Larry Kart

Both "Just for You" and "No Greater Love" are very good, though different. The former is in a neo-Goodman Swingtet bag, but with Milwaukeans, not Chicagoans. Rhythm section is nice, vibes player is OK, guitarist a bit better, Hedges in fine form throughout. One thing about him, he has an uncanny sense for picking just the right tempo. "No Greater Love" is a quartet date with Eddie Higgins in fine form, as is Hedges, though I'd say that in general he's a bit more relaxed in a Swingtet-like setting with other soloists to bounce off of than when he's the only horn.

Have listened to Freeman on "Backbreaker" (actually a standard bop line whose title escapes me right now) and Hawes on "Disorder at the Border" and "Byas-a-Drink." Band is essentially the same on both of these session or concert dates, with Dexter added, Howard McGhee taking the place of the recently murdered Al Killian, a different bassist, and Connie Kay taking the place of Ken Kennedy. As a comper, Freeman is very active and rumbly, close to bashing at times, though this seems to fit the intense musical atmosphere (one has a sense that Benzadrine inhalers were in use). His solo choruses are very Powell-like but also individual -- fine flow of ideas, albeit at times piled on top of each other, considerable melodic continuity. I wouldn't say that the overall results sound as yet like the Freeman we would come to know a few years later, but he's certainly on the come. Hawes on "Disorder at the Border" and "Byas-a-Drink" (different titles given above, and it says Roy Porter, not Connie Kay) sounds more relaxed than Freeman, more (better?) use of space, or is the difference between them there mostly a matter of individual mood and temperament? Hawes can be quite bluesy, in a groove he will often get into over the years. By contrast with Freeman (and these are small samples, I know) my sense is that Freeman at this point is the more spontaneous player while Hawes may have worked out chunks of his solos, though what Hawes plays is good stuff and harmonically inventive at times. His sense of space includes a taste for playing figures in one register off against similar figures in another; this recalls one of Art Pepper's great gifts. (Chicken vs. egg or just happenstance?; Pepper's taste for this play among registers probably derives from similar traits in the solos of his early boss Benny Carter). As to where Freeman and Hawes come from, I certainly hear a lot of Bud Powell in Freeman -- the latter's at times hurly-burly sense of passion is particularly striking in this regard -- along with some of the boogie-woogie underpinning I've mentioned above. With Hawes -- and he may have said this himself in interviews over the years -- my sense is that he comes more straight from Bird than from Bud, and not only because Hamp's playing often sounds more horn-like than pianistic (Freeman, by contrast, could be nothing but a pianist).

