The Magnificent Goldberg

Part 4 – Developing modern approaches I have to admit to a slight preference for Shirley Scott as an accompanist, rather than a soloist. Her full chords are reminiscent of Wild Bill Davis, but they’re not sustained, and this gives her playing much more of a bounce and a modern sound. When I listen to Shirley, I often think of Red Garland, not Jimmy Smith. Shirley seems to have had a distinct preference for working with explicitly modern musicians – John Coltrane and Jaws (kind of unclassifiable, Jaws is), as already noted, of course, Stanley Turrentine, Oliver Nelson, George Coleman, Harold Vick, and Buck Hill. Terrell Stafford and Tim Warfield were featured on her final album, “A walkin’ thing” (Candid 79719, 1992). Of course, playing organ, she had to do the Soul Jazz thing and found the perfect partner in Stanley. But her recordings with Nelson, Hill and, particularly, Vick speak to me of where she was really coming from. One of the problems with Shirley was the fact that she was almost invariably recorded with a bass player. As far as I know, only her first session with Jaws, for King, “Dearly beloved” (Blue Note 4081), “One for me” (Strata East 7430) and “Lean on me” (Cadet 50025) were recorded entirely without a bass player. She could certainly carry the bass line herself and I often wonder why she recorded so seldom like that. The only time a bass player actually sounded like a worthwhile investment was on the ‘Drag ‘em out’ album (Prestige PR7305) where Major Holley’s sound makes a major contribution. Tommy Dean was a St Louis pianist and organist who recorded for Vee-Jay between 1953 and 1958, his last but one session, featuring Grant Green, being unissued (still!). He’d previously recorded on piano for Town and Country, Miracle and States. An album of his recordings was issued in Denmark by Official, just before the company folded. After many years of searching, I finally got a reasonably priced copy of it. Dean ran a combo that, in the mid fifties, was clearly inspired by that of Bill Doggett. But whereas Doggett’s combo usually featured a sassy, hip swinging, walking rhythm, Dean’s band soared! The much lighter shuffle rhythm Dean developed when solely a pianist was carried over to his organ combo and was much more jazz-oriented than R&B-oriented, owing to his sound choice of bass players. I don’t think Dean played a Hammond; his sound is more like that of Jordin Fordin and the lighter sound of whatever organ he was playing contributed to the flying feeling of his band, although it was already there in his piano material. (He had good taste in sidemen, as well; Oliver Nelson was in his band for the first two Vee-Jay sessions in 1954 and ’55.) Although Sam Lazar – also from St Louis – said that his primary influence was Jimmy Smith, to judge by his style, particularly on up tempo numbers, there’s a significant Tommy Dean influence in his playing. Small wonder that Grant Green should hook up with Lazar. Who was Jordin Fordin? Don’t ask me, Guv. If there’s a name that absolutely HAS to be a pseudonym, it’s got to be Jordin Fordin. Whoever he was, he was a member of Joe Holiday’s little band in 1951. They cut the Prestige 10” LP, “New sounds from Newark” (PRLP131 – OJCCD1786) on 13 December 1951. (This was the session at which Holiday recorded his popular standard, “This is happiness”, normally credited to him, but actually a composition by De La Rosa, Collazo & Menendez.) So even in 1951, Newark was an organ town. Fordin was certainly not playing a Hammond organ of any description. I don’t know what he was playing, but it may have been the same kind of instrument that Les Strand played – a Baldwin. He’s nice and he’s different. But… The gospel influence Doc Bagby was one of the A&R directors of Gotham Records, a Philadelphia label established in 1946, which stayed in business until 1957 or so. He seems to have produced most of the firm’s Gospel output and played organ on most of them (though the only sessions on which he is documented are the one (or two) by the Angelic Gospel Singers with the Dixie Hummingbirds in September 1950/April 1951, and one by Brother John Sellers from June 1950. (He’s also on a 1956 Mercury album by Sister Rosetta Tharpe.) He may also have played on some of Gotham’s R&B or jazz recordings, but I only have Gospel music from Gotham. In 1954, he joined Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, who was fresh out of the Basie band and aiming, once more, at popularising the tenor/organ combo. He can be heard in extended mode on Jaws’ Birdland album “Battle of Birdland” (Roost 1203) with Sonny Stitt. This was the first time Stitt had recorded with an organist and he wasn’t too keen. But once they started playing, he was really into it. This is a damn fine cookin’ session! After a while, Bagby went back into Gospel music. Other important Gospel organists, who generally didn’t make jazz records, but who were significant influences include Rev Maceo Woods, Professor Herman Stevens and Professor Alfred Miller. Woods and Stevens were avowed influences on one of the most original of all jazz organists - Baby Face Willette. Baby Face first recorded in 1952 in Los Angeles, on piano, for Recorded in Hollywood, very much in Milt Buckner/Lionel Hampton mode. Some time later, he moved to Chicago and came under the influence of Woods and Stevens. You can hear the influence of Woods in WIllette’s keyboard playing, but it sounds like his ominously growling bass line comes from Stevens, who played like that on more swinging numbers. In September 1955, he recorded four tracks for Vee-Jay, only two of which were released. ‘Why’ is an up-tempo number with Willette on piano. ‘Can’t keep from loving you’ is a slow blues with Willette backing himself on organ (and Red Holloway on tenor sax). This song was later transmuted into the long blues ‘Chances are few’, on Willette’s second LP, ‘Stop and listen’. Willette’s organ playing on Vee-Jay is essentially what came out of the Blue Note and Chess studios over the following decade. He was far more helpfully recorded in Ter Mar than in RVG’s. Seems to me that Alfred Lion had a concept of how he wanted organ records to go, whereas Esmond Edwards was happy to let Baby Face do his own thing, which wasn’t much like Jimmy Smith’s thing. (I’m greatly indebted to Dan Gould for needle drops of Willette’s two singles.) MG

