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Granz, Bird, Tatum, Hefti, Carnegie


Mark Stryker

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OK, here's something I'm trying to untangle to make sure I don't misstate the facts in my chapter about Hank Jones:

In Tad Hershorn's biography of Norman Granz (pages 136-137) he writes that Granz booked Carnegie Hall (main stage and recital hall) on a December day in 1947 for a recording double header. Hershorn first writes that Granz had arranged to record Bird's quartet in the recital hall and Neal Hefti's orchestra in the big hall. When Bird dropped in on the Hefti session, he ended up sitting in on "Repetition." So far so good.

However, Hershorn also writes that the original plan had been to record Bird and Art Tatum duets, but when Tatum didn't show, Granz scrambled and called Hank Jones and Ray Brown, and borrowed Shelly Manne from the Hefti date long enough to record one title, "The Bird." Hershorn also quote's Granz: "I had rented Carnegie Hall for an afternoon to record just the two of them in this enormous place. I thought it would be great to get that big sound." That makes it sound like Granz was going to record the two of them in the big hall. But that would seem to be in opposition to the earlier passage about using both the recital hall and main stage simultaneously.

Any know any more about this particular topic?

Thanks.

 

 

 

Edited by Mark Stryker
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I have no knowledge.  However, I just checked the booklet to the CD reissue of "The Jazz Scene" (which contains "The Bird" and "Repetition").  In the essay "Reissuing The Jazz Scene," Brian Priestley wrote "In the aforesaid Parker box-set booklet," (Verve's complete Charlie Parker set) "Phil Schaap convincingly demonstrated that "Repetition" took place on the same evening that Bird had been recording the piece named after him as his designated contribution to the Granz project."  So you may want to check the Bird box booklet for more info about that night in Carnegie Hall (or ask Schaap himself).

Edited by mjzee
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43 minutes ago, mjzee said:

I have no knowledge.  However, I just checked the booklet to the CD reissue of "The Jazz Scene" (which contains "The Bird" and "Repetition").  In the essay "Reissuing The Jazz Scene," Brian Priestley wrote "In the aforesaid Parker box-set booklet," (Verve's complete Charlie Parker set) "Phil Schaap convincingly demonstrated that "Repetition" took place on the same evening that Bird had been recording the piece named after him as his designated contribution to the Granz project."  So you may want to check the Bird box booklet for more info about that night in Carnegie Hall (or ask Schaap himself).

Thanks. I'm literally typing up an email to Hershorn right this moment to try and get clarity.

Edited by Mark Stryker
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I don't necessarily see a contradiction?

A Bird/Tatum duet would no doubt have a lot of sound(s) happening in a  way that a quartet date wouldn't, lines, plural, so maybe Granz was thinking the bigger room would allow for a more "uncluttered" sound?

Not saying that this is a scientifically sound theory, but if you hear a quartet date as being essentially just "soloist with accompaniment" and a Bird/Tatum duet more like endlessly detailed counterpoint, then maybe that's how you approach it?

I don't know that Granz was ever a particularly empathetic recordist, actually. So I rule nothing out.

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To be 

16 hours ago, JSngry said:

I don't necessarily see a contradiction?

A Bird/Tatum duet would no doubt have a lot of sound(s) happening in a  way that a quartet date wouldn't, lines, plural, so maybe Granz was thinking the bigger room would allow for a more "uncluttered" sound?

Not saying that this is a scientifically sound theory, but if you hear a quartet date as being essentially just "soloist with accompaniment" and a Bird/Tatum duet more like endlessly detailed counterpoint, then maybe that's how you approach it?

I don't know that Granz was ever a particularly empathetic recordist, actually. So I rule nothing out.

To be clear: The contradiction I'm focused on is between (a) the author's initial statement that Granz booked the big hall for the orchestra and the recital  hall for Bird's quartet and (b) the later statement that the original idea for Bird's session was a duo with Tatum. The original idea for Bird's session couldn't be both; it would have had to be either the quartet or the duo. (The author also writes that only after the Tatum didn't show up did Granz resort to putting a quartet together on the spur of the moment.)

Will update if/when I learn something. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I always wondered how Bird and Art Tatum might have sounded together, since I had read "Beneath the Underdog" when I was a boy. Mingus describes a session where Bird plays with Tatum, and I want to belive, that at least the musical parts of that bio was not fiction.

I remember I heard one date Bird with NatKingCole and it was supposed to be nearer to what might have sounded a Bird/Tatum collaboration.

About the "Bird" from that Verve Recording (together with Repetition) .

I think I have it on that album called "Jazz Perennial". As much as I love Bird, this is one of the more forgetable albums, "The Bird" and "Celebrity", and the unhappy stuff where they added this Tommy Turk to the classical quintet, terrible.

The only things I like on that album is "Repetition" and the stuff with that vocal group "In the Still of the Night" etc......

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2 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

 

I remember I heard one date Bird with NatKingCole and it was supposed to be nearer to what might have sounded a Bird/Tatum collaboration.

 

That was probably the AFRS Jubilee Show number 186.  I have a lot of the shows but not that one.   Anyone know where it can be found? 

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medjuck: I have it on the Spotlite LP "Yardbird in Lotusland"

It has some tracks Bird´n Diz from their LA trip late 45/46, then those AFRS with Ernie Bubbles Whitman als MC, with Bird, Willie Smith, Benny Carter, and the Nat King Cole Trio, and one number I think Cherokee just Bird with the NatKing Cole Trio, but I think it´s cut off before the piano solo starts.

Then there´s some from spring 46 at the Finale Club with Miles (sounding verly much like Diz), and Joe Albany.

Try to find "Yardbird in Lotusland", I think it was also on CD, but maybe this was not quite a legit, anyway the Spotlite was the best source for rare ´40´s stuff when I was young.

Edited by Gheorghe
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