Ah, yes -- earliest Russ Freeman I know is on the 1976 Savoy double-LP "Black California" set, one April 1947 track, "Backbreaker" (which has to be from a concert because it runs 18:45) with Al Killian, Sonny Criss, Wardell Grey, Barney Kessel, Harry Babison, and drummer Ken Kennedy. Will listen to it tonight or tomorrow and report. Should be fun. Early Hawes (I may have some of this): 1947 (age 19) Howard McGhee Quintet Howard McGhee (trumpet) Charlie Parker (alto sax) Hampton Hawes (piano) Addison Farmer (bass) Roy Porter (drums) "Hi-De-Ho Club", Los Angeles, CA, March 9, 1947 Dee Dee's Dance I Spotlite (E) SPJ 107 Dee Dee's Dance II - * Spotlite (E) SPJ 107; Zim ZM 1001 Various Artists - Lullaby In Rhythm Howard McGhee Sextet Howard McGhee (trumpet) Sonny Criss (alto sax -1,3) Teddy Edwards (tenor sax) Hampton Hawes (piano) Addison Farmer (bass) Roy Porter (drums) "Hi-De-Ho Club", Los Angeles, CA, circa March, 1947 1. Ornithology Jazz Showcase 5005 2. Body And Soul - 3. The Man I Love - * Jazz Showcase 5005 Sonny Criss, Howard McGhee, Dodo Marmarosa - California Boppin' The Bopland Boys Howard McGhee (trumpet) Trummy Young (trombone) Sonny Criss (alto sax) Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray (tenor sax) Hampton Hawes (piano) Barney Kessel (guitar) possibly Leroy Gray (bass) Ken Kennedy (drums) "Elks Auditorium", Los Angeles, CA, July 6, 1947 BOP3 The Hunt, Part 1 (as Rock' N' Shoals) Bop 104; Savoy XP 8100, MG 12012, SJL 2222 BOP4 The Hunt, Part 2 (as Rock' N' Shoals) - BOP5 The Hunt, Part 3 (as Rock' N' Shoals) Bop 105; Savoy XP 8100, MG 12012, SJL 2222 BOP6 The Hunt, Part 4 (as Rock' N' Shoals) - BOP7 The Hunt, Part 5 (as Rock' N' Shoals) Bop 101; Savoy XP 8115, MG 9027, MG 12012, SJL 2222 BOP8 The Hunt, Part 6 (as Rock' N' Shoals) - BOP9 The Hunt, Part 7 (as Rock' N' Shoals) Bop 102; Savoy XP 8115, MG 9027, MG 12012, SJL 2222 BOP10 The Hunt, Part 8 (as Rock' N' Shoals) - same session BOP15 Bopera, Part 1 (as Disorder At The Border) Bop 107; Savoy MG 12012, SJL 2222 BOP16 Bopera, Part 2 (as Disorder At The Border) - BOP17 Bopera, Part 3 (as Disorder At The Border) Bop 108; Savoy MG 12012, SJL 2222 BOP18 Bopera, Part 4 (as Disorder At The Border) - BOP19 Bopera, Part 5 (as Disorder At The Border) Bop 109; Savoy MG 12012, SJL 2222 BOP20 Bopera, Part 6 (as Disorder At The Border) - BOP21 Bopera, Part 7 (as Disorder At The Border) Bop 110; Savoy MG 12012, SJL 2222 Howard McGhee (trumpet) Trummy Young (trombone) Sonny Criss (alto sax) Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray (tenor sax) Hampton Hawes (piano) Barney Kessel (guitar) Red Callender (bass) Roy Porter (drums) BOP36 Bopland, Part 1 (as Byas-A-Drink) Savoy 962, MG 9020, SJL 2222 BOP37 Bopland, Part 2 (as Byas-A-Drink) - BOP38 Bopland, Part 3 (as Byas-A-Drink) Savoy 963, MG 9020, SJL 2222 BOP39 Bopland, Part 4 (as Byas-A-Drink) - BOP40 Bopland, Part 5 (as Byas-A-Drink) Savoy 964, MG 9020, SJL 2222 BOP41 Bopland, Part 6 (as Byas-A-Drink) - BOP42 Jeronimo, Part 1 (as Cherrykoke) (as Cherokee) Bop 111; Regent MG 6049; Savoy SJL 2222 BOP43 Jeronimo, Part 2 (as Cherrykoke) (as Cherokee) - BOP44 Jeronimo, Part 3 (as Cherrykoke) (as Cherokee) Bop 112; Regent MG 6049; Savoy SJL 2222 BOP45 Jeronimo, Part 4 (as Cherrykoke) (as Cherokee) - BOP46 Jeronimo, Part 5 (as Cherrykoke) (as Cherokee) Bop 113; Regent MG 6049; Savoy SJL 2222 BOP47 Jeronimo, Part 6 (as Cherrykoke) (as Cherokee) - BOP48 Jeronimo, Part 7 (as Cherrykoke) (as Cherokee) Bop 114; Regent MG 6049; Savoy SJL 2222 BOP49 Jeronimo, Part 8 (as Cherrykoke) (as Cherokee) - Howard