Part 3 – The tenor/organ combo There were three main pioneers of the tenor/organ combo. But let’s start with someone else; John Coltrane. Yes, that’s right. Before she joined Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis early in 1956, Shirley Scott was in a trio with Trane and Tootie Heath. It must have been in 1955, before Trane joined Miles Davis’ band. Now THAT would have been an interesting band to hear! Unfortunately, it didn’t make any records. The real pioneer of the tenor/organ combo is, of course, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis. He had several attempts before he eventually found the classic combination in 1956. Jaws’ first tenor/organ date was ‘Mountain oysters’ with Bill Doggett, in 1949, as noted above. His next attempt was for a 10” Roost LP – ‘Goodies from Davis’ Roost 422, comprising 3 sessions from 1952 and 1953, according to Lord. But Eddie tells a different story in the sleeve of the Vogue twofer that includes all the 10” tracks on side 1. He said he was adamant that he had recorded all the sessions in 1951, before he joined Count Basie. He also said that he wanted Wild Bill Davis as the organist, ‘but by the time I got back to him, he’d signed with another label’. That matches with a 1951 date. The master numbers, however, contradict this. The first session was with Doggett, the second with Billy Taylor and the third with Eddie Bonnemere. This LP and the 78s that made it up never made much of a splash. Roost failed to issue them on 45, so they didn’t get on juke boxes. They’re good Jaws but none of them are really as exceptional as one would expect innovative recordings to be. In 1954, Jaws got his own organist; Doc Bagby, A&R director of Gotham Records, one of the most important gospel labels of the late forties and early fifties. More on him later. A great gig at Birdland, with Sonny Stitt sitting in, was recorded in 1954. Bagby recorded with Jaws for King until February 1956. In 1956, he joined up with Shirley Scott and recorded with her for King from July 1956 to February 1957, then for Bethlehem in June 1957, then for Roulette/Roost from December 1957 to March 1958, back to King in June 1958, finally settling down at Prestige a few days later to make the first of the Cookbooks. Jaws and Shirley stayed together until mid 1960, when Jaws teamed up with Johnny Griffin. Bill Doggett’s bands kind of paralleled those of Jaws, with a number of tenor players - Percy France, Skinny Brown and Frank Heppinstall - joining him for short periods before he created his classic band with Clifford Scott and Billy Butler in 1956. He first recorded for King in January 1952, just as a trio, with guitar and drums. By October, Percy France had come in, John Faire had replaced Jimmy Cannady as guitarist and Shep Shepherd was on drums. The Doggett combo was on the way. France recorded with Bill until December 1953 and was replaced by Irving ‘Skinny’ Brown for a few sessions, then Percy returned in June 1954 for a session, followed by Arthur ‘Pigmeat’ Garner, for an October 1954 session. Frank Heppinstall, a fabulously frantic player, did two sessions with Bill in 1955, before Percy came back for a session in August 1955. It wasn’t until January 1956 that Clifford Scott and Billy Butler joined Shepherd and Doggett. ‘Honky tonk’ was recorded in June of 1956. Clifford stayed with Doggett until he left King and recorded for WB in December 1960. So their time together almost exactly coincided with Jaws’ and Shirley’s. Ernie Freeman was the man who pioneered the tenor/organ combo on the west coast. He got his first recording session in 1950, as part of the Dexter Gordon band, backing Helen Humes. He was playing piano then and only took up the organ in 1954, when he was recording for Crown with tenorman Lorenzo Holden. The Freeman/Holden recordings from 1954 to 1956 are documented on an album called ‘Cry of the wounded jukebox’ (Southland SCD26). Freeman had a long career, with several major hits under his belt before becoming successful as an arranger (he arranged ‘Strangers in the night’ for Frank Sinatra). MG

