to know, enlarging the context, not redefining it. It's in no way a "revisionist" history, it's a broadening history! 

I

 

[mjzee]

I've been enjoying reading everyone's opinions on the book.  Amazon has the Kindle version for $3.99, so I just went for that.

[JSngry]

On 1/13/2017 at 9:27 AM, The Magnificent Goldberg said:

 Black & Blue material is not unimportant in the wider scheme of things because there was the best part of bugger all going on for those guys in the USA after the early seventies.

MG

So...if music only has "value" relative to its meeting the needs of an audience through an established industrial infrastructure, and if these guys had little to no work in the US because they were not meeting the needs of an audience through an established industrial infrastructure, Black & Blue was, like, what, welfare? Are any of those records on any charts anywhere? Were they ever?  Where is their "value"? What, are we treating this type of music and these type of people like some kind of pet charity, alms for MY needy? Help the poor Black Folks whose own people have left them behind, WE will give them their "value" back? Seriously?

I can tell you - Arnett Cobb had a Black (and most likely, Blue) audience in Houston for as long as he wanted one whether or not he made records for any damn body.

[Big Beat Steve]

Aren't we mixing up two different discussions here?
Artists having an audience within the Black community (regardless of what the stylistic categorizations and boundaries may have been according to conventional jazz scribes and historians) on the one hand, which is what the focus of this book is on,

and artists who no longer had this audience (their original audience) finding a new audience elsewhere (such as expats or touring musicians recording in Europe and showing that they still had their chops) on the other, which is part of the history of jazz too but outside the scope of this book?

Edited January 15, 2017 by Big Beat Steve