McGhee (trumpet) Trummy Young (trombone) Sonny Criss (alto sax) Dexter Gordon (tenor sax) Hampton Hawes (piano) Barney Kessel (guitar) Red Callender (bass) Roy Porter (drums) BOP54 Bop After Hours, Part 1 (as After Hours Bop) Bop 115; Savoy SJL 2211 BOP55 Bop After Hours, Part 2 (as After Hours Bop) - BOP56 Bop After Hours, Part 3 (as After Hours Bop) Bop 116; Savoy SJL 2211 BOP57 Bop After Hours, Part 4 (as After Hours Bop) - BOP58 Bop After Hours, Part 5 (as After Hours Bop) Bop 117; Savoy SJL 2211 BOP59 Bop After Hours, Part 6 (as After Hours Bop) - * Savoy MG 12012 Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray - Jazz Concert - West Coast * Savoy SJL 2222 Wardell Gray, Dexter Gordon - The Hunt * Regent MG 6049; Savoy MG 12196 Various Artists - Jazz Concert West Coast * Savoy SJL 2211 Dexter Gordon - Long Tall Dexter * Savoy MG 9027 Various Artists - Hollywood Jazz Concert, Vol. 2 * Savoy MG 9020 Various Artists - Hollywood Jazz Concert, Vol. 1 * Savoy XP 8100 Various Artists - Hollywood Jazz Session, Vol. 1 * Savoy XP 8115 Various Artists - Hollywood Jazz Session, Vol. 2 * Bop 104 Howard McGhee - The Hunt, Part 1 / Sonny Criss - The Hunt, Part 2 * Bop 105 Barney Kessel - The Hunt, Part 3 / Trummy Young - The Hunt, Part 4 * Bop 101 Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray - The Hunt, Part 5 / The Hunt, Part 6 * Bop 102 Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray - The Hunt, Part 7 / The Hunt, Part 8 * Bop 107 Trummy Young - Bopera, Part 1 / Wardell Gray - Bopera, Part 2 * Bop 108 Howard McGhee - Bopera, Part 3 / Sonny Criss - Bopera, Part 4 * Bop 109 Dexter Gordon - Bopera, Part 5 / Barney Kessel - Bopera, Part 6 * Bop 110 Hampton Hawes - Bopera, Part 7 / Wild Bill Moore - Unfinished Bopera * Savoy 962 The Bopland Boys - Bopland, Part 1 & 2 * Savoy 963 The Bopland Boys - Bopland, Part 3 & 4 * Savoy 964 The Bopland Boys - Bopland, Part 5 & 6 * Bop 111 Trummy Young - Jeronimo, Part 1 / Barney Kessel - Jeronimo, Part 2 * Bop 112 Barney Kessel, Sonny Criss - Jeronimo, Part 3 / Sonny Criss - Jeronimo, Part 4 * Bop 113 Dexter Gordon - Jeronimo, Part 5 / Jeronimo, Part 6 * Bop 114 Dexter Gordon - Jeronimo, Part 7 / Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray - Jeronimo, Part 8 * Bop 115 Trummy Young - Bop After Hours, Part 1 / Barney Kessel - Bop After Hours, Part 2 * Bop 116 Dexter Gordon - Bop After Hours, Part 3 / Howard McGhee - Bop After Hours, Part 4 * Bop 117 Hampton Hawes - Bop After Hours, Part 5 / Sonny Criss - Bop After Hours, Part 6 Happy Johnson And His International Jive Five George L. "Happy" Johnson (trombone) Ray Preasley (tenor sax) Hampton Hawes (piano) Roger J. Alderson (bass) Chuck Thompson (drums) Los Angeles, CA, December 9, 1947 HCO2908 Barbecued Hot Dog Columbia 38267 HCO2909 Jack, My Jawbone's Breakin' - HCO2910 Eight, Skeight And Donate Columbia 30150 HCO2911 Chicken Noodle Soup - * Columbia 38267 Happy Johnson - Barbecued Hot Dog / Jack, My Jawbone's Breakin' * Columbia 30150 Happy Johnson - Eight, Skeight And Donate / Chicken Noodle Soup 1948 (age 20) Teddy Edwards Quintet Herbie Harper (trombone) Teddy Edwards (tenor sax) Hampton Hawes (piano) Iggy Shevack (bass) Roy Porter (drums) Hollywood, CA, October, 1948 Teddy's Tune Rex 26025; Onyx ORI 212 Wonderful Work - Fairy Dance Rex 26026; Onyx ORI 212 It's The Talk Of The Town - * Onyx ORI 212 Teddy Edwards, Vivian Garry, Dodo Marmarosa - Central Avenue Breakdown, Vol. 1 * Rex 26025 Teddy Edwards - Teddy's Tune / Wonderful Work * Rex 26026 Teddy Edwards - Fairy Dance / It's The Talk Of The Town