Part 2 – Swing organists following Wild Bill Davis Let’s start off by remembering that Count Basie was one of the originators. I haven’t heard too much of his organ playing in the thirties. Those who’ve described it as skating rink music (which I think in England would be called Tower Ballroom, Blackpool style), are being a bit uncharitable. I doubt if Basie’s organ was ever properly recorded until he made the 1965 album Arthur Prysock/Count Basie – no great surprise, as it’s the only time the Basie band ever recorded in Rudy Van Gelder’s. Basie sounds as if he were the prime influence on Ray Charles’ organ playing. You can get Ray’s organ style quite clearly from “Genius + Soul = Jazz Live”, recorded at the Paris Olympia in October 1961, which shows how Ray really used the organ in performance (and which also contains Don Wilkerson’s greatest solo on “Come rain or come shine”). But of Wild Bill Davis’ followers, Marlowe Morris had the Basie sound bang to rights. This may be one reason why Morris was Basie’s favourite organist and held down the gig at Basie’s club for many years. After many years working as a sideman (he even did a Gospel session with Sister Rosetta Tharpe) and enjoying steady work at Basie’s, he finally made an album as a leader for Columbia – “Play that thing” – in 1963, which I used to have but seemed pretty boring to me at the time, so I ditched it and now believe that was a serious error, but I’ve never come across it since to check. My guess is that Milt Buckner didn’t owe anything to Wild Bill Davis, but to say that he simply transferred his locked hands piano style to the organ is an over-simplification; he had a much more penetrating sound than any other organist until Baby Face Willette, which suggests to me that some at least of Buckner’s inspiration came from church organists. Some, undoubtedly, came from Lionel Hampton. Buckner is one of my favourite organists. His exuberance is undeniable. But, like many of the honking school of tenor players, when he plays a ballad, you really feel it. He was the ideal organist to accompany Illinois Jacquet; they both played out of the same bag. Perfect Buckner is to be found on Illinois’ albums “Go power” (Cadet 773, Lonehill LHJ10232) and “The soul explosion” (Prestige 7629, OJCCD674). But don’t miss his many wonderful albums for Argo and later for Black & Blue, in particular, “Green onions”. Bill Doggett goes way back. He ran his own big band in the late thirties, with Lucky Millinder fronting it until it went bust in 1939. Afterwards, Millinder hired Bill as pianist in his own band and he worked for him until 1945, then for Illinois Jacquet until 1947, then replaced Wild Bill Davis in the Louis Jordan band until 1950. He formed his own organ trio in 1951, which doesn’t appear to have been notably successful, so he rejoined Jordan. He made his first organ session for King in January 1952, but it wasn’t until October that year he put his ground-breaking band together, with Percy France on tenor, John Faire on guitar and Shep Shepherd on drums. Roger “Ram” Ramirez was about the oldest of the post-war generation of organists – two or three years older than Milt Buckner and Bill Doggett, five years older than Wild Bill Davis (who was a personal friend). He’s best known as the composer of the song, “Lover man”, but his career extended back to 1934, when he played piano in Rex Stewart’s band. He started his own trio in 1945. In the early fifties, he followed Wild Bill Davis in taking up the organ. He was only infrequently recorded. There is a 1958 track by King Curtis – “Jest smoochin’” – on the Atlantic Honkers LP. A very fine Ramirez album is “Live in Harlem”, recorded in 1960 at Frank’s Steak House and originally issued on UK Columbia 33SX1355 (now on CD on Black & Blue 927). He’s accompanied only by Ronnie Coles on drums and he majors on inventiveness on the twenty-five minute “Robbin’s nest” – live steamin’! He made two LPs for RCA Victor in 1966 and one for Master Jazz in 1973, none of which I’ve heard. Jackie Davis Jackie’s debt to Wild Bill Davis is obvious. He first recorded in about 1951. Later he worked with Dinah Washington and Louis Jordan (in the late fifties). He recorded as a leader for Capitol for about sixteen years (it appears that many of those albums have little jazz content and most aren’t listed in jazz discographies). Pianists (generally modern) who occasionally played organ Billy Taylor Out of hundreds of sessions Taylor has made in a long career, only once has he recorded on organ. But that once puts him in the history books, because it was one of Jaws’ sessions contributing to the development of the tenor/organ combo. Oscar Peterson Even more prolific was Oscar Peterson. But he’s made a few sessions on organ, the first of them a Billie Holiday session in 1952. In February and April 1953, he made two great sessions on organ with Roy Eldridge. Sir Charles Thompson Like Ramirez, Thompson’s best known for a song; ‘Robbins nest’. He first recorded on organ in 1947, with Ella Fitzgerald, but his real exposure on organ is on his own Columbia album, ‘Swing Organ’ (CL1364) with Rudy Rutherford on clarinet (!) and the great Percy France on tenor. This is another lost organ LP, I think. I’ve never seen it on CD. Hank Jones is an extremely well-known pianist who occasionally makes a record on organ. The first time was in December 1952, when he made a session with Flip Phillips and another with Illinois Jacquet. In 1963, he shared organ duties with John Patton on Johnny Griffin’s ‘Soul Groove’ (Atlantic 1431). He’s a bit polite on organ. Skip Hall was mainly associated with Kansas City players and, in particular, from 1949 on, with Buddy Tate, for whom he played piano and occasionally organ. He recorded on organ with Tate for Baton in 1954. He played organ on two splendid Felsted albums by Dicky Wells, with 3 other trombonists, in 1958 and 1959 showing a style that I might, if I were brave enough, characterise as ‘stride organ’. How anyone thought four trombones and an organ would make a band I can’t imagine, but it does. The sound is wonderful! He continued to be associated with Tate until 1968. MG

Part 1 – The R&B scene Wild Bill Davis’ first recording on organ was in 1949, but the exact date doesn’t appear to be known. He recorded two R&B style solos for Mercury. The next one I know about wasn’t Wild Bill, either. It was Milt Buckner, with Wild Bill Moore. “Balancin’ with Bill”, “Hey spo-dee-o-dee” (both on King 4383) and two other tracks were recorded on 3 March 1950. These two are available on “The big horn” as well. Wild Bill Davis worked for Louis Jordan from 1945 to 1951, playing organ on his “Tamburitza boogie” (Decca 27203) and “Lemonade” (Decca 27324), (the latter a cover of a 1949 Eddie Mack recording for Apollo, featuring Willis Jackson, Mack’s colleague from Cootie’s band) both feature Wild Bill Davis on organ and Bill Doggett on piano! They were recorded on 18 Aug 1950, and are available on the Ocium compilation of Wild Bill Davis’ early work – “Organology vol 1 – April in Paris”, Ocium 0046. He organised his first trio, with Bill Jennings and Chris Columbus, in 1951, recording for OkeH. Floyd Smith took over the guitar chair in 1953. Davis is generally thought to be a swing style player but his own first recordings for Mercury and OkeH were closely based on the Jordan aesthetic. All four tracks done at his first OkeH session, in June 1951, were clear attempts to get hits along the lines Jordan had pioneered; in particular, “Catch ‘em young, treat ‘em rough, tell ‘em nothin’” is a song that Jordan could have had a hit with. Davis, as a singer, was not the man Jordan was, however. All of these are included in the Ocium compilation. Vol 1 covers the period 18 August 1950 to 8 January 1953; Vol 2 covers 11 March 1953 to 17 November 1955. Both CDs include a couple of previously unissued bonus tracks recorded in May and June 1972 for Black & Blue, with Floyd Smith and Chris Columbus. These are marvellous compilations, well worth the effort of tracking them down, though they don’t include all of Wild Bill’s recordings for OkeH/Epic. Despite the fact that Doggett (possibly) recorded on organ before Davis, there’s no doubt that Davis was the dominant figure in this period of the development of jazz organ. Although his initial recordings were mostly R&B, Bill gradually began recording more straight ahead jazz, firmly in the swing mould. As time went by, however, he broadened his taste and made some albums for Everest and Coral which have a fairly lounge ambiance. His many albums with Johnny Hodges show his swing side very well indeed. Wild Bill, like many other organists, was at home with pretty well any kind of jazz entertainment. Another R&B tenor player who was early into organists was Willis Jackson. A session recorded for Atlantic on 23 May 1952 features an unknown organist. “Estrellita” (Atlantic 975) was reissued on “On my own” (Whiskey, Women and… RBD705 – a CD), while “Rock, rock, rock” (Atlantic 967) and “Gator’s groove” (Atlantic 975) were reissued on “Atlantic honkers” Atlantic 781-666 – a double LP). It’s got to be said that this unknown guy is not an organist of remarkable originality. A honking tenor man who rejoiced in the name of Harold “Pop Pop” Rollins made a smashing 78 called “Wow!” (pts 1 & 2) for Glow Hill (501) in about 1952. Glow Hill was a Newark label. No personnel are listed on the label, but this organist came straight out of a holiness church! You can hear a sample of this style of organ playing in church on the Blues Classics compilation ‘Singing preachers and their congregations’ (BC19); ‘On my way’ pts 1 & 2 (Modern 843, Nov 1951) by Rev C C Chapman. The unknown organist on that is almost certainly not the same one as Rollins’ – he was recorded in Los Angeles – but the style is identical. My best mate used to describe my daughter when, at one year of age, she didn’t want to go to bed and would attempt to scream the house down, as ‘an enthusiastic, but limited, improviser,’ which is what the guy behind Rollins is, par excellence. Whoever Rollins’ organist was, he doesn’t sound like any other jazz organist. This record never even made it to LP, far less CD. It’s far from clear when the record was made; it’s not in Lord’s discography. Galen Gart’s ARLD gives a release date of January 1957 for Glow Hill 502, but those people would have had to have been out of their tiny minds to have made a record like this as late as that. It sounds like 1952 to me, but could be as late as 1954. It’s probably the first time an out and out gospel style was used on a jazz/R&B recording. Chicago was another place where some pioneering R&B bands were using organ players. Schoolboy Porter was a singer and sax player who recorded for Chance in the early fifties. He used an organ player on his session of 1 May 1952; one Eugene McDuffy, better known as Brother Jack McDuff, who had played piano on Porter’s previous Chance session on 25 July 1951. http://hubcap.clemso...ber/chance.html But Brother Jack said that he’d taken up the organ in the mid-fifties. I have two of these titles “Small squall” and “Lonely wail” (Chance 1132) on tape and, honestly, it doesn’t sound like Jack McDuff but, if he didn’t take up organ seriously until a few years later, you wouldn’t expect it to sound like him, especially if he’d been kind of dragooned into trying it out in the studio. Jimmy Coe, about the last of the great honking tenor players to emerge, had a great little band which recorded for States in this period. James Palmer played piano and organ on these sessions. And he was a good ‘un, though he never recorded again. The material was reissued on Delmark 443, but I’m not sure if it actually came out as a CD. I only have it as a K7. (Brother Jack played with this band, too, though I don’t know when.) Tab Smith was another sax player who recorded for United in the early fifties. Sam Malone was his organist in an August 1955 session, reissued as “Crazy walk” (Delmark 555). Malone did little but provide a nice soft backing for Smith, much as Sleepy Anderson would later do in live performances behind Gene Ammons, often while Jug rapped to the audience. The value of organists who could do this, quietly building the intensity behind a long spoken intro to a song, is greatly underestimated in the jazz world. MG