I caught Al a number of times in those years and a bit later on at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago. He was in great form every time, the best he ever played I agree. Some reviews I wrote of Cohn at the Showcase: [1979] Every jazz fan likes to think he can tell who the truly valuable players are the first time he hears them. But Al Cohn, one of the finest tenormen jazz has to offer, was for years my personal stumbling block, an artist whose message I pretty much misunderstood. Encountering him initially in the mid-1950s, I thought of Cohn as a Lester Young disciple gone awry. He seemed to lack both the lithe swing of his eventual frequent partner Zoot Sims and the harmonic agility of Stan Getz, while his big tone was (so I thought) rather sour and unwieldy . What I failed to grasp then was the individuality and quality of Cohn’s thought. First, his harmonic imagination is one of the most profound in jazz, although he uses it quite subtly, never dazzling the listener with effects that disturb the developing line. The feeling one gets from his solos might be described as “constant pressure,” as he outlines the harmonic pattern of each piece and then establishes its strength by pushing steadily at its boundaries. Melodically, Cohn is a structural player, too, seamlessly bonding one thought to the next. And he is drenched in the blues--or rather he must have realized long ago that the blues and the keening, minor-mode chants of Jewish cantorial music have a great deal in common. But most of all, rhythm is the area where Cohn has become a master. Listening to his older recordings, I realize that occasionally he did have problems with swing because his heavy tone needed an agitated base to keep it aloft. Now, however, his lines rumble forth with irresistible rhythmic power, and one hears an artist who truly thinks in sound-- reminiscent, if the comparison isn’t too farfetched, of Johannes Brahms, another musician who achieved mastery after a lengthy, sober apprenticeship. [1980] It’s the first set at the Jazz Showcase, and alto saxophonist Lee Konitz, as he has done so often throughout his career, is coaxing sounds out of silence. Or perhaps silence is coaxing sounds out of him, for Konitz’s gravely sincere art seems always to have been based on the assumption that music of requisite purity can emerge only when the corresponding purity of silence is given its due. The song he plays is the charmingly cobwebby standard “Weaver of Dreams,” and Konitz, accompanied by bassist Jim Atlas and drummer Wilbur Campbell, approaches it as though he were rediscovering that improvisation is possible. His solo begins with abrupt tongued phrases that then are smoothed out into longer, flowing lines so firmly rooted in the theme that the point at which Victor Young’s melody has become Konitz’s personal creation is difficult to define. Then tenorman Al Cohn joins Konitz on “Yardbird Suite” and is simply ferocious, a man who seems to have been born again as a musician since he cut back on his labors as an arranger. Initially inspired by Lester Young, Cohn has built his sound into a huge, elementally dark force. And the rhythmic undercarriage that supports all this tonal and melodic weight is so imposing in itself that one feels that Cohn, in his rebirth, has revived the aesthetically rather dormant soul of Sonny Rollins as well. Cohn is alone with the rhythm section now, and he plays “Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me” at a very down tempo, as though he were out to prove that his recent gains in rhythmic power enable him to set into useful motion what seems likely to be inanimate. And he does just that, roaring like a lion of Judea. (Cohn and Konitz may be the two quintessentially Jewish jazz musicians--Cohn a fierce Maccabean rabbi of the tenor saxophone, Konitz the alto’s Talmudic scholar.) [1982] Dented here and there and almost devoid of their original bright finish, the tenor saxophones of Al Cohn and Zoot Sims look like they’ve been through the Thirty Years War, which in one sense is true. It was more than three decades ago--in January 1948--that Cohn met Sims, his new sectionmate in Woody Herman’s Second Herd, and began a musical partnership that has grown steadily in meaning. Both were first-generation Lester Young disciples, and each had found a personal style within Young’s fruitful universe--Sims favoring a light, gliding, almost breezy approach while Cohn’s manner is deep-toned and rhythmically aggressive, with a moaning lyricism at its core. Several years ago a friend half-seriously suggested that each of the first wave of Lester Young disciples built his style on a specific Young solo. Al Cohn was “Tickle Toe,” Zoot Sims was “Blow Top,” Brew Moore was “Pound Cake,” and so forth. Listening to Cohn and Sims at the Jazz Showcase Wednesday night, that notion seemed to make a good deal of sense, especially when Cohn quoted “Tickle Toe” toward the end of a fast bossa nova. And it made even more sense the next day, when I played the original “Tickle Toe” and “Blow Top.” There, on “Tickle Toe,” were the hallmarks of Cohn’s style--the dense, burrowing harmonic sense and the urgent, driving swing--while the sundrenched ease of Young’s “Blow Top” solo