Back in the sixties, as I got more and more interested in Soul Jazz, and organists in particular, the notion that Jimmy Smith was the one and only great organist and that all the others were weak imitators was prevalent in critical circles. To me, as I listened to Freddie Roach, Baby Face Willette, John Patton and others – even R&B organists like Dave ‘Baby’ Cortez, Booker T and Bill Doggett – that was simply wrong thinking. Those people didn’t play like Jimmy Smith – they played like themselves. To see them as pale plagiarists seemed to me to be just lazy; as if the critics couldn’t be bothered to listen to anyone else playing an instrument that they usually admitted to not liking much, if at all. As I learned more, I found that many of the organists I liked had roots in music that was pre-Jimmy Smith. And I got interested in this. Some years back, Clem suggested I put a discography of the jazz organists of this period together. That’s too boring – to do, as well as to read – so I thought I’d write something instead. To start off with, I reread Geoff Alexander’s history of the jazz organ here – http://www.afana.org/jazzorgan.htm Geoff is pretty shaky on the later period of Soul Jazz organists; he wrote the piece in 1988, at a time when much of the Blue Note catalogue was unavailable and hardly anything had been reissued on CD, so it’s not surprising that many of his judgements lack the perspective that wider listening would have brought. And a fair amount of research work has been done since that time. But it’s a helpful piece. The organ in the Soul Jazz era begins with R&B, and so do I; though actually, many of the musicians involved in the R&B organ scene were jazz musicians. Most of them had a swing background, and that’s what I’ve covered next. Thirdly, I’ve dealt with the development of the tenor/organ combo, one of the most significant and enjoyable types of band of the post war period. Next I’ve looked at the other musicians who developed modern approaches to the jazz organ, independently of Jimmy Smith, and approximately concurrently. Finally, I’ve looked at a few who probably were familiar with Jimmy Smith’s style but who didn’t want to play that way (or not entirely that way) and relied on Wild Bill Davis for much of their inspiration. More in subsequent posts later. MG