was equally in tune with Sims’s lighter, more lyrical approach.This type of influence redounds to the credit of all parties concerned--reminding us, on the one hand, how multifaceted Young’s art was and, on the other, how subtly and honestly Sims, Cohn, and all the other “brothers” were able to respond to their master’s voice, or perhaps that should be “their master’s voices.” Today, of course, Sims and Cohn are fullfledged masters themselves. The latter, especially, grows in stature with each passing year, to the point where it’s hard to think of another tenor saxophonist who plays with such consistent seriousness and weight. Not that Cohn is an unduly sober improviser, for his sense of humor is as sly as S.J. Perlman’s. The “Tickle Toe” quote, for instance, was sandwiched into a very unlikely harmonic cul de sac, as though Cohn wished to prove that he could state any idea at any time and get away with it--in the same way that Perlman would place a foppish, Anglophile locution alongside a phrase that spoke of the world of lox, bagels, and pastrami on rye. Sims is more variable these days, perhaps because his music depends so much on the freshness of his lyrical impulse. Swinging comes so effortlessly to him that Sims can give pleasure even when he falls back on familiar patterns. Yet when he really “sings,” as he did Wednesday night on his own familiar piece “The Red Door”--linking each phrase to the next so gracefully that the entire solo seemed a single thought--one realizes that beneath Sims’s familiar rhythmic ease there is another, richer level of invention. Circumstances dictate how often that side of Sims rises to the surface; and playing alongside Cohn is one of the circumstances that does the trick, for both men were at or near the peak of their form. Cohn and Sims must have played “The Red Door” many thousands of times, but every time it swings open on something new. [1986] As magnificently as Al Cohn played Tuesday night at the Jazz Showcase, I’m sure that even Cohn would admit that attention must be focused on his tenor saxophone partner for the week, Allen Eager. While Eager did venture into town in 1982, it would seem that this engagement marks his real return to action--one that, in jazz terms, might be compared to the news that Arthur Rimbaud had stumbled out of Africa to present us with a book of new poems. Eager, you see, is among jazz’s mystery men--a precociously brilliant disciple of Lester Young who made his first recordings in 1946, when he was only nineteen, and then played alongside Fats Navarro in Tadd Dameron’s band on 52nd Street before he wandered off into different realms. Among other things, Eager became engaged, as he once put it, “to a girl from one of the wealthier families in the United States,” hung out in Paris with the international jet set, turned himself into an expert race-car driver, and, in the 1960s, encouraged Dr. Timothy Leary to use LSD wholesale and for “kicks” rather than in a controlled, experimental fashion. It was, one assumes, quite an odyssey. But playing the tenor saxophone had less and less to do with it--until, in the late 1970s, Eager ended up as a night clerk in a Miami Beach hotel and once more decided to pick up his horn. The road back was not easy, and in 1982, Eager’s musical reflexes seemed a bit out of synch. But now the battle seems to have been won, because on Tuesday night Eager sounded quite lovely from the very first: oblique, unique, and intensely swinging. The first tune of the night, based on the changes of “Exactly Like You,” found Cohn in the lead--and his leonine, almost oratorical, rhythmic power left his partner grinning with pleasure. Then Eager took over, and one was transported to another, more intimate, realm--one that is governed by the Young-derived dream of a melody that need never end.What that means in purely musical terms is that Eager often plays through the changes--anticipating the next harmonic shift by finding an ambiguous area that enables him to be where he’s going to be harmonically before he really gets there. And so the line sweeps on without a break, while Eager seems at once bemused and delighted by the whole affair--as though he were regarding his handiwork from a coolly distant point of view. Cohn, on the other hand, is passionately present at all times--an urgent dramatist who highlights his noble ideas until each solo has the weight and shape of a full-fledged composition. As much as any improviser who comes to mind, Cohn perfectly balances rhythm, melody, and harmony so that at every moment he is moving forward on all three fronts. And as for his tone, on “O Grande Amor” Cohn’s descents into the lower register had a bassoon-like richness that brought Serge Chaloff to mind. Obviously inspired by Cohn’s example, Eager grew stronger and more inventive throughout the night. One hopes that his return is permanent. (P.S. I half-lied about Eager. While he was not uninteresting, he also was fairly weak, and Cohn played so forcefully that it was as though he were taking revenge on him -- both for the way Eager had f---ed up his great musical gifts, and his life in general for that matter, and also, perhaps, because Eager often had been a flaming jerk back in 52nd St. days.)

Can't find examples of early Freeman, but both he and Hawes (two years younger) were on the Central Avenue scene with Dexter, Howard McGhee, et al. circa 1947. Below some Bob Zurke and (below that) some early Kenny Drew with IMO a boogie-woogie underlay: Drew (I LOVE Kenny Drew): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRIWnL9wCRs John Williams from 1955, very akin to Freeman but his own man I'm pretty sure:

Pretty sure that Freeman had his own thing going before Hawes was around on the scene enough to have been an influence on him, though there are similarities. Nor do I think that Russ went to school on Horace Silver, as the somewhat similar John Williams (of the Stan Getz Quintet with Brookmeyer) probably did, though Williams and Silver probably ran across each other quite naturally when they were in their teens in the Connecticut-Massachusetts neck of the woods. Getting back to Freeman and Hawes, I think there may be some fairly early Freeman on record that corroborates my sense of his independent-of-Hawes development; will try to check. No doubt there must be something in the jazz past that inspired Freeman's (what might be called) "rumbly bebop" approach; my guess is that it's Bud Powell laid on top of an early fondness for boogie woogie and/or Bob Zurke. (A mostly forgotten figure now, Zurke was widely popular when he was with the Bob Crosby Band.) And speaking of "rumbly bebop" that owes a clear debt to boogie woogie, see early Kenny Drew.) The guy who really fed on Hawes, of course, was Andre Previn, who underwent a big shift almost overnight from his prior Tatum-esque approach to a Hawes-drenched style. OTOH, Tatum-esque Previn was nothing to sneeze at IMO (see those Sunset sessions), and I've developed a somewhat guarded affection for Hawes-influenced Andre. The man I(i.e. Previn) did have genuine instincts and skills. Also, as Allen Lowe has pointed out, Oscar Peterson took a good-sized stylistic bite out of Hawes' ass as well.