This morning Mildred Clark & the Melodyaires with the Voices of Triedstone - You've got to give an account - Savoy MG

Youssou N'dour - Special Noel - Saprom Strange that there's no image of this K7 on the web... MG

I was listening to it earlier. Yes, it's definitely hyper-active, but so are many of the Christmas parties I went to as a young chap MG

Yule be very disappointed if you do find 'Christmas cookin'' - it's a reissue of 'Christmas '64'! MG

Yeah, if there was a reason for the sound quality of CTI, this is it. Played my newie this morning Tommy Dean - Deanie Boy plays hot Rhythm and Blues - Official Great material from Miracle, States and Vee-Jay. MG

With one week to go, I've started playing Christmas records: Lowell Fulson - Lonesome Christmas pts 1 & 2 - Swingtime (Hollywood) Rev Cleophus Robinson - Christmas carols & good gospel - Peacock Don Patterson - Holiday soul - Prestige Al Grey - Christmas stocking stuffer - Capri (with a couple of fun vocals from Jon Hendricks) Jimmy Smiff - Christmas '64 - Verve now Jimmy McGriff - Christmas with Jimmy McGriff - Sue MG

This one came today Tommy Dean - Deanie Boy plays hot Rhythm and Blues - Official Been after this for donkey's years. It's very good. Dean had a very kind of delicate approach to R&B - and swung it like jazz, not R&B. MG

Actually, I think some of the best jazz Christmas stuff is in the free downloads of Organissimo. MG

Plus a couple of blokes in big hatz. Has this been on before, Cyril? MG

South African album. MG

Oh, I know I shouldn't, but I can't resist the Cootie. PM on the way about prices etc. MG

I did that in 2010 - went to the USA and forgot to take the piece of paper on which I'd written everything down. Chris A was hospitable enough to let me stick my iPod into his computer, so I could write it out again. I felt so stoopid! A download for me please, Al. MG

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Or this one?

Have we had this one in this thread? MG

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Oh, I meant to post The J C White Singers - Come alive for Jesus- Savoy (not a Coke advert ) Tata Bambo Kouyate - Djeli moussa - Syllart MG

I'll believe that - Aaron has a great voice and impassioned delivery, when he wants to. But have you heard Oscar Toney Jr's version of the song? It's one I've never bought, but still remember from the 60s. MG

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