Now that's jazz criticism at its best.

Wonder if Joe was talking about Joanne Brackeen?

I think his remarks were precise, caring, genuine. BTW, one of Chicago's better tenor saxophonists for some years has been Juli Wood. She takes no prisoners. http://www.juliwoodsax.com/moovin-and-groovin/

Anyone else have a taste for this James Moody veteran, who I'm pretty sure is playing valve trombone? He can be a bit awkward and hip, too.

"Earl Battey was one of the finest catchers I have ever seen. I don't think we realized how great he was until a little after our game. He was not a very fast guy, as people will tell you, but he made up for it with a great arm and knowledge of how to handle pitchers, particularly young pitchers." - Hall of Famer & Teammate Harmon Killebrew (AP Wire, 11/18/2003, 'Battey was a four-time All-Star')

Battey was a mainstay for a good while, no? http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/player.php?p=batteea01

A very good trade for Washington, though, I think.

I think your quarrel is with Max Harrison, not me.

One of the several bones I've had to pick with the often brilliant British jazz writer Max Harrison is that he loathed Lockjaw's playing. From "The Essential Jazz Records Vol. 2": [Fats Navarro's] dates with 'Lockjaw' Davis, an arch vulgarian who subsequently found his true metier as a cog in Basie's ponderous latter-day machine, resulted in performances that juxtapose some of the best and worst qualities that jazz has to offer. Sounding as if impaled on his own indignation, Davis naively deploys his armoury of of honks and whinnyings as Navarro soars with majestic freedom...." Later Harrison refers to "the tenor's incoherent belches" and says that "Davis, hollering and screaming, returns all too soon." OTOH "impaled on his own indignation" is a clever phrase and could have been the beginning of some insight into Lockjaw's music, though Max here is in his "haters want to hate" bag. Eventually I said in print that in this mode Max seemed to me to be the jazz critic equivalent of a flat Earth-er or worse, which was kind of a deal breaker. In any case, probably no Lockjaw fan would want him to be judged by his playing on that 1947 date (though I would think that his "vulgarian" gestures there might have been just what Savoy's producer [Teddy Reig?] had in mind, perhaps in the hope of attracting Jack McVea fans), but Harrison's sarcastic "subsequently found his true metier as a cog in Basie's ponderous latter-day machine" suggests that his view of Davis always remained much the same. Max also loathed the New Testament band on the grounds that it traduced the virtues of the '36-'40 Basie band.

Interesting FB post from reedman David Sherr, longtime friend of Sonny Criss: 'Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis. I love Jaws. 'Interesting sequence: Sonny Criss and Jaws were friends and one day Sonny told me that he had seen him the previous night at a party. Jaws left his tenor on the piano and Sonny asked to play it. Sonny told me the reed was so hard that "I couldn't get a sound out of it." Years later, a Los Angeles radio announcer, Jay Green, did a documentary, a four-part series on Coleman Hawkins and interviewed Jaws. Jaws said he once tried to play Hawk's tenor but "the reed was so hard I couldn't get a sound out of it."'

Not that this is directly relevant to the topic (though perhaps it is if cocaine is/was among Hargrove's drugs of choice) but I've never been able to stand his jumpy-nervous, nanny goat-toned playing. He sounds to me like the second coming of Joe Guy.

Does nothing for me, either -- but the folks at Concord clearly thought it would do something. And just who, in general, would be appearing there?

If it hasn't been mentioned: "Cootie and Rex and the Big Challenge" (Jazztone), with Coleman Hawkins, Bud Freeman, Lawrence Brown, J.C. Higginbotham, and rhythm. As good as the lineup is on paper, it's better in reality.

A blast from the past, a Chicago Tribune article from 1978 (re-reading it after all those years, I think the first sentence in the second paragraph is fairly clever): In faint praise of supper clubs By Larry Kart Night life critic Supper clubs are an endangered species — the whooping cranes of the night life world — and no one except the most rampant sentimentalist seems to regret their passing. But because there are so few genuine specimens left, the supper club ought to be defined before it goes the way of a half-eaten order of veal parmagiana. Supper clubs are not just nightclubs where food is served, but nightclubs where food must be eaten. During the last show of the evening, customers generally can take in the entertainment for the price of a drink or two and a cover charge, but otherwise a meal has to be ordered — if only an overpriced chicken sandwich. In the true supper club, the entertainment area and the dining room share one space. That rules out the restaurants that have an adjoining show lounge and the hotels that have separate restaurants and nightclubs under the same roof. In those cases, you can choose between dining and entertainment or combine your pleasures — all without hassles or surcharges. Another characteristic of the supper club is that the entertainment must be sufficiently high in quality — or have enough “name" value — to lure customers on the strength of the entertainment alone. Among the candidates that need not apply are German joints with singing waiters and Greek tavernas where belly dancers fling themselves into the saganaki. By those standards, there are only three Chicago-area supper clubs that deserve the name, all located in the Southwest suburbs — Field's in Oak Lawn, the Sabre Room in Hickory Hills, and the Condesa del Mar in Alsip. But it wasn't always that way. From the end of World War II to the mid-1950s supper clubs flourished in Chicago. There were the fancy hotel showcases like the Empire Room of the Palmer House, the Boulevard Room of the Conrad Hilton, and the Camellia House of the Drake, and independent clubs like the Chez Paree and the late George and Oscar Marienthal’s London House and Mister Kelley’s. In the hotel supper clubs, you were served standard hotel fare, with the prices jacked up to help defray the entertainment costs. Only a or a novice conventioneer would go to one of those spots expecting to enjoy a well-cooked, reasonably priced meal. The same was true in spades for the Chez Paree. Only the London House and Mister Kelley's were exceptions. And what exceptions they were. Because George Marienthal was a restaurateur first and foremost, both of his clubs offered some of the best food in town. Nightlife habitues who go back that far fondly recall the London House crunch cake, the bountiful shrimp cocktail, and the Super Steak, specially cut for the Marienthals and big enough to satisfy two hearty appetites. People who wanted only a fine meal frequently would dine at the London House or Mister Kelley's and leave hurriedly before the show started to avoid the cover charge. And for those who wanted to eat to the accompaniment of George Shearing or Mort Sahl, the London House or Mister Kelley's was an unbeatable parlay. But the London House and Mister Kelly's were done in by rising entertainment costs and by a touch of mismanagement after the Marienthal brothers sold out. The hotel supper clubs stopped booking name acts for the same reasons, leaving the field to the Southwest suburban trio. While none of these rooms is another London House, there are distinct levels of quality. Relatively modest in size and comfortably laid out so that every seat has a decent view of the stage, Field's offers acceptable food at acceptable prices. Nothing in the menu will elate the gourmet, but there are 15 entrees, ranging from the ubiquitous lobster/filet mignon combo at $13.50 to sandwiches at $3.75, and the portions are large. If you stay for entertain ment, the cover charge is $2 per show when a lounge act like Dave Major and. the Minors is in residence, rising a bit when entertainers like Vic Damone and Phyllis Diller perform. The Sabre Room is a vast, high-ceilinged hall that normally features a Las Vegas-type revue, breaking the pattern once or twice a year to bring in the likes of Tony Bennett or, on one occasion, the double bill of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. For such extravaganzas, a flat charge of $25 up to $100 covers both dinner and the show, entitling you to a mass-produced, no-choice-of-entree meal. But even that is better than the situation that prevails when the Condesa del Mar books Wayne Newton or Englebert Humperdinck in its 5,000-seat Columbian Room, which is nothing more than four large banquet halls strung together, Customers sit elbow-to-elbow at long tables, the food evokes memories of an Army mess hall (again there is no choice of entree), and from the back of the room the performer can be seen only with the aid of binoculars. Things aren't that bad at the Condesa s Coco Loco Supper Club, where the likes of Johnny Rivers appears, but the menu is limited, and the food is over-priced and mediocre, And the way the room is set up — with the stage at one end of a long, narrow space — ensures that too many seats are too far from the action. So, with the possible exception of Field's, a trip to one of the surviving supper clubs is worthwhile only if the featured act is on your must-see list. And if you do go, don't forget the Alka Seltzer. (P.S. Several downtown Chicago hotels tried to revive the classic supper club setup in the 1980s, but those attempts were short-lived.) Below: A Coco Loco matchbook and a photo of the Sabre Room.

In the name of full disclosure, last night and today I've been checking out tracks on Spotify from a number of Allyson albums and find that she goes in and out of focus for me -- emotionally and musically -- in patterns that I can't yet predict/figure out. Sometimes, as on the two albums that I lucked into right off, "Ballads" and "Wild for You," I hear a real commitment and direct human presence. Elsewhere, she strikes me as rather external, coy, and "presentational," and that I don't need -- not this side of that big supper club in the sky.

It sure ain't Jimmy Yancey's.

Those are the kinds of places I remember. Many strange things I witnessed in those joints.

Not like they used to be -- places where would-be decent food is served and would-be major acts perform. When I became a so-called Night Life Critic for the Chicago Tribune in 1977, such places were still fairly common -- ah, the Coco Loco Supper Club of the Condesa Del Mar -- though they were on the wane even then. I would guess that they still survive to some degree in Vegas, but that's Vegas, where the food/would-be name entertainment combo is mostly a function of packaging convenience -- i.e. the place itself is not in itself so much a destination, as in "Let's go the the Rainbow Room to heard Benny Goodman or the Chez Paree to catch Danny Thomas." In any case, I would doubt that Ms. Allyson could or should be described as a supper club-singer in any literal or figurative sense.

I like this -- so